Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition

For a long time it looked as though Street Fighter II would remain the exclusive domain of the Super Nintendo, with Mega Drive owners merely staring in disbelief. In the end, though, SEGA got its portion in 1993 — and a hefty one at that. Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition became the platform's flagship fighting game and proof that a SEGA console too could handle an arcade hit with flying colors.

This edition was packed with content. It combined elements of Champion Edition, which for the first time let you play as the four great bosses Balrog, Vega, Sagat and M. Bison, and also allowed mirror matches of identical characters against each other. On top of that it added a Hyper mode inspired by the fast arcade edition Hyper Fighting. Players could thus choose both the pace and the complete gallery of fighters and get a feel for all the special moves they were used to.

A key challenge was the controls. The standard three-button Mega Drive controller was inadequate for Street Fighter, which needs six buttons for light, medium and heavy attacks. SEGA therefore released, alongside the game, a new six-button controller that became practically essential for this and other fighting games. It was an elegant solution to a handicap and a piece of clever marketing all at once.

Technically the conversion was very well done. Large sprites, decent animation and a faithfully preserved feel of the controls made this cartridge one of the best fighting games in the Mega Drive library. Although SEGA's color palette was more limited than the SNES's, the result was more than satisfying for fans, and Special Champion Edition became one of the console's defining titles.

In terms of development and the market, it was an important moment in the console war. Street Fighter II was one of the main reasons people bought a Super Nintendo, and its arrival on the Mega Drive — moreover in this rich edition — was a crucial weapon for SEGA in the fight for customers. Capcom once again showed how it could milk its giant hit across platforms and editions.

Compared to the Super Nintendo, which had Street Fighter II available earlier and in a basic version with a comfortable six-button pad, SEGA made up for its handicap precisely through content and a new controller. Special Champion Edition merged several arcade revisions into a single cartridge, so in some respects it offered Mega Drive players even more options than the competition at the time. It was clever positioning that turned a delay into an advantage. Anyone who picked up this edition together with the six-button controller got one of the most complete home versions of Street Fighter II of its day.

Culturally, this version cemented Street Fighter II's standing as a truly mass phenomenon that wasn't tied to a single console. Today it's a sought-after piece among collectors and a memory of an era when the arrival of a single game on a competing platform could be an event talked about in every schoolyard.

Why play: A rich, content-packed conversion of Street Fighter II for the Mega Drive with playable bosses, mirror matches and Hyper mode, ideally with the six-button controller.