2 of the best fighting games available at the time on one cartridge!
Both of these SF games were released after Street Fighter II The World Warrior,which many people say is the fighting game that revolutionized fighting games and it saved the arcade industry when the arcade industry was going bankrupt.
Street Fighter II Champion Edition(SF2CE)added 4 new characters to the character roster(which are the 4 bosses),and gave some tweaks which made the game feel better to play,such as more knockdown power from the Shoryuken,more followthrough with the moves(so it was easier to connect with jump kicks and sweeps etc).
Hyper Fighting kept all the tweaks that SF2CE added,but Hyper Fighting allows you to select different speed levels to make the gameplay very fast.Also,SF2HF gave Chun Li,Blanka,E Honda extra moves to either make them more dangerous,or less vulnerable to the Hadokun/Shoryuken tactic.Hyper Fighting also reduced the damage of the shoryuken,somersault kick to make the characters more balanced,and the characters have more colorful costumes.
What made the SF2 games so special was the delicate timing and strategy required to win.SF2 is definately a NOT a fighting game series where you could rely on button mashing to win.Mistakes in SF2 games were severely punished.
The SF moves are so memorable,and are still used today,such as Ryu and Ken's Shoryuken,which is a powerful,leaping punch that they can do that makes them invincible while they'redoing that move,and the use of an hadoken(fireball) was an art,because you use one to get your opponent on the backfoot.However,it was not all about special moves,because if you tried to hit your opponent with a Shoryuken and missed,it would leave you vulnerable for a couple of seconds,and the same applies for the Hadoken,and sometimes a player who used a Hadoken at the wrong time would end up having their opponent do a forward jump over it and hit them with a powerful jumping kick/punch within the short period of time they were vulnerable after doing the hadoken.So you will need to mix basic moves,special moves,timing,strategy if you want to win.
Each fighter had their own fighting style(except Ken and Ryu but their special moves are slightly different and it results in them being suited to slightly different strategies).
The characters consisted of Ryu and Ken,who are Shotokan pupils of the great Shotokan master named Gouken.Ryu and Ken are friends and rivals since their teenage years,Ryu is an orphan who Gouken took in and Ken was an out of control teenager who his parents sent to Japan to learn discipline.The shotokan style consists of the Hadoken,Shoryuken and hurricane kick(a move which allows Ryu and Ken to hover in the air and perform a series of kicks and Ryu is capable of knocking his opponent down with a single,powerful kick while performing the hurricane kick and Ken is capable of hitting his opponent with a series of weaker but rapid kicks which can make his opponent dazed if you time it correctly).Also,the Shotokan style gives Ken and Ryu some very good basic movies which makes them very strong all round characters.
Guile is a military guy who is after Bison(the boss character)who he blames for the death of his friend Charlie and Guile even deserted his wife and child in search of Bison! Guile is a very defensive fighter,and his somersault kick can be easily executed from a crouching position,and his sweep has good reach and if Guile gets close to an opponent while him and his opponent are in midair,he can perform a breakbreaker maneuver on them for a good amount of damage.Guile also can shoot a projectile named a sonic boom,which isn't as powerful as a hadoken,but it's in the form of a very wide radius.
Chun Li is a Chinese lady who is part of a secret organisation who is trying to stop Bison and Bison killed Chun Li's father years ago,so that's why it's a personal mission for Chun Li.She loves to attack through the air and is very fast.As you can see the game is not without a decent story and the other characters have some sort of story too and are not always there for personal glory.
E Honda is a Sumo wrestler who can launch his body through the air and headbutt his opponents,and slam the hell out of them and you don't want to get too close to him(you'll see why),and in the Hyper Fighting version,he can do a belly flop followed by a powerful butt stomp which results in massive damage to his opponent,and can connect from quite a distance away and makes him less vulnerable to opponent projectiles.
Blanka a wild beast who was the only survivor in a plane crash in Brazil and toxic waste caused him to mutate.He can make electricity charge on his skin and any opponent who touches him will get shocked(unless they counter this move with a sweep or projectile).Blanka can curl into a ball and launch himself at his opponent like a powerful cannon ball.
Dhalsim is a Yoga master who can extend his limbs and breathe fire.
Zangief is a huge Russian wrestler who wrestles bears and has a pile driving move that does a HUGE amount of damage.
And there's the 4 boss characters named Balrog(an ex heavy weight boxer who was banned from being too violent,he loves gambling and women and Bison offered Balrog a position as one of his 3 henchmen and in return of Balrog's services Bision tripled Balrog's strength with his psycho power) Vega(an assassin who is very fast and loves to attack through the air like Chun Li,he uses a claw that he can stab an opponent with,and wears a mask to protect his face because he thinks only beautiful people have the right to live),Sagat(a Thai kickboxer and the former world street fighting champion who was narrowly beaten by Ryu and wants to reclaim his title),and Bison(who wants to rule the world with his army and seemingly invincible psycho power.He can attack very fast through the air,has superior reach and power,and an attack that allows himself to set his body on flames and any opponent who touches him gets set on fire).
Balrog,Vega and Sagat work for Bison because if he is successful in taking control of the world,they will be part of it too,but it doesn't mean they won't double cross Bison.
As you can see,there is good variation in fighting styles and unlike in Mortal Kombat,all the CPU opponents use their own unique fighting styles.
The graphics did a good job of resembling the arcade version of these games,sure the GENESIS version of these games didn't look quite as colorful or sharp as the arcade versions,but still accurately represented.
You could fight in environments such as in Japan(on the rooftop of a traditional Japanese building and in a steam room),Brazillian forest,with a village and river in the background,U.S(at a military base with jet fighters and military people cheering,near a sea dock and in Las Vegas with a casino environment),China with traditional style stores in background with people riding past on bicycles,India with elephants in the background and in some sort of Indian palace,Spain with a resturant in background and steel cage to give Vega a climbing advantage so he can try to catch you off guard with a fast aerial attack,and in Thailand with Buddha's in background or at a palace with temples.
The music was great and suited the cultures of the characters or was great to listen to eg Dhalsim's stage had Indian style music,Chun Li's stage had Chinese style music,Thailand had Thai style music,Ken's stage had rock music,Ryu's stage had memorable music too.
Overall best fighting game/s for their time easily and contributed to making the Street Fighter series the best fighting game series ever(in the opinion of many people).