Retro|Spective 127R: Street Fighter

[Neon Ignition]

The second of our new journeys brings us to arguably the champion of fighting franchises and its many incarnations. The series journey of updates, sequels and spin-offs is so vast that we won't be strictly following release order for this one...



Street Fighter
"You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance"


Game 01 - Street Fighter
The original entry, often overlooked thanks to its legendary sequel, was a hit in arcades thanks to its use of special moves. It took the simple premise of two players facing off against one another and led with the character of Ryu entering a martial arts contest. Two versions were made, one with a six button set up and the other with pressure sensitive punch and kick buttons. The former would be the basis for the future of the franchise and fighters in general.









Did you ever play the original Street Fighter and where does it stand in the history of fighters?

[Asura]

Did you ever play the original Street Fighter and where does it stand in the history of fighters?

Nope, and truthfully, it doesn't stand.

My first experience of the franchise was II, and I think many people will happily admit to that.

[Dogg Thang]

I did play the original in the arcades and, yes, it's janky and it's cheap and it's hard to win (although much easier when you realise how strong blocking is in this one and how powerful the special moves are) but I still enjoyed it back in the day. The bar was lower when the original SF came out.

I remember seeing in a magazine an arcade version with just a huge punch and kick button and apparently the strength was dependent on how hard you hit the buttons. No idea if that version ever really made it to arcades but I would have liked to try it.

[Asura]

I remember seeing in a magazine an arcade version with just a huge punch and kick button and apparently the strength was dependent on how hard you hit the buttons. No idea if that version ever really made it to arcades but I would have liked to try it.

Yep, that was real, and it made it to arcades. Many of the units got damaged, so they were eventually replaced with a multi-button layout that led to the way attacks worked in SF2.

[Dogg Thang]

Yep, that was real, and it made it to arcades. Many of the units got damaged, so they were eventually replaced with a multi-button layout that led to the way attacks worked in SF2.

Ah okay. I only ever saw the multi-button version back in the day.

[wakka]

I can imagine that with probably no obvious benchmark for what constituted the upper required limit on force, people went absolutely ham on those machines to try to ensure their character was doing maximum damage.

[Neon Ignition]

I've only played the original machine once and it was the two push buttoned version whilst on holiday back in the day. It was tucked away toward the back of an arcade as it was post-SF2 era. Didn't warm to me but probably because one of the buttons wasn't working

[phillv85]

I’ve never played the arcade version, I do have the PC Engine version though with its incredible sound effects

It’s not a great game, but it did set up Capcom to build it into the most important fighting game IP ever so kudos for that.

[Baseley09]

Strong nostalgia we had a six buttoner in the Southses arcade and rinsed it on a ferry crossing. Recall getting further than I ever could now.

Sure it is harsh to play but it has cool backgrounds, characters and music in places. Got the PCE CD version, must have really even if it is a chore.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 02 - Street Fighter II: The World Warrior
The sequel double downed on the six button configuration system and mixed in a combo system, more special moves, more selectable fighters, better visuals and a stronger emphasis on two player versus gameplay. The game would sell so well that it would be the highest earning fighter for years to come and became a gaming cultural icon.






All time greatest or did you fail to see the hype?

[Asura]

All time greatest or did you fail to see the hype?

So, probably much to the surprise of some, I wasn't a fan of SFII when I first got to play it. I wasn't hugely into console gaming and when my friend got it for the SNES, I found it frustratingly hard to do the moves (I was very young, which probably contributed), but weirdly, I never struggled doing them in Art of Fighting in the arcade, which I played before much SFII.

As a result, I never really "go into" SFII in its heyday. I used to play it, and enjoy it, but I was crap at it and never really understood it. A couple of years later I borrowed the Championship Edition for the Megadrive from a friend, and I played more of that, and started to get it... But honestly I didn't really get into fighting games until Virtua Fighter, and after that, SF finally clicked with Alpha 2.

So I think it's fair to say I did fail to see the hype.

[fuse]

All time greatest.

I absolutely bought into the hype - read and re-read every morsel of info I could about it in magazines, would obsess over any cabinet I could find, and then the Christmas I got a SNES and a copy of it (and Super Mario World!) was probably the most memorable one of my life. Played it endlessly, still love it.

[Dogg Thang]

I still remember my first reaction to seeing SF2 - what a total SF knockoff! Then I saw what it was and played it. And it was instantly apparent that this was a game-changer. It plays so much better than any fighting game up to that point. SNK we’re doing some good things in those days but SF2 was on another level in terms of how it felt. The combination of the animation and control just worked.

It took me ages to actually get any good at it but it was so much fun trying out the different characters and figuring out how to use their special moves. And I seem to remember the bosses being punishing as hell back on the first release. So many of us were playing that game back then that it became a wonderful shared experience.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 03 - Street Fighter II: Champion Edition
The first of numerous updated incarnations soon arrived and this one was most notable for making the games four boss fighters available to control. The existing fighters also saw some rebalancing with other tweaks made to the backgrounds, ending music and redrawn portraits. The Mega Drive received a further version of this entry titles Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition which added a mode that would appear in Hyper Fighting.







It was newer, but was it better?

[Neon Ignition]

My experience with CE has largely come from the Mega Drive version. I've played the arcade incarnation but as the four boss characters didn't really hold too much attention for me it didn't make a huge impact compared to the original.

CE was... well, it felt like the shill that it blatantly was and whilst most of the time playing it meant using the standard MD controller rather than the six button version it made this the worst one to play at the time.