Street Fighter
Year Of Release: 1987
Studio: Capcom
Description
Street Fighter II is one of the most famous arcade games of all time, but the series would actually start a few years earlier in 1987. Capcom would change the world of one on one fighting games forever and it all started with the original Street Fighter. One of the most interesting things about the original Street Fighter game is that the game introduced elements to the one on one fighting genre that the series still uses to this day. The six button attack scheme and the way that you would execute special moves is still used in the Street Fighter games to this day. And even the bonus games such as smashing bricks was introduced in this original game.
Speaking of the attack scheme the original Street Fighter game came in two different arcade cabinets. One would have the standard joystick with the three punch and three kick buttons. But there is also a very rare arcade cabinet that replaces the attack buttons with these two pads. One is a kick pad and the other is a punch pad. The idea here is that you actually need to punch these and the harder you do this the harder you will hit. While this was a very interesting idea it made the game much harder to play. This cabinet is incredibly rare and finding one in working order is a holy grail of many hard core, Street Fighter collectors.
The original Street Fighter game only had two playable characters. When you were playing the game in single player mode you would play as, Ryu. And if a second player wanted to test their skills against you then they would have to play as Ken. Unlike in Street Fighter II, Street Fighter lets you pick what country you will go to first of all. You will fight a couple of opponents there and then move on to a new country. You need to work your way up to facing Adon who would return in the Street Fighter Alpha series and then beat the final boss, Sagat. Sagat is still a major character in the Street Fighter games now.
Capcom did a wonderful job with the first Street Fighter game. For the time the game had fantastic graphics and animations. The different countries that you would fight in had a vast amount of detail in them. From a game play point of view, Street Fighter does not hold up as well as Street Fighter II if we are being honest, but it’s still pretty remarkable how many things from this game are still used in Street Fighter games now.
Current High Score: Points – 100, Percent – 100 by Jesse King
Related Titles
Street Fighter would get a console port to the TurboGrafx 16 where for some odd reason its name was changed to Fighting Street. But the game would also be ported to the majority of home computers of the era such as the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum to name a few.
Capcom rejuvenated the whole arcade scene in the early 90’s with the sequel Street Fighter II. Street Fighter II would start the trend for, Capcom releasing updated versions of their flagship game. With Street Fighter II Champion Edition and Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting being released.
Street Fighter is Capcom’s biggest franchise with a multitude of series such as Super Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter EX, Street Fighter III and Street Fighter IV and even the games such as Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter and the Marvel vs Capcom series.
It’s crazy to think of how many other games have spawned from Capcom’s little one on one fighter they released in arcades back in 1987.
