Street Fighter II - The World Warrior and Champion Edition

Due to the enormity of task ahead, extended analysis will be resisted, but sporadically contradicted.

Even though innumerable differences existed between SNES and arcade, they still fought a great fight and are God compared to the majority of dross that followed.

To paraphrase ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan’s famous quote in Magnum Force:

“A system’s got to know its limitations.”

The World Warrior

Home computer ports were handled by Creative Materials (for US Gold) in 1992, except the Spectrum version, which was developed by Tiertex Design Studios.

Results clambered the ugly tree and hit every branch on descent.

C64

Commodore’s creamy coloured qwerty is arguably the greatest games machine of all time.

Unfortunately in this case, somebody high on crystal meth death threw several tins of paint and hoped for the fucking best.

Including all chars is impressive and India has SIX, that’s right – six elephants.

Spectrum (128K only)

If 8 bit nemesis was Jackson Bollocks, I’d tentatively call this ‘better’.

Did I really say that?

Using only two colours, (red and yellow, white and blue, green and black etc), inanimate backgrounds look something like the real thing, as do chunky sprites.

To avoid infamous attribute clash, sprites are presumably unmasked, a la R-Type.

Let’s not beat about the burning bush – this is still horrendous.

Plodding gameplay, no music and appalling animation means I’d rather place my hand in a food blender.

Amusingly, scenery can be switched off to 'speed up’ despicable loading.

Oh yeah, how the fuck can Vega climb on his fence without metal structure?

Hmmm.

Amiga (OCS only)

For the benefit of those who aren't Amiga savvy.

Various generations of their hugely successful machine housed different chip sets to increase performance.

OCS (Original Chip Set) – A1000, A2000 and A500

ECS (Enhanced Chip Set) – A3000, A600, A2000 and A500+

AGA (Advanced Graphics Architecture) – CD32, A1200 and A4000

Paula, Agnus, Gary and Lisa (not a joke) and others are found under plastic shell.

Most will have probably experienced this on the good old A500.

Six elephants, all arcade bonus stages and the first ever home version to incorporate intro.

About that intro, randomers choose to settle macho dispute in front of zero audience.  After black guy is thwacked, aggressor and victim are punished with suspended animation.

Decent graphics are paler than a passionate albino and hearing completely the wrong tune for whichever stage understandably baffles.

Chun-Li, Zangief and Ken (Balrog), Dhalsim, Blanka, Guile, Sagat and Bison (character select), Honda (Ryu) and Vega (Ken).

Here's the really funny part.

Ken's stage is used for Balrog's casino.

Ha ha ha!

Limited but legible special move speech compensates for terrible sound effects.

Announcer says jack all apart from ‘fight’.

The regularity of swapping discs and loading required is beyond ridiculous.

To help perform nigh on impossible specials, how about inviting the qwerty?

LMFAO!

So after exhausting so many positives, what about gameplay?

OH GOD! OH MY FUCKING GOD!

Sprites opposing and defying gravity ensure potential orgasm for frustrated astronauts.

Atari ST

Framerate is even worse than previous diarrhoea stain, making this officially one of the worst games EVER.

DOS

This is deliciously BIZARRE!

Every much a piece of shit to play as Amiga, but seeing arcade perfect sprites, portraits and backgrounds was cool.

However...

No stage moves a muscle and sprites squashed inside display look completely unnatural.

Once again, nauseous music makes no sense.

Ken's theme is used for intro, title screen and character select, yet title screen and character select feature throughout entire game.

Overall, it's messier than a baby's nappy.

Here comes a head fuck

Content condemns these fitting between somewhere and nowhere.

Game Boy, 1995

4 megs of hard-hitting action.

'Street Fighter II' isn't a straight port of 1991 original.

Line-up:

Ryu, Ken, Blanka, Zangief, M. Bison, Balrog, Chun-Li, Guile and Sagat.

Vega, Dhalsim and E. Honda missed respective flights.

So with most grand masters selectable, the whiff of cut-down Champion Edition lingers.

But scratch that, because portraits and stages are TNC/Super Turbo.

Call me snooker loopy, but what's the fucking point of moonlighting as third update if none of The New Challengers compete?

I don't care about system limitation, it's a nonsense.

No speech, sparse sound, difficult to execute specials and stages are permanently paused.

Is it fast? Snails needn't worry.

Still, themes beep along quite merrily and chars have a certain amount of 'weight'.

Using a Super Game Boy device applied very limited colour and static SNES World Warrior stages surround.

Excuse me, WHAT?

As this was released after Super on its big brother, logic says go fuck yourself.

Requiring link cable for 2P action sounds obvious, but Crawfish Entertainment's frankly amazing 1999 port of Alpha 2 for Game Boy Colour wasn't so generous.

Master System, Tec Toy 1997

Underrated 1999 thriller Stigmata and not very good 2006 horror Turistas have one thing in common.

They're both set in Sao Paulo.

Switching to pixels, Max Payne 3 and painkillers...

Finally, Brazil is a surreal 1985 Terry Gilliam film.

Nobody gets a prize for guessing which South American country developer hails from.

Street Fighter II' incorporates Ryu, Ken, Guile, Chun-Li, Bison, Sagat, Blanka and Balrog.

Once again, we have a stupid title and mugshots favour TNC.

Differing from portable, backgrounds are a lethal and garish mix of Super and Champion, less spectators.

Ken's vessel sunk and Thailand's slouching statue was used to fund Shadaloo.

Beep music and speech samples encourage ear bleeding, but chars audibly announced when selected makes piece of shit unique.

‘Round’ whatever and ‘Fight’ is spoken, but otherwise...

Just in case you care, same company gave Duke Nukem 3D a stab on Mega Drive, suspiciously dressed as Wolfenstein 3D.

Champion Edition

Normality is mercifully resumed.

PC Engine/PC Engine GT, 1993

The first ever independent port was Japanese only, so American equivalent (Turbo Grafx 16/Turbo Express) missed out.

Hu-card counted the same 20 megs as futuristic SNES Turbo.

New stage colours, playable bosses, barrel break bonus, elephant noises, spoken statements of ‘you win’, ‘you lose’, ‘perfect’, ‘continue countdown’ and whichever ‘country’ meant this kicked SNES World Warrior's ass.

With only two buttons (I and II), Run (usually Pause), is brought for third punch or kick.

Select toggles between fist and feet.

Six buttoned pads like Hori Commander and Avenue Pad 6 offered a more free flowing experience.

No parallax makes things flatter than a pancake and although identical to SNES in every other way, sprites are slightly bigger.

As Hudson’s machine can practically display its entire palette on-screen (481 from 512), theoretically 225 more than the SNES (256 from 32,768), is probably why appearance is more vibrant.

Tunes are technically tinny, but 'sound' superior because they're identical to arcade.

Hopefully that makes sense?

(Sniggers).

Backgrounds

Stages contain less detail than SNES Turbo, and even original.

E. Honda

Lantern on left removed without notice.

Blanka

Clouds don’t scroll.

Ken

Famous cruiser doesn't bob up and down but is at least consistent with lifeless sea.

Dhalsim

Four elephants trumpet during and after round like arcade.  On SNES, meek racket is only heard after round’s end.

Balrog

Extra guitarists either side of bull but sign above was taken down without notice.

Zangief

Additional poster on background’s fencing covers up hole on SNES, but foreground's fencing didn't acquire planning consent.

Weird.

Insert coin had no gap or second poster.

Playing great and looking the part, I suppose the pros and cons cancel each other out.

X68000, 1993

Aside from unavoidable loading and floppy swapping - this is THE arcade.

Basically, every conceivable detail missing from any home console port is here.

What a shame this machine was released only in Japan.

As standard input device wasn't much use, Capcom generously bundled adaptor specifically for use with CPS (Capcom Power Stick) and even SNES/Mega Drive controller.

Nice!

Special Champion Edition, Mega Drive 1993

Punches and kicks are swapped using Start.

Rather inevitably, Sega brought out six button pad and Arcade Power Stick II.

X, Y and Z complemented A, B and C.

Instead of ‘autofire’, we got megafire’ and speed settings.

Holy fucking shit! How exciting.

Weighing in at 24 megs (as opposed to 20), is bigger automatically better?

Let the inquest begin.

North America and Europe made soon to be assaulted black guy white.

How pathetic.

What's worse is arcade version of Hyper Fighting toned down skin colour and dyed hair light brown.

Japanese version (Street Fighter II’ Plus: Champion Edition) reflected coin gobbler.

Hyper is the same principle as Turbo, so peeps can take flight.

Remixed themes and Group Battle mode are welcome additions but sound and voices are fuzzy.

'Countries', ‘you win’ etc etc are heard.

Animation is much the same for player but audience participation suffers.

Crowd doesn't audibly cheer after round’s end in USA (Ken), U.S.S.R. and Spain.

Ryu providing full screen stance replaces scanned poster and box art for special endings.

Regardless of char, he's all you get.

Lazily does it.

Parallax only applies to certain stages and palette limitation forces strange compromises.

Countries are largely SNES Turbo, but clang altered bell. 

Chun-Li

Guy down alley and water from bowl both move.

Zangief

Chain isn't as coiled, but posters are slapped on foreground fence.

Dhalsim

Elephant noise is made during and after round like arcade.

Ryu

Crescent moon adds authenticity but clouds remain static.

What's the bastard point?

E. Honda

Only one lantern, and water dripping from ceiling seems to be more delayed.

Guile

Guy sat on trolley and his bitch appear, breakable crate is positioned differently, therefore hiding radio.

To recap, trolley and bird didn't feature until SNES Super.

Blanka

Clouds are never given the cue to move.

Balrog

Fewer signs illuminate (Golden Goose) and women are blue as can be (dream a little, dream of me).

Guy chucking confetti is decked out in orange hat and suit.

Capcom logo alternates between blue and green.

Vega

Lanterns don't glow, sign above bull doesn't flicker and floor is blue, not green.

Sagat

Statue has green and not blue decor.

M. Bison

Yellow and not blue ceiling.

The excitement of Super and Super Turbo grows more than watered plant...