Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (SNES) review "Street Fighter II was my first Super Nintendo game. I got it when I was very young, but even then, I still enjoyed it as much as I do now. In a simple word it was a masterpiece. The pure definition of what a fighting game should be. Until Resident Evil 2 and Street Fighter Alpha III I go as far as to say it was their best work. "

Street Fighter II was my first Super Nintendo game. I got it when I was very young, but even then, I still enjoyed it as much as I do now. In a simple word it was a masterpiece. The pure definition of what a fighting game should be. Until Resident Evil 2 and Street Fighter Alpha III I go as far as to say it was their best work.

Graphics: 10/10
At the time the graphics were about as good as they come. The characters were huge and well made. The backgrounds were beautiful. Everything looked awesome. The characters were still sprites, but hell, I still keep thinking they were hand-drawn since they were so detailed. Like most other Capcom games, the characters have an anime-ish drawing style to them, which is an added bonus to me. The overworld map looks great, and the character icons are amazing. While there aren't any mode 7 effects which sort of disappoints me (now that I look upon it more than 8 years after its arrival), the game still looks excellent.

Story: 10/10
For anyone who has read my other reviews, I will not contradict myself. Street Fighter II doesn't win a Nobel Prize for plot, but it does win the best story for a fighting game of the time. It's not super detailed. Major Bison holds a tournament for the fighters, they fight. It follows the plot of the original Street Fighter. You play as Ryu again (or, you can choose to be), and you are fighting other people. Your old opponent, Vega, is now in the game, but he is not the final boss. Ryu basically invents the role of the wandering fighter, which is pretty cool, and the characters all have their own back-story. All and all, it’s still not on the level of an rpg for story, but its sure the best story of its time for a fighter.

Characters: 10/10
The characters were some of the best in any fighting game. It had the perfect mix of real and surrealistic characters. On one side of characters, you have the basic human fighters like Ryu or Ken, then there are the slightly surrealistic characters like Bison and the moves like Ryu's fireball (which I might add bears a striking resemblence to Goku from Dragon Ball Z's KameHameHa), to the just out of this world characters like Blanka and Dhalshim. They are all very interesting and even after you've chosen your favorite you'll still play through it with one of the others. All characters have their own special moves. It has a very good balance to it and everyone has his or her strong and weak points. This makes the game extremely fun and not too hard (or at least not to the god-awful impossibility of some of the fighters in Street Fighter Alpha III).

Gameplay: 10/10
The gameplay is the type of game you know once you've completed that will sell millions and have tons of clones of. It was really the first awesome fighting game. The game's battle system was fairly simple, and that may be why it so amazing. You have a punch; a high punch, a kick, a low kick, and you can throw by getting close to an opponent and pressing a certain button. You can use the shoulder buttons for quicker versions of a punch and kick, which are usually much more lethal. You block my pressing back. There are also special moves each character can perform by executing certain movements with your characters. You can also perform combos by stringing moves together. As I said before, all characters have their own moves and all are performed different ways. They are fairly easy to execute, and fun learning to master. The ability to fight against your friends is worth buying the game alone for. You'll be pleasantly surprised at just how fun the original Street Fighter II is right after playing it.

Sound/Music: 10/10
Nothing short of greatness is the sound and music. The sounds are all very well done. Each character has their own voices which occur frequently when they use a special move, win, or die. All the sounds like the smack or the fireball are very well done, and the music is excellent. Every stage has its own level, and the music is very catchy. I can still remember every tune by heart, even though I haven’t played it in awhile. The music ranges from fast paced Spanish music, to interesting jungle music, to calm Japanese music. All of it suites the stages very well and sounds very well composed.

Replay Value: 10/10
It's a fighting game; of course it'll have replay value. There are about 8 characters you can play through the game with again and again on different difficulties, and you can play against your friends. There is no end to the number of battles you can duke out with your friends without getting tired, and the joy will last forever.

Overall: 10/10
For its time it was the perfect fighting game. It wasn't lacking in any category, it was fun, the graphics were excellent, and the music was great. Even now it is still one of my favorite games of all time. Yes, now better games have come out, including Street Fighter Alpha III, which IMO is the only 2d fighter to ever out-do it. If you can ever find this original masterpiece it is worth buying, I guarantee it. Any true gamer will enjoy this now as much as when it first came out.

Pros:
Everything

Cons:
Nothing

Community review by aganar (Date unavailable) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.