For those people looking for a faithful of the original Super Turbo, I suggest you look somewhere else, because this port is far, far away from what it could have been. In an attempt to make it somewhat close to Super Turbo, Capcom decided that they would stick with 6 buttons for the controls; L and R allow you to use your Fierce/Roundhouse attacks, while tapping A and B will let you do Jab/Short, and holding it down would let out a Strong/Forward. The whole problem is that it's really damn annoying to actually try to execute something like a crouching Forward on an opponent. While the two button scheme worked in a game like SNK vs Capcom for the Neo Geo Pocket, it doesn't work here for some reason; it just feels a hell of a lot different in my opinion. The directional pad is also not up to the challenge of being able to pull off some of the more complicated moves in the game, such as Guile's Super Combo. I find myself being able to do fireballs about 80% of the time, while Dragon Punches literally come out at random most of the time, not to mention you'll probably get a bout of sore thumbs if you even dare try playing a charge character. After a few hours of practice, I can see people adjusting to the controls, but they're definitely not as responsive as Hyper Fighting was for the SNES. For those who won't be able to get the hang of doing a fireball motion and hitting the L trigger, there is some hope for you. One of the options in the game is called Easy Mode, which allows you to fire off special moves and super combos with ease...a lot of ease. With characters like Ryu and Ken, you can throw fireballs simply by pressing forward+Punch, and Dragon Punches are executed by pressing down+Punch. Super Combos are even easier now, thanks to Easy Mode, in which you only have to press Punch+Kick to execute the special attacks.

As far as graphics go, the game is impressive, with huge sprites for each character, with almost all of their animation intact. I'm surprised they didn't even cut off any animation for the big guys like Zangief and Sagat, as they seem to have all of their moves from Super Turbo in the game. The backgrounds are also very good, with Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, Guile, Zangief, Bison all getting totally new arenas to fight. Unfortunately they're not as impressive as they were before; Ryu's stage is like his 3rd Strike stage except at night and Guile stage is basically just a huge fighter jet flying in the background. The character art is good though, especially during the win/lose portraits, and while the endings are only one picture and a bunch of text, at least it looks good. Unfortunately, all this hard work is marred by some really bad graphical glitches. At E3 I heard about someone making Ken invisible by attempting to put O.Ken, and I tried it out myself, and it's still in the game (not to mention I got a serious cramp in my thumb afterwards), as well as the sweat/vomit from characters staying on screen when you connect with a hit. But the real victim of this port is the audio aspect. Capcom cut a hell of a lot of voices from the game, and it seemed that they lowered the audio quality on the remaining voices.

Returning to the game are the above-mentioned 5 characters, along with Blanka, Sagat, Vega, Honda, Cammy, Dhalsim, Deejay, T-Hawk, Feilong. Unfortunately Balrog was left out for some reason, god knows why. Unfortunately, the AI isn't exactly the smartest thing in the world. Even on the highest settings it seems that Capcom implemented a turtle mode for the computer, because I haven't seen it play really offensively at all during the time I have played the game. In other Street Fighter games, you can expect the computer to at least attempt an offensive charge, but not here. I can't really speak of any character balance in the game because, well...multiplayer isn't exactly available to me right now. Unfortunately the game requires two ST carts in order to play between two GBAs, unlike many other games where only one is required.

On the other hand, there are a ton of goodies to unlock in the SSF2T Revival, which include bonus stages, hidden game modes (Time Trial and Art Gallery) and extra characters, respectively Akuma and Shin Akuma. Each added feature will become available by purchasing them with VS points, as featured in the recent Capcom fighting editions.

In all, is the game worth it? It depends really. If you're looking for a faithful recreation of one of the best Street Fighter games ever, you're looking in the wrong place, but if you're seeking a game that'll satisfy you for a couple of weeks, and will keep you occupied on long train rides, then SSF2T Revival might be for you. In my opinion, despite all of the negative things I've said about the game, it still is one hell of a game, and it's still Street Fighter, and will definitely keep you occupied for at least a couple of weeks, or at least until Capcom vs SNK 2.

· · · Reno