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Episode 386: Street Fighter II Redux (Patreon)

Published:
2021-06-21 13:00:08
Imported:
2026-06
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Our Street Fighter II 30th anniversary thing continues with a comprehensive look back at the game... but not the original game. We've already talked about that. Instead, this episode focuses entirely on the many updates and variants of Street Fighter II Capcom has created through the years, from Turbo and Hyper to Ultra. We also talk about the impact of the some of the variants Capcom didn't create... which is to say, taste the Rainbow.

Kat Bailey, Shivam Bhatt, and Sam (from Polygon Symphonies) join this week to recount the history (both documented and personal) of the ways in which one of the biggest arcade creations of all time continued to evolve through the years in response to play patterns, outside pressure, and the desire to refine a classic. Art by Shaan Khan, and edits by Greg Leahy.

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Comments

Michael Castleberry

Oh man... I had that SFII strategy guide also and obsessed over it as well. I definitely remember coming across Rainbow Edition at an arcade by my house as a kid, and it came and went so fast that I sounded like a damn liar telling other kids about it lol "Chun Li has a fireball and Ryu can throw fireballs in the air, and you can switch characters in the middle of a fight!"

John Learned

Great episode! While I firmly believe that Super Turb (ST) is a gold-plated all-timer, the group that feels that Hyper Fighting is the platonic ideal of SFII games make good points: ST's inclusion of super combos fundamentally alters the SFII experience for a lot of people, and since it's also a very janky game underneath the hood doesn't help its case. I've always felt that if HF is the "director's cut" of the original SFII, ST is just that for Super. Both are great, but the cult of HF believes that there's a fundamental purity that was lost by ST. To contrast that, I suppose, ST being the last "accepted" SFII tournament game is inching it closer to a video game equivalent to competitive chess, as Kat sort of implied. New versions have come after, but this one is encased in amber for a player base that have rejected these changes (for good and for bad). Like 3rd Strike, people are still work on finding new tech and glitches after all this time, and concerted efforts to bring in new players ebb and flow throughout the years, making it one of the few unchanged(ish) competitive experiences in gaming to still thrive so long after its release. Yeah, Street Fighter is good.

TeamVenom

Glad you guys mentioned the DOS version of Street Fighter II. Yes it was terrible, the music was off, and Dhalsim was hilariously overpowered, BUT it was Street Fighter II at home.

Virtual Balboa

Great episode! Thank you so much! When I was 13 SF2 hit me the exact same time as comics, anime, EGM and this idea of insider video game knowledge. I still remember the rush I felt when EGM ram pictures of Japanese frozen French fries with Ryu and the SF2 logo on the bag. This idea that there’s all this rad stuff in Japan that us Michigan folk will never see bummed me out for years.

David G

SF2 SCE was a game changer for the Genesis...but that controller definitely not $70. Pretty MSRP for the 6 button pad was $20. But, after spending $60 for a new game back then, an additional $20 might as well have been 100.

David G

Oh, another Mandela effect -- it's Champion Edition, not Championship. I didn't make that connection until 2015!

VanDiagram

I'm not a big fan of fighting games, but this episode really had my attention and interest. I remember when Street fighter 2 came out and how rabid everyone was. It eclipsed all other games for a good long time. I knew there were variations, but had NO idea it was so constant. Put a smile on my face and made me glad there are so many episodes of Retronauts to listen to.

Adam B Wheeler

This episode was great. In Middle School in San Francisco's Mission my friend and I would go to a couple different corner stores to play. We played more Fatal Fury though because the line was shorter.

James Krusling

I definitely remember those big screen projection style Street Fighter II machines, that game is truly larger than life. Great episode as always

PurpleComet

SF2 Turbo on the SNES also let you increase the speed to 10, you just had to put in a code. The code was the same as it was for picking the same character in the original SF2, but you had to input it super fast while "TURBO" scrolled across the screen. Hyper Street Fighter II was also released on the Xbox, where it included online play. Most of the time you ended up matching against a Champion Edition Guile who dizzied you in one combo then finished you off with the next one. Great episode! I enjoyed Shivam's barely contained excitement over each minute change in each iteration.

Kevin Bunch

To follow on from Kat's points, from what I've gathered talking to old timers years ago Super Turbo was very popular on the West Coast and in New York but rarely showed up in arcades elsewhere. The SF fatigue was real, but also Super was received so poorly and considered such a step backwards that most of the hardcore just went back to Hyper Fighting, so arcades opted not to bother with this new upgrade. This kind of persisted too - back about 20 years ago the FGC crew around Detroit was all about HF still but you'd struggle to find anyone willing to play Super Turbo matches. I don't feel like it was until Evo proper started setting the agenda for the US FGC (so to speak) that ST was adopted widely, the regional nature of the FGC before that resulted in some disparate scenes for specific games based on where you were. It's also a fairly recent discovery, but the 3DO version of Super Turbo is like a strange hybrid of that game and HF. It doesn't have the Old secret Super versions of characters, but it does inexplicably have the CPS chain glitch that only the first three SF2 iterations feature (which lets you chain a light attack into a heavy one and have it combo). Very weird release!

Cajun Baz

Big props to Jeremy for pronouncing Chun Li's name correctly. And boy did Shivam bring it to the episode. His 30 hit enthusiasm combo took it to another level. Mention of Oakridge and Eastridge Malls brought back a lot of memories. Thoroughly enjoyed the back and forth from all involved. One of the best on a subject I love. Man, I almost forgot that DOS port of SF2. I somehow had it on my PC for a hot minute back in the day but despite the fidelity of the graphics, there was just no going around the fact that using the keyboard to play sucked.

DarthObvious

I'm the guy who didn't even know there were arcade versions after Champion Edition, and have a little bit to add to that. It was the PS1 Street Fighter collections that made me aware that the other games had arcade versions. I was super confused as to where all the extra options I remembered from the SNES game went. They're all gone now, but the Wii virtual console had every version of SF2 that was released for any console that was there, as best I know. This includes Champion Ediotion on PC Engine/TG16. Super on Genesis even had online play.