Street Fighter II: The New Challenger

Anyone over 20 that's been playing video games for years is probably pretty familiar with Street Fighter II. It doesn't matter if they're fans of it or even played it; the fact that they know what it is speaks volumes about the legacy it established. It's the game that made fighting games what they are today, and its future iterations are timeless and still played by many into video games.

You could say that SFII was the game that single-handedly created a rift in arcades. Prior to that, the arcade scene was populated by familiar games that everyone played; people that weren't into the hardcore scene per se, but still stopped by the arcade to put a quarter in a machine for a quick play. But then SFII arrived with its ostensibly esoteric user interface. Six buttons? Timing-based command moves that required a precise joystick motion with the combination of a pre-determined button press? Yeah, it was pretty complicated, but not complicated enough that people weren't driven to learn it.

SFII also attracted a different crowd: a younger, more hip audience. This audience ranged from your dedicated gamer who was always up for a competitive game to the tough guy from the street donning a 90s-style backwards cap and a basketball or hockey jersey. Arcades themselves didn't become more crowded, nor did they become less; instead, the environment adapted and catered to a new audience who demanded different and more complicated games.


SFII had the potential to stop a person in their tracks upon first glancing at it. A game involving two fighters engaging in combat accompanied by such fluid animation and a burly aesthetic that was something no arcade dweller had ever seen at the time. Entranced by the view, they felt as if they had no choice but to plunk a few quarters into the machine to try the game out, even if the game had a complicated interface. And those that remained around arcades found a game to hang on for years to come. Well, until the aforementioned tough guys gravitated to Mortal Kombat.

The game also ingrained itself squarely into popular culture. People who didn't play video games would occasionally hear the words "Hadouken" and "Sonic Boom," even if some of them were embarrassingly mispronounced. People would continue challenging each other to see who could be victorious in either a match of wits and strategy, or a match of brawn and reflexes. The appeal of the game lied in the player constantly striving to better themselves. A person could start getting pretty good, and then go against someone that's able to outfight them. To stand a chance, that person would then practice against numerous competition in order to hone their skills.

From Street Fighter II to Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, a big audience stayed around and gathered to play the game very often, even while games like Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and Samurai Showdown were populating arcades. Then something happened: the audience suddenly left for ventures besides gaming. Street Fighter II had a little too many sequels, and by the time Super Street Fighter II released, people were tired of playing the same game with minimal changes again. Sure, Super Street Fighter II Turbo sported a number of improvements, but at the time it released, it was too late to capitalize on the popularity.


The home console sector also had the same effect. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior released to big sales when it hit the Super Nintendo in the summer of 1992. No longer did people have to come to arcades to plunk down quarters to play, but they could now do so in the comfort of their own home with an up-front fee of around $70. Gamers would invite their friends over to play a few games instead of gathering around a crowded arcade machine. And while the SNES version was inferior to the arcade game in a few ways - containing fewer frames of animation, less detail in the backgrounds, and lower quality music - the core game remained similar enough for Capcom to make big money from it. This trend would continue with Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition (both the same game), which released in 1993 for the SNES and Genesis, respectively.

Like the arcades, the franchise was past its prime in terms of popularity by the time Super Street Fighter II released for SNES and Genesis in summer 1994. Though the home game included some tweaks that the arcade version didn't have, like a notable increase in speed, it sold nowhere near as well as previous installments. While dedicated fans where there for it on the first day, retailers were overstocked with copies they couldn't sell, resulting in the price being slashed in half mere months after release. SSF2 Turbo never got a big home release because of this -- sorry, the Panisonic 3DO doesn't count. Street Fighter's time in popular culture was over, though the game still remained (and remains) popular with a dedicated audience. An audience dedicated enough that developers would still continue to make games in the franchise.

Lastly, we have SFII to thank for Street Fighter IV's existence. The fourth installment strives to capture the popularity that made SFII so attractive to everyone in the 90s. At a glance, it looks as if the game itself is doing everything right, but the question now is whether the audience will gravitate back to Street Fighter after remaining away from it for so long. For the sake of Capcom and the developers who put so much work and soul into the game, here's hoping they find success.

Artwork courtesy of Creative Uncut. Screen shots courtesy of VGMuseum.