Chronology of the Arcade games:
- 1988: Street Fighter is out.
A now fairly known game that did not meet great success at the time. Only the arcade die hards really played it.
It featured Ryu (*) as player 1, Ken (*) as player 2 (the only playable characters), Geki, Retsu, Gen, Lee, Mike, Joe, Birdie (#), Eagle, and Adon (#) and Sagat (*) as final bosses. (* means they come back in SF2 and SF0, and # means they come back only in SF0)
The gameplay is rather poor, but it has a special version with only two big butons (instead of six) that give different strengh to the attack with different strengh of press (hit! :).
This version is now almost impossible to find but made the game somehow different...
It also had the special moves (Fireball, DragonPunch...) but they were VERY difficult to pull off and did OUTRAGOUS damage (a BLOCKED Tiger shot from sagat takes out 1/3 of the life, and a hit from this will steal away the half of your bar).
- Feb/mar 1991: Capcom gives "Street Fighter 2, the world warior" to the human race, thus saving
a part of it from certain death by boring ! ^-^
Probably planned as a standard good capcom game, Street Fighter 2 has become the greatest hit for a very long time ine the short life of video games (understand the one with the longest/greatest success).
It featured Ryu (*), Ken (*), E.Honda, Chun Li (#), Blanka, Zangief, Guile, and Dahlsim as playable characters, and M.Bison, Balrog, Sagat (*) and Vega (#) as non playable bosses. (* means they also are in SF1 and SF0, and # means they come back only in SF0)
Attention: the names problem !!! These are the names for the original (japanese) version. To avoid any legal problem (M.Bison is inspired from Mike Tyson), Capcom changed the switched the names of 3 of the bosses: M.Bison becomes Balrog, Balrog becomes Vega and Vega becomes M.Bison. Note: M.Bison/Balrog does not seem to be Mike from SF1, but they certainly were designed from the same model.
SF2 owes it's success to many different things. The most important one is probably the fact that you can always learn more and become better, even after months or years of regular playing.
To keep the interest of the game alive, Capcom has kept updating the game, which eventualy bored some of the players, but made the real fans always happier. There has been 5 different versions of the game in the arcades, that gave 4 games for Nintendo (3 SNES and 1 GameBoy), 2 for Sega, 1 for nec, 1 for 3DO, 2 for PC and 1 for AMIGA. At least. Wow! (And these are only the official ones...)
- May/june 1992: First update, "Street Fighter 2 ', the tournament edition".
Just an answer to the fans request. It was probably not set as the begining of a long series of updates.
It is quicker (about 25%), gives more lifepoints (about 40%) and makes the bosses usable. It also alows both players to use the same character and mostly re-balances the game. Differences are made between Ryu (more defensive) and Ken (more offensive).
Note: the bosses are not given lots of moves, but mainly one kick and one punch for each position (standing, crouching and jumping), with different speed, range and power for different strengths.
- Late 1992: Fun factor! "Street Fighter 2 ' hyper fighting".
A LOT quicker than before, this update is Capcom's official answer to the numbers of pirate versions of the game that had weird moves, great speed, or mid-air specials.
This one gives one more special for most characters, some more normal moves for a lot of them.
IMHO, it is the worst version of all. Only a few characters are really fun to play, and a lot of them are played with only one or two strategies that are repeted all through the match. It seems to me it has been done in a rush, just to get somthing out. It has been very well received by the gaming community, though.
- October 1993: Cleaning the mess: "Super Street Fighter 2, the new chalengers".
This is were people began getting bored. They shouldn't have, because this version is a very good one (but is there really a bad one ? ^-^).
It comes back to about the speed of SF2', and makes the "bosses" real characters, with all their moves (no more "1 animation for 3 different kicks" kind of thing). It also gets rid of the "to much" part of HF, making it a very clean game. All the characters are nice.
Also, it adds various new features, like the counter for the number of hits in a combo, 8 different colors per character (designed for the very rare tournament version), etc. Special moves are also easier to do.
Last, but no least, it features 4 new characters: T.Hawk, Fei Long, Cammy and Dee Jay.
This version looks like a will to make a new basis, again with reviewed balance, and new grafics and sound. Not totaly different, but slightly modified. This is not just "more things", but "redone things". A very studied version.
- March 1994: Final enhancement: "Super Street Fighter 2 X, grand master challenge".
Taking the basis of SSF2, SSF2X (called SSF2 Turbo in the US and Europe) is a good enhancement. It it the same, but with more possiblities (like air combos, super combos, attacks that must be blocked high, selectable speed, etc.)
It gives each character more possibilities, without taking away too much. The game is mostly successful in enhancing the variety of technics for each fighter. Anyway, if you prefer the SSF2 version of your character, a code alouds you to play it (mostly the same).
It also has one more boss that (supposedly) appears only to very good players. This boss is called Gouki (great demon) in Japan and Akuma (devil) in the rest of the world. You get the idea... He can be used via a precise code, given away by capcom 2 month after the game came out. Gouki/Akuma is also in SF0.
This version should be the last for the SF2 series, but certainly not the last for the SF series. It is a good thing because since SSF2, only the real die hard still played the game consistantly, and they were getting fewer and fewer. Time for a real change !
NOTE: Summer 1994: SF2, the movie is released (the animated movie, not that Jean-Claude Van Damme crap...).
It is set to illustrate the story of the main characters from SF2: Ryu, Ken, Chun li, Guile, Sagat and Vega/M.Bison. Not only it does it well, but it is also one of the best fighting animation ever. All the fans were VERY anthousiastic with it.
- June/July 1995: Changing the winds: "Street Fighter 0".
Since Sega got the Virtua Figters out (VF1, and even more VF2), the "real" aspect of 2D fighting games has dropped to more than very poor. Capcom understood that they couldn't be a rival for those realistic 3D games, and has taken a very different option: with Vampire (Darkstalkers, summer 1994) and X-men (fall 1994), the grafics have gotten very cartoony (less shaded, but much more colorfull). Most people find the grafics... interesting. It is dificult to say if they are better than the old ones. The only thing that is for shure is that they are different.
Street Fighter Zero also has these cartoony grafics, but where Vampire and X-men looked a bit confused with enormous sprites, lots of things on the screen and complex backgrouds, SF0 comes back to the original "Street Fighter spirit": a clean screen with only two people fighting, simple (maybe even too poor) backgrounds, and no tons of sparks flying all around, or blades and demons taking half of the screen...
Also, the sound has come back to the "hardness" it had before SSF2. No more realistic sounds, but "exploding dum dum bullet" kind of hitting noises :-)
For the game itself, it takes, as always, the best of the previous versions (SSF2X, Vampire and X-men) and leaves what was too much. The result is very convoncing (see the technical description for more info).
The playable characters are Ryu (*), Ken (*), Chun li (#), Nash, Gyu (+), Sodom (+), Birdie (/), Rose, Adon (/) and Sagat (*) as playable characters, and Gouki (#) and Vega (#) as via-code playable bosses. (* also in SF1 & SF2, # also in SF2, / also in SF1, + also in Final Fight)
For the story, you have to know that SF0 is not a prequel to SF1, but a prequel to SF2 and a sequel to SF1, so it's between the two. Besides, even the game insists on the story's importance, as each character meets a different boss, regarding the reason for which he is there.
At this point, it is getting a bit complex, so I think it is time to get to the chronological storyline of the series.
Note: Final Fight is another famous game by Capcom, a beat them up that was released by 1989. Nash is called Charlie in the US and Europe.
- Apendix: The other Street Fighter arcade games.
There are a few other games related to street fighter, witch are not part of the normal series. They are:
- Street Fighter 2 -The Movie-
With digitized grafics from the hollywood movie (with Van Damme), it has the SSF2X engine, and adds a few features. It is generaly considered as... Garbage. It probably does not deserve such treatment, as it's gameplay is quite good, but digitized grafics do not correspond the SF "spirit". This is probably why so many SF fans didn't even bother trying it more than once or twice...
- Street Fighter "hammer game"
You certainly know these games... Small furballs comming out of holes, and you have to hit them with your hammer. Well, this is the same, except there is a screen with Ryu or Chun Li VS Vega/Bison (in 1P mode), or Ryu VS Chun Li (in 2P mode), where the more you hit, the more your character attacks. Funny game.
- Street Fighter "punch M.Bison/Balrog"
Again, it's a standard "punch the machine" game, except it's a machine with M.Bison...
- Street Fighter "arm wrestling with Honda !"
The same: you chalenge Honda in arm wrestling. good luck!
- Street Fighter bonnus stage
This is a big car full of air you have to punch as hard as you can to get the more points you can. Inspired from the 1st bonus stage in SF2.
- Street Fighter Jackpots
A lot of different versions exist, where you bet and win SF coins with the faces of your favorite characters on them. If you get lucky, you'll even get a golden coin (just the color...).
- Street Fighter UFO doll catchers
Standard doll catchers (there are TONS of them in the japanese arcades). You can get dolls of the characters if you are really skilled (the only way I could get one is to byu it from the shop near the machine... ^-^
Note: I saw the last 6 games at the "SF2 Battle Action World" Expo'94, in Tokyo, and you'll probably have a lot of problems finding them elsewhere. This is just to say the exist...
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