Street Fighter by Capcom - BlameTheControlPad.com

By ShellShock

Revised on 12/06/07

Street Fighter

Players: 2 About: Fighting, what else? Courtesy of: Capcom Back in: 1987 Originally on: Arcade Also on: PC-Engine CD, PS2, Xbox, PSP, ZX Spectrum, PC, C64, Amiga, Amstrad CPC

Capcom's one-on-one flagship fighting series needs no introduction. I'm sure I don't need to tell you who Ryu or Ken are, or what they do travelling around the world wearing the same stinky uniforms for 20 years now. As part of the series that started the fighting craze of the 90's, they have become two of the most recognized videogame martial artists in the world. They were also the first to use magical-looking "Chi" based special moves like the "Hadouken", which paired with the "Shoryuken", would become the duo's most ripped-off and standardized signature moves in the history of fighting games.

Arcade flyer

After so many years of countless upgraded iterations and all sorts of spinoffs and crossovers, fans still find the time to every now and then go back and play thru older titles like "SF2:The World Warrior" once more. Just to see if the magic is still there.
And it sure is. The different SF2 installments featured in many compilations and arcade collections for modern consoles are the perfect example, and the success of Xbox Live Arcade's "SF2':Hyper Fighting" can't be denied either. After all, SF2 is nowadays a classic.

Street Fighter Alpha art

The original Street Fighter though... well... it's a different animal. Rarely talked about or even played, it remains secluded from the rest of the series only to be referred back to as a laughable curiosity of the series. Its rotten controls and ridiculous difficulty are more than legendary among gamers, and do a great job of keeping away even the most hardcore Street Fighter fans. Maybe because of this, the game manages to still keep a few interesting facts and trivia hidden after all these years.

Arcade flyer

Street Fighter was directed by Takashi Nishiyama (a.k.a. "Piston" Takashi) and planned by "Finish" Hiroshi, who previously worked on Capcom's overhead beat'em up "Avengers". They both left the company after this project and were employed by SNK, where their influence can be seen in the "Art of Fighting", "Fatal Fury" and "The King of Fighters" series among numerous other SNK classics.
After SNK's fall in 2001, Takashi worked on Square Enix's "Star Ocean: Till the End of Time", and more recently in Sony's cultish PS2 title "Rule of Rose".

Birdie's Stage trivia:

In his stage (England) a poster for 'The Velvet Underground' (a cult 1960's rock band) is clearly visible alongside another poster for 'Ian Dury and the Blockheads'. The Blockheads were a popular British pub-rock band who disbanded in 1982 but reformed in 1987 for a tour of Japan, two months before the release of this game.
A third poster advertises 'Ristorante Donnaloia', an expensive Italian restaurant in Kobe which still exists to this day.
Also on this stage the name and likeness of at that time Capcom USA Vice President of Sales and Marketing 'Bill Cravens' is grafittied on the shutter in front of the 'Block Heads' pub.

The most interesting piece of trivia about the first Street Fighter is undoubtedly its faced out original cabinet.
Capcom's decision of including 6 attack buttons was not their first intention. As you can see in the arcade flyers, the original design included 2 pressure sensitive pads instead of buttons, the first one mapped to Ryu's punches and the second one to his kicks. The idea was that depending on how hard this pads were hit by a player's fist, Ryu would react by executing a punch or kick in 3 different power levels.
Unfortunately for Capcom (but more of a funny note to us), the location test version of the game was a failure. Injured customers and abused cabinets became too common and so the prototype pads had to be scrapped. According to urban legend, there were reports of people climbing on the cabinet and stomping on the pads to make Ryu hit harder than normal, which I consider a delightful testament of both complete ignorance towards a new technology and justice being served against the game's horrible controls. Definitely worth seeing.
Plan B, of course, was the series' now characteristic 6 button layout. A very daunting number that turned many players away in the beginning, considering every other cabinet around it had a maximum of 2 or 3.

Prototype arcade cabinet

Hitting pads are clearly visible
on this unit.

The other aspect of the game that made players walk away was its unplayability. Having only one playable character was no biggie back then, and being able to beat up a friend like in Double Dragon's final scene proved very popular. But the ridiculously high difficulty level, nearly impossible special moves, and the characters' overall slow, erratic response to simple commands are what Capcom's first fighting game is remembered for. Speaking of which (and actually few people know this), when Capcom replaced the pads with regular buttons the transition was not 100% successful because of how the software was written to accept input from the pads. Without getting too technical, the pads were designed to send a force reading to the circuit board not on their "on" state (while they are being pressed) but on their "off" state (when a maximum force reading is completed and you pull out your hand from it). The part of the code that controls this was never modified to accomodate regular buttons, and so when you press any of them and hold them down Ryu just stands there like an actor who just forgot his lines.

Arcade flyer

It might not seem like much, but this is the cause of the game's slow reaction to your commands and also why special moves are nearly impossible to execute. Don't believe me? Try doing a Hadouken by first holding down the punch button, then make a half-circle-forward with the stick (twice as fast as most fighting games), and then release the button. After some practice you'll have around 85% success rate at all of Ryu's special moves.
The other way to play Street Fighter is (as many of us have witnessed at the arcades) to wiggle the joystick really fast back and forth from the "down" to the "forward" position mashing on the punch buttons trying to keep the opponent at bay with occasional Hadoukens.

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Sagat's "Tiger Knee" doesn't look as cool as in SF2, but definitely does
more damage.

Street Fighter arcade

Street Fighter arcade

Cast of characters:
Ryu			Ken
	We all know who this karateka in white is. Adopted by Gouken, Ryu learned a toned down form of the "Ansatsuken" art without the "lethal touch". However, when he's nearly defeated by Sagat at the end of the tournament Ryu loses control and unleashes its deadly power upon the Muaythai champion, almost killing him. After regreting this, he decides to never use this lethal force again and travel around the world to perfect his non-lethal yet extremely powerful version of Ansatsuken. He's the only playable character in 1-Player mode.			The second most known videogame fighter is, much to his fans demise, just a means for Capcom to include 2-Player mode in the game. As such (and most likely due to memory limits), he's a clone of Ryu that is only playable in versus mode. Hey, at least he is not one of those Mortal Kombat palette swaps. His storyline wasn't thought out until SF2, where he turned out to be the son of a rich american family, moving to Japan and studying next to Ryu as Gouken's disciple.

	THEN	NOW		THEN	NOW

Birdie			Eagle
	A tall, brute caucasian punk with lots of color discrepancies. Not only is his hair red in his close-up but blonde during gameplay, but also made a ridiculous race transition to Street Fighter Alpha where he's now black. Following Capcom's tradition of denial, they explained that he's "ill" in this game. Stupidity abounds...			Eagle is a british bouncer that uses sticks to attack. He was hired to beat Sagat on this tournament but after failing he will be not heard of again until Capcom vs SNK 2, where his appearance adds no depth to his storyline except for the fact that he's now gay. Yes, you heard that right. He has some pretty obvious homosexual quotes on the japanese version of the game, but guess what Capcom USA's decision was about the subject...

	THEN	NOW		THEN	NOW

Geki			Gen
	Appearing only in this game, his only contribution is that of token ninja. He uses shuriken attacks and teleportation a lot, and also attacks with his claw. SF2's Vega (or Balrog in Japan) could be a more interesting evolution of his design. Word on the street is he's also Ibuki's (from SF3) father, but that has yet to be proven.			A former assassin using a chinese art of fighting. Gen learned that he had a fatal disease (although managing to stay alive thru the Alpha series), so he decided to find an opponent strong enough to give him a death match. A friend of Lee and also of Chun-Li's father, Gen taught Chun-Li some moves. He's pressumed dead in the main SF storyline.

	THEN	NOW		THEN	NOW

Retsu			Lee
	A good old friend of Ryu's master Gouken, this monk enters the first tournament but is easily beaten (he's actually the easiest character to defeat). Retsu then goes into seclusion to improve his training, but never joins a tournament again. He has also beaten Street Fighter Alpha's Dan once.			Another stereotype, the "chinaman". Lee entered the first tournament only to test his skills, but he was defeated and never seen again. He's the most relentless, quickest opponent you'll face, always so close to you won't be able to use Hadoukens or Tatsumakisenpuukyakus. A true pain in the ass, he can sometimes be even tougher than Sagat. Use lots of Shoryukens (if you can pull them off) to defeat him. According to SF's most recent storyline he has passed away, his two sons Yun and Yang succeeding him on SF3.

	THEN	NOW		THEN	NOW

Mike			Joe
	A tribute to Tyson, this boxer not only lacks leg attacks, but also varied punches. To compensate for this, he can knock you out in only 3 hits. So whatever you do, don't let him corner you. The most obvious piece of trivia about Mike is his uncanny resemblance to SF2's Balrog, who's original name in Japan is Mike Bison. The art book "All About Capcom" denies they are the same character, but then again Capcom's censorship and lies are on par with the government's denial of UFO existence.			As his name implies, a very unimaginative character. Representing the american street fighter stereotype, he's one of the easiest to beat. It is said that Capcom based Cody's (from Final Fight) moves on his, and even though Joe doesn't have many, his flying kick looks just like Cody's.

	THEN	NOW		THEN	NOW

Adon			Sagat
	Adon is Sagat's student. He becomes bitter after his master's loss against Ryu in the tournament and decides to go solo, developing his own variation of Muaythai. He attacks mainly with his fast and powerful trademark move "Jaguar Kick", which he retains in a toned down version throughout the Alpha series.			Sagat is also quite known in the gaming world. As the final boss, he's the only opponent that can use projectile attacks like Ryu's Hadouken, except his "Tiger Shot" will drain 3/4 of your gauge if it connects. He also executes a deadly but funny looking "Tiger Knee", a move he would later on improve during the different SF2 iterations. It is worth noting he does not have his "Tiger Uppercut". According to the storyline, he loses the tournament when an almost defeated Ryu nearly kills him with a last minute Shoryuken.

	THEN	NOW		THEN	NOW

Although Street Fighter's game structure was the standard to follow by fighting games throughout the genre's golden era and well into its decaying years, it evolved from true pioneers like Konami's "Yie Ar Kung Fu" and Data East's "Karate Champ".
There are five countries to visit throughout the game, each home to two opponents. Everytime you move to another destination you'll be presented with two kinds of bonus stages: splitting wood boards with different moves or breaking stacks of tiles and cinderblocks in one timed hit.
The game is also kind enough to let you choose where to begin, but Sagat's and Adon's homeland Thailand will remain out of reach until the end.

Street Fighter arcade

Based on a true story (seriously):
Yoshiji Soeno - As portraited in the martial arts comic "Karate Baka Ichidai"	Ryu is entirely based on Japan's Kyokushin Karate legend Yoshiji Soeno. Among other things, the "Tiger of Kyokushin" is known for launching a solo challenge on the strongest Muaythai fighters of Thailand in 1974, where he moved to and embarked on a solo mission to determine which is the ultimate fighting art. He learned the fearsome "aerial triple kick" from his master Mas Oyama, who it is said used it as a finishing blow against Muaythai champion legend "Black Cobra" in 1954. Ryu's "tatsumakisenpuukyaku" might be based on this move. Soeno is also the Founder of Shidokan Karate (an off-shoot of Kyokushin that combines the best of Karate, Judo and Muaythai), famous now in the US for its annual martial arts triathlon.	Yoshiji Soeno

Reiba - As portraited in the martial arts comic "Karate Baka Ichidai"	Sagat is based on then Muaythai champion Reiba, the "Dark Lord of Muaythai", who noticed Soeno was working his way up in spite of many unfair fights against the thai. Reiba set Soeno up against one of his disciples, and then his own brother Daya, who were both defeated. Reiba, enraged by this, would finally take on Soeno himself, but four days before the final battle the "Dark Lord" was shot dead by thai gangsters. Soon after this, Soeno returned to Bangkok and continued his winning streak. But it is said he felt no joy in those victories, with a void in his heart of what might have been fighting against Reiba.

Let's move on to the graphics. Most stages look average (except maybe Retsu's, that looks beautiful for the time). What really impressed though was the size, varied animation, and detail of the sprites. Unlike Karate Champ, Yie Ar Kung Fu had done a great job of differentiating each of Oolong's opponents by giving them a different weapon and attack pattern. Capcom chose to leave weapons out, but used the superior technology of the time to differentiate their characters with never before seen design and animation.

PC-Engine CD cover

Even though the music is not worth talking about, the sound effects definitely are.
Ryu's trademark special-move voice samples were originated here. You can barely understand the classic "Hadouken", "Shoryuken" and "Tatsumakisenpuukyaku" in the japanese version, which were translated to "Hellfire", "Dragon Punch" and "Hurricane Kick" respectively in the U.S. and World versions of the game.
Unlike in SF2, grunts abound for each of Ryu's punches and kicks too, but one of the title's most memorable features is the inclusion of a huge voice sample library. Very impressive for the time but completely laughable by today's standards, these clips of english speech spoken by a native japanese not only sound horrible but are very silly too. Among them you'll hear Sagat's signature exagerated laugh, the announcer's repetitive exclamations between battles, mispronounced expressions like "All light!" (All right!) and "I lick you, good luck!" (I like you, good luck!) and many other ones that have remained unintelligible even after all these years.

Speech samples:
	You've got a lot to learn before you beat me. Try again, kiddo!
	What strength!! But don't forget there are many guys like you all over the world.
	You have outlasted the best, you are now the greatest street fighter in the world!

The only game console to receive a port at the time was the TurboGrafx-16 CD. Converted by Hudson Soft in 1989 as "Fighting Street", it is also the first CD game to be released in North America for the system. An excellent copy of the original right down to it's horrible gameplay.
In 2003 SF was released for PCs as part of "Capcom Arcade Hits - Volume 1". Then back in 2006 as part of PSP's "Capcom Classics Collection Remixed" and PS2/Xbox's "Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2".
Home computer ports, on the other hand, were more abundant.

British home computer add

SF remains only as a object of study for fighting game fans interested in the genre's history (and those who want a good laugh at Capcom's expenses). Although technically a step forward after Yie Ar Kung Fu and quite impressive for a 1987 title, its gameplay and controls totally obliterated Capcom's chances of starting the golden age of fighting games 4 years earlier.

Street Fighter TurboGrafx-16 CD

Sources:

http://www.fightersgeneration.com Is an excellent source for character's profiles and sprites.
http://crane.50megs.com/index6w.htm Is where you can read everything about legends Soeno and Reiba. A must if you are a martial arts or fighting game fan.

Street Fighter arcade