The release of the Sega Mega Drive 2 Mini is an excellent chance for new players to try out some of the great games of yesteryear. It’s also a brilliant chance for gamers who were around back in the day to replay through a bunch of classic games which they’ve probably played on a dozen different systems before.
Super Street Fighter 2 is one of those games. Despite having played the game previously on every system under the sun this was the first game I wanted to dive into to test drive the Mega Drive 2 Mini.
Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers features a total of sixteen fighters for you to master, which at the time of its release saw this version of Street Fighter 2 double the amount of fighters compared to the original version. So as well as the original eight of Ryu, Ken, Blanka, Chun Li, E. Honda, Guile, Dahlsim, and Zangief, we also have Balrog, Vega, Sagat and M. Bison who were the original four boss characters which had become playable from Street Fighter 2 Turbo and Special Champion Editions. Then on top of that we have the new challengers Dee Jay, Cammy, Fei Long and T. Hawk.
When playing arcade mode you won’t have to defeat all the challengers and get a selection of opponents which will take you to the showdown with Bison. Along the way, you’ll also take on three bonus stages where you have to destroy barrels, smash a brick wall or demolish a car which is one of the most iconic bonus levels of all time.
The gameplay is still as fun today as it was back in the day with a tricky gauntlet of opponents standing in the way of victory. It’s not as an advanced a game as the Street Fighter games or other fighting games have become in the years since Street Fighter 2 released, but it’s undoubtably still one of the best. Nostalgia alone wouldn’t justify the almost countless number of rereleases Street Fighter 2 has seen.
This is one of those games that is easy to get into and have that magically quality that you’ll be happy to keep coming back to it again and again for a quick fight or to challenge yourself to learn the special moves of each character to see every ending.
Presentation wise, the graphics and music on the Mega Drive version aren’t as good as the original arcade version which these days is playable in a variety of ways including at home on an Arcade 1Up arcade machine. As well as on the Mega Drive 2 Mini you can play this or the SNES or other versions which may be slightly better in ways, but the Mega Drive version is pretty much as good as any. If you were a Sega fan back in the day you may appreciate the unique sound quality from this version, but you can take this review as a review for pretty much any version of Super Street Fighter 2 as being a great game.
Conclusion
Super Street Fighter 2 was and still is an excellent game to play. The characters, locations and soundtrack are all iconic, and the gameplay is great on this version.
Being part of the Sega Mega Drive 2 Mini system is great as the system comes with a Sega six button controller which was arguably the better layout to play this game compared to the configuration of the SNES controller or any modern controller that only features four face action buttons and relies on shoulder buttons which lose some of the arcade feel.
If you’ve never played a Street Fighter 2 game is perhaps the best one to go to due to having more characters and some other quality of life improvements over the original.
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