Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting
Added August 2nd, 2006 by Sallizar
Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. We thought it would never arrive, but now Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting is available for download on Xbox Live Arcade. This was THE arcade game when I was in high school. Sure Mortal Kombat had the gore factor going for it, but if you were serious about fighting games Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting was akin to the Second Coming. So is the XBLA rendition the Third Coming?The offline mode is as good as any other port of Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting. All the standard modes and options are present along with all the characters we know and love. Or in Blanka’s case, hate. The online play is where you’ll be getting your return on your $10 investment.
Online play has a few options available with the first being ranked matches. You’ll square off against an opponent for a two out of three match with the winner getting a few more digits in his stats column. It’s pretty cutthroat already considering everyone’s had years to learn all the good combos by heart. There’s also an unranked “quarters mode” that attempts to give the player the experience of being in the arcade. Basically, you join a lobby and put your “virtual quarter” down to show that you’re going to fight the winner of the current match. It’s being touted as a “revolutionary” new way to play fighters online but it’s no different than setting Dead or Alive 4 to “Winner Stays” mode. Still a nice addition though.
There isn’t a great deal of variety in the online modes, but the gameplay is solid most of the time. I had a few connection issues joining matches and also ran into small bursts of lag. Overall though, Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting plays well on Xbox Live.
Lastly, the controls are going to be a love or hate experience depending on your preferred input device. One of my more Street Fighter savvy friends was complaining that pulling off a consistent quarter circle with the 360’s wireless controller’s d-pad was impossible. I suggested that he try using the analog stick. His response is unfit to publish. If you’re open minded about the analog stick or have an arcade controller you’ll do just find. The d-pad on the 360 controller, however, is just plain awful for fighting games.
Summary:
I understand that Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting is the penultimate classic 2D fighter. What I don’t understand is why it needs to be re-released so many times. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very solid version of the fighter and the online play is pretty decent. Instead of yesterday’s news, it’d be nice to see a high resolution, high definition 2D fighter on XBLA instead of ancient blocky sprites. I won’t hold my breath and you shouldn’t either, so go ahead and enjoy this old standby while I bemoan the death of a genre that still has so much potential.
I understand that Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting is the penultimate classic 2D fighter. What I don’t understand is why it needs to be re-released so many times. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very solid version of the fighter and the online play is pretty decent. Instead of yesterday’s news, it’d be nice to see a high resolution, high definition 2D fighter on XBLA instead of ancient blocky sprites. I won’t hold my breath and you shouldn’t either, so go ahead and enjoy this old standby while I bemoan the death of a genre that still has so much potential.
