Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers, Switch

I've spent some time with Ultra Street Fighter 2 on Nintendo Switch and while my review will have to wait until the end of the month, I wanted to talk now about the game's first-person mode, which, I'm sorry to say, is awful

Ultra Street Fighter 2: The Final Challengers is billed as the definitive version of Street Fighter 2, but it's best described as a Frankenstein. There's no speed select. There are no bonus stages in arcade mode. You have the option of playing with the original - and best - visuals, or switch to the divisive updated visuals from Capcom's own nine-year-old game Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix, the one with the jerky animations and ugly graphics drawn by Udon Entertainment.

Given the game has Udon's HD graphics, you'd think it would basically be Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix ported to Switch, but it's not. The Final Challengers does not include the balance changes made by competitive video game expert David Sirlin. Curiously, Capcom's stripped those out in favour of a few of its own. For example, grapple breaks have been added, and the combo timing has been adjusted to make it slightly more forgiving. But these are tweaks only the fighting game community will care about. Essentially, The Final Challengers is Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo on Switch.

But what claws at my disappointment, dragging it down into angry territory, is how much Nintendo charges for all this. £35 is an astonishing price to ask people to pay for what is, essentially, a 23-year-old game with online play. On Amazon, Injustice 2, perhaps the most fully-featured fighting game ever made, is only a fiver more expensive on PS4 at £40. Street Fighter 5 is £15.

Some will suggest The Final Challengers costs so much because it comes on one of those expensive Nintendo Switch carts (we've reported on this issue before), but I and the average person couldn't give two tosses about Nintendo's bonkers publishing policy. All I care about is this game costs £35 on cart and on the eShop. Just sell it on the eShop for a tenner and ditch the physical version, if it means the whole thing can stink of less corporate greed. Gah!

The Final Challengers has but one redeeming feature: an arcade mode. Hilariously, Capcom couldn't muster an arcade mode for Street Fighter 5 - and, over a year after its release, still hasn't. But here we are, with Street Fighter 2 on Switch, and there's an arcade mode. What a world.