Acquired: SFC Classic Controller

Nintendo; 2008

The Club Nintendo Super Famicom Classic Controller is a specially designed Classic Controller for the Wii, made to look and feel exactly like the original Japanese Super Famicom controller. It was released earlier this year as an exclusive gift for platinum members of Club Nintendo in Japan, and it’s a perfect treat for those who enjoy playing Super Nintendo games from the Wii’s Virtual Console.

I have always thought that the regular Classic Controller is just fine for most games, but it doesn’t feel exactly like the original SNES controller. The button placement is slightly different, for example, which became most noticeable to me while playing through Super Metroid. Additionally, the cord to connect to the Wii Remote comes out of the bottom of the normal Classic Controller, which is different from most controllers (where the cord comes out of the top). This particular controller is exactly the same as a SNES controller except for obvious aesthetic differences that stem from the fact that it’s an import (the multicoloured buttons, for example, were present on the original SFC controllers in Japan but were changed to dull purple and blue for the SNES).

Complete: Super Street Fighter II

Capcom; 1993

Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers is yet another entry in the classic series-within-a-series of 2D fighting games. This was gifted to me after the Detroit Red Wings won a game against the Dallas Stars near the end of the 2007-2008 National Hockey League season. Super Street Fighter II is adds four new characters who have since become mainstays in the series. They are the slutty secret service clone Cammy, the stereotypical Native American T. Hawk, the stereotypical Jamaican dancing kickboxer Dee Jay, and Bruce Lee imitator Fei Long.

Yesterday afternoon, I played through an entire game as Chun-Li on the one star (easiest) difficulty level. I lost five rounds in a row against Ryu despite this. The ending attempted to cajole me into playing on a harder difficulty setting, but I consider the game to be complete for the purposes of this blog.

Complete: Street Fighter II Turbo

Capcom; 1993

Street Fighter II Turbo is one of the many iterations in Capcom’s classic 2D fighting series. It seems like Street Fighter II is a series within itself, with games such as The World Warrior, Turbo, Super, and Super Turbo spanning across arcade, SNES, Genesis, TurboGrafx-16 and Panasonic 3DO consoles. Of these many similar games, Turbo is one of the better known and most well-liked, mainly because of its game speed options.

Tonight, while cleaning and testing my old SNES systems, I played through an entire game of Street Fighter II Turbo as Chun-Li on the two star (easy) difficulty level. The ending simply consisted of a black screen telling me to try a harder difficulty setting, but it was good enough for me to consider the game complete for the purposes of this blog.