Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for PlayStation 2 Reviews by Gamers

Capcom hit one out of the park with its PlayStation 2 translation of the old Mega Man titles in Mega Man Anniversary Collection and are looking to do the same thing all over again with its second classics compilation, Street Fighter Anniversary Collection. But rather than hand this particular project off to the talented team at Atomic Planet like it did for Mega Man, Capcom has decided to handle this one internally to ensure its faithfulness to the original source material.

Did this kind of hands-on approach make SFAC even more impressive than Mega Man: Anniversary Collection? Well no, not really. But the end result is still quite an entertaining amalgamation of six popular of the most popular fighting games of the '90s that manage to be just as interesting today as they were more than a decade ago... despite an occasional hitch along the way.

Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition

Dreamcast owners who were heavy importers back in the day may remember one of Capcom's best Japanese offerings known as Vampire Chronicle For Matching Service. A compilation of sorts that collected every previous DarkStalkers title into a single package, Vampire Chronicle took a different approach to the idea of game collection by enabling players the option to fight with whatever version of a character they wanted to. As an example, if they desired to pit the DarkStalkers version of Felicia against the Night Warriors version of Demitri; they could do so; with each one of them sporting unique rules, fighting mechanics, and special maneuvers. What's more, if gamers had played through the story mode with fighters of differing backgrounds, they'd be treated to whichever ending was associated with that incarnation of the character. Needless to say it was a great idea, and one that we had hoped to see in other Capcom fighters as well.

Unfortunately it took more than five years for that dream to actually happen. But in the case of Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition, that wish has come true a million times over. As not only has Capcom included 'isms' for all five Street Fighter II versions and all the nuances associated with them, it has managed to do so with great success. Because of that, it goes without saying that this particular mode stands out as the primary reason to own this Western-exclusive collection in the first place.

Now as you might have guessed by now, there is absolutely no way to describe the gameplay in Street Fighter II in a way that hasn't been mentioned before. Since the series remains as one of the most played videogame franchises in the industry's history; it has millions of gamers the world over that are more than familiar with its combat system and who looks the coolest when doing their special moves. But for the sake of argument in this review, let's just all agree that Street Fighter II is the single greatest fighting game of all time and leave it at that (King of Fighters '97 and Samurai Shodown II players notwithstanding).

That said, Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition should be a Capcom-lovers dream, as each and every one of the characters available in the lineup play exactly as they did in their various incarnations from previous years. But unlike Vampire Chronicle, which offered specialized versions of characters that didn't even appear in particular titles, Hyper SF2 only allows gamers to use 'isms' for characters in which that fighting style originated. To put it more bluntly -- you're not going to be able to use Dee Jay with Champ or Turbo settings, but only with the Super and Super T selections instead. Other more seasoned combatants like Chun Li or Ryu, however, can be used with every 'ism' possible from Normal all the way up to the top.

Unfortunately there are a few balancing issues here that make using certain characters almost pointless. The original eight world warriors, for instance, will have no advantage at all by playing with their initial normal modes -- while the Champion Edition versions don't provide many benefits either (unless you're an E. Honda user, that is). Instead, most players will likely play with the Turbo, Super, and Super T settings to get the most out of their characters -- with the earliest two best left for handicaps or drinking bets. Either way you look at it, though, this kind of mix and match character selection can make for some really interesting contests and strategy sessions; and further goes to prove how the game evolved over time.

There's no doubt about it, though, that when you're in a room full of nostalgic players, Street Fighter II is just as compelling as it used to be. Not to mention that it's fighting system can still easily whip the digital ass of just about any other supposed grappling title out there. Though truthfully, I'm unsure of whether or not that statement is just my old school Street Fighter loyalty talking or if it's just my analysis of the combat system. Either way, who cares? I'm having fun with it and that's all that matters anyhow.

But then again, that just goes to prove the kind of audience that Hyper Street Fighter II is going to appeal to. It's all about taking that nostalgic value that most of us grew up with and applying it in a modern way that feels fresh without losing what made the game great in the first place. This type of approach is mirrored in Hyper SF2's presentation as well, as it also boasts a myriad of nice little touches that are sure to please purists who are upset that they can't play each of the five Street Fighter II games independently.

But just what kinds of touches are there you ask? Well for starters, whichever 'ism' you select from the menu dictates your character's animation, versus screen portrait, and voice-over. Even cooler, is that it appears that Capcom has redone some of the backgrounds to include elements from both the console and arcade versions so as to incorporate as many interesting backdrops as possible. Though, the level of reworking that's been done in this regard, I have no idea, but what I did notice that there isn't a hint of unintentional slowdown at all. Other neat little features, like three different soundtracks (CPS1, CPS2, and Arranged), allow players to customize their game in the ways they see fit, while the inclusion of the Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie DVD was quite a nice surprise (and without the need for a second disc no less!).

Of course, anime purists may want to take note that the transfer for Street Fighter II: The Movie is the same one used in Manga Entertainment's Region 1 DVD. This decision means that the movie has seen a sizeable re-cut to remove some of the bloodier violence and nudity, while the voice acting is a little on the disfigured side. Also, the film quality is pretty low-end with no digital restoration given to it whatsoever so you should expect some muddy colors and darkly lit action sequences.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Fight for the Future

Capcom's other inclusion in this set, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, isn't quite as appealing as Hyper Street Fighter II, but still manages to be quite strong. Now don't misunderstand me; I'm not saying that it's an inferior game because of its mechanics. As I still maintain to this day that Third Strike is one of the most underrated fighting games in the history of the genre -- it eliminated a lot of the corner trapping and distance battles that were so prominent in Street Fighter II (which is unfortunate for me because that's how I used to do well, but que sera, sera I guess), and encourages players to use its signature parry system for more close-up battles with an emphasis on strategy. Calling it "the thinking man's fighter" would be an accurate statement to be sure, and I'm glad that newbie scrappers are finally getting the chance to play it.

Where the problem comes in, however, is with the quality of the port and the number of bonuses when compared to Hyper. To its credit, the PlayStation 2 version of Third Strike has managed to fix a lot of the color problems associated with the Dreamcast iteration a few years back; but not without suffering a hit in the character sprites. Run through some kind of smoothing filter by default, the sprites are noticeably softened for a look that seems to be perpetually out of focus. Luckily you can turn this feature off once you've unlocked the special option to do so, but it actually makes the sprites look worse than before with a chunky, low-resolution presentation. While one could initially blame the low-res performance of the CPS3 hardware on which Street Fighter 3 was based, the programmers could have gone in and fixed a lot of these issues by hand. Granted, it would have been a lot of work, but it wasn't impossible.

Another sore spot for gamers could be the fact that the previous two versions of Street Fighter III, Second Impact and New Generation, were completely left out of the mix; or that the game didn't include the same kind of cross-ism matching that Hyper 2 offers. Of course, this is really just nitpicking as Street Fighter III is a great game on its own, but after the treatment given to us for Street Fighter II it seems a little lacking.

What we do get, however, is an incredibly robust customization feature that can literally allow players to create whatever kind of gaming experience they want. Sporting over ten pages of configurable options, the game enables players to adjust everything from their default Arcade and Dreamcast rules, to individual tunings for parries, cancels, supers, and more. Players are also treated to two different versions of the soundtrack (original and arranged) and should experience no slowdown or missing frames of animation whatsoever.

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