Super Street Fighter II: Turbo Revival

The Good
Super Street Fighter 2 revival brings back the olden days to the GBA. The translation has gone well, but not perfect.

The characters look pretty good, and are nicely animated and placed big on the screen. Stages aren't as detailed as the original, but good nevertheless.

The gameplay is pretty much the original, and that is good, but it's nothing like the experience of Tekken Advance.

The Bad
The sound was horrible. The game delivers a horrible track, with very bad character voices.

The Bottom Line
SSF2TR is one of those few titles on the border of being good and bad. It deserves a 3 / 5.

The Good
I think the last time I played Street Fighter 2 was in a local arcade about 5 years ago. So picking this up was one hell of a flash back.

The last Street Fighter game I played was Street Fighter Alpha 3, which I still play regularly and I regard it as the best in the series (of over 20 games!). So comparing this to that is a little unfair. For one, Alpha is much quicker, better animated and on a more powerful system (Playstation and Dreamcast, although there is a Advance version in the works).

So playing Turbo Revival was like going backwards instead of forwards. Not that it's a bad thing, since there is plenty of enjoyment to be had here. Graphically the game isn't all that bad. Characters are nice and big on the screen, and the animation has actually improved over time since I last saw it.

Such a tiny little cart has packed in plenty of features. A 2 player mode was of course important to the sucess of this, so I'm glad that is here. The other features are nice to play around with aswell.

The Bad
Here's where things start to go down hill. Since this is the Game Boy Advance, and so much work has been put into the graphical presentation, to me it's like Capcom forgot about the sound. The original music was way better then the stupid midi music found here, and character voices are far from what I remember.

Sound isn't the biggest problem, though. As Street Fighter is a 6 button game, the Game Boy Advance has a hard time in translating this, with only 4 buttons to work with. Sure, it says to hold down the a and b buttons for the harder moves, and tap for medium, but it just isn't the same as having six buttons and a joystick to work with then this.

I'm sorry, but I have to say it. Why release this when Alpha 3 is in the works, and so much better? Graphically, although it is just as good as the original, Turbo Revival is nothing compared to what's found in Alpha 3 (or any other current Street Fighter/Capcom fighter). Looking at Golden Sun and Doom, I'm sure more can be achieved for games like this.

The Bottom Line
Turbo Revival is nice for the trip back in time, and fun for two players. But for value of money, hold on for a while and see how well Alpha 3 comes out on the tiny screen. In the meantime, this is perfect for a weekend rental, or for those who collect Street Fighter games.

The Good
--> Great graphics, it appears that few, if any frames of animation have been cut. Original stages closely match their arcade counterparts. New hand drawn character portraits are very detailed.

--> Practice, Survival and Timed modes add a good deal of replay value to the package

--> All original characters + moves are intact

....in short, just about everything is here with a few exceptions

The Bad
--> a few stages have been modified/removed (ie. Guile's stage - now just a platform with a Harrier jet hovering behind), while some of the stage substitutions are interesting enough, I would have liked all the original stages, and surely the max capacity of a GBA cart would have allowed it.

--> the music has a tinny NES-like sound, and while nice enough, doesn't match the arcade or even SNES versions. Sound effects are low quality but discernible. This is somewhat understandable as I have heard that the GBA CPU can only focus on one thing at a time, so I suppose the music had to take a hit to keep the original graphics intact. Then again, Doom + Doom 2 for the GBA had great graphics and great sound and music, so it makes me wonder if it wasn't merely laziness on the developers' part.

--> 4 button control scheme makes strategic gameplay somewhat difficult

The Bottom Line
If you are a fan of the Street Fighter franchise, or just a fan of 2D fighting games in general, I can hardily recommend this title to you. The graphics, while modified somewhat are very close to their arcade counterparts, and the sound is acceptable. True gamers know that gameplay is what ultimately creates a fun gaming experience, not graphics and sound, and this title is overflowing with fun gameplay. I wish they could have made it arcade perfect, and it is technically possible given the powerful GBA hardware, but as it is, it is still a very good title. Portable SSF2T, what more could any 2D fighter fan want?