Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Street Fighter II

TODAY... you will feel the POWAH of the WOAH YAH as the cosmic energies descend HO KOGAN.



I go with Guile because he was on the Nintendo Power cover. I've never actually beaten this game before, how weird is that?

It's Super Saiyan Trunks Vs. Super Saiyan Trunks After The Room Of Spirit And Time! Who will win this epic clash?

Hadoken at point-blank range!

Man, CPU Ken is really taking it to me here.

I LOSE MY FIRST MATCH

Switching to E. Honda and spamming punch now. When I was a kid and played this game in the arcade for the first time, my friend picked E. Honda and just did the Hundred-Hand Slap over and over again. I had no idea how to do a projectile or otherwise counter, so I just kept attacking and getting hit.

BELLY FLOPPUU!

E. Honda wins after assuring Ken that his big American penis positively dwarfs E. Honda's tiny Japanese penis. This provides the distraction needed to dish out BELLY FLOPPUU!

Speaking of lengthy penis, here's Dhalsim.

But yeah, the second time I fought my friend in the arcade, I chose E. Honda after figuring out how he was doing that slap-spamming move (wasn't hard to observe since it's literally just mashing punch). Now I HAD THE POWER.

...he picked another character and just Hadoken'd me every time I'd spam the Hundred-Hand Slap. That son of a bitch.

According to Nintendo Power, Dhalsim eats a plate of curry before every fight, and this is what gives him fire breath. It'd make even more sense if he had Yoga Gas. Make it happen in Street Fighter V, Capcom! Yoga Gas!

Here I win the closest battle ever. E. Honda LAYS DOWN FOR NO ONE!

I AM THA LAWWWW!! HUNDRED-HAND SLAP BABAYY

RRRRR! FUCKIN' BLOCKS! HUNDRED-HAND SLAP FOR DAYS!

E. Honda has a fairly low center of gravity, but so does Blanka, so it's a tough battle. Blanka is basically this game's Rayden.

E. Honda catches Chun Li and MOTORBOATS THEM TITTAYS.

She fires back with the kick version of the Hundred-Hand Slap, the Lightning Kick. I respond by standing my ground and spamming punch! IT'S A MEXICAN STANDOFF!

HUNDRED-HAND SLAP TO YO CAR

Sadly, E. Honda's ability to have children - which would surely kill the woman involved - was lost after a vicious punch to the groin by Balrog, who sure looks a lot like Mike Tyson.

"I think Dee Honda ith gonna win it all cause he'th a young up and comin' tiger."


E. Honda survives Balrog only to battle the vastly more dangerous Vega, who can jump off walls and claw at you like Claw Sigma in Mega Man X2.

"What you mean vathtly more dangeruth? Bitch I'mma knock you out with theeth fithth!"


E. Honda gets schooled by Vega, and it looks like I need to switch to someone a bit faster to stand a chance.

Unlimited continues! Haw haw!

Who is the prettiest fighter on this screen? Experts are divided.

I get completely trounced.

Let's try Ryu, I've always been fairly decent with this guy. HADUKEN!

I get Vega out of the way, now it's time for the Muay-Thai giant known as Sagat. I believe this guy was the final boss of the original Street Fighter. Why hasn't THAT game ever shown up on consoles?

With everyone defeated, M. Bison appears in the Indian Ocean somewhere. I suspect he has a floating fortress like Big Boss in Metal Gear. This confirms that he is indeed in the game, despite the complete shunning of him by Nintendo Power.

M. Bison is in the midst of having some bathroom trouble as Ryu arrives. Just...hold on a minute.

M. Bison's stage music is AWESOME.

This is the SNES music of the year for 1992.

DOUBLE KO. Man, I did NOT have an easy time with this guy. He won the first ten or so times, then when I finally got a round on him, it was this double KO.

After a hard-fought victory, I manage to eke out a win. The final bosses of Street Fighter games tend to give me a really rough time for some reason.

That does it for my look at Street Fighter II. A game of champions. A game more multicultural than the UN.

.....

What? You still want more?





Next we have HYPER FIGHTING. This one features a considerably faster movement speed than the previous game, bringing the game more in line with where fighting games were going at this point: Out of the slow-paced doldrums.

We also get an updated roster, with the four bosses now playable in addition to the eight main characters. I've gotta say, Mortal Kombat's cast was great and I'mma let it finish, but this is probably the most appealing fighting game roster ever. It also has Blanka.

This time I win my first match, but it's WAY closer than I'd like because I ended up with Zangief as an opponent. Zangief is an asshole. A throw-spamming asshole!

I take Mike Tyson out for a spin. His punching range is pretty awesome and I think it's safe to say he's kinda overpowered. Makes sense considering he's technically a boss. This is like if Mortal Kombat let you play as Goro.

Sagat is equally dope, with powerful strikes and an almost-as-long reach. Here we see him getting revenge on Ryu for Street Fighter 1. I don't know why Sagat is so mad about that because it isn't like anyone actually saw him lose there. He might as well have lost on a WCW PPV in 2000.

Sagat uses his BRUTE FORCE to heave E. Honda through the air effortlessly. Too bad for E. Honda that Sagat used to be a sumo-thrower at a local meat market.

Bob Sagat picks up Blanka and THROWS HIM ON THE GROUND!!

Chun Li sports a fairly piddling fireball compared to most of the guys, at least appearance-wise, but she has a pretty cool throwing animation. Take note of this for later.

Sagat faces his greatest foe yet: BARRELS. With the way he's getting his ass kicked, I can only hope that the barrels will be a playable boss in the next game after this.

It's Sagat Vs. Sagat in a Muay Thai duel for the ages made possible by HYPER FIGHTING~!

The old boss takes on the new boss. Who will reign supreme?

I did, despite his best Psycho Crusher. Looks like I'm not half bad with Sagat, as it turns out.


The next Street Fighter II came out a year after the previous one, because people hadn't yet invented the number three. I'd like to cover the entire Street Fighter II series, but I'd run out of hard drive space.

This next game is Super, and ironically, it's the first SNES one to be shared with the Genesis.

It opens with a shot of Ryu. Take a good look at this guy, because...

...the game expects you to believe that he's 5' 10'' and 150 pounds. I'm 5'10'' and 185 pounds and I'm nowhere near as jacked as this guy, so WTF game?

This version of the game introduces four more new characters. Thunder Hawk, Fei Long, Dee Jay, and Cammy should have been bosses in SFII Turbo just to have continuity.

Also, the upcoming Street Fighter V should have

as a boss.

I try one of the new characters and get another of the new characters as an opponent. T-Hawk likes to do throws, just like Zangief. I might as well call him Zangrief because of how much I've suffered fighting him.

T-Hawk was on the cover of NP. He's certainly no Guile.


Here he is brutalizing Cammy in the single most heartbreaking screenshot I've ever taken. I hope defeating Sega was worth it, Nintendo.

Cammy fires back by lifting this guy three times her size into a GERMAN SUPLEX WHOOOO.

TIT FOR TAT, T-HAWK! TIT FOR TAT!

Next I battle Jamaican Capoeira sensation Dee Jay. RUNNA NAH WEI! RUNNA NAH WEI NUH-NUH-NA!

Cammy is all "look at my ass" as a victory pose. Alrighty.

I like this pose a lot more. She really showed that car who was boss!

My favorite of The New Challengers is none other than Fei Long, seen here dismantling my previous character. Fei Long is basically Bruce Lee, except he looks like a Vulcan.

Seriously, Fei Long is like Spock's long-lost HOLY SHIT WTF DID THEY DO TO GUILE'S FACE?

::vomits a little::

Chun Li with the highest kick I've ever seen! Imagine what sex with this woman must be like.

...I know I am.

And on that note, check out the way she throws fireballs now. This is even more shameless than the Cammy pose.

Fuck you, Super Street Fighter II.

Here, let's look back one game to when Chun Li threw fireballs like a normal person:

See, normal fireball animation that doesn't look like she's flashing the entire market. That may get you free dog-tempura from the guys who work there, but it isn't very classy.

Fei Long seems really OP, and I wonder if T-Hawk and Dee Jay are the same way. Cammy is quite scrappy as well but she's a bit small on reach. Fei Long on the other hand seems to have no trouble reaching enemies or bypassing their defenses, with easy-to-land throws and fierce kicks that have forward momentum.

Time for the showdown to end all showdowns. Fei Long versus WHAT DID THEY DO TO M. BISON'S FACE

Again, I dodge the Psycho Crusher en route to a victory. He was much easier here than in Turbo, probably because Fei Long is easier to use than Sagat.

In closing, these games are fantastic, though I'm not too big on some of the stuff Super does. It gains points for making the music slightly better and adding characters, but it loses points for what it does to the women. I give Turbo the nod overall out of these three, as it improves on the original a lot without doing anything worse. They're all basically the same game in a lot of ways though, and I'd have liked to see some kind of real progression/transformation like what we got from game to game in the Mortal Kombat series. Funny thing is, MK would later do what the SF series did by making like four versions of Mortal Kombat 3.


5 comments:

  1. When the game first came out no one my age knew how to do fireballs or even knew that special moves existed. We just knew that Dhalsim and E Honda were the best for the former's range and the latter's hand slap.

    Heh, Hundred Hand Slap v. Lightning Kick. Did you ever do the Flying Headbutt with Honda? It's quite effective.

    Well Fighting Street was on Turbografx which is the first Street Fighter. The reason it hasn't ever been on a console most people have played is because the game suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

    Street Fighter 4 Bison music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FamXYEaFF7w

    Sagat's mad about it because of the scar Ryu left!

    Sagat is such a beast.

    I have no idea what happened to voices in Super Street Fighter II. Listen to Guile do a sonic boom in that one. "Sonic Boom!"

    Her fireball itself looks better at least. It now has the oval shape we know as opposed to the generic nondescript flame she had originally.

    I also think Turbo is the best on the SNES. MK would "refine" the PS2 games as well. Street Fighter would later go on to change things up with Alpha, and then Street Fighter 3. This is after the SNES though. ...although Street Fighter Alpha 2 DID come out on the SNES against all odds at the tail end of 1996. The game is held together by duct tape and has actual loading times before matches but you could check it out while you're on a SNES SF run.

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    1. Speaking of the scar on Sagat, the little bit of story this game has adds SO MUCH. Story, much like lives, matters.

      Yanno, I actually like how Chun Li throws the fireball in Super, looks like she's putting her back into it. I think the issue is just that there's no equality with the men being sexual. Same issue that people have with MGS5 now, the one major woman being nearly-naked wouldn't be a big deal if Snake were running around with his shirt off instead of being covered by tons of uniform.

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  2. The "Special Champion Edition" for the Genesis was technically a port of Champion Edition and not Turbo, but with adjustable settings for faster speed, new palette choices for the various fighters, and additional moves like Chun Li's fireball. So...in other words it was Turbo for the Genesis, but with a different name because the SNES had the "exclusive" for Turbo. It also had a group battle mode and some extra speed settings.

    Also, Chun Li's fireball animation in Turbo is just her Forward + HP animation, because they didn't bother drawing a new one.

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    1. Interesting stuff. I was an SNES kid so I tend to not get too much into the Genesis side of things, but I'm curious as to how things were for people on the "other side" as it were. Back then I think it was far less common for people to own multiple game systems than it is now.

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  3. Great post. I really enjoyed seeing these games so in-depth and felt like playing them.
    Sagat's stage background is the best. Resting Buddha watching a fight scene is so memorable. I also love Vega's stage.

    I agree with you that Fei Long is Bruce Lee. And that's great, because we should be able to play as Bruce Lee!

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