Of the various console versions of this game, I like this one the best thanks to its quicker pace (BLAST PROCESSING lol) and the six-button controller.
This was one of my childhood games and it takes me back to a time when there were no super moves, no fancy high jumps or dashes, and you couldn't block in the air - it's the modern 2-D fighter pared down to its bare essentials. And it works simply because it did those essentials far better than its competitors and copycats; it simply looks cooler, handles more smoothly and is more fun than its contemporaries. Some things that stand out to me:
- The controls are great - I'm not sure if this was the first fighting game to implement basic combos by enabling the player to cancel a move into another move. But it sure is the first game I played that made it feel really natural.
- This game has no less than eight difficulty levels for the single-player mode, which is much appreciated, as it allows players of any skill level to play the game and provides a nice shot of dopamine when you manage to move on to the next difficulty level. (Contrast this with Mortal Kombat 2 which had difficulty levels but they only affected the first few matches, after which every single damn round would automatically set to 'bullshit' level).
- The music! Damn! Almost every track is a banger, and Guile's Theme obviously was so good it became a meme, but Ken's, Vega's and Balrog's themes are also excellent and would easily be the standout track in any of this game's contemporaries. (side note - if a soprano sang Vega's theme it would sound suspiciously like Star Trek)
As a casual player, one thing I didn't quite enjoy was the charging moves - the timing to pull them off was finicky and very difficult to get used to, and it created a clear divide between casual-friendly characters (those with quarter-circle special moves) and expert-only characters (those with charging special moves).
All that said, I didn't expect that this 29 year old game would still be fun today! The formula has obviously been embellished and refined over multiple subsequent generations of fighting games, but this is a venerable classic worth our appreciation.
This was one of my childhood games and it takes me back to a time when there were no super moves, no fancy high jumps or dashes, and you couldn't block in the air - it's the modern 2-D fighter pared down to its bare essentials. And it works simply because it did those essentials far better than its competitors and copycats; it simply looks cooler, handles more smoothly and is more fun than its contemporaries. Some things that stand out to me:
- The controls are great - I'm not sure if this was the first fighting game to implement basic combos by enabling the player to cancel a move into another move. But it sure is the first game I played that made it feel really natural.
- This game has no less than eight difficulty levels for the single-player mode, which is much appreciated, as it allows players of any skill level to play the game and provides a nice shot of dopamine when you manage to move on to the next difficulty level. (Contrast this with Mortal Kombat 2 which had difficulty levels but they only affected the first few matches, after which every single damn round would automatically set to 'bullshit' level).
- The music! Damn! Almost every track is a banger, and Guile's Theme obviously was so good it became a meme, but Ken's, Vega's and Balrog's themes are also excellent and would easily be the standout track in any of this game's contemporaries. (side note - if a soprano sang Vega's theme it would sound suspiciously like Star Trek)
As a casual player, one thing I didn't quite enjoy was the charging moves - the timing to pull them off was finicky and very difficult to get used to, and it created a clear divide between casual-friendly characters (those with quarter-circle special moves) and expert-only characters (those with charging special moves).
All that said, I didn't expect that this 29 year old game would still be fun today! The formula has obviously been embellished and refined over multiple subsequent generations of fighting games, but this is a venerable classic worth our appreciation.