Does anyone REALLY like Street Fighter II on the PC Engine?

[kazekirifx]

I like the PCE version, but I have to honestly say it's not the best. While it has many good points, let us not forget the following flaws of the PCE version:

1. No multiple speed settings like the SNES/Genesis versions both had. (I really liked this, and I doubt the PCE could have handled it.)
2. That black space at the top of the screen.
3. Only one PCM channel makes it so the PCE version doesn't have multiple simultaneous voices

Personally, I prefer the Genesis 6-button controller over the Avenue Pad 6. SNES pad sucks for SFII.

[Frank_fjs]

The original SNES version (World Warrior) didn't have multiple speeds, it ran slow and had huge black borders top and bottom.

[termis]

SFII' though...there just isn't much reason to ever play this game again unless you are a PCE fan. Turbo was a much better game all around...

...If what you really want is to play some SFII regardless of platform, you aren't going to be playing this version...

... If I had to pick a favorite 16 bit version of SFII (non-CPS) I would honestly say that it probably IS the PCE version and pretty much because it's on PCE. I'm not going to pretend Super Turbo is a lesser game in order to justify it.

Nah, as shocking as it may be to you, I prefer CE over any SF2 (and looks like I'm not the only one here) - and this having nothing to do with my PCE port preference for the 16-bit era SF2.  i.e. When I boot up to play SF2, most of the times it's my saturn SF2 collection disc, and from the choices I have there, I'll play the CE version 3 out of 4 times. 

I do admit that when Turbo was in full swing back in the days, it was hard to go back to CE once you got used to the turbo speed, but after leaving SF2 for a good number of years, what I found myself coming back to was CE, not the turbo.  There are just things about the turbo version that seems a bit... "patched on", shall I say -- speed that now seems artificially fast, the new hodge-podge after-thought special moves, and even the default colors of characters were a bit off.

[soop]

No I agree actually.  Turbo was artificially fast, and TBH I thought the speed turned it into more of a button mash.

I do like the new moves in turbo, but all in all, the bigger sprites in CE, and the 4 playable bosses are more of a bonus to me.

[Bonknuts]

I like the PCE version, but I have to honestly say it's not the best. While it has many good points, let us not forget the following flaws of the PCE version:

1. No multiple speed settings like the SNES/Genesis versions both had. (I really liked this, and I doubt the PCE could have handled it.)
2. That black space at the top of the screen.
3. Only one PCM channel makes it so the PCE version doesn't have multiple simultaneous voices

Personally, I prefer the Genesis 6-button controller over the Avenue Pad 6. SNES pad sucks for SFII.

 SF2 on the PCE actually uses two PCM channels. One for music instruments and one for sampled FX. I spent a good amount of time tracing through this game (for various reasons), it's not impressive as the presentation leads it to believe. I mean, the code isn't super optimized or anything like that. It's just standard written code like other PCE games. That said, I was able to tweak timing in the animation tables to speed up characters. I doubt the code/engine as is wouldn't be capable of faster speeds. Hell, the SNES Turbo ran pretty fast (with the cheat code) and that was on the stock SNES processor - which is slower than the PCE's.

[Black Tiger]

I like the PCE version, but I have to honestly say it's not the best. While it has many good points, let us not forget the following flaws of the PCE version:

1. No multiple speed settings like the SNES/Genesis versions both had. (I really liked this, and I doubt the PCE could have handled it.)
2. That black space at the top of the screen.
3. Only one PCM channel makes it so the PCE version doesn't have multiple simultaneous voices

Personally, I prefer the Genesis 6-button controller over the Avenue Pad 6. SNES pad sucks for SFII.

1. The arcade only had one speed. Both the arcade and PCE are more than capable of pulling it off. But it's a feature of Turbo/Hyper Fighting, so you might as well compare it to SSFIIT. Why exactly do you think that the PCE couldn't handle speed? Do you think that it is weak? Have you played many PCE games?

2. The PCE version has the same exact same amount of black space/bars as the SNES version. The Genesis version has 8 extra pixels of visible background. The PCE version at least uses the black space to host the score text (and has superior fonts all-round).

3. The Genesis only has one sound channel and you can hear what it sounds like to split it for overlapping samples. The PCE can do 6 samples at once and uses a second channel for music and sfx samples. The only reason the PCE version doesn't overlap the voices is because the arcade didn't do it. Both the arcade and PCE are more than capable of pulling it off.


The SNES stock pad is the equivalent of the giant stock 3-button pad for Genesis. If you can swap in a Genesis 6-button pad, you can swap in a good SFII-friendly SNES pad. Like the Hori Fighting pad which is available for both PCE and SFC.

[incrediblehark]

I really like the pce version. the speed settings were overrated to me anyway, and i actually like the music. I like playing Street Fighter on every system it was released, each one has its own charms. If its not the arcade version its not going to be perfect anyway. and the Hori Fighting commander is a lot better than the avenue pad 6.

[SignOfZeta]

Dang. People do not understand SFII very well...kind of amazing considering it was THE game for a couple of years.

A few things:

There are five versions of SFII. The most popular one today is Super Street Fighter II Turbo (aka: SSFIIX) which didn't even get a 16bit home port. The PCE version is SFII': Champion Edition which was the least significant upgrade Capcom made. It allowed two people to play the same character against each other and the ability to play as bosses. It also had minor ballence tweaks but it needed a LOT more. I am not one to complain about ballence AT ALL in fighting games but this this is crazy. Furthermore, its so slow that all the unfair shit like re-dizzy combos are really easy to pull off.

All 16bit console ports are letterboxed and have resized sprites. This is partially related to shrinking the ROM size but also because Capcom's CPS systems use a weird resolution. Ask JapJac about that.

All versions have f*cked up sound, including the arcade. What I mean by this is that they all sound like the system they came from. As shitty as the Genesis sounds, it's more in line with the arcade version, and late 80s/early 90s arcade sound in general. The SNES version is much cleaner sounding but more it's own sound than the arcade sound. Etc.

All OEM controllers sucked for SFII so bullshit comparisons between Avenue 6 and SNES or whatever are pointless. It takes an act of God to achieve a decent combo on any of that crap. While Sega's six button is probably best, and Sega's three button the absolute worst,  the real choice back then was a stick from Hori, MAS, or someone else.

[RegalSin]

So we all can agree that Street Fighter II is an issue that must not be ignored.

[BigusSchmuck]

I don't see why people think the chip tunes are superior to that of the snes version, but whatever. Its a great version nevertheless, about the only reason why I would have gotten this back in the day is to play it on the go as I already had the snes turbo version.

[SignOfZeta]

So we all can agree that Street Fighter II is an issue that must not be ignored.

Post of the Month Award material right there.

[Keith Courage]

I definitely prefer the PCE version over the Genesis one.

[Joe Redifer]

I don't see why people think the chip tunes are superior to that of the snes version

Protip:  All music on the SNES is "chiptunes."

[arromdee]

There are five versions of SFII. The most popular one today is Super Street Fighter II Turbo (aka: SSFIIX) which didn't even get a 16bit home port.

I don't think that's right.  There are three versions that can be considered the same game with addons: SF2, Champion Edition, and Hyper Fighting.

The Super Street Fighter series wasn't even on the same arcade board.

[fragmare]

I like the PCE version, but I have to honestly say it's not the best. While it has many good points, let us not forget the following flaws of the PCE version:

1. No multiple speed settings like the SNES/Genesis versions both had. (I really liked this, and I doubt the PCE could have handled it.)

lol say what?!?!  the PCE could have EASILY handled hyper fighting mode(s).  It's the same exact damn game with sped up character animations and a few extra moves per character...  there's nothing really fancy or special about that.  Even the SNES's turd of a CPU (which is considerably slower in both clock speed and overall efficiency than the Genesis or PCE CPU) could handle hyper fighting just fine.  I'm pretty sure the only reasons they didn't include hyper fighting in the PCE version were a.) time constraints.  they wanted to get the game on shelves before the SFC/MD versions came out.  b.) ROM size/cost.  That little bit of extra code and the few additional sprites required for hyper fighting mode would have pushed it over the 20Mbit limit and they would have needed to make it a 24Mbit HuCard (with a considerable amount of wasted space).  While I enjoy hyper fighting and would have liked to see NEC include it in the release, i fully understand why they didn't.  Working on hacking/translating the PCE SF2' ROM with Tom a couple years back made me understand just how tightly the SF2 HuCard is packed with data.  There's not much room to spare.