About a week ago, I passed by this new arcade near my house and noticed a multi-game arcade mission. You know, the ones that got a bunch of games in them. Well, I noticed that one of the games featured was the original Street Fighter game. Although I had played the game once before, it was a long time ago and I was pretty incompetent at the time. So, here was my chance to try the game out.
STORY: What story? It’s a street fighter tournament. The object is to beat people up until you win. What more could you want? 5/10
GAMEPLAY: Back then, there were no such thing as character selects. You either played Player 1 (Ryu) or Player 2 (Ken). You have the same three special moves, but they are a burden to attempt. Although the control set-up is innovative for the time (no other game during the had six buttons, but I’m not that sure… uh-huh), it is plagued by delays. It takes a long time between the instant you push a button and the instant you get an action. Sure, it’s an 80s game, but such unresponsive control is not acceptable. 4/10
SOUND: I guess I can’t really complain much about the sound. It seems to be the generic arcade sound and music of a typical arcade game of the time. In any case, I’m not going to criticize the audio element, since I have no basis of comparison… it’s nothing memorable, though. 7/10
GRAPHICS: The graphics are just fine for the time. It’s your typical 1980s arcade stuff. Nothing potentially spectacular, but not particularly dreadful, either. 7/10
CHALLENGE: When I lose in a Street Fighter II arcade game, it’s because the arcade difficulty overwhelms me and I should stick with the SNES game at home. I would like to say that I lose because of the difficulty of Street Fighter, but the lackluster control contributes more to the difficulty than the CPU fighters themselves. Indeed, even with good control, they pose a good challenge. 7/10
REPLAY VALUE: I guess you can play this just for the sake of playing the one that ”really” started it all, but unless you’re a true fan of the Street Fighter series, I don’t see anyone coming back for extras. 4/10
OVERALL: Some other reviewer on this site said that the original Street Fighter was good simply based on association with Street Fighter II. I don’t agree. Everyone’s heard of Street Fighter II, but Street Fighter is the obscure title no one but a few people got to play. It must have been good enough to at least warrant a sequel; if Street Fighter turned out to be really bad, SF2 would not have emerged and the fighting game would not be as popular as it is today.
It could have been a great game, but the sluggish control pretty much killed it. Still, it’s not THAT bad and is still worth a game or two… if you’re lucky enough to find the thing.
dtm666 