When Capcom Arcade first hit iOS, I was super-excited to get my hands on an iPhone version of Street Fighter II. I was hoping that Capcom would roll in the same special move assist controls found in their Street Fighter IV iPhone games into the Capcom Arcade version of Street Fighter II. Unfortunately, all of the Street Fighter II ports through Capcom Arcade have suffered from the same faults: the image didn’t take up the full screen, you could only play single player, and the special move assist controls were gimped to the point of being almost useless.
Capcom has decided to make amends and address a number of the issues found in the Capcom Arcade ports. However, they’ve decided to do them outside of Capcom Arcade completely. In a move that is sure to rub some people the wrong way, Capcom is upgrading all three Street Fighter II iOS games and selling them as a separate bundle on the iTunes Store. Is it worth the $3.99 investment, especially if you’ve paid for the previous Capcom Arcade ports?
At this point, there isn’t much else to say about the Street Fighter II games. Street Fighter II birthed the modern-day fighting game genre, Champion Edition allowed players to do mirror matches and play as the bosses for the first time, while Turbo upped the ante by giving the game a speed boost and giving all of the characters a number of tweaks and new moves. While these games may be upwards of 20 years old at this point, they still hold up and are fun to play. With that said, let’s focus on what’s different between the ports found in Street Fighter II Collection and those found in Capcom Arcade.
The most obvious difference between the two are the controls. In Capcom Arcade, the Street Fighter II games feature the same style of buttons as Street Fighter IV on the iPhone. However, the special move assist button in Street Fighter II was far less useful, as it only allowed you to trigger one special move of one strength. In Street Fighter II Collection, the buttons have been completely re-done. Instead of having one special move button, you get access to three of them, one for each strength level. This is extremely helpful for situations where a light fireball would work a lot better than a heavy fireball. The benefits are more apparent here for charge characters. In Capcom Arcade, Guile had his Flash Kick mapped to the special move button. However, when you hit the special move button, it locked your character in a crouching state until the Flash Kick was triggered. With this system, you can trigger charge moves just like you would in Street Fighter IV for iPhone, which is awesome.
By default, the game gives you access to four regular attacks (light punch, heavy punch, light kick and heavy kick), as well as three special move buttons. For casual players, this setup will work fine. For me, I felt gimped not having access to my medium attacks. You can set it up so that you get all six regular attack buttons and three special move buttons, but the screen definitely gets cluttered should you play it this way. While this system ultimately gives you more control than in Street Fighter IV for the iPhone, I still wish they’d translated Street Fighter II in the same manner as Street Fighter IV. Instead of giving me three punch buttons and three kick buttons like Street Fighter II Collection does, just go the Street Fighter IV route and map only the best normal moves one punch and one kick button. I would trade the added control options for a cleaner screen, but this new control scheme makes the game way more playable than their Capcom Arcade counterparts.
Now that Street Fighter IV: Volt has online play, it’s not out of the question to expect Street Fighter II Collection to have it as well. Unfortunately, its suite of online functionality is bare-bones. This does not feature online play, though local multiplayer battles can take place via Bluetooth. These all worked very well through my testing, though Turbo is the most playable of the three. Street Fighter II Collection also doesn’t feature Game Center support, but it does at least have its own achievements system should you be into that kind of thing.
All three games in this collection only feature two difficulty modes: iPhone and original. For those of you who pumped quarters into a Street Fighter II arcade machine back in the early 90s, then you’ll feel right at home with original mode, except for the fact that the iPhone controls will never work as well as a joystick and physical buttons, making the original mode brutally difficult for even the most seasoned iPhone Street Fighter veterans. My recommendation is to play it on the still-challenging iPhone mode, and turn on the “Critical Hit” and “Fighting Spirit” features from the options menu to make stack the deck a bit in your favour.
It’s good to see the fighting game genre heat up a bit on iOS. While these games may have come out two decades prior than the current fighting game champs on iOS (Street Fighter IV: Volt and King of Fighters-i), these classic fighting games make a run for their money. With that said, it’s hard for me to recommend this one over the other two unless you’re specifically looking to play Street Fighter II. Those modern games offer up an overall better package. Also, while the Capcom Arcade ports of the Street Fighter II games are sub-par, playing those games for free a handful of times on Capcom Arcade may be enough to satisfy your Street Fighter II thirst. However, if you’re a fan of these classics and want them on-the-go, Street Fighter II Collection is definitely worth your $3.99.
In Third Person 