Street Fighter 2 character artwork
© Capcom
Games

10 ways Street Fighter changed games for ever

As Street Fighter celebrates 30 years at the top, we look at how it revolutionised an entire genre and gave the global video industry a much-needed boost.
By Damien McFerran
9 min readPublished on
It's genuinely hard to think of another game which has defined its genre so comprehensively. While its 1987 debut was a notable if slightly rough-around-the-edges brawler, the 1991 sequel was nothing short of a global phenomenon, spawning countless sequels, spin-offs, associated merchandise and even a Hollywood movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue. The franchise returned stronger than ever with Street Fighter IV, and the arrival of Street Fighter V has encouraged a new generation of players to step up.
As Street Fighter celebrates three decades of fireballs, dragon punches and spinning piledrivers, we take a look at 10 ways the franchise changed the world of video games for ever.

It revived an entire genre – twice

Street Fighter wasn't the first one-on-one fighting game when it was released in 1987, but when its sequel arrived a few years later it took what was a well-established style of game and turned it into the most fashionable genre of the early '90s. If 2D shoot 'em ups were commonplace in the late '80s, Capcom's 1991 effort ensured that competitive fighters were ubiquitous in the early '90s; every company making arcade games released their own take on the genre, with the likes of Fatal Fury, Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct and King of Fighters – as well as countless other less memorable efforts – competing for coinage in amusement centres all over the world. Were it not for Street Fighter II, this explosion of brawlers simply wouldn't have happened – and more remarkably, Capcom did it all over again with Street Fighter IV, which has given the humble one-on-one fighter a modern-day renaissance.

More buttons, more options

Encountering Street Fighter in the arcades for the first time was an intimidating experience; while most coin-op cabinets had three buttons at most, Capcom's 1987 title had six – three punch strengths and three kick strengths. This set-up might have seemed like overkill at the time, but it lent the game unparalleled strategic depth; weaker attacks were faster and therefore carried less risk, while stronger blows dealt more damage but left you open to a counter-attack. Street Fighter II would refine this style still further, and it could be argued that Capcom's fighter normalised larger button quotas for the entire industry – the SNES pad offered six buttons in 1990, while Sega would release a six-button controller for its Mega Drive to coincide with the launch of Street Fighter II: Champion Edition.
It's hard to imagine playing a fighting game these days without the humble combo, or 'combination attack'. Stringing together these seamless sequences is part and parcel of the modern fighter, and we have Street Fighter to thank for this notion. Street Fighter II is packed with combos to uncover and seasoned players will be well aware that learning and mastering these patterns is essential to victory, especially when playing against skillful opponents. Later takes on the genre – such as Rare's Killer Instinct – built their entire appeal around combos, and they have Street Fighter to thank for their very existence.

Choice is everything

Prior to the launch of Street Fighter II, the simple notion of having more than one character to master didn't occur to games developers; even the original Street Fighter limits you to a single set of moves, shared across the near-identical Ryu and Ken. With the 1991 sequel, these two heroes were joined by six additional playable fighters, each with totally different strengths, weaknesses and special moves. From the hulking Russian wrestler Zangief to the green-skinned monster Blanka, each combatant played totally differently from the rest, and each was given a unique backstory which explained their motivations for entering the World Warrior tournament. From that moment onward, players expected every game of this type to offer the same kind of depth and characterisation.

It gave the arcade industry a stay of execution

While the arcade industry is a mere shadow of its former self today, its demise could have come a lot sooner were it not for Street Fighter II. The coin-op glory days of the '70s and '80s had started to fade in the early '90s thanks to the console boom, and players were starting to realise they could get the same standard of experience at home thanks to the Mega Drive and SNES. The release of Street Fighter II triggered a surge of interest in arcade games, drawing players back into amusement centers in their millions and encouraging other companies – such as Midway, SNK and many others – to create their own fighting games which in turn attracted more customers. Throughout the 1990s, Capcom's fighting games generated millions in revenue for arcade operators and gave the industry a second 'golden era' of popularity. Well, maybe silver, but you get our drift.

Competition is key

Video games have always been about competition – Atari's Pong was a two-player game, after all – and through the arcade era the allure of setting a high score was what turned gaming into such a social pastime. However, few games engendered the same degree of local multiplayer madness as Street Fighter II; previous fighting games like Double Dragon and Final Fight had been about co-operative play, but Street Fighter put aside such camaraderie and expected you to do your utmost to utterly destroy the person standing next to you. Queues would form at machines all over the world as impromptu 'winner stays on' contests erupted and coins were laid along the cabinet indicating whose turn was next. When Street Fighter II hit the SNES this combative atmosphere was transferred to the domestic arena, and friends would assemble around each other's houses to test their mettle and prove their supremacy. Today, esports has embraced the series and the world's best Street Fighter players – the likes of Daigo and Bonchan – earn serious money competing in the game professionally in front of thousands. True, gaming has always been about competition, but few games took things as seriously as Street Fighter.

It introduced the idea of incremental updates

This one sounds dry, but hear us out – it’s a big one. Street Fighter II was such a success that Capcom realised it could grow the franchise with regular updates rather than having to worry about creating traditional sequels. This approach was actually triggered by the fans rather than Capcom itself. Demand for the game was so high that pirated arcade boards began to appear, which offered extra features such as new moves, faster gameplay and the ability to play as the four 'Grand Masters' – the end bosses who were off-limits in the original Street Fighter II. Capcom countered these illegal boards by releasing the 'Champion Edition', and would later release Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II Turbo in an effort to keep the series profitable. For better and for worse, these incremental updates were massive money-spinners in both the arcades and at home, where regular ports to domestic consoles kept fans contented. In the modern era, these regular updates have allowed Capcom greater control over the direction of the series, making rebalancing and fixes easier to deploy and keeping players engaged with new content and characters.

Crossover chaos

This year's Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite is a long way from being the first game of its kind; Capcom was experimenting with crossover titles way back in the early '90s. X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes were early attempts to shoehorn superheroes into a Street Fighter-style environment – complete with similar special moves – but it was 1996's X-Men vs. Street Fighter which gave us what we really wanted: the awe-inspiring spectacle of Capcom's Street Fighter cast facing off against the likes of Cyclops, Gambit and Wolverine. Ryu and company were practically superheroes anyway, so the set-up didn't seem too ridiculous. Since then we've had Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Vs. Capcom and even Capcom Vs. SNK, the latter of which saw Capcom and its bitter rival SNK – creator of Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown and King of Fighters – duke it out for dominance of the one-on-one arena.

It settled a console war

It might seem like an exaggeration but Street Fighter II was perhaps the single biggest weapon Nintendo had in its arsenal when it came to fighting Sega's Mega Drive / Genesis, at least in the early years of the 16-bit console war. A long-time Nintendo supporter, Capcom decided to bring the game to the SNES first, with a domestic release taking place in 1992. Sega fans eventually got their hands on Champion Edition a short time later, but this period of exclusivity helped Nintendo's 16-bit system make significant gains on its rival, especially in Japan. In the west, copies of the Japanese import version of the game changed hands for many times more that its recommended retail price as gamers found the wait for the official release to be too painful; had Capcom decided to support both the SNES and the Mega Drive at the same time, things could have been very different, but back in 1992, any gamer worth their salt simply had to own a SNES for Street Fighter II. Despite strong sales of the Mega Drive, it was ultimately a lead Sega were never able to overcome, and saw the company eventually exit the hardware business after the failure of its subsequent Saturn and Dreamcast consoles.

Hitting the mainstream

Video games had previously enjoyed a successful relationship with mainstream pop culture – Pac-Man had a TV show for example, and songs based on video games made their way into discos in the '80s – but Street Fighter II took this concept to the next level. While cute characters like Pac-Man and Super Mario were difficult to adapt into big-budget movies (Nintendo tried and failed at the start of the 90s), the notion of people duking it out in a martial arts tournament was perfectly in-tune with the tastes of cinema-goers weaned on a diet of Schwarzenegger and Stallone flicks. While the 1995 movie was a critical dud – despite starring Jean-Claude Van-Damme – it proved that Capcom's series had reached a new level of fame, and was followed by a Japanese animated movie, comic books, toys, clothing and much more besides.
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