Super Street Fighter II EX: The Ultimate Championship

Enhanced version

Game

Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge (Japan 940311)

Hardware

Capcom CPS-2

MAME set

ssf2xj

Version

rc4

Updated

2026-10-01

Screenshots

VS screen

In the fight

About this patch

Super Turbo is the version competitive players swear by, but it left things behind. The bonus stages from Super Street Fighter II were gone. Shin Akuma was a hidden boss you had to earn, and Ten Akuma only turned up years later at home. Tournament Battle, the eight-player linked-cabinet mode, stayed with the earlier Super Street Fighter II.

EX puts it together on the arcade game. Akuma has his own select-screen cell, with Shin and Ten available through codes there; the original Ryu codes still work. A random-select cell sits opposite him. The car, the falling barrels and the oil drums are back between fights. Link cabinets with the adapter and it runs Tournament Battle; without it, it plays as normal. Every fighter gets two more colors, Akuma and Shin Akuma get their colors from Ultra Street Fighter II, the move names are the modern ones, and the new title reads The Ultimate Championship.

Nothing about the existing fighters changes: this is Japan's Super Turbo underneath. The USA build carries all of Grand Master Challenge's English text; the Japan build keeps the Japanese.

EX uses the same ROM files as the Japanese set. It runs in MAME and HBMAME and on MiSTer.

This is a release candidate.

What's changed

• Akuma and random-select cells on the player-select screen. On Akuma or Ryu, hold Start and press three kicks for Shin, or MP, HP, MK and HK together for Ten (hold Start and three punches gives Akuma)
• Ten Akuma has his Super gauge and the Raging Demon, with the 天 pose
• Akuma in eleven classic colors from Ultra Street Fighter II, picked on his own cell: three punches or three kicks, any single button, or LP+LK, MP+MK or HP+HK (LP+HK keeps the EX blue). His portraits follow the color, even in a mirror match
• Shin Akuma in eleven colors from Ultra Street Fighter II: pick Shin on Akuma's cell, let go of every button, then press one of the same buttons before the select screen moves on
• Akuma's own defeated face on the Continue screen, in the color you picked
• The three bonus stages from Super Street Fighter II, back in one-player games: the car after three fights, the barrels after six, the oil drums after nine. They run at the selected Turbo speed, and a BONUS STAGE setting in the operator menu can turn them off
• Tournament Battle: with the link adapter, eight players and three matches across linked cabinets, with the Akuma and random-select cells on its select screen; without it, the game plays normally
• A new title screen: The Ultimate Championship, with an EX mark
• Two more colors for every fighter: pick with two punches or two kicks, or hold Start as well for the Old version in those colors. The VS screen and the fight portrait show the color you picked
• Free Play in the Japanese build too
• Modern move names: Cammy's Spiral Arrow, Cannon Spike and Quick Spin Knuckle, and Dee Jay's Air Slasher, with the Japanese voice callouts in the USA build
• USA build: all of Grand Master Challenge's English. Japan build: the original Japanese text, with Grand Master Challenge's backdrop fixes
• The existing fighters play exactly as in Japan's Super Turbo

Compared with Super Turbo

How EX compares with the Japanese board and with Grand Master Challenge.

Downloads

You need your own dump of Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge (Japan 940311) as the MAME set ssf2xj.zip. Every build is made from that one set. Each zip includes a readme.txt with full instructions.

Merged, split and complete sets work, including nested or renamed ROMs. Use --rompath /path/to/roms to search a collection (repeatable), and --check to check inputs before building. ZIPs and extracted folders need no extra software; 7z archives require 7-Zip. QSound can stay in your emulator's ROM path; valid firmware already embedded in a source set is kept in complete outputs.

The builds

How to apply

unzip ssf2-ex-rc4-ips.zip -d ssf2xj-patch
cd ssf2xj-patch
python3 apply.py /path/to/ssf2xj.zip --out-dir out

The script checks every file against the checksums below, applies the patches, checks the result, and writes the files for every platform in one go: (add --variant usa to make just one build)

USA (English):
  out/mame/usa/ssf2xj.zip
  out/hbmame/ssf2tuc.zip
  out/mister/_Arcade/_Arcade Patches/_Enhanced Versions/Super Street Fighter II EX (USA).mra
  out/mister/games/hbmame/ssf2tuc.zip
Japan (Japanese):
  out/mame/japan/ssf2xj.zip
  out/hbmame/ssf2xuc.zip
  out/mister/_Arcade/_Arcade Patches/_Enhanced Versions/_Japan/Super Street Fighter II EX (Japan).mra
  out/mister/games/hbmame/ssf2xuc.zip

MAME and original hardware. Put the zip from out/mame/ ahead of the stock set in your MAME rompath (it keeps the name ssf2xj.zip, so use one build at a time), or burn its ROM files. MAME reports checksum warnings for the patched ROMs. That's expected, and the game runs normally.

HBMAME. Put the zip from out/hbmame/ in HBMAME's roms/ folder next to your stock ssf2xj.zip. It loads with no checksum warnings. The HBMAME set definition (ssf2tuc, ssf2xuc) is generated with the edition; an upstream submission is pending, so for now you add it to your own HBMAME build.

MiSTer. Copy the _Arcade folder from out/mister/ to the root of your SD card, and keep the stock, unmodified romset at games/mame/ssf2xj.zip (split MAME sets also need qsound.zip). You need Jotego's jtcps2 core, which update_all installs. The MRA applies the edition in memory as the game loads, so nothing on your card is modified, and each build keeps its own settings and saves under its own setname. The MiSTer-only download holds the same MRAs, ready to copy.

out/mister/ also holds the HBMAME set in games/hbmame/. The MRA above doesn't need it, but the CPS+ Arrange and HD Remix MRAs load it, so if you use CPS+, copy the games folder from out/mister/ to your card as well.

Any IPS patcher. Apply each file in ips/<variant>/ (Flips, Lunar IPS, …) to the ROM file of the same name and re-zip the set yourself.

Changed ROMs

Shared by every build:

sfx.13m (2.0 MB, original CRC32 cf94d275) differs per build:

sfx.15m (2.0 MB, original CRC32 5eb703af) differs per build:

sfx.17m (2.0 MB, original CRC32 ffa60e0f) differs per build:

sfx.19m (2.0 MB, original CRC32 34e825c5) differs per build:

sfxj.03d (512 KB, original CRC32 50b52b37) differs per build:

sfxj.04a (512 KB, original CRC32 af7767b4) differs per build:

sfxj.06b (512 KB, original CRC32 413477c2) differs per build:

Release history

rc4 (2026-10-01)

• Shin and Ten Gouki/Akuma names now appear on the select, VS and fight screens. Ten also gains the additional Akuma-family color choices.
• The bonus stages run at the selected Turbo speed, and a new BONUS STAGE setting in the operator menu can turn them off.
• Akuma's country appears while previewing him. Win portraits and staff-roll portraits now reflect the correct Akuma result.
• Continuing as Akuma returns directly to his select cell and portrait without a brief Ryu flash.
• The NEXT FIGHTER question mark uses the stock art.
• Both regional builds have new checksums; rebuild them with the rc4 kit.

rc3 (2026-09-28)

• Akuma has eleven new colors, his classic colors from Ultra Street Fighter II, picked on his own cell: three punches or three kicks for the first two, a single button for the next six, and LP+LK, MP+MK or HP+HK for the last three. LP+HK keeps the EX blue. His portraits follow the color, even in a mirror match.
• Shin Akuma has eleven colors of his own from Ultra Street Fighter II. Pick Shin on Akuma's cell, let go of every button, then press one of the same buttons before the select screen moves on.
• Akuma's Continue screen shows his own defeated face, in the color you picked.
• Tournament Battle's select screen now has the Akuma and random-select cells.
• Both builds have new checksums, so rebuild them with the rc3 kit.

rc2 (2026-09-24)

• A new select-screen layout: Akuma has his own cell, with a random-select roulette opposite him and the grid re-centered. Shin and Ten are picked from Akuma's cell, and the original Ryu codes still work.
• Akuma, Shin and Ten have colored portraits on the select, VS, continue and NEXT FIGHTER screens and in the fight HUD, with separate colors for each player.
• Playable Akuma is named everywhere: Gouki in the Japan build and Akuma in the USA build, on the select and VS screens, in the fight HUD and in the bonus stages. A two-player bonus stage now names an Akuma winner.
• Ten Akuma's Raging Demon finish shows the 天 as in the Dreamcast version, with the Dreamcast hit timing.
• Fixed endings that could stall after the final fight: the win poses froze and endings such as Guile's family scene never started.
• Fixed the select-screen cursor and the alignment of the fighters' names on the select screen, and of Akuma's name in the fight HUD.

rc1 (2026-09-17)

• First public release candidate.

Related projects

• Super Street Fighter II Turbo: Grand Master Challenge, the English restoration EX's USA build is built on
• originalgrego's SSF2X Tournament Battle restoration, EX's Tournament Battle link code comes from this project
• Super Street Fighter II Turbo: New Legacy, Tyrone's Akuma portrait art in EX comes from this project
• CPS+, companion project: the Anniversary Edition and HD Remix soundtracks for EX on MiSTer, through its SSF2 EX MRAs

Notes

• Credits: Akuma's colored select, VS and fight-HUD portraits are Tyrone's art from Super Street Fighter II Turbo: New Legacy; the bonus stages are adapted from Capcom's Super Street Fighter II; the Tournament Battle link code comes from originalgrego's SSF2X Tournament Battle restoration; and Ten Akuma's move timing and finish come from the Dreamcast version.
• MAME reports checksum warnings for the patched files. That's expected; the game plays normally. HBMAME with the ssf2tuc or ssf2xuc set definition loads it without them.
• Fan work, unaffiliated with Capcom.