Hey, I get it. Capcom largely mishandled the Street Fighter franchise throughout the years. I am in complete agreement with that sentiment. As a fan of the series I kept waiting for Street Fighter 3 to come out. It felt like it was never coming. I remember checking the video game rack and one day seeing Super Street Fighter II. It just had to be on the way, right?
I was disappointed but as a huge fan of the franchise I had to see what was new. At least each new rendition added characters and that was what I was most interested in at the time. So I picked it up, and eagerly slapped the cartridge into my SNES. Was it worth it? Yes. It this still a great Street Fighter installment? Well, that’s question is a bit more complicated. Let’s take a look!
Make no mistake. This is still Street Fighter II at it’s core. The ‘super’ moniker refers to a few refinements as well as four new characters. If that’s what you’re looking for then super it is. The plot here is identical. You have warriors from all around the world gathering in a tournament to prove who is the strongest. The original roster, as well as the boss characters from Turbo return here. It’s a fair spread as far as representation goes.
We have characters from Japan, the USA, Brazil, China, Russia, and more. The new guys represent Mexico, Jamaica, the UK, and Hong Kong. These inclusions are pretty interesting but fit the motif of the franchise. In my opinion this is the first time the game actually fits the ‘world warrior’ namesake. All of the old faces from the Turbo edition return here. This includes franchise mainstays like Ryu, Ken, E. Honda, Dhalsim, all of the bosses, and more. The new faces are Cammy, Fei Long, Dee Jay, and T. Hawk.
Super Street Fighter II plays like an enhanced version of the classic 2D fighting game that introduced so many to the genre. You guide your character with the directional pad and have six different attacks at your fingertips. These include three strength levels for punches and kicks. Special attacks are performed with directional inputs as well as face button inputs. Generally these require either holding of face buttons or directional inputs paired with either a punch or kick. It’s pretty basic but these inputs differ just enough to keep things interesting.
The real joy here comes from learning how to counter enemy attacks. The single player mode has you facing off against all opponents which are CPU controlled. Even on the highest difficulty levels it’s not particularly hard when you get used to the moveset of whomever is your character of choice. Things change a bit when you’re facing human opponents however. This is much more dynamic when you’re up against a seasoned player. Button mashing won’t get you very far because each character has specific counters against distinct strikes.
Super Street Fighter II is just as deep as you want it to be. You can’t beat experienced players by throwing constant projectiles like when against a CPU opponent. There are a lot of intricacies to battle here. Memorizing invulnerability frames, as well as recover time plays largely to the flow of combat. Gameplay is deceptively deep here. It’s not so much about memorization of inputs as it is recognizing opportunities to counter as well as move recovery. There are a ton of intricacies and with the new characters Super Street Fighter II becomes even more complex than past iterations.
The new characters offer some pretty interesting changes to the dynamics of the series. Fei Long is fast with his strikes and can be difficult to counter. Cammy is one of the few kick based characters, but stands apart from Chun Li with her speed and distance closing abilities. T. Hawk while interesting in concept isn’t particularly useful because he’s so slow. I do like the fact that he introduces new aerial attacks to the franchise, but honestly that’s not how I prefer to play. Dee Jay’s attacks are more focused on countering attacks which offers a new dynamic to the Street Fighter II formula.
Super Street Fighter II also introduces some rebalancing. Recovery time is faster in the slower characters such as Zangief, and invulnerability frames have been altered pretty much across the board. Some special moves were straight up changed in their functionality to make them useful. Take E. Honda’s hundred hand slap for example. This is no longer strictly stationary. Now E. Honda can move while throwing the strikes which can be absolutely devastating should you be able to corner a foe with it. I like the changes made to the character dynamics because they make the previously useless characters better for the most part.
Super Street Fighter II also introduces some quality of life features. The most noticeable of the bunch is the combo counter. This tracks the number of strikes your character performs in a row. It’s kind of the first time Capcom ever acknowledged the combo system in general which is a pretty big deal in general. Furthermore many of the voice samples have been re-recorded, and the graphics altered in some pretty big ways. Ryu and Ken’s fireball for example now has some light two dimensional particle effects which are really impressive given the hardware. These small changes as well as the additional characters make Super Street Fighter II feel like the third installment we were all waiting so long for.
The scoring system has also been overhauled. Now we can see aspects of each fight dynamically such as first strikes, blocks, and successful counters. In the previous installments it felt like Capcom was largely ignoring these elements. In that sense Super Street Fighter II feels like much more of a refinement. The new characters add a real sense of refinement to the franchise which require more memorization as far as counters go. As I already mentioned Super Street Fighter II feels less like an expansion and more like a sequel. If it was an installment in any other franchise we would have moved up a number with this installment.
Graphics is the one department I would say that Super Street Fighter II doesn’t feel like a sequel to me. The sprites and backgrounds are largely recycled. The new stages, characters and special moves all look great but there’s little touch up. I did notice some rudimentary particle effects, for example on the fireball technique of Ryu/Ken. This looks quite nice but honestly it’s not a huge step up from what we already have. Super Street Fighter II animates just as nicely as the original, and I love how colorful the game is. The graphics are good but not mindblowing.
It’s a little disappointing that most of the soundtrack is recycled. The stages retain the original renditions that we’ve heard in the past two renditions. That’s a shame considering there’s so much room here for new arrangements. The Super Nintendo soundchip is more than capable so the fact that Capcom took the lazy route is annoying. I did like the few new musical tracks. T. Hawks theme is especially catchy and really fits the background graphics of the level.
