Going back to play Street Fighter II after being properly introduced to the franchise in Street Fighter 6 made it far more palatable for me.

Growing up I didn’t ‘get’ the gameplay. Street Fighter II always felt clunky and slow compared to -try not to laugh- Mortal Kombat. Later Capcom fighting games had the opposite problem for me, where I found it difficult to tell what was going on especially in games like Marvel vs Capcom 2 where the screen is constantly filled with characters and flashy effects.

But I get it now. The jump in quality from the first title is stunning, although it still sputters and chugs any time anything happens. It’s a bit primitive and the AI can be frustrating, which is common for games in this era. Having just dipped my toe into the Alpha series and Third Strike, I can’t say I’m going to be revisiting this entry all that often; from what I’ve played it’s even overshadowed by Super Street Fighter II Turbo. More on those games later.

Still, it’s insane that characters’ designs, special moves, and even normal attacks were so distinctive and iconic that they’ve remained fairly consistent 30+ years down the line. It’s a ludicrously innovative title, even if Vega can suck my dick. Boo Vega. L Vega not good. Almost filtered me fr

i mean on one hand this game gets props for being like the founder of the modern fighting game genre so it has that going for it but on the other the games kinda slow to play compared to its newer couterparts, which is honestly OK. The AI is a cheating bastard though, same as it always was, had to start somewhere I guess. I think you could learn how to play this to get a sort of foundational grasp of fighting games at a slow comprehensible pace. Some people might think im a bit oldheaded for suggesting that but idk it worked for me personally. You could probably do that with super turbo instead though so take what I say with a grain of salt, I ain't no competitive player. overall game machines good, shoutouts to streets

As someone who's only experience with fighting games is the Smash Bros series, (and a little bit of Mortal Kombat (2011) back when that first came out), I've always felt like I've been missing a big gap in my gaming knowledge base. So I figured, what better game to start filling that gap with than Street Fighter II! Which is why I started with Street Fighter 1. And Street Fighter 1 is just... very bad.

But Street Fighter II is great! Playing through the arcade mode, I felt like I was getting a microcosm of fighting game experiences. I'd get super excited whenever my opponent would bust out some insane special move I'd never seen before, like Chun-Li's spinning kick. Fighting Guile made me face what it's like to fight someone who just sits in the corner and spams projectiles. Fighting E. Honda made me face the reality that sometimes *I* was the guy sitting in the corner spamming projectiles. When facing off against Ken, I felt the thrill of planning what my next move should be and then successfully executing on it all within a split second. And then going up against M. Bison I realized that sometimes pure button mashing might be the only chance at victory.

But what's a fighting game if you're only playing by yourself? I knew I had to try my skills against real life, honest-to-goodness gamers. So I got four of my friends and we had our own tiny tournament. Now only one of them had any real experience with the game prior to this, so I was expecting the whole thing to be a bit of a mess. But it turned out to be insane. At our skill level, this had no business being as exciting as it was. There were constant close calls, several upsets, nearly every match went into game three. A grand finals that, with a bracket reset, lasted for ten whole games. It was glorious. Shoutouts to @SewerGoblin for nearly knocking me out in round one, @BaddaBoomie for causing a serious upset, LavaViper for nearly going all the way, and @Donjitsu for winning the whole thing.

This game is a ton of fun, and I'm excited to keep exploring the genre!

If we're talking about vanilla Street Fighter II : The World Warrior, it's ok at best compared to later editions and way, way better than the super janky, Street Fighter 1 (1987).

With only the iconic 8 fighters to select, and very limited moves for most of the cast, you'll begin to realise why there were multiple updates/editions of Street Fighter II. It not only fixed some bugs and glitches, such as the infamous Guile freeze glitch, but it also added actual mirror matches (Ryu vs. Ken is the only technical mirror match in WW), updated fighter's movesets (by Hyper Edition), balanced them and added more new fighters (the Shadoloo Fighters for Champion Edition, the 4 New Super Fighters for Super SF2, and the hidden Akuma in SSFX/Super Turbo).

But for historical context, it's a total game changer and genre defining moment in game history as a whole. It revitalised the arcade scene, it brought back the social/competitive element of arcade games. It isn't just getting highscores in the arcade, it's about showcasing your fighting skills against actual player opponents, with diverse level of player skill.

I guess it's a try, but I recommend Hyper Edition if you want a better vanilla SF2 experience, or SSFX/Super Turbo, if you want the complete SF2 experience.

At this point in the Street Fighter series, things haven’t been doing all too well in terms of the quality of titles. The original Street Fighter is a fucking mess that is practically unplayable by today’s standards, and as for Street Fighter 2010, while it wasn’t bad, it was definitely not gonna keep fans begging for more, and merely exists as a weird experiment for the franchise left to be forgotten. However, then, when the next release came along, all of that was going to change. Not only would this be the first Street Fighter game to be actually GOOD, but it would change both the series and the entire fighting genre as a whole, shaping it into what it would be for many years to come. That, of course, was all thanks to Street Fighter II: The World Warrior.

So, just to clarify if you weren’t paying attention, this is going to be a review of the ORIGINAL Street Fighter II. None of the other updated versions or remakes of the game will be brought into the mix, because 1. I have this theme going that I don’t wanna break just yet, and 2. Since it was the original that was mainly responsible for revitalizing the genre, I wanna give it more of the recognition that it deserves.

With all that out of the way, after replaying it for this review, the original Street Fighter II still holds up surprisingly well, even with the existence of all the numerous updates that Capcom has put out over the years. Obviously, it is outshined by said updates in numerous departments, and it does have several instances of fighting game syndrome, but even then, without all of those, the game is still very fun to play.

The story mainly depends on what character you play as, but it mostly remains the same, and what it does add for each individual character gives the game and the characters a lot more personality, the graphics and art style is still perfect for this kind of game, the music is fantastic and iconic, of course, the control and movement, while not being as refined as later updates, is still very responsive and fun to use, and the gameplay, while, again, not being as fast and frantic as later updates, still manages to be fun and satisfying regardless.

The gameplay is very similar to the original Street Fighter, only this time, it doesn’t suck a big fat hadouken. You take control of one fighter and face off against another, punching, kicking, and doing whatever else to lower your enemy’s health bar, until you either win or lose twice. Again, it is very similar to the original, and you all reading this are probably all too familiar with this style of gameplay, but what makes it so important is that this game NAILS this gameplay style almost perfectly, and that’s why it has been utilized in so many different fighting games over the years. It feels so fun and satisfying to properly face off against your opponent, landing many different hits and combos, while also properly dodging and defending yourself against your opponent. It’s simple for this entry, yes, but sometimes simplicity is all you need for a good experience. Also, after several stages in Arcade mode, you can also take on bonus stages where you can do things like destroy a car in order to get more points. It doesn’t really add anything too substantial, but it is a nice distraction from everything else.

Not to mention, the additions to this game in comparison to the original game also helped it get the fame it has today. There are a selection of 8 characters to play as, which isn’t that many compared to games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which has almost 80 fucking characters, but almost all of the characters you can use are very fun to control, learn, and kick ass with, with some of my favorites being Ryu (of course), Zangief and Chun Li. With all these different characters also comes their own pieces of story that you can see whenever you beat the Arcade mode as them, so that gives the game a good amount of replay value, unless you just wanna look up the endings on YouTube and not have to fight the same guys at least 8 times, which is understandable.The only character who I didn’t get into so much is Dhalsim, who is good, but I dunno, something about the way he moves and executes moves just didn’t really connect with me as much as others.

In addition, there are also a large amount of special moves that you can pull off with all of these characters, each of them being unique to their character and extremely satisfying to pull off and get a hit with, and there is also the introduction of combos to the fighting scene, which I don’t need to explain what they are to you, but what makes their first appearance so special is that this was a mechanic that was made ON ACCIDENT. I don’t know whether or not those circumstances are fantastic or extremely unprofessional, but I love it nonetheless.

Now, I know I have been singing this game’s praises this entire time, but like I said, it isn’t perfect by any means. This version is definitely outshined by its numerous updates, where not only does the game have a lot more content now, but it also looks better, plays better, and will generally give you a much faster and more entertaining experience. Again, it isn’t as if it makes the original version bad, but considering what all the updates do, there really is no reason to go back to playing this version of the game.

Also, this game suffers from a good bit of the fighting game syndrome, where there will be boss opponents you will face who seem damn near impossible to beat, moving really damn fast and being able to land so many hits, that you won’t know what hit ya until it is too late. This applies to the 4 hidden opponents in the game, as well as M. Bison himself right at the end. It is nothing that I would say is unbeatable, but unless you are using save states, you better prepare yourself when facing off against these guys.

And finally, this is more of a personal thing, but… I suck ass at Street Fighter. I didn’t grow up with the series as long as others, and every time I have played it, I have never been able to properly learn how to perform all the combos properly, or how to face off against every opponent individually. It even devolves down to the point where I just push random buttons and hope that I win, and that ends up getting me through matches somehow, which doesn’t feel gratifying whatsoever, it just feels sad. This does lower my enjoyment with the game to a degree, but overall, I still have a lot of fun with it whenever I do play it.

Overall, despite it being dated in comparison to newer versions, the original Street Fighter II is still a great fighting game, and what I would call the proper start to the Street Fighter series. Again, like I mentioned in the Street Fighter review, there is a reason why when people think of the first game in the series, they always lean towards this game rather than the original.

Game #172

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