by:	August 07, 2006

Oh sweet memories, how I cherish thee! Popping quarters into the arcade machines was addicting – I couldn’t stop as a child. I wanted to continue to try my best to defeat my friends in Street Fighter II if I had lost, and if I kept on winning, I wanted to see how long I could last without a loss. Street Fighter II was game that introduced me to the fighting genre and I have been hooked ever since. With 3d fighters like Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter dominating this generation of consoles, I feel that it is appropriate to look back at the past to see how far we have come since the 2d fighting days.

Capcom has released Street Fighter II on the Xbox Live Arcade after waiting several months for it to be finished. Everyone wanted it back last May, but, unfortunately we all had to wait. Now with is finally reaching the masses, it’s clear the demand for Street Fighter II was high. The day one sales were massive with Street Fighter II becoming the fastest selling title on the Xbox Live Arcade. With my download in store and playing several hours of gameplay, it’s time to dwell into my full impressions.

Street Fighter II on the XBLA is the Hyper Fighting edition. The look remains the same with some high-def changes to it. It does look dated after you put in a few hours of gameplay. They certainly didn’t become prettier overnight, so you’ll be stuck with reliving memories from your youth. If this is your first time playing Street Fighter II, then you are in for a history lesson from some of the best players in the world over Xbox Live.

The keys to playing SFII is blocking, countering, and throwing. Many players out there may find this a tad tedious, but waiting for your opponent to attack is the smartest way to play. Too many of the players out there are used to playing Raphael from Soul Calibur and repeatedly attacking until the enemy dies. Not in SFII, blocking and throwing are your best friends. Counter-attacking is especially helpful if you want to survive Ryu/Ken’s fire ball traps and uppercuts.

The controls are iffy at best. The d-pad on the Xbox 360 controller isn’t suited for 2d gaming. It’s definitely harder to perform Ryu’s fireballs, Sagat’s leaping uppercut, and Guile’s sonic boom with the d-pad that is offered. There are only four face buttons of course, so you’ll also be stuck to using the triggers and bumpers for your heavy attacks.

How do the characters hold up? Well 12 characters are in the game, including the four bosses (Balrog, Sagat, Vega, and M. Bison). Online, the majority of the players use Ryu and Ken. It’s a shame since the diversity of matches isn’t as large of a number as I would have had hoped.