Street Fighter II: The World Warrior

• Release Date: 1992 07
• Genre: Fighting
• Style: 2D Fighting
• Similar Games: Fatal Fury (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), Mortal Kombat (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), Power Moves (Super Nintendo Entertainment System)

Game Description

With Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Capcom has done a masterful job of cramming the 58 megabit arcade game into a 16-meg Super NES cartridge. The game is fast and hard-hitting with little slowdown, and a number of extras are included, such as an "all-new" Versus mode. There are missing elements, but they are relatively insignificant. Thanks to Nintendo's family-friendly policies, the blood has been changed to a gray substance (supposedly sweat) and Chun Li's moves aren't as provocative. In addition, a few background animations, character voices, and minor moves didn't make the cut. Nonetheless, this home rendition is a remarkable achievement.

Review: Overall

Street Fighter II is the great, great, great, grand-daddy of all tournament fighters. By itself, this game set off an enormous landslide of brawlers proving without a shadow of a doubt that it was a perfect idea at a perfect time.

Over the years gamers would see many new Street Fighter look-alikes. There were the good, the bad, and the ugly, but through it all, hardcore SF fans would always cling to the original Street Fighter II as the best fighter ever.

The first thing that strikes you when you pick up Street Fighter II are the excellent variety of moves that any of the band of fighters are able to perform. There are three regular kicks and three regular punches with special moves being reserved for those that can pull off the often difficult button and control pad movements.

Basically, every single fighter has his own low, medium, and fierce kicks and punches in addition to two or three special moves. However, not all the fighters were created equal. It's true that anyone can win if he is good enough at any individual fighter, but some fighters have a definate advantage.

Some may hate the character imbalance, but the different strenghths and weakenesses between the fighters makes the game a lot more realistic. Games like Mortal Kombat have characters that are virtually equal making matches a matter of faster reaction time and quicker button mashing. On the other hand, Street Fighter focuses on blocking, counter-attacking your adversary, and setting up for special moves. In short, Street Fighter II is a much deeper fighter than most.

Another element of Street Fighter that many like are the hand-drawn stages and characters. Instead of generic actors as in Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter II has cartoon-like fighters that really have style all their own.

Despite it's age, Street Fighter II never grows too old where the genre is literally flooded with mediocre titles. Street Fighter II will always be regarded as something legendary because it changed video games forever.