And it's definitely that, too. Hell, this is SF2; everyone should already know that it's fun as shit.
Played through the single player Arcade mode a few times, as well as a couple of online matches. First, the game plays beautifully; I admit even I had my doubts about how well it would play, even when watching internet footage of the final build. Happily, the core gameplay is as exacting and intuitive as that of the original SSF2T. As far as controls on a Six Axis or Dual Shock 3, it works about as well as one can expect. I was having a tough time trying to pull off certain moves with the d-pad on the higher turbo speeds, but it became infinitely more serviceable once I put the speed back down to either zero or one. I was never a speedy turbo fighting freak, which is why I've always opted for Champion Edition over Hyper Fighting, or SSF2 over SSF2T. (Or, if the home editions of Hyper/Super Turbo allowed it, to always place the speed at the lowest settings.)
I was stunned by the humongous size of the characters when you play on the default HD/Widescreen and Remixed modes. I mean, they are HUGE, boy..... and I thought Capcom vs SNK 2 had beefy-sized character renders. They all look great, but I do miss some of the muscle definition and clothes detailing on some of the characters. It's too bad that when you pause the screen, the menu screen comes up, obscuring the graphics almost completely. I could see me pausing the game constantly just to catch the vibrant details of each and every frame.
Backgrounds could've used for some more animation, it's true - and yes, it's just now striking me as weird as how the background characters and spectators are so predominantly white. Capcom couldn't be bothered with adding a few shades of color to these folks?
The online matches I participated in ran pretty solid, though there were a few hitches here and there. Just a few, and I'm willing to bet that had more to do with my wireless connection than anything else; it's been a tad laggy on a number of games I've been playing recently. I'll be looking to see if a direct connection will run any differently. In any case, I think I'm going to have a lot of fun online with this one; SF2's fast and to-the-point gameplay lends itself perfectly to playing match after match all night long. ^_^
OCRemix's contributions range from good to excellent. Every music piece has been arranged, from character select to the ending sequences..... But I'm devastated, absolutely DEVASTATED, that Capcom chose to cut off the new version of the Staff Roll before it even gets to finish. Why do those end credits have to run so damned fast?!
Here's hoping the digital CD release will contain the full, unabridged version.