Hyper Street Fighter II unveiled

In preparation for the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, Capcom has held a brief meeting to discuss a handful of its upcoming games. One of those games is a new Street Fighter II compilation, which is planned to release as a part of the 15th anniversary of the original Street Fighter II.

Rather than merely compile all of the Street Fighter II games onto one disc and release it as your basic arcade compilation, Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition will combine all the different versions of each Street Fighter II character and place them into one game. The game will use the character sprites and sound samples found in the last game to bear the Street Fighter II name, Super Street Fighter II Turbo. But you'll be able to go back and choose, say, Ken from the original Street Fighter II, before his dragon punch had its additional reach and his hurricane kick performed multiple hits. The character select screen, also modeled after SSF2T, will first ask you which game you'd like to choose from, offering the choice of World Warriors, Champion Edition, Turbo, Super, and Super Turbo. From there you'll select your character. Icons will appear on screen in place of the Super Turbo installment's super meter, denoting which version of a character you've selected.

In addition to the fighting itself, Hyper Street Fighter II will also feature a gallery mode, which will contain artwork, opening and ending sequences from all the games, and credits for the various installments. Background information on the Street Fighter II games will also be available, as will a complete anime feature, which was originally released in 1994.

The game's producer, Kenji Itsuno, was on hand to show off the upcoming PlayStation 2 title, and he also stated that a separate strategy DVD, showing off all the different combos and tricks found throughout the series, is also in the works. Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition is currently scheduled to be released to the Japanese market in December.