Developer: Capcom Publisher: Capcom Release: Genre: Action
The SNES release of Street Fighter II is one of the biggest console exclusives of all time. At the time no one thought it was possible and its release and quality sparked a flood of fighting game ports to the 16-bit consoles. Unfortunately Sega Genesis owners could only look on in envy for nearly two years while SNES owners could bask in that Capcom glory. But their patience was rewarded when Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition finally released at the tail end of 1993. This is an excellent edition of both of Capcom’s later Street Fighter installments and was worth the long wait.
The title of the game is a bit misleading. Despite the title Special Champion Edition is a compilation of both its namesake and Street Fighter II Turbo. The game allows you to switch between both versions of the game freely at the start and crank up turbo speed. While gamers (rightfully) made fun of Capcom for releasing so many revisions of the same game there are differences although most are not immediately noticeable. The only additions to CE were mirror matches and playable bosses. Turbo made substantial additions to the game. Nearly every character gained a new special move and the game finally received balance changes. But of course the speed is what made the game famous. Once you play the game at even two stars it is hard to go back to the slower default. The two for one combo makes for brilliant value.
The quality of the Special Champion Edition port varies in each category but is generally excellent. This is due to the game’s troubled development history. The initial version of the game that was outsourced was deemed inadequate and so Capcom themselves developed it in house. To make things quicker they reused assets created for the upcoming Street Fighter II Turbo for SNES (which ironically released first) and the results speak for themselves. The color palette is the most noticeable hit. Capcom have generally done a good job working around the system’s limitations and it looks good overall. There are some odd color choices here and there that make me question what they were doing like the pink sky on Ken’s stage and the recycling of colors in the backgrounds makes certain elements blend together in an ugly way.
The music and voice samples are where this port suffers the most. Capcom’s sound driver is not good making the music inconsistent in quality. The instruments sound excellent but the mixing is all over the place. The voice samples are completely terrible however. Aside from missing many samples they sound garbled, a problem many Genesis titles suffer from. Many of these flaws could have been better with more effort as the numerous fan patches show.
The comparison to SNES Street Fighter II Turbo is unavoidable considering the proximity of their releases. Special Champion Edition goes tit for tat in every area and shines in some and falters in others. As a 24-meg title SCE has room for more details. Certain stages have elements missing from Turbo, like extra spectators in Guile’s stage or the moon on top of Ryu’s dojo. Some stages in Turbo have an extra layer of parallax scrolling missing from the Genesis game; Blanka’s stage for example. The SNES game has clearer voice samples and more of them while the arcade intro is present in SCE. The main difference is ten star speed accessible from the start in Special Champion Edition; on SNES you must input a code. Capcom have a Group Battle Mode as an exclusive but I will be honest, I have never bothered with it in all these decades.
If you are going to play Street Fighter you must invest in a 6-button controller. The default three button pad is woefully inadequate to play the game properly. Pressing start to switch between punches and kicks is flat out stupid. It is near impossible to pull off combos and feels awful in general. You can remap buttons to have a combo of punches and kicks but will still have to deal with that terrible d-pad. With Sega’s excellent new controller you can play the game the way it was meant to be played. Executing special moves is easy and the controls are tight as they should be. It sucks having to spend extra money but at least the system has a vast fighting game library that takes advantage of it.
In Closing
Capcom made Sega fans wait but it was worth it. Sega and Capcom did a good job given the circumstances and it turned out better than it should have. While certain elements could be better they nail the most important aspect, the gameplay. Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition is one of the Genesis’s best fighting games.
