Overview
Street Fighter II was first unleashed upon arcades in the year of 1991. It proved to be a vast improvement over the original Street Fighter. The next year, Capcom released Street Fighter II: Champion Edition. Champion Edition allowed players to play as any one of the four bosses (Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison) as well as the same character that your opponent was using. Later in 1992, Capcom released Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting. The speed of the game was increased and some characters gained a few new moves. In the year 1993, Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers was released. This game introduced four new characters (Dee Jay, Fei Long, Cammy, and T-Hawk) and gave every character new color edits. By now, many players wanted something new. Something different. This is where Super Street Fighter II Turbo came in. As the fifth and final edition of the Street Fighter II series (not counting Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival), "SSF2T" proved that there was still more things that could be done to improve the game.
Graphics 9/10
Super Street Fighter II Turbo uses the same sprites that the Street Fighter II games before it used. They still look great. Many characters also have newly drawn moves. Everything also moves more fluently since the game is much faster the previous Street Fighters. Backgrounds such as Dee Jay's stage show off a lot of color and movement. Other backgrounds, however, have little life in them but still aren't terrible to look at. Overall, these are great graphics for a game that came out in 1994.
Gameplay/Controls 9.5/10
SSF2T is much, much faster than any other Street Fighter game before it. There are three speed settings. Speed 2 is the default and is quicker than Speed 1 obviously. Speed 3 is extremely fast compared to past Street Fighter games. Also new to SSF2T is the inclusion of Super Combos. This is where the classic supers we all know and love started. Each character has one Super Combo that, when connected, deals out heavy damage. Throws are very damaging in the game, but tapping a button right as your are thrown can cut the damage in half. This will, however, make you vulnerable while you land. If using a Super Combo and being able to recover out of a throw isn't your thing, you can use the Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers version of the characters by inputting a series of joystick movements when you select your fighter. Control is very precise, making command moves, special moves, charge moves and everything else a breeze.
Sound/Music 10/10
The soundtrack is a classic. This is some of the most memorable music in the history of video games. This stuff will be stuck in your head for years to come. You've also got your typical hit sounds used in the previous Street Fighter II games. Voices are taken from the previous Street Fighter IIs and still sound great.
Replay Value 8/10
As usual with fighting games, playing Super Street Fighter II Turbo against computer opponents will begin to grow dull over time. Playing against human opponents, however, is a blast. The fact that this game is still being played in tournaments today shows how good the head-to-head fighting is.
Overall 9/10
Some may view Super Street Fighter II Turbo as just another rehash. I view it as a great way to end a great series of fighting games. The game still provides a ton of fun to this day.
- by Arikado
