User:Master Bigode/Sandbocs
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| Street Fighter II | |
|---|---|
 A promotional Street Fighter II flyer illustrating the original eight playable world warriors. |
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| Developer(s) | Capcom |
| Publisher(s) | Capcom |
| Designer(s) | Planners: Akira Nishitani (Nin Nin), Akira Yasuda (Akiman) |
| Series | Street Fighter |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Super NES, Mega Drive/Genesis, PC Engine, Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, PC, 3DO, Sega Master System, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Mobile Phone, Xbox Live Arcade, Virtual Console |
| Release date | NA 1991 JPN 1991 EU 1992 |
| Genre(s) | Fighting |
| Mode(s) | Up to 2 players simultaneously |
| Media | ROM, cartridge, HuCard, floppy disk, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM |
| Input methods | 8-way joystick, 6 buttons |
| Cabinet | Upright |
| Arcade system | CPS-1 |
| Display | Raster, horizontal orientation, 384 x 224 pixels, 4096 colors, 60 Hz refresh rate |
Street Fighter II (ストリートファイターⅡ Sutorīto Faitā Tsū?) is a 1991 competitive fighting game by Capcom. It is widely credited with launching the fighting genre into the mainstream and extending the life of the worldwide arcade scene for several years with its unique six button "combo" controls and revolutionary loser pays competitive gameplay. Its popularity far eclipsed that of its comparatively obscure predecessor, thanks in part to its inclusion of eight selectable characters (a number which would increase in subsequent revisions) with their unique playing style and refinement of the unique play controls featured in the first game, setting the template for future fighting games. Its success also led to the production of several revised versions of the game (including home versions), as well as merchandising and cross-media adaptations (including two separately produced theatrical films).
Street Fighter II was followed by a prequel titled Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams and a sequel titled Street Fighter III: New Generation. Both games also inspired their own series of revisions.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
As one of the most popular games of the early 1990s, Street Fighter II, released on Capcom's CPS-1 arcade board in February 1991, shaped the direction of arcade games for nearly a decade to follow. It is widely acknowledged as the premier fighting game of its era, due to its game balance with regard to the timing of attacks and blocks, which was unparalleled at the time; and due to "special moves" in which experienced players could execute complex fighting moves by moving the joystick and tapping the buttons in certain combinations. The game featured a six button layout, with punch buttons consisting of 'jab', 'strong', and 'fierce' and kick buttons consisting of 'short', 'forward', and 'roundhouse', in ascending order of strength. This was not new or exclusive to fighting games, but the way in which the game relied on them was. These complicated fighting moves were given names, such as the Shoryuken (the Rising Dragon Punch), the Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku (the Tornado Whirlwind Kick) and the Hadouken (Wave-Motion Fist)[1], which provided a framework for players to have conversations about their games. It also introduced the convention of "cancelling" or "interrupting" moves into other moves, which enabled a player to create sequences of continuous hits. This was the game which introduced the concept of the combo, a sequence of attacks which, when executed with proper timing, did not allow the opponent to interrupt the combination. Mastery of these techniques led almost directly to the high-level competition which has been a cornerstone of this type of game ever since.
The game features eight fighters that players can choose from: Ryu, Ken, Blanka, Zangief, Dhalsim, Guile, E. Honda, and Chun-Li, plus four bosses (Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison). The character known as M. Bison in the original Japanese game was considered a legal liability by Capcom USA, because his name, backstory and appearance were very similar to that of professional boxer Mike Tyson. In order to pre-empt any lawsuits on the part of Tyson, the names of all the bosses except Sagat (who was carried over from the original Street Fighter), were re-arranged, something which has since caused no shortage of confusion when attempting description. For the sake of reference, the characters known as M. Bison, Balrog, and Vega in Japan became Balrog, Vega, and M. Bison in overseas versions respectively.
[edit] Arcade revisions
[edit] Champion Edition
Street Fighter II′: Champion Edition, released in Japan as Street Fighter II Dash (ストリートファイターIIダッシュ Sutorīto Faitā Tsū Dasshu?)[1]
- All four boss characters became playable.
- Players could choose the same character to fight against each other, using palette swapping to differentiate the second player.
- The backgrounds of each player's stage were re-colored (a theme throughout most of the revisions).
- There were various bug fixes for serious glitches (such as Guile's Handcuffs), as well as some balancing of the characters.
[edit] Hyper Fighting
Street Fighter II′ : Hyper Fighting, or Street Fighter II Dash Turbo (ストリートファイターIIダッシュターボ Sutorīto Faitā Tsū Dasshu Tābo?)[2] in Japan, was released in response to the proliferation of modified bootlegs of Champion Edition. Changes included:
- Faster gameplay.
- Many characters gained new moves (all composed of recycled animation frames), and several that could now be performed in mid-air.
- All characters were given new, default color palettes, with their original color scheme accessible as an alternate color scheme (replacing the ones from Champion Edition). The only exception to this was the final boss M. Bison, who still used his original color scheme by default, but was given a new alternate color scheme anyway.
[edit] Super Street Fighter II
- Further information: Super Street Fighter II
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (スーパーストリートファイターII Sūpā Sutorīto Faitā Tsū?) was the first Street Fighter game that Capcom would release on its CPS-2 hardware. The arcade version of this game also included a variant titled Super Street Fighter II: Tournament Battle that allowed four arcade cabinets to be connected together for simultaneous tournament play. This version contained the most extensive changes introduced in the series:
- Four new characters were added (Fei Long, T. Hawk, Cammy, and Dee Jay).
- Boss characters received updated regular move sets.
- Boss characters received new, individual game endings.
- Each character could be selected with one of eight different color palettes.
- Some of the original eight playable characters received updated art and audio.
- The speed introduced in Hyper Fighting was reduced.
- A combo counter (a first despite combos being in the game since the original), as well as point bonuses for first attack, combos and reversals.
[edit] Super Street Fighter II Turbo
Super Street Fighter II Turbo[3], or Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge (スーパーストリートファイターII X Sūpā Sutorīto Faitā Tsū Ekusu?, "Two Ex") in Japan, is a slightly updated version of Super Street Fighter II. This version introduced:
- The addition of the "SUPER" bar. This allowed character to build up and unleash a very powerful special attack.
- The speed was again raised from Super SF2, close to Hyper Fighting levels.
- Intentional air juggling (a series of attacks that could hit an opponent while airborne)
- The ability to tech or "soften" non-multi hit throws (teching allows a character to land on one's feet instead of on their back, resulting in less damage).
- A new secret character (Akuma).
- Alternate versions of each character that with similar characteristics (but not quite identical) to their Super Street Fighter II version.
- The bonus stages (where players try to destroy all the objects in the stage before time runs out) were removed.
[edit] Hyper Street Fighter II
Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition (ハイパーストリートファイターII Haipā Sutorīto Faitā Tsū?) is an arranged version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo with the ability to choose every previously playable version of the characters from all five arcade versions of Street Fighter II (including the alternate versions of the characters in Super Turbo). It was first released as a PlayStation 2 game, but was backported to the CPS-2 hardware and distributed in arcades in Japan and Asia. The game includes an option to switch between the CPS, CPS-2 and arranged (from the 3DO version of Super Turbo) renditions of the game's soundtrack. The PS2 version of the game was sold as a stand-alone game in Japan and in the PAL region, as part of a bundle with Street Fighter III 3rd Strike titled Street Fighter Anniversary Collection in North America. This same bundle was released worldwide for the Xbox.
[edit] Characters
The original version of Street Fighter II featured a roster of eight playable characters that can could be selected by the player. Out of the eight character in the roster, only Ryu and Ken were taken from the original Street Fighter. The others were created specifically for this game.
The single player tournament mode also features four CPU-controlled opponents whom the player face after defeating the other main characters. The bosses in the Japanese version were: M. Bison, a black American boxer; Balrog, a Spanish clawman; Sagat, the former champion from the original Street Fighter; and Vega, a mysterious crime lord. When Street Fighter II was released overseas, the names of the bosses were rotated, fearing that the character of M. Bison resembled Mike Tyson (of whom Bison was modeled after) too closely, but also because Capcom USA's marketing team believed that "Vega" was a "weak-sounding name" for the final boss.[4] As a result, the boxer became Balrog, the clawman became Vega and the final boss became M. Bison in the localization. The initial in M. Bison originally stood for "Mike", but its meaning was lost to western players. From Champion Edition and onward, the boss characters became playable, expanding the selectable roster to twelve.
Super Street Fighter II introduced four new characters from previously unrepresented nationalities to the pre-existing roster: Fei Long, Cammy, T. Hawk and Dee Jay. The new characters were designed by Capcom's internal artists in Japan except for Dee Jay, whose original design was contributed to the game by American designer James Goddard. The character roster was now increased to sixteen.
Super Street Fighter II Turbo featured another new character whom the player faced (upon meeting the required conditions) in the game's final match instead of M. Bison. This character, who was unnamed within the actual game, was officially referred as Gouki in Japan and as Akuma in the english version and the different names were stuck in those territories. Akuma/Gouki becomes selectable only by entering a special cheat code in the character selection screen.
| Character | Nationality | Original | Champion Edition | Hyper Fighting | Super | Super Turbo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryu |  |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ken |  |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| E. Honda | |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Chun-Li |  |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Blanka |  |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zangief |  |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Guile | |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dhalsim |  |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Balrog (M. Bison in Japan) | |
Yes (CPU only) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Vega (Balrog in Japan) |  |
Yes (CPU only) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sagat |  |
Yes (CPU only) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| M. Bison (Vega in Japan) | |
Yes (CPU only) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fei Long |  |
No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Cammy |  |
No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| T. Hawk |  |
No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Dee Jay |  |
No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Akuma (Gouki in Japan) | No | No | No | No | Yes (hidden character) |
[edit] Other media
Street Fighter II was adapted into two different movies in 1994, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (a Japanese anime released in the U.S. courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment) and an American-produced live-action film, simply titled Street Fighter. Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile, Kylie Minogue as Cammy and Raul Julia as M. Bison, the live-action film effectively incorporated the main cast of the video game and wrapped them into an action adventure very reminiscent of the classic adventure films of yore. Director Steven E. de Souza's take on the premise: "I especially loved films like The Longest Day, The Great Escape and The Guns of Navarone. What made those films great wasn't the random violence. It was the clear-cut struggle between forces of good and evil, leading to an ultimate showdown."
Even though Street Fighter the movie is considered one of the worst movies ever made, it has gained a sizable cult following and has even seen numerous DVD releases, complete with a plethora of special features and bonus content[citation needed]. In contrast, the animated film was better received due for having a more faithful approach to the game's plot and has also seen some DVD releases.
There was also a US Street Fighter cartoon, which followed the plot of the Van Damme movie, and an unrelated anime titled Street Fighter II V.
[edit] References
- ^ In Japan, Street Fighter II′: Champion Edition is fully titled Street Fighter II Dash: Champion Edition. The word "Dash" however is not written on the game's logo, but represented by the apostrophe-like prime symbol (which can pronounced as "dash" or "prime") on the game's logo. When the game was released in North America, the apostrophe was kept on the game's title screen, but the arcade game's marquee refers to it simply as Street Fighter II: Champion Edition and the meaning of the apostrophe was lost.
- ^ In the same way Champion Edition is titled Street Fighter II Dash in Japan, Hyper Fighting is fully titled Street Fighter II Dash Turbo: Hyper Fighting in Japan, with "dash" once again rendered as an apostrophe. The word Turbo is missing from the title screens of the overseas versions, simply referring to the game as Street Fighter II′ : Hyper Fighting. The American arcade cabinet of the game features the American Street Fighter II: Champion Edition logo with the words Turbo and Hyper Fighting surrounding it.
- ^ The western version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo is the only Street Fighter II game originally released without a subtitle, although it was given one in Street Fighter Collection for PlayStation and Saturn, where it is titled Super Street Fighter II Turbo: The Ultimate Challenge
- ^ Interview with Street Fighter II Sound Team (Japanese).
[edit] External links
- Master Bigode/Sandbocs at the Killer List of Videogames
- Street Fighter II guide at StrategyWiki
- Street Fighter II Champion Edition guide at StrategyWiki
- Street Fighter II Turbo guide at StrategyWiki
- Shoryuken.com (the online center of competitive Street Fighter)
- The Making of Street Fighter II at insert credit
- Street Fighter II art at FightingStreet.com
- Street Fighter II at MobyGames
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