Retro|Spective 127R: Street Fighter

[Dogg Thang]

Yep, it was kind of the best of all worlds and then paved the way for the games that followed. And the introduction of Akuma was a big deal.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 07 - Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition
A modified version of the previous entry to celebrate 15 years of the franchise, Players could select versions of their fighter from the prior entries and mix them up with each other as well as remixed soundtracks







Had SF2 already peaked pre-Hyper?

[Dogg Thang]

I wasn't hugely aware of this, even though I think I had the PS2 version of it. But I had long moved on from SF2 by the time it came out.

[prinnysquad]

I’ve never played SSII Turbo. I remember seeing it in the Littlewoods catalogue (might have been Index) far cheaper than elsewhere. I sent my (bewildered) grandparents into town to buy it while I was at school. They came back empty handed. It wasn’t SSII. It was the standard SCE game with the wrong photo printed. I was crestfallen. I don’t think I ever got over it, because I never even tried to find the game after that crippling let-down.

[Neon Ignition]

Only lightly played it, never felt the option to mix up the versions fighters paid off

[Nu-Eclipse]

IIRC, Hyper SFII got an extremely limited coin-op release (despite being ported to home consoles), which might've contributed to the lack of fanfare around it (as well as the obvious fatigue around SFII by that point).

I do think that the fact that Hyper SFII is largely ignored by the FGC in favour of SSFIIX/Turbo works in its favour in terms of bringing it back nowadays as a reference point in the franchise. It's a fun play but obviously lacking in balance due to being able to select any iteration of any character from any SFII game. I think [MENTION=3822]fuse[/MENTION] summed it up best - Hyper SFII was a sideshow and SSFIIX/Turbo was the real conclusion of the SFII era.

One small touch I enjoyed in Hyper SFII was the CPS-1 remixes (audio downgrades? demixes??) of the themes of Cammy, T. Hawk, Fei Long and Deejay. They obviously weren't around in SFII WW/CE/HF so wouldn't have had CPS-1 versions of their themes to begin with.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 08 - Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
Most notable for its redrawn art by Udon, this entry aimed to bring SF2 to a modern audience by retaining the game but reworking its image. The game was a heavily reworked version of the Dreamcast Super Turbo entry but stopped short of adding additional fighters. The game was praised on release but its legacy is more muted now than its sister titles.







Did Remix deliver on the SFII Legacy?

[Dogg Thang]

I think this is pretty terrible. The thing about the redraw is that some individual frames can look great and it is clear a lot of work went into it but it doesn't look like the animation was in any way a priority. They drew over frames, filling in details, but those frames put together look janky and some details which, to be fair, are difficult to work out from the low res pixel originals, just look weird when interpreted in HD. I like the idea of what they did but it needed more interpretation by animators.

And really, bringing it into HD probably should have included upping the frame count for some moves too, which I know would have been an incredible amount of work.

[fuse]

Much as I love Super Turbo, there's some bad matchups in there and it's not the most balanced game across the complete roster. Hyper cranks all of that up another few notches and adds some jank for good measure. As before though, it is very much a sideshow - yeeeears after ST (not to mention the entire Zero/Alpha and SF3 runs) it worked fine as a novelty for the 15th anniversary, but not as a replacement.

HD Remix... it mostly, *mostly* plays ok, and it did get a lot of people online and playing Super Turbo, and when it was the best we had I've definitely gone to bat for it for these reasons, but that does not absolve it from all of its sins. Visually it's so inconsistent, and IIRC even if you try and back out all of the new art you still have the jarring-as-all-hell UI slapped on top. They picked some smart examples to demo what they were doing PR beforehand which did look very nice, but trying to make everything look more realistic while also sticking to the same frames of animations and hit/hurt boxes was a pretty mad endeavour to begin with. I think it's telling that this style of drawing on top of old sprites hasn't been repeated by anyone else since.

[Asura]

I honestly loved HDR. I'm aware of its issues but it got a few specific things right.

Firstly, it had lobbies, something cribbed from Dead or Alive 2U and Dead or Alive 4 which, thankfully, found its way into pretty much all decent fighting games thereafter. It was janky on launch but the netcode was quickly patched and it was a fantastic online game, which I played for months. It was also the first version of SFII that I got particularly good at.

Secondly, and this is absolutely subjective, I didn't mind the art change. I don't think it's better than the original but it was a different take on it, which was consistent - no sprite blurring or Photoshop filters, but rather a total redraw, and it helps that I was a big fan of Udon's interpretations of Street Fighter at the time. I get that it looks a bit "Flash" in a YouTube video, but I think it looks fantastic when you see it running on a large HD TV.

So I loved it when it came out. Would I go back to it? Probably not. But it was great at the time.

[Neon Ignition]

Similar games for todays updates for me as in, Remix was an outright failure for me. It looks nice in screenshots but that's it. It's horrible in motion, doesn't feel right to play and the soundtrack remix sucks. Never really enjoyed it and would have rather had something that just added two fighters or something.

[Nu-Eclipse]

I'm sorry.

I don't want to insult those who created HDR because they clearly love SFII like most of us here and they obviously had genuine good intentions...but it is janky to the point of unplayable IMO. It just doesn't feel or play right whatsoever, and only allowing for the option of original sprites to be used over the redrawn backgrounds was an awful decision in hindsight because it looks so bad (and we all know it was a bad decision because Ultra SFII on the Switch - basically HDR retooled - corrected this by allowing for the option to use original CPS-2 GFX in their entirety).

I can understand HDR's soundtrack not being to everybody's tastes but I didn't have a problem with that. The janky gameplay and basic combos not hitting properly bugged me much more than the remixed music ever did.

Ultimately HDR could've and should've been so much better than it was. It is basically ignored for competitive play in today's Fightcade-heavy FCG scene in favour of the CPS-2 original - that says it all.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 09 - Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers
The most recent revision of the game, made for the Switch, further rebalanced the game and added grapple breaks. Players could switch between the original visuals and those of Remix whilst it featured the original soundtrack alongside some of SF4's. In addition to this Evil Ryu and Violent Ken were added to the character line up with Shin Akuma making the final addition to the Street Fighter II line up. Response to the game was mixed upon release.







Ultra good or time to put SFII to rest?

[Asura]

I think reception was mixed because it was full price for a game many of us bought ten years ago for twelve quid

[Dogg Thang]

That Ken blocking drawing above is so horribly janky.

I get why. It’s a side effect of wanting to draw so closely over pixel art which didn’t feature that much detail so I don’t even blame the artists here. I’m sure they’re very skilled and this took a lot of work. The approach itself was flawed.