I have been a Street Fighter fan since I was about 9 years old and an older friend took me to a local doughnut shop, gave me a quarter, and explained how cool and exciting it was that you could now play as Balrog, Vega, Sagat and M. Bison is this new version. My first character was Dhalsim, due to being able to express my extreme video game skill of mashing Fierce Kick repeatedly and still winning matches versus my lesser skilled friends. I later moved on to Ryu, and have used him ever since. As a Canadian, this choice was obvious. I couldn’t be caught using the AMERICAN character Ken… I could only be found beating him down.

Naturally, when picking up my Xbox 360 last spring, my first Live Arcade purchase was Street Fighter 2. It was great, but there were some serious control issues. I’ve played a lot of fighting games on console before, but never had I had the problems I had on 360. I found most online matches deteriorated not to who was the better player, but who could actually pull off a dragon punch in the key moments of the match. I haven’t played it in a few months.

Some time ago now, Capcom announced that (among producing Street Fighter 4) they are working on releasing Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo on Live Arcade. At the time I thought, “OK, I’m a SF2 fan so I will buy it. But why release this one? As a fan, I’d MUCH prefer Alpha 3 or SF3: 3rd Strike.”

Well after today, I am now more interested in this release. Capcom has hired David Sirlin again to re-work and re-balance the game. His job? Make SSF2T more accessible, more fun, and most importantly, more tournament friendly. His work could truly revitalize one of the worse installments of this classic game (hey, I said one of the worst. I’ve played Street Fighter EX as well you know…)

It is up for debate on who is the bigger Street Fighter 2 fan, David Sirlin or myself. He has competed in Street Fighter tournaments for 16 years (which date back to my oh so nostalgic day in the doughnut shop), and has helped organize them for the past 11. He’s written a book on competitive gaming, was in charge of re-balancing Super Puzzle Fighter 2 HD Remix (Officially the 2nd worst mouthful-of-a-title for a Live Arcade game, behind Every Extend Extra Extreme), and even represented the USA in the Super Battle Opera tournament.

I on the other hand, played years of SF2 in my basement, as well as in Wizard’s Castle in Bramalea City Centre. I subscribed to Gamepro, practiced the moves in their move guides on my home controller, then went out to face the world. I placed quarters in a queue, in order to not lose my place in line at the arcade, and proceeded to beat people twice my age. The difference between the fanhood of myself and David are obviously too close to call.

Those looking for changes in SSF2T and not an autobiography, read from here!

The first thing David has done is rework some of the controls of the game (Don’t worry, even as a hardcore SF2 fan, these changes are pretty good). Most notably, any 360 motion is gone now and replaced with a half circle forward -> back + punch motion (or HCB respectively). This will make characters like T-Hawk and Zangief more accessible to people.

He has also removed all moves ending in a diagonal up+forward or up+back motion (Cammy, Fei Long, etc.). These are now quarter-circle-forward/back + button moves.

Third, mashing moves are now more forgiving (this does not included the Peppercorn-Patented Dhalsim Fierce Kick mash), allowing for easier use of Blanka’s electricity, E. Honda’s Hundred Hand Slap and Chun Li’s Lightning Legs.

Dragon Punch motions are now more forgiving. Previously, the player would have a random 8-15 FPS to complete the motion. Now, players will always have 15 fps to do it. I guess the 45-57 hours spent practicing on a broken arcade machine while waiting my turn in line has gone to waste.

The other major categorical change to the game is character re-balancing. First, he has removed “exploitable” moves. I’m assuming this will include moves such as Bison’s Psycho Crusher to unblockable throw as well as any other sure fire victory strategies that are not simply being me. He has classified all characters in to tiers. Tier 1 being the regular tournament winning characters (Chun-Li, Sagat, Dhalsim, etc… I guess the Fierce Mash caught on, where are my residuals!), Tier3 being the characters that just plain suck (Cammy, Fei Long, Blanka, etc.), while Tier 2 includes everyone else. David is attempted to bump all Tier 3 characters to upper Tier 2, and buff up a little bit of the Tier 2, while leaving Tier 1 untouched (with the exception of removing the mindless stupid sure-fire victory strategies, again all strategies other than simply being me).

A full detailed list of all changes should be released shortly - which leads me to believe I will be adding Microsoft Points to my account in the near future.

Read the original blog entry yourself at the Capcom Blog website.