| paleface [sys=PS3; cat=Fighting; loc=NA] |
| | | Downloadable western-made high-definition port of the venerable fighting game looks sharp in 1080p, plays conveniently from hard drive, and exactly (as far as this layman can tell) duplicates the gameplay of the original. It adds a training mode, a dip switch menu for customizing many obscure gameplay settings (turning off hit stun / fireball slowdown = yay!), a nifty remixed or recreated or whatever soundtrack, and internet multiplayer (got my butt handed to me, which was about right).
All in all, very well done. The only gripe you can make about it as far as I know is that the drawing style of the completely redrawn sprites is a little blocky or generic, but I think they were probably trying to match the outlines of the original sprites closely for the sake of preserving exact sense of hit detection, and with that in mind, they didn't do a bad job. The original low-res sprites, chunky and clunky anyway compared with those in more recent Street Fighter games, still have more of a sense of style and design about them, but these new ones have the advantage of looking pretty darn sharp in high-def. There *is* an option to switch to the original sprites, but it's spoiled by a really icky filter that makes them look all blurry and webbed; if you're going to have an option to show the original sprites, you should show them in their original shape, not all blurred up. But they'd look weird against the high-def backgrounds, so it isn't an option I think I'd use in any case.
I was skeptical at first, but I do actually find myself much more inclined to play this version than my previous favorite version, the Dreamcast "Matching Service" one (see entry 679); HD Remix looks much sharper on my projector, and is so much more convenient to boot up.
The really amazing thing is that it has *exactly* the same gameplay feeling as the original (plus you can tweak things nicely like turning off the slowdown); they had to leave some of the animation rather jerky, but only to match the original frame-for-frame. It's a really impressive re-creation and preservation of the original. |
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