Street Fighter II has a unique cultural reach, writes Arwa Haider, as a new book charts the 1991 video game’s history, with influences ranging from music by Kanye West and Nicki Minaj to films starring Jackie Chan and Kylie Minogue.
When you walked into a video game arcade in the early 1990s, one title stood out: Street Fighter II (SFII). Capcom’s competitive fighting game debuted in 1991, and drew throngs to its vibrant visuals, distinctive moves, and jet-setting playable characters: brooding warrior Ryu (Japan); his tousled buddy/rival Ken (USA); volatile sumo wrestler E Honda (Japan); electrifying Amazonian man-beast Blanka (Brazil); peppy martial artist and Interpol officer Chun-Li (China); fire-breathing yogi (Russia). Its heart-pounding soundtrack (composed by Yoko Shimomura) cut through the din and remains instantly evocative decades later.
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Since its initial release, SFII has spawned a plethora of tie-in merchandise (ranging from collectible figures to clothing and cologne), adaptations, and updates. Like a Hurricane: An Unofficial Oral History of Street Fighter II, compiled by US videogame writer Matt Leone, is also the subject of a new book. SF series commentator James Chen observes in the foreword: “SFII was more than a popular video game. It was a cultural phenomenon unprecedented since Pac-Man. Despite the fact that games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda had massive fan bases, they were still considered children’s properties… Video games were not taken seriously by adults. SFII, on the other hand, appealed to everyone.”
Because of their widespread popularity, SFII coin-op cabinets can be found in a variety of settings, including fast-food restaurants, shopping malls, and video-rental stores. Entertainment centres, among other things. It was a formative experience for many players from various backgrounds. Leone tells me about a summer in the early 1990s in California when he spotted a truck delivering an SFII machine and rode his bike to its destination. Seth Killian, a former gaming tournament competitor/commentator who went on to become a Capcom senior manager (and has a boss character named after him in SFIV), recalls discovering SFII at a “hole-in-the-wall” arcade in suburban Illinois.
“SFII stood out visually with massive characters and beautiful animations, but what really drew me in was the crowd around the machine,” Killian says. “Competing against a live opponent in front of strangers to see who kept their quarter and who dropped to the back of the line? “The experience was enthralling.”
Like a Hurricane chronicles the creative storm that inspired SFII, as well as industry battles (particularly between Capcom and rival company SNK), cultural differences, pre-internet communication hiccups between Capcom’s Japan and US offices, and what appear to be toxic working environments (gruelling hours; alleged bullying “banter”). Street Fighter (1987), the game’s predecessor, had limited reach but bold ambitions, which set the stage for SFII’s groundbreaking incarnation.
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If you pit a boxer, for example, “You get all these very interesting combinations when you play against a kickboxer or someone who knows bojutso,” says SF director Takashi Nishiyama, who created the first game with planner Hiroshi Matsumoto. “As a result, Matsumoto and I came up with these ideas together to give the game deeper story and character elements.”
Character-driven fighting
Capcom’s team had shifted for SFII (with Nishiyama and Matsumoto leaving for SNK), but the game’s characters and range were enriched by Akira Yasuda’s vivid artwork and a six-button/joystick control design that (perhaps inadvertently) allowed players to deliver swift combo attacks. Shimomura’s upbeat melodies and effects, such as the cries that heralded different characters’ special moves (“Hadouken!”; “Shoryuken!”; “Yoga fire!”; “Sonic boom!”), added to the sense of character. You became acquainted with these characters and genuinely rooted for your favourites; SFII established a level of rapport that arguably had not previously existed in gaming.
“It’s unusual for a game to make such significant progress in so many different ways,” Leone says. “You could see how Capcom relaxed the control input requirements, which blended well with the game’s animation and made players feel more in control, which fed perfectly into the game’s competitive elements, which fed perfectly into how arcade games made money.”
SFII featured players not only competing for high scores, but also displaying fierceness and flair – either against the machine or against each other. It grew the “fighting-game community” through coin-op arcades, home consoles (SFII debuted on the 16-bit SNES in 1992) and modern digital realms. It welcomed both experienced and inexperienced gamers.
My first encounter with SFII was as a schoolgirl visiting the massive central London arcade Funland. I was captivated by its sound and style, and I was overjoyed to have the rare opportunity to select a female fighter. Chun-Li was cool, even if her signature moves exposed her body in ways that her male counterparts did not. I partially ignored unsettling details at the time, including SFII’s strange opening sequence, in which a generic blond/blue-eyed fighter knocked out a naked black opponent in front of jubilant white crowds. Growing up in the ’80s/’90s pop culture’s casual misogyny and racism (where “blackface,” “brownface,” and “yellowface” were repeatedly played for fun) may have inured me. I’d never seen anyone onscreen who looked like me – nor would I in other fighting games of that “golden age”: Mortal Kombat; King of Fighters; Virtua Fighter; Tekken. Surprisingly, the main characters in SFII seemed both overblown and sympathetic; ultimately, I identified most with the mutant Blanka (whose game narrative also revealed the soppiest ending).
“Certainly, some of the gender/racial elements and stereotypical character designs aren’t the best,” Leone says. “There are complex reasons for this, some of which are related to cultural changes over time, but also to cultural differences between Japan and other territories, as well as the specific tendencies of the people who created the games.”
It became increasingly difficult to keep up with SFII’s rapid-fire revisions, which were frequently created as counter-responses to rival titles, bootlegs, and hardware surplus.
The Champion Edition (1992) added four “boss” characters (including a crooked black boxer who resembled US heavyweight Mike Tyson and was initially dubbed “M Bison”); Street Fighter II Turbo (1992) increased the speed, while Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (1993) introduced new fighters. Cheat codes and “secret character” rumours added to the mystique of SFII, but it eventually felt like diminishing returns. Arcades were closing down, and home gamers were getting their fix from a variety of genres. The series appeared to be past its prime by SFIII (1997), though SFVI is set to be released this year.