
'Street Fighter II' Wasn’t Just a Game, It Was a Portal - lermontov
https://frieze.com/article/street-fighter-ii-wasnt-just-game-it-was-portal
======
snarfy
I remember when Street Fighter I was a new arcade game. The demonstration mode
would show Ryu fighting Retsu, and occasionally he would throw a fireball. The
game didn't say how to do it. It would always be this random thing that
happened while playing. If you play fighting games, you know the motion is
pretty simple, but on SF1 it's actually pretty difficult to do on command. The
input scanning just wasn't very good and you had to do the motion with just
the right joystick speed and button on/off timing.

I figured out how to throw a fireball on command and became the wizard of the
arcade. Shortly after I figured out the dragon punch too. I never figured out
the hurricane kick. The game never showed it during demonstration so I didn't
know it even existed. It would happen sometimes randomly while playing but for
some reason I thought it was a glitch and not a real move. One day another
player showed up from another arcade, and he was doing all three moves. He
didn't have them quite figured out though as his technique was to mash the
joystick motion spastically while hitting the buttons, but it was enough to
figure out the hurricane kick too.

When SF2 came out, I was excited because I already knew the special moves, but
then there were all these new characters I didn't know how to play. And that's
when it happened: people started playing each other. That's what changed
everything. The arcades were all dying, but with SF2 the crowds started
gathering around. It was no longer about playing the games and getting the
high score. It was about being the best competitor.

It's crazy to see it all start and to have gone to and competed in a lot of
the first video game competitions. It has come a long way from arcade
employees setting up home grown tournaments and giving away ticket prizes. Now
we have EVO.

~~~
mercer
> One day another player showed up from another arcade, and he was doing all
> three moves.

This was one of the arcade-specific experiences that I've never quite had at
any other point in my life. MMORPGS and forums have given me some of the
feeling of being at an arcade, but this was something unique.

I was perhaps too young, or for whatever reason not good enough to be
noteworthy at the arcades. But (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread), my
best friend was. He was notoriously good.

We'd go from arcade to arcade in town, until they'd ban him or (in one case)
up the difficulty just to get him to leave.

We'd play co-op games where he carried me through and it was a kind of bonding
experience I can't quite compare to anything else.

He was so good at the competitive games (in particular SF2) that people
wouldn't challenge him. Why waste a coin? I sometimes put in a coin just to
bait others, because the clever players knew that if you saw someone playing
SF2 alone for a while, they were probably really good. He'd give me 10 cents
to reimburse me :).

Whenever a new arcade opened up (usually in a shipping container, but
sometimes 'real fancy'), we'd rush there and first try the new games, but then
get back to SF2 and hope there were players that didn't know about him yet. It
usually worked for a while.

But possibly one of the most vivid memories of my childhood was the time that,
while I was faffing about on other arcades, out of the corner of my eye I'd
see some other guy (it was mostly men, but perhaps that's partly culturally.
women became mothers-in-training in their teens) walk up to his solo SF2 play,
and pop in a coin.

I swear, when that happened, it sometimes felt like a Western. I'd notice
first, on account of keeping an eye on my bestie, but others 'in the know'
would nudge each other and cut off whatever game they were playing to watch
the spectacle.

A crowd would form around my friend and this 'new guy', and, of course, most
of the time he'd do the equivalent of drawing so quick that the other guy
didn't stand a chance. Sometimes he'd play around. Pick one of the weaker
characters (that monster one I don't remember). Or humiliate his new adversary
by offering to play with one hand.

I think there was only one time where he struggled, and it turned out this guy
was a dude from the capitol and was known there for being the local SF2
champion.

EDIT: Oh, and just to add some color to this story in case anyone liked it: I
was one of the few people in town with a personal computer. My parents told me
to not mention it to my friends for fear of theft. I told this friend and I
will never forget the experience of having him over and playing games
together. This was a 486 and we played Wacky Wheels and (I think) Doom and One
Must Fall, the latter which was closest to the fighting games he was so good
at (or perhaps a similar game?).

These games were clearly a step down from what we got to play at the arcades,
but the fact that we could play them without having to put in coins (even if
they had the 'continue' and 'credits' screens) was just mind-blowing to the
both of us.

Sadly as I moved on to RPG's and RTS', he stuck with the arcades and we
drifted apart in this regard. We bonded over watching badly dubbed films
though, The Matrix being probably our favorite.

~~~
raiyu
I think you hit the nail on the head. I grew up with Street Fighter and never
really connected the dots as to why I love the game so much.

Sure it had pretty good graphics for the time, and gameplay was great as well.

But the real differentiator was the ability to "compete" with other people.

Not just compete, but the fact that you plopped down 25 cents and within 3
minutes one of your lost. At the time we didn't have much money, so 25 cents
per game play was quite a lot. So it really came down to being great and
trying to beat as many people as possible so that your 25 cents could last
longer.

It was probably my first real memory of truly being competitive at life.

~~~
mercer
Oh yeah! While I preferred the games there focused on co-op, I could see the
appeal of Street Fighter. My friend seemed to have a decent amount of fun
seeing how long he could last in single player, but the constant second player
putting in a coin was what it was all about. Some of them would tell me later
that they spent their weekly allowance on trying to 'git gud' beating my
friend.

------
richardjdare
I spent my teenage years copying pictures of Street Fighter II characters from
C&VG magazine, I loved the art and music. However I was terrible at the game.
I didn't truly enjoy a fighting game until Tekken.

I miss arcades, although I only got to visit them once a year when we went on
our family holiday. Can you imagine waiting a whole year to play Outrun, Rygar
or Smash TV? Arcade games were so superior to their home conversions that to
an obsessive gamer like me, it was like going on a pilgrimage to see a
painting that you'd previously only seen in a photocopied reproduction.

My finest gaming moments were playing Golden Axe and Michael Jackson's
Moonwalker with a whole crowd of people watching.

~~~
mynameishere
_Arcade games were so superior to their home conversions_

As a general rule, this is correct, but Rygar is a glaring exception. The
arcade game was a typical mindless scroller. The home version was an epic
action/RPG.

~~~
richardjdare
Which version was that? I only played the Amstrad CPC version which was ok,
but nowhere near as good as the arcade.

~~~
mynameishere
NES
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DmaMbJfIaQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DmaMbJfIaQ)

------
AltruisticGapHN
I miss arcades so much :(. Some of my best memories is playing Crazy Taxi,
itS. just so much better with the wheel and pedal and clutch.

But it’s also a social space, even for introverts. People would stop and watch
you playing, it was easy to start a chat, or even challenge someone to a game
of tekken or dead or alive.

There has to be a business model to bring them back.

~~~
mootzville
I don't see that specific business model coming back. With high bandwidth, and
cheap parts the more profitable business model at the moment is online
multiplayer games you can play from anywhere. You lose that in-person social
aspect, but this a concern for the community not the business.

I would say Pokemon GO is a good example of an evolutionary / revolutionary
game with roots in the arcade-genre. I would like to see more games like this
with built-in necessity to bring people together.

~~~
yomly
A shame. A pipe dream of mine has always been to build the greatest mech sim
there could be.

Maybe some mixture of peripherals, gesture tech and VR will have to be the way
forward. But there really wouldn't be a replacement for getting in a cockpit-
like booth complete with full haptic feedback.

~~~
jfim
It's not very common and about 15 years old, but if you can find the deluxe
cabinet of Afterburner Climax it's a pretty fun experience. If you were to add
VR and more modern technology, it would be pretty awesome.

------
rawoke083600
Ja the memories ! I was lucky enough that I grew up in a house filled with
computers in the 80's and early 90's with enough diversity (386,486, early
pentiums) to explore and have a brilliant geeky-upbringing. My dad was never
really into games, but whenever we had to go on a milk-run to the local cafe,
he would always give me money to go play "the fighting game" and was always
"amused" at how "Dhalsim" or the "Toordoker"(afrikaans for shaman) could
stretch his limbs that far !

Good times - thanks dad :)

~~~
pixelpoet
Ag jussie, this is the most Afrikaans thing I've read in ages :P Grew up in
Pretoria, also had some computers but thanks to the Telkom monopoly I wasn't
really able to use the internet until going to UCT.

~~~
rawoke083600
Haha ja Pretoria me as well :);Urgh Telkom

------
syspec
Apparently guile is clearly the strongest character in the game, that makes
some sense... but apparently at high level Dhalsim is the second strongest by
consensus.

Now that's a surprise!

~~~
jmgao
It depends a lot on the version of the game: in the last version released in
arcades (Super Street Fighter II Turbo aka Super Turbo or ST), Guile is
roughly in the middle. It's fairly unanimous that the top tiers in ST are
Dhalsim, Claw, Boxer, and O.Sagat.

~~~
chris_f
_> "...in ST are Dhalsim, Claw, Boxer, and O.Sagat."_

In the US version, there were slightly different names I am guessing. Claw is
most likely Vega and Boxer is Balrog?

~~~
pferdone
Yeah but in japan Balrog is M.Bison, Vega is Balrog and Bison is Vega, so you
reference them by Claw, Dictator and Boxer.

------
jaynetics
This type of article is why I come to HN. I grew up in a tiny German town
where even the most outward looking place, the big supermarket, was completely
devoid of anything from outside central Europe. Our parents wouldn't let us
watch movies for grownups, but playing SF2 on SNES - at an age that would send
pedagogues into meltdown nowadays - did feel like the first glimpse of the
wider world in more ways than one.

I always liked Blanka, maybe because his electric touch makes him a bit of a
nerd.

------
chris_f
Jump kick high and then sweep low was a basic strategy that would cause your
opponent to lose their mind in anger if you timed it right so they could never
really get back up.

~~~
toast0
Pretty easy to block that, if you know how to block, you can usually get in
some hits after you block the sweep. If you're good, you can probably just
counter directly, but I'm not that good.

------
thewebcount
> We were too young to notice anything but the sense of limitless curiosity
> that it inspired, especially when we began to realize that the scenes were
> based on actual places.

It's funny because I got that feeling from a lot of games. It's why I loved
adventure games. Some were set in made-up places, but some were from real
places. (I remember playing one where part of it was set in ancient Chichen
Itza, Mexico among the Mayan pyramids, for example.)

But I also remember when Street Fighter hit the scene, arcade games went
downhill fast. They all became variations on the same theme of memorizing
sequences of button presses instead of having goals to achieve or interesting
puzzles. Going to the arcade stopped being fun for me at that point, and home
computers were starting to get powerful enough to have far more interesting
and involved games on them. And shortly after that networked games started
becoming a thing.

------
foxhop
The first time I saw Street Fighter was inside a Burger King. My parents
didn't let me play but the intro screen was mesmerizing (Ryu throws a
fireball!?)

The next time was a in mall (which was torn down at least 25 years ago) just
in a random ally way between shops. I spent about 75 cents of my own money.

Our local bowling ally had a Mortal Kombat arcade (torn down 5 years ago and
replaced with an ALDI) which occupied my friends (I still preferred Street
Fighter).

I used to carry the Street Fighter II Sega Genesis game manual with me in
middle school. The manual was included with the cartridge and had art, lore,
and the moves listed.

Street Fighter was a portal for me before the Internet.

My favorite game cabinet, when I can find one, is Marvel versus Capcom. I'm
not good at that game, but it felt so expansive with the choices of playable
characters, I spent a bit of money but I was older and friendless and not part
of the scene (at this point there likely wasn't a scene).

If I had to choose one game that shaped me, it would be a tie between Mario
Brothers for the NES and Street Fighter II.

~~~
toast0
Ryu throwing a fireball intro was probably Super Street Fighter II?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZL4upd4QpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZL4upd4QpI)
Or Super Street Fighter II Turbo?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc34Y3NZoK0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc34Y3NZoK0)

------
katzgrau
Ah, the locations. As a kid who never had the chance to leave his state
growing up, it felt like I was really going somewhere new and fun.

I Loved E Hondas stage, Balrog's Casino amd Dhalsims stage in particular.

Reminds me of the Twisted Metal series for Playstation - the excitement when
you're on your way to a battle in Hong Kong!

------
tilolebo
Funny, I don't think I ever played the arcade version.

I remember my classmates speaking about SFII all the time. They all played it
on their SNES.

Later I got one too and would play SFII, Mortal Kombat II Super Bomberman 3,
Micromachines and Mario Kart with my friends.

Good memories...

------
davedx
For me it was a local chippy (fish and chips shop) just outside school. Every
lunch hour about 15 kids would pile in. Some of them would maybe order a chip
barm, the rest would be clutching a few 10p’s from their pocket or paper round
money.

Managing to pull of some frantic fireballs or dragon punches and hang in for a
few games against the bigger kids would mean the kind of adrenaline rush and
feeling of exhilaration that’s hard to find elsewhere.

Sometimes you’d put a pound in, and some bastard would steal one of your games
to replay you. Never put a pound in.

~~~
stevekemp
Chip Barm? Gonna guess you're a Bolton lad, or somewhere close?

My exposure to Streetfight was a little later in life, when I was around 16/17
hanging out at the local tattoo parlor. They had a Street Fighter 2 Champion
edition cabinet tucked away at the side of the waiting-room, and I'd often
play friends and random people queuing/waiting for a few hours on a Saturday
morning.

------
chrisacky
Anecdotal, and I think expanding on the "portal" idea, I've just downloaded
MAME + GENS for my two (young) boys (2 hours ago). The timing of this article
is relevant for me.

Metal Slug, SF2, Sonic, Lion King, Toe Jam, Earth Worm, these were the first
games I ever really played as a kid for me were my own portal to gaming which
expanded into an early career at Uni although now it's only recreational, I
can't help but think I enjoyed the gaming when I was 10 years old, than I do
now.

~~~
bonzini
My son loves Sonic and Super Mario. The cool stuff is that when kids come over
they love them even though they don't have a nerdy father. :-)

------
S_A_P
Arcade 1up has a table based street fighter console. It’s a ¾ sized version of
a real arcade table. I bought some 7” furniture legs which made it a
comfortable sitting height. Has 12 games installed from all the classic street
fighter to 1942 to commando. It’s a lot of fun and I had a lot of fun showing
my son how some concepts of the games he loves now(terraria) started in these
games.

------
joeyspn
For the folks who miss arcades, this has been posted several times... how to
build your own Arcades on a budget with pre-built kits and a Raspberry Pi:

[https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-raspberry-pi-has-
revolutio...](https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-raspberry-pi-has-
revolutionized-emulation/)

------
ricardomcgowan
I know I'n not alone in saying that I never could quite master Zangief's
spinning piledriver!

~~~
1996
Check Hi Score Girl (by Rensuke Oshikiri) for an anime about that

~~~
cjvirtucio
She could literally execute the piledriver with a flick of a finger!

~~~
ricardomcgowan
thank you!! :))

------
Xenoamorphous
I remember the first time I watched a video of the Super Nintendo version (in
a promotional VHS tape that came with a videogames magazine), I was blown
away, it looked just like the arcade!

I also remember it costing more than other SNES games, it was almost half as
much as the console.

~~~
ekianjo
> just like the arcade

Not, not really. I mean, it was a really good port, but if you compare it side
by side you can clearly see it's not at the same level:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKOd6SVmnb4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKOd6SVmnb4)

Sprites are bigger on the arcade version, and there's higher resolution
overall as well.

~~~
brabel
Really difficult to notice any difference when you're just having fun playing
it!

------
29athrowaway
The portrayal of Brazil in that game is really bad.

As a kid, my favourite level was the Dhalsim level. Note that I am not Indian.

------
katzgrau
If you liked playing with E Honda, Chun Li, or Blanka - you probably owned a
controller with a turbo button, ha

------
mootzville
Shoryuken!

edit: I had to look up how to spell that.

~~~
yomly
Even though I am very well acquainted with Japanese the anglicised "rye-yoo"
"hadooken" and "shore-yoo-ken" are deeply ingrained in me from all those
childhood times spend playing sf2.

My favourite was trying to translate whatever they say on that sound engine
into "tatsumaki senpuu kyaku". To this day I still can't hear it

~~~
aorth
Oh my God, the hurricane kick. I can hear it too...

~~~
katzgrau
CPU Ken was an absolute terror, especially when if you beat him once and were
in Round 2. Then it was just nonstop dragon punches, hurricane kicks, and
hadukens

