Within the pantheon of video games every gamer should experience, quality is a must. It’s essentially your starting point: Is this game, for lack of a better term, “good?” That’s always first and foremost.
But closely behind that consideration is the importance of a game within the industry. Does it have historical significance in a way that other games of that era might not? If one were to put together a timeline of video game history, what games would require representation?
Street Fighter II was unlike anything that had come before it, and it revolutionized the gaming industry in a way that is exceedingly rare. Per Wikipedia, the game is responsible for selling over 200,000 arcade cabinets, 15 million software units, and $10 billion of revenue for Capcom. And I can corroborate those numbers on a personal level; Capcom inspired me to purchase a Super Nintendo, four different versions of the game, and pump countless quarters into arcade cabinets over the years.
But what made the game so popular? And why do many people think “Hyper Fighting” might be the best version of all?
Let’s go down those two rabbit holes together, shall we?
Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
Genre: Fighting
Released: 1993
Platform: SNES
GameRankings Score: 82%
The early days of arcade gaming were dominated by single-screen platformers like Donkey Kong and shoot-em-ups like Galaga. Over time, variety became a way for companies to carve out a niche (and survival) for themselves, and as the technology improved, developers could become more and more creative.
Capcom’s success with the side-scrolling brawler, Final Fight, encouraged the company to make fighting games a priority. Indeed, most fans of that particular genre can point to several Capcom brawlers from that era that would reflect that new emphasis (Captain Commando, Knights of the Round, Alien vs. Predator, Armored Warriors, etc. etc.).
Where Capcom really struck gold, however, was in rescuing a concept from the scrapheap and developing it into a product that would tap into this gaming trend. Its original Street Fighter game was a dud, commercially, and it certainly had its problems. But the basic idea, though simple, was excellent: one-on-one head-to-head fights in a tournament setting.
Any fan of wrestling or boxing could relate to that instantly, and what’s more, it lent itself to fun, creative matches that would extend the life of the game considerably. Yes, it was fun to battle the AI and master how to defeat the computer. But if a real-life person came along and plunked down their quarters, suddenly you were in a battle with a person whose style you wouldn’t know or be able to predict. And if you lost? They got to take over your progress (unless you could buy your way back in with quarters of your own).
The key to fighting games of this nature is balance, a big buzz word nowadays. You want each character to stand a fighting chance. Overpowered characters break the game, leaving you in an endless, boring routine of playing the same person over and over. Variety, both in character design, but also in realistic options available to a player, becomes critically important.
Street Fighter II had all of that in spades, was gorgeous and sounded great, and its tight, impactful controls (you really felt like you were dealing damage when you’d land blows) kept gamers coming back for more and more.
Every developer on the planet took notice of the phenomenon, to the point that one-on-one fighters became one of the two dominant genres in the industry (along with first-person shooters). For awhile in the 1990s, it seemed like every arcade or home console game was a fighter. And with good reason: Street Fighter II was such a massive hit, that every other company wanted to cash in as well.
The imitations ran the gamut in quality, from terri-bad to truly excellent. Many carved out their own space by doing specific things well, such as Mortal Kombat with its over the top violence appealing to the degenerates (myself included!) or fighters like Virtua Fighter and Tekken expertly taking the concept into more of a 3-dimensional space.
But it all started with Street Fighter II. And what’s interesting about that is that the leader of innovation became SO popular, Capcom had trouble moving on from the game. Instead of releasing true sequels, they chose to repackage, reskin, and pack in extras on the original game. And what that meant was an update every several months, across the arcades and different home consoles, creating a massive logjam of what was essentially one game.
Champion Edition, Hyper Fighting, The New Challengers, Super Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter II Alpha, Street Fighter EX, Pocket Fighter, Street Fighter II: Electric Boogaloo*, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers … and on and on AND ON.
* Okay, I slipped that one in to see if you were still paying attention.
Granted, each new game offered some kind of selling point in addition to slight changes in timing/game play, meaning fans were always encouraged to dive into the latest version.
The first example of this kind of update was, in my opinion, also the best. Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting debuted on the Super Nintendo in 1993, offering an expanded roster of playable fighters to utilize — specifically, the first game’s four bosses. This was kind of a mind-bender at the time. You could play as the boss? What sorcery was this?
It was the kind of sorcery that expanded a great game into something other-worldly. Eight playable characters? HA! That has a shorter shelf life than 12 playable characters, amirite?
Well, yes. A bigger roster means less chance of getting bored with it. Modern games have taken this to an even greater extreme with absurdly huge rosters numbering in the 70s (and higher), but Hyper Fighting was once again an example of the originator taking another step forward in the evolution of the fighter.
The other major innovation present in this game was its adjustable speed, accounting for the game’s title. And yes, that speed could be set to full blur mode, causing a ridiculous amount of chaos on the screen. Fighters who would control beautifully now moved fast enough that no human hand could keep up. Thankfully, this was the extreme option. The player had the option to set the speed somewhere between painfully slow and ludicrous speed … meaning you could tailor the game to not only your skill level, but also to whatever speed you most enjoyed playing.
Add the two up, and you had an unbeatable combo.
So what makes it worth playing today?
You owe it to yourself to experience Street Fighter II — truly one of the most important games in the industry’s history — if you somehow haven’t. Furthermore, you’ll probably enjoy circling back to it if you have nostalgia for experiencing it the first time around.
I can’t promise it won’t kick your ass, but them’s the breaks. The game is designed to be unforgiving in terms of its demands on your reflexes and anticipation. Know that going in and you’ll probably do fine.
So why Hyper Fighting?
It’s the best representation of the original game, adding features and characters that only add to the experience without subtracting anything in the process. Each subsequent game from here on out was more of a matter of taste, with changes in look, sound, character roster, and play control that deviated enough to rub some members of the audience the wrong way. This title avoided those pitfalls, staying very true to the original game … and therefore it only enhanced it.
The Genesis and PC Engine had slightly different versions of what was essentially this same game, but each of those titles had to make sacrifices in graphics and sound. It’s not a jarring difference or anything, but this game is the best of the three.
All of which is to say, if you’re picking just one version of Street Fighter II to play, this is the one.
Dave’s Score: 10/10
Check out the whole Retro Gaming Essentials list here!
How to play
- Original hardware (SNES)
- Super NES Classic
- Genesis (turbo mode of Championship Edition = basically the same)
- PC Engine (same thing)
- Genesis Mini (same thing)
- Arcade (a little different, but not much)
- Capcom Generation 5 (Saturn)
- Street Fighter Collection 2 (Playstation)
- Capcom Classics Collection (Playstation 2, Xbox, PSP)
- Xbox 360 (digital)
- Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection (PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC)