Among most notable changes: four new characters enter the fray, refreshingly unique from the existing characters while still somewhat cliché and stereotypical (in other words they compliment the existing pack of cliché and stereotypes quite nicely.) Introducing Fei Long from Hong Kong, the almost obligatory Bruce Lee rip off who sports a series of quick succession punches, a flaming kick, and for some reason always looked rather small juxtaposed to Ryu, Ken, Guile, or Chun Li. Old moves behaved differently - Ryu and Ken's aerial hurricane kicks now follow an arc versus the straight line from Hyper Fighting, Dhalsim's teleport is more forgiving, Ken's fierce dragon punch hits 3 times instead of 2, and also a failed SPD from Zangief will generate a "miss" animation that leaves the grappler momentarily vulnerable. Old characters received new moves - Vega has a new attack where he glides off the edge of the screen with claw leading, Ryu has a new fireball, Balrog can charge across the screen and strike low. "Eight colors!" Um, bright yellow? Granted, theses additions are nice - don't get me wrong - but are they (alone) worth playing Street Fighter II all over again? Even a revamped SF2? Fortunately, the gameplay did receive alterations as well. "Ken's fierce dragon punch features fire!" So what? "They changed the look of the boat in his background." Yeah, and ? "A new scoring system!" How many players actually cared about their score? Not me. Upon playing, the game never convinced me of my initial speculation: that most of the highly publicized additions/alteration amounted to nothing more than superficial changes. Upbeat, cheerful, Street Fighter's master of ceremonies now sounds like a male cheer-leader, utilizing weird vocal inflections for no other reason than to spice up the sound of the phrase, "Round one! Fight!" (brought to you crisply by Q-Sound.) On the subject of sound - what happened to Blanka's voice? He sounds like a guy in front of a microphone doing his bad impression of a sick rooster. And as positive momentum builds up, I heard the new announcer and cringed. Upon inserting my quarters, I looked over all the newly drawn (definitely improved) more realistic character portraits - another good sign. Sporting an all new (very cool) attract mode featuring Ryu throwing a fireball at the gamer, SSF2 starts out splendidly. Oh, I did, but despite all the new additions and revamping Capcom made it was not enough. That's not to say I never played the game or that I never gave it a chance. After loyally and faithfully playing nearly every prior incarnation of Street Fighter II (CE not withstanding), Capcom finally gave me one helping too many.
Capcom had thoroughly gotten under my skin with this game.