Street Fighter II, copyright 1991 Capcom

BY JC FLETCHER

(click!)

COMMENTARY:
Street Fighter II is the game that brought people back into arcades in 1991, and kept them there for years. This partially explains its importance to me; the summer I spent every day at the local mall while my mother was at work managing a Spencer Gifts also happened to be the summer that the Street Fighter II machine appeared at the mall's Aladdin's Castle arcade. That summer, my life was measured in rounds. To say that Street Fighter is associated with a period in my life is an understatement. I would say that Street Fighter was a period in my life.

I am not the only person who feels strongly about this game. Nothing like it had ever appeared in the arcade before; most games of the time were either side-scrolling shooters, where the player, as a small spaceship, shot at hundreds of other spaceships to get to the end of stages; sports games and simulations, like driving games; or "beat-em-up" games where a single fighter took on hundreds of weaker thugs. There were a few games of the same genre as SF2, like Karate Champ (and even the abysmal Street Fighter I), but they lacked complexity, controlled poorly, and featured startlingly generic moves, characters, and environments. The arcades were starting to get less interesting, a little stale.

And then it happened.

Street Fighter II featured beautiful graphics, excellent music, lots of voice effects, and eight characters, all with their own motivations and completely different move sets (except for Ryu and Ken, who were trained in the same fighting style,) their own control styles, their own strengths and weaknesses. And the gameplay was deeper than anything that had ever been seen in an arcade, even if it was just a game about people fighting. Suddenly, there were six buttons for each player, instead of one or two-- three kicks and three punches, each button corresponding to a weak, medium, or strong attack. There were moves that were not immediately obvious; they had to be learned or discovered (for example, Ryu and Ken's hadouken fireball is thrown by moving the joystick in a quarter-circle from the "down" position to the "forward" position with a smooth rolling movement, then pressing a punch button.) Certainly the impact of this game on the game magazine and strategy guide industry is notable, since no player wanted to be at a disadvantage.

Since there were eight characters, there were eight stories, and thus the game had to be completed eight different times to see all the endings.

To me, Street Fighter II is the perfect arcade game. It plays to the strengths of the environment: it has quick rounds and easy-to-understand gameplay that can be enjoyed at face value, but gets deeper with more play. But perhaps the greatest advantage an arcade has over the home in gameplay, and the aspect of the arcade that is most addressed by the game: arcades have a lot of people in them. And Street Fighter II is the perfect 2-player game. Anyone can just jump in and challenge the winner.

Chang, James. The Street Fighter Plot Canon Guide Ver. 3.9.
http://db.gamefaqs.com/coinop/arcade/file/street_fighter_plot.txt
Exhaustive Street Fighter series storyline reference. Used to confirm storyline details.

Petty, Nick. The Story of Street Fighter II.
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jmurphy/JPT3500file/JPT.Projectfile/Jpt/Sf.html
History of the Street Fighter series.

Street Fighter II. Arcade game. Capcom: 1991. Source of all screenshots, characters, and storylines discussed.
Screens captured by JC Fletcher.


	BY JC FLETCHER (click!) COMMENTARY: Street Fighter II is the game that brought people back into arcades in 1991, and kept them there for years. This partially explains its importance to me; the summer I spent every day at the local mall while my mother was at work managing a Spencer Gifts also happened to be the summer that the Street Fighter II machine appeared at the mall's Aladdin's Castle arcade. That summer, my life was measured in rounds. To say that Street Fighter is associated with a period in my life is an understatement. I would say that Street Fighter was a period in my life. I am not the only person who feels strongly about this game. Nothing like it had ever appeared in the arcade before; most games of the time were either side-scrolling shooters, where the player, as a small spaceship, shot at hundreds of other spaceships to get to the end of stages; sports games and simulations, like driving games; or "beat-em-up" games where a single fighter took on hundreds of weaker thugs. There were a few games of the same genre as SF2, like Karate Champ (and even the abysmal Street Fighter I), but they lacked complexity, controlled poorly, and featured startlingly generic moves, characters, and environments. The arcades were starting to get less interesting, a little stale. And then it happened. Street Fighter II featured beautiful graphics, excellent music, lots of voice effects, and eight characters, all with their own motivations and completely different move sets (except for Ryu and Ken, who were trained in the same fighting style,) their own control styles, their own strengths and weaknesses. And the gameplay was deeper than anything that had ever been seen in an arcade, even if it was just a game about people fighting. Suddenly, there were six buttons for each player, instead of one or two-- three kicks and three punches, each button corresponding to a weak, medium, or strong attack. There were moves that were not immediately obvious; they had to be learned or discovered (for example, Ryu and Ken's hadouken fireball is thrown by moving the joystick in a quarter-circle from the "down" position to the "forward" position with a smooth rolling movement, then pressing a punch button.) Certainly the impact of this game on the game magazine and strategy guide industry is notable, since no player wanted to be at a disadvantage. Since there were eight characters, there were eight stories, and thus the game had to be completed eight different times to see all the endings. To me, Street Fighter II is the perfect arcade game. It plays to the strengths of the environment: it has quick rounds and easy-to-understand gameplay that can be enjoyed at face value, but gets deeper with more play. But perhaps the greatest advantage an arcade has over the home in gameplay, and the aspect of the arcade that is most addressed by the game: arcades have a lot of people in them. And Street Fighter II is the perfect 2-player game. Anyone can just jump in and challenge the winner. Chang, James. The Street Fighter Plot Canon Guide Ver. 3.9. http://db.gamefaqs.com/coinop/arcade/file/street_fighter_plot.txt Exhaustive Street Fighter series storyline reference. Used to confirm storyline details. Petty, Nick. The Story of Street Fighter II. http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jmurphy/JPT3500file/JPT.Projectfile/Jpt/Sf.html History of the Street Fighter series. Street Fighter II. Arcade game. Capcom: 1991. Source of all screenshots, characters, and storylines discussed. Screens captured by JC Fletcher.