Street Fighter: Anniversary Collection
- August 11, 2004 14:26 PM PST
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One Street Fighter Collection to Rule them All.
In the long string of little tweaks and variations made to Street Fighter II, the question has undoubtedly been asked under the lips of ardent fans, "which Street Fighter II Ryu was best?" Street Fighter Anniversary Collection attempts to answer that mammoth question, and also includes Street Fighter III and the full anime Street Fighter movie to make it a true collectible for die-hard fans.
You cheeser!
There's basically two games included: Hyper Street Fighter II, a compilation of the original, Championship Edition, Hyper Super, and Super Street Fighter II; and Street Fighter III: Third Strike.
Hyper Street Fighter II in theory allows you to pick the fighters from each Street Fighter II version as they were. And while that was mostly true in the preview build, subtle changes were made to even the playing field, especially to the original Street Fighter II characters. The "cheesing" aspect has been significantly toned down -- the short kick for Ryu, which was a powerful dizzy-inducing tool, gets in much less hits that the original, making it harder to dizzy opponents. The infamous jab/short-to-throw no longer reigns supreme -- good for gameplay balance, bad for purists who want the true original characters.
Go for broke
Street Fighter III: Third Strike is presented with the usual training and versus modes -- no extra thrills. The more underappreciated Street Fighter retains the smooth and beautiful animations from the arcade, and nothing seems to be lost in the translation. Since the changes made over Street Fighter III were not as substantial as the evolution of the Street Fighter II series was, the absence of 2nd Impact and the original SF III was not really felt.
While the Street Fighter movie is a pleasant addition to have, the inclusion of the Street Fighter Alpha series would have probably been more appreciated by hardcore fans, as it sort of acted as an intermediary bridge between the two series. That will likely see the day in some other compilation in the future.
With more Street Fighter packed into a box than any other previous game, the game is clear in who it caters to -- old-school fans who fell in love with the original series and want to relive it without the hassle of digging out an old console or firing up an emulator. We?ll have the final verdict when the game ships later this month.
