➤ Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers review 🎮

Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers is finally available on Nintendo Switch, and we got to taste it properly. The time has come to analyze the pros, cons and advantages of the latest (re) edition of one of Capcom's greatest masterpieces of all time, which returns exclusively to the Kyoto House hybrid

Di Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers we had the opportunity to tell you something shortly before the release, since we had analyzed La Via dell'Hado, one of the many additions to these exclusive reissues for the console of the Kyoto House. Now that the right time has passed, and that we have had the opportunity to cleanse the "exclusive" for good, let's go back to tell you something more about the return of Ryu and company.

Capcom, since the world began, has been synonymous with fighting games. So far so good, unfortunately too often someone has also accused her of being guilty of transpositions of the last second in order to obtain significant gains. A consideration that we could also make today: really Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers, however beautiful, however funny, however historic, is it worth 40 euros on Nintendo Switch? 40 euros is a lot of money, if we count that a triple A ne costs a maximum of 60/70. And it is undeniable that especially in the past Capcom has revived the restyle of its old titles by inflating the price and without making too much effort to enrich them with content.

We are not very far from the operation carried out with Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers. Some of you will remember that a similar title had already arrived a few years ago, exactly in 2009, on PlayStation 3 and that it was called Street Fighter II: HD Remix. From that title until today, what has really changed? There have been additions, two new characters have arrived including the gorgeous Evil Ryu, and a completely invented mode has been added to support the Nintendo Switch Joy Cons HD Rumble.

Enough to justify the umpteenth outlay and return to give her a good reason in the ring?

Ultra Street Fighter II: new warriors, same mechanics

We begin to analyze the title from the point of view of the mechanics, and then move on to that of the contents. Well, we must immediately consider that it is Street Fighter II for Switch allows you to escape from the grips, a possibility completely absent from the original titles and that completely changes the balance of the game, eliminating various offensive options from many characters. As if this were not enough, the title also contains significant changes to the balance of some fighters, which reduce the excessive power of some and improve others. In short, Capcom on this product has actually got its hands even if at the beginning you may have some doubts about it, avoiding yet another dry porting or conversion and actually trying to rework the combat system. The fights are for example slower than those of HD Remix (and the very fast Super Turbo), and the execution of the moves is slightly simplified.

Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers review

As for the pure additions, players will know well that Evil Ryu and Violent Ken were not present in the original chapter or in its subsequent re-editions. These are two characters predisposed from scratch right in Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers. However, these are also simple variants and not redesigned characters, so we have in our hands mostly the reskin of the usual Ryu and Ken (with some marginal changes to the peculiar combat system of the two famous heroes). have two more characters to play with? No: in the end, anything that offers a modicum of variety and some additions to the game modes is welcome. But is it really worth considering the purchase just because the reskins are presented to us as new additions? Again the answer is no.

Quantity is still an advantage

Undeniable is the fact that, a few more characters apart, the modalities of Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers are not limited to the simple Arcade mode. The latter is always present: once we have chosen our favorite character, we will follow him around the world while he will give her a lot of reasons with all the other characters in the production, in pure "arcade" style. But there is also more: to begin with, the Cooperative mode in Local (but it also works online). In this case we will have three fighters on the screen, and in the company of a friend we will be able to take out the bad guy on duty. We will share the health bar with our partner, and of course the opponent, being cornered and in a numerical minority, will not hold back from hitting us with all his might.

The online multiplayer sector, both versus and cooperative, is managed in an excellent way. Forget the lag, forget about the games that end in the middle with the "fall" of one of the two players. Sure, unless your sister runs to turn off your router to need the TV. Furthermore, a digital artbook has been prepared with various sketches of scenarios and characters designed by the main artist of the series, as well as real “galleries”. We had the opportunity to talk to you a few weeks ago about the mode invented from scratch for Joy Con controllers. The Hado route is divided into three sections: training, battle and survival. In training mode we will be able to become familiar with the various techniques of the famous Street Fighter warrior. The beauty is that we will have to move the Joycons exactly as indicated on the screen, really realizing the character's moves with our body. We will then be able to seriously launch the Hadoken (a bit like Goku's Energy Wave in Dragon Ball), first positioning the hands in a certain way and then performing the correct movement.

The title does its utmost in advice and gives us a rather accurate feedback about our execution, indicating what we did well and what was done in a completely wrong way. There are ten moves to master in all, and if you know the character you can already get a pretty good idea.

7.5 Unmissable with friends