Super Street Fighter II: Turbo Revival

"Seeing This In Action Isn't A Joke"

Unless you have had your head buried somewhere in the sand of the Sahara Desert, you must have heard all about Capcom's classic Street Fighter II series. The concept is simple-you chose one of sixteen unique and gifted fighters from across the globe (plus two more to be unlocked); each one different with their own special capabilities and weaknesses, to travel about defeating your rivals in a series of bare-knuckle brawls. The secret of this series' success lies in the incredible complexity and sheer depth of playability hidden beneath the surface of what appears to be just a standard one-on-one martial arts format. After being converted to most formats, it is now the Game Boy Advance's turn to receive the royal two-dimensional beat-'em-up video game

Throughout this review, the Japanese names for the Shadaloo's grand masters will be used instead the North American and U.K. names. Super Street Fighter II X Revival's central story revolves around the hunting down and destruction of a sinister criminal and terrorist syndicate called the Shadaloo plus its four grand masters. These grand masters are Mike Bison (a disgraced former Undisputed Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World and Mike Tyson parody), Balrog (a vain Spaniard who retired from the dangerous world of bullfighting to become the Shadaloo's Freddy Kruger-inspired razor-clawed psychopathic assassin), Sagat (a former champion consumed by his burning desire for vengeance against his successor Ryu) and Vega (the mysterious power-mad underworld figure who controls the Shadaloo). However before confronting the Shadaloo's grand masters, you must overcome the other opponents you face on your quest to become the champion of a tense world warrior tournament sponsored by the Shadaloo.

This title features four standard and three addition modes. The standard modes are Arcade, Training, Option and V.S. while the additional modes to be unlocked are Survival, Time Attack and Gallery. The arcade mode involves battling your way passed the other fighters to become the champion. Each contest consists of three rounds (or more if any draws occurs); with the objective of each round being to drain away your opponent's energy gauge to nothing. When you have scored two victories, you progress on to your next opponent; lose two rounds and it is Game Over. While it is a breeze heavy hitting your way through early opponents, by the time you are facing the Shadaloo's grand masters, your fighting style and technique has to be flawless, consisting of more than just pressing the L and R buttons. Fortunately the Training mode allows you to experiment, safe in the knowledge that your sparring partner will not attack. This will give you adequate time to find your favourite fighter and practice their moves. It is also the ideal place to lean this title's controls.

Control Freak
There was a potential problem with the translation of this title to the Game Boy Advance, because the Street Fighter II series uses a six-button configuration for a choice of light, medium and heavy attacks. Since the Game Boy Advance only has four buttons, this created a problem in providing a proper and faithful Street Fighter II experience to the legions of beat-'em-up purists dying to play an improved portable version of this stylish and legendary beat-‘em-up.

Capcom have sneakily got around this by assigning two attacks to each face button. A quick tap accesses a light attack while a longer tap activates a medium alternative. The shoulder buttons unleash the formidable heavy attacks. In practice choosing between attacks can be difficult to master, but it is only a matter of practice makes perfect. Even if you still struggle to master the default button layout, you can adjust it to your own preferred settings in the Option mode.

Enter the Dragon Punch
Some of this title's excitement comes from chaining together multi-hit super combos and executing spectacular signature moves. These include Bruce Lee clone Fei Long's Shienkyaku, the deceptively cuddly Brazilian man-beast Jimmy Blanka's Electric Thunder and the arrogant Ken's blazing Dragon Punch, which causes the unfortunate victim on the receiving end to become engulfed in a torrent of flames.

This title's special moves can be performed in one of two ways. You can go down the traditional route and learn a long series of button combinations for each separate fighter, or you can just press the Select button before a bout begins to use a much more simplified set of commands. In the bottom corners of the screen are the super combo gauges. This feature adds a new dimension to the Street Fighter II series. When your gauge is fully charged, press both face buttons simultaneously to unleash a merciless assault on your victim. Super combos not only provide for more strategic and offensive contests than those of Super Street Fighter II The New Challengers, there are also spectacular demonstrations of the Game Boy Advance's graphics capabilities.

This title contains some of the very finest graphics seen on the Game Boy Advance. Despite having some frames removed, the animation is still incredibly smooth. Capcom have paid particular attention on developing this title's many clever and distinctive backdrops which bustle with life and vibrancy. Equally impressive are the revamped typeface and map screen, while the artwork of the entire cast (all of which can be viewed at pleasure when the Gallery mode is unlocked) is an excellent new addition. These might only be minor features, but they give an (rather false) impression of an extremely polished and well-programmed title.

Streets of Rage
This brings us to Super Street Fighter II X Revival's biggest flaw. This is a rushed and shoddily programmed title that appears to have been play tested by at best Homer Simpson, if anyone at all. This title is littered with so many countless glitches, mistakes and omissions that it puts even the Nintendo 64 title WWF no mercy and the PlayStation version of The Fifth Element to shame. It is even more astonishing that Capcom's already abysmal quality control further deteriorated in the period between this title's Japanese release and its release in North America and the U.K. versions.

Instead of fixing these errors, Capcom unbelievably mistranslated three of the Shadaloo's grand masters' victorious verbal taunts. Capcom also embarked on a successful campaign of false advertising with promises to fix the problems and include two extra modes (Team Battle and Character Edit) not featured in the Japanese version. This was presumably done to artificially drive up sales of North American and U.K. copies at the expense of Japanese imports.

Actually the North American and U.K. versions contain more problems than the Japanese version. Capcom and Ubi Soft have since disowned this title and pulled it off the shelves. This incompetence is unacceptable and while this does not totally cripple an otherwise outstanding title (it still receives 95%. Although it nearly did not…), these faults do prevent it from achieving its full potential, especially the North American and U.K. versions.

Mortal Combat
This title does redeem itself with versus mode. This mode is fantastic and perfect for proving who the champion amongst you and your friends is. You will each need a Game Boy Advance and a copy of this title plus a Game Boy Advance Game Link Cable. This mode suffers from no reduction of frame rate or any compromises on the graphics and speed fronts.

You do not have to worry about any of the fighters moving around with all the speed and grace of two near geriatric professional wrestlers (such as Ric Flair and Kevin Nash) because this title moves like a dream with the sort of rapid-fire fighting associated with Jackie Chan. Serious fighting fanatics will adore this title's choice of four available speed settings. These range from the comparatively sedate Normal to the adrenalin pumping ‘blink and you're dead' hardcore Turbo 3 for those who feel the need for speed. This title certainly will not suffer from any slowdown that at times plagued the Super Famicom Street Fighter II series conversions.

This title also contains some superlative sound ranging from the bone crunching effects accompanying every hard-hitting body blow to the sampled speech. This title's sound is best appreciated if you use headphones in order to experience the Game Boy Advance's Dolby Stereo and Surround sound capabilities.

The Ultimate Battle
Survival and Time Attack modes are quite possibly the final words in endurance training with a wealth of opportunities to demonstrate your stamina. In these modes you can choose to fight the Shadaloo's grand masters, or for those who enjoy fast and furious fighting, there is the opportunity to brawl against each single fighter with only a limited amount of energy while each new challenger makes their entrance straight after you have eliminated an opponent. Battling through both these modes can prove to be very stressful experiences.

Super Street Fighter II X Revival is a title that will perhaps only mildly impress you when you first play it, but it will get better and better the more you devote yourself to leaning all of the moves and subtleties. Remember that this is an update of a title that started life as a final coin-op upgrade designed to test those game freaks that had mastered the previous versions to graduate towards-it was never really meant for beginners to just pick up and play. This title requires both patience and persistence if you are going to develop successful tactics and strategies as it is bound to cause frustration for novices and non-experts alike. This is especially true in versus mode against a veteran who knows all of the moves like the back of their hand.

Apart from this, working out the rather awkward and imprecise controls plus the numerous programming errors that went unnoticed by Capcom, Super Street Fighter II X Revival is one of the finest beat-‘em-ups available on the Game Boy Advance, criticisms about its development notwithstanding. This title is a remarkable conversion of the coin-op classic in the palm of your hands and ‘streets' ahead of Capcom's own 1995 Street Fighter II Game Boy conversion.

Verdict
It may not be able to generate the same kind of interest that Super Fighter II The World Warrior did, but with it's astonishing signature super tight game play mechanics and sizzling visuals, Super Street Fighter II X Revival is amongst the very cream of the Game Boy Advance's beat-‘em-up crop. Just insure that you purchase a Japanese copy.
95%

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/04/02, Updated 05/21/04