Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Amazing"

It's hard to believe it took five games to get to Street Fighter 3. This was only due in part because Street Fighter 2 became so immensely popular and, at the time, it underwent a menagerie of extensive tweaks, balancing, gameplay fixes, and reworking. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo is the fifth and final game of the Street Fighter 2 anthology, and Turbo Remix is its brilliantly conceived, high-definition re-imagining.

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo was the first Street Fighter game to introduce Super Moves, which involved complex button combinations and a fully-stocked Super meter to pull off. It also gave existing characters some new moves, and introduced the fearsome (albeit immensely cheap) Akuma as a secret boss and playable character. HD Remix replicates all of that, and--I have to say--the game looks absolutely incredible in its HD coat of paint. All of the World Warriors have been meticulously redrawn and reanimated to take full advantage of high-definition displays. Thanks in so small due to the scribes of Udon Comics, official proprietors of the U.S. Street Fighter comic books, each character now seems to have a new personality all their own for a game released back in 1994. Of course, the game plays exactly like the original arcade version--with the notable exception of an all-new HD Remix Mode, which rebalances and tweaks the World Warriors for a sixth time--making for some interesting new fights. (You can also find and select Akuma without having to input the cumbersome code, but only in the HD Remix mode.) Backgrounds are as you remember them--with some new touch-ups like the addition of an Orange Julius-like smoothie bar in Chun Li's level, some new spectators that weren't there before, and an entirely redesigned Balrog's stage.

Characters are much larger in scale than they were in the original arcade game, but this is by no means a fault--actually, if anything, bigger characters mean a better looking experience than the original arcade game. It might have been nice if they took the time to re-record character voices to compliment the new character redesigns. As burly and muscular as Sagat is for the remake, his old arcade voice just doesn't seem to agree. At least, they restored Guile's voice to its original Street Fighter 2 pitch (thank goodness). The remixed music is excellent and pays much homage to their sources---my favorite tune is Fei Long's stage.

Of course, you also have the option to use the original character sprites and music from the arcade version. Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to the backgrounds, so the arcade sprites might look a little out of place in those beautiful HD backdrops. Still though, it is a nice feature to have if you're a purist. Characters also have new win quotes--some of them taken from the Super NES and Genesis versions of Street Fighter 2 interestingly enough.

All in all, SSF2THDRemix (a mouthful of a title, which forces me to use acronyms) is an excellent rendition of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, and an excellent fighting game in general. Street Fighter fans will definately get a kick out of it--even more so with the addition of online play. It's everything you expect from the arcade game and so much more.