When the Switch was first fully unveiled, many games were shown off to be coming to the system. One such game was Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers, and it proved a bit divisive at first. Many were concerned that this was just another release of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, which itself was a game that had a mixed reception. As more information came out, however, fans saw this was more than just a quick cash in and was actually a definitive version of the classic game.
While HD Remix had a very controversial rebalance that many felt through off the competitive nature of the game, Ultra Street Fighter II The Final Challengers was different. Every aspect of the fighting l was given a well thought out rebalance designed to be extremely competitive and appeal to long time fans, and address the complaints of HD remix while improving things in new ways. This is not even getting into the two new characters that were added to the game. It should be noted though, that the new characters are not brand new of course, as Evil Ryu is a staple of the later games, and while this is the Street Fighter debut of Violent Ken, he came from the SNK vs Capcom games.
While some complained that the HD visuals from HD remix returned along with the new music, for some reason they are more bearable here. It feels as if the visuals and music were tweaked just enough to make things look smoother and not as static. Of course, they are only optional here and classic visuals and sound can be used instead for those who prefer that style. Ultra Street Fighter II thus manages to both help give older fans something they want, and give new fans updated visuals that might appeal to them. It is a delicate balance, but I think it is handled well here.
Where the game falls short is some of the new content in the form of Way of the Hado mode. This can best be described as a bit of a first-person target shooting mode. It is not bad so much as awkward and a bit of a forced gimmick to make use of the Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons. It is good for a quick distraction here and there, but I do not rather like it as part of the game. A new mode I do like that has been added though is buddy battle, which returns from the Alpha series. This mode allows two players to fight against a CPU opponent and is far more challenging than you might think. Another nice touch is that the game has some interesting control options. You can choose both simplified controls if you are a newcomer to fighting games, and standard controls if you are a long time player of the genre. There are other modes as well, like One Hit KO which is nice to fool around with for a while at a time.
A big bonus to the game is the inclusion of a massive gallery mode and music player, as well as color editing for the characters. Capcom went out of their way to make this feel like a complete package, and while Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection has come out since on Switch, I feel this game is also very much worth playing. Yes, the online is not the best, but I have still been able to find matches recently with no issues and have had fun while doing so.
If you are a fighting game fan who owns a Switch, you owe it to yourself to at least check this game out on the system at least once. It is far better than it has any right to be.