Street Fighter is one of the most famous video game brands in the world and has sold millions of units as a series, but ironically the game which began the franchise in 1987 is often totally ignored in favour of its much more successful 1991 sequel.
The original Street Fighter is almost 30 years old yet it is rarely spoken about in glowing terms. Its controls are clunky, you can only play as two near-identical characters (Ryu or Ken), the sampled speech was unintentionally hilarious and compared to what followed after, it feels laughably basic.
However, it still ranks as one of the most significant arcade games of all time. Without it, Street Fighter II obviously wouldn't have happened, and it introduced the concept of having six buttons for different attack strengths. Another variant of the arcade machine had pressure-sensitive pads instead of buttons, a mechanic which drew crowds and made it one of the biggest successes of 1988 - earning even more than Taito's legendary Operation Wolf, according to CoinSlot.
The home ports were also popular at the time of release, with the PC Engine CD version - strangely retitled Fighting Street - being perhaps the best of the bunch. You can play that version on the Wii Virtual Console if you so wish.
Even more striking is the fact that director Takashi Nishiyama and planner/designer Hiroshi Matsumoto would leave Capcom after release on the game to join SNK, where they would work on the Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting series. That effectively means that the 1987 Street Fighter marks the origin point of Capcom and SNK's epic tussle for control of the one-on-one fighting genre.
While it's certainly not a perfect game, Street Fighter does deserve a little more credit than it gets, and with that in mind Gamasutra has been speaking to developers about their memories of the game and its legacy within the industry. The replies are a mixture of grudging respect and outright dismissal, reactions which mirror what the gaming public tends to think about the game, but the general consensus is that it's an incredibly important release in the history of the genre.
Beardo Games' Chris Harback has some positive things to say:
I liked it a lot, and I still do, despite how clunky and non-responsive the controls felt. At the time, my friends and I had just watched the movie Bloodsport, so the broad (for the time) cast was something I enjoyed a lot. I remember wishing that I could play as the whole cast (especially Geki), not just a pair of palette swaps. I can't really say it felt particularly important at the time, although the big, nicely-animated sprites were a good step up from Yie Ar Kung Fu.
AJ Ryan of ONLYUSEmeFEET also views the game in a good light:
Something I think a lot of people forget when looking back on the original Street Fighter was how revolutionary it really was. 1 on 1 fighting games before it weren't very fun to play because they had little to no complexity. Street Fighter introduced a variety of punches and kicks that made gameplay more interesting and is the basis for every fighting game today. Every game developer interested in creating or playing a fighting game should play through the original Street Fighter to understand the absolute basics of a fighting game.
Special moves, while really difficult to pull off in Street Fighter, gave the game even more complexity and mystery. Whispers between gamers on how to pull off special moves started with Street Fighter. Because Street Fighter is one of the most rigid six button fighters today, people love to hate on the game, but you can't deny its legacy or what it did for fighting games. Personally, while I'd never normally play Street Fighter at home today, if I see it an an arcade, you bet I'm putting a quarter in the machine!
However, Undead Labs' Ian Adams is less kind:
During the height of Street Fighter II, the arcade in my mall got a Street Fighter cabinet. I had heard stories about a version with two buttons that responded to how hard you pressed them, but this one had six buttons, just like Street Fighter II. With both of the SF II cabinets busy and long lines (and not being very good at fighting games, leading to short sessions) I decided to try Street Fighter, mostly because there was no wait. I don't remember everything, but I remember thinking the characters looked small, and that they didn't move correctly. I don't think I was able to pull off fireballs. I know I beat a couple enemies, but when I lost I had no desire to put more money in. I just got in line for SF II again.
Patrick Miller of Riot Games delivers possibly the most damning response:
I remember seeing my dad come back from the store with Street Fighter 2 when I was like, 7 years old, and thinking, 'My life changes today.' Which it did. Wait, you're asking about Street Fighter I? All I know about that game is that it is bad and Ryu has red hair. I played it for like 5 minutes.
Thankfully, Supergiant's Greg Kasavin is on hand to give a more balanced view:
Street Fighter's been a big part of my life since some of my earliest memories. I played the hell out of the first one at the time. Nothing compared to the sequel of course, but still.
I played the six-button arcade version. I played the arcade version with the two giant novelty pressure-sensitive rubber buttons, which was terrible but I did it anyway. Later I played it a bunch more for the Turbo CD. I believe the Japanese Turbo CD version of Fighting Street bears the distinction of being perhaps the world's first CD-ROM game, copyright 1988 -- only a year after the 1987 arcade debut. And that copy I got when I was like 18 or so is still sitting here right in front of me on my desk at work.
Even at the time I knew Street Fighter wasn't a great game. The controls were clunky and unreliable, while the best games of the day were extremely precise. You could fail very suddenly and almost inexplicably. But the good qualities outshone the bad by a lot. Here were these great big characters of all different shapes and colors. I think I'd never even heard of Thailand before playing Street Fighter. I loved that there was a button labeled 'Roundhouse.'
The other thing about Street Fighter that was so alluring was this idea of it having these complex command moves that were very powerful but also very difficult to perform. If you could somehow pull off a fireball, or God forbid a dragon punch, it was practically a game-winning play. The controls were really rough, though, so doing these moves consistently was next to impossible. But for a game to have this kind of learning curve around execution was really fascinating to me, and I got terrible blisters practicing.
The original Street Fighter paved the way for its sequel, one of the greatest games of all time, and one of my personal favorites. It's been rightfully eclipsed by the legend of Street Fighter II. But I love how characters from the original game -- Ryu, Ken, Sagat, even guys like Birdie -- are still making appearances in new games almost 30 years later. I love that I'm still playing those games.
Sure, Street Fighter pales in comparison to what followed, but without it, we wouldn't have the amazing sequels from Capcom, the crossover chaos of the Marvel series, the glorious refinement of King of Fighters and the countless clones and copycats from other companies, many of which added their own little flourishes to the core concept.
Street Fighter might not be a solid gold classic like Street Fighter II, but it's worth a spin even today - download the Wii Virtual Console version and let us know your thoughts below.
[source gamasutra.com]
Comments 25
I played the original on the C64. It was horrific. It looked very different to the above video.
I have it on an arcade game collection. It's... spectacularly weird. Complete with Genesis/Mega Drive-esque soundfont, to boot!
that great wall background is impressive. but why is ryu shouting 'michael' all the time?
Greg Kasavin's great
I remember playing this in the arcades!
I loved playing it, it was amazing at the time, but every new game was amazing at the time.
I remember the coin stacking along the bottom of the screen for the next person in line to play, cigarette burns on the buttons, good times.
some game series' really do that. street fighter didn't become a phenomenon until sfii. call of duty was just another wwii fps until modern warfare. metal gear didn't become what it is today until it became solid. so on.
sometimes they go in the other direction, metal gear as well, going pachinko, and mg:survive. metroid did with fed force. zelda in danger of that with tri-force heroes, but twilight princess hd and breath of the wild should remedy that. street fighter itself had a bit of a misstep with sfv, but nothing that can't be fixed.
what will remedy metroid's situation, i dunno. maybe what retro is working on in their deep dark dungeons. or maybe instead we'll get super mario: teamwork is joy. it doesn't have mario in it, and 3 koopas co-operatively solve puzzles together.
I remember asking my dad about Street Fighter 1, back when Street Fighter II came out for the Snes.
All I can remember him saying was, it was a waste of time and the series should of began at 2.
Personally I've never played the original, so I can't comment.
But I've never heard anything good about it.
I'll have to try it at some point, and make my own mind up about it.
LOL for the First Street Fighter. XD
I remember they had a SF arcade machine on a campsite in the Lake District we went to when I was a child. I played it with my brothers and some other kids and we couldn't get past Mike until we worked out that you could just crouch on the far left of the screen and punch him to sloooooowly chip away at his life bar. Good times but not really a good game.
As a kid, I didn't even know there was a Street Fighter I, everywhere I go all I saw were Street Fighter II. There were World Warrior, Champion Edition, Hyper Fighting, New Challengers, and Super Turbo but all were just Street Fighter II. Originally I thought this was the first Street Fighter because after this I got the Super NES which then led me to Street Fighter II.
And yet it's the only one from the 5 street fighters that hasn't had any revisions.
Never really got into Street Fighter 1 but when SF2 blow up in the Arcades I was on it the best fighting game of all time went on the best console of all time the SNES those was the days.
The original Street Fighter redefines the word hideous. Essentially, it's a steaming pile in video game form. It's amazing how -despite all that- it still eventually paved the way for its revolutionary sequel.
Wish I had it on 3DS. Just for my collection.
Gamers were always flocked around this arcade cabinet back in the day (at least the arcade I would frequent). Whenever I could get a spot close enough to where I could see the action, I found it pretty entertaining and revolutionary. It was so different from every other game there. Needless to say, I played a ton of the original SF. I never could get past Gen. Never!
I don't think we had this in the uk. But street fighter 2 I was a King
Best games at the time on arcades when I was growing up street fighter 2
Metal slug
Puzzle bubble
Out run
I played SF2 Turbo first, and remember being enamoured with the idea that Sagat's chest scar came from Ryu in the first game. (The idea of the previous game's main boss being a mid-level boss was such a cool idea to my younger self).
One burger joint in town had SF1, and I didn't really like it. It was slower, and the graphics were small, and you could only play as Ryu (or maybe Ken). I'm glad I played it, but it felt inessential compared to everything that came afterwards.
I only vaguely remember the original Street Fighter at a local arcade, mostly the continue screen. I also remember seeing the long Fighting Street load times on a friend's TG16 (I was too poor to own the CD attachment myself). If you look up Zeusdaz on Youtube, he has several Street Fighter 1 videos of various versions dating from about a year or so ago to more recent, and I think he even said in some of the videos that he owns a cabinet.
What strength! I already knew, but I love how both Capcom and SNK fighters have a direct link to the same game as a starting point.
When I think "devs" and "Street Fighter", I think Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto--not a bunch of no-name indie devs reminiscing...I can freaking reminisce, so can everyone here that played the game then.
(But bravo on the clickbait! It worked!)
The original Street Fighter redefines the word hideous. Essentially, it's a steaming pile in video game form.
You've not played many games then have you? For 1987, it looks amazing and plays well. Of course its bad when you compare it to its sequel, nobody is denying that, but I challenge you to find a better one-on-one fighting game that's better. Yie Ar Kung Fu? Nope. Karate Champ? Nope.
@Bass_X0
Those two games are older than SF1 (1985 and 1984 respectively). Regardless, I'm partial to Yie Ar Kung Fu. Probably because of the NES version, which I owned way back when.
@dizzy_boy What do you mean it has no revisions? The first Street Fighter arcade game had two revisions but only at the arcade. The original SF1 arcade cabinet had only two buttons consist of just punch and kick but you had to heavy press those to do medium and strong attacks, the first revision cabinet came with six buttons all with varying attack buttons as that became the standard for the many Street Fighter games we know of today and the second but rarer revision of the game came with an extra special button so player could perform special moves easily. In the original two button version, if you are Player 1 (Ryu), the final boss is Sagat, if you are Player 2 (Ken), the final boss is Adon. In the later revision, this was change so you get to fight both bosses with Ryu or Ken.
@retro_player_22 well, I never knew that, so there's me proved wrong then.
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