Review: 'Super Street Fighter II: Turbo Revival'

From...

By Uncle Dust

(IDG) -- The king of all fighting game series makes an impressive debut on the Game Boy Advance with "Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival." Beautiful graphics, incredibly fast gameplay and plenty of single-player action make this the ultimate portable fighter.

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Revival of the Fittest

Choosing from over 16 of the original "Street Fighter" cast -- no "SFIII" or "Alpha" characters here -- you battle in the classic one-on-one style with three turbo speeds and the "beat-up-the-car" and "barrel-busting" mini-games.

You can also unlock several cool single-player modes, like survival, timed attack, beat the bosses, and fight Akuma -- but this game is best when you're battling another player via the link cable.

The 2D sprites are smoothly animated and the backgrounds are awesomely detailed as the GBA's wide screen is filled to the edges with frantic action. Controls are dead-on with a simple four-button setup (as in "Marvel vs. Capcom 2"), and the GBA is reminiscent of the old Super NES controller (hopefully the GBA shoulder buttons will hold out).

Big-handed gamers, however, may find their fighting endurance severely shortened by the minute size of the GBA -- i.e., "hand cramp." The soundtrack is standard "SF" fare, but some sounds are distorted, while other small bits are missing.

Power of the pocket

This game brings you back to a time when "Street Fighter" was the unrivalled king of the fighting genre, and now the series will reign again on the GBA. "Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival" is so good that it will easily make diehard pocket fighters forget all about the great genre titles on the short-lived "Neo Geo Pocket Color."