You would be forgiven for thinking that Capcom's Street Fighter franchise began with Street Fighter II. It's heralded as one of the best fighting games of all time and is almost single-handedly responsible for creating the fighting game genre players know and love today. Without Street Fighter II there would be no Tekken, no Mortal Kombat, no Killer Instinct. Its influence is everywhere.
The result of all the honors thrown at Street Fighter II means nobody really ever talks about the game that started it all, the original Street Fighter, released for arcades back in 1987. It might not have garnered the huge levels of critical and financial success as the sequel, but the original game would form the the backbone of future installments and in many ways was revolutionary on its own.
As in Street Fighter II, the first Street Fighter has players traveling the globe to different countries, fighting various warriors along the way in 1v1 battles of skill. In between matches, minigames, like board breaking, mix up the gameplay, something that players of the second game's car-destroying minigames should understand.
It's by and large the same formula used by Street Fighter II, with the one major difference being that players don't get to choose from a roster of world warriors. Instead, players can only play as series star Ryu, though with his red hair he looks substantially different from his look in subsequent entries.
There are numerous other familiar faces to be seen, too. Ken, the blonde-haired American martial artist who is Ryu's friend and rival, looks largely the same, and is actually the character the second player controls in the original game. If player two can defeat player one, the rest of the game can then be played as Ken instead of Ryu, though the difference is only an aesthetic one. Both characters have identical moves and techniques, something that would be changed in later games.
Outside of the two franchise stars, a number of other characters appear, such as muay Thai master Sagat, who serves as the first game's boss. Gen, a Chinese martial arts master, also makes his first appearance in the original game before appearing in the Street Fighter Alpha series and in Street Fighter IV. The cast of the original game is much more down to earth than in later sequels, despite the fact that Ryu still shoots fireballs out of his hand. Series villain M. Bison is nowhere to be found, the stretchy arms of Dhalsim have yet to be invented and the green, electricity monster that is Blanka doesn't yet exist.
From familiar faces to a similar setup, Street Fighter would form the foundation of later installments. However, one of Street Fighter's biggest contributions to the franchise was its controls, but not at first.
Two different arcade versions of the game were made. The first featured two large, pressure-sensitive pads alongside a joystick. The harder a player pressed down on the punch pad, the harder the punch. When combined with certain joystick commands, players could perform secret techniques like the now iconic Hadoken or Hurricane Kick.
While revolutionary for the time, it might not have been the best idea in hindsight. Speaking with Polygon, those involved with Capcom at the time said the game's control scheme didn't work as well as it should, and that people were even injuring themselves pounding on the game pads.
It was for that reason Capcom would introduce a new version of Street Fighter sporting a new control scheme. Instead of the pressure-sensitive pads, this alternative version of the game released later featured six attack buttons, three for punches and three for kicks, each separated into light, medium and heavy. This, along with the joystick, gave players more control over their fighter than ever before. It would be this set of controls that would become an essential part of Capcom's fighting games moving forward, with the majority of series fighting game players still using six button fight-sticks today.
From the control scheme to the game's characters and framework, the original Street Fighter featured all of the essential components that would later turn the series into a smash hit. So why is it rarely discussed?
Part of the reason may come down to the fact that the team who developed the game left Capcom shortly after. Rival developer SNK recruited many of the original Street Fighter team members, leaving the development of Street Fighter II to a brand-new team. Had the original developers stayed onboard with Capcom, the story of the Street Fighter franchise's rise to fame may have turned out much differently, or may not have even happened at all.
The other reason, of course, is that Street Fighter II is all-around a better game. Featuring standout visuals, a killer soundtrack, a large cast of unique characters and a focus on competition, Street Fighter II simply took what worked in the original and added so much more depth and polish to it that players couldn't ignore it. The game became a phenomenon, and the rest, as they say, is history. So as Capcom celebrates 25 years of Street Fighter II and a new era of fighting games is ushered in with the release of Street Fighter V, remember the game that started it all. It might not have changed the world, but big things often come from small beginnings.
