Fight for Your Right to Fight Right

If Hyper Fighting on the 360 turns out well, you'll find Alex Navarro on there nightly, getting his ass kicked while he tries to remember how to do a Yoga Flame. Send him the proper button combination at alex@gamespot.com.

Regardless of the reasons, I can say with no uncertainty that I am stoked for the eminent release of Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting on the Xbox Live Arcade. It's a true classic in anyone's book (even though it's not my favorite 2D fighter), and the game could easily pave the way for MKII or others to be available on the Xbox Live Arcade. Either way, I'm looking forward to getting my fireballs on over the ol' interweb with friends and foes alike. The whole Quarter Match thing may just be a gimmicky lobby system, but I'm definitely down with it...anything that attempts to emulate the feeling of an old arcade room has my full support.

This is provided, of course, that Capcom is actually planning on releasing the right version of Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting. Let's face it, Capcom's reputation for releasing completely accurate, not-at-all-somewhat-broken-or-stupid emulations of SF II isn't exactly sterling. Remember that kooky version of SF II that Capcom stuffed into Street Fighter Anniversary Collection? The one that basically combined every single update version of the game into one silly thing? Where you could actually have matches between standard Street Fighter II Ken and Super Street Fighter II Turbo Ken, complete with different portraits and voices? Yeah, that was idiotic. What about the version of the game that was in Capcom Classics Collection? The one with the load times between matches, the inaccurate sounds, and the weird speed differences? That pretty much sucked, too.

I can't tell if it's just a matter of somebody at Capcom being a Rivers Cuomo-like perfectionist and refusing to just let a classic be a classic without constant inane tinkering that ends up screwing it up for everybody, or just of Capcom really not giving half a crap about Street Fighter II anymore, to the point of near-resentment.

Whatever the case, you'll excuse me if I feel a measure of trepidation when someone tells me, "Hey! Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting is coming to the Xbox Live Arcade!" That's great, but am I getting Dr. Jekyll, otherwise known as the proper, unmolested version of Hyper Fighting that I know in my heart that I deserve? Or is it Mr. Hyde, aka the broken-sound-effect having, load time-sporting, Super Street Fighter II Turbo-character-including dumb-assed version that will make me shed tear after tear? Hey, as much as I love Fei Long and that crappy announcer from the Super games, straight up, I want my Hyper Fighting as pure as a child's love for a parent--and I don't think I'm alone on this one.

I know I've been harping on Capcom's frequent butchery of its classic-fighting franchise, but they're hardly the only ones to frequently fail to get it right. Midway's been breaking the Mortal Kombat klassics for about as long as they've been making classic-game compilations. They didn't do such a bad job bringing Mortal Kombat II and 3 to consoles in Midway Arcade Treasures 2 (although flickering shadows and weird audio problems were pervasive), but the collection that was supposed to be the crown jewel, Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play on the PSP, was brooooooken. How do you break Mortal Kombat II and 3? Toss in some load times, make the game speed completely inaccurate to the arcade originals, and break the audio. Wireless multiplayer for MK II and MK 3 sounds genius, but when the game is basically in unplayable form, how is that fun for anyone?

And do I even need to mention the atrocity that was Mortal Kombat Trilogy? Didn't think so.

Other publishers are guilty as well. When Sega was releasing those awful Sega Ages discs in Japan (most of which became the Sega Classics Collection over here), they put out a port of Virtua Fighter 2 on the PlayStation 2 that was so heinous that you should be thanking your lucky stars that it never saw a North American release. Most recently, SNK put Samurai Shodown V out on the Xbox, and while one couldn't exactly call that game a barn burner to begin with, the version they released was the evidently inferior original version, rather than the updated Samurai Shodown V Special, which supposedly fixes a bunch of issues with the original game.

The reasoning for such a decision is likely to never be understood, and maybe that's for the best, since it would probably just make your head explode with rage and confusion.

As a man that has really only cared about a handful of fighting games over the years, it pains me on many levels to see my few favorites repeatedly tossed onto a disc with all the care of a drunken baggage handler at a New York airport. What's all the more perplexing is that many of these same publishers have significantly better track records of putting out decent emulations of all their other classic games. Hey, apart from the Street Fighter tomfoolery, I really liked Capcom Classics Collection. But why, oh why, oh why can't we, the people, get the right versions of these classic fighters? Is it like some kind of sick marketing ploy? I just envision some guy in a suit saying, "We start by releasing a completely broken version, then release a less broken version in another compilation, then a less broken one in yet another compilation, and keep doing this until I have a house in the Cayman Islands!" OK, maybe it's not all that bad. Maybe it's just a spectacular run of bad luck.

Whatever the case, if this upcoming version of Hyper Fighting isn't exactly what it says it is, without the detriment of audio caveats and obnoxious load times, I'm officially done with Street Fighter II rereleases. I'll just bust out my SNES, play me some SF II Turbo, and cry myself to sleep at night.

Next Up: Freeplay by Greg Kasavin