Ever since SNES games were announced as coming to the New Nintendo 3DS it seemed inevitable that Capcom would jump at the chance to flog us Street Fighter II again and - sure enough - here it is. In a surprise move they've skipped the World Warrior port and moved straight to Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, released alongside the SNES version of Super Street Fighter II.

New moves and the ability to play as the four boss characters made this version an appealing upgrade at the time of its original release, but with the next update also available on the eShop is there a reason to plump for this Turbo entry instead? SSF2 added yet more moves, an additional four characters and a couple of extra modes, but Turbo has a couple of things in its favour.

The most obvious is speed, represented on the title screen by stars; push left or right to adjust to your liking. You can choose from zero to four stars, but entering a cheat code during the intro will allow you to have up to ten. The default (three) is suitable for normal play and provides a smooth quick pace that allows for fluid fights as you progress through the game. SNES SSF2 also offers adjustable speed, but not to the levels seen here, and there's a lot of fun to be had from cranking the stars up and indulging in the wonderfully ridiculous speed-fighting that ensues.

One other area where this game triumphs over its successor is audio. Both games feature impressive versions of the familiar music tracks, but the sound effects and speech in Super have a more mechanical, slightly muffled quality and there's no announcer at the start of a round. Here announcer guy is present and the various thumps, crunches, "Sonic Boom" and "Hadouken" shouts have a more natural sound.

Whichever version of the game you go for, know that you will be playing alone. As is the norm for SNES games on New 3DS simultaneous multiplayer is not available, which lessens the appeal somewhat and means that whilst you can hone your skills on New 3DS you'll have to load up a version on another system if you want to fight against a friend.

The single player game has you brawling against your clone and the other eleven fighters and throws in three bonus stages (car, bricks, falling barrels) along the way. If you haven't already done so on one of the many other versions of SF2 you own, mastering each of the twelve characters and seeing their game ending will keep you busy. If you forget how to do a special move a tap of the Home button can bring up the standard electronic manual to assist.

With the two-player "V.S. Battle" effectively being unavailable to New 3DS owners the only other mode you can play is "Normal"; essentially a SNES version of Champion Edition. Compared to Turbo it's painfully slow and a few moves added to Turbo are absent, but if you'd like slower-paced fisticuffs and have an aversion to mid-air hurricane kicks and Chunners-performed fireballs then this is the mode for you!

In the options menu there are eight difficulty settings to choose from. The lower ones are good for practising combos and the higher ones are useful for those seeking a tougher challenge. You can also adjust the button assignment if you're not happy with the default setup and there are tests for sound effects and (more importantly) music if you'd like to take a break from the violence to sit back and enjoy some tunes.

Conclusion

It's one of multiple versions of Street Fighter II, offering the classic brawling action that made people sit up and take notice of one-on-one fighters back in the day. There are less characters than in Super Street Fighter II, but the speech and sound effects are a little better in this release and the higher speed fighting is amusingly entertaining. Being a SNES release on New 3DS you are limited to pummelling CPU-controlled opponents, but Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting still provides solid single-player action for gamers on the go.