Super Street Fighter II: Turbo Revival Review for Game Boy Advance

Super Street Fighter II: Turbo Revival Review

Unquestionably, Turbo Revival is a perfect choice for any Game Boy Advance owner looking for some great fighting action on the go.

Street Fighter II needs no introduction, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival for the Game Boy Advance literally represents the ultimate version of the classic one-on-one fighting game. After years of balance tweaks, gameplay adjustments, and more, 1994's Super Street Fighter II Turbo became perhaps the best, most well balanced revision of the game ever made. After that, Capcom went on to do the Street Fighter Alpha series, and purists felt that Street Fighter never reached the same pinnacle of quality as it did with Super Street Fighter II Turbo. It's this incredible game that has been faithfully ported to the Game Boy Advance. Hard-core fans of the original will take note of a few loose screws in the translation. But these players and everyone else alike will find in Turbo Revival an excellent, timeless fighting game--one that plays great even with the Game Boy Advance's limiting controls.

For the most part, Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival is identical to the arcade version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo--an impressive achievement. Previous home versions of Street Fighter II, for systems such as the SNES, Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16, and later the 3DO and the PlayStation, all managed to successfully reproduce the extraordinarily tight gameplay and fluid action of the arcade game. However, all of these versions had varying deficiencies, such as missing frames of animation, truncated sound effects, simplified background graphics, or bad loading times. Yet these were a small price to pay for having Street Fighter II at home. Turbo Revival for the Game Boy Advance also has its share of minor problems, but likewise, that shouldn't dissuade you from appreciating such a great version of Street Fighter II not just at home, but on the go, anywhere. Besides, Turbo Revival's few flaws are offset by a slew of extra play options, which aren't terribly interesting but still serve to add some extra variety to the game.

Like the arcade version, Turbo Revival features the entire eight-member cast of the original Street Fighter II, plus the four additional fighters introduced in Super Street Fighter II. Super Street Fighter II Turbo also introduced Akuma, Ryu and Ken's evil counterpart, as a hidden character, so expect to find him lurking about in Turbo Revival as well. Street Fighter II and its predecessor made famous the six-button control configuration used for many other fighting games after. The big issue with this translation is of course the fact that the Game Boy Advance has only two face buttons, plus two shoulder buttons. Turbo Revival makes do with this limitation by letting some attacks be pressure-sensitive. For instance, you can set the controls so that a quick tap of the B button makes your character throw a weak punch, while pressing the B button a bit longer throws a strong punch. Basically, this system lets you have the effects of six buttons using just four, and it does a fairly good job of it. However, you'll soon notice that the window for quick taps is vary narrow--you'll need to practice for a while before you can make the button controls respond precisely to your command. Since the arcade version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo was quite famous for how it made virtually every attack of virtually every character useful, it's not really preferable to simply ignore some of the attack buttons in Turbo Revival, though you do have this option.

Besides the buttons, the actual control of Turbo Revival works just great. Most special moves, even the tougher ones like Zangief's spinning pile driver, can be executed precisely using the Game Boy Advance's small digital pad. Still, some moves, like the super combos that require two controller motions in quick succession, will take practice even if you've mastered them in other games. Actually, Turbo Revival offers an interesting "easy special moves" option, which you can toggle on with the select button. This lets you perform most any move with a simplified motion--for instance, you can make Ryu and Ken throw a fireball just by pressing forward on the digital pad and pressing a punch button at the same time. This should be helpful for players who can't get a good grip on the system's smaller controls or who otherwise don't want to wear out the digital pad by performing countless dragon punches and spinning pile drivers on it.

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