Four new characters, Cammy, Fei Long, Dee Jay, and T. Hawk, have been added to the previous list of characters from this series. Also, the graphics and sound have been improved over the earlier versions.

It is the fourth game in the Street Fighter II sub-series of Street Fighter games, following Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting. In addition to refining and balancing the existing character roster from the previous installments, Super Street Fighter II also introduced four new characters. It was also the first game to be developed on Capcom '​s CP System II hardware, which permitted more sophisticated graphics and audio over the original CP System hardware, used by the previous versions of Street Fighter II.