Ultra Street Fighter II

• 1. Introduction

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  Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers arrived on the Nintendo Switch on the 26th of May 2017, resurrecting a fight three decades old. It is an updated version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo from 1994, itself an update of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior from 1991. Capcom built the release to mark the Street Fighter series' 30th anniversary. Critics met the game with a mixed to positive reception, split between praise for what had changed and frustration with what had not. What did Capcom actually change this time, and why did those changes still leave so many critics unconvinced?

• 2. Two Eras, One Cartridge

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  The Classic graphic mode locks the action into a 4:3 frame, replaying the original pixel art library the fighters have used since the arcade era. Switching to the New Generation mode swaps in high definition art, first built for 2008's Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. It stretches the action across a 16:9 widescreen frame. Udon Entertainment, an outside studio, produced this high-definition artwork.

  Classic mode also plays the original arcade soundtrack alongside the fighters' original arcade voice acting. New Generation mode instead swaps in newly remixed music and lets characters speak with the Japanese voices recorded for the Street Fighter IV series. Every control scheme on the Nintendo Switch works with the game, including play with a single Joy-Con controller. The console's Joy-Con controllers themselves would later become one of the game's most debated features.

• 3. New Faces on the Roster

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  Evil Ryu first appeared in the series in 1996's Street Fighter Alpha 2. Ultra Street Fighter II folds him into a roster that otherwise repeats all seventeen fighters from Super Turbo. He is a version of Ryu who has succumbed to the evil power known as Satsui no Hado. Violent Ken joins him, making his first official appearance in a Street Fighter game. He had previously shown up only in the crossover title SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos. This version of Ken Masters has been brainwashed by M. Bison and fights using Bison's own Psycho Powers.

  Akuma moves from a hidden character into a regular, selectable fighter in Ultra Street Fighter II. That promotion opens a spot for a new secret character: Shin Akuma. Originally a secret boss in Alpha 2, he can only be selected in local play by entering a code on the character select screen. Selecting any of the twenty fighters, from Japan to Brazil to the Soviet Union, is just the first choice players make before diving into the game's expanded modes.

• 4. New Modes and Mechanics

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  Grapple breaks give fighters a new way to escape a grab. It's one of several mechanics layered onto the Super Turbo ruleset the game is built on. Combo timing has been retuned from the original games as well. Online matches now run on a point-based ranking system built from a player's wins and losses. Arcade mode gains a standby feature, letting other online players step in and challenge whoever is currently facing the CPU. A local cooperative option called Buddy Battle, known as Dramatic Battle in the Alpha games, lets two players team up against a single CPU opponent. A simplified one-hit knockout mode rounds out the competitive options.

  The biggest structural addition is Way of the Hado, a first-person mode styled after Street Fighter V and IV. It puts the player in Ryu's shoes against waves of Shadaloo Soldiers, with M. Bison waiting as the boss. Players hold a Joy-Con in each hand to throw Hadouken, Shoryuken, and Tatsumaki Senpukyaku, earning growth points that power Ryu up as they go. The mode offers three difficulties, Beginner, Standard, and Extra, plus a practice mode and an Endless mode that runs until Ryu's health bar empties.

  Away from combat, the gallery mode holds over 1400 illustrations pulled from the art book SF20: The Art of Street Fighter. Players can browse it while listening to each fighter's modern or classic stage music. A Color Edit mode lets players build custom palettes for each of the 19 fighters and store up to 10 of their own per character.

• 5. Chasing Nostalgia

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  Capcom's development team mixed veteran staff with newer hires, some of whom had worked on Street Fighter V and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. By the 14th of February 2017, the studio put development at 50 percent complete. The game had been announced for the Nintendo Switch a month earlier, in January 2017. That announcement marked Capcom's first Street Fighter release on a Nintendo system since 2011's Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition for the 3DS. Capcom viewed the Switch's launch as a chance to bring a remixed classic back to a Nintendo console. The company has said it has no plans to release the game on other platforms.

  Series producer Yoshinori Ono explained the choice to revisit Street Fighter II as a return to the series' roots. Offering both a classic and updated look, he said, was meant to give longtime fans nostalgia while still appealing to younger players. The team also resisted overhauling the game's balance wholesale. They wanted it to still feel like a fighting title from the 1990s, even as they retuned a handful of aspects they considered questionable.

• 6. A Mixed Verdict

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  Metacritic, the review aggregator, tracked a reception critics summed up as mixed. Reviewers praised the updated graphics but balked at the $40 retail price. To them, it felt like an updated port of the far cheaper Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

  The Way of the Hado mode drew particular criticism. Critics called its motion controls poorly implemented, prone to confusing one attack input for another, and thin on content. The Joy-Con controllers themselves came under fire too. Critics flagged problems with the D-Pad and analog stick, suggesting players spend an extra $70 on a Pro Controller instead. IGN's review concluded: "Despite being the most complete version of Street Fighter II to date, the specific additions for the occasion just do not excite us."

• 7. The Sales Surprise

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  Ultra Street Fighter II reached number 8 on the UK sales chart. It placed number 3 in Japan, number 2 in Australia, number 3 in New Zealand, and number 3 in Switzerland. In the United States, it placed number 2 on the eShop, trailing only Minecraft.

  In August 2017, the Wall Street Journal's Takashi Mochizuki reported that the game had sold over 450,000 copies, more than Capcom had expected. Total sales have since crossed 500,000 copies. That stronger than expected performance is what pushed Capcom toward showing more interest in bringing further games to the Nintendo Switch.