STREET FIGHTER II
YOSHINORI ONO RECENTLY revealed that a next-gen fighting game from Capcom was still a long way off. This probably explains why it’s relying on yet another iteration of its massively successful Street Fighter IV to help get it through a financially tough period. In many ways it’s amazing that we’ve even got to a situation where a third update of the now-popular franchise can even exist, because it started off with some of the weakest DNA found in modern gaming.
The original Street Fighter was noticeable for one thing: its over-the-top pressure-sensitive buttons, which saw your fighter delivering different strength punches and kicks based on how hard said buttons were pushed. Okay, perhaps we’re being slightly hard on it, but if anyone had seen the red-haired Ryu crouch in a corner while an American boxer called Mike ineffectively punched at him until time ran out, they’d be forgiven for thinking that Street Fighter’s legacy would begin and end there.
There were clearly good ideas in the original Street Fighter, but it would take designer Yoshiki Okamoto, Konami’s arcade hits Time Pilot and Gyruss, and a genuine accident to fully realise them and turn Capcom’s second Street Fighter into a phenomenal worldwide success.
Street Fighter II took the original DNA of Capcom’s Street Fighter but built upon it impressively. The combatants once again hailed from all parts of the world, but the design of many of them were far more exotic. From the barrel-like arms of Zangief, to the rubbery limbs of Dhalsim, every single character was notably different. Capcom had already had huge success in the West with Final Fight, and wanted to replicate this with Street Fighter II. It would do this and then some.
Street Fighter’s characters may have had a touch of the strange to them –Blanka, anyone? – but they were also grounded in a crazy sort of hyperreality, and even if you couldn’t directly associate with them, they at least felt familiar, being based on stereotypes of their regions. Ken was a brash American obsessed with winning, E. Honda was a rotund sumo wrestler with a Sammo Hung-like speed to him, while Chun-Li (the game’s only female character) was a Chinese Interpol agent seeking revenge for her murdered father. Their personas may have been skin-deep, but they were nonetheless recognisable, and they enabled you to connect with them in a way that the
original game never managed.
While these archetypes clearly helped, it was Street Fighter II ’s stunning visuals, silky-smooth animation and gameplay mechanics that helped secure it a legion of fans. Capcom’s brawler was the 14th game to utilise Capcom’s CPS-1 technology and the benefits of the new hardware were immediately obvious to anyone who had experienced the original Street Fighter.
Firstly, the character sprites were huge, making the larger fi ghters like Zangief and E. Honda look incredibly imposing. The backgrounds were also gloriously designed, filled with moving items and people and really capturing the locations that they were based on. But it was the animation where Street Fighter II really excelled, though. Watching these fighters as they punched and kicked their way through the tournament was immensely satisfying – especially when they pulled off their special signature moves that were often unique to each character.
Capcom utilised the same six-button layout for Street Fighter II that had featured in its standard Street Fighter cabinets. Three for light, medium and heavy punches, the other three for the same strength kicks. It worked exceptionally well and added a surprisingly deep layer of gameplay to what many assumed was a simple one-on-one fi ghter. Knowing when it was best to leap in with a heavy kick or to try to outpace your opponent with a light punch was critical to success on higher difficulty levels, but it became paramount when battling humans and more pronounced than in the original game.
For many Street Fighter II was their introduction to competitive fighting, something that was further compounded with the release of later games in the series. Particularly Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, which featured a single-elimination tournament called Tournament Battle that was played in arcades up and down the country. To the uninitiated you were simply pummeling beautiful looking sprites into submission, but you soon realized upon playing just how deep the game’s waters were. Combos were an integral part of this depth, but had happened completely by accident after Capcom noticed you could add additional hits during the punch timing and decided to leave it in. It would go on to become a staple feature in later Street Fighters and many other fighting games.
The impact of Street Fighter II was immense. It led to a fierce rivalry with arcade competitor SNK – who had hit back with Fatal Fury and its King Of Fighters franchise – and helped popularise the genre and spawned countless spin-offs and sequels. In fact, no other 2D fighter has ever had the same impact. Not bad when you consider the franchise’s less than auspicious start.
