Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition (MD)

I think the question of which version is better is down to personal preference. Having played the Plug In and Play version of the Mega Drive game extensively and then the SNES one on VC, I really like both, and they each have small advantages over the other.

If you can put up with the awful digitized voices, this is a great version of a great game

I actually pre-ordered this back in the Sega Genesis days and had to wait 3 months when it was delayed until September. I remember the first time I played it and how impressed I was at the quality of gameplay. It's very good and looks almost on par with the SNES. The voice overs are terrible though:(

Some may say there is no point of bringing this to the VC, but I hope NOA and Capcom will do it for the nostalgia. The Genesis Street Fighter tunes were awesome and better than the SNES.

Nigh on pointless. Very, very little to differentiate this from the first SNES Street Fighter II game.

Roo, you're quite incorrect. This is a touch better than SNES SFII Turbo. Full turbo capability, turbo stars available in "normal" mode too, more character colour options and, unless I'm mistaken in my memories of the game, a rudimentary team battle mode.

The sound is a bit weaker than the SNES version, but overall, this is the stronger game, by virtue of the extra features.

Yeah, the 3-button MD pads were a pain in the proverbial when the beat-em-up craze hit!

I liked this game as much as the next Genesis owner, but there's so little to differentiate it in practical terms from SFIIT on the SNES that it's definitely not worth getting for anyone who already has another version. Someone outlined the differences above, so if you don't have a version of SFII yet, you can take those into consideration when deciding.

I bought the 6 button Sega controller before getting this game back in high school. It was a excellent controller for Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Eternal Champions. I tried using the 3 button against my friend. Needless to say it was short fight:(

THis game was orginally delayed before it was released on Sega Genesis due to a huge black bar at the top of the screen. Capcom pushed its release date back 3 months to give more polish.

Oooh, I had this back in the days when I didn't have a SNES. Pretty sweet game as everybody should know, but not really that different from the SNES version so it is indeed rather pointless.

For the love of!! How many Street Fighters games are they going to release?! It's only in Japan now, so I don't need to get too upset or anything. Thankfully, I didn't get the other Street Fighters games, so if this really is better, I know which one to get.

This was the version that I used to own back in the day, but I already have SSF2 on the VC SNES and even then I hardly play it compare to KoF '94 VC.

But I want SNES Street Fighter Alpha 2... T.T

Do we really need a 4th iteration of SF2 on VC!? Especially one as crappy-sounding as this!? I'll stick to SSF The New Challengers, thank you muchly.

@Kelvin. Wow! New color options!
Even w/ team battles, I'm not impressed. T_T

Do we need to restart the 16-bit wars again? I will gladly stand behind this version over the SNES version since I owned both. Since this came out after SF 2 turbo the new additions were cool since most Genesis fans were starving for Street Fighter action. It's true the voice are bad, but I thought the music is better in this version

I agree with Kelvin, it was a touch better, not a major leap. Also Final Fight for Sega CD had
co-op play and SNES did not. Sorry just had throw that in for old times sake

YES! finally, I even bought the Snes versions cause I thought this wouldnt come but it has. Cant wait till the EUR version is released (If it will be)

Mr Cheez, why is this "crappy-sounding"? I'm honestly baffled by that.

This is definitely the most complete version of SFII Turbo available. Fair enough if you've already got Turbo on the SNES, there's not a whole lot added here to make it worth an additional purchase. But if you were to buy only one version of SFII Turbo, this is the one to get.

For what it's worth, I had both back in the day, although since I owned a MD and SNES at different times, I didn't have both at the same time. If I had to pick one now, it would be the MD version.

I've been expecting it for ages Dazza. Every SFII will come out. I want SFI, never played it before.

Oh, and after watching the vid of SFIV on my PS3, I want it more than any game ever.

Ooh, the PCE port was pretty good. I wouldn't be surprised if we did see that!
Or maybe even the C64 port... ;P

Demon, you're not missing much; the original Street Fighter was terrible!

Yeah, I've been told. I'd just like to try it. Just because of how big SFII is to me. Hope IV's as good as it looks. Only worry is that I hate Analogues for fighters and the PS3's d-pad is terrible.

Many of the original SF 1 character showed up in the Street Fighter Alpha series. The Alpha series is a very good series of games I might add

I wonder when Alpha 2 will come out on the SNES? Not that it was great... SSFII on the SNES was a better game because the arcade it was ported from wasn't too advanced whereas the arcade Alpha 2 was pretty much a 32-bit game so the SNES port suffered worse than the SSFII port did. Loading times, less detailed backgrounds and sprites, no additional game modes than Arcade and Versus... You'd still be better off with SSFII if SFA2 ever did come to the VC.

Well Bass, even with those flaws (I wonder if the loading issue could be resolved due to it running on the emulator), the gameplay in any Alpha is better than the main series (in my opinion).

I never played Alpha on the SNES, but I did play Alpha 1 and 2 on Sega Saturn. They did not suffer from any issues and was some of the best 2D fighting around.

@Kelvin. The audio sucks, given what I heard in the video (especially the voice work), and the SNES SFIIs have much better sound qualty. Does that answer your question?

btw what's that thing you're using as an avatar?

G-D damnit, now there's an Alpha? I'm getting sick of having to hold off my purchase of a Street Fighters game because I want to get the better( newer) version.

By the way, should I go with this or New Championship? Please note, I'm a Genesis Fan, albeit I never played this because I didn't know it even existed.

This one was a bad idea in my opinion since other than hardly better upgrades from the predecessor this does not match to others such as hyper fighting and new challengers which are already out for the same price...why are certain games like this even being released now...

Meh, I'll wait for it to come out to read a review. The voices are terrible, but if nothings worse, I'll just go with this one.

"I did play Alpha 1 and 2 on Sega Saturn. They did not suffer from any issues"

Obviously. There its a 32-bit game on a 32-bit system. Whereas Alpha 2 on the SNES is a 32-bit game on a 16-bit system.

@Mickey Mac
Nothing is worse. The voice samples are the only drawback to this game. Everything else is top-notch! I think the US will get this game before the end of 2008.

The Saturn Capcom fighting games were ported better on Saturn than the PS1 versions. The frame rate stayed higher on the Saturn than PS1. Now 3-d games are another story.

Just get Super Street Fighter II thats already on the VC - you can't go wrong there.

@Tony

Thanks, I was afraid nobody was going to answer for a while there. I'll just wait for this, since it's just as good, if not better than the other versions!

@Mr Cheez, now I understand what you mean by "crappy sounding". Yeah, the sound isn't as good as the SNES versions, but the game as a whole is a touch better, so you make your choice.

And my avatar is from the C64 game Creatures 2 which I hope we'll see sometime on the VC. Brilliant game.

Just get the Saturn version of this game everyone (in Street Fighters collections) its the best way to own the game imo

Even though there are many many many versions of SFII... there really aren't many differences.

I can't wait for the review, to know all the differences!

I'll definitely get this when it comes out over here, the Special Champion Edition on the Genesis is the closest you can get to the arcade version on the 16 bit consoles, the music is almost identical since the Genesis uses a sound chip similar to the arcade.

The Hyper mode in this game seems to be faster than the SNES versions speed, if you want to see insane put the speed on 10 stars, it'll blow your mind...

This is going to suck without the Genesis 6-button controller. If they would release one of those for the Wii, then we'd have a winner. Otherwise, I would stick to the SNES versions if you insist on buying SF2 games on VC, just because the control scheme works better (but definitely not as well as on a real Genesis 6-button).

Well, I ended up getting the SNES one so I could play as Vega and Cammy( who absolutely rock, though Vega is tough to use in Turbo mode). I don't think I'll need another version of Street Fighter 2( with the exception of Hyper Street Fighter 2) any time soon.

Edit: Whoops, Vega was in the other game, too. Fei-Long wasn't though, so I guess I got Super for Fei-Long and Cammy.

Waaay too many versions of SFII to even care anymore, I've never bought any of them since none are touched up. I'm still waiting for SFII: Turbo HD Remix (for 360 or PS3) that should be out early next year, that will no doubt be the definitive version of arguably the greatest fighting game of all time.

well no VC game is touched up graphically. you're being unfair to expect such a thing. and there's only three street fighter II games on the VC - thats not "waaay too many". and if you're counting all the street fighter ii games ever made, thats irrelevant to the virtual console.

and HD Remix might look nice but its still an old game at heart.

"and there's only three street fighter II games on the VC"

There's four. And I'd certainly not call that "only".

still not that many really. and i said that yesterday when there only was three games.

super street fighter ii on the snes is the only one worth bothering with really unless you appreciate the purity of the older games. even though i never played the genesis game, i'd still recommend turbo hyper fighting over it.

If it means anything, the Genesis version was a direct conversion from the arcade board. The SNES versions was a port built from the ground up to resemble the arcade game as closely as possible. Make of that what you will.

Meh, I think I'll just get Hyper Street Fighter II, every version of the game rolled in one. Little more expensive, but should be worth it.

Edit: And I got it. Well, rented it anyways, and I guess "all the versions rolled into one" was a little misleading; it's actually just Super Street Fighter Turbo, except you can choose the move sets of the of other versions, and sadly, there isn't much point in picking anything other than Super Turbo.

I guess I'll get this one someday, just so I can try Championship Edition and Hyper Fighting.

Oh, and I just heard an interesting bit of trivia: The cover of Special Championship Edition confused many Americans into thinking that Guile was the main character, and thus became the star in the live-action movie.

"it’s hard to imagine that there’s many people out there that are nostalgic for the Genesis port."

I'm one

If I didnt have SF2Collection, I would get this.

There is always a way to try to compare (in sound and graphs) snes games and genesis. well there is no comparation, like there is no comparation right now with wii and the other consoles( the others will be more powerful, period). snes will always be better, coz, well it was a better machine, there is not even a close comparation in the sound department, so is always "i like it better" a genesis version that a snes version; i think.

^Nah, Mega Drive Earthworm Jim has more levels than the SNES version. Hence, that version is better.

Dear CAPCOM, please don't waste our time bringing this to PAL territories. Not only is it inferior in graphics and sound to the SNES Turbo, it will also have bigger borders and run just as slow as your half hearted SNES vc effort did.

I didn´t know Genesis SFII had group battles! Taking on each others teams is a blast in VS games. Still, Super Street Fighter II has to be the best version on the VC. Team battle (with 8 characters) is included... and so is Cammy. This version don´t have Cammy. Easy choice.

A very adequate port of the arcade game. Not quite on par with the Super NES title, but it has its perks. I still prefer this game mainly because of the Sega Genesis 6-button control pad. I wish Sega would bring out a Mega Drive 6-button classic controller for the Wii like Nintendo did with the Super Famicom pad. Hey, I can dream can't I?

I've been telling people about the group battles on the MD version for ages!

Easily my favourite version of "plain" SFII.

So theyres still alot of debate to this day which is the better version between this and SNES? haha

Well obviously I'll be a bit biased as this was the first game I ever owned. But I think they did a great job with this conversion. The music is really close to its native CPS1 arcade hardware (much more than that trumpet sounding snes crap). And sure the sound effects are really bad sound quality but if you can look past that you'll see that the core gameplay is still intact.

There are some combos you can do in this game that arent possible in the arcade one (well not that ive seen) i.e. doing a jumping kick and comboing it directy into a hurricane kick. good times!

Hey, Corbie. I've been wanting the same for a while now. I think the best bet would be to base it on the Saturn controller. Essentially the same thing with shoulder buttons. Plus, the Saturn controller is, you know, the best controller ever made (The one with the normal-looking d-pad, of course). ^_

Would NOT mind playing Herzog Zwei with it. Hell, I wouldn't mind playing Herzog Zwei, period. Merry Christmas, Nintendo. As great as it is, I already own Phantasy Star IV on Sega Genesis Collection, and I don't want WiiWare. I can still very much play Herzog Zwei on the Wii as it is though, if you catch my drift. >

I've got Capcom Classics Collection 1 & 2 (and to the curious, like most collections the first collection is absolutely saturated with great games [one of the best compilations ever, IMO], while the second has a few that pretty much should've been in the first but didn't make the cut, and a whole load of curiosities.), and so I've got my share of Street Fighter II.

I spent a long time contemplating the VC releases. I played Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat a bit as a kid. (I mostly played Super Street Fighter II on SNES and various Mortal Kombats on Genesis). I've always sucked at fighting games, they've been my worst genre.

However, I managed to get the collections with arcade ports, and they're great. I've been playing my friend, and I've gotten pretty decent, I must say. The second disk has some nice tutorial stuff, a narrated video. Both disks cover much Street Fighter, the first having World Warrior, Champion, and Turbo, and the second having the original Street Fighter (confirming for all why they've so desperately avoided rereleasing it over the years) and Super Turbo.

To the uninitiated, I suggest looking into those collections. They're on PS2 and XBOX (though the PS2 ones seem easier to find). Capcom's finest moments in the arcade fill the first disk, while Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Strider, Capcom Quiz & Dragons, and the Street Fighter II tutorial are selling points for the second (though, some of the more obscure stuff like Knights of the Round is very good).

You'll probably be happier with the arcade ports, the lower-price, and the large game selection with tons of cool extras. Sadly, the PS2 controller gives you about the same control experience as the Classic Controller, with the shoulder buttons used for medium attacks. No problem if you have an arcade stick, I suppose. They're certainly easier to get for PS2 than Wii.

I'd say it's easier to start out with the non-turbo games, but the second disk may be ideal if all you want is to get into SFII, since it has the definitive version of the game and tutorials to get you and a friend started (and I must emphasize the friend, because the cpu will annihilate new players with zero effort in Super Turbo).

I think this is a old school classic and takes you! This game reminds me of my youth and i think it was a brilliant game.BRAP!!!

I just can't see how this version is better than SFII Turbo. Who cares if this port is closer to the arcade, the SNES ones are more pleasant sounding.

Never mind. I downloaded it and I like it alot actually.

I don't understand how anybody would want to play this version of Steet Fighter II without a 6-button Genesis pad.