It’s hard to believe that Street Fighter has almost reached ‘retro’ status. It seems like yesterday that I was battling fellow arcade goers in possibly the most important fighting series ever created. This was the 90’s, this was the Street Fighter age of gaming.
Nowadays, gamers are used to a much more violent substance in a fighter, but those looking for a super violent fighter with death moves and the like need not apply ‘ this is pure technical one-on-one fighting at its best.
Street Fighter Anniversary Collection is obviously aimed at the more retroheaded gamer, who fell in love with Street Fighter II back in the early nineties when it was launched into the arcades by Capcom. These gamers can now relive Street Fighter in its varying flavours, worked into different fighting styles within the Hyper Street Fighter II side of this title.
This compilation even comes with an English-dubbed, censored version of the feature-length Street Fighter II animated movie that was released in the mid-’90s, which is a nice extra, bar the dodgy dubbing and censorship.
When you load up Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, it offers you the choice between playing Street Fighter III: Third Strike or Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition, which is a mix of Street Fighter II and its four upgrades: Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II, and Super Street Fighter II: Turbo. This hybrid game is an updated version of Super Street Fighter II: Turbo that optionally lets you to play as older versions of the game’s cast of 17 characters.
You can choose from each of the aforementioned fighting styles prior to selecting a character, which will affect the moves and abilities of your fighter along with their character portrait and sound set. I have to admit this rendition of the older Street Fighter series does look and feel a little dated now, with very low framecount when it comes to the animation and questionable sound but still, it’s incredible fun to play on your own, with friends or online via Xbox Live.
On the flipside comes the more technical and modern title in the series – Street Fighter III: Third Strike – heralded as one of the greatest of the Street Fighter titles.
When Third Strike was originally unleashed into arcades, the Street Fighter scene had already hit its downward slope, with many of the original gamers leaving the series and moving over to the swarm of new fighters that offered fully 3D arenas and an abundance of violence. Street Fighter Anniversary Collection gives these gamers another chance to try Third Strike and it really is a joy to behold, from the flurrying/parrying manoeuvres mixed with fast paced deadly super combos, to the extremely well balance character set ‘ extremely satisfying to master indeed.
For a game released into the arcades back in 1997, Third Strike still looks incredibly good with some very smooth animation even compared to today’s 2D fighters such as Guilty Gear. Third Strike relies heavily on combination moves, which in turn raise your ‘Super’ bar. Once this reaches level 1 or higher, you can then unleash a super move or three upon your opponent ‘ linking these in with combination moves is devastating and with 19 characters including Ken, Ryu, Guile and the like, you’re going to spend some time mastering each.
Obviously, one of the draws of this title is having the chance to take it online to dish out some punishment to fellow Xbox Live gamers. Of the few bouts sampled over Xbox Live, I found no issues with lag hindering the performance of specific combos. The bonus of having the ability to voice chat whilst fighting rekindled the feeling of being back in the arcades in the 90’s, playing Street Fighter against random gamers.
The Xbox controller handles Street Fighter quite effectively ‘ it can take a few minutes to become accustomed to the 6 button arcade stick layout and how that’s mapped to the controller, but you do have full control of the button mappings via the in-game menus. Light, medium or heavy punches and kicks can all be reconfigured to any button of your choosing. However, for the ultimate split second control (as with any fast paced fighter) and to pull off the more technical combos, a good arcade stick is a must if you can get your hands on one.
On the whole, if you’ve played and enjoyed other fighting games on the Xbox or any other platform for that matter, but you’ve never played Third Strike then this is well worth a try. The fact that you also get Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition and the Street Fighter II animated movie thrown in as part of the deal is purely a bonus.
