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STREET FIGHTER 2 TURBO Company: Capcom Released: August 1993 Genre: Fighting Graphics: 9.0 Control: 9.0 Sound/Music: 8.5 Storyline: 6.0 Review by: Corbie Dillard ©2008 SUPER-NES.COM

One could arguably say that the Street Fighter II series of games single-handedly vaulted the Super NES system to the head of the 16-bit pack, and one could also say that not many games in history have seen as many different "upgrades" or were as milked as Street Fighter II was. Street Fighter II: Turbo was Capcom's answer to the many bootleg Street Fighter II arcade games that were popping up at the time due to so many complaints from players that the original Street Fighter II was too slow. With the phenomenal success of the original Street Fighter II port for the Super NES, it was only natural for Capcom to once again bring their arcade hit home. While many Street Fighter II fans were licking their chops at the prospect of a Street Fighter III, they scooped this upgrade up with almost the same furvur as they did the original Super NES hit. Other than being able to play as the boss characters and much speedier gameplay, there really wasn't a lot new to this release, but that doesn't mean it's still not one of the best fighters ever released for the Super Nintendo system. The original Street Fighter II port for the Super NES became one of the first arcade-to-home conversions that was nearly perfect. For years arcade games had been quite a bit ahead of home conversions, but Street Fighter 2 somehow bridged that gap and other than losing a few frames of animation, was nearly arcade-perfect. As I said above, Street Fighter II: Turbo takes the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality and sticks with its' formula for success by not really changing much in the visual department. It still looks fantastic and nearly mimics the arcade version to perfection. Backgrounds all look amazing and have a great amount of detail and colorful contrast that really set the tone for the bouts. The characters all look great and despite a few frames of animation cut out, move and animate really well. As good as the original Street Fighter II looked on the Super NES, this one looks just as good, if not better in a few places. If there's one word that can sum up the music in Street Fighter II, it's varied. As area-specific as the backgrounds are, the music seems to fit these background to a tee. For instance, in Vega's spanish arena the music has a very latin sound to it and perfectly mimics his odd but quick fighting style. Any fan of Street Fighter II could pick this game out just from the sound effects that are also nearly arcade-perfect. From the airplane that flies from country to country on the character selection screen, to the oddly muffled character announcer, everything that fans have come to love as far as this series of game's music and sound effects go, are all here in all of their glory. Even the characters and the bout announcer on the arcade game had a slightly muffled sound to them, but the Super NES seems to muffle them even further, although not to the point of really being a detraction from the sheer quality of this conversion. Overall the sound and music in this game are about as great as you could expect. Before fighting games went combo crazy, there was something about the simplicity of Street Fighter II's fighting engine that just worked on every level. Not only did each character sport a huge amount of normal moves, but Capcom also began the craze of the "circular motion" special moves which involved rotating the controller's D-Pad in many directions and using buttons or combinations of buttons to pull off intricate special moves. As you can imagine, learning to pull off these moves in the thick of battle took a lot of practice but added a playability to the fighting that no other game at the time could match. Street Fighter II revolutionized the way fighting games would be from then on and has been copied in some form or another in just about every fighting game since. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what later releases of Street Fighter II brought to the table, but there's just something about the pureness of this release that makes it my favorite of the Street Fighter II releases. This is really the game the first one should have been and you won't find many 2-D fighters with more playability or versatility in gameplay than this one. Outstanding! Many fighting game fans will tell you that Super Street Fighter II was the best of the Street Fighter II releases on the Super NES, but I tend to disagree. As much as I loved the original Street Fighter II, and as blown away as I was the first time I played it on my Super Nintendo, it's this release that I've found myself playing so much over the years on my SNES. It's basically everything that made the original Street Fighter II so great, now with the abilities to play as the cool bosses plus the choice of increasing the speed of the game itself. You just can't ask for much more than that. If you're looking for one of the best versions of Street Fighter II on the Super NES, give this one a try. I think you'll find it fits your fighting needs perfectly. One of the best 2-D fighters, even still to this day.