Street
Fighter was a fighting game released
by Capcom in August of 1987, and would
become the first in a long-running franchise. The game featured Japanese martial
artist Ryu as he competed in an international tournament to prove his strength.
He would travel to five countries (Japan, United States, China, England and Thailand)
to face eight opponents before going against Adon, a deadly Muay Thai
master, and his mentor, Sagat. A second player could join in the game as Ryu’s
training partner and rival Ken, who appeared different but featured all the
same moves as Ryu (which would remain constant for the two characters
throughout the franchise). It was produced and directed by Takashi
Nishiyama (credited as “Piston Takashi”) and planned by Hiroshi Matsumoto (as
“Finish Hiroshi”), with character artwork by Keiji Inafune.
The game’s unique feature was the
use of pneumatic buttons which took the amount of power used to press them and
turned it into power behind the attacks in the game. The game was praised for
that innovation, the moves, and the character designs, although it was said to
have very little replay value. The game wasn’t a breakout hit at its inception,
but it did prove popular enough with fans to warrant its being ported to home
consoles as Fighting Street.
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| Original promo for Final Fight as Street Fighter '89. |
In 1989, Capcom began work on a
sequel called Street Fighter ’89. They decided to switch genres from
fighting to side-scrolling beat ‘em up after the success of Technōs Japan’s Double Dragon. The game followed Mike Haggar, a former wrestler
that became Mayor of Metro
City, as he took on the Mad Gear Gang (taking
their name from another
Capcom game known as Led Storm outside
of Japan) who had kidnapped his daughter, Jessica. Joining him was
his daughter’s boyfriend, Cody,
a street brawler, and Cody’s best friend, Guy, a martial artist. The
game was largely inspired by the film Streets of Fire, whose
hero Cody was based on. The game was
produced by Yoshiki
Okamoto and designed by Akira Nishitani and Akira Yasuda. Because of
criticisms over its numerous differences from the prior Street Fighter game,
the game was ultimately released as Final Fight that December. It became a hit for Capcom, spawning
its own game series.
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| Ad for Street Fighter II. |
Capcom eventually turned their focus
back to fighting games and set out to revive the Street Fighter brand; feeling that the concept was good but the
playability could be better. The Final
Fight team was put on it, and in February of 1991 Street Fighter II: The World Warrior was released. While maintaining the gameplay of the original, the
game offered a selection of playable characters with unique fighting styles and
special movements. Introduced were E. Honda, a sumo wrestler from Japan;
Blanka, a green-skinned bestial man with electrical abilities from Brazil;
Guile, a USAF Special Forces operative out for
revenge for his fallen friend; Chun-Li, a Chinese Interpol officer and martial
artist; Zangief, a Soviet pro wrestler; and Dhalsim, a yoga master from India
with extremely stretchy limbs and fiery breath. Returning from the first game
were Ryu and Ken. After defeating the other playable characters, the player
would continue on to face four CPU-controlled “Grand Masters.” Sagat was
included from the previous game and was joined by Blarog, an African-American
boxer from the United States; Vega, a pretty-boy Spanish cage fighter who wears
a mask and uses a claw weapon; and M. Bison, leader of the criminal
organization Shadaloo
who wields a power known as “Psycho Power.” Originally, Balrog and Bison had each
other’s names as Balrog was modeled after professional boxer Mike Tyson, but fearing a likeness
infringement lawsuit Capcom made the change when the game was released in
America and in future installments.
The game became a hit, and was
regarded as redefining the fighting genre due to its accurate controls and
highly detailed graphics, as well as being the first to offer a selection of
characters. It also introduced a combo mechanic where a series of moves could
be strung together that was initially a programming glitch. Street Fighter II is often credited with
revitalizing a struggling arcade industry, exhibiting a level of popularity
unseen since Pac-Man. It led to the creation of
other popular fighting franchises like Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Virtua Fighter. Capcom also introduced the concept of revisions, the precursor to
today’s downloadable patches. Rather than releasing direct sequels of the game,
they kept expanding and improving the game leading to five different releases
that included new moves, game speeds, and the addition of the characters T.
Hawk, a Native American warrior from Mexico whose ancestral land was taken by
Shadaloo; Fei
Long, a Hong Kong movie star who wanted to test his skill against real
fighters; Dee Jay, a kickboxing musician from Jamaica looking for inspiration
for his next song; Cammy, a 19-year-old British special forces agent with ties
to Bison; and Akuma,
essentially a dark version of Ryu and Ken.
At the height of Street Fighter’s popularity, Capcom
produced and co-financed a film based on the franchise. Written and directed by
Seven E. de Souza, the movie
centered around several different groups of heroes uniting to take down General
M. Bison (Raul Julia) and his
plan to extort billions of dollars from the world by taking Allied Nations (a
pastiche of the United Nations that denied
use of their name) relief workers hostage. Jean-Claude Van Damme,
Capcom’s first and only choice, was cast as Col. William Guile, the head of the
A.N. military response to Bison who sought his own revenge against him for the capture
of his friend, Charlie.
Charlie was experimented on to become an inhuman fighting machine (blending the
character with that of Blanka, played by Robert Mammone). de Souza had
intended to keep the focus of the film small, but Capcom continually wanted
characters added until the full roster became involved and the film overloaded.
The movie was released on December 23rd, 1994 to overwhelmingly
negative reviews but still managed to gross almost $100 million worldwide.
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| Guile with Chun-Li, Ken, Blanka, Ryu and Cammy. |
Following the movie was an animated
series called simply Street Fighter, also known as Street Fighter: The Animated Series (and sometimes Street
Fighter II) to differentiate it
from the game. While the
characters resembled their video game counterparts, the show was heavily inspired
by and infused elements of the film’s story. Col. William Guile (Michael
Donovan) was branded as a criminal in order to provide him the cover necessary
to run the covert Street Fighters team. Unlike the film, the characters were
able to tap into their special projectile abilities from the game; notably
Guile’s “sonic boom” attack. Each episode typically featured Guile receiving a
mission and setting out to recruit necessary members from his team that he’d
need to complete it. Primary members
carried over from the film included Blanka (Scott McNeil), Guile’s friend still
mutated by Bison (Richard Newman); con artists Ryu Hoshi (Tong Lung) and Ken
Masters (McNeil); reporter Chun-Li Xiang (Donna Yamamoto) who wanted revenge
against Bison for the death of her father; E. Honda (Paul Dobson), who was the
team’s computer whiz rather than Chun-Li’s producer as in the film; Cammy White
(Lisa Ann Beley), a member of the British SIS
Special Operations unit Delta
Red who had a flirtatious relationship with Guile; Dhalsim (Gary Chalk),
one of the scientists responsible for Blanka’s creation; Dee Jay (Dobson), who
was the team’s helicopter pilot rather than Bison’s lackey as in the film; and
T. Hawk (Dobson), who was portrayed as serving deep cover spying on the cyborg
criminal known as The Satin Hammer (Lynda Boyd). Balrog (Dobson), who served as
Chun-Li’s cameraman in the film, was made into a computer programmer for Bison
in an episode of the series.
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| M. Bison. |
The primary antagonists were Bison
and his legions of Shadaloo, with Sagat (Robert O. Smith) serving as his second
in command. Zangief (Donovan) once again served as Bison’s lackey and muscle,
despite his moment of redemption at the end of the film. Vega (Dobson) was
portrayed as a former Bison henchman who was searching for eternal youth, in
keeping with the character’s vain personality from the games. New to the series
was Akuma (Dale Wilson & David Kaye), who wanted the Chi
energy possessed by certain characters for himself.
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| Bison takes control of Cammy. |
Street Fighter debuted on
October 21st, 1995 as part of the USA Network’s Cartoon Express programming
block before moving to the USA Action Extreme Team
alongside episodes of Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm.
The opening theme was an arrangement of the title theme of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, with the series’ music
composed by Andrew Dimitroff.
It was written by Michael Edens,
Julia Lewald, Eric Lewald, Richard Stanley, Mark Onspaugh, Bruce Reid Schaefer, Francis Moss, Ted Pedersen, Jeremy Cushner, Matt Edens, Matthew Malach, Doug Booth, Steve Cuden, Len Wein, Will Meugniot, Marv Wolfman, Steve Perry, Steve Englehart, Kat Likkel, George Bloom, and Larry Parr. The Lewalds and Michael
Edens served as the story editors for the first season, replaced by David Anthony Kraft for the
second. Meugniot was also a character designer for the first season along with Roy Burdine, Kathi Castillo and Mark Lewis. Burdine ended up
taking over for the second with Ed LaRoche. Meugniot and the Lewalds were maintained as
consultants.
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| Sonic BOOM! |
The series ran for two seasons. Production of the show moved from Graz Entertainment
to InVision Entertainment for the
second season. Animation duties also moved from Madhouse to Hong Kong Japan Sunrise, Ltd., resulting in a slight change in overall style
and the character designs. Over its run, the show incorporated all the
characters from Super Street Fighter II: Turbo as
well as from the Street Fighter Alpha series and other Capcom games like Saturday Night Slam Masters,
Magic Sword and Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness. The episode “Final Fight” served as an adaptation of that game
with the additional inclusion of the Street Fighter characters (Final Fight characters were starting to
be gradually integrated into the Street
Fighter game series). Season 2 saw Guile’s role reduced somewhat as a
couple of episodes focused on the other Fighters. Cammy became part of a
season-long subplot where she was brainwashed into serving Bison (as she had
been in the games).
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| The Warrior King fights with Chun-Li. |
As with the other entries in the Extreme Team—Wing
Commander Academy, Savage
Dragon, and Mortal
Kombat—Street Fighter took part in “The
Warrior King” crossover event on November 16 during its second season.
Developed by Will Meugniot,
the titular barbarian (Michael
Dorn) crossed between dimensions to find and acquire the Orb of Power,
which could control the weather of any planet. While The Warrior King was seen
in all four shows, their respective characters didn’t cross over. It was
coordinated so that each episode would air on the same day, resulting in each
series being shown outside of their regular timeslots. However, the event
received little to no promotion, and outside of the rearranged schedule there
was no indication that there was anything special about that day.
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| The 2015 re-release DVD. |
ADV Films released the entire series on two
sets called Code of Honor and Soul Powers in 2003. Discotek Media
would later re-release the complete
series in 2015. The series was also released onto Blu-Ray as part of the 25th
Anniversary Collector’s Set in 2012. It has been made available to stream
on Fubo,
The
Roku Channel, Plex,
Crackle,
Pluto
TV, Retro
Crush, Asian
Crush, and Crunchyroll,
and available to purchase on Prime.
While the American versions of Street Fighter haven’t done well,
Japanese interpretations have been more favorable with several anime
movies and series under their belt. Street
Fighter has also been consistently published in comics
since the 90s; both in American versions and in manga form. Along with action
figures and music albums, Street Fighter continues
to be a merchandising juggernaut for Capcom and one of their most well-known
gaming franchises.
Originally posted in 2015. Updated in 2023.
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