Street Fighter II': Champion Edition (Japanese: ストリートファイターIIダッシュ -CHAMPION EDITION-?, officially pronounced Street Fighter II Dash in Japan) is a competitive fighting game released for the arcades by Capcom in 1992. It was the first of several updated versions of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, part of the Street Fighter II sub-series of Street Fighter games. Champion Edition was followed by Street Fighter II' Turbo: Hyper Fighting, released several months later.
In addition to the eight main characters, the four Grand Masters (Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison), who were controlled exclusively by the CPU in World Warrior, are now playable characters. The Grand Masters were toned down considerably from the previous iterations, but remain relatively strong compared to the standard eight fighters. The returning eight main characters had many of their techniques and priorities modified in order to allow for more-balanced competition between different characters. Ryu's and Ken's fighting techniques in particular were changed in order to differentiate their common fighting styles.
In World Warrior, players were not allowed to choose the same character. This restriction has been eliminated in Champion Edition, allowing for "mirror matches". Each fighter now has a standard palette and an alternate palette that can be chosen by pressing the Start button. If a palette is already chosen by one player, the other player will be automatically assigned the remaining palette.
The number of matches in the single-player mode was increased from 11 opponents to 12 due to the addition of the mirror matches. This also changed the order in which the third bonus stage occurred (the drum-breaking minigame): in the original game it took place after the match with Vega; while in Champion Edition, it takes place after defeating Balrog.
The maximum number of rounds was reduced from ten to four. If a "double k.o." or "draw game" occurs when the third round ends, the fourth round will be the final. Like in World Warrior, if both fighters are human-controlled characters, then both players will be declared losers if neither win the final round. If it's the player against the CPU, the CPU will win by default.Minor graphical changes included color improvements, particularly for background stages. The portraits for all the characters and endings of some of the returning characters were redrawn (particularly Ryu's, Ken's, and Zangief's), while each of the four bosses received an ending as well. The ending for the boss characters consist of an image of all four Grand Masters (with the character used by the player on top), with scrolling text overlaid on it specific to the player character with a large army of demonic-looking soldiers marching below and accompanied by the same ending music.
Ryu's face in his ending was redrawn with a more serious expression. Ken's fiancée (Eliza) in his ending was given a more-realistic design. The Soviet President (a caricature of Mikhail Gorbachev despite him having stepped down after the dissolution of the Soviet Union) is drawn with a more-serious expression in Zangief's ending. The clothes Chun-Li threw away were redrawn in her ending. The drinks Guile's wife is holding were redrawn.
Champion Edition features new music for the end credits sequence (shown if the player completes the single-player tournament without losing a match). The special credits sequence, where the player completes the game without losing a single round, was changed to depict the twelve playable fighters performing their special moves on oil drums and crates.Street Fighter II Dash was awarded Best Game of 1992 in the Sixth Annual Grand Prize, as published in the February 1993 issue of Gamest, winning once again in the category of Best Action Game. Dash placed No. 3 in Best VGM (video game music), No. 6 in Best Graphics, No. 5 in Best Direction.
The Street Fighter II Image Album was the No. 1 Best Album in the same issue, with the Drama CD version of Street Fighter II tied for No. 7 with the soundtrack for Star Blade. The List of Best Characters was not dominated by Street Fighter II characters this time, with the only character at the Top Ten being Chun-Li at No. 3.
Street Fighter II: Champion Edition sold 140,000 arcade cabinets in Japan alone, where it cost ¥160,000 ($1300) for each cabinet, amounting to ¥22.4 billion ($182 million) revenue generated from cabinet sales of Champion Edition in Japan, which is equivalent to $327 million in 2018.
In North America, it was number-one on RePlay's May 1992 coin-op earnings chart for upright arcade cabinets, above Midway's Mortal Kombat. On RePlay's April 1993 charts, Champion Edition was No. 4 on the upright cabinets chart, and remained No. 4 on the uprights cabinet chart in May 1993. Street Fighter II: Champion Edition's arcade earnings exceeded $2.3 billion in gross revenue, making it one of the top 10 biggest grossing arcade games of all time.|
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