| | The subtitle is "Grand Master Challenge."
This is a port of SSFIIX, or Super Street Fighter II Turbo, with options to play like SSFII and internet multiplayer support for Japan. I never got to try the internet part, of course, so I'll just be covering the non-internet stuff.
I like this port better than the recent Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for PS2 for two main reasons: VGA support (Anniversary Collection looks extra blurry on my VGA projector for some reason--did they put it in high-res and then scale down for cheap anti-aliasing?) and hidden option menus.
After fulfilling certain requirements, such as beating the game with every character (there is nice memory card save support, fortunately), you get the ability to access hidden options menus with certain key combinations. See GameFAQs.com for the full details, I'll just cover the ones I particularly like.
In the "EX" menu, you can enable the bonus (car punching) rounds for Arcade mode, yay! And you can Versus mode things like a handicap adjust meter and the ability to have COM control either or both players--so you can watch the computer fight itself, a thing I always enjoy for a break now and then. Also I can mention here that in Versus mode it tracks Player 1's wins vs Player 2's wins match after match, so you can see a running total for real bragging rights.
The DIP switch menu gives you real control. You can for one thing automatically set the game to play just like any of five released arcade versions of SSFIIX. But the real fun comes in the Manual DIP adjustments.
The very best one for me is the ability to turn off the slowdown effect when using fireballs. Yay! That alone really makes the game feel a lot more responsive and brisk than the arcade version did, it's a must as far as I'm concerned. Such that, Ken and Ryu!
You can also switch the language to English, so win quotes and so forth are in English. Rah! Option menus will still be Japanese for the most part, but that's what a FAQ is for.
There are also various options in these bonus menus for enabling different versions of Akuma, tweaking the Super meter, accessing the SSFII versions of the characters, and so forth that some folks might care about, I suppose.
Oh yeah, and there's a Training mode where you can play against an adjustable AI opponent. Woo!
So, best SFIIX port ever? Well, best I've played, at any rate. Oh, and you can put the speed up to Turbo 6, which is absolutely insane.
Now, as for the game itself, I like it. I am also really, really bad at it, and struggle just on the one-star difficulty (you can set it up to like six or seven stars, which sort of boggles my mind), especially against DARN KEN AND RYU. Ahem. But the there was a reason for the game's longevity: it plays really well once you get used to the "limited" controls--by which I mean it doesn't have hyper super combo-isms and that kind of thing. X/Turbo does have a Super meter, although sometimes I like to turn this off to be even more old-timey. Anyway, the game is really all about mastering the three punches and three kicks for each character, and playing very strategically. I think. Well, I only win when I'm strategic in this game, anyway. Just a few hits can deplete someone's health meter and maybe dizzy them for a back-breaking throw. This game doesn't mess around.
The sprites may look a little funny to modern eyes but they have a muscular, realistic look to them that you don't really find in the anime-style stuff that you see these days. Zangief, for instance, looks like a real burly guy with huge thighs, a hairy chest, and bunched up shorts. You go, big fella. |
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