I can’t help but feel sorry for those who were suckered into picking up Street Fighter II Turbo. That may sound harsh, but there’s a reason for this. A year earlier the first home port of Street Fighter II was released for the Super Nintendo. It received worldwide acclaim, and was basically the start of the fighting genre as we know it today. The fact that this was exclusive to Nintendo’s own console was big news, but this was later resolved when Capcom released an enhanced version for the Sega Genesis a year later. A month prior to this came Street Fighter II Turbo on the Super Nintendo. This contained the benefits from the Sega edition, but at the steep price tag of over seventy dollars. The added bonuses included the four boss characters now being playable, and an option to increase the speed of gameplay. That’s downright unacceptable to me, but Capcom has always been a little shady when it comes to milking their franchises. It’s hard to stay mad when this enhanced version makes an already good game even better though.
What’s disappointing is the fact that this is basically the same game with a few new features. The story remains the same; across the world fighters are participating in a tournament in order to prove their mettle and eventually face off against the organizer of it named M. Bison. The rest of the colorful cast returns here, and the storyline is basically unchanged. Ryu is still off to defeat Sagat, Zangief is defending the honor of the U.S.S.R. etc. The only difference now is that the boss characters have been added to the mix. I always wondered how they would control, and some of their moves require unique inputs. The boss characters even feature individual ending sequences which at least shows that the developers at Capcom had their hearts in the right place. Either way, this is your typical two dimensional one-on-one fighting game. You begin by selecting one of twelve characters and then fight your way through the roster to the end. Victory is achieved by depleting your foes life bar in a series of best of three matches. Each of the characters has their own set of special moves as well as punches/kicks with differing trajectories. Some are also faster than others. Just go with whichever character you like because each has their strengths.
What has always set Street Fighter II apart from other similar releases of this era is its combo system. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but certain attacks can be chained together for devastating results here. It’s not explained in the game nor is it even introduced via the instructions; you can only get good at this title with practice and by noticing openings from your opponents. Your basic strikes can also stop an opponent’s in their tracks, but you really have to get a feel for what will work. Though the basics are easy to get down they’re difficult to master. That’s what made Street Fighter II so popular in the first place, and with more playable characters added to the roster here the Turbo edition requires even more practice. The high point however is in the two player mode. Solo the game is a blast for sure, but you won’t really get good at it until you’ve trained with a human opponent. The story mode is best played just to unlock the endings, but what’s surprising is the fact that even on normal mode the computer opponents still offer a decent challenge. That’s only because they’re designed to counter all of your attacks, but it’s still not a suitable replacement for a well seasoned human opponent. Street Fighter II Turbo is at its best when you’re enjoying it with a friend, and that’s what I’m going to base my overall score later at the end on.
So now this brings me to what’s new. There are a few new special moves added to the mix but not enough to be considered significant. This is no sequel that’s for sure. The biggest difference is the fact that some special moves can be activated during different frames. Ryu and Ken’s hurricane kick can now be activated in mid-air, and this causes a diagonal trajectory for it. I actually found that this is the most significant as far as combo integration is concerned. In addition you can now play as the same character in multiplayer, and face off against your avatar in story mode. Capcom opted for palette swaps which may not sound significant, but it is a nice addition. Furthermore the moniker ‘hyper fighting’ is not just a mere subtitle. You can increase the gameplay speed should you choose. This makes things more frantic, but to be honest I prefer just going with the default mode because that’s how I’m accustomed to playing. It’s a lazy addition in my opinion, but some players swear by it and refuse to play at the ordinary pace now. The additional characters are nice, but they’re not exactly new considering they functioned as bosses in the last release.
Aside from the palette swaps and new special moves I just mentioned the graphics are virtually unchanged. That’s not a big issue because even a year later Street Fighter II Turbo was still one of the best looking Super Nintendo games of the lot. The animations were more detailed in Champion Edition on the Sega Genesis, but for the most part this is the better looking title. Characters highly detailed and feature several intricate frames of animation. There’s little to no slowdown here despite a plethora of background animation which is pretty impressive. Even on turbo mode things move at a brisk pace, although, this is noticeably slower than on Champion Edition on the Sega Genesis. Because I prefer to play at normal speed this isn’t a problem for me. The soundtrack is completely unchanged here. Fortunately this means that the music is still awesome, and you’ll be humming many of the themes long after you’ve turned the system off. There’s a reason why Guile’s theme has become so infamous; it goes with everything. The music and voice work is really good by the standard of this generation and I even prefer the audio here to that of the arcade version.
