As any fan of the series should know by now, Street Fighter II was not only one of, if not, THE most influential and important games in the franchise and in the fighting genre as a whole, but it was also extremely successful, being played by millions of people all across the world, and certifying Street Fighter as one of Capcom’s staple franchises ever since. So, with the huge success of Street Fighter II in mind, the next logical choice would be to move on to Street Fighter III, right? Well, my curious friend, that’s where you would be dead wrong. Despite the original game being successful enough as is, Capcom saw how they could potentially improve the game and make it more fun and competitive for players, but they couldn’t just revise it as easily as just releasing a free downloadable update, which is the norm for nowadays. So, instead, they decided to make a completely new updated version of the game to be distributed into arcades, and they would continue to do so with several more versions afterwards. The first of these new revisions would be with Street Fighter II: Champion Edition.
Much like with Super Punch-Out!!, this review won’t be covering the whole game again, but instead covering what was changed in between the different versions, as well if these changes work out to the game’s benefit. When comparing the things that this game changes compared to later iterations, there isn’t much to be found here, aside from a few noteworthy additions. However, with that being said, it is enough to where I would consider this the better version over the original game, but it is more or less the same game, so you don’t really need to jump into it immediately if you already had the original game.
In terms of elements like the music, control, or progression, nothing has really changed (aside from new music for the credits), which is good, because all of those elements were already great in the first place. In terms of the graphics, not too much is changed, but the characters’ profiles were updated, and several backgrounds were updated as well, and I will say, aside from the blue background on the VS. screen, the changes do look better. With the main gameplay, not too much has been drastically changed either, but several changes were made to make the game more fun and fair, such as balancing for the main eight fighters for competitive play, changing up Ryu and Ken so that they weren’t just copies of one another, and adding mirror matches, where you will fight yourself throughout the arcade mode, as well as you being able to choose the same character when fighting someone else. Yes, believe it or not, that wasn’t a feature right out the gate, for some reason.
To get a better understanding of how the game feels whenever you did play it, I did play through several matches on both the original Street Fighter II and Champion Edition, and for the most part, it remains practically unchanged. If you liked the original Street Fighter II enough, then you will have no problem jumping into this version and kicking ass again. If I were to say if anything has changed with the combat, it does feel a little faster and smoother to fight your opponents, making combat feel more fun. Don’t get me wrong, this is nothing on the same level as Super Street Fighter II Turbo in terms of speed, but when putting this and the original version side by side, you can see a bit of a difference… not that much, but it is there.
Of course though, the biggest change that this game brought to the table was the addition of four brand new playable characters: Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison. In the original game, these characters were only just boss characters that you fought in arcade mode, but now, they were fully playable, and thankfully, they work just as well as most of the other characters in the game. It does feel very satisfying to finally take control of the asshole that constantly kicked your butt in arcade mode, and you can use him to take on other opponents to deal that same amount of pain. Unfortunately though, that asshole I am talking about is Vega, and of course, he is my least favorite of the new additions, because Capcom just really do not want me to like this guy.
Unfortunately though, while we do get these new fighters to play as in the game, they don’t get the proper endings that all of the other characters got. For all of the other endings in the game, each one of them got illustrated or animated endings that were nice to see, as well as getting to learn more about these characters that we fought with. However, with these four new characters, instead, we just got one illustration that is shown for each one of them, followed by a wall of scrolling text. I guess it does make sense to make their endings like this, given how they are all technically the villains of the game, but still, it does suck that they don’t get their own separate illustrated or animated endings like the rest. But hey… I guess this ending is better then no ending at all in the end.
Overall, while the core game isn’t changed too much to justify this new revised release of the game, the addition of four new playable characters, as well as several more appreciated changes, make this the better version of Street Fighter II when compared to the original. I wouldn’t say this is really all THAT better than the original game, and not the best version overall, but for what we have here, it could’ve been done a whole lot worse. Trust me, we are all well aware at this point that Capcom is capable of ruining a fighting game as much as they are able to perfect one. Isn’t that right, Street Fighter V and Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite?
Update #1
Much like with Super Punch-Out!!, this review won’t be covering the whole game again, but instead covering what was changed in between the different versions, as well if these changes work out to the game’s benefit. When comparing the things that this game changes compared to later iterations, there isn’t much to be found here, aside from a few noteworthy additions. However, with that being said, it is enough to where I would consider this the better version over the original game, but it is more or less the same game, so you don’t really need to jump into it immediately if you already had the original game.
In terms of elements like the music, control, or progression, nothing has really changed (aside from new music for the credits), which is good, because all of those elements were already great in the first place. In terms of the graphics, not too much is changed, but the characters’ profiles were updated, and several backgrounds were updated as well, and I will say, aside from the blue background on the VS. screen, the changes do look better. With the main gameplay, not too much has been drastically changed either, but several changes were made to make the game more fun and fair, such as balancing for the main eight fighters for competitive play, changing up Ryu and Ken so that they weren’t just copies of one another, and adding mirror matches, where you will fight yourself throughout the arcade mode, as well as you being able to choose the same character when fighting someone else. Yes, believe it or not, that wasn’t a feature right out the gate, for some reason.
To get a better understanding of how the game feels whenever you did play it, I did play through several matches on both the original Street Fighter II and Champion Edition, and for the most part, it remains practically unchanged. If you liked the original Street Fighter II enough, then you will have no problem jumping into this version and kicking ass again. If I were to say if anything has changed with the combat, it does feel a little faster and smoother to fight your opponents, making combat feel more fun. Don’t get me wrong, this is nothing on the same level as Super Street Fighter II Turbo in terms of speed, but when putting this and the original version side by side, you can see a bit of a difference… not that much, but it is there.
Of course though, the biggest change that this game brought to the table was the addition of four brand new playable characters: Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison. In the original game, these characters were only just boss characters that you fought in arcade mode, but now, they were fully playable, and thankfully, they work just as well as most of the other characters in the game. It does feel very satisfying to finally take control of the asshole that constantly kicked your butt in arcade mode, and you can use him to take on other opponents to deal that same amount of pain. Unfortunately though, that asshole I am talking about is Vega, and of course, he is my least favorite of the new additions, because Capcom just really do not want me to like this guy.
Unfortunately though, while we do get these new fighters to play as in the game, they don’t get the proper endings that all of the other characters got. For all of the other endings in the game, each one of them got illustrated or animated endings that were nice to see, as well as getting to learn more about these characters that we fought with. However, with these four new characters, instead, we just got one illustration that is shown for each one of them, followed by a wall of scrolling text. I guess it does make sense to make their endings like this, given how they are all technically the villains of the game, but still, it does suck that they don’t get their own separate illustrated or animated endings like the rest. But hey… I guess this ending is better then no ending at all in the end.
Overall, while the core game isn’t changed too much to justify this new revised release of the game, the addition of four new playable characters, as well as several more appreciated changes, make this the better version of Street Fighter II when compared to the original. I wouldn’t say this is really all THAT better than the original game, and not the best version overall, but for what we have here, it could’ve been done a whole lot worse. Trust me, we are all well aware at this point that Capcom is capable of ruining a fighting game as much as they are able to perfect one. Isn’t that right, Street Fighter V and Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite?
Update #1