First off: I just need to say that the very concept of Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game is like fried minced fish being turned into a nugget in the shape of a fish.

Anyway, I've been playing this on and off the past couple of weeks - I went into this knowing its reputation as the black sheep that "copied Mortal Kombat" and definitely didn't expect to like it this much. I might be biased, but I actually think the worst of 90s Street Fighter (this game, arguably) is better than the best of 90s Mortal Kombat (MK3).

While the digitization gimmick makes the game feel stiffer than its sprite-based brethren, it does retain the ability to cancel special moves into other special moves, and has a surprisingly robust combo system. The combos are largely based around air juggles and are quite freeform, making them feel much more fluid than the rigid auto-combos from MK3, and the devs made the great decision to reduce combo damage which prevents them from being too game-breaking while still making them feel good.

Obviously there are balance issues, and the game feels really broken at times especially in single-player mode. But if a game isn't refined or deep enough for 'serious' play, it can still redeem itself by being interesting enough for casual play, and that's what this does. There are 14 characters with much larger and more varied movesets than in any of the previous games, and there are super moves, desperation moves, regeneration moves, counter throws... you get the idea. None of it comes together in a way that feels deliberately refined or balanced, but it doesn't have to! As someone who plays fighting games primarily for the experience rather than to win (this would make me a Timmy, if you're familiar with that term) this scratched an itch that had gone unattended for some time. This was good fun and I'm glad I went into it with an open mind!