Reviewed by Dyson Turner
Street Fighter II Special Champ was an excellent game for
the Genesis and brought it back into the swing of things
with SNES. Before this game Genesis fans either had to go to
the arcades or play cheap knockoffs to get their Street
Fighter, this home version was a Godsend to most. It was
suppose to be like Turbo for SNES with more options and all
the secrets put in, which it was. Being an expert Turbo
player and Hyper player when I first played this, it came
easily to me. The moves were fairly simple to pull off
especially if you had a brand new 6-button controller when
this first came out. The graphics were great all the
characters were detailed nicely but they were a little bit
smaller than I would have liked them to be. I guess this was
needed because of the increase of speed, and the sharper
details. I think some of the added options made this game
fresher than the SNES version plus it was a whole lot
quicker, Sega utilized the speed it had in the system to put
together a great game.
Graphics 9.0/10
These graphics were great, all the characters had a lot have
detailed like they were in the arcades. The backgrounds in
this game looked good but some of them didn't have the
arcade flair or some of the graphics were noticeably
missing. This was ok it wasn't a huge problem. The moves on
the other hand were done quite well, and had just about all
the animation frames. The characters didn't' they didn't
seem to bounce around as much and have little facial smirks
like the arcade version did. Even some small things to make
it seem more arcade like were thrown in like the mysterious
Red Ken hadoken was added, even though it does no more or
less damage as a regular one it shows that Capcom was trying
to make it seem more authentic and better. The opening scene
where they show the two guys fighting next to the building
did look a lot like they did in the arcade, and just about
as realistic too, which surprised me because when this first
came out I heard that this scene was missing. As a whole the
graphics were dynamite and beyond most expectations when
this first came out.
Sound 8.0/10
The sound was altered a lot, I have to say but better than
most Genesis games that came out at the time. Even though
some music didn't sound as vibrant and loud and effective as
it did in the arcade this went by unnoticed by most. Some of
the music the more popular tunes that were in the game
sounded almost as good like Ken's music and Ryu's music. The
sound effects were pretty good as well. Even though when you
punched some one in this one it went by basically unnoticed
and not bone shattering like it sounded in the arcades it
was pretty good. The voices and sound bytes like Ryu and
Ken's Shoryuken and Hadoken, and Chun Li's spinning Sidekick
sounded well but not arcade like. They were sort of gargled
here and just not as clear as they could have been. They
didn't even sound as good as the SNES version; many didn't
expect it too anyway. So some of the music could of used
some more work, and could have been better but as a whole it
all sounded good, and some of the best music on Genesis, no
one can dispute that fact at all. The sounds and music
worked well with the graphics on the game and the sight
collision was pretty closely linked together.
Game Play 9.5/10
This game is for one or two players. You had your usual two
modes versus and championship. You also now had a group
mode. The group mode had two types of play Elimination and
Match Play. Elimination is where up to 12 people can play
sharing controllers, and whatever team eliminates the other
is the winner. Then match play is where each person gets a
turn the first person to win 4 matches is the winner. That
is if you play wit hall 12 characters. Then vs. is the
usually one Vs two-player mode best out of 3 this is the fun
mode and could be played for hours. Then you have the
championship mode, this is where you climb to the top with
any of the 12 World Warriors or even the 4 Grand Champions,
to see their endings, and how their story unfolds. You also
have the hyper mode where you can select the speed from real
slow, to really fast. I would take a medium speed and not
the fastest or the slowest its more fun that way. There
really isn't that much different between Champion and hyper
mode just the speed, and the color of the warriors clothing
defaults are switched around. The difficulty is adjustable,
but this is one of those games where you can't beat it on
the easiest mode. Their isn't any save nor password feature.
Overall 9.0/10
This is a fabulous game and one of the fathers of fighting,
it was one of the many different versions of the original
Street Fighter II and one of my favorite all time fighters.
There were many after this but not too many could compete
with the fun this one had. This game is best played with a
group in my opinion. It just doesn't provide the same amount
of fun if played with only one player. The fun factor is
through the roof, this is definitely a fighting game where
it's always fun to play again and fun to get through. The
replay value is high as well; you will want to beat this
with all the characters that are available to you. This is
an highly enjoyable game and I suggest it to anyone who is a
Street Fighting fan who never got it, even if your not
you'll become one after playing this game.
