Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers Review

Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers ticks all the reminiscent boxes that make me happy, as I remember times in my childhood, destroying my opponents as Cammy, avoiding Hadoukens from Ryu and having very confused feelings about Zangief (feelings that I am no longer confused about as an adult, bear-loving gay man). Loading up Ultra Street Fighter II on the Nintendo Switch is retro and genuinely fun to play portably with friends, but the price of this package is just a little bit steep for this particular hit of nostalgia.

It’s such an enduring franchise because of the tight mix between conventional punches and kicks, along with the supernatural elements like fireballs, electric shocks and more. Ironically, this version of Street Fighter II is more feature-packed than Street Fighter V was when it launched last year, as it includes an arcade mode (!).  While not the most perfectly balanced fighter, every character has their own defined pros and cons that make their trademark moves unmistakable.

The Switch controllers don’t feel as great when it comes to the actual gameplay, mostly because there is no D-Pad, making special moves a bit trickier than usual. This is even more noticeable when playing with two players on separate Joy-Cons. The Pro controller does fare much better, but when a fight can sometimes rely on a clinch move to get the victory, not being able to consistently pull them off is a little bit frustrating.

This is all fine, and as a reasonably priced downloadable game I would recommend Ultra Street Fighter II for the Switch on merit alone. Unfortunately, it comes RRP is $59.95 here in Australia. That’s a pretty tough pill to swallow, given the majority of included new features are largely cosmetic. No matter how drastic the improvements are, that’s an expensive price tag, and in this case the improvements just aren’t that drastic.