Street Fighter 2 – SNES vs Megadrive Head-to-head

Street Fighter 2 was one of the biggest conversion battles in the early 90’s, World Warrior first hit the SNES in 1992, leaving SEGA Megadrive fans jealous.

I remember being an Amiga and Megadrive owner at the time with only a bad conversion to play on Commodore’s computer and Fatal Fury being the closest thing on my SEGA console.

16-BIT EXCLUSIVITY WARS

Nintendo had a policy that meant any game released on it’s console would be exclusive to it. This was why World Warrior never made it to other rival consoles, only computers and the PC Engine saw the Championship Edition with the bosses as playable characters.

Capcom were developing Street Fighter 2: Turbo on the SNES, meaning the already in development Megadrive version got canned, in favour of an enhanced Championship Edition called Special Champion Edition.

There are Megadrive roms in the wild of a Championship Edition that was in the early stages of being transformed into a Turbo Edition.

When 1993 came around, so did the news all SEGA fans had been waiting for, Street Fighter 2: Special Champion Edition was coming to Megadrive before Christmas.

The SNES version, Street Fighter 2 Turbo had already launched to huge success in July for Japan and August for Europe and North America.

LET THE STREET FIGHTER WARS BEGIN!

With a new Street Fighter 2 game out on two of the biggest 16-bit machines of the day. The SEGA/Nintendo fan boy arguments began, which was the better conversion?

SIX BUTTON PADS

The SNES had the advantage here, already having a six button gamepad. You likely to have battered, bitten and thrown in anger playing the original World Warrior version.

Megadrive owners however would have to either press START to switch between Punch and Kick on their three button pads.

But knowing this would be an issue, SEGA launched a reasonbally priced £14.99 six button gamepad. This Megadrive owners an experience similar to their Nintendo rivals.