Street Fighter 2-JGC 25th Anniversary Special-Part 1-1991-1993

Released in February of 1991, Street Fighter recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Perhaps the greatest fighting game of all time, JGC will take a look back at the various versions of SF2 and its impact on the gaming community.

The first Street Fighter was released to arcades in 1987. That game is largely seen as an inferior game. While the first game was certainly flawed, its brand of one-on-one fighting would remain the essential play mechanic that drove the sequel. Today, most players play the original game as "Fighting Street", which was released on the Turbografx 16 and PC Engine.

Seeing that the series had potential, Capcom tasked a highly specialized team of programmers, artists, and composers to create an arcade sequel that improved on the original in nearly every regard.  Featuring a cast of zany characters from around the world, Street Fighter 2 set the standard for different types of fighting game tropes. Lumbering Zangief, fireball masters Ken and Ryu, swift Chun-Li, and the sonic-booming Guile were all copied in the numerous imitators that would follow SF's massive success. Often copied, never duplicated would perfectly summarize SF2. While many of the games imitators were admirable in their effort, the game was never truly dethroned.

The concept was simple. Put in a coin, and play. And play we would. In the 1990s, it was not uncommon to have a queue of young people gathered around a SF2 machine waiting to take out the current champ at that time. Each character had its own set of special moves. Memorizing these moves was essential for any type of success. The first iteration of SF2 was incredibly simple in that it only featured 8 playable characters. After beating all 8 characters, you faced off against 4 bosses in row. These boss battles were notoriously difficult. Upon completion, the player was treated to a unique ending, provided that he/she wasn't beaten by a challenger before reaching the bosses. The first SF2 was a massive hit and was largely responsible for the revitalization of arcades in the early and mid-1990s.

Not content to rest of their laurels, Capcom began a long-running tradition of releasing various versions of the same game. Released in 1992, SF2: Champion Edition allowed the player to take control the four bosses, M.Bison (Balrog), Vega (M. Bison). Sagat, and Balrog (Vega). The boss names were switched between Japan and the USA to avoid confusing M.Bison as a possible play on Mike Tyson, who had a string of legal troubles at the time.Champion Edition was welcomed by the game's growing audience.

As with most arcade games, SF2 would find its way home in 1992. A system seller for many, SF2 for the Nintendo Super Famicom was the only home version of the game for more than a year. A great port by any definition. With SF2, the gap between the arcade and home versions began to rapidly close. In 1993, the Megadrive (Genesis) and PC Engine would finally get their turn when SF2: Champion Edition was released to both platforms. Despite having less buttons, the ports were well-received and sold like hotcakes.

Less than a year after Champion Edition, SF2 Turbo: Hyper Fighting would hit arcades in 1992. At this point, arcades were flooded with three different versions of essentially the same game. Turbo added new moves (Chun-Li's fireball!), different costume colours, and more speed. You could choose the speed at which the game played. Many consider SF2 Turbo to be the best version of the original SF2. Turbo would find its way home to the SNES/SFC only (at first anyways), keeping Nintendo's advantage in terms of having the most current versions of SF2 on its hardware. Despite being three years old, in 1994, a new breed of SF2 would emerge. Things were about to get Super.......

Continued in part 2....