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Street Fighter (commonly abbreviated SF) is a popular series of fighting games in which the players pit combatants from around the world, each with his or her own special moves, against one another. The first game in the series was released by Capcom in 1987.

Brief History of Fighting Games

The birth of fighting games came long before Capcom's juggernaut sequel landed in arcades in 1991. In fact, the first one-on-one fighting game is considered to be Victronics' Warrior (1979), which featured vector graphics of two knights fighting over an overlay with a top-down perspective. The next fighting game didn't appear for a long time due to the decline faced by video games in the early eighties, but made a huge comeback when Karate Champ was released by Data East in 1984. Karate Champ was the first true two-player fighting game, featuring two joysticks for controls. Following on the heels of Karate Champ was Konami's Yie-Ar Kung Fu, which debuted in 1985 with impressive graphics (for the time) that featured detailed backgrounds in an arena setting. Set on releasing their own fighting game for the arcade, Japanese arcade manufacturer Capcom began planning their own game featuring the best elements of both Karate Champ and Yie Ar Kung-Fu. The earliest Street Fighter video games were not rated. The first Street Fighter video game that was rated, was Street Fighter Alpha. The video games starting with Street Fighter Alpha were rated for ages 12 and up by the CERO and T for Teen by the ESRB. Starting in 2006, the CERO replaced the ages 12 and up rating by the rating B.

Street Fighter (1987)

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Ryu vs. Sagat on the first Street Fighter game

Street Fighter made little impact when it was first released in 1987. It had, however, a novel control system which involved a joystick and two large hydraulic buttons (or in some one-player setups, two large punching pads), in which the force of the button press determined the strength of the punch or kick, with three varying strengths of both punches and kicks. Due to the players' tendencies to hit the buttons too hard (which damaged the controls), the system was retooled to use more traditional buttons, thus giving way to the six-button layout that would become the standard for Street Fighter games to come. This game also introduced the trademark special moves of the Fireball (Hadouken, 波動拳), Dragon Punch (Shouryuken, 昇龍拳), and Hurricane Kick (Tatsumaki Senpu Kyaku, 竜巻旋風脚); Note that Hadouken, Shouryuken and Tatsumaki Senpu Kyaku do not translate into the misnomers they are today, thanks to Capcom USA. In fact, they translate literally as Surge Fist (occasionally translated as Wave Motion Fist), Rising Dragon Fist, and Tornado Whirlwind Kick. Also, however, they are notoriously much more difficult to perform at will than in the sequel, because they could easily knock out an opponent in one or three hits, which would seriously disrupt game balance. The JAMMA board also created problems in execution. In this game, only Ryu or Ken were playable characters (depending on which side of the machine the player plays), and there were ten enemies to defeat, distributed in five countries:

Japan (Retsu and Geki)
U.S.A. (Joe and Mike)
China (Lee and Gen)
England (Birdie and Eagle)
Thailand, after the previous countries were cleared (Adon and Sagat).

Despite its relative obscurity, it had some of the features that were improved upon in its sequel, and many of these characters appeared in the subsequent games.

Street Fighter II

Street Fighter II : The World Warrior (1991)

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Ingame screenshot of Street Fighter II

Street Fighter II, released on Capcom's CPS-1 arcade board in 1991, was one of the most popular games of the early 1990s, shaping the direction of arcade games for nearly a decade to follow. It is widely acknowledged as the premier fighting game of its era, due to its game balance with regard to the timing of attacks and blocks, which was unparalleled at the time; and due to "special moves" in which experienced players could execute complex fighting moves (special moves) by moving the joystick and tapping the buttons in certain combinations. Of course, this wasn't anything new and exclusive. These complicated fighting moves were given names, such as the Dragon Punch and the Hurricane Kick, which provided a framework for players to have conversations about their games. It also introduced the convention of "cancelling" or "interrupting" moves into other moves, which enabled a player to create sequences of continuous hits. Rumor has it that this ability to "cancel" moves into other moves was the result of a programming bug. Regardless, it gave the game much greater depth than it would have had otherwise. Also, this was the game which introduced to the gaming world the concept of the combo, a sequence of attacks which, when executed with proper timing, did not allow the opponent to interrupt the combination. Mastery of these techniques lead almost directly to the high-level competition which has been a cornerstone of this type of game ever since. The game features eight fighters that players can choose from: Ryu, Ken, Blanka, Zangief, Dhalsim, Guile, E. Honda, and Chun-Li), plus four bosses (Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison). The character known as M. Bison in the original Japanese game was considered a legal liability by Capcom USA, his backstory very similar to that of Mike Tyson as, of course, was his name. In order to pre-empt any lawsuits on the part of Tyson, the names of all the bosses except Sagat (who had been around since the original Street Fighter), were re-arranged, something which has since caused no shortage of confusion when attempting description.

Street Fighter II was followed by a slew of other games of similar design, some by Capcom, some by other companies. One of the most well-known competitors to Street Fighter II is Mortal Kombat, followed shortly afterwards by Virtua Fighter. SNK, however, developed a reputation for fighting games very soon after Capcom; Art of Fighting, The King of Fighters, and Fatal Fury are the three most notable examples, the first Fatal Fury game being released within months of SFII. Fandom between the two companies' games is often extremely divisive. SNK, having continued development of its fighting games such as The King of Fighters which continues to this day, may be said to hold the upper hand in many countries in terms of popularity, one notable exception being the USA, where Street Fighter is still the better known and remembered fighting series. The reasons for this are many and varied, but SNK's insistence on releasing its games on the prohibitively expensive Neo-Geo home system (an SNK MVS arcade machine in all but name) and the limited distribution and promotion of these games outside of Japan may be one reason. Capcom gained a reputation for fairly rapid and reasonably faithful home conversions of its popular fighting games early on. The last completely new Street Fighter game to be released was Street Fighter III in 1997. The characters from the Street Fighter universe have appeared in numerous other Capcom fighting games, however.

Street Fighter II': Champion Edition (1992)

Capcom created an update to Street Fighter II called Street Fighter II': Champion Edition, the apostrophe meaning 'dash' in Japan, so the full name would be Street Fighter II Dash: Champion Edition. In this update, the four bosses were playable and some balance issues between characters were addressed. It also was the first fighting game to have same character matches leading to an extra costume color for each character, a feature that would later become commonplace in fighting games.

First home conversions

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SNES version of Street Fighter II

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System received a home conversion of Street Fighter II at this point, the game being released in mid-1992 in Japan and the USA and late 1992 in other territories. This game was notable for being the first home cartridge to be 16 megabits (2 megabytes) in size, an achievement since this was twice the size of any other game on the market. Nintendo initially had an exclusivity contract with Capcom that did not allow officially sanctioned versions of the game to be ported to other consoles.

Soon after the release of Street Fighter II on the Super Nintendo, Street Fighter II' Champion Edition was ported to NEC's PC-Engine (also known as the TurboGraphx-16), but never saw release outside Japan. The game was 20 megabits in size and a special 6 button controller was released by NEC Avenue. The PC-Engine version featured parallax scrolling in the floor like the Super Nintendo version and the missing frames of animation were the same as the SNES version.

It would not be until after the release of Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting on the SNES in 1993 that Sega would get a version of Street Fighter II for its Mega Drive (Genesis) console, despite earlier released previews in magazines depicting a version of Street Fighter II' Champion Edition in the works for Sega's console.

The SNES conversions were not nearly arcade perfect, but for the removal of some graphical detail due to the inferior hardware - frames of animation and sometimes, in order to save on storage space, animations for two different moves were re-used, Ken and Ryu's upward-jumping forward kick being one example. This watering-down of the home conversions due to RAM restraints would become a pet peeve of enthusiasts, who often complained that the home versions were not accurate representations of the games they would compete with in the arcades. Furthermore, due to an unfortunate Nintendo practice of simply reducing the framerate of PAL games from 60 Hz to 50 Hz, like all other PAL SNES games, the original conversion of SFII was 17% slower than it was intended to be. PAL has a slightly lower framerate, but a higher resolution than NTSC and the European conversions furthermore did not utilise the additional scanlines, leading to a squashed picture with black bars above and below it. Though the SNES version was a port from the original Street Fighter II, a code at the beginning of the game would unlock some features from the Champion Edition update, primarily the second colors and same-character matches.

In 1996, Capcom and Brazilian company Tec Toy, who manufactured Sega consoles and cartridges under license teamed up to develop a version for the Sega Master System, called Street Fighter II', only available in Brazil. The game is basically a restricted version of Champion Edition, with only eight playable characters. Tec Toy released a special 6-button controller for the console, and Street Fighter is the only game that makes use of this feature. The SMS version is the only official port to an 8-bit console.

Several unlicensed conversions also appeared on the market, primarily for Japanese home computers.

Street Fighter II' Turbo: Hyper Fighting (1992)

After Street Fighter II': Champion Edition, many modified bootlegged versions of the game were released by certain distributors, the best known of which was Street Fighter II: Rainbow Edition. Many arcades (even large corporate owned ones) embraced these bootlegs. The bootlegs were widely distributed until Capcom released its reply to these games at the very end of 1992: Street Fighter II' Turbo: Hyper Fighting (called simply Street Fighter II': Hyper Fighting on the Arcades outside Japan).

Among the notable features of the bootleg versions were:

The added ability for players to change characters partway through a match.
The ability for characters to perform special moves in the air as if they were on the ground.
Simplification of certain special moves (ie: no charge for charged moves).
Faster game pace.
Adding new moves to certain characters (such as Chun-Li's fireball), some of which were incorporated into Turbo.
Frame bug moves (i.e. Guile's standing frame freeze, which can segue into throwing characters infinitely from anywhere onscreen)

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Street Fighter II' Plus: Champion Edition for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive

The main draw of Turbo, upon its release, was the increase in game speed. Most characters also benefited from the addition of new moves and tweaks to the gaming balance to maintain competitive interest in the game. Differentiation between Ken and Ryu grew (Ken now being the character more focused on use of the Dragon Punch whose range and speed was increased, and Ryu receiving an improved Fireball); the bosses were more balanced against the rest of the playing field and 1 new costume colours were added to each character bringing the total to 3 (though only 2 of them were selectable since the CE colors weren't available in this update).

Turbo was ported to the SNES and later became the first official conversion of the game on a non-Nintendo system when it appeared on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. The Sega version could not be given the full name of the title due to contractual exclusivity obligations between Capcom and Nintendo, and as such was renamed Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition (Street Fighter II' Plus: Champion Edition in Japan). These were the first versions of Street Fighter with variable speeds, where the player could himself decide the pace of the game at the option screen. Also, they offered a "Champion Edition mode" (the Sega version had variable speeds as the "Turbo" mode; also it included the original intro from the Arcades). In order to accommodate the game's complex 6-button system, Sega actually produced special 6-button gamepads for the originally 3-button Genesis.

During the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft announced that Hyper Fighting will become available on the Xbox 360 console's Xbox Live Arcade service, complete with Xbox Live multiplayer. It is expected to be available for download in early 2006.

Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (1993)

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Ingame screenshot of Super Street Fighter II

In late 1993, Capcom released another version of the game, Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers. As the subtitle implies, four new characters were added; Fei Long, Cammy, Dee Jay, and T. Hawk. The Super in the title suggested to gamers the graphical enhancements possible due to the new hardware (CPS-2) the game ran on. Though the game looked superficially similar, every character had in fact been redrawn and animations added to their repertoire, a move which some say led to the release of the game much too early (rumors say that this was done because of the recent release of Mortal Kombat II) - the final build was rife with programming errors, bugs and balance issues and several of the team working on the game later publicly stated that the Turbo version was the game originally intended for release. Character balance proved to be the most significant flaw, notably the strength of T. Hawk making competitive play nearly useless. The game was less of a success than would have been desired.

Among the positive changes were redrawn character portraits for the returning characters, 8 available colors for each character's costume (this was done because there was a version of the game called "Super Street Fighter II: The Tournament Battle" which featured interconnected arcade machines where up to 8 players fought to win the tournament. This feature was also included in the 16-bit home versions of the game), and new animations and special moves such as a Red Fireball for Ryu and a Flaming Dragon Punch for Ken, and a new fireball animation for Chun-Li (whose old animation was one of her standing punches with a doubled blue-colored Yoga Fire, but who now had a fan-pleasing pose in which she stuck out her rear as she cast the fireball). New dizzy animations were added (such as angels and reapers), and points incentives for performing the first attack and other achievements were added. This was also the first game in the series to formally incorporate a combo system; the computer would show the number of attacks in a combo and award points bonuses accordingly. Another improvement from previous games was the reversal, allowing quick recovery into an attack after landing on the ground or blocking, thus negating the opportunity in previous incarnations of "ticking" one's opponent, i.e. hitting an opponent with a light attack and immediately throwing them out of blockstun.

The game was ported to the Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive again, though the graphic refinements were largely absent from the returning characters.

Beating the bootleggers

The aforementioned bootleg copies of previous Street Fighter titles were a prime reason for Capcom's move to the new CPS-2 hardware, a system with such impressive encryption that despite numerous attempts it was not decrypted until the early 2000's by a dedicated team on the internet. Capcom also included a safety battery in the CPS-2 boards, the expiration of which would wipe the volatile memory of the board and render it useless, though a procedure for bypassing this killswitch is now widely available on the Internet. All in all, Capcom effectively succeeded in maintaining control of its intellectual property well after the commercial life of the games on the board.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo (1994)

In early 1994 came Super Street Fighter II Turbo, known in Japan as Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge, originally released in the arcade & later on the 3DO. It featured enhanced speed, difficulty, and a remixed soundtrack. It also featured a new secret character, Akuma, known in Japan as Gouki, who had not only inherited all of Ryu and Ken's special moves, but could also produce a downward fireball in the air, and could perform a very powerful super move called the Shun Goku Satsu (literally means Instant Hell Murder). Akuma was only available through a very specific cheat code, a fact withheld by Capcom until some time after the game's release. This tactic of including hidden characters later became another mainstay of the genre. Due to his superior ability (he was, for example, the only character who had an air fireball), Akuma was collectively outlawed from competition. In later games, Capcom would attempt to redress this balance by burdening Akuma with a large damage handicap. Gouki (Akuma) was included in the game as a response to all the rumors about a secret character since the CE version of the game, this secret character was said to be "Sheng Long" who was supposedly the master of Ryu and Ken, this rumor began because of a mistranslation in Ryu's winning quote: "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.", this quote appeared on the arcades but in the home versions he said "You must defeat my Dragon Punch to stand a chance." which is supposed to be a more accurate translation. Back then the gaming magazine EGM published some fake photos (for April Fool's Day) that featured "Sheng Long" in Thailand on Bison's stage who looked like Ryu but with long white hair and dark clothes. This joke only helped the rumor to continue growing and spreading.

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Street Fighter II Turbo: Revival on the GameBoy Advance

SSFIIT became the first game in the series to have super moves and perhaps more importantly, introduced air juggles and overheads to the formula. Air juggles were moves where opponents could be held in a combo and attacked numerous times while still in the air, which had not been formally possible in the past, though several glitches in the previous games had allowed limited juggling. Overheads were ground-based attacks which would damage a crouching character, even if they were blocking. Previously, one could only damage such an opponent by attacking them from the air, leaving oneself vulnerable and promoting a strategy known as "turtling", wherein a player would simply crouch and block, waiting for the opponent to present him with an opening. The introduction of the overhead paved the way for what later become known as a high-low game, where overheads could be used to weed out a turtling player, thereby promoting faster, more aggressive play. Throws could be cancelled by pressing a button at the moment the throw was initiated; the character would still be thrown, but would land on their feet and receive much less damage. The balance issues which had plagued the previous installment in the franchise were also mostly smoothed out. However, the game seemed to put somewhat of a forceful emphasis on using combos, as the computer could easily defeat the player on the account that it could do much more damage. Almost all the characters again received numerous new animations and moves. Some, such as Ken, were almost completely overhauled. The short space of time in which all this had been achieved seemed to confirm fans' suspicions that Super Street Fighter II was not the final product and that these enhancements had been in progress even as that game was released.

Because of its numerous refinements, SSFIIT remains a fan favorite in the series to this day, a mainstay of competitions and considered the crowning achievement of the Street Fighter series by some; it invariably makes the top 3 of "Greatest Fighting Game Ever" lists, and occupies a special place in the hearts of enthusiasts as the final Street Fighter II installment. The game was released in the Street Fighter Collection sets for the Sega Saturn and PlayStation. It was released later for the Sega Dreamcast with an online matching service feature, but only in Japan via Sega's Dreamcast Direct service, and it is said to have been produced in less than 5000 copies for this console, a minuscule number by video game standards. It is therefore highly prized by collectors. A PC version was also made available; developed by Eurocom and published by Gametek. In 2001, a version of the game was released for the Game Boy Advance under the title Super Street Fighter II Turbo: Revival, and 15th Anniversary collections for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 in 2004 featured a new version of the game, Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition, bundled with the later Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and an English dubbed, partly censored version of the Street Fighter II anime movie. Hyper Street Fighter II was later released to Japanese arcades.

Street Fighter Alpha/Zero

Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams (1995)

In 1995, a prequel of Street Fighter II and sequel of Street Fighter was introduced, called Street Fighter Alpha, renamed from an American working title of Street Fighter Legends (Street Fighter Zero in Japan), again on the CPS-2 arcade board. This featured a completely new graphics engine and an entirely new gameplay system. Street Fighter Alpha represented the first overhaul of the Street Fighter series since its de facto inception 4 years earlier as Street Fighter II. Characters were drawn in an anime style and were meant to look more youthful than in their Street Fighter 2 incarnations. Perhaps most controversially, only 4 of the 10 initially selectable characters were from Street Fighter II: Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Sagat. The final boss was yet again Vega/M. Bison, who was selectable as a hidden character, as were Akuma and a new character called Dan, a tongue-in-cheek revision of the Ryu/Ken mold with references to SNK characters. The anime-like design of the characters (as opposed to the earlier attempts at realism) were seen as a direct consequence of Capcom's experiments with the Vampire/Darkstalkers games, which had been introduced a short time before and had been popular. Some of the new characters (Guy and Sodom) were taken from older Capcom games such as Final Fight, while others (Birdie and Adon) where competitors from the original Street Fighter. Others (Charlie and Rose) were original, although Charlie (Nash in Japan) was very much Guile from Street Fighter II in all but name. It should be noted however that Charlie's fate in this game is a central plot point to Guile's in Street Fighter 2.

Several new techniques were introduced, the most significant of which was arguably air blocking. Characters could now, with certain caveats, block when jumping, assuming no previous action had been performed while mid-air. Each character also now had several super combos - as opposed to SSFIIT where the super meter would reset after each round, the meter in SFA would retain charge between rounds, as well as charge with fierce punch/kick regardless of whether the opponent was hit. The meter also now had three different levels, and each super combo had three different levels. A super combo could thus inflict different amounts of damage; 1 button was used for a level 1 combo, 2 buttons for a level 2, and 3 for a level 3.

Another change, and a legacy from the Vampire games, was the introduction of chain combos, which were chains of normal attacks that could be interrupted into each other. This would allow for an introductory system of chains not requiring the intricate timing of combos in previous games. However, the flipside to this was the simplicity with which long chains of damaging attacks could be performed, removing some of the strategy element of the series. The concept of "Alpha counters" ("Zero counters" in Japan and Asia) were introduced, a set of moves using a bar of super charge which allowed a character to make an immediate counterattack from a blocking position. Also, characters could roll out of situations when thrown or tripped to the ground.

Again fans were left with the feeling that this was a game rushed out before its development was completed. The lack of balance and the dearth of refinement were mildly criticized at the time, but this was perhaps outweighed by the interest the game engendered in the franchise with its new visuals and more spectacular gameplay. The arcade scene was booming in the mid-90's, an era when home machines were still significantly less advanced than their arcade counterparts, and Capcom was at the forefront of the industry. Quickly producing a new product was in, and was more important than applying that time-consuming layer of polish to make the game really shine, and Capcom was becoming known for this, though overall it was a growing trend throughout the industry. Several magazines again reported the producers and programmers as saying upon the release of Street Fighter Alpha 2 that it was the game they had wished the original to be. Alpha did, however, further the story of the characters and add meat to their backgrounds, though this was scarcely the reason the games were played.

It is interesting to note, however, that this was the only game released on Capcom's experimental CPS-changer home system, essentially a modified CPS-1 without the encryption of the newer CPS-2 board. It also, perhaps more importantly, was released on the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. the conversions were well-received, but were quite limited due to the smaller amount of RAM in the new-generation 3D machines, this problem particularly affecting the PlayStation conversion. At this stage, Nintendo had effectively been abandoned by Capcom, its SNES console now aging and incapable (it was thought) of handling the new games. The Sega conversions were generally considered the best available, though they were not arcade perfect. Later Saturn ports utilised the RAM cartridges that were available for the machine so as to increase the animation quality of the games. GameBoy and PC versions were also made available.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 (1996)

Everyone was expecting Capcom to release a sequel to Street Fighter Alpha. A number of factors conspired against the release of the sequel, however. The CPS-2 board upon which the games had recently been based was essentially little more than a slightly improved CPS-1 board, thus the architecture of the board dated back to Forgotten Worlds in 1988. Capcom was diverting resources to the development of 3D arcade games and the new CPS-3 board, which eventually debuted the following year. As such, sparse resources were devoted to Street Fighter Alpha 2, some reports stating that at times, the team working on it was said to number one person. Despite this context, the game was released in early 1996, 8 months after the original, and garnered immediate praise from the press and public alike.

Correcting what had often been the primary complaint about SFA, Alpha 2 was a significantly more polished and balanced game. Primarily, the degree to which each character's set of moves complemented the others was again addressed.

Several new features were introduced in this incarnation: the chain combos were removed to encourage the precise timing the series had been known for; custom combos, a concept which would be refined in later games, were also introduced in Alpha 2 - the player could press a combination of buttons (two punches and one kick or vice versa) to initiate a state where all moves could be cancelled into each other at increased speed, thus allowing the player to create their own super combos. Also, Alpha Counters were revised so that they would be variable to the situation i.e. a punch Alpha Counter would result in an anti-air counter while with kick would respond low. Rose's Alpha Counter actually switched positions with the opponent, this became a critical move if Rose used it while in the corner.

The three hidden characters from SFA were made readily selectable and five new characters were added, among them old SFII faces Dhalsim and Zangief together with later favourite Sakura. This was also the first appearance of 'Shin Akuma' in the home versions, the so-called "real" Akuma, capable of throwing double fireballs mid-air and all-around superior to the normal Akuma. He was a hidden character.

Numerous game magazines at the time voted SFA2 one of the arcade games of the year, the relatively minor changes to the fundamentals of the game and the extensive polishing of the same winning formula gained general approval from competitive fans also. The game was again ported to the Saturn and PlayStation, the Saturn version again the superior port, due to the ability to select the classic Champion Edition versions of Zangief and Dhalsim, Chun-Li's original Street Fighter II outfit (complete with her original fireball motion), an Evil version of Ryu, a special version of Sakura, and Shin Akuma. A PC version was also available, though it didn't carry all the hidden characters that the Saturn version had, namely the other versions of Zangief and Dhalsim, Evil Ryu and Sakura. Interestingly, due to a new technique involving in-cart compressed graphics, a conversion of SFA2 was one of the last games on Nintendo's SNES, despite the doubts about it being feasible. Unsurprisingly, the SNES version could not measure up to those on the newer consoles.

A slightly refined version of SFA2 was later released on arcades in Japan and Asia, though not the West, called Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, which featured a new dramatic battle mode that could be accessed with a code, among other new features. A version of the game was later included in the Street Fighter Collection (called Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold outside Japan) for the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation. Cammy was added as a hidden character, but the dramatic battle mode was not included.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 (1998)

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Ingame screenshot of Street Fighter Alpha 3

Street Fighter Alpha 3 was less of a refinement of the previous games than a complete rethink. It is undoubtedly one of the, if not the, best-loved Street Fighter games released. Initially released on the CPS-2 system, it was ported to every major console and continues to garner conversions on new systems today, despite each version straying farther away from Arcade authenticity.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 contained a number of new ideas that were later used in practically every fighting game released. Though the idea of "Ism"s - modes of play for each character that changed the system - may have been attributed to the The King of Fighters games of 1996-1999, its implementation in SFA3 was much more radical. A-ism (Z-ism in Japan and Asia) played like previous Alpha games; X-ism was reminiscent of the system in SSF2T (SSF2X in Japan), with a single super combo and a single bar; V-ism was a rethinking of the Custom Combos (now renamed Variable Combos) into a separate isms. Alpha 3 also included a much more lenient juggling system, so combos could be continued even after characters had been thrown into the air. It therefore became possible, for example, for Ken to perform a second Dragon Punch on an opponent that had been thrown into the air from a first one. Players could, however, recover from falls mid-air and counter-attack by pressing all three punch buttons simultaneously, or roll away upon landing with all three kicks. All characters also received air throws, an advantage previously only available to the select few. The number of characters was again increased, and further characters were unlocked on the arcade machine after some time had passed (Juli, Juni and Balrog). SFA3 is still actively played in tournaments worldwide.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 was notable for being perhaps the first SF game that garnered more attention and fame on home systems than in the arcade. The game was initially ported to the PlayStation and the Saturn (one of the last games to be released on that console), then to the Dreamcast in mid-'99 (though it wasn't released in the West until halfway through the next year).
The Dreamcast version (SFA3: Saikyo Dojo) included all the characters that could be unlocked in the PlayStation version (notably more than the arcade game) available from the start. This version of SFA3 was then ported to the Naomi arcade board as "Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper", including the new characters. The Dreamcast then received a rare conversion, released in Japan through the Dreamcast Direct service, which included online match play (Street Fighter Zero 3: Saikyo Dojo for Matching Service); this is a very rare release.
The most recent release in the Alpha series was 2006's Street Fighter: Alpha Anthology (Street Fighter Zero: Fighters Generation in Japan and Asia), including the new Hyper Street Fighter Alpha, akin to Hyper Street Fighter II included with 2004's Street Fighter Anniversary Collection. It lets players choose from characters from all of the games in the Street Fighter Alpha series and pit them against each other.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 for Portables

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Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper on the GameBoy Advance

In 2002, the Game Boy Advance received a port of SFA3. This version was called "Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper" in Japan after the Naomi arcade version, and "Street Fighter Alpha 3" in the US. It featured three additional characters Yun, Maki, and Eagle. All three were taken from Capcom vs. SNK 2. While it was a great conversion of the game, the fact that the Game Boy Advance only has four buttons hindered the game play somewhat, as two buttons had to be pressed together to act as the "missing" third punch or kick button.

In 2006, another version of SFA3 made its way to Sony's PSP. This version is called "Street Fighter Zero 3 Double Upper" in Japan and "Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX" for the US. It features the original SFA3 roster along with four extra characters. Ingrid from Capcom Fighting Evolution, and Yun, Maki, Eagle from the GBA port of SFA3. Though this game does not suffer from the 4-button limit of the Game Boy Advance version, it still has control issues largely caused by the stiff directional pad of the PSP. It is primarily based off of the Dreamcast/Naomi Street Fighter Zero 3 (Upper), although it contains the Saturn version's reverse dramatic battle mode, as well as two brand new modes; the 100-man Kumite mode, and a new variation of dramatic battle, called "Variable Battle." In Variable Battle mode, one player can choose two characters, and switch between them at any time, similar to Capcom's Versus fighting games. The second player or CPU cannot change, however, and must fight as one character.

Street Fighter Alpha Anthology (2006)

Capcom has released Street Fighter Alpha Anthology (known as Street Fighter Zero: Fighters' Generation in Japan) for the PlayStation 2 in 2006. It is a compilation of SFA, SFA2, SFA2 Gold, SFA3, and Pocket Fighter.

Street Fighter III

Street Fighter III - The New Generation (1997)

Main article Street Fighter III

The development of the sequel to Street Fighter II had reached its conclusion in 1997 together with the production of Capcom's new 2D arcade board, named CPS-3. CPS-3 was an interesting CD-ROM/ROM hybrid system with a large amount of RAM, needed to push the immense number of frames the development team had squeezd into the game. And initially, this was the SFIII marketing ploy, its immense number of frames of animation. In an early demonstration, Capcom showed that while a fireball in Street Fighter Alpha 2 was drawn with 5 frames, Street Fighter III used 14 frames for the same animation. Superlatives abounded about the visual style of the game: the art style was a slightly more mature development of the anime-inspired style of the Alpha games, but in terms of gameplay it was rather a return to the greater simplicity of Street Fighter II. Super combos, now called Super Arts had to be chosen from a selection of three for each character when that character was chosen, and only one Super Art could thus be used in fights. Super meter length and the number of backup charges depended on the Super Art in question, another method employed by Capcom to balance the game.

Two features of the new game proved contentious from the very beginning: the first was the inclusion of a 'parrying', confusingly called 'blocking' in the Japanese game (the word for blocking being 'guarding' there). This allowed rapid counterattacks after a successful parry, initially turning many high-level games extremely defensive, going against the grain of development of recent games.

Super Cancels were also new; whereas players had previously had to end combos with either a special or super attack, certain special attacks could now be cancelled directly into Super Arts (with adjusted, diminished damage done than if performed individually, however) to create longer, more complex combos.

Secondly, some critics pointed out that the character design and focus of the game had also shifted dramatically. Ryu was no longer the main character, as he had been since the original game, but rather focus was shifted to a new character, an American wrestler named Alex. Furthermore, many of the characters had a slightly surreal design seemingly at odds with the previously realistic theme of the Street Fighter games and more in line with the Vampire series.

Few games have divided their fans the way SFIII did at its release and continues to do today. The game was released just as the arcade market was beginning to decline and gaming was moving ever faster towards a totally 3D landscape. Capcom themselves had most likely realised this and had begun developing games following these trends, among them a 3D Street Fighter game.

Street Fighter III was not ported to a home system until December 1999 in Japan and early 2000 in the U.S. when it was released in a double pack with its follow-up SFIII: 2nd Impact for the Dreamcast.

Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact - Giant Attack (1998)

The original Street Fighter III had reverted gameplay to such a rudimentary strategic level that many fans felt the game was actually inferior to those in the Alpha series in light of some of the exclusions that had now become almost taken for granted - for example, Ken and Ryu could no longer perform Hurricane Kicks in the air, something present in the series since SFIIT:HF. Capcom thus reinserted several of these features into the inevitable update of Street Fighter Three, as well as reintroducing fan favourite Akuma as a secret opponent and hidden playable character and adding some new characters.

Akuma was now animated with the same fluency as other SFIII fighters, while Hugo was an enormous wrestler originally from Final Fight, adding to the game a much-needed pure grappler in the vein of Zangief. Though Alex was a wrestler, he was more of a hybrid character with some ranged attacks as well as command throws. Hugo was more in the traditional vein. Urien, another new character was essentially no more than a repainted sprite of the final boss Gill, but with different moves. The characters of Yun and Yang, who had had identical moves previously, were given distinct move sets and separate personalities. Other changes included the addition of more moves for many returning characters (some of which, surprisingly, would later be removed again in 3rd Strike). All-in-all 2nd Impact was much more notable for the new characters than the refinements in gameplay and Capcom would find success with this series still elusive.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Fight For the Future (1999)

Capcom introduced its final revision of the Street Fighter III series (and to date, the final Street Fighter game to be released in the regular series) in the Summer of 1999. In terms of gameplay and feel, Third Strike, retained the general features the SFIII series had become known for and was almost as big a leap from its predecessor as SFA3 was from SFA2.

From Street Fighter 3: 2nd Impact, five new characters were added. Chun-Li returns to the series due to popular demand (animated with more frames than any other character in the game). Other characters saw Capcom facing the critics of the somewhat surreal character design of the series head on, new additions like Twelve and Q as bizarre as anything Capcom had designed for their Vampire series. Makoto is a young karate practitioner and Remy the almost required Guile clone with a twist. Akuma was also made a regularly playable character, bringing the total to 19. The final boss Gill could be selected secretly only in the console versions of the game (Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and XBOX).

Third Strike refined the gameplay of the series as well. Whereas 2nd Impact had been fairly true to Street Fighter III: New Generation, 3rd Strike added Red Parries, where a character would not simply guard all the way through a combo: once the first hit had been guarded, but could begin parrying, and thus counterattacking, any attack in a combo while guarding. The skill lay in timing the parry and not leaving oneself open to damage if it missed. Target combos were also new - similar to the chain combos in Darkstalkers and SFA with the exception that each character only had specific chains of moves that could be linked into each-other.

Some of the lessons learned in SFA3 were also carried over to Third Strike, among them combinations of buttons replacing directional commands for actions, a feature arguably first introduced by SNK in its games. Thus, a leap attack was now medium punch + medium kick instead of down, down + any button. Throws were also now performed with a two-button combination, and could be missed if the player was not close enough to the opponent, triggering a short animation during which the player could be attacked.

Third Strike is commonly considered the pinnacle of the SFIII series, with some also considering it the finest Street Fighter of all—an honor once bestowed upon it by gaming magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly. It was far more popular in Japan than the West, where the traditional Street Fighter games had mostly fallen out of favour with consumers in the face of the more spectacular Vs. games and 3D fighters.

Home conversion of the SFIII games were considered near-impossible with any degree of arcade authenticity for a long while given the tremendously powerful 2D hardware of the CPS-3 system the games originally ran on. Capcom did manage conversions for the Sega Dreamcast in 2000, the first two installments being bundled as SFIII: Double Impact (W Impact in Japan) and Third Strike being released separately a few months later. Conversions for the PS2 followed in 2004 as a part of a 15th Anniversary bundle with a new version of Street Fighter II, called Hyper Street Fighter II. This bundle was released for the Xbox later in 2004. In Japan, the game was also released independently for the PS2 in April 2004.

Street Fighter EX series

A 3D version of the series, Street Fighter EX, was released in the arcades in 1996 and was developed by the company Arika. It was later followed by two sequels and numerous updates:

Street Fighter EX (Arcade, 1996)
- Street Fighter EX Plus (Arcade, 1997)
- Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha (PlayStation, 1997)
Street Fighter EX 2 (Arcade, 1998)
- Street Fighter EX 2 Plus (Arcade, 1999/PS1, 2000)
Street Fighter EX 3 (PS2, 2000)

Arika also released a spin-off of Street Fighter EX in arcades, called Fighting Layer. The game play was very similar to the EX games, and even featured two of the EX characters (Allen Snyder and Blair Dame), but was not an actual Street Fighter game, and was distributed by Namco.

Future Street Fighter games

Prior to Jamma show (officially the Amusement Machine Show) in Tokyo in 2005, rumours were circulating that Capcom would unveil a new entry in the series, most probably Street Fighter 4. These reports proved erroneous, however. Though Capcom dropped hints that a new "combat game" would be unveiled at the show, this turned out to be War of the Grail, a 3D battlefield game. Several factors would seem to count against the possibility of the series receiving another installment: 2D games have decreased in popularity dramatically, and 2D fighters are now considered little more than a niche market. This is also coupled to the rising costs of producing video games in the modern industry - Capcom has reused the sprites of some of the characters in its games for over a decade at this point, unable to justify the expense of redrawing them against projected sales of the games.

Recent 2D Capcom fighters have focused more on the formula of SFA3 and the Vs, series by including as many characters as possible, often from different fighting series. Examples of this include the Capcom Vs. SNK games and the more recent Capcom Fighting Evolution. Another trend is the near-extinction in arcades of traditional arcade games such as the Street Fighter series in favour of party games (witness Dance Dance Revolution and similar games). Furthermore, current-generation arcade and home hardware have a smaller amount of RAM (into which animation frames are loaded) than a new-generation 2D game would probably require, the only exception to this rule being the SEGA / Sammy Guilty Gear series.

Some have speculated that Capcom may make the move to 3D with Street Fighter 4, though the existence of the Street Fighter EX series, which combined 3D graphics with essentially 2D fighting mechanics, makes this seem unlikely, it should be noted that Capcom has had some success lately with 2D style games with 3D graphics, notably the PSP Mega Man and Mega Man X games, the Viewtiful Joe games as well as Extreme Ghouls 'n Ghosts. As of the current time however, we are unlikely to see a new installment in the Street Fighter franchise proper. However the fact that Capcom continues to release Street Fighter games such as Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max and the Street Fighter Alpha anthology shows there's no end to the franchise and is a beacon of hope concerning a new Street Fighter in the not too distant future.

Rumors of Street Fighter 4 being in development were sparked in July 2005 at the San Diego Comic Convention where a Street Fighter panel was held. Representatives from Udon Comics and Capcom USA said that there is something in the works. However, given the fact that the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology was announced later on in the year, they might've been referring to that title.

Adaptations for other media

Animation and motion pictures

The series has inspired several movies.

Street Fighter (with Jean Claude Van Damme)
Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (Japan, Animated)
Street Fighter II V (an anime series).
Street Fighter (an American animated series)
A Hong Kong movie version was also released in 1993 called Chao ji xue xiao ba wang [1] roughly translated School King (and a.k.a. Future Cops), but it was an "unofficial" adaptation so the characters name was heavily changed (one notable play on words is E. Honda is changed to Toyota). Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung are in this movie, which was directed by Hong Kong director Wong Jing (famous for his God of Gamblers trilogy).
Street Fighter Alpha (Japan, Animated).
Street Fighter Alpha: Generations, the prequel to Street Fighter Alpha is the latest Animated Street Fighter movie.

Literature

In terms of literature, there have been various Street Fighter books and comics produced, including Street Fighter II: The Manga, and a role playing game adaptation released by White Wolf in 1994.

Malibu Comics launched a Street Fighter comic series in 1994, but it flopped, lasting only three issues.

UDON is currently producing a successful Street Fighter comic, after completing the first arc with issue 0-14, they have changed the name of the series from "Street Fighter" towards "Street Fighter II". In 2005, UDON translated Street Fighter: Eternal Challenge. This is the first SF history and art book written in English.

Asian comic book publications outside Japan were also available; that contains canon-type storylines or totally unrelated to the official backgrounds from Street Fighter Universe (Practically just borrowing characters and their special moves). These publications arised at the era when Street Fighter II was popular in the continent Asia, especially Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia (The most popular publication was from Jade Dynasty which was based in Hong Kong). Some of the canon storylines/backgrounds created :

Ken was in a love triangle between Kim, Eliza (His fiancee as per official storyline) and Vega
Cameo from other fighting games, animations or mangas as part of storylines; such as Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, Spiderman from Marvel, T-1000 from James Cameron's Terminator 2, and many more.

Most of these publications were not yet known to be legally licensed from Capcom.

Unauthorized conversions

This game has been ported illegally to the Famicom in Asia. It has appeared in several multicarts in China. One of the more popular titles was known as Master Fighter, that had several sequels (including one featuring Nintendo character Mario).

Due to memory limitations of the Famicom system, the bootleg copy was unable to list all the available rosters; The only characters available are Ryu, Guile, Chunli, Zangief and M.Bison (M.Bison was not playable).

In 1992, a Korean version of the game known as SFIBM was released by the Hotel Keitel bootleg group in Korea. Programmed by Jung Young Dug, the first release had only Ryu and Guile available. Eventually all the characters were released (although hand drawn versions of SNK's Andy Bogard and Terry Bogard replaced Vega and Balrog in some versions).

The gameplay was quite poor, but many of the data files were unoptimized and available for editing. After the game had proliferated to the West, Derek Liu and Brian Chan used this information to edit the files into SFLiu, the closest translation of Street Fighter II Turbo the game engine could allow. After adding in Balrog and Vega, they updated the files to Super Street Fighter II standards.

As more and more editors worked on the game, more patches were created. The most widespread of these patches were SFWarm by Stan Warman (Which added fantastical new features for all the characters), SFJenn by Jenn Dolari (which added the Mortal Kombat characters of Mileena and Kitana) and SFNinja (which replaced most of the roster with parody versions of Mortal Kombat's numerous ninjas).

External links

Review of the SNES version of Street Fighter II from Mean Machines Archive (pdf format)

Template:Major Street Fighter Characters