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Street Fighter II
Developer: Capcom
Year:
Street Fighter II : The World Warrior - 1991
Street Fighter II : Champion Edition - 1992
Street Fighter II Turbo : Hyper Fighting - 1993
Super Street Fighter II : The New Challengers - 1993
Super Street Fighter II Turbo - 1994
I personally don't know of any other fighting game in history that has had such an impact as Street Fighter II. It came basically out of nowhere in 1991 as Capcom were trying to revive their "Street Fighter" franchise as the first game in the series was an utter waste of...everything. And although it was leap years ahead of SFI, SFII still kept it simple and created an utterly addictive and enjoyable gaming experience.
The game started you off with 8 selectable characters, who are now immortalised and are fighting game heroes. Characters like Ryu, Blanka and E. Honda quickly became household names as the Street Fighter phenomenon swept the world. The gameplay was basic: wipe out your opponents power before they wipe out yours, earn points, be happy. It was all very good. The series reached its peak in the second installment of Street Fighter II, subtitled "Champion Edition" released the following year.
There were a few slight flaws in this near perfect game, however. One was an unpredictable damage ratio, meaning that a fireball could take out half your power in one hit, and the next fireball do diddly squat to you. Another was the CPU's AI. It seemed to have no problems making short work of characters like Blanka who didn't have projectile moves, but it seemed you could always revert back to Ryu or Ken and keep doing Hadoukens over and over and over until they died. Many human players also attempted this technique against other human players, although, it wouldn't work against anyone with half a brain and the ability to wipe their own butt. Computer opponents also very much overused special moves and projectiles in particular, using almost nothing else in a fight. The third small flaw was that some moves were very easily interruptable. Body contact moves such as torpedo kicks or cannonballs could be interrupted by a single punch that wouldn't even knock out your grandmother. This got very frustrating, especially against a computer opponent.
That aside, it was the perfect game. It was good, and fun. Why then, I ask, did Capcom make 5 Street Fighter II games? The game stopped being fun at 1993's "Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers", became tedious with "Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting" and was nearly unbearable by 1994 when they released "Super Street Fighter II Turbo". Besides having increasingly stupider titles, and adding little to the game besides a couple of characters, new art and faster gameplay, these last three installments were unneeded and only cheapened the game's legacy. In Japan there were actually even more tedious sequels to the one game. I don't understand the logic in making 5 almost exact duplicates. Maybe the geniuses at Capcom thought that they could have 5 times the success? Who knows.
But thank God they stopped at 5.
Pube
Street Fighter II Image Galleries:
Street Fighter II
Super Street Fighter II
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