Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for Xbox Reviews by Gamers

Capcom, once a publisher known solely for milking sequels, is at it again. Not surprisingly, it's milking its most famously exploited franchise, Street Fighter. Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, the Xbox collection of arcade games including online play, is a massive reiteration of previous fighting games, five from the old, old, old school, and one from the newish one. It's a great collection of fighting games, regardless of the price, but this happens to be $29.99, which is a fantastic value for what is essentially six variations of Street Fighter all of which are online.

The thing is, what fans who don't already own the import or PS2 version, will buy it? It's a tough call made all the better with its inexpensive price tag of $29.99. This collection certainly is attractive, especially with its region free online play. Yet, Street Fighter Anniversary Collection is a skeletal compilation as bonus filled compilations go these days. It's programmed to work online, sports few extras, and offers no real sense of history or cohesion. Let's look at the separately.

Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition

Street Fighter Anniversary Collection offers Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition, based on 1994's Super Street Fighter II Turbo, a treasure that highlights alternate versions of all the classic characters (which date back to the original arcade 1991 version of Street Fighter II). Hyper Street Fighter II is a compilation in itself. It bundles five iterations of Street Fighter into one: Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Championship Edition, Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Phew.

Unlike other SF compilations, the older version of the two gives players the ability to mix old and new characters from all five of the Street Fighter games, characters who wouldn't normally face one another. For fans of the series, this in itself is a kick, and something many players have wished for years to happen. The lineup of characters is robust, and for me, well, I have hardly ever played as or against Deejay, so that was a surprise. Hyper Street Fighter II includes the typical fighters: Ken, Ryu, E. Honda, Chun-Li, Blanka, Zangief, Guile, and Dhalsim. Other characters consist of T.Hawk, Cammy, Fei-Long, Deejay, Balrog, Vega, Sagat, M. Bison, and the fiery-haired punk, Akuma.

This is a solid emulation. All five titles retain the game's old flair, its hilariously few animations, and its reliably tight/cheap/awesome gameplay intact. The characters move with quick arcade-like speed. The reaction time is instant. And the game feels almost exactly like it did in the arcades. My only issue was the Xbox controller setup. The default setup is whacked, using the white and black buttons on the s-controller with the face buttons equally, which makes fighting with all the moves difficult. You'll definitely want to switch them up, which is easy using the simple menus, but you might want to seriously consider using the original honking Xbox controller instead, or one of those fancy new arcade sticks.

Returning to these games was fascinating in a couple ways. I consider myself an average Street Fighter player. I would say I've lost about as many games as I've won against arcade players, and my best characters are Ken and Ryu, though I have a fondness for Chun-Li and Sagat. The point being that while I'm pretty good with all of them, the AI in this game is either turned up quite a bit, or the arcades games of old were simply harder in general. Comparing the difficulty of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection with Street Fighter III: Third Strike isn't night and day, but it's pretty drastic.

Old-school Street Fighter is based far more on the perfection of timing, cornering enemies, and the right move at the right time. It's a more simplistic game, but one that when played against a good player, is a pure art form. Mixing long and short range attacks, anticipating your enemy's moves, being able to jump their projectiles, learning when to attack, when to defend, learning your opponent's style of play -- all of it is in there, simple as the game may be. Whereas 3rd Strike is far more based on tactics, defensive tactics in particular, and varying as well as stylizing your more extensive list of moves.

The bonuses are OK. Gallery mode comprises a diversity of introductions for the characters, music soundtracks, illustrations, and character background info from all of the iterations of the Street Fighter II series. You can listen to the original and the remixed versions of the songs from the arcade game. The inclusion of an English-dubbed version of Street Fighter II animated movie might also make some fans happy, though all good fans should surely have seen it by now.

All in all, Hyper Street Fighter II is a robust collection of SF iterations bound to make the hard-core player happy, but not necessarily everyone else.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

Then there's Street Fighter III: Third Strike, the third iteration of the Street Fighter III game.

For long-time fans of the series, the original Street Fighter III was somewhat disappointing. The second and third iterations, unfortunately not included in this compilation, made up for the first's flashy moves and total offensive power, and if you had to only play one of the three Street Fighter IIIs, then 3rd Strike would be it. The third edition, Third Strike, ups the ante by speeding things up, adding new characters, and balancing the game. It's also gorgeously animated and features an incredible art style. If playing Hyper Street Fighter II is like playing origami, then 3rd Strike is like playing an anime.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike offers a handful of features. The Grade Judge System, which evaluates your performance at each match's end, is likeable and unique. It determines your grade based on the fight outcome, how efficiently the players' moves are used, and how many kinds of moves are used. It's also pretty tough. You'll have to be an exceptional player to achieve a high grade. The Progressive Hit Frame System (super technical old-school stuff) boasts a more sophisticated collision detection system than other fighters, and again, for this fan base, they're going to like it. The part of the body that a character takes a kick or a punch on is based on a single cell of animation. So, the animation reacts to the exact location a punch of hit was taken and responds accordingly, using precision calculations, providing more stylistic animations and movement. The result is a flashy, arty movement that instantly catches the eye.

The Super Arts moves (you pick one of three moves to fight with) give you a sense of control, but not too much. They're directly from the arcade game, and they work fine. Parrying (push the button toward the opponent to parry an enemy with precise timing), and the Leap Attack (enabling players to attack an enemy in a couching block) are included too. For fans of the music, players get two different versions of the soundtrack (original and arranged).

Capcom's 3rd Strike is a marvel of movement and art direction. It's beautiful to watch, and more complicated than Hyper Street Fighter II to play. But the cast of characters is greater, with hints of Darkstalkers and other Capcom fighting game influences.

There are 19 playable characters from which to choose including old school guys Ken, Ryu, Akuma, and Chun-Li. The newish lineup features Urien, Necro, Ibuki, Sean, Alex, Yang, Twelve, Makoto, Q, Remy, Yun, Hugo, Elena Dudley, and Oro. Moreover, this lineup represents a pretty drastic change in fighting styles from the Street Fighter II series. Characters like Sean and Ubuki, for instance, fight somewhat in the style of Ken and Ryu, with Alex a bit like Zangief, and Dudley a little like Balrog. While fighters such as Twelve, Oro, and Elena offering a distinctly different set of fighting styles, ranging from just plain weird (Oro) to Capoeira (Elena).

Online

Both versions offer the standard package of Xbox options. Each game runs well and surprisingly smoothly, with few lag or hitching problems. It's pretty damn fun to play Street Fighter online, to be honest. With the dearth of the arcades these days, online has taken its place to a certain extent, and this version one-ups the PS2 version with a solid Xbox Live component. There are a couple cool features to boot: You have the ability to see how many matches are open at any particular time; and you're able to play anyone online in a region free setting. So, you can play anyone in the world at any time, not just North America.

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