The streets are watching…
Overview
If you were a kid in the late nineteen eighties, you probably stumbled into an arcade and seen many videos game come and go. One such title was a game called Street Fighter. While it was quite astonishing to view and had a great concept, it was very hard to play around well. Ultimately, you pass it by and did not give it much thought like others did.
Capcom then decide to produce a sequel for this game. With a new engine to try out and better graphic capabilities, this game potentially became the key ingredient to help pave the way for the genre of fighters to become a hot commodity for many years. This is Street Fighter II. So how did this game have so many people interested and gain legendary status?
Graphics 8/10
The player select and map layout screen is quick to navigate around, making a great way to tell the journey of where the fighter is going next. Stages in Street Fighter II do not make a lot of sense for most, but they just seem to click with their respectful fighter. Army bases, supermarkets, a dojo, a shipping dock, a jungle, whatever spots they are in, it works.
The in-game portraits of the fighters are very strange since few of them do not match their fighters. Why is Chun Li wearing orange, when her attire is blue? Why is Bison all red? Sure, it may not seem like a big deal, but it sort of bothers you for some reason. Do not even get me talking about Sagat’s eye-patch mix up. The sprites of the fighters are very well built and have a terrific look to them. Granted, Ryu and Ken look the same except with the coloring and their hair. Many of the animations also lead to some confusion in which one thing was going to happen, but did not. I remember when hitting Chun Li and she felled back in the air, you thought she would land on her back, but instead at the last moment she is standing up right.
The executing of moves like projectiles and spinning attacks shows good examples of how far they tried to make the moves easy to understand and acceptable. What makes it more fun it the added traits some attacks have on bodies like being hit by fire or seeing your entire skeleton blitzes in and out.
Gameplay/Controls 9/10
The people at Capcom introduced many things that would become a staple for many other games for years to come. For instance, the unique uses of special moves, the ability to put together hits with the opponent rendered helpless to counter, throw commands and strategy into how to beat each individual, computer program or controlled by a player.
The single mode was a tough road, in which you had to battle the remaining seven people, bonus stages for points, and then challenge three bosses to earn the right to take on the final mysterious powerful leader, M. Bison. The artificial intelligence of the computer just slowly becomes smarter in each stage you progress. Even with the increase difficulty, you will start noticing their repeating patterns and then move in for the kill. However, it does not mean you will get by without a touch of hurt on your body. The bonus stages are a little neat package of trying to destroy huge things. The rolling barrels dropping from the belt can piss you off very fast. The breaking car and burning oil drums stages are a piece of cake.
The controls were top of the line and gave players great movement and perfect responses. The chance to perform a direction input to turn some moves into another quickly gives the game a nice shot of idea setups. No matter if it is a charging or one swift motion. The only obstacles you will find is hoping to get a “Perfect” on the harder opponents and trying out Zangief’s Spinning Piledriver, considering you have to perform a 360 degree rotation and be near the victim. Not quite fun to try, but then it would be easy street, no?
Sound/Music 9/10
The voice acting is very straight forward and that is good enough. All you need to hear is announcer saying names of countries, saying you won or lose, and declaring you got a perfect. The plane flying to location to location just get you riled up to fight and the destruction of nearby items being broken in the heat of battle just warms your heart.
One of my favorite sound bites is elephants roaring and then in unison. The sounds of fireballs colliding, getting shock and getting palm slaps come off unbelievable. I do not know about you, but for me the crushing sound of a hard punch or a roundhouse kick just gives me an instant satisfaction. The only minor drawback is that everyone, sans for Chun Li, screams the same moan when they are defeated.
The music is definitely creative, catchy, and memorable to listen. All the tracks just have a hook and fit very well into their stages and to the character that has it for their theme. The change of pace when someone is near knockout just gives you goose bumps and is a nice placement, especially if the round is neck and neck. If you think the music is fantastic during the game, the better tracks come from watching the endings.
Replay Value 5/10
Street Fighter II brought back the two original heroes named Ryu and Ken. While they have the same special moves, they each use them a different way with more hits, more speed, and so on. Joining them were six new warriors from all walks of life and experts in their own style of fighting. From sumo to wrestling to martial arts, each fighter possessed great attacks to showcase their skill. Two player battles were quick and simple to understand and provided for long times of playing. The only problem to occur was the fact both players could not pick the same person. So if you guys were good with Dhalsim, one of you would get screwed and have to pick someone you do not know how to play. Also, you kind of wish you could play the additional fighters who were not selectable.
What is worse, and makes up for the majority of the replay value being lower, is that they were many bugs that were uncovered by accident in the middle of combat. The results ranged from fighters being frozen in a certain state, flicking off and on screen, or even using these glitches to their own advantage. Guile was cited as having the worse problems from these cases. Years later, it is still a fun game, but you can only go back to nostalgia for so long.
Overall 7/10
If you can manage to not experience any of the big dilemmas that plagued the game, you had yourself one perfectly fine game to toy with. If you ever want to know the entire history of how fighting game started evolving, you have to play this as least one in your lifetime. This was the project that helped mold some other game companies to become competitors, rip-offs, and spin-offs to Street Fighter. For where it started, it still is a decent game and has shown to even past the test of time.
- By Boombada
