Super Street Fighter II

Overview

Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (sometimes shown as Super Street Fighter II) is a 2D fighting game developed by Capcom and released for arcades (running CPS-2 hardware) on September 11, 1993.

The fourth installment of the Street Fighter II line of fighting games (and the first game developed for Capcom's new CPS-2 boards), The New Challengers significantly updates the graphics and audio (adding new frames of animation, new character portraits, a new intro sequence, new voice samples, and remastered musical tracks) while adding four new playable characters: British special forces agent Cammy, Jamaican kickboxing musician Dee Jay, Hong Kong movie star Fei Long, and indigenous Mexican warrior T. Hawk.

The game also alters the gameplay mechanics from previous games, reducing the speed increase of Hyper Fighting while adding new techniques and a new scoring system (which keeps track of combos and other noteworthy techniques, such as attack reversals and first attacks). Players can also choose from eight color schemes. This installment was later expanded on with Super Street Fighter II Turbo.

Along with numerous home ports, the game received a limited-release four-cabinet arcade set for special tournament play. Titled Super Street Fighter II: The Tournament Battle, this version links all four cabinets together for machine-hosted eight-player tournaments with four matches going on at the same time.

Gameplay

The Tournament Battle

In the Tournament Battle version of the game, all eight participants choose their fighters from the start and participate in three sets of single-round matches to determine their classification and score. While it uses a single-elimination tournament system for determining the overall winner, losing players still participate in consolation matches to rank up among other players and attempt to reach the high score list.

Once all matches have ended in a set, most players are re-arranged to different machines for their next match. In the event of a Double KO or Draw Game, the player with the highest score in that match wins. After the final matches are resolved, the results are shown and the winning player is automatically entered for the next tournament. When a single player wins three consecutive tournaments, they are deemed the Champion and the game ends.

The SNES, Genesis, X68000, and FM Towns ports utilize the same tournament structure for their Tournament modes, only with one match going on at a time (due to the lack of linked machine support).

Characters

New Additions

• Cammy
• Dee Jay
• Fei Long
• T. Hawk

Returning Characters

• Ryu
• Ken
• E. Honda
• Chun-Li
• Blanka
• Zangief
• Guile
• Dhalsim
• Balrog (boss, known as M. Bison in the Japanese versions)
• Vega (boss, known as Balrog in the Japanese versions)
• Sagat (boss)
• M. Bison (final boss, known as Vega in the Japanese versions)

Ports

• The first official ports released for the game were released for both the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis on June 1994. Both versions are nearly identical, with sprites based on their respective Street Fighter II': Hyper Fighting ports. Along with the traditional modes, these ports include an eight-player Tournament mode (similar to the Tournament Battle arcade variation), team-based "Group Battle" mode, and a Time Challenge mode (where players have to clear a single round as fast as they can). The SNES version was later digitally re-released for the Wii (on December 18, 2007 in Japan, January 21, 2008 in North America, and January 24, 2008 in Europe), Wii U (on August 22, 2013 in North America and January 25, 2014 in Japan), and Nintendo 3DS (on June 7, 2016 in Japan, July 28, 2016 in Europe, and August 25, 2016 in North America). The Genesis version was also digitally re-released for the Wii in Japan (on November 8, 2011), Europe (on April 12, 2012), and North America (on April 26, 2012).

• It was officially ported to the Sharp X68000 and FM Towns exclusively in Japan on September 30, 1994 and October 28, 1994 respectively. Both versions are reproduced faithfully from the arcade version (with only minor omissions made) and feature an eight-player Tournament mode (similar to the Tournament Battle arcade variation). The FM Towns version is unique as it features an arranged soundtrack and the option to adjust the color palettes of all playable characters.

• It was ported to the Amiga (with versions for both OCS/ECS and AGA chipsets) by Freestyle. Released exclusively in Europe in 1995 by U.S. Gold, this port is heavily based on the SNES and Genesis versions.

• It was ported to the PC (running MS-DOS) by RLSG and released exclusively in North America in 1996. Like the Amiga version, this port is heavily based on the SNES and Genesis versions.

• It was officially ported to the PlayStation and Saturn on November 30, 1997 as part of the Street Fighter Collection compilation (alongside its successor and Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold). It is the most faithful adaptation of the game to-date.