11. Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition (2003)

Super Street Fighter II Turbo was the last word in Street Fighter II for almost a decade, but for the brand’s 16th anniversary Capcom put together one last hurrah in the form of Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition, the last-ever CPS-2 arcade game.

Hyper was best understood as a compilation of all five preceding games. After you chose a character, you also had to choose which game’s version of the character you’d play as. The Guile from Super Turbo, for instance, was very different from Guile in The World Warrior

You might have assumed the newer versions were automatically strongest—since only the Super Turbo incarnations had super moves—but what about busted-ass M.Bison (dictator) from Champion Edition? Yep, he was as nasty as ever in Hyper. And the older-game characters generally did more damage and caused faster dizzies, so there were a lot of factors to consider. There were essentially 65 characters total; not all were viable, but it was great fun to throw them against each other, dream match-style.

This is the part where I say no one plays this version, and it’s true: 1994’s Super Turbo remains the community standard. For good reason, too, as bringing back all the old games’ characters also brings back some silly bullshit (CE dictator, early Guile, etc.). So Hyper’s not nearly as balanced (insofar as Super Turbo can be called balanced), and it also makes some esoteric changes that irritate, such as removing certain characters’ “stored super” tricks. Note to Capcom: Plz don’t fix bugs players actually like.

That said, Hyper Street Fighter II is a great choice when you just wanna casually bust heads with friends. Personally, I just appreciate that it saves me from having to remember the codes to select Old T. Hawk and Old Sagat in Super Turbo. — Alexandra Hall

Unhappy anniversary edition

The English version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo is a terrible single-player game, as the CPU opponents are merciless. The Japanese original wasn’t so busted, so it’s commonly thought to be a bug. Is it? Only Capcom knows.
Unfortunately, the uber difficulty is reproduced in Hyper , so don’t expect much single-player enjoyment. Also, 2004’s PlayStation 2 port looks all blurry thanks to running in an interlaced 480i resolution instead of the arcade’s 240p. Bummer!