Should SSF 2 look noticably worse than SF 2 SCE on Genesis?

[ComputerSpaceFan]

I tried out Super Street Fighter 2 last night and am noticing it looks pretty bad graphically compared to Street Fighter 2 Special Championship Edition but I am wondering if I might be doing something wrong.

 

First of all, I am actually playing both games on this Sega Gopher handheld and not an actual Genesis. I do own Street Fighter 2 Special Championship Edition on cartridge for my actual Genesis and I love it. In fact I love it so much I am looking for Super Street Fighter 2 on cartridge.

 

Or, at least I was until I fired up SSF 2 on my Gopher last night and discovered the graphics look really bad in comparison to how SF SCE looks on the same device. Could I have a bad ROM or could this be a Gopher-specific issue? The colors on the characters have no subtlety, they look like a lower res version of their SF SCE counterparts.

 

I tried finding any details online and noticed this amazing breakdown posted by Christophero Sly where he analyzes both the Genesis and the SNES versions of SF SCE and as great as his detail is, he doesn't cover SSF 2 in comparison with SF SCE.

 

Can anyone tell me if the graphics on real hardware actually look like each other (in other words does Chun-li look as nice in both SF SCE as well as SSF 2) or did Capcom need to make sacrifices when they squeezed SSF 2 onto a cartridge and therefore the reduced colors and details is normal?

 

I'm still on the market for SSF 2 but admittedly I'm being prepared to be disappointed in the graphics.

[Austin]

SSF2 on the Genesis wasn't as good of a conversion as CE. If I remember right, it had more slowdown, the colors were pretty dark, etc. Playing on a Gofer probably doesn't help much either.

[108 Stars]

It's true, SSF is a bit of a shame on Genesis.

 

SCE was a really great port save for the sound samples, but even that only happened because Sega forced Capcom to completely throw away the version Capcom originally had made. The story is that because SF II was so hot, Sega paid Capcom to bring SF II to MD; specifically the "best home version yet".

 

Capcom did a sloppy port of the CE first; there's footage of that on Youtube, it was not good. But it had the 4 bosses playable. But at the same time Sega bragged with their 16Mbit SF II CE, Capcom presented Turbo on SNES; which was 20 Mbits, and had everything CE had in better quality.

 

Sega was pissed, and because Capcom was paid to do the best version for Genesis they actually scrapped the entire port of CE and started from scratch; the result being the SCE, which hat 24 Mbit and more features than Turbo.

 

That story is just to show you that Capcom did not exactly make the great SCE on Genesis because they cared so much, but because Sega pushed.

 

When SSF II was made, the SF-hype had calmed down, and probably Capcom had the usual license agreement with Sega like any other company (I am guessing now). The result is a sloppy port from the SNES.

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Perfect info 108 Stars, thanks for letting me know.

 

Ironically I saw SSF in the local retro store for ten bucks so I took the plunge anyway. Luckily on real hardware the difference is not qute so bad afterall. I mean yes SSF is not as nice looking as SF SCE but the difference is not that big unless you're looking for it like I am. For example the soliders / pilots in the background of Guile's stage are wearing bland blue uniforms in SSF whereas their green uniforms look much nicer in SF SCE. And the small text indicating strikes on opponents don't look too good either, however the characters look very similar. Chun-li looks as nice in SSF as she does in SF SCE and that's all I care about.

 

So for anyone else wondering about this graphical difference, don't worry about it.