The Street Fighter series recently turned 35, so we thought it would be a good idea to revisit one of the most important home ports of the franchise for this week's CIBSunday.
While Street Fighter II on the SNES has perhaps aged the worst out of all of the 16-bit ports given that it's based on the original arcade version which was quickly superseded by the likes of Turbo and Super, it still has to rank as one of the most significant coin-op-to-home conversions of all time.
It is credited with giving Nintendo a sizeable advantage in the 16-bit console war with the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis (even though Sega fans didn't have to wait too long for their own version), and those old enough to remember its release will almost certainly recall importers selling the Japanese version (pictured here) for insane prices, such was the high demand for the game.
These days, this particular version of Street Fighter II is easy to obtain and cheap, but there's no denying that, for many players, it's one of the most important games of their formative years.
Comments 6
An important game no doubt, but definitely one to look good on the shelf, or complete a collection, rather than to play. I never played it at the time as the first person I knew with a SNES got one with Turbo and that was my only taste of home Street Fighter until I got the Mega Drive port. When I finally played this one later it felt seriously lacking after all the versions that had followed it.
I had the exact one as in the picture traded 3 games and still payed £40 but I wanted it so bad I remember people would queue up to play it in the local arcade just had to have it at home the game was a genuine phenomenon at the time
A friend of mine had this imported on SNES, was the first time I played SF2, and initially I was not overly impressed. Then my local video shop got Champion Edition and I started to appreciate the games depth. Managed to get Special Champion Edition for the Mega Drive for my birthday with a six button controller so was my home version, I still have the cartridge. I liked the colours in the World Warrior compared to Champion edition, though everything else was surpassed... I still play Street Fighter 2, but usually go with the arcade version of Hyper Fighting.
Certainly a ground breaking release, again such an exciting time in gaming. Then came Starfox with the awesome FX chip. Just amazing stuff. The industry just doesn't have this kind of excitement anymore.
Yes, definitely the most important home port and one of the most important games for the console. I have definite memories of going the mall and seeing the game for the first time. It was playing on a demo screen next to a full row of videotapes for an erotic movie called "Leather Dreams", just the thing to sear the memory into the brain of a 13 year old boy.
Now THAT’S noatalgia. I remember the guy at the store opening the box to make two holes on the back of the cartrage so it could fit into the SNES (no region lock bs at that time lol). I think it was around 100$ CAN if I remember correctly. And it had BLOOD!! Lol, well, “blood”. Tournaments between friends. Good times, good times.
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