Super Street Fighter II (History)

Super Street Fighter II
History
In late 1993, Capcom released another version of Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers. As the subtitle implies, four new characters were added: Cammy, Dee Jay, Fei Long and T. Hawk. The Super in the title suggested to gamers the graphical enhancements possible due to the new hardware (CPS-2) the game ran on. Though the game looked superficially similar, every character had in fact been redrawn and animations added to their repertoire. Some say the release of the game was made too early (rumors say that this was done because of the recent release of Mortal Kombat II) - several of the team working on the game later publicly stated that the Turbo version was the game originally intended for release. Among the major changes were redrawn character portraits for the returning characters, 8 available colors for each character's costume (likely due to a version of the game called Super Street Fighter II: The Tournament Battle that featured interconnected arcade machines where up to 8 players fought to win the tournament), new endings for the boss characters, an alternate ending for Chun-Li, and new animations and special moves such as a Red Fireball for Ryu, a Flaming Dragon Punch for Ken, and a new fireball animation for Chun-Li. New dizzy animations were added (such as angels and reapers), as well as points incentives for achievements such as performing the first attack. This was also the first game in the series to formally incorporate a combo system; the HUD would show the number of attacks in a combo and award points bonuses accordingly. Another improvement from previous games was the reversal, allowing quick recovery into an attack after landing on the ground or blocking, thus negating the opportunity in previous incarnations of "ticking" one's opponent (i.e., hitting an opponent with a light attack and immediately throwing during their block animation).
Changes from Street Fighter II' Turbo
Super Street Fighter II made several significant deviations from the well-established Street Fighter II' Turbo.
Characters
Super Street Fighter II introduced four new playable characters: Cammy, an English Delta Red agent; Fei Long, modeled after actor Bruce Lee; T. Hawk (short for Thunder Hawk), the first Native American fighting game character although from mexico; and Dee Jay, a kickboxer from Jamaica.
Sound
Super Street Fighter II featured an entirely updated soundtrack using Capcom QSound, sporting applied acoustics making for crisper music. Stereo sound was also implemented. Several character voices were added, giving each character a unique throw and knock-out cry, as opposed to the generic male and female audio samples of previous games. Moreover, the announcer was changed from a fairly deep voice to a clearer, higher voice. Guile's voice also changed to this new voice as well, but was changed back to having a deeper voice in later games. Chun-Li was given a "Kikouken" audio sample. Dee Jay's "Max Out" audio sample is "Slash" in Japan, and in subsequent games. Dee Jay has two voice samples "Did it!" and "Alright!" for his win poses in Japan, and in subsequent games. Cammy's Thrust Kick and Cannon Drill are Cannon Spike and Spiral Arrow in Japan and subsequent games.
Visuals
A brand new introduction was included in the attract mode, featuring Ryu executing a Hadouken toward the screen. The game update included faster rendering, improved animation, and redrawn character portraits. Each character had eight different outfit colors, to facilitate tournament play (which took place on a special version of the game known as Super Street Fighter II: The Tournament Battle). Examples of individual graphical updates are as follows: Ryu's fireball, the Hadouken, was redrawn, while Ken's Hadouken used the same sprites from the previous games; however Ken's Shoryuken was redrawn to leave a fire trail, whereas Ryu's remained the same. Other graphical improvements are present, such as a new fireball animation for Chun-Li. Each of the returning characters was given a fully redrawn ending, and the bosses received individualized endings with unique artwork, instead of the generic image of their faces with scrolling text used in Champion Edition and Hyper Fighting. Chun-Li's ending allowed players to choose whether she would continue being a detective or return to the exciting life of a young, single girl.
Gameplay
Super Street Fighter II played at a slightly faster speed than Street Fighter II, but nowhere near as fast as Street Fighter II' Turbo. This was seen as a step back by long time players who had been accustomed to the faster speed. Many gameplay elements were adjusted. For example, Ken and Ryu, whose play styles were similar in previous games, have more pronounced changes to their arsenal to more clearly distinguish them (e.g., Ryu having a much faster fireball attack and Ken having a multi-hit Dragon Punch). Dizzy/Stun animations were added. Grim Reapers signified a dizzy that would be difficult to recover from, stars or birds represented a standard recovery time dizzy, and angels represented a dizzy that could be escaped from quickly. Other subtle changes took place with most of the characters: new moves were added and parameters of the moves were altered, generally making the game more balanced than its previous iterations. The number of "re-dizzy" combos were greatly reduced. Such combos involve executing an unblockable combination on a dizzied character that results in the target character becoming dizzy again. Super Street Fighter II also established many new conventions for the Street Fighter series, including a combo hit counting system and bonus points awarded for first attacks, combos, dizzy recoveries, and reversal attacks.