Category: Video Game Musings

This one’s going to be brief, right? Because almost everyone who has been to a video arcade has played or even seen a Street Fighter II arcade machine.

This was the game that gave birth to the modern-day fighting games. Sure, other games had dabbled in this style before; this is, after all, a sequel to the 1987 Street Fighter arcade game that provide the foundation for this title. And you also had other games like Yie Ar Kung Fu and Karate Champ that also had similar one-on-one set-ups… but those felt more like test runs for the style of play that would become the poster child of competitive gaming among the more hardcore group.

This was the thing you either thanked or cursed for changing the face of arcade games. The days of going into an arcade and seeing a wide variety of games from shooters to weird one-offs were a thing of the past. Almost every arcade that I’ve come across – the ones that are still standing, at least – are filled with nothing but fighting games. Whether it’d be different flavors of Street Fighter or something else entirely… maybe you’ll get lucky and someone has a bunch of sitdown racers to play with, but otherwise, it was Street Fighter or bust.

I’d be mad about it if I didn’t enjoy fighting games in general… but I kinda do. I’m not what you call an expert player – hell, someone comes in and joins a game, I’m already planning my trip home… but I do enjoy playing these things when the competition is… less serious, as it were.

But my first encounter with Street Fighter II wasn’t at a local arcade or anything like that. At that point, I didn’t venture out much on my own, so any trips I’d go on, it’d be with family or friends who were willing to haul my ass along for the ride. But yeah, one day, my brother took me along to a comic book shop close by. Lots of comics, some other odds and ends, but what mesmerized me most of all was the Street Fighter II arcade machine that was just sitting in the corner.

I didn’t play it. I just looked at it. I looked at these images that were happening on screen, mesmerized by these people playing these little characters on screen trading blows, and then one of them would throw a fireball and we’d be like wow. Things that we kinda, sorta take for granted nowadays because the fighting game scene is packed with lots of spectacular titles, but the simple allure of seeing someone pull off a fireball and then figuring out the moves, when you only had like two or three special moves per fighter, is something that can never be truly replicated. It’s one of those things that stuck with me until they traded that Street Fighter II machine for a Mortal Kombat one… lather, rinse, repeat… except with more blood and maybe a couple fatalities when someone figured the bloody thing out (no pun intended).

Unlike Street Fighter I – whose only home port I know of is an obscure PC version – Street Fighter II eventually graced a console that I was familiar with: the Super Nintendo. Street Fighter II on SNES became a regular rental whenever I got the chance. And things got ugly when more than one person was around. I’d argue things got uglier when the updated version, Street Fighter II Turbo came long a year later. Same characters, play as the bosses, woe to anyone who decided to use M. Bison and spam his psycho crusher move. You were a hated person in those circles.

Eventually, Super Street Fighter II was a thing. Never having seen the arcade game, it was something I thought was a joke of sorts until the home ports came along and pretty much confirmed it as a real thing. New moves like red fireballs, flaming dragons, a whiny new Guile voice, Big Bird Announcer… 8-player tourneys if you had the controllers and players to spare. Fun time. Great party game whenever we can pull it off. But then there was Super Turbo, which I never played the arcade version, but I did get the DOS port, which ran slow on my woefully underpowered 486SX computer and the music was kinda funky, but there was still fun to be had.

I still have that CD. I wish I could run it on my Pentium, but Windows ME is an asshole with these things. (But I still use it anyway because it still has DOS… and I still use DOS.)

Eventually, Capcom moved on from Street Fighter II and kicked off the Street Fighter Alpha line of prequel fighters… and they’d eventually figure out how to count to three.

But that’s another story.

Later.

Most people’s first experience with a Street Fighter anything was the second game. The one with eight World Warriors, special moves that took time to pull off, and made for some competitive battles between players. Even with that initial iteration, it’s easy to see why it became the basis for a much beloved fighting game franchise.

Of course, that is Street Fighter II, which denotes a sequel to a prior game.

The only other Street Fighter game that I knew of back in the day was the Street Fighter 2010 game for Nintendo that was featured in some comic book ads, but eventually, I’d come across that very first Street Fighter game and while my experience with it was brief, it stuck with me until the end of time.

We were at an airport one time and on the second floor, there was a rather modestly-sized video arcade section. I only had a couple quarters on hand to try some of the games; most of which were older games that I wasn’t too familiar with at the time and most of which I probably wish I sampled for the sake of saying that I played an actual [insert vintage arcade game here] arcade cabinet. But instead, my eyes were affixed on this one machine in general with a very familiar name.

Street Fighter.

But this one was different. This one had no roman numeral II on the marquee. And also, the game that was being displayed was not the familiar Street Fighter II game that I had seen before. It took a moment for my young mind to register that this was, in fact, not Street Fighter II… but rather the original Street Fighter I. Yes, the game does, in fact, exist. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes… and it bore the familiar set-up of six buttons (three punches and three kicks).

Being someone who had been on something of a Street Fighter kick, I couldn’t help but be drawn by this magical cabinet before my eyes. Ah man, I’ve got to give this thing a try… aw, but it takes two credits and that’s all I had… but still, it’s Street Fighter I. I’m never going to get this chance again. I rarely get out at this young age of 12. So I popped the quarters in and I start playing.

The game was primitive compared to its sequel. You only had one character to play with (Ryu) and your only option was to fight in Japan or USA. Naturally, I begin the quest in Japan, where I face off against a bald guy named Retsu and eventually get defeated by Geki, a ninja. And then there was a bomb. And then I had no more spare change and moved on with my life.

That’s about all I remember about the game.

I don’t recall if the game ever got ported over to home systems. The closest thing that I could recall was reading about a PC version of Street Fighter II that also came packaged with a DOS version of Street Fighter I, but that’s about the extent of it. It’d be nice to be able to play that game again someday.

We’ll see, I guess.

Later.