Street Fighter (the original arcade game)

Yes, Ryu looks a bit different.

Ever since December is thought to be the ultimate festivities month, I spent some time away from our humble blog, not because I was hiding like some of those ridiculous preppers out there who were looking forward for the end of the world(!),You know,  I just had too much business to take care of in my real boring life.

Checking the stats from my blog I can definitely tell, that I should continue to review porn parodies, but since December is family rated month I thought I could review a classic videogame instead. So enter Street Fighter (ストリートファイタ) a 1987 average arcade game developed by the now world famous Capcom gaming company. Street Fighter was the first competitive fighting game produced by the company and the inaugural game in the Street Fighter series. While it did not achieve the same worldwide popularity as its sequel Street Fighter II when it was first released, the original Street Fighter introduced some of the conventions made standard in later games, such as the six button controls and the use of command based special techniques.

Gameplay

The player competes in a series of one-on-one matches against a series of computer-controlled opponents or in a single match against another player, a groundbreaking gameplay idea in those days anyways.  Each match consists of three rounds in which the player must defeat an opponent in less than 30 seconds. If a match ends before a fighter is knocked out, then the fighter with the greater amount of energy left will be declared the round's winner. The player must win two rounds in order to defeat the opponent and proceed to the next battle. If the third round ends in a tie, then the computer-controlled opponent will win by default or both players will lose. During the single-player mode, the player can continue after losing and fight against the opponent they lost the match to. Likewise, a second player can interrupt a single-player match and challenge the first player to a new match.

Ryu dyed his hair red in the first instalment of the SF saga.

Unique  six button pad

In the deluxe version of the arcade game, the player's controls consist of a standard eight-way joystick, and two large, unique mechatronic pads for punches and kicks that returned an analog value depending on how hard the player actuated the control. An alternate version was released that replaces the two punching pads with an array of six attack buttons, three punch buttons and three kick buttons of different speed and strength (Light, Medium and Heavy), another groundbreaking idea back then. 

Special secret moves

The player uses the joystick to move towards or away from an opponent, as well to jump, crouch and defend against an opponent's attacks. By using the attack buttons/pads in combination with the joystick, the player can perform a variety of attacks from a standing, jumping or crouching positions. There's also three special techniques which can only be performed by inputting a specific series of joystick and button inputs. These techniques are the once called "Psycho Fire" (Universally known today as the 波動拳 Hadōken, "Surge Fist"), the "Dragon Punch" (昇龍拳 Shoryūken, "Rising Dragon Fist") and the "Hurricane Kick" (竜巻旋風脚 Tatsumaki Senpū Kyaku, "Tornado Whirlwind Kick"). Unlike the subsequent Street Fighter sequels and other later fighting games, the specific commands for these special moves are not given in the arcade game's instruction card, which instead encouraged the player to discover these techniques on their own.

The fireball originally known as "Psycho Fire"

Gallery of heroes & rogues

The first player takes control of a Japanese martial artist named Ryu, who competes in an international martial arts tournament to prove his strength. The second player takes control of Ryu's former training partner and rival Ken, who challenges Ryu in the game's 2-player matches. Normally the player takes control of Ryu in the single-player mode, however, if the player controlling Ken defeats Ryu in a 2-player match, then the winning player will play the remainder of the game as Ken. The difference between the two characters are aesthetic, as both of them have the same basic moves and special techniques. At this point, you didn't have the chance of choosing your character freely, so it will take a little longer for the Street Fighter franchise to allow you to play with different characters.

The single-player mode consists of a series of battles against ten opponents from five different nations. At the beginning of the game, the player can choose the country where their first match will take place: the available choices are Japan or the US, as well as China or England (depending on the game's configuration). The player will then proceed to fight against two fighters from the chosen country before proceeding to the next country. In addition to the regular battles, there also two types of bonus games which player can play for additional points: a brick-breaking bonus game and a table breaking bonus game. After defeating the initial eight characters, the player will travel to Thailand to fight against the final two opponents.

Enter Geki the ninja assasin.

The first eight computer-controlled opponents are: from Japan, Retsu, an expelled Shorinji Kempo instructor and Geki, a claw-wielding descendant of a ninja; from the United States, Joe, an underground full-contact karate champion and Mike, a former heavyweight boxer who once killed an opponent in the ring; from China, Lee, an expert in Chinese boxing and Gen, an elderly professional killer who has developed his own assassination art; and from England, Birdie, a tall bouncer who uses a combination of wrestling and boxing techniques and Eagle, a well-dressed bodyguard of a wealthy family who uses Kali sticks. After the first eight challengers are defeated, the player is taken to Thailand for the final two adversaries: Adon, a deadly Muay Thai master, and his mentor Sagat, the reputed "Emperor of Muay Thai" and the game's final opponent.

In case you are wondering what is Street Fighter's story about, I would simply say it is merely about a martial arts tournament where every character aims to become the number one fighter worldwide and that's it. There are neither background stories for each character, nor vendetta style stories for the two playable characters (Ryu & Ken) I guess back then the story mode concept wasn't even a concept in arcade gaming or developers didn't care about that either.

Bonus game!

Development

Street Fighter was produced and directed by Takashi Nishiyama (who is credited as "Piston Takashi" in the game) and planned by Hiroshi Matsumoto (credited as "Finish Hiroshi"), who both previously worked on the overhead beat 'em up Avengers. The two men would leave Capcom after the production of the game and were employed by SNK, developing most of their fighting game series (including Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting). The duo would later work for Dimps and work on Street Fighter IV with Capcom. Keiji Inafune, best known for his artwork in Capcom's Mega Man franchise, got his start at the company by designing and illustrating the character portraits in Street Fighter. Nishiyama drew several inspirations for developing the original gameplay of Street Fighter from martial art styles he was practicing at the time.

Ryu V/S Ken

Connoisseur gameplay experience

Playing Street Fighter today would be a certified mess or at least some pain in the arse. However, if you happen to be an old school connoisseur like yours truly, you can definitely have fun with this 80's arcade fighting game. I can still remember the first time I got my hands into it at one of the many arcade centers I used to go in the 80's. The game wasn't an instant hit, I didn't see crowded rows of people eagerly waiting for their chance to play Street Fighter. In fact, I think it was an average game that most of the people from those days didn't quite well understand, I mean the game was hard, you had a lot of difficulties trying to get the special moves, while the CPU enemy didn't seem to have trouble at all smashing you with their own special moves. Even now, if you get to play it through the MAME 32 emulator you'll see how difficult it is to get the character to do what you actually want him to do in no time, so I guess that's why nobody really became an instant fan of the game, you know, with a limited coins budget you gotta make sure you can spend more than 10 minutes in front of the arcade machine. 

Sagat, the final boss.

 
After my not so entertaining experience playing it, the game was replaced and nobody got the chance to play it ever. Of course, that is until Street Fighter II, a game that set the standard bar of gaming way high above the clouds, in fact the original Street Fighter game became a lot more popular after everyone was into Street Fighter II.

And that's it for today fellas! hope you have a wonderful christmas dinner! next time we'll meet again to review one of the most hilarious porn parodies of them all: Sex Fighter 2!.

Stay tuned and enjoy this Street Fighter gameplay video for those were the days sake!