| paleface [sys=PS1; cat=Fighting; reg=NA] |
| | | Compilation of the first three Street Fighter II games: Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, and Street Fighter II Turbo. They play well, with just brief loading screens between matches.
Not sure about the others but while it is otherwise like the US arcade version, Champion Edition has the character move changes that were found only in the Japanese arcade version, such as Balrog's Turn Around Punch having multiple charging levels, his Dash Punch hitting crouching characters, and all of Sagat's Tiger Uppercuts causing knockdown, rather than just the light one. And it has a training mode. There's also a Versus mode, requiring two controllers to be plugged in--there's no VS CPU option in Versus or Training modes. |
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| | | Ryu's light punch in Collection 2's version of Champion Edition has an input delay--as measured in my incredibly crude cell phone footage way--of about 4 frames, occasionally dipping to 3 frames. (Compare with CE in Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection on PS4 (see entry 1368), where I measure a delay of 5 frames, occasionally rising to 6 frames.)
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| | | Seems my "VS CPU option" comment earlier was premature: according to GameFAQs, if you beat the game without continues, or something like that (as written it says to beat all three games without continues, and that unlocks this thing in the game you beat...which doesn't quite make sense), you unlock a "CPU Battle Mode." It doesn't give a description of it. However, Wikipedia, in its description of the Saturn version of this compilation--it doesn't have a description of the PS1 one--says "If the player completes a game's single-player mode without using continues, a 'CPU Battle' mode is unlocked. CPU Battle allows the player to battle any CPU opponent at the game's highest difficulty."
I think I'd like a CPU Battle Mode 'cause then I could play characters other than Ryu--see, I can't really stand having to go up against shotos in this game if I don't have a fireball of my own, but if I could pick both my character and the CPU character, I could do oh well Balrog vs Zangief and that kind of thing.
Beating that darn M.Bison without continuing is gonna take a bit of a lucky miracle though, probably. Also, I'm not real sure I'd want to move my PS2 mem card out of its nice comfy port just for this. Well, first things first I suppose. ; ) |
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^ There are little jumps at GAME OVER in this Champion Edition video where I edited out a brief red strobe effect. In the future I'll get around that by continuing instead, then pausing and quitting if I want to restart rather than actually continue; continue gives you a whitish-yellow strobe, but as long as it isn't red...:P
My two masterful Ryu combos (of which I only ever manage to do the first one, sometimes, usually in highly improvised and suboptimal form) are jumping heavy punch to medium uppercut, and medium crouching kick to heavy fireball (practicing at 6:16 in the above video). |
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Champion Edition has been my go-to SFII, so I wasn't sure about WW--and I set it to the easiest difficulty for starters, since these games don't really get easy...--and at first I thought it had more slowdown, but after some experimentation later in the session, I'm not so sure about that...but I'm maybe more sure that WW is quite possibly my new favorite SFII!
It helps I suppose that I play Ryu, and aside from being able to do an air tatsu (spin kick, after he's jumped normally in this case) in CE, he didn't get really new moves from WW to CE, like most of the rest of the cast did--and didn't need them. ; ) I do enjoy playing a bit of Balrog (Boxer) and Zangief now and then, and 'rog--along with the three other princes of Shadaloo or whatever the bosses are called--isn't playable in WW, and Zangief in WW can't move while doing the spinning tornado move that lets him avoid fireball hits, which would make him even more frustrating to play against 'ballers. But really Ryu is the one I play "for realsies," so I can probably live with that.
(Oh and in WW, as opposed to CE, Ryu's (ground) tatsus don't immediately knock the target down--instead, they can continue to batter them up for up to three hits or so! : D)
Giant Bomb says CE revised the game for balance and to "slightly increase the speed," but otherwise I couldn't find any support for my initial impression that WW--at least in this quite good PS1 version, which as far as I know reasonably replicates the original arcade slowdown--had more slowdown.
I actually kind of dig the most concentrated playable cast in WW, and how the bosses suddenly pop up with little "pings" on the map once you've beat the regulars. The unrevised (only Ken's was left unchanged in CE) WW character portraits look even goofier and more fun ; ) (also, in this PS1 collection's CE at least, there's a weird horizontal squooshing in the victory screen version of Ryu's portrait that is obvious once you compare it with the initial matchup screen version and continues to weird me out), the world map is much easier to read, and, most of all, the colors in the stages--except maybe Chun Li's stage with its horrible pink hanging meat that looks like giant maggots, and the really high-contrast cyclists--look way, way better in WW. It's almost like the bright morning colors were what they were designed for, rather than the late afternoon colors that were swapped into them in CE.
Among others changes I found on flyingomelette:
- CE allows mirror-matches, with an alternate color palette available for characters
- CE weakened the boss characters (I actually didn't find them that bad even in WW--I had my hardest time against Honda!)
- stuns are more common in WW (woo!)
And should we overlook that it was US marketing that pushed for CE in the first place, rather than the Japanese developers? : P (The original team did at least get to do their own thing, aside from the marketing-directed implementation of playable bosses--the team was already thinking of doing something that--and mirror matches; US marketing directed more and more of changes in later versions, and the original designer, Akira Nishitani, left after the third version, Turbo, where he objected to demands to make the game faster, according to Polygon.
Anyway yeah, The World Warrior is really neat. |
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Zangief is pretty ridiculous in The World Warrior--especially his grabs and punches! ^_^ |
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| | | Notes to self:
vs Boxer:
- block, sweep
vs Claw:
- Fireball at long range, try to sweep to control space when he jumps
- Jump in before he does, otherwise don't
- Medium uppercut for knockdown
vs Sagat:
- need something better than jump kicks he's just taking and countering heavier
- ax kick
- medium uppercut for knockdowns
vs Dictator:
- fireball/sweep space control
- block low after his jump in
- get lucky |
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Playing WW at default difficulty instead of 1/8, had to come up with new strats to cheese those Four Lords of ShadaLOL:
Boxer: fireball
Claw: uppercut, then light fireball as he's getting up
Sagat: be patient and jump over his fireballs when ready
Dictator: fHP :P |
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| | | World Warrior as Zangief, at the default 4/8 difficulty:
Man! I forgot how I had to come up with new strats as Ryu going from 1 to 4 star difficulty; sure had to do the same as Zangief!
Let's see, what did I come up with:
Ryu: uhhh jumping medium kick, hope for some grabs? : ooo
Chun: standing HK and she got scared for some reason
Claw: 3P & get a little lucky
Sagat: jumping HP, dHK maybe, don't forget to block
Dictator: jumping MK, dMK, MK
Best ending! |
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Oh man those uppercuts on Claw as he tried to dive on me off the fence at 39:33 and 39:44 were so satisfying!
My note to myself said fHP to beat Dictator; I forgot to note though a) block and b) sweep, that makes him jump back instead of sliding.
My dumb shoulder was hurting after this, seems the deliberate type of play here allows me subconsciously to plant my palm on the base of the stick below the buttons and then lean my weight on my arm. I'll hafta try some Zangief and see if that goes any better, shoulder-wise. |
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| | | Playing through Street Fighter II: The World Warrior as Zangief, on the default 4/8 difficulty!
Notes to self:
- chun & dictator: heavy standing kick, heavy sweep
- also chun: med standing kick poke
- claw: repeated heavy sweep; lariat vs dive; HP vs jump-in?
Claw, Chun, and Dictator caused me a little more trouble this time, I had to figure out a couple new tricks; that repeat heavy sweep on Claw's wakeup is pretty weird, though! Really happy with being able to lariat his dive.
Didn't bother my shoulder as much as playing Ryu and trying to jam out his fireballs; maybe I could keep playing Zangief? Doesn't seem much point in repeating these button puzzles though, so I guess next time I'll have to try on 8/8 difficulty. |
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| | | WW, Zangief, difficulty 8/8:
Note to self:
- Start heavy jump kick while Sagat is down (because in air-to-air, highest character wins, the AI often doesn't block on wake-up, and while Sagat will sometimes uppercut on wake-up, it seems to be a little slower to start than a descending jump-kick)
I used to play WW on 1/8 difficulty, and that was all right. I bumped it up to 4/8 difficulty once that got a little stale, and to my surprise found I had to come up with new strategies to beat each AI--well, generally just finding a different button to hit, maybe at a different time. Still, it was almost more of a puzzle game than a fighting game in that regard, which was interesting. After a few plays with Zangief on 4/8 those puzzles got a little samey feeling, so I thought I'd bump it up to 8/8--having already beaten the game several times with Chun-Li at that difficulty--and see if the game gave me new AI puzzles to beat.
It didn't really; the only difference I found was that Chun-Li was slightly more frustrating to fight, and that Sagat wasn't quite as dumb with uppercut spam--so this time I *had* to solve his puzzle; still haven't firmly solved Chun's.
So in the end, this play-through was disappointing, and just kind of made me sick of the thing; playing on a higher difficulty just makes the game's randomized damage, bizarre hit boxes, spots of slowdown, instances of extreme hit-stun, and odd animations feel infuriating, whereas on lower difficulty they can feel quirky and charming, because they aren't leading to your demise quite so often. Beating the game consistently at higher difficulty would mean memorizing all the unintuitive imperfections so that you could use them to your advantage, like the AI does--Chun dancing overhead between the raindrops while Zangief, unable to turn around and lacking an effective anti-air for her levitating pogo kicks, flails beneath her; you would have to become an obscure scumbag, at least in fighting terms.
I've already pogo-scummed several times with Chun--that one was probably a little too easy to learn--and it quickly got old. Zangief would take longer, but I suspect it would still get old real fast; I'm not fully there yet and it feels old already. The puzzle-like AI has maybe three shticks each, and nothing else--and it doesn't try to hide it. It's an unusual type of AI for a fighting game, and that in itself was very interesting--to a point.
Hm... Possibly the later SF2 games fill in some of Zangief's shortcomings--although what I particularly like about him in WW is his extreme overbalance toward ridiculous grab speed and range. ; D And really it was WW's simplicity and really bizarre quirks that kept me interested enough in the first place. It wasn't as though they had an interest in making the AI *less* infuriating in the later 2s. It was fun to explore for a bit here, at least.
I suppose I could go back to 1/8 difficulty; I never got the 1cc that supposedly will unlock VS CPU, for instance. But... Ach. And really those infuriating parts are still there at lower difficulty, it's just the AI doesn't use its most infuriating patterns quite as insistently; at 1/1, for instance, Chun doesn't really use her pogo kick, and Dictator didn't use his delayed jump kick. But still, to quote myself after 1/1 Dictator KOed my Zangief on the first go-round eight months ago:
"Oh no. He's just gonna pull nonsense--just sheer nonsense, that's what he's gonna do."
Mind you, as far as fighting game *boss* fights go, WW Dictator is shockingly reasonable; it's just that almost every character match is like a mini boss fight; and once you find which button to hit when, it's a largely solved puzzle. The AI just isn't designed as much for improvised brawling, which is the feeling I very much prefer to get. |
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The main menu screen doesn't show the "HYPER FIGHTING" subtitle shown on the title screen. And on both of the screens, the logo has the "'" ("dash") symbol Champion Edition used, rather than saying "TURBO." The collection's game selection screen lists the game as "TURBO HYPER FIGHTING."
The Button Config. in Super Turbo in the first Street Fighter Collection let you simply hit the button you wanted for each function, so it was surprising and disappointing that here in 2 you have to scroll to select each function per button, which is much more of a pain--and yet it's the method Capcom would follow for the next several decades. ; P This is where it went wrong!
(Oh I said "SHORT CUT" would probably just list characters instead of having the graphical selection, but actually in SFC1 it still has their graphical icons, just not the whole map part.)
Ryu DID have the scraggly chin hairs in the previous SFII, Champion Edition; from the tiny versions of the character portraits on the character select screen, the only art difference that I can see is the new default character colors in Turbo.
Difficulty 8 got pretty hard by the FOURTH match, probably about as hard as US Super Turbo default difficulty or something.
Ryu's air tatsu in this game goes straight horizontal! And he can do a kick and then a tatsu in the SAME JUMP! = oo
CPU Ryu could do a really fast jump-kick into sweep. Both Heavy, I think. Seems to depend on spacing, as far as I could tell? I managed it just a couple times; usually it seemed slower getting the sweep out and he would block it. Even when I hit him with both, it didn't seem to do the 50% damage plus one more hit to stun (less sure about that for mine) that his did!
Like World Warrior and Champion Edition in this collection, and also Super Turbo in SFC2, it's a super-solid port, really good!
This version of HF is displays slightly wider than 4:3 (1.36), whereas ST displayed slightly narrower (1.30). As far as I know--which is not very far ; )--in the arcade they were actual 4:3. |
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Hyper Fighting input delay / input lag
SF6 version had Vsync off. Surprised how well it did! VERY close to Street Fighter Collection, which for the SFII games has always been the best I've had; SF6 is, in fact, the closest to SFC's top time of any other SFII I've tested. So they've evidently improved their conversion capability a bit here over their previous attempts since the PS1 version. Unfortunately, the version in SF6 has very few options; you can't even turn off the heavy scanline/blur effect, or set the difficulty! |
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| | | | "That Street Fighter 2: An Oral History" Polygon article I was talking about, particularly the Capcom USA/Japan tussle over the speed for Hyper Fighting, is https://www.polygon.com/a/street-fighter-2-oral-history/chapter-4 |
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