GA101 - Street Fighter II

From thecrankyhermit

Sf2vs.jpg

Capcom was formally founded in 1983, as a manufacturer of coin-operated amusement machines. Their first video game, Vulgus, was a science fiction-themed shooter with an overhead perspective and continuous vertical movement, in the style of Namco's 1982 title Xevious. Many of their subsequent titles followed the same format, such as 1942, Exed Exes, Commando, and Gun.Smoke. Other notable titles released during Capcom's first few years were Ghosts 'n Goblins, Bionic Commando, Black Tiger, and their NES-oriented debut Mega Man.

In 1987, Capcom released Street Fighter - a competitive martial arts fighting game. The game consisted of a series of one-on-one matches against opponents from around the world, culminating in a fight against Muay Thai master Sagat. It was not the first game to feature this format - Data East's Karate Champ is often cited as a direct ancestor - but it did introduce several gameplay elements that would later be staples of the genre. Six buttons were used to perform a variety of strikes and kicks with different measures of speed, reach, and power. Certain combinations of joystick motion and button presses would unleash mystic projectile attacks or flying strikes. In addition, a second player could, at any time, enter the tournament and challenge the first player for their ranking. Street Fighter enjoyed moderate if unremarkable reception and sales.

Shortly afterwards, Capcom developed a 16-bit arcade system dubbed "CPS-1," and began creating a Street Fighter sequel which would take advantage of its powerful hardware. During its design, it shifted away from the one-on-one martial competition template and ultimately became a brawler in the style of Double Dragon, pitting one or two powerful human-controlled combatants against waves of lesser thugs. It was released in 1989 as "Final Fight," to reflect its disassociation from Street Fighter. Fighting mechanics were simplified from Street Fighter, and yet were much more fluid, precise, and dynamic. Owing much to the CPS-1 machine, the aesthetic was greatly improved from Street Fighter, featuring large, well-animated sprites, detailed backgrounds with animated features, clean sounding digitized vocals, and some of Capcom's earliest iconic music.

In 1991, during declining popularity of North American arcades, Capcom released Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, on their CPS-1 arcade machine. Designed by Final Fight creators Akira Nishitani and Akira Yasuda, it retained the formula and complexities of Street Fighter, but also sported the fluidity and craftsmanship that had been showcased in Final Fight. With deep, complex, and yet accessible gameplay, large and vividly animated characters, and spot-on control, Street Fighter II was far better than any competitive fighting game to precede it, and enjoyed so much popularity and critical acclaim that it would serve as the template for nearly all competitive fighting games to this day.

Sf2charselect.jpg

Street Fighter II features an impressive array of eight playable fighters from around the world. Ryu and Ken, who return from Street Fighter 1, fight with a karate-like style and are nearly identical to each other. The others are truly distinctive, immediately recognizable, and feature unique sets of moves, attacks, controls, animations, and vocals to fit their individual martial arts styles and personalities. Any individual character is far more detailed and complex than one from any prior fighting game. They possesses individual strengths, weaknesses, basic abilities, and special abilities which lend themselves to completely different strategies, both for fighting as and fighting against. Each can perform upwards of 2 dozen (a few can perform more than 3 dozen!) different strikes, kicks, throws, and holds, depending not only on which of six buttons were pressed, but on stance and proximity as well. Complementing these are special moves; fantastic, gravity-defying, magical, or otherwise impossibly exaggerated feats of martial arts mastery, which have unique tactical properties for attack and defense. For instance, Ryu and Ken's most important special moves are the Hadouken, an energy projectile used to attack from a distance, and the Shoryuken, a high flying uppercut often used to counter jumping attacks.

Street Fighter II can be played against the computer, which pits you as your selected player against the other seven in a tournament around the world, with incrementally increasing difficulty thanks to more effective AI. The tournament has occasional bonus rounds between matches where you smash a car, barrels, or oil drums for extra points. After defeating all seven opponents, there remain four powerful grand masters, concluding with world champion M. Bison.

The true draw, however, is two player mode, where the game's true range of depth is revealed. On the simplest level, players without any prior experience can grasp the mechanics - move close and press buttons to beat your opponent into submission while they try to do the same to you. But with dedication, players discovered that the different moves available varied in many subtle ways, and learned which moves could consistently counter others, making the act of delivering a basic strike a complex and asymmetric game of rock-paper-scissors whose odds could be tipped by memorizing the rules. Observant players with very good reflexes could tip them further by recognizing a move from its early animation frames, and reacting quickly with an appropriate and well-timed counter. Special moves and airborne attacks revealed many new layers of tactics. Truly dedicated players discovered mechanics that Capcom hadn't originally intended, the most famous of all being combos - flowing sequences of well-timed strikes which can not be blocked if the first connects - which have been a staple of fighting games ever since.

Sf2bison.jpg

Street Fighter II may not be the first competitive fighting game, but it was certainly and by far the best of its time. Prior titles, including its predecessor Street Fighter, were clunky, slow, and crude by comparison, and none approached the popularity of contemporary cooperative beat'em ups. But Street Fighter II was slick and polished, with responsive controls, amazing visuals, and impeccable character design. It looked great, sounded great, and played fast and smoothly. A flood of competitive fighting games emerged in its wake, invariably using SF2 as a template. Most successful franchises have their gimmicks - Mortal Kombat had gruesome finishing moves. Virtua Fighter introduced 3D graphics and slow, methodical gameplay based on realistic martial arts moves. One Must Fall: 2097 had stage-based hazards and an innovative Tournament mode. The King of Fighters offered 3 on 3 tag-team matches. Tekken offered 3D gameplay and intuitive, limb-based controls. But the critical gameplay elements of SF2 have never been strayed from far.

Fighting games eventually waned in popularity. Fans of the genre have been distilled over time to a handful of dedicated players who have developed strategies and techniques, creating a very high barrier of entry for novices. Nevertheless, the genre remains strong, if niche. Street Fighter and most of the successful franchises it inspired continue to spawn successful sequels to this day, with Street Fighter IV having sold over 6 million copies. A slew of newer 2D titles and franchises target the ultra-hardcore competitive fighting base with mind boggling layers of complexity and nuance.

Sf2ssf2t.jpg

Infamously, Street Fighter II was tweaked and re-released four times before an all-new title, Street Fighter Alpha, was released in 1995. "Champion Edition," the first revision, greatly improves gameplay balance and increases the roster to twelve by making the four grand masters playable. "Hyper Fighting" speeds up the game and gives most of the characters new abilities, and is favored by SF2 purists. "Super Street Fighter II" enhances the graphics, music, and sound, overhauls the interface, and adds four brand new characters. However, the arcade version lacked the speed of Hyper Fighting, and several other planned features. Finally, "Super Street Fighter II: Turbo" (henceforth known as "Super Turbo") brought back the speed of Hyper Fighting and then some, gave all 16 characters a multitude of normal and special moves not previously available, and added enough new gameplay mechanics to radically change the flow of a fight such as air combos, tech throws, and super moves.

Street Fighter II has been and continues to be released in many different formats and mediums. None are truly definitive - each of the five arcade versions has pros and cons, and each official home release of them also has pros and cons. Barring arcade hardware, only hobbyist emulation offers a completely satisfying arcade experience. One such client, "GGPO," comes with an online matchmaking system which supports Champion Edition and Super Turbo. Barring emulation, one low-barrier way to experience the game is a free flash edition of Champion Edition, playable here. It's not perfect - there's no two-player mode, and it runs a bit slower than it should, but other than that it's a solid arcade reproduction, and Champion Edition is arguably the best version for beginners to learn the ropes. The Super Nintendo version of Street Fighter II: Turbo, available on Wii's Virtual Console, is also a solid beginner's version, as it includes reasonably accurate ports of both Champion Edition and Hyper Fighting, and has an offline two-player mode. Super Turbo, which Capcom intended to be the definitive version of the game for experienced players, cannot be truly replaced by its fanmade "HD Remix" successor. It is also decidedly not beginner friendly, and most versions of it are virtually unplayable in singleplayer due to inhumanly skilled AI. The Japanese version "Super Street Fighter II X" is an exception - I suggest playing that version for practice against the computer, and Super Turbo through GGPO for Internet multiplayer, or PS2/XBox's "Hyper Street Fighter II Anniversary Edition" for local multiplayer.

Beginner tips:

  • Use Ryu or Ken to learn the ropes. They are the easiest characters to master, and are quite powerful in all versions other than World Warrior.
  • Do not expect to win fights at first, before you've learned effective defense and effective offense. Focus on learning effective defense first.
  • Blocking is a fairly safe defense against most attacks. While moving backwards, you assume a defensive stance and will block most attacks. You must be crouching to block low strikes (like leg sweeps), and you must be standing to block jumping or overhead strikes. But beware of throws - they can't be blocked. Also beware of endless projectiles - blocking them will slowly wear you down.
  • Counter moves are risky but rewarding. For instance, Ryu/Ken's crouching fierce punch is an uppercut, which when timed well, will beat most jumping attacks, knocking the opponent out of the sky and to the ground. The Shoryuken is a bit trickier to execute, but will beat *any* jumping attack. Most, but not all characters have a reliable anti-air move or two. But mistiming one will get you hit instead, or expose you to a beating.
  • Being able to pull off special moves is vital. As mentioned, the Shoryuken is the best defense in the game against jumping attacks, but there's no room for error. Practice the special moves until you can pull them off on command.
  • You can only block when at your "ready" stance, and all moves will override this stance for a brief duration. Know which moves take how long - a missed move with a recovery time leaves you vulnerable.
  • Effective attacking requires knowing what options your opponent has for defense. For instance, E. Honda can't do much against projectiles except clumsily jump over them. Therefore, continuous Hadoukens will pressure him to go on the offensive with jumping attacks, which you can usually counter with a Shoryuken. This strategy works well against many characters, but be mindful of their jumping attack range - throw a fireball when they are too close, and they can jump over it and hit you before you have a chance to counter.


Icon-arrow-left.png Super Mario World Index Sonic the Hedgehog Icon-arrow-right.png