Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers

Before we begin, some trivia that will make you feel old, crusty, and exploited: in its 26-year run, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior has had no fewer than 11 versions of itself. That is ridiculous. The franchise’s naming structure is so absurdly verbose it must have provided early retirements for many a paid-by-the-word gaming critic. Case in point: 2001’s “Super Street Fighter II X: For Matching Service, Grand Master Challenge”

If you’re hungry for some in-transit biff, and you’ don’t want the assault charge or to pay the cost of a United Airlines ticket, Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers is a damn good option. It’s essentially a gussied up version of Super Street Fighter II that offers redrawn Udon visuals (though you can swap back to ye olde sprites) and you only get two semi-new characters.

That would be Evil Ryu and Violent Ken, respectively – Akuma-ised versions of the classic pyjama wearers you already know and love.

Personally, we’re not huge fans of the aforementioned lick of paint. The artist’s interpretations and extra detailing of our old favourites look a little too plastic. In no time at all we reverted back to the eye-scratching sprites of yesteryear, and indulged in some odd colouring choices for everybody with the fairly robust palette editor. Hulk Zangief anybody? Coming right up.

Iffy graphics shouldn’t be your biggest concern, however, as Final Challengers has worse problems going for it. The Nintendo Switch has no dedicated d-pad, and so you’ll have to learn how to quarter-circle out your special moves with the analog stick. Truth be told: we were horrified at the prospect going in, but quickly adjusted to it in all of 15 minutes.

Same deal with the fact that you’ll need to use the diminutive little shoulder buttons of your Joycon to make up the full six-button scheme. We expected our reasonably-sized adult hands to become disfigured claws after one arcade mode run, but they held up just fine.

That said, if you do hope to get the most out of this you’ll need to eye off some of the more expensive peripheral options, like the pro controller or forthcoming arcade stick.

Two of them, most likely, because fights will break out between you and your second player. Neither of you will want to use the joycon half that has its stick set in the “middle”. That thing may as well be called the sadpad.

Final Challengers is pretty straightforward from here on out, except for the inclusion of an odd, first-person mode entitled “Way of the Hado”. With the two joycon halves in either mitt, you’re asked to bust out hand movements in order to initiate hadokens (punch two hands out), shoryuken (mimic an uppercut) and hurricane kicks (sweep both hands in a mini-circle).

Sounds like wish fulfilment and good times: totally isn’t. It’s the worst kind of gimmicky waggle, and we frequently got our arses handed to us due to dodgy recognition.

We were also let down by the Buddy Battle mode which was a much loved memory from our Street Fighter Alpha 3 days on PlayStation One. The basic gist is to allow two players to go ham on a third, juggling up a storm until Nigel No-Friends (almost always) loses.

It’s extremely amusing, but is totally hampered by a piddly little 4 stage length. At best, you’ll play it with your kids or younger siblings, because they’ll cry if you destroy them in versus mode.

In the end, Final Challengers feels like a nerfed version of Super Turbo HD. A pulled punch in terms of content and meaningful additions, that’s simultaneously a brutal slap to the face in terms of asking price. Steer clear of this like you would a Vega claw-strike to your nether-regions.

Score: 6/10

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