Welcome to World Zero - Reviews for the hardcore gamer

Once you get past the seemingly odd selection of titles included in this Street Fighter Collection, you're left with what are more or less arcade perfect ports of some of the greatest fighting games ever made. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that Street Fighter Collection would have been better off scrapping the second disc featuring Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold in favor of the first three (IMO, superior) iterations of Street Fighter 2; The World Warriors, Championship Edition, and Turbo. That Alpha 2 Gold is a better version of the best game in the Alpha series only lessens my disappointment somewhat.

But regardless of what could have been, it’s hard to complain about what actually is included in this collection. The first disc features Super Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. The version of Super Street Fighter 2 presented here absolutely destroys its SNES/Genesis equivalent. The sprites are larger, animations nixed in prior home versions return (such as each fighters backwards walking animation), and the sound quality improves dramatically, especially when compared to the earlier Genesis port. And at the time of this release, SSF2X had yet to see a home port at all. Loading times aren’t too bad here, and as ports, both games rate exceptionally high. It’s the games themselves, even in all of their arcade perfection, that haven’t aged that well. Now if you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of fighting fans out there that loves SSF2X, disregard my comments because you have arcade perfection in your own home, at the fraction of the cost that a JAMMA cab would run you. Buy this collection now. For everyone else, just understand that SSF2X is a very transitional game in Capcom’s history. Not quite modern, and not as overtly old school as something like World Warriors or Championship Edition, SSF2X (and subsequently Super SF2, which plays very similar) is a bit hard to place. It’s always been my contention that as Capcom continued to pump out new versions of SF2, they were messing with perfection. Sans Cammy, I don’t like the new characters introduced in Super, I don’t like the new voices, and even the super moves I feel are out of place here. At the end of the day, Street Fighter is still Street Fighter, and my nitpicking is mostly superfluous, but that SSF2X is the game that represents the whole of SF2 (as Super is so similar that SSF2X’s existence in this collection almost renders it obsolete) just kind of rubs me the wrong way.

The second disc, featuring Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold fares much better in my opinion. Though a relatively bare bones port, the basic gameplay is so solid and stands tall as the best the Alpha series had to offer. Sure, SFA3 had the better cast, but there were so many niggling gameplay additions and alterations that distracted from the experience in the long run for me. I’ll admit to this being a subjective thing, but my point is this: SFA2 Gold is amazing. Worth the price of this collection alone. That you’re also receiving some ace ports of two classic brawlers in Super and Super Turbo just sweetens the deal.

Rating	The rating scale in detail
8.5	++ Very true to the arcade, for all versions present here.
9.0	++ Classic SF2 tracks, with CD quality sound? Sign me up. - The new voice actors knock this down a notch. Sure, it’s not bad, but it’s just not the same.
9.0	++ Arcade perfect. + Alpha 2 Gold is as solid as Street Fighter has ever been. - The “New Challengers”, particularly DJ and T. Hawk have some really cheap AI. - The super moves introduced in SSF2X aren’t incorporated as well into the game engine as they could have been.
8.0	+ The same great character designs we’ve loved for years now. - Awkward costume colors in the SF2 games.
9.5	++ Despite my whining, Street Fighter is timeless, and with some good opponents, these games never get old.
8.4	+ Though not as complete as it should have been, Street Fighter Collection is still a must own for fighting fans in general