For close to twenty years, I’ve considered myself a hardcore Street Fighter fan. I own just about all of the Street Fighter games from I-IV in one form or another. And my dreams consist of shooting Hadoukens at people and finishing them off with jumping uppercuts. So it’s with some difficulty that I acknowledge that I’m probably more in love with the idea of Street Fighter more than I’m in love with the game, itself.
The story begins in Japan, where one of my favorite pastimes during my teenage years in Yokosuka was flipping through video game magazines like Famitsu and PC Engine Fan, sometimes audibly oooh-ing and aaah-ing at the pretty screenshots of games whose titles I couldn’t read unless they were printed in awkward English. One of the games that just about knocked me on my ass was a game called Fighting Street for the PC Engine CD-ROM2 system, which was a port of the original Street Fighter, renamed for obscure Japanese legal reasons. I wasn’t aware of the game’s arcade origins at the time. All I knew was that the characters looked so realistic and totally rad! By 1988 standards, anyway.
It takes about 15 tries to get this to occur. Meanwhile, the other dude is pummeling you.
Holy crap, is that red-headed Japanese guy doing the Kame-hame-ha from Dragon Ball? Oh wight! Fortunately, I never got to actually play the game until years later, and was spared from the shock of playing a game that truly made me want to vomit. From the impossible controls, to the squishy sound effects that make it sound like you’re punching a wet sponge when one of your deadly strikes connects, to the fact that all of the characters sound like the same speech-impaired, heavily-accented-English speaking Japanese guy no matter whether he’s a wise old Chinese kung-fu master, a hulking British punk, or gigantic one-eyed Muay Thai fighter, there was nothing about this game that suggested that it deserved a sequel.
And yet a sequel came, and it rocked the world. I could spend full afternoons in those darkened, smoky Japanese game centers, inhaling lethal amounts of secondhand smoke watching guys throw virtual fireballs at each other. But it wasn’t until the Super Famicom version was released that I actually got to virtually throw down. I even reserved it at the local Daiei in my stilted Japanese and paid full price for it, which at the time was close to $100. I then spent the rest of the summer of ‘92 Hadouken-ing with my high school buddies until our thumbs bled. Despite all of the time we spent with the game, I never actually became good, or even passable at it. But like a sucker, I kept buying Street Fighter II in its various mutations every time a new one was released. You mean you get to fight against your twin in a different colored uniform?! That’s hot! What? The game moves faster, like the characters are all on crack!? That’s so dope! I even fell victim to the innumerable imitators, particularly SNK’s stable of stylish characters of sometimes indeterminable gender.
Ash Crimson from King Of Fighters - wait, this is supposed to be a dude?
It got to the point where some friends refused to play these games anymore, maybe even swearing off fighting games for life. It was that bad.
Around the time of Super Street Fighter II, I began to really take notice of the character art, particularly in the work Capcom’s official character artists like Nishimura Kinu and CRMK. I think that the original eight characters, particularly the ones based around certain fighting styles are actually sorta bland – Ryu and Ken in their generic multi-colored sleeveless gi, Zangief in his studded brief and boots. The official art around the time of the SF II’s release was similarly bland.
Ryu from Street Fighter II - The World Warrior. Blah
Gradually, the characters started becoming more stylized. They began striking more dynamic poses that made them look muscular and intimidating but relaxed and limber at the same time.The “camera angles” and sense of distortion and exaggeration were striking. It was at this point that I began to appreciate the Street Fighter franchise on a different level. It possible that it was my way of latching onto a different aspect of this franchise I loved in order to compensate for my horribly subpar skill level at the actual games.
Fei Long from Super Street Fighter II X - peep those shoulders!
Just as the Japanese art for the game is incredible and, dare I say life-changing, just about all of the American efforts at depicting the characters are high level in their lameness.
Notice Nash/Charlie in the background. So idle and angry.
Which brings me to today. Beginning from around midway through last year at San Diego’s famed annual Gathering of the Nerds, to its release date, my excitement for this newest iteration of Street Fighter steadily built to a fever pitch.
In January, I bought an Xbox 360, which I lovingly dubbed RyuBox 360, specifically for Street Fighter IV.
I ran out and bought an official Street Fighter IV “FightPad” the second I heard that Best Buy was carrying them, which was about two weeks before the game’s release.
Of course, I reserved the game in advance. I also picked up the strategy guide.
Unfortunately, the strategy guide had no effect on my sloth-like reflexes.
So, here I am, three months later and I’ve yet to take on any challengers via Xbox Live. I haven’t really even touched the game in almost two months. And I primarily use RyuBox 360 nowadays to stream Netflix movies. Despite all this, I confess that I really like Street Fighter IV, and feel that it’s a worthy addition to the series. But like all of the previous games, it’s going to take a lot more effort than I’m willing to expend to become remotely adequate at it. My 32 year-old reflexes make the task even more difficult.
I also just dropped almost $60 on the recently released 20th Anniversary Street Fighter Art Works – HA art book, which is a huge, comprehensive collection of Official Street Fighter art dating back to the original game. I find it inspirational. Something tells me that I’ll be touching this book far more than I’ll be touching SFIV.
Costs almost as much as the game.
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