Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Street Fighter is one of those franchises that it seems like anyone that's ever played a video game has either played or at least knows about, which it's legendary "Hadouken" becoming one of the most memorable quotes from any game that's ever existed. As the years have gone by, it's seen tons of sequels and spin-offs, but after all these years, one of the finest versions has finally received an amazing overhaul, both visually and mechanically. SSF2THDR represents a culmination of fighting game enthusiasts dreams (rebalancing, tweaking and adding in moves, etc), while giving the game a much needed graphical overhaul to make it home on next gen consoles while still managing to capture the true spirit that made the original release of SSF2T so great in so many players eyes.

Gameplay – 10/10

There’s a reason why every Street Fighter game is highly anticipated, then continues to be the fighting game to beat for years after it comes out. Super Street Fighter II Turbo was the pinnacle of everything we thought a 2d fighter could be back when it came out, and though many new mechanics have been introduced over the years, SSF2T continues to be one of the highest regarded fighting games ever. The original kept the combo system introduced in SSF2, but added an extra layer of depth by allowing fighters to pull off a devastating super move after accumulating enough energy in a gauge in the lower corner of the screen, which was strong enough to turn the tides of battle in a players favor, but took a while to charge which kept it from being cheap. Still, despite that huge gameplay addition back in the day, little was done to rebalance the game. Enter our challenger, SSF2THDR. Instead of just altering the graphics and keeping everything the same, various characters were rebalanced and had some moves and frames changed to make every character seem a lot more worthwhile if you invested the time. While they could have called it quits with the amazing new art style and the moves, there’s an added online mode that allows you to play ranked and unranked matches with people from all over the globe. The two most creative however are the return of quarter matches (2 players fight, winner stays, loser goes, and next in line challenges them) and tournament mode (…it’s a tournament mode.), which gives you tons to come back for especially if you don’t have any friends that are actually willing to come by to play in person.


Graphics – 8/10

Playing the original Street Fighter II series on an HDTV just doesn’t hold up as well as one might wish, which was why this game received a complete graphical overhaul. The art style captures a more comic book art style instead of being anime influenced (ala Guilty Gear, King of Fighters, etc), which looks great on any tv, especially if yours supports any HD mode. On the downside, while the art does look great once you adjust to it, some people are going to have a hard time accepting the fact that the game has an almost cartoon look to it, but once you accept that, you’ll realize that all of the hitboxes and everything is pretty much the exact same. The backgrounds were all redone too, and while there’s nothing new here, what is there is very easy on the eye and actually works perfectly fine in widescreen hd resolutions, meaning that your fights will take up the whole screen instead of having random background images there.

Sound – 8/10

There’s no denying that the one of the most remembered phrases in all of gaming is that arcade staple, the hadouken. All of the sound effects that have lodged there way into your hearts and brain over the last 20+ years are all back, meaning that you’ll still get a kick out of trying to figure out what in the world Ryu and Ken are saying when they do their hurricane kick. While the sounds may all be the exact same, the soundtrack itself is the most notable feature here. As the years have gone buy, the ladies and gentlemen over at Overclocked Remix have constantly put out some amazing songs either based on games or remade songs that they’ve really latched on to, with some of them actually sounding superior to the original composition. A while back, they put out a Street Fighter II remix cd, which is what the score for HD Remix happens to be, fitting in flawlessly with the redone art style with all the songs still sounding somewhat similar, meaning you can still hum along to your favorite characters theme. Personally, I love the soundtrack, but it might be a disappointment to some who were looking for the original versions of the songs.


Overall – 9/10

Since I’m writing this a few months late, Street Fighter IV has already hit store shelves and been snatched up by the masses, but even among all of the excitement about the new game, HD Remix feels like it’s going to be a game people will continuously come back to since it’s almost an unchanged experience compared to the original with enough tweaks to the gameplay to make it feel like it’s the finest moment of the Street Fighter II series. The online options are actually more extensive than what’s currently available on SFIV, and the simplicity of knowing that everything you loved about the game back in the 90’s is still here, before the genre was introduced to parries, reversals, and the like might actually make this a much better purchase for many people. While some may be put off by the price tag, you’ll eventually realize that your money was well worth it as you slowly start losing hour after hour to this title, playing against either friends or competitors from all around the world and learning how to benefit from all the new character changes made here.