Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting Review

The legendary game, or at least its shell, is there, but all in all not a great experience.

By Warren Dunlop (Dec 18, 2006)

6.0

Decent

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Pros:

The original game is there in its entirety, which is enough said for most.

Cons:

Menus are clunky and options are scarce, even a few that were included in the original; connection problems are aplenty; isn't enough people playing it; gameplay is definitely faster than the original, possibly hence the name "hyper fighting".

Street Fighter 2 has been hailed as one of the greatest games of all time, successfully aiding in the creation of the fighting genre back in '91. This legendary title has now made its way to Xbox live, but the game has parts lost in translation, and not by any language differences.

Although seeming to having limitless potential with such a title, there is very little to it, and it will leave most saying "should've just got a SNES". Although spiking interest, bringing people back to the day when fighters were all the rage, the game is insanely difficult on even the lower difficulty, which is not something I remember from the original. Other things that fall short include the menu system, shotty online games, increased game speed, and very few extras past the tutorial mode. Although playing with friends and mastering combos is still as much fun as the original, the story mode is overly hard, which just makes it no fun at all. Whilst online, you'll face varied levels of players, that is, if you find enough and make sure they all have a decent connection. The player matching system and quarter-match room are both pretty boring, as I faced off against the same person four times in a row before another player was added to the room. You cannot view a match in progress when you first join the board, which isn't very understandable as this game shouldn't take much network bandwidth.

Of course all twelve original characters are included, and the help mode makes sure to tell you each character's combos. You can choose a picture to display whilst sitting in the online quarter-match board, the default being Ryu of course. The animations and sounds are all intact, although some combinations seem quite difficult to achieve with the faster game play and seemingly less precise Xbox 360 controller. As aforementioned, there is a tutorial mode for newcomers, in which you can set the computer to just sit there and get annihilated, block, or fight back. Most the players online seem to be willing to offer a helping hand to learners, just go ahead and ask for some help, it's just like having a buddy show you around the game.

The story is the same in this version, choosing a character and fighting head-to-head against all of the other characters up to M. Bison. Each character has their own ending, and the achievements will unlock as you play more and more with each character. Entering the online realm, you can choose to enter a random match, a ranked match, or fight against your friends. Creating a match seems to work best, as joining others times out more often than not. The match doesn't have any options itself, unlike the SNES release, being able to control the speed or level. The quarter-matches themselves are in the unranked set, and basically represent one arcade machine, and a couple friends taking turns against each other. The ranked mode is of course, based on rank, and will keep you rated against all other players.

Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting will run you 800 Microsoft points to download, (about $11.50 CDN), which seems a little on the expensive side for the content your receiving. Fan boys of the original will surely be picking it up, but overall it's a frustrating experience, and probably not for those new to the Street Fighter series or to retro fighting in general.