Street Fighter II' Champion Edition

~ STREET FIGHTER II' CE ~

Capcom / NEC Home Electronics

HuCard

1993

I was never a Street Fighter II fanatic or anything, but I spent my fair share of quarters on it just like every other normal high school male back when it was new, and I enjoyed it enough to purchase the SNES renditions of the original game and the Turbo follow-up. I don't like fighting games in general, but this particular one still plays wonderfully; and experiencing the PCE version just a short time after giving ACD Fatal Fury 2 a go reminded me of just how soundly SF2 thrashed all the wannabes and pretenders of its time.

Graphically, I couldn't have asked for a better performance from a HuCard. I'm not one to count the elephants in Dhalsim's stage or compare the different sky shades in the various console versions, but I do know how very impressed I was when I powered up this chip for the first time and saw the game in action.

But the music... I've gotta believe the PCE was capable of doing better than this. I guess it's kind of interesting to hear these takes on the classic SF2 tunes, but before long, I was really yearning for the stronger SNES arrangements. I also wish we had gotten Turbo rather than plain old CE. Regardless, this is a very impressive port, as I'm sure everyone by now knows.