Street Fighter 4 was the first Street Fighter that used 3D models. No that’s a lie, little remember the ever so failure of Street Fighter EX, an attempt by Capcom to jump onto the 3D market that was starting up with Tekken and Dead or Alive (little did they know Street Fighter is kind of stuck in the Second Dimension). Well, Street Fighter 4 is the first good attempt of using 3D models (or their 2.5D models) and it has brought Street Fighter years forward.

The original Street Fighter debut in 1987 and wasn’t too popular. You got to play as Ryu through a series of battles and the second player got to play with Ken. You didn’t have many options in the game, was pretty much a dulled down fighting game but it was ahead of its time. There are people saying the Final Fight was supposed to be its sequal but the idea didn’t fly.

By 1991 Street Fighter released a sequal.  Everyone remembers Street Fighter 2: The World Warriors. We all played it as a kid, well we all may have not been kids but I was. I remember sneaking quarters and wanting to go to the arcade to play it. I remember my older brother’s friend being so cool when he played it and I wanted to be one of those Arcade Rats who were so bad ass at the game.

Street Fighter 2 was so popular that it was re-release it 4 times within five years. Unfortunately they weren’t very creative with the names, Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Super Street Fighter 2, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Some people rumor that they didn’t make a fifth one because they struggled so much on figuring out a new name (dam it we used up all the combinations). No, actually the game was so good and popular that Capcom remade all the sprits and re-released in for the current 7th generation consoles on the PSN and Live Market Place – and yes it does sell.

What made Street Fighter 2 so good? Well it was one of a kind when it first came out. It was the first game that allowed two players to competitively fight each other with a selection of characters. Every character fought differently, they had an array of special move button combinations and they had grapple throws. This was something new no other game in the arcade offered in the early 90s. The original Street Fighter did exist but it allowed you to only choose Ryu and the second player would be Ken if he decided to play. This was a break through game for Capcom and they release so many sequels because yes it did so good.

Around 1996-1997 Capcom decided to let go of the Street Fighter 2 line and move on (finally, we get to see a sequel). Unfortunately the sequel didn’t go over too well. When Street Fighter 3: The New Generation came out well it was just that, a new generation. I personally grew affection for Cammy (what can I say I like little cute girls). When I saw Cammy didn’t exist in the new version it made me a little sad. What was also sad was seeing Ryu and Ken as old men. It was good to see they could still kick some ass in their old age, but it’s not what I wanted to see or play. And a lot of these other great Characters I did overlook and not play with – make me sad.

Honestly I didn’t really play it because none of my friend were playing Street Fighter 3 (sorry, when it comes to games I am a follower). A popular one that was being played with my friends was Street Fighter Alpha. Alpha didn’t have the harsh bite of Street Fighter 3 because it kept a lot of my favorite characters, and if anything they were younger. For those who missed the Street Fighter Alpha phase, it was essentially a prologue to Street Fighter 2. It gave background stories to all the characters we loved and introduced some new characters along the way. I loved it and found it fairly popular. Not as popular as the original Street Fighter but DAMN did it have so many cool characters.

Street Fighter EX was also released at this time, and like Alpha and SF3 it also had 3 sequels to it. Of course no one I knew played it. The only time I heard of it was, “Hey you remember that time Street Fighter tried to go 3D, you remember how bad it was”. Yeah that’s exactly it. At this time when Street Fighter 2 was dying off games for the PS1 like Tekken or Dead or Alive were coming out blazing. People loved playing these new creative 3D games and the plain old 2D games didn’t have the flair. When Street Fighter attempted to go 3D it seemed like a desperate attempt by Capcom to grab hold of the changing market. I honestly didn’t even know there were 3 versions of the game until I read it on Wikipedia – ouch coming to reality of what poor Street Fighter fan I am.

Now enough about Street Fighter failure, let’s talk about their epic success. Around the same time Street Fighter EX, Street Fighter 3 and Street Fighter Alpha were coming out Capcom was getting a contract with Marvel to make some Marvel fighting games. Someone in the office, probably up way to late and had too much fun mixing things together, thought “Hey how about we get the Marvel Characters fight the Street Fighter Characters”. The first game X-Men vs Street Fighter was released in arcades in 1996. This was so awesome, I remember the first time I saw Gambit and Ryu on the same screen I became ecstatic. And the fun didn’t stop there, this was also the first time they allowed players to have a tag team. Ah it was so awesome it ate far too many of my quarters. This concept of crossing over characters became more and more popular. Soon it was Marvel vs. Street Fighter, then Marvel vs. Capcom, and then Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Which each successive game the action became more intense and flashy and awesome until it hurt my soul. I would wake up in the middle of the night in cold shivers scared thinking that there’s no way Ryu could throw a fireball that would consume the entire screen. And unfortunately, that is when Street Fighter did become too flashy. Not that it’s really a problem, people seem to love it and recently Capcom released a Capcom vs. Tatsunoko which is doing pretty well – but not my thing.

Talking about failures, did you know there was a Street Fighter game base on the 1995 movie?  They used human models and based it on Mortal Combat styles.  Unfortunately it didn’t do that well. But really a video-game based on a movie based on a video-game – come on!

In 2008 Capcom tried another strike at the Street Fighter franchise with Street Fighter 4. The concept based around 3D modeling, Cell Shading and Water-Colouring concepts made for brand new graphics never seen before. At first a lot of people didn’t like the idea too much, and honestly some time it does make the characters look really ugly. But honestly they have brought the Franchise to a new level. There are many things that the game does graphically that they couldn’t do before (like spins and super flashy move) because they now have control of the 3rd Dimension. The game is considered to be 2.5D because really the characters move only in the 2D plane. To be honest I’m gad they do, if they changed this then it wouldn’t be that Street Fighter style we’ve came to know and love.

Other details were kept, like the way characters moved. For those who are really into Street Fighter know that each character in Street Fighter has their own fighting style. The hard kick in the air is done this way, and the medium kick on the ground is done another way. Not only that each character does it differently and each one reflects the style of the character. I love Cammy because she’s a little girl who moves fast and hits hard. She needs to attack physical and can’t keep a lot of distance between her and her enemy. Her style is a completely different then Vega or Zangief, and they depict it really well in the game.

Another thing that Capcom did well to revive the game was the online play. The problem with Street Fighter was not having anyone to play with, or at least someone of your equal skill. My father actually said he had a hard time believing that fighting games made their way to live play, because the quick button pressing would require a lot of bandwidth and speed (I’m glad technology is at the point they can support that). Having people to play with in this highly competitive game gave the option for World Wide ladders and playing with friends across the world. This was needed and fortunate for Capcom to step up and deliver it.

One thing that I have been fortunate to find out about was the underground scene surrounding Street Fighter. Like I knew about the comic and the art, but I didn’t know until recently there is such an popularity for competitive fighting games. People who are really good at this game can make money playing. There are clothing lines for Street Fighter and competitions in Las Vegas. I got to meet some people and play with them, all good people. Fans of Street Fighter thick & thin and they definitely appreciate that Street Fighter is going strong.

So what can we expect for Super Street Fighter 4? – A lot of disappointed followers.
When a Sequel was announced to Street Fighter 4 one of the first outcries were “why are they making another game instead of just making downloadable content”. Capcom is notorious of pumping out content for us to purchase and now they are making us buy a new game. Well, even I asked why? Turns out there is so much coming out and even the core of Street Fighter 4 is being re-balanced that it couldn’t be released in just DLC. Street Fighter 4 was out in arcades and in 6 month it was being ported out to consoles to keep up with its popularity. Super Street Fighter 4 has been in development since, balancing the characters and perfecting the faults. 9 new characters have been announced, and like the tradition of Street Fighter they are bring back old ones to keep their fans. They are even bringing some of the characters from Street Fighter 3 which I am very excited to see.

Actually right now you can see many trailers for Super Street Fighter 4. This is another awesome feature of the 3D engine of Street Fighter 4. Because everything is 3D they can pump out videos like nothing else, this is something that took tons of tedious work to keep up with all the drawing. Now we are gonna see Street Fighter like we’ve never seen before. I am excited for Super Street Fighter 4, it is gonna be Awesome.