Ultra Street Fighter 2 review by Tyson
Overall
Buy
Street Fighter 2 has been one of my favorite fighting games since the 16 bit console era and I was super happy to hear about it coming to the Nintendo Switch. While some may complain about the 40 dollar price it still is cheaper then many other HD ports or remakes that other consoles are selling. If you are a fighting game fan or looking for a fun multiplayer game then I would recommend picking up Ultra Street Fighter 2.
Gameplay
I have never found the Street Fighter games to have the best stories and Ultra Street Fighter 2 sadly doesn't do much to improve on this. The story still centers around a bunch of fighters gathering together in a fighting tournament and for them to come out on top. Though each character does have a specific reason to be there such as Ryu wanting to test his fighting skills or Chun-Li entering to defeat M. Bison so she can avenge her father.
Thankfully the fighting mechanics are not as weak as the games story. Ultra Street Fighter 2 still uses the same setup that the previous Street Fighter 2 versions used. You have a weak, medium, and strong punch and kicks. Along with those you can mix in movement commands to preform special moves like throwing a fireball or sending your character kicking across the screen. These special moves add a lot to the game and very fun to use. The only downside though is that it is easy to beat the A.I. controlled characters by spamming certain special moves. Along with the special moves you can perform combos by hitting an opponent with well time attacks. These can easily let you get in a few hits until your opponent can block or counter your attacks.
While there isn't a lot of gameplay modes here at least many of them are lots of fun. You have the arcade mode where you fight a series of opponents then get rewarding with a character specific ending. You can do a VS mode against another player locally or online or even just fighting against a A.I. controlled character. I was surprised how quickly the online modes would match me up with an other player. I generally never had to wait more then a few seconds to find a match. Though once I got into a match I noticed they all had some kind of latency issues which was disappointing. Some matches would have second long freeze once or twice during the match while others would be super hard to play due to constant freezing and stuttering due to the latency.
I do need to mention the worst mode of this game and it is the Way of the Hado mode. This mode has you playing as Ryu and using the motion controls of the Joy-Cons to attack various Shadaloo forces. While this mode in theory sounds well it ends up falling apart in practice. The biggest flaw that kills any enjoyment from this mode is the horrible motion controls. Not only did I find it tiring trying to perform the same motion gesture over and over again but the game also has a horrible time trying to detect what motion you were trying to make. Many times the game would mistakenly perform another special move or simply do nothing at all as I played through this mode. This is a real shame since the RPG elements where you can increase Ryu's stats such as having more health or increasing your damage is a cool gameplay mechanic.
Control
While Ultra Street Fighter 2 supports many different control setups they are all flawed in some way. You can play with a single Joy-Con, or use both Joy-Cons as one controller, or even use the Pro controller. Using the Joy-Cons works better then I thought they would but using the analog or buttons for character movement never felt that great. Even the Pro controllers directional pad doesn't feel as smooth as it should be. Each of the control options made movement a bit flawed as at times I would jump when I wanted to walk back or trying to do some specials moves are pain with by using just the Joy-Cons buttons or analog stick.
Graphics
I liked how Ultra Street Fighter 2 uses two different graphical modes. You can play the game using the HD sprites from the Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix release from years ago or you can use the arcade original sprites. Each graphic mode ran smoothly and I really liked that.
Sound
I also enjoyed the sound just as much as the graphics. You can use the older arcade music and sound effects or use a new redone music and sound effects. The original voices and background music sound great and brings back a lot of nostalgic feels but I didn't enjoy some of the new redone background music and character voices. Thankfully this game supports a setup that everyone can enjoy.