Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting/FAQ

Tier List

The tier listing is never exact but it can give a strong indication on what would happen in a match between two players at the same capability level. Below is the general listing for HF.

Hyper Fighting wasn't popular as his predecessor because of Rainbow Editions but there is a lot of old and recent information that can bring us an average one

1992 Tier lists

Gamepro Guide
1) Guile
2) Ryu, Sagat
4) Zangief, Ken, Chun-Li
7) E. Honda
8) Blanka
9) Vega
10) Balrog
11) Dhalsim
12) M. Bison

Tomo Ohira
1) Guile
2) Ryu
3) Sagat
4) Blanka
5) Ken
6) Dhalsim
7) Chun-Li
8) Zangief
9) Balrog
10) E. Honda
11) Vega
12) M. Bison

T-Akiba
This was an early 2000's one

1) E. Honda
2) Balrog
3) Ryu, Ken
5) Blanka
6) Guile
7) Sagat
8) Zangief
9) Vega
10) Chun-Li
11) Dhalsim
12) M. Bison

Average Tier List

Top Tier	Upper Mid Tier	Lower Mid Tier	Low Tier
Ryu Guile Sagat	Ken Blanka Zangief	Chun-li E. Honda Dhalsim Balrog (Boxer)	Vega (Claw) Bison (Dictator)

Buffs and Nerfs In a nutshell

Top Tiers:

Ryu,Guile and Sagat had the basic specials and best poking normals for the meta game about projectile zoning and anti air mixups.
Ryu is the best character for beginners ,casual ones and expert tourney ones because his Air Tatsumaki buff and heavy hitter projectile and anti air
Sagat and Guile even if they had nerfed their projectile recovery frames, but had their anti air special buffed compared to CE

Upper Mid Tiers

Ken doesn't have a good projectile compared to the top 3 but is the one with the best anti air special in the game and his Air Tatsumaki buff is better approached for escaping.
Blanka gains an overhead special that is the best counter for projectile spammers and gives him great cross up mix ups that approach better his CE buffs fof Electricty.
Zangief had a great buff with his Quick Lariat that can approach projectile spammers along its invulnerable for sweeping,

Low Mid Tiers

Chun Li gains a projectile and a aerial special version, but these there more used for hit and run than zoning, and has her CE buff intact
E.Honda gains a anti air to overhead special, but compared to Blanka one its effective only for medium distance but had his CE stuff intact
Dhalsim had a new teleport move, but it makes him vulnerable to throw mixups if you don't had a good timing for the warp zone, and still had a bad projectile special,but had the best poking normals in the game
Boxer now its invulnerable to sweep and projectiles with his Turn Punch, but if you had played Japanese CE version you know that its a coin flip trade hit, and still bad in long distance

Low Tiers

Claw had now Rolling Attack variations but its a Japanese CE buff and now it's more vulnerable for the new aerial specials,but its a good poking character as Dhalsim
Dictador loss a lot of the Psycho Crushers block damage and don't Double Knee Press corner traps anymore, but can combo a sweep after a Head Stomp follow up and had better throw damage, that reduces him to a Hit and Run meta

Game Versions

CPS1 (arcade)
This the original release of Hyper Fighting.

Variations of combinations of the A and B CPS1 board can result in the game running at different speeds. [1]. Usually you'll run into to one of two versions of HF, converted Champion Edition CPS1 PCBs (running at 10mhz) and actual Hyper Fighting CPS1 PCBs (running at 12mhz). Converted CE cabs run slower.

Super Nintendo

The initial home release. Derezzed sprites/simpler graphics (very little parallax scrolling) and much weaker sound effects than the arcade release. Also some nitpicky game engine changes - CPS1 combos don't work, and the game certainly 'feels' different - probably some frame data and timing changes. Check out E.Honda's LP headbutt for instance.

Also, no intro movie! OMG!

Sega Genesis/Mega Drive

Titled "Street Fighter 2' Special Champion Edition" in the West, and "Street Fighter 2' Plus" in the East.

Quite similar to the Super Nintendo release, although the Genesis version has an extra tournament mode and match play over the Super Nintendo release. Also, more speed options are available by default. Worse sound though (especially the voices), and slightly poorer colours. It does have the original intro movie though. Also, CPS1 chains work - which make this probably a more accurate port!

Amusing to note that these ancient 16-bit ports even have the 'good' button configs - thanks, 90s Capcom!

Playstation
Playstation 2
Xbox

Xbox 360

Fairly similar to arcade version, feels like there are some timing changes though. Irritating user interface. No longer available for download due to Marketplace closure on July 29, 2024.

30th Anniversary Collection (Playstation 4 / Nintendo Switch / Xbox One / Steam)

Most easily accessible given the current 8th and 9th generation hardware. Second best option after CPS1.

Capcom Arcade Stadium

Avoid this version even though it's also easily accessible. Runs at a crackhead speed similar to MAME, and just overall feels off to play.

Regional Differences

Please note that the Japanese versions are not the same as the American versions:

American Version	Japanese Version
Boxer character = Balrog	Boxer character = M.Bison
Claw character = Vega	Claw character = Balrog
Dictator character = M.Bison	Dictator character = Vega

Miscellaneous

-After getting up from being knocked down, you are unthrowable for a number of frames, randomly selected from 1 to 29 inclusive.
-When hitting a dizzied player, they are immune to dizzy for 60 game ticks. This means any combo after a dizzy will only start causing more dizzy after 60 frames of the first hit. This is important to take into account for redizzy combos.

Other HF links

General

[SRK SF2HF thread]

Technical Details

SF2 Dizzies
Dizzy durations and limits and update
SF2 Hitboxes
SF2 Throwboxes
SF2 Random damage
Cheat codes & findings