Customer Reviews

Street Fighter Anniversary Collection

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Anyone that remembers the Street Fighter II series in any way will most definitely want to get this game. A true homage and celebration of what was and is a classic of fighting games.

Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, takes all of the previous Street Fighter II games (Street Fighter II: The Wolrd Warriors, Super Street Fighter II: The new Challengers, Hyper Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II: Championship Edition and Street Fighter II Turbo) and gives you the option of match up with any of the versions of the fighters against another version of said fighters. For example you can have the regular Street Fighter II Ken who's uppercuts didn't cause a firetrail vs. the Hyper Street Fighter II Ken who can do massive combos and fire upper cuts. It's a great little gimic to see how well an older version of a character can do against the later games characters. Not to mention it's a great way to get all the games in one action packed filled Street Fighter disk.

If that wasn't enough, this also includes Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. Which was the third edition of the long awaited sequal to the Street Fighter II series. It has a great grade system that grades each battle you have at the end, parry system and a cool soundtrack. Not to mention characters old and new with some fine graphics. After you get done fooling with old school in SF II, you will be ready to jump into the next level with this game. Never before released on any system besides the now default Dreamcast, so this game alone makes it more then worth it and the fact that you are getting SF II Anniversary edition even more so.

The only drawbacks I could find so far is that the game, even SF III, is a bit dated by some of today's standards. But I think the true appeal of the game is it's nostalgic edge as well as the fact that it's just fun to beat up either the computer or a friend by mastering your favorite character. All the characters have cool endings too making it even more worth while getting through the game. Bottom line, the price is more then worth it and the game is fun whether you were a fan 10 years ago or never played any of the SF games before. It is a purchase you won't be sorry to make.

SHO-RYU-KEN!!

Over the past eight years, Capcom's fighting games have gone from making significant changes (Street Fighter 3, X-Men vs. Street Fighter) to moderate changes (Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs. SNK 2) to now barely any changes at all. Yes, with Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, Capcom has found a way to release a new Street Fighter game with practically no effort whatsoever. And we'd be upset if the package wasn't so much fun.
Street Fighter Anniversary Collection is basically two games on one disc: Street Fighter 3: Third Strike and Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary Edition. The trick is that while "Hyper Street Fighter 2" sounds like a game you've played before, the version in this package lets you choose any character from any Street Fighter 2 game up to Super Turbo. It answers the dream match up questions of who would win in a fight between Guile from the original Street Fighter 2 and Blanka from Super Street Fighter 2. It can be a lot of fun exploring different match-ups and sorting out which versions of each character you prefer. You'll spend hours reminding yourself of what the differences are. An obvious issue with throwing all these characters together is whether they will be balanced -- is it fair to put Akuma from Super Turbo up against Ryu from the original SF2? The game certainly is not perfect in this respect; you can be competitive with the characters from the older games if you know what you're doing, but we wouldn't recommend the game for tournament play. For those not hardcore enough to care about details such as character balance, it may also be disappointing to see that most of the different versions of the characters are very similar. It's not like you get to put a Street Fighter Alpha character up against a character from the Versus series -- all the different versions look more or less the same, so the appeal on a super casual level is minimal. But the thing about Street Fighter is there are tons of players out there that are more than 'casual' fans. There's a built-in player base that can appreciate subtle differences between different character versions, and for those of you who don't have to refer to the instruction booklet, this is a great title to mess around with. Including all these fighters is a nice way to let players relive memories without having to pick a favorite game from that era, since they're all packaged together into one game. If you're more of a Street Fighter 3 player, you can ignore HSF2: The Anniversary Edition and go straight into 3rd Strike, a port of the best game in the Street Fighter 3 series. If you've played the game before in arcades or on Dreamcast, it's pretty much the same thing here: lots of weird characters, great animation, a fun-to-use but difficult-to-master parry system, and the return of Chun-Li. It's a shame that neither game is playable online, since both would be prime candidates to play against friends over the 'net. To help make up for it, Capcom tossed in Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie for players to watch (though why you have to search the options in HSF2: The Anniversary Edition to find it is beyond us). So really, while every part of this package is well made and fun, there's not much new -- no online to spice things up, no new graphical upgrades, and a movie that's many years old. But we suppose that's the point -- this is a way to celebrate the series being around for 15 years, and at that, Anniversary Collection does a good job.

SFAC features Hyper Street Fighter 2 from Japan (which is a compalation of all previous SF 2 games) as well as a new game. All versions of characters from every previous SF 2 game (SF 2, Turbo, Special Champion Edition, Super SF 2, and Super SF 2 Turbo) are playable. There is also "Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie" within the game. This game is being released on PS 2 and XBox (hopefully GC as well) and is a must-have for 2-D fighting game fans, esp. Street Fighter 2. I first played this game more than 10 yrs. ago, and I still love it! SFAC has gotten very good reviews from GameSpot and other sites.

For old-school Street Fighter fans, no other fighting game series comes close to matching the greatness of Capcom's flagship fighter. The release of Anniversary Collection on Street Fighter's 15th anniversary should have had Street Fighter fans jumping up and down in delight. Instead, Capcom has delivered a compilation that, while worth the cost, is far from perfect.

Hyper Street Fighter II combines all five of the Street Fighter II iterations into a single game. Had each game been selectable on its own, Anniversary Collection would have been the best fighting game ever released. Unfortunately, all the versions are essentially crammed into a single game's space (think Mortal Kombat Trilogy here), and while human-versus-human battles are as fun as ever, the computer always plays as the Super Street Fighter II Turbo characters with all their super moves and what not. Worse yet, the CPU difficulty is set way too high on this game, so that even expert Street Fighter II players can expect to have difficulties on the easiest difficulty settings.

The addition of Street Fighter III: Third Strike to this package is nice, and anyone who did not pick Third Strike up in its original Dreamcast release should buy Anniversary Collection to add it to their library. Third Strike is practically arcade-perfect, and arguably represents the highest evolution of 2-D fighting games. However, next to the Street Fighter II games, Third Strike seems perhaps too evolved, incorporating too many advanced gameplay techniques and graphical geegaws.

For the price, Anniversary Collection is a must-buy for anyone who likes fighting games. However, fans from the Street Fighter II days who want to relive the old days are advised to track down the old PS1 Street Fighter Collection discs (and suffer through their long load times) for the best old-school experience at home.

First of all let me say that I am an avid classic sf fan. I own an Street Fighter 2: World Warrior arcade system, all original parts. I have every incarnation of the classics from snes to genesis to the ps1 street fighter collection. The best version aside from the arcade is the ps1 collection for these. The characters and cpu play exactle like the arcade in ps1. Not so for here. Here is all of the issues found after hours of playing. All versions- everyone- not so easy to do the jump in attack and throw combos, players are pushed farther back when blocking. All versions- especially classic guile- the percentage of damage is not even close to that of each respective arcade game. Classic guile- no glitches whatsoever, no strong throw magic sonic boom follow up- nothing. Classic guile- sonic booms with jab tend to come out at various speeds, so you cant set the opponent up with a jab sonic boom and cheap throw while they are blocking. Classic Chun Li- she is not nearly as powerful or easy to throw with. Champion Bison- His bicycle kick now pushes the opponent farther back while they are blocking making the follow up throw nearly impossible, damage is too little as well, while playing with him as well, sometimes charachters will get magically pushed a little bit apart as well. All versions of ryu and ken- now dragon punches are a milisecond or so delayed... very annoying compared to ps1 version. The cpu plays terribly cheap... not even close to the Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo engine as some say... the game is actually ridiculous and you will be pissed, I must warn you. A jump in roundhouse and sweep by ryu can leave you with only 40 percent of life!!! They really butchered these classics and my freinds and I stick with the ps1 version for these original classics... I really recommend going to an online auction and finding the ps1 collections, there are 2. I really hope they fix the countless errors in this butchered remake for the xbox for online play... oh and we get the stupid announcer only from SSF2, no option for the original one :(.
-That aside-

Street Fighter 3 Third Strike plays exactly like the arcade, I have it right down the street from my place and it seems to play just like the arcade. OH and there is no loading time between matches too :).

Furthermore, I would like to say that those fans of classic, powerful, Guile will be thoroughly dissapointed like me :(. C'mon Capcom, how hard would it be to release real versions that played like the arcade characters. Jeez.... The 3 stars is for SF3... great game. No stars for the hyper edition. E-mail me for questions, technical and non technical street fighter fans!
Im out
Chad

I love Street Fighter II, I mean I really love Street Fighter II. I have been playing it since it came out in the arcades, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, and I still play them on those systems. I own every version of Street Fighter II with the exclusion of Super Street Fighter II Turbo because I don't own a 3DO. That is the reason why I got this collection because it's included in what is called Street Fighter II: Hyper, which is like a combination of all of the Street Fighter II versions. But I am disappointed in it. Why you ask? I am a really good player, this is my favorite fighting game and I can beat all the others on the hardest settings. But the level of difficulty on this Hyper version is insane. The easiest even is hard!!! Especially if you are fighting T. Hawk and he does that HO thing!!! I want to break the disc!!! But let me say that when you are playing against a human player, all the fun and stradegy of Street Fighter II returns. But what I think is the best thing of the whole deal is the game I didn't buy it for: Street Fighter III: Third Strike. This game is excellent!!! Graphics, Sound, Challenge, and most of all FUN!!! It's all there! So if you want to play Street Fighter II the right way, play it on a Super Nintendo is my suggestion or play it on Genesis, or if your lucky to have the arcade machine around play it (you lucky Bast..), but don't it on the Hyper version and plan on actually have fun against the computer. But do get it!!! Buy it for Third Strike, it is well worth it.

Yes the battle cry for the anouncer of SF3. The SF game that should have been a hit, but alas twas not. What can I say about SF3, but WOW!!!!!!!!! I know your thinking, wait a minute isn't there two games on here. Yes, there is. But I want to mainly concentrate on SF3. In my opinion this the best SF game ever made. That is including SF2 and SSFIV. In fact if it was not for SSFIV I would be spending all of my time with this game. The graphics are great, the animation is so fluid, its like watching a high quality animated cartoon. The game play is very indept,and smooth as silk. It also has the parry system and the super arts, this game version of the ultra combo. The music in the game is the best in the series. Yes, some tracks are not as good as others, but some of these themes just are so slick. In fact this whole game is slick. This hands down is the coolest SF game made, the game just has a nice vibe to it as far as I'm concerned the best anouncer to. As I like to say this is the Miami Vice of fighting games. In case you don't know Miami Vice was a highly stylized, glossy, slick 1980's cop show that was very high on style. And to me this is what this game is. High on style and substance and thats rare. But, if you are a fighting game fan you need this in your collection. This game is that good. I know people complain that it didn't have alot of SF2 characters, and face some of these fighters are just weird. But, the good characters are good as any, in any SF game. Yes, I simp hard for this game. Trust me if your like SSFIV, do yourself a favor and pick this up. It is a hidden gem in the Sf universe. It is a shame it is so over looked. You can also take a trip down memory lane and play a little SF2, to see what started it all. Now see thats the win, win. Lata

As an earlier reviewer noted, this is not much of a collection, but it is an excellent game to have. Street Fighter 3 is probably the "classiest" Street Fighter series ever made - while the action is not as fast-paced as the Alpha/Marvel series of games, it is perfectly balanced and oozes "technique" from its pores.
SF3: Third Strike alone is worth cost of this collection, especially when you consider "the other game" included in the collection.
Hyper SF2 is an amalgamation of the earlier SF2 games (SF2, CE, Turbo, Super SF2, and Super SF2 Turbo) - you get to pick any of the 12 characters (+ Akuma), and you get to pick the exact version of the character, from any of the 5 games (assuming that the character belonged to the game to begin with, of course). So, for example, you could pick SF2 Blanka (from the original game) to fight against SSF2T Fei Long.
While the idea is not a bad one, and the controls work well (unlike the SF games in the Capcom Classics collection), this game is infamously difficult. In fact, unless you resort to cheesy moves (like Blanka's roll attacks), you'll find yourself losing even at the default difficulty level.

I'm a very big Street Fighter fan. When I first heard about Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, I was stoked. You should take the word 'Collection' in the title with a grain of salt though. This is a half baked collection, consisting of really just two games. The two games included here are top notch classics, though. Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition (confusing enough?) is a cool little collection of all the Street Fighter II games in one. However, they're all basically the same with some minor differences, and you'll notice that some of the fun little features found in the original Street Fighter II games, such as the car and brick smashing stages, are absent. Why, Capcom, why? Also, why cant you play these games seperately? And is it just me, or is Blanka's A.I. annoyingly cheap? Still, Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition is great fun, and even more enjoyable if you have a friend to play with you.
The real meat in this "collection" is the vastly underrated Street Fighter III: Third Strike. Although the first two Street Fighter III games werent included (SF III and Double Impact - again, why, Capcom, why? Are you going to milk us for all us gamers are worth? I guess so). Third Strike is a must play for any hardcore fighting fan, although the charecters aren't as good as the original SF II cast. The graphics are also pretty good for a 2D fighter - its a visual whirlwhind of 2D animation. That is what makes this worth owning.
Although this could have been so much more, its a great buy. You may rather want to purchase the Xbox version instead, though, since that includes online play. Now where is Street Fighter Alpha Collection?

I'm 27 and have been a Street Fighter Fan since I was 15 and started playing this in the Arcades. I played SFIII in an arcade during the summer of '98 and never found it again. I really loved that version and am glad to see that it's made it to a mainstream home-game platform. I believe it was also on some lame Atari system that failed the test of time.

Anyway...the info that's out on this game sounds GREAT and I can't wait to play it! I was saddended to hear that the bonus rounds have been removed. They were a nice treat and cool throw-back to Final Fight...from whence SFII draws many of it's cool characterictics. Speaking of which...when the hell is someone gonna make an honest and true home version of Final Fight for PS2?! What a classic that game was!!!