Hello, my name is SNES Man. Today we're going to talk about Street Fighter, one of the most
popular series of all time. Now, the original Street Fighter for the arcade wasn't a big
success, just a simplistic little fighting game that not many people heard about. It
had some cool ideas but it never went anywhere with them. The sequel, however, was a huge
deal in the gaming world. It was a hit in the arcades, on the Sega Genesis, and of course
on the Super Nintendo. Since I'm SNES Man, that's is the only version I care about. Let's
get down to gaming and see if it's still as glorious as everyone remembers.
Here's our title screen. Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior. This game is one of the
first popular one-on-one fighting games. It's pretty simple: choose a character from your
oh-so-enormous list of eight characters, travel around the world, and beat everyone you meet
to a bloody pulp. Good old kid friendly Nintendo! It's all hugs and rainbows with them.
Hm, who should we pick? Let's choose the main character of the game, Ryu. I get a headache
when people argue over how to pronounce his name so please don't start a blood feud in
my comments section over if his name is Rai-Yu or Ree-yoo. It's almost as bad as the Smash
Bros. Mee-lee vs May-lay arguments. You can never win. But enough of this. Let's fight.
Here's a duel between Ryu and Ken, the main characters of the game. Street Fighter 2 was
ahead of it's time. Before this, the idea of fighting one enemy at a time and focusing
on special moves and combos was completely new. There's a lot of variety to your attacks
because you have three different levels of punches and kicks from soft to hard. The downside
to using hard attacks is that they're slower and leave you more vulnerable if you miss.
Each character has a different way of punching and kicking so it always feels like a fresh
experience when you play as them. For instance, Dhalsim's limbs can extend grotesquely far
every time he attacks. That's the complete opposite of the Russian wrestler, Zangief
with his stubby arms. This variety is one of the reasons I like the Street Fighter series
a lot more than Mortal Kombat.
The cast of characters in Street Fighter is really solid. True, Ryu and Ken are exactly
the same in everything but appearance, but the rest of these guys are pretty diverse.
Guile is an American military meat-head, Zangief is a smelly wrestler, E.Honda is a smelly
sumo wrestler, Dhalsim is a stretchy Indian dude, Blanka is basically a green Donkey Kong
with electricity powers, and Chun-Li is the token woman of the cast. And there you have
the famous Street Fighter lineup. Despite the kind of simplistic graphics that definitely
look like an early Super Nintendo game, all the characters look pretty nice and it's easy
to tell them apart.
They all have a couple special moves at their disposal. Easily the most famous is Ryu and
Ken's famous fireball attack, the Hadouken. The whole fighting system revolves around
moves like this because they're powerful and interesting, kind of like superpowers, and
they're just plain fun to use. The controls are pretty tight in the SNES version so pulling
off shouryukens and spinning-bird-kicks and hadoukens and what not isn't too difficult.
It's a simple enough system that you can learn how to play quickly but it's also deep enough
to satisfy expert players who are looking for a complex experience. Capcom used to hold
big tournaments with this game and contestants would come up with all kinds of combos and
intricate maneuvers that would make our heads hurt nowadays. The multiplayer aspect has
always been a big part of the Street Fighter series because it's a lot more fun to fight
your friend than a pre-programmed computer.
If you're playing solo, then your only option is the arcade mode where you journey around
the world, pulverizing your enemies in a fighting tournament. Believe it or not, this was actually
a new idea at the time. After this, every 90's fighting game ripped off of this formula
and had a world-wide tournament in their main arcade mode. After you beat all the main characters,
you have four boss battles. This is where the game actually gets pretty hard. These
guys have reflexes of steel! And the A.I. actually isn't half bad for a 16-bit game.
Now, is this the perfect fighting game? Well, no. For one, the game speed in the Super Nintendo
version is a little sluggish so it's not like you're fighting at a break-neck pace. Also,
the sound effects that everyone still loves today are admittedly pretty cheesy and dated.
It sounds like they hired one guy to do all the male voices. You should be glad that I
don't talk like that stupid announcer in my reviews. My name is SNES Man and I'm reviewing
Street Fighter 2. What excellent sound effects! How not primitive sounding!
The music is another story, though. They made a song for every character and I have to say
that all the themes are excellent. My personal favorite is Ken's Theme because it's the catchiest
one. All I have to say is that Ken Masters is one classy dude. The songs all fit the
mood perfectly while still keeping the energy level high.
THINGS TO MAKE IT BETTER
-A faster game speed -Better sound effects. They sound pretty silly
in retrospect -A few more special moves per character to
make things interesting -Better graphics, especially in the backgrounds
where the people look really stiff
Those are some of my gripes with the World Warrior but it's still a great fighting game
that started an excellent series. On my scale, it scores 8 out of 10.
But wait, we're not done! There were two sequels to this game on the Super Nintendo: Street
Fighter 2 Turbo, and Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers. Well, calling them
sequels isn't very accurate since they're more of re-releases. Kind of like the Call
of Duty series does nowadays. But still, they're worth mentioning.
The first re-release, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, had two notable improvements. The game speed
is faster, and you can play as the four boss characters this time so you have 12 fighters
to choose from instead of 8. It's not an enormous change, though. It just makes the bosses less
exciting when you have to fight them because at that point you'll say, "Oh, that guy's
not scary. I can play as him whenever I want!" The graphics look pretty much the same and
the sound effects are just as awkward. So, back in the day, it would have been a kind
of dumb idea to buy this one for 60 dollars if you already had the first Street Fighter
2. I would give it a 9/10 because it is an improvement but that's a low, begrudging nine.
The next re-release, Super Street Fighter 2 is also a pretty minor improvement. I admit,
the graphics are a little better this time around. You do get a fancy intro cut scene
where Ryu shoots a Hadouken at you. Don't be scared, though, I'm pretty sure it doesn't
come out of the screen and hit you. Anyway, the other change this edition makes is a couple
new characters, four of them to be exact. These guys are really forgettable like Fei-Long
the Bruce Lee clone and Thunder Hawk the generic, racist interpretation of Native Americans.
I didn't really enjoy playing as any of them -- they're not that great of an addition to
the series. I would give this edition a 9/10 as well because it preserves the great game
that Street Fighter 2 is but it doesn't bring much to the table. If you've never played
any of these games, I suggest you buy Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers because
it's technically the best but the difference is relatively small. If you already have one
of the older versions, just stick with that and keep your money.
Well that's Street Fighter 2. This has been a SNES Man Review and I hope you liked it.
Before I go, here's a ridiculous version of Ken's Theme.