Street Fighter EX2

Sigh. It is with a heavy heart that I begin this review. There are few things more depressing than playing an unworthy sequel to a terrific game. Most people weren’t impressed with the first EX, but I personally feel it duplicated the look and feel of Capcom’s popular Street Fighter series as well as a 3D game could. Strangely, the very qualities that made EX instantly recognisable as Street Fighter are nowhere to be found in EX2.

What you will find are graphics straight out of an N64 version of Tekken. The characters have been texture-mapped, anti-aliased and Gouraud-shaded to death, lacking the sharp definition and vibrant colours so commonly associated with the Street Fighter franchise. The playfields are equally dreary, vast desolate expanses with lifeless backdrops pasted just above the horizon. Taking a page from the Nintendo 64 Programmers’ Guide, EX2 developers Arika tried to obscure the dull backgrounds with fogging effects, but this desperate act only makes the game look even more generic and indistinct.

If EX2’s graphics are merely weak, its gameplay is utterly inexcusable. Basic character movement is unreliable, and special moves are difficult to perform in the heat of battle. Don’t even ask about super combos. This puts the computer-controlled opponent at a distinct advantage, and that fact, coupled with the game’s extreme difficulty, ensures that your enemies’ victories will be swift and brutal. By this point it should be no surprise that the only traits Street Fighter EX and its sequel share are flaws.

Skullomania, a sure runner-up for the worst fighting game character of last year, just behind Urien of Street Fighter III: Second Impact, has returned, bringing along a stronger, uglier clone named Shadowgeist (hey, who needs Sakura and Blair when you have two versions of Skullomania?). The music is every bit as distracting as before, and Guile, a United States military officer, still mutters phrases in Japanese after winning battles. I won’t even get into the way he shouts “NincomPOOP!” whenever he throws Sonic Booms. Perhaps Arika thought it needed to completely overhaul the Street Fighter EX engine to justify a sequel; sadly, it lost sight of what made Capcom’s flagship series popular in the process.

The last word: Arika did a terrific job with the world’s first 3D Street Fighter game, so why it wasn’t able to follow through with a sequel is anyone’s guess. The home version of Street Fighter EX2 will probably be a big improvement, but until it’s released, stick with the first EX or Rival Schools. Everything that made the original a credible 3D Street Fighter, the crisp look, the responsive moves, the personality, has been sanded away here, leaving a generic, frustrating fighter that happens to wear a famous name.