popular series of all time. Now, the original Street Fighter for the arcade wasn't a big

success, just a simplistic little fighting game that not many people heard about. It

had some cool ideas but it never went anywhere with them. The sequel, however, was a huge

deal in the gaming world. It was a hit in the arcades, on the Sega Genesis, and of course

on the Super Nintendo. Since I'm SNES Man, that's is the only version I care about. Let's

get down to gaming and see if it's still as glorious as everyone remembers.

Here's our title screen. Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior. This game is one of the

first popular one-on-one fighting games. It's pretty simple: choose a character from your

oh-so-enormous list of eight characters, travel around the world, and beat everyone you meet

to a bloody pulp. Good old kid friendly Nintendo! It's all hugs and rainbows with them.

Hm, who should we pick? Let's choose the main character of the game, Ryu. I get a headache

when people argue over how to pronounce his name so please don't start a blood feud in

my comments section over if his name is Rai-Yu or Ree-yoo. It's almost as bad as the Smash

Bros. Mee-lee vs May-lay arguments. You can never win. But enough of this. Let's fight.

Here's a duel between Ryu and Ken, the main characters of the game. Street Fighter 2 was

ahead of it's time. Before this, the idea of fighting one enemy at a time and focusing

on special moves and combos was completely new. There's a lot of variety to your attacks

because you have three different levels of punches and kicks from soft to hard. The downside

to using hard attacks is that they're slower and leave you more vulnerable if you miss.

Each character has a different way of punching and kicking so it always feels like a fresh

experience when you play as them. For instance, Dhalsim's limbs can extend grotesquely far

every time he attacks. That's the complete opposite of the Russian wrestler, Zangief

with his stubby arms. This variety is one of the reasons I like the Street Fighter series

a lot more than Mortal Kombat.

The cast of characters in Street Fighter is really solid. True, Ryu and Ken are exactly

the same in everything but appearance, but the rest of these guys are pretty diverse.

Guile is an American military meat-head, Zangief is a smelly wrestler, E.Honda is a smelly

sumo wrestler, Dhalsim is a stretchy Indian dude, Blanka is basically a green Donkey Kong

with electricity powers, and Chun-Li is the token woman of the cast. And there you have

the famous Street Fighter lineup. Despite the kind of simplistic graphics that definitely

look like an early Super Nintendo game, all the characters look pretty nice and it's easy

to tell them apart.

They all have a couple special moves at their disposal. Easily the most famous is Ryu and

Ken's famous fireball attack, the Hadouken. The whole fighting system revolves around

moves like this because they're powerful and interesting, kind of like superpowers, and

they're just plain fun to use. The controls are pretty tight in the SNES version so pulling

off shouryukens and spinning-bird-kicks and hadoukens and what not isn't too difficult.

It's a simple enough system that you can learn how to play quickly but it's also deep enough

to satisfy expert players who are looking for a complex experience. Capcom used to hold

big tournaments with this game and contestants would come up with all kinds of combos and

intricate maneuvers that would make our heads hurt nowadays. The multiplayer aspect has

always been a big part of the Street Fighter series because it's a lot more fun to fight

your friend than a pre-programmed computer.

If you're playing solo, then your only option is the arcade mode where you journey around

the world, pulverizing your enemies in a fighting tournament. Believe it or not, this was actually

a new idea at the time. After this, every 90's fighting game ripped off of this formula

and had a world-wide tournament in their main arcade mode. After you beat all the main characters,

you have four boss battles. This is where the game actually gets pretty hard. These

guys have reflexes of steel! And the A.I. actually isn't half bad for a 16-bit game.

Now, is this the perfect fighting game? Well, no. For one, the game speed in the Super Nintendo

version is a little sluggish so it's not like you're fighting at a break-neck pace. Also,

the sound effects that everyone still loves today are admittedly pretty cheesy and dated.

It sounds like they hired one guy to do all the male voices. You should be glad that I

don't talk like that stupid announcer in my reviews. My name is SNES Man and I'm reviewing

Street Fighter 2. What excellent sound effects! How not primitive sounding!

The music is another story, though. They made a song for every character and I have to say

that all the themes are excellent. My personal favorite is Ken's Theme because it's the catchiest

one. All I have to say is that Ken Masters is one classy dude. The songs all fit the

mood perfectly while still keeping the energy level high.

THINGS TO MAKE IT BETTER

-A faster game speed -Better sound effects. They sound pretty silly

in retrospect -A few more special moves per character to

make things interesting -Better graphics, especially in the backgrounds

where the people look really stiff

Those are some of my gripes with the World Warrior but it's still a great fighting game

that started an excellent series. On my scale, it scores 8 out of 10.

But wait, we're not done! There were two sequels to this game on the Super Nintendo: Street

Fighter 2 Turbo, and Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers. Well, calling them

sequels isn't very accurate since they're more of re-releases. Kind of like the Call

of Duty series does nowadays. But still, they're worth mentioning.

The first re-release, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, had two notable improvements. The game speed

is faster, and you can play as the four boss characters this time so you have 12 fighters

to choose from instead of 8. It's not an enormous change, though. It just makes the bosses less

exciting when you have to fight them because at that point you'll say, "Oh, that guy's

not scary. I can play as him whenever I want!" The graphics look pretty much the same and

the sound effects are just as awkward. So, back in the day, it would have been a kind

of dumb idea to buy this one for 60 dollars if you already had the first Street Fighter

2. I would give it a 9/10 because it is an improvement but that's a low, begrudging nine.

The next re-release, Super Street Fighter 2 is also a pretty minor improvement. I admit,

the graphics are a little better this time around. You do get a fancy intro cut scene

where Ryu shoots a Hadouken at you. Don't be scared, though, I'm pretty sure it doesn't

come out of the screen and hit you. Anyway, the other change this edition makes is a couple

new characters, four of them to be exact. These guys are really forgettable like Fei-Long

the Bruce Lee clone and Thunder Hawk the generic, racist interpretation of Native Americans.

I didn't really enjoy playing as any of them -- they're not that great of an addition to

the series. I would give this edition a 9/10 as well because it preserves the great game

that Street Fighter 2 is but it doesn't bring much to the table. If you've never played

any of these games, I suggest you buy Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers because

it's technically the best but the difference is relatively small. If you already have one

of the older versions, just stick with that and keep your money.

Well that's Street Fighter 2. This has been a SNES Man Review and I hope you liked it.

Before I go, here's a ridiculous version of Ken's Theme.