While somewhat subjective, it always seemed to me that Street Fighter II was the last really hugely popular arcade game. Sales numbers would seem to objectively back that up. Street Fighter II is second only to Space Invaders and Pac-Man in terms of number of arcade machines sold. Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II are also high on the list but they don't really come close to Street Fighter II. The original Street Fighter II sold 60,000 machines (Street Fighter II Championship Edition sold even more at 140,000 machines). By comparison, the Mortal Kombat machines only sold in the range of 20,000 to 30,000 units. See https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/the-25-best-selling-arcade-games-of-all-time.htm for more sales info. Part of this of course comes down to the decline in the popularity of arcades as home systems finally caught up. 16-bit systems were close but 32-bit systems were arcade perfect or so close to it that it didn't matter.
Being one of the most popular arcade games, Street Fighter II was also one of the most anticipated home conversions of all time. This was in the 16-bit era of home gaming so home systems were significantly less capable than arcade machines at the time. It was all about how close to arcade perfect you could get but there were always some sacrifices.
Nintendo managed to get the first home conversion on the Super Nintendo system. The Super Nintendo had better graphics hardware than the Genesis but it also had a slower CPU. Many early games on the Super NES suffered from problems with slow-down when a lot was going on on-screen at the same time. As programmers became more familiar with the hardware, this became less of an issue over time.
While the Genesis version was not quite as graphically impressive as the Super Nintendo version, it did have a few advantages. First, it did not suffer from slow down as much as the Super NES version did. The Genesis kept more of the background animations as well but it suffered from a poorer color pallet and lower quality sound. The standard Genesis controller also didn't have six buttons which was pretty crippling, however, plenty of aftermarket controllers were available.
One challenge with the home conversion of Street Fighter II and its sequels was the controller. The arcade version used a joystick and two rows of three buttons. The Super Nintendo controller actually had enough buttons though they weren't really arranged in the ideal way for this game. Other systems didn't even have enough buttons. Needless to say, this spawned an entire market in various six button controllers.
While not arcade perfect, this arcade conversion was probably the most impressive there had been up to that point. Even to the casual player today, this version is perfectly fine to play instead of the arcade version. It's still worthwhile to check out the Super NES or Genesis version or even the other conversions at the time to see how impressive they were considering the hardware they were running on. Whether you prefer the Genesis version of the Super NES version probably comes down to what system you owned. Most people owned one or the other and were pretty fanatic about it. The system wars were a bigger deal then than now. While I prefer the Super NES version, the Genesis version is solid too.
It can also be a little confusing when you say 'Street Fighter II'. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior was the original and this version was ported to the Super NES. Genesis didn't get a version until Street Fighter II: Championship Edition. Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers was an even later version that was on both systems. However, the comparisons above generally apply to all variations of Street Fighter II.
Screen shots above are from the Genesis version of Super Street Fighter II.
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Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson by Gordon S. Wood
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