Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Platform: Playstation 3 (PSN), Xbox 360 (XBLA)
Price: $14.99 (PSN), 1200 Microsoft Points (XBLA)

It's Street Fighter II but prettier.

...

Ok, so it's a little more than that. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is the seventh iteration of the classic fighting game that ate all your quarters in arcades way back in 1991. (Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II' - Champion Edition, Street Fighter II' - Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Hyper Street Fighter II in case you were wondering...) Since then, the game has been tweaked to death... the game has been made faster, characters have been added, moves have been buffed up and watered down. So what's new in this version?

The biggest change to the game is the graphics, hence the "HD Remix". All the images have been given a fresh coat of paint courtesy of UDON, the comic book company responsible for the current batch of Street Fighter comics. When I first saw still images of the new graphics, I thought they looked a little off, as if I were looking at a fanboy's interpretation of the Street Fighter characters (I believe my exact initial reaction was "someone made a really good flash version of Street Fighter"). But in gameplay, the sprites look fantastic. (By the way, if you don't like the updated sprites, you can always revert to the original sprites via the game options.)

And that's the other thing that's been tweaked in this edition. Super Street Fighter II Turbo is still being played in tournaments to this day and most Street Fighter II enthusiasts regard it as the pinnacle of the series. When Capcom announced that it would be tweaking the gameplay, most die hard fans were worried that their beloved characters would be changed for the worse. In the end, I don't think there was much to worry about. For the most part, the changes to the gameplay are imperceptible to the average player. But to the guy who eats, sleeps and breathes Street Fighter II, yes, the changes are there... but for the better. In many cases, moves that were nearly impossible to pull off 100% of the time were made easier. Yes, Virginia, that means you can pull off Zangief's Spinning Piledriver without the side effect of creating a massive blister on your thumb. Well, probably.

The music has also been remixed, although I prefer the original mixes. They're not bad, per se, I just don't think they have the same sense of urgency as the original mixes do. That may be the purist in me talking but I swear I heard Sagat's theme on the local jazz radio station... If you'd like to hear the remixes yourself, you can download them for free.

The only other complaint I have about the game is the lack of modes. There's an arcade and training mode, which are exactly like they sound, and there are a few multiplayer modes. You can play against other players locally or online, and in tournament, scoreboard or friendly matches, but that's about it. Online multiplayer, for the most, part is smooth but can suffer from lag from time to time. If this were a full-fledged disc release, I would have liked to see some more modes to enhance the replayability. But as a downloadable title, it's forgivable.

Rating

So it's my second review and already I've found a flaw in my rating system. Since this is a downloadable title, you can't exactly "rent it". And that's what I'd probably give it if you were an average gamer. The arcade style gameplay is great for short bursts of play, but if you're used to 3D fighting games or the more frenetic Capcom Vs games, you may want to try it out before you plunk down 15 bucks for it.

If you're a fighting game or Street Fighter enthusiast, then this game is an enthusiastic "buy". Then again, if you're a fighting game or Street Fighter enthusiast, you've already purchased the game and have a preorder in for the uberjoystick or have plans to build your own Street Fighter cabinet.