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Street Fighter II, the classic fighting game, was released to huge acclaim in 1991 for arcades and was subsequently ported to the SNES and Mega Drive/Genesis systems among other platforms. However, it never appeared on Nintendo’s ill-fated Virtual Boy system – until now, that is!

Reports of a Street Fighter II clone simply titled “Hyper Fighting” have surfaced online, and the game is purported to be a perfect copy of Street Fighter II – albeit with a few added details – but on the Virtual Boy system. Join us after the jump for gameplay footage and some incredibly authentic-looking box art!

“Hyper Fighting” is, for all intents and purposes, Street Fighter II ported to the Virtual Boy. Only a handful of copies of this homebrew creation are said to exist, and there’s even completely legitimate-looking box art, booklets and cartridges in circulation. While nobody knows for certain who is behind the game (and given concerns over copyright, maybe it’s wiser that they stay anonymous), what we do know is that it definitely exists. You just can’t buy a copy of it.

▼ The box art and cartridge sticker look like the real deal.

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Given the game’s nature as an unofficial product for a now-defunct system, widespread distribution and any kind of release for sale is impossible. But we can still live vicariously through videos recorded by those lucky few who do possess a copy.

▼ The Virtual Boy, released in 1995, was a short-lived 3D gaming console that, due to its habit of inducing brain-splitting headaches in its users, proved to be a commercial failure. It is now considered a valuable collector’s item.

Flickr © Artefact Group

The following in-depth review video explains the background behind the creation of the game, before going on to show a little of the gameplay. Apparently, a custom-made cartridge had to be created to fit the 32mb game onto, as existing Virtual Boy technology can only store up to 16mb of data. Oh, how far we’ve come in a few years!

Finally, here’s some more actual gameplay footage from another lucky owner of the super-rare game. The video begins with a pretty humorous introduction to the game, and ends with gameplay footage (although, as the video uploader explains, the Virtual Boy’s 3D effects obviously don’t transfer over to YouTube, so it’s kinda just like looking at footage of Street Fighter II, only coloured red).

Source: Kotaku.jp
Images YouTube 1, 2 unless otherwise stated