Overpowered characters break the game, leaving you in an endless, boring routine of playing the same person over and over. You want each character to stand a fighting chance. The key to fighting games of this nature is balance, a big buzz word nowadays.
And if you lost? They got to take over your progress (unless you could buy your way back in with quarters of your own). But if a real-life person came along and plunked down their quarters, suddenly you were in a battle with a person whose style you wouldn’t know or be able to predict.
Yes, it was fun to battle the AI and master how to defeat the computer. But the basic idea, though simple, was excellent: one-on-one head-to-head fights in a tournament setting.Īny fan of wrestling or boxing could relate to that instantly, and what’s more, it lent itself to fun, creative matches that would extend the life of the game considerably. Its original Street Fighter game was a dud, commercially, and it certainly had its problems. Where Capcom really struck gold, however, was in rescuing a concept from the scrapheap and developing it into a product that would tap into this gaming trend. Indeed, most fans of that particular genre can point to several Capcom brawlers from that era that would reflect that new emphasis (Captain Commando, Knights of the Round, Alien vs. Over time, variety became a way for companies to carve out a niche (and survival) for themselves, and as the technology improved, developers could become more and more creative.Ĭapcom’s success with the side-scrolling brawler, Final Fight, encouraged the company to make fighting games a priority. The early days of arcade gaming were dominated by single-screen platformers like Donkey Kong and shoot-em-ups like Galaga. Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting Genre: Fighting Let’s go down those two rabbit holes together, shall we? And I can corroborate those numbers on a personal level Capcom inspired me to purchase a Super Nintendo, four different versions of the game, and pump countless quarters into arcade cabinets over the years.īut what made the game so popular? And why do many people think “Hyper Fighting” might be the best version of all?
Per Wikipedia, the game is responsible for selling over 200,000 arcade cabinets, 15 million software units, and $10 billion of revenue for Capcom. Street Fighter II was unlike anything that had come before it, and it revolutionized the gaming industry in a way that is exceedingly rare. Does it have historical significance in a way that other games of that era might not? If one were to put together a timeline of video game history, what games would require representation? It’s essentially your starting point: Is this game, for lack of a better term, “good?” That’s always first and foremost.īut closely behind that consideration is the importance of a game within the industry. Within the pantheon of video games every gamer should experience, quality is a must. Super Mario Kart - Retro Gaming Essentials.WhoDatJedi podcast: ‘Book of Boba Fett‘ trailer and politics in Star Wars.WhoDatJedi podcast: Alex Rawls: What do Christmas songs have in common with Star Wars?.WhoDatJedi podcast: Rey, Finn and Poe: Can we (really) expect them to make a return?.