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STREET FIGHTER II (1991): WOULD YOU LIKE THE COMBO?
Ryu, Ken, E. Honda, Guile, Chun-Li, Zangief, Dhalsim, Sagat and M. Bison—do they really need an introduction? If so, you're overdue for a serious Shoryuken.1 The game: Capcom's Street Fighter II, probably the single most important arcade title of the 1990s.
Street Fighter II’s cast of characters.
Although there had been several competitive fighting games before it, Street Fighter II trumped them all with its spectacular graphics and sophisticated—even artistic—gameplay. If the graphics were the bait, the gameplay was the hook. A seemingly endless line of teenagers lined up in front of these machines, eager to demonstrate their virtual street fighting skills—or, at least their mastery of Street Fighter II's esoteric combat system. For many boys (and no doubt many girls as well!) growing up in the 1990s, Street Fighter II wasn't just a game, but a rite of passage.
Street Fighter II joins the ranks of other Japanese games that overwhelmed American arcades: Space Invaders (Chapter 16, “Space Invaders (1978): The Japanese Take Over”), Pac-Man (Chapter 13, “Pac-Man (1980): Japanese Gumption, American Consumption”), and Pole Position (Chapter 14, “Pole Position (1982): Where the Raster Meets the Road”). All four games introduced critical innovations that would be shamelessly duplicated and endlessly refined. Although they perhaps had their greatest impact in the arcades, they also played a critical role in the console industry. Console makers competed fiercely for the rights to port these titles, as they knew countless fans would purchase their console specifically to play these games in their living rooms. Indeed, one of the recurring standards of console excellence throughout the 1980s and 1990s was the degree to which their ports of games like Pac-Man and Street Fighter II approximated the arcade experience.
However, there's little argument that what made Street Fighter II so popular was its competitive nature, which, like Pong (bonus chapter, “Pong (1972): Avoid Missing Game to Start Industry”) before it, made it uniquely suited to the arcade. Though it was possible to play Street Fighter II and other fighting games against the computer, the real challenge was facing off against a skilled human opponent. The arcade owners of the early 1990s must have loved these fighting games, which filled their arcades with quarter-popping teens who otherwise would have stayed home to play videogames on their consoles and computers. Indeed, the only real competition that fighting games had at the arcades were driving simulations, which benefited from specially built enclosures and cabinets that would have been prohibitively expensive to have at home (see Chapter 14). Other arcade games didn't enjoy this advantage, and their graphical superiority gradually eroded as console technology improved. However, unless one had like-minded friends to play with at home, the arcades were still the best place to test one's mettle against other Street Fighter II fans. This fact helped keep fighting games flourishing in the arcades long after shoot ’em ups and platformers had faded from that venue to the family television.
Street Fighter II was certainly not the first fighting game, and we'll spend some time in this chapter describing its most influential predecessors. However, it did offer some key innovations that came to define the genre, which we'll discuss in turn. There is some contention about what was actually the first true competitive fighting game. One very early contender is Vectorbeam's Warrior, a 1979 arcade game that showed an overhead view of two dueling knights with swords. It featured vector graphics, and the two players could win either by whacking their opponent with their swords or forcing them into a pit (solo play wasn't possible). However, the machine's hardware was unreliable, and poor collision detection and sluggish controls—two of the most critical aspects for a fighting game—certainly didn't help endear it to gamers. It faded quickly from the scene.
Vectorbeam's Warrior, shown with simulated color backdrop.
Marc Goodman's The Bilestoad (1982) for the Apple II was a superb expansion of concepts from Warrior. Using a sophisticated control scheme, players battle it out on a small island with limb-severing axes and protective shields.
In 1984, John G. Avildsen's The Karate Kid debuted in theaters. This film smashed into theaters like a flying sidekick, raking in over $90 million and inspiring untold legions of boys to seek martial arts training at one of the new dojos popping up all over the country. Everyone seemed to be saying “wax on, wax off” in their best Mr. Miyagi accent. Needless to say, the time was ripe for a good karate game that would let players reprise Ralph Macchio's role as Daniel LaRusso.
Screenshot from Data East's Karate Champ.
Technos Japan Corporation's Karate Champ, released in 1984 by Data East, certainly gave them the chance. The original version was for a single player who fought against computer-controlled opponents. The interface relied on a pair of joysticks for control; the left was primarily for movement and the right for attacks. Karate Champ also offered the familiar side-by-side perspective that would become standard in almost every subsequent fighting game. Technos is also responsible for Double Dragon, a side-scrolling “beat ’em up” that we'll discuss later. In addition to the now-standard sparring mode, Karate Champ also offered a series of minigames to further test one's skill at the controllers.
Data East revised the game and rereleased it as Karate Champ Player vs. Player later in 1984, with home ports for a variety of systems following shortly thereafter. The arcade version featured two pairs of joysticks, and, as the title makes clear, offered competitive gameplay. Naturally, the ports had to make concessions for simpler control schemes, such as requiring players to hold down a controller button while moving the joystick (or operating the d-pad) in a certain direction to execute a move. For instance, the rather inadequate Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) port required players to move right on the d-pad and simultaneously press the A and B buttons to leap right. All versions but the NES have the players fighting over a woman, who seems to prefer a boyfriend who can pulverize his rival. The NES version removed this aspect of the game, though it's unclear whether this was a move to make the game less sexist or simply to get the coding done faster. The sloppiness of the collision detection and control schemes suggest the latter.
International Karate (top) and The Way of the Exploding Fist (bottom) were clearly based on the earlier Karate Champ, but courts ruled that they were different in the ways that mattered—such as background graphics and scoring systems. Both shots shown here are from the Commodore 64.
A British company named System 3 developed and released a computer game in 1986 called International Karate. The game was quite similar to Karate Champ, but was available on far more platforms, including British computers like the ZX Spectrum. The game was published in the United States by Epyx. Data East sued System 3, accusing them of a complex set of copyright and trademark violations. The case was eventually decided against Data East, though the reasoning behind the judge's decision was somewhat complicated. Essentially, he believed that the many elements the games had in common were essential to the sport of karate and could not be copyrighted. On the other hand, the elements of Karate Champ and International Karate that were “creative contributions,” such as scoring and background scenes, were quite different and did not violate copyright. Data East seemed to have learned from the experience, and tried something similar in 1993 with Fighter's History, which Capcom felt was similar enough to its Street Fighter II to warrant another trial. Again, the courts ruled in favor of the clone-maker, and Data East emerged victorious in the struggle.2
Konami's Yie Ar Kung-Fu (1985) was a very popular single-player-versus-the-computer arcade fighting game. Though it lacks the depth of most other one-on-one fighting games, Yie Ar Kung-Fu was heralded for its fast action and colorful cast of opponents.
There were several other notable fighting games made in the Karate Champ style, such as Beam Software's Way of the Exploding Fist (1985), a popular Australian game that made its way to Britain and the United States for the Commodore 64 and most British computers of the time. However, arguably the best of the lot is Jordan Mechner's Karateka, a methodically paced 1984 side-scrolling fighting game for the Apple II published by Broderbund and ported to most other platforms of the era.
Karateka, like Mechner's later hit Prince of Persia (1989), was known for its realistic graphics and convincing animation of the human body. Unlike most fighting games, Karateka featured a comprehensive and cinematic storyline—the player must face a series of increasingly difficult fights to rescue princess Mariko from the evil Akuma. Interestingly enough, in most versions, the box art portrayed the player's character and Princess Mariko as blond Europeans; only Akuma looks Asian.
Screenshot from Karateka (the Apple II version).
Another early approach to the fighting genre is represented by Technos's side-scrolling Double Dragon (1987), often called the definitive “beat ’em up.” Double Dragon and its imitators differ from competitive fighting games in several key ways. Most significantly, instead of all the action taking place on a single screen, the screen scrolls horizontally as the player (or players) progress through the game, battling increasingly tougher or more numerous enemies. Second, the controls are greatly simplified, with much fewer moves—a fact compensated for with the ability to pick up and use a variety of weapons (baseball bats, whips, and so on). Third, players usually cooperate with each other to fight computer-controlled thugs rather than duel one-on-one. Beat ’em ups like Double Dragon were popular in the arcades, but were also a hit on home platforms.
Screenshot from Double Dragon.
Double Dragon saw several sequels and even a typically mediocre film treatment in 1994. It also inspired a slew of quality clones, including Capcom's Final Fight and Sega's Golden Axe, both in 1989. There have also been several successful beat ’em ups based on comic book and cartoon characters, such as Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, yet another bestseller of 1989, and Konami's X-Men (1992), a quarter-gobbler that offered simultaneous gameplay for up to six players. The popular TV show The Simpsons also served as the basis for a classic beat ’em up, with Konami's unlikely The Simpsons: The Arcade Game in 1991.
There was a cavalcade of computer, arcade, and console games based more or less on Karate Champ released in the mid to late 1980s, but most of these were quickly forgotten. One such game that might have ended up in the dustbin of history was Capcom's Street Fighter (1987). Though it offered better audiovisuals than Karate Champ, the controls were inaccurate and often frustrating, and players only had two virtually identical playable characters to choose from (Ryu and Ken). The original controls were a joystick and two pneumatic pads. The idea was that the characters in the game would execute a strong or weak move depending on how hard players smacked these pads; needless to say, these machines were quickly ruined by abusive players. Later versions replaced these pads with the six-button setup that afterwards became a staple of the genre. It also featured three secret techniques (special moves) that players had to learn on their own. The game was eventually ported to many home platforms of the day, though sometimes with modifications, like the release for the NEC TurboGrafx-CD as Fighting Street.
Screenshot from Street Fighter. This unremarkable fighting game was the unlikely precursor to one of the most famous videogames of all time.
Capcom more than redeemed itself four years later with Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. The sequel represented a vast improvement over its prequel. Besides the expected improvement in audiovisuals, Capcom made some innovative changes to the gameplay that revolutionized the genre: eight unique playable characters, each with an extensive set of attacks, some of which could be combined into multihit combinations, or “combos.” It also offered four AI-only “boss” characters and borrowed the competitive “loser pays” game system from the previous game; the winner of player versus player match could play another bout for free, but the loser had to ante up another quarter. This design gave gamers yet another incentive to master the combos!
Screenshot from Street Fighter II.
The huge number of moves made Street Fighter II the most sophisticated game of its kind. Players enjoyed trying out the different characters and devising strategies to deal with every possible situation. Although of course there had been strategy involved in earlier fighting games, Street Fighter II was substantially more complex. Players had to work hard to learn all the moves and then the right circumstances to execute them. Furthermore, the super-tight controls and detailed graphics made the game fun to play and impressive to watch. Players could either compete head-to-head or take on the game solo, in which case they'd fight all the other characters and the four bosses. Later versions made these bosses playable characters as well.
Although arcades had always been veritable arenas of competition, Street Fighter II took things to a new level. Dedicated players discussed moves and strategies with their friends, read magazines and guides, and spent countless hours practicing and tweaking their performance. Naturally, novice players facing a seasoned veteran often found themselves hopelessly outmatched, unable to last more than a few seconds or get off a single attack. Although some such players might accuse the other of cheating or playing “cheap,” for the most part even the nastiest attacks and combos had their appropriate countermove.
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior was a staggering success for Capcom and the arcade industry as a whole. Capcom released multiple variations over the years, adding or revising content and tweaking or speeding up the gameplay. The game was also ported to most computer and console platforms. A Super Nintendo version appeared in 1992, but the NEC TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Genesis platforms didn't see the game until 1993 with the arrival of Street Fighter II: Champion Edition. Late 1993 saw the arcade release of Super Street Fighter II, which upgraded the audiovisuals and added new characters but slowed the gameplay down. In 1994, Super Street Fighter II Turbo added “super combos” and let players adjust the game's speed. Street Fighter II aficionados endlessly debated the merits and limitations of each port, sequel, and remake. Fans would have to wait until 1995, however, for the first true sequel with all new content—Street Fighter Alpha, which was set chronologically before Street Fighter II and had a younger cast of fighters. This was followed in 1997 by Street Fighter III: New Generation, which revamped the gameplay and got rid of all the original characters except Ryu and Ken.
Screenshot for Super Street Fighter II Turbo.
The enormous success of Street Fighter II spurred a huge number of clones and spin-offs. SNK added several key games to the genre, including Fatal Fury: King of Fighters (1991), Art of Fighting (1992), and Samurai Shodown (1993). A comprehensive list (much less description) of each such game would strain the energies of the authors and the patience of even the most devoted reader. Through it all, however, Street Fighter II remained the standard by which all others were measured.
Perhaps the most notorious of all is Midway's Mortal Kombat, a 1992 arcade game that aroused almost instant controversy for its cinematic realism and over-the-top violence.3 It looked more realistic than Street Fighter II, because it was made with live actors who had been filmed over a bluescreen and digitized—a technique utilized in Atari Games's otherwise insignificant Pit-Fighter, released two years earlier.4 Word quickly spread of the game's “fatality” system, which allowed victorious players to perform some particularly gruesome finishing moves on the fallen competitor. Perhaps the worst offender was a “spine rip” fatality performed by the character Sub-Zero. As we might expect, the publicity made the game even more popular.
Screenshot from Mortal Kombat.
The excessive violence made for plenty of drama when it came time to port Mortal Kombat to consoles. Nintendo had long had a decidedly family-friendly policy when it came to its games, and naturally Mortal Kombat would need a serious scrubbing before it satisfied their censors. For the 1993 Super Nintendo port, the fatalities were toned down or taken out completely, and the blood was recolored gray and referred to as “sweat.” Meanwhile, Sega, who had long distinguished itself from Nintendo by projecting an edgier image, also had their Genesis version altered to make it less offensive to parents, but by entering a special code, gamers could bring back the violence. Needless to say, even though the Super Nintendo version featured better graphics and sound, once word got out about which version kept more of the arcade experience intact, the version for Sega's Genesis won the battle for most sales. No doubt due in no small part to this sales disparity, Nintendo would lower their censorship standards for the game's many popular sequels.
Due to their immense cultural impact, both Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat received live-action silver screen treatments. The first was Steven E. de Souza's dreadful Street Fighter, a 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme action vehicle. Richard Harrington of the Washington Post derided the movie, quipping that “fortunately, we're as unlikely to see a ‘Street Fighter’ sequel as we are to see one to the latest video/film fiasco, ‘Super Mario Bros.’.”5 Paul W. S. Anderson's film Mortal Kombat, which debuted in 1995, fared much better both critically and commercially, with a solid story and excellent martial arts action, even spawning a few sequels.
As the 1990s continued, developers kept searching for ways to keep the fighting genre fresh. Sega had a surprise hit in 1993 with its arcade game, Virtua Fighter, a pioneering attempt to bring the third dimension to fighting games. Critics raved about its realistic fighting system and impressive 3D graphics. The series hit its seventh installment with Virtua Fighter 5, a 2006 arcade game released the following year for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360, with the latter allowing for online play. The Virtua Fighter series inspired several other 3D fighting games, including Namco's Tekken (1994) and Team Ninja's Dead or Alive (1996). Both games led to best-selling and long-running series. The Dead or Alive series gained some measure of fame for its scantily clad female characters, something of a staple in fighting games, culminating in 2003 in Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball for the Microsoft Xbox—a volleyball game that starred the series’ female cast in next to nothing.
There are, of course, plenty of other interesting and innovative one-on-one fighting games we could mention, such as Squaresoft's Bushido Blade (1997; Sony PlayStation), a realistic weapons-based game featuring one-hit kills, Arc System Works’ Guilty Gear (1998), featuring beautiful anime-style graphics, and Namco's Soulcalibur (1998), a weapons-based fighter with greater freedom of movement—all of which can boast of sequels and loyal fanbases.
Screenshot from Virtua Fighter Remix (1995) on the Sega Saturn. Virtua Fighter Remix was a game Sega sent for free to all registered Saturn owners as a type of mea culpa for the lackluster first release on the platform.
An interesting trend in fighting games has been mixing together characters from different titles or even different genres, like 2008’s Soulcalibur IV for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 including Yoda and Darth Vader, respectively, from Star Wars. Often it seems like the cast of fighters is as important as the gameplay. We certainly see this in games like Sega's Fighters Megamix, a 1997 game that includes characters from the company's earlier Virtua Fighter 2 and Fighting Vipers titles. There are also several unlockable characters such as Bark the Polar Bear and Bean the Dynamite, obscure characters from Sega's Sonic the Fighters (1996). Capcom and SNK also teamed up to create several fan-pleasing mashups. Other examples of crossover games are Capcom's X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996) and Marvel vs. Capcom (1998), which pits warriors from Street Fighter II and other Capcom games against several of Marvel's most famous heroes, including Spiderman and Wolverine. Although some players found the idea of Spiderman going head to head with Megaman somewhat unsettling, others were delighted by the variety. These games were followed up with several sequels and spin-offs.
Perhaps the most famous modern game of this type is Super Smash Bros., an approachable multiplayer Nintendo 64 game developed by HAL Laboratory and released in 1999. It features characters from many of Nintendo's franchises: Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid are represented, to name just a few. This critically acclaimed hybrid of fighting and platforming games sold nearly five million copies and spawned two sequels: Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001; Nintendo GameCube) and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008; Nintendo Wii). This latter title is the first in the series to introduce third-party creations: Solid Snake from Konami's Metal Gear series and Sega's famous Sonic the Hedgehog.
Super Smash Bros. is a popular Nintendo 64 game that included characters and themes from Nintendo's many successful franchises. Shown here is a battle between Mario and Link.
Despite the occasional smash hit like Super Smash Bros., fighting games have fallen considerably from the position they enjoyed at their peak in the 1990s. Their decline was likely brought on by the sheer glut of these games, but also by the popularity of first- and third-person shooters in the 2000s.
First, whereas before gamers had to visit arcades to find worthwhile competition, the newer consoles offered easy networked and online gameplay. Thus, the type of hardcore gamer who was drawn to Street Fighter II in the 1990s is probably playing a deathmatch in some version of Halo or Gears of War today, which accommodates both competitive and cooperative gameplay styles. Even though modern fighting games like Virtua Fighter 5 and Tekken 6 offer online multiplayer gameplay, these often distant matches don't seem to stimulate quite the same competitive intensity of the old arcade games, where players literally stood only a few feet apart. Of course several classic fighting games, such as Street Fighter II, and new creations of both the one-on-one and side-scrolling variety, do see plenty of competitive online matches on the Microsoft Xbox 360’s and Sony PlayStation 3’s respective networks. Capcom's recent Street Fighter IV (2008), a high-definition reimagining of Street Fighter II, certainly proves the commercial viability of such a setup when paired with the right property.
Second, the learning curve required to play fighting games had risen to the point where only seasoned veterans could hope to master their incredible sophistication. If Street Fighter II had alienated some novices, Street Fighter III—with its myriad special moves and parries—was downright forbidding. Another factor, of course, is that consoles had caught up to the arcades in terms of audiovisuals; no longer did console ports seem like pale imitations of the real thing. Serious gamers left arcades, never to return.
What is the legacy of Street Fighter II? Although it's easy to get lost in the many revisions, sequels, clones, and spin-offs, the game's role in gaming history may turn out to be more social than anything else. The many gamers who became obsessed with this game, tirelessly discussing strategies and refining techniques, were the seeds of what we'd now call the “hardcore gamer” community.
Hit games of the 1980s like Space Invaders and Pac-Man were certainly influential, but seemed more suited to individuals than communities of gamers. Competition was only indirect and based on the rather abstract high score table. Street Fighter II was, if nothing else, very clear about winning and losing. As players competed, they talked, either to taunt their opponent or compare notes. Serious players analyzed the game's ins and outs with the same dedication a sports nut might lavish on a favorite team. In short, fans of Street Fighter II didn't talk to each other the same way the fans of older games did. How much, really, can you say about playing Pac-Man? On the other hand, any competent Street Fighter II player can easily talk your ear off about the comparative merits of Ryu versus Guile—and probably still remembers how to pull off at least a few favorite combos. Street Fighter II defied the old paradigm of good game development: it was not easy to learn how to play well. Capcom took a serious risk by introducing such a complex and sophisticated game, but the gamers of 1991 and beyond welcomed the challenge.
1A special attack in the Street Fighter series, of course, consisting of a jumping uppercut in which the user spins, knocking the opponent to the ground.
2These legal battles are discussed at length in Steven L. Kent's The Ultimate History of Video Games (Three Rivers Press, 2001).
3Though beyond the scope of this book, politicians such as U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman conducted hearings during the 1990s regarding violent videogames, which—to his thinking—included titles like Mortal Kombat. It's partially from this sometimes unfounded political and social hysteria that today's Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) ratings and advertising guidelines came about.
4An even earlier example of digitized graphics is Gottlieb's Exterminator (1989), an otherwise forgettable shooter game that used 100% digitized graphics.