I hope you do not mind if I have a few posts themed on Street Fighter coming up over the next week or two?
I was playing Street Fighter III on the PlayStation Network and then later, Street Fighter IV for my 3DS. My son does not particularly like the Street Fighter games. In general he is not much of a fighting game fan, but he did enjoy the Dead or Alive Dimensions game for the 3DS, but he gave up on Street Fighter IV very quickly. He just does not see what I do in them. I have been a huge Street Fighter fan since II hit the arcade scene.
This thing ate a lot of my quarters
I grew up on arcade systems, and lodged a lot of time with Double Dragon and other beat 'em ups, but I could only think of a handful of one-on-one type fighting games I had played before this one (like some old Kung Fu game or a weapon-based game called Gladiator, shown here).
Yeah. You swung a sword and tried to hit where they didn't block
There was something addicting though to all these different characters. Being able to pull off special moves that your friends did not know. Everyone seemed to have a preference (mine was Ryu and Guile. A friend who blogs around these parts has a distinct dislike/hate/abhor for Ryu if you want to read about it), which made competitive play that much more interesting. I had never seen a game that had people lining up to play one another. Sure, Double Dragon had gamers who were waiting for someone to run out of quarters and step away from the machine. Street Fighter had people putting their quarters down and waiting for 'next'. It was with good reason too. Beating the computer was fun the first time, but once you pulled it off, players realized that true bragging rights came with beating other players.
My first time beating Bison? Spamming Blanka's shot attack
When the game came out for home consoles, it was definitely an inferior port - but it was still better than going to an arcade and plunking down tons of quarters. Well, I guess I cannot say 'better', but it was certainly 'cheaper'. That was what led me to buy my first six button controller for the Sega Genesis. We simply needed more inputs at that point.
You seriously needed this to play on the Genesis effectively
Throughout the following years I picked up various versions of Street Fighter on different platforms. There was Street Fighter 2 for the Genesis, and Street Fighter III on my Sega Dreamcast and yes - even Street Fighter the Movie. For my PlayStation. Yup, I picked that up.
Yup, this happened
After what seemed like a nonstop series of Street Fighter releases, the series stayed dormant for quite some time. It was not until Street Fighter IV came out years later. I picked it up cheaply for the Xbox 360 - stating at the time that I refused to buy it brand new since there would undoubtedly be a Super Dooper Street Fighter IV - part b the Ultimate Championship Edition. Part 2.
Now, I do understand that fighting games are among the easiest to re-release due to additional fighters, tweaked engines, some altered game modes - but essentially they still get to leverage most of their original assets and the game engine itself. Capcom however, has taken this to an extreme over the years, and to a degree they proved me right with couple more releases on the original Street Fighter IV title.
Which gets me allll of the way back to my handheld version on the 3DS. My son just is not a fan of the series, and truth be told, there are other one-on-one fighters out there I like better now like Tekken. Still, when it comes to the one-on-one fighting genre, I have been with Street Fighter the longest and there are a lot of nostalgic memories I have tied to this series, which is still a very good one.
What about you? Any Street Fighter fans out there? Or if not, what, if any, is your favorite long-standing series of games? I would not call Street Fighter my favorite - I have Final Fantasy that probably fills that for me - but Street Fighter has stood the test of time rather nicely so far.
I always struggled to learn moves in Street Fighter back on the SNES and none of my friends would tell me the inputs. Actually, I had to start studying the info on arcade cabinets to start learning new moves.
ReplyDeleteThat was my Street Fighter experience, so I bought a guide when I started playing Mortal Kombat to lessen the pain lol.
ROFL - I always felt like the basic moves were easier in Mortal Kombat - though to learn the fatalities took a bit more work than any of the combos in Street Fighter. Thanks for stopping in to read and comment!
ReplyDeleteSo, I pulled this up about, oh...12 hours ago now. Failed to get the comment out though!
ReplyDeleteFirst, nice redesign. Not only an A for effort, but and A for implementing it! As for the new banner, sadly I only identified one game in it...that being ESPN NFL 2K5 (don't deny it!)!
As for being a Street Fighter fan (or not), I actually remember getting Street Fighter II Turbo (pretty positive that was the one) on the SNES as a birthday gift, and me and my friends played that game A LOT.
After that one though, I never purchased (or received) another Street Fighter game.
Tekken Tag was the game that ate my quarters in high school, and I bought that when it came out for the PS2 (though my copy is missing which bothers me...). I think I mentioned buying the next Tekken as well, which did the unspeakable, which we will not speak of. :)
I don't know why, I just haven't really wanted to try any of the new fighting games recently (unless you count Punch-Out!! as a fighting game).
ROFL - Close on the ESPN!
ReplyDeleteSo the upper right corner is Madden 13 w/ Calvin Johnson featured, the lower right is the new Magic: The Gathering 2013 game, the lower left corner is White Knight Chronicles 2 and the upper left corner is Diablo III. The centerpiece image is easily the most vague, but it's from Dragon's Dogma. Why I liked it though is it is an actual capture from my own game, using the built-in upload to Facebook feature for Xbox 360, which I recently entered into Capcom's contest.
I don't know that I would consider Punchout a fighting game - not in the vein of these types at least. I still very much enjoy my fighting games, and I really do like Street Fighter, though for me the Tekken series is probably a bit further out front, but the production values and nostalgia win out nicely for me. I think you are right, that it was Street Fighter 2 Turbo for the SNES - I should check and see, I know I have at least the Genesis Street Fighter 2, maybe the SNES one in my library as well. I have a lot of Street Fighter reviews coming up that I had been sitting on for a few months, and recently brought them all together for a string of posts.
Thanks for the kudos on the design change. Basically what I've done now is create 4 different color schemes for different seasons, that require only a half dozen or so lines of modification each time I drop a new one in now, plus whatever I want to do new for my banner and background (which I will continue rotating out - sometimes just for sheer aesthetics and sometimes - like now - when it relates to my topics being posted about).
Thanks again for popping in to comment!
Always love a good Street Fighter II post! I too was a big fan of SFII - it came out when I was in college and from 1991-1992 my roommate and I - and later my little brother and I - had some fierce bouts on the one at the corner store. And like you my preferred characters were Ryu and Guile - Ryu much more often than Guile. Although the only special move I ever really learned was his hadouken fireball. The only time I ever hit the dragon punch or the hurricane kick was pretty much by accident, but since none of the guys I played knew many special moves either the fireball was usually enough - along with all the usual jumping around fist/foot stuff of course.
ReplyDeleteI never did progress past SFII though. Never got into any of the other fighters nor the SF sequels. Once my college opponents and I went our separate ways so did my fighting. These days none of my gamer friends really care much for the genre and for me personally it isn't nearly as much fun to play solo or against strangers whether they be standing next to me at a machine or sitting facelessly online at a console. The few times I've seen guys on SF machines in arcades these days they would completely and utterly destroy me, so it's probably just as well that I stay in retirement. Anyway - thanks for reminding me of one of my all-time favorite arcade games!
Oh, no problem at all - thanks for dropping by and taking the time to comment. I logged waaaay too many hours at the arcade cabinet back. I definitely stuck with the series over the years, but i would have to say the old arcade machines with people gathered around - usually several of which I knew - made for some of my best gaming memories though! :)
ReplyDelete"So the upper right corner is NFL 2K5 w/ Calvin Johnson featured" (fixed)
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize Calvin Johnson was in ESPN NFL 2K5, was that a roster update? :)
ROFL - he's just experienced and knowledgeable beyond his years, apparently. (he'd have been like what? 16 at the time? lol)
ReplyDelete16 and making millions apparently. Just glad to know his latest contract guarantees him $60 million...being that he is on the cover and all.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't think Megatron's going to be hurting for cash any time soon. But it's hard for me to complain because the guy is so much fun to watch on Sundays. :)
ReplyDeleteNice design! Not nearly as timeless as mine so naturally you had to change it up.. ;-)
ReplyDeleteSFII? I don't want to think of how much sweat and quarters I spent on that game, Double Dragon and Mortal Kombat in arcades. Was a pretty fun routine I had after school to drive over to the arcade and kill some time before going home. About that time I also logged some hours on a friends' SNES with the blood-free MK. Still cool regardless. Though I didn't really stay up with the genre and pretty much stink at it ever since. I played some Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast which was pretty cool as well.
Recently I was thinking about SSFIV 3D due to the 9.99 sale at Best Buy, but figured I'd wait for DoA: Dimensions to drop. It seemed like "more fun" for no particular reason when demoing. Perhaps, like a co-worker pointed out, DoA has a history of accentuating certain assets of the characters.. and stuff... or something..
But back to SF, I think I usually chose Guile or Chun-Li and sometimes Ryu/Ken or Blanka. I'd usually just learn a small subset of moves and see how well that worked. eg: spam them with Chun-Li's spinning kick.
LOL - well I can't hope to top the incomplete - so hopefully this one'll do. :) Already have another background and review ready to go when I finish my SF posts.
ReplyDeleteLoved Double Dragon and Mk in the arcade, and recall the sweat/bloodless MK all too well. I missed out on Soul Calibur until the PS3 version a few years ago.
Haha, I still have to get my DoA review up, got the SF 3DS one coming soon. I will say that I think my son and I both liked DoA just a smidge better 9okay, i was a smidge he liked DoA a LOT better)
lol - Cun-lie's spinning kick was good, but when it came to spamming i liked that super fast kick of hers, and Blanka's shock attack.
Thanks for dropping by bud!
I get the feeling you don't think I update the site much... Whatever!
ReplyDeleteThat's right her fast kick was pretty cool. Kinda like Honda's wild punch thing.
Looking forward to the reviews!
I'm sure you START updates frequently, but do you finish them? C'mon - that's got to lead into 'incomplete' right? :) And yeah, it was exactly like Honda's crazy punch - I had forgotten all about that (I really was not a Honda fan - I didn't use him a lot)
ReplyDelete