The Bottom Line
Pros
- Experience the fighter that started it all
- Nice looking graphics
- Decent online play
Cons
- Difficulty has been cranked up
- 800 points is a lot for a 15 year old game
- Why not SFII Turbo or Super SFII?
- Gameplay hasn't aged well
Description
- Costs 800 Marketplace Points
- Old school fighting game action
- On and offline multiplayer
- AI difficulty in single player is cranked up. I don't remember struggling this much ...
- Nostalgia can't save this one. It just doesn't hold up against later SF games.
- This is the only 2D fighter you'll find on Xbox 360 until the good ones are made BC
Guide Review - Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting is the actually the third version of SFII that was released in arcades and introduced things such as faster fighting and enhanced special moves. It was certainly an improvement over the original SFII and SFII Champion Edition and was the best fighter you could find at the time.That was then, but this is now, and Street Fighter II hasn't held up all that well. I know, I know, this is a classic and should be respected and blah blah blah, but most of us moved on to better fighters years ago. Why not give us SF II Turbo or Super SF II or the Anniversary Collection entry that mashed all of the Street Fighter II versions together? Or why not really go all out and give us far superior Street Fighter games like Alpha 2, Alpha 3, or SF III: Third Strike? Simply put, there are far better Street Fighter games and 2D fighters overall out there and having to go back and play Street Fighter II is a chore.
Technically, SFII on the XBLA is a solid port. It looks good even when you stretch it out on an HDTV and the 360 controller does a surprisingly good job (I use the analog stick just fine). The online play is also well done, but you'll have to endure a lot of dropped connections and occasional lag (though not any worse than other recent fighters).
No, there isn't anything seriously wrong with SFII other than the fact that it is 15 years too late. You might be impressed if you haven't ever played any other fighters, but real fight fans can skip it.
