20 Years of Street Fighter II

Photo by ARMYCOM at deviantart.com

In August of 1987, Street Fighter was released in arcades. It introduced the gaming world to Ryu and Ken, the game's only two playable characters. Unfortunately getting acquainted with one of the most iconic duos in gaming (and maybe scrapping with Sagat) is about all the original Street Fighter was good for. The game was plagued with unresponsive controls, making executing special moves a chore.

Japanese flyer for Street Fighter II.

The Japanese arcade flyer for Champion Edition. Hello, nightmare fuel-inducing M. Bison.

It's not at all hard to see why most people forget that at one point there never was a number at the end of the words "Street Fighter". Be that as it may, if the first Street Fighter was never produced, the plethora of updated sequels and spin-off series never would have came to be. Capcom easily could have closed the doors on the fighting genre forever. Thankfully, the company decided to give fighting games another go and rather than create a whole new franchise, they simply dropped another quarter into Street Fighter's life arcade cabnet before the timer reached zero.

In March of 1991, a tidal wave hit the gaming world via arcades. That tidal wave was called Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. Ken and Ryu returned along with six more playable characters and four bosses. Each of the game's fighters (save for Ryu and Ken who were clones of each other) had a unique feel to them along with their own fighting style. E. Honda fought in the sumo style, Guile used his combat skills obtained from his years of service in the military, and Blanka came at opponents with his beastly method of fighting. The game's subtitle, "The World Warrior" carried a lot of meaning. Zangief hailed from Russia, Dhalism from India, Chun-Li from China, and so on. You never fought in just one place, but were taken all over the world.

M. Bison was practically the blueprint for SNK Bosses.

The impact that Street Fighter II made was HUGE. College students were skipping classes, elementary school kids were sucking even more than usual in math, and dates were postponed or dropped all together because people were too busy mastering the fine art of throwing Hadoukens. It was not uncommon to see crowds of players waiting to throw down. You were lucky if you able to get a turn on a SFII arcade machine because the lines were so long. SFII wasn't just a game, it was a way of life, one that everyone was a part of.

The American SNES box art.

My exposure to Street Fighter II mania didn't come until 1992 when Capcom released a port of the game on the SNES. I didn't own the game, nor did I even know it or the craze existed. My friends Justin & Matthew Moses had already gotten me into the Mega Man and Contra series by letting me borrow their games. When they let me borrow their copy of Street Fighter II, I was introduced to my very first fighting game and a whole new addiction was born.

The SNES version of Street Fighter II looked and played extremely well.

The SNES version of Street Fighter II may not have been arcade perfect but it was still an amazingly awesome home version. All the fighters were present, along with their memorable stage backgrounds, the controls were tight, and the fighting itself was very engaging. I didn't even know about combos, priority, charging and all the other technical stuff any fighting game purist can tell you about, and really, back then, it didn't matter. What mattered most was that I was having a blast playing Street Fighter II. I'd never seen or played anything like it.

Japanese flyer for Super Street Fighter II.

The attract demo for Super Street Fighter II is still one of the most impressive openings to any game. 

My father and sister were just as engrossed with the game as I was. We'd take turns passing the controller as we made our way across the world in arcade mode. We'd hit a bump in the road on some fighters, but the biggest hurdle was the game's four bosses, Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison. Up until this point, I'd never faced such strong opposition in a game. Balrog was very fond of his Dash Punch, Vega loved to climb that fence, Sagat's "Tiger!" and "Tiger Uppercut!" never stopped haunting me, and if I could see Bison's Pyscho Crusher coming, I already knew I was dead. Persistence and skill payed off and we were eventually able to put them all down, but every time we played the game, they'd crush us at first. Ah, good times.

Japanese flyer for Super Street Fighter II Turbo. 

Street Fighter II was a huge success for Capcom but they obviously saw room for improvement. Since the first installment, SFII has seen six, count 'em, six updates! Each new sub game added something new. The first update in 1992 was Street Fighter II': Champion Edition. The biggest change in Champion Edition was that all four bosses fighters were now playable, which was unfathomable levels of awesome. The next update came just seven months later in the form of Street Fighter II': Hyper Fighting. This update greatly increased the game's fighting speed and much like charging and half circle moves, went on to become a mainstay in Capcom fighters. May fans consider Hyper Fighting to be the best SF game. 1993 brought us Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers. Super included four new playable characters, bumping the total number of fighters up to 16. In 1994, the final update (until 2003, that is) was Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Super Turbo gave us among other things, super combos, air combos and the inclusion of hidden character Akuma. To commemorate the 15th anniversary of Street Fighter, Capcom released Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition in Japanese arcades in 2003. This super special version of SFII let players select all playable versions of the SFII fighters from World Warrior all the way to Super Turbo, which allowed to tons of different match ups. Like every other SF game, this one thankfully received a home port in 2004 on the PS2 and Xbox under the name Street Fighter Anniversary Collection and came compiled with Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Then in 2008, Capcom released Super Street Fighter II Turob HD Remix. (What a moutfull!) HD Remix has the original Super Turbo game along with a remix mode containing high resolution graphics and rebalanced gameplay.

The fighting game scene largely wouldn't even be what it is today without Street Fighter II. I may not have been able to experince it in the arcades in 1991, but I'm glad I did get in on the phenomenon a year later and I've loved the Street Fighter series ever since. Similar to how Super Mario Bros. got me hooked on platform games, Street Fighter II made me appreciate fighters. I'm not the world's best player, in fact I'd say I'm more of a casual fan, but I still love to do some rounds of virtual fisticuffs. Here's to another 20 years of Hadouken's, Spinning Bird Kicks and Tiger Uppercuts.