Well, true to the name of my blog, and my recent delve into the newest iteration of the time eternal juggernaut of fighting games, Street Fighter, I think we should start with establishing some familiar ground. I love video games. Always have, always will. I've been playing them since before I can remember, like most gamers I'm sure, and as a child of the 90's one of the most definitive landmarks of the arcades of my youth was Street Fighter II. That familiar little jingle, the two nameless guys beating the shit out of each other (in what was actually a fairly inaccurate depiction of the craziness the actual game had in store), the slow pan up the skyscraper to the title and BAM! Seriously, they were everywhere, and like many it was my first real introduction to fighting games. Now, this isn't to say that it was the only game out on the market; quite the contrary. When I was growing my metaphorical gaming wings, the market was saturated in fighting games. There were the obvious, of course, Street Fighter, King of the Fighters, Samurai Showdown. Etc. To say that genre was booming was like saying NBA Jam was a waste of quarters (which it WAS! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Before we can get to Street Fighter II: The Empire Strikes Back, we have to go talk about its older and more boring brother, Street Fighter: A New Hope. Almost inconceivably for being the progenitor of one of the most beloved game franchises in the buisness, history has by and large passed Street Fighter 1 by, to the point that Capcom actually created the Street Fighter: Alpha spin-off to officially replace it. Its not hard to imagine why: the game was simplistic at best, featuring only 1 playable character (technically 2, but at this point Ken was just a red-pajama'd Ryu), and was hobbled by the absolutely atrocious "punch the pads" control scheme Capcom decided to implement while I assume watching Tai-Bo and doing a LOT of coke. As anyone whose played a Wii can tell you, an overly complicated/active control scheme applied to a game that was barely more advanced than Kung-Fu is a recipe for disaster and sweaty pits, and thus Street Fighter 1 faded away.
And out of these ashes, Street Fighter II was born, cementing itself as the video game world's first example of a "Wait, they called it II because its a sequel?!?!" fan reaction. It had a varied cast of memorable characters, smacked the control scheme right in the "Easy to pick up, hard to master" fighting game g-spot, and most importantly, it had staying power (and catchy music. Two words: Guile's theme. Mwahaha, its stuck in your head forever). Enough staying power that Capcom decided to remake the same game over 6 times without a drop in profit, proving once again that they are now and forever the masters of recycling. Or Necromancers.
Next time: Street Fighter Alpha brings back a younger, hipper main cast...and some people you don't care about. Street Fighter 3 ditches everyone, adds more people you don't care about. It doesn't end well.
No comments:
Post a Comment