Fighting Street (aka Street Fighter)
Have you ever given any thought as to why you never hear much about the original Street Fighter?
I hadn’t, until the game was recently included as part of anniversary editions issued by Capcom, featuring the umpteen editions of Street Fighter II.
That got me to thinking: where the heck is Street Fighter “1”? It’s nearly buried in history, but the very company which created it… and now I understand why.
The original, as with the many sequels, originated as an arcade game and was only ported to one console in the United States: the nearly unknown CD add-on for the almost as unknown TurboGrafx 16. Thus, American gamers never really experienced the original game of the Street Fighter franchise, that is, until it was re-released for the Wii Virtual Console as a TurboGrafx port in 2009.
That’s the version I got my hands on, but for all intents and purposes I’m listing it under it’s original 1988 label, as it’s a clone of that game.
As for the title itself, it’s dated. Very dated.
Nostalgia takes over with some of the introduced characters, as well as what I’m sure were groundbreaking concepts with the 8-way joystick and six buttons for various degrees of punch/kick combos… and of course, the special moves.
The game is a true throwback when it comes to difficulty, however. I never proclaim to be the best gamer and despite my best attempts to cheat and/or use save states, I couldn’t complete the main story mode, if you will. This game may cheat more than almost any other I’ve ever encountered, including some versions of Mario Kart or Mortal Kombat. It’s clear the arcade port was intended to make you part with your quarters and takes cheap shots that drain your life bar quickly.
And that’s considering if you beat the insanely fast timer, another relic of a bygone era where most games didn’t have you just beating an opponent, but also made sure you weren’t standing at the cabinet for too long so they could get X amount of quarters paid per hour.
Honestly, that’s my main gripe with the game. I can overlook the dated graphics and whatnot (heck, I’m playing Game Boy games still) but the intense AI cheating is too much to overcome for my full enjoyment of the game, keeping me from giving it a full thumbs up rating.
