Super Street Fighter II Turbo (Arcade)

Super Street Fighter II Turbo was another tweak/release/whatever of Street Fighter II, and was pretty much the definitive version of the game (at the time). This entry in the series marks the first appearance of the popular hidden Ryu head swap character, Akuma (Gouki in Japan). It was also the first fighting game to use Super Combos.

Earlier Titles


An unused subtitle and a "Z" intended for the main logo are present in the data. The Ultimate Championship subtitle was seen in an early promo (below), while the Z may be an earlier English title (before The Ultimate Championship) or an earlier title for the Japanese version.

This mockup title screen shows how the Z would've looked on top of the normal title.



Alternate World Map
An alternate, simpler world map backdrop (similar to SSF2) exists unused in the graphics data.

Unused Akuma Frames
New hidden character Akuma has several unused frames of animation, which would later be used in X-Men: Children of the Atom.

A normal Hadouken windup like Ryu's and Ken's. In the final game he does his trademark bowlegged-stance, then goes straight to the outstretched arm pose.

An extra frame intended for the beginning of his far standing hard kick.

Two frames intended for the startup and recovery of his vertical jumping light and medium kicks.

Frames for Ken's rolling throw.

A unique electrocution sprite, with Akuma's characteristic topknot. In the final game, he borrows Ryu and Ken's. This likely went unused because it isn't properly indexed to fit the palette electrocuted sprites use, instead seemingly being indexed to fit Akuma's normal palette.

Interestingly, dizzied sprites for Akuma do not exist at all. He is the only character in the game that cannot be dizzied, but since this is an otherwise global mechanic and his sprites are mostly modified from Ryu and Ken, it might be reasonable to expect that dizzied sprites for Akuma exist...but they don't.

Alternate Hooligan Combination Animation
Sprites for an unused variant of Cammy's Hooligan Combination exist in the raw graphics data. Here she spins on a vertical axis rather than a horizontal one. No associated tilemaps or animation data seem to exist.

Dhalsim Horizontal Drill Kick
Along with the animations for the newly-introduced sharp and shallow-angled variants of Dhalsim's drill kick exists an animation of a horizontally-oriented version (which was made by slightly redrawing the animation of his head drill attack). The animation has no attack box assigned and has the same vulnerability boxes as the medium-angled drill kick, implying it was abandoned fairly early in the development process.

Alternate Win Icons
8 different styles of win icons exist unused in the graphic data.

Alternate Super Meter Effect
Special sprites for a full super meter effect go unused in the graphics data. The finished game simply uses the game's standard font and an electricity effect from the title screen. What it might have been intended to look like in action.

Alternate "K.O." Icons
Several different alternate versions of the "K.O." icon for the players' lifebars exist unused. The final game simply uses the same K.O. icon from Super Street Fighter II.

They were likely intended to flash like this upon a character's life becoming low, like the one actually used in-game.

"Turbo" Font
The "TURBO" in the game's title screen is actually formed from a font set, the rest of which goes unused.

"The League Battle"
The previous entry in the series had a special variant subtitled "The Tournament Battle" which allowed 4 networked cabinets to be used for 8 player tournaments. It would appear that a similar variant was planned for this game, but never realized. Many graphics seemingly intended for such a version remain unused in the game's data. A The League Battle subtitle, very similar to the one used in The Tournament Battle.

A set of large ranking numbers, complete with proper suffixes (and even an alternate Japanese suffix).

Some messages, written in the font used for TURBO text in the title screen, except that they are stored separately and have different gradient.

An explanation of the tournament rules in Japanese. Translates to: This is substantially different from the rules of the previous Tournament Battle variant, which used a 3-round single elimination style format.

Tournament Battle Mode
The framework of Super Street Fighter II's Tournament Battle mode remains in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Setting address to a non-zero value will enable the mode. It has not been updated to incorporate the new graphics or rules that were seemingly intended for the League Battle mode. Exactly how complete this implementation remains is not known at this time, due to incomplete emulation of the CPS2's networking capabilities.

Graphical Errors
A few of Akuma's animation frames have some of his hair or gi clipped off, although the tiles for them actually exist.

Of the eight frames that exist within the raw graphics data for Akuma's trademark fiery aura animation, only six have tilemaps defined...and the animation data doesn't even play those in the proper order!

Unused Music
Sound code is a piece of music mostly likely meant for an ending.

Regional Differences

 * The game is much harder outside Japan, even if the difficulty setting in the operator menu is at Very Easy.
 * The Japanese version has two different endings if you're playing as Akuma/Gouki: one if you defeat M.Bison/Vega, the other if you defeat the secret boss Akuma/Gouki. In all other versions, all the dialogue was removed and it just shows Akuma standing there. Akuma also has his own win quotes in the Japanese version, but none in the international versions.

The logo is different.