Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (1991) was a highly popular and immensely successful arcade game created by the Japan-based company Capcom. It centers around two characters, Ryu and Ken (the two main characters from the original Street Fighter), facing the evil villain M. Bison (Vega in the japanese version).
Street Fighter II is widely considered to be the "Grandfather" of the fighting game genre. It is still considered by many purists to be the finest example of the genre, relying more on control and playability than graphics and flash, like its fighting counterparts Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct. Karate Champ and Street Fighter were two one-on-one fighting games which preceded Street Fighter II.
The game featured a line up of 8 characters which a player could choose from to battle from all the other fighters around the world. Once the other characters had been defeated, four 'boss' characters could be battled, finishing off with M. Bison.
Legacy
This popular video game inspired several 'spin-off' versions of the game which are not thought of as 'true sequels':
- Street Fighter II Champion Edition - this version allowed the four boss characters to be selectable by the player
- Street Fighter II Turbo - 'Turbo' was released in response to modified bootlegs of Champion Edition. It speeded up the game, as well as included some new fighting moves for the characters
- Super Street Fighter II - this introduced four new characters, and updated the sound and graphics
- Super Street Fighter II Turbo - a slightly modifed version of Super Street Fighter II. It featured enhanced speed and difficulty, while still applying the gameplay and characters from Super Street Fighter II
Capcom also created some new series of games which were based on (and included characters from) the Street Fighter series:
Capcom received much criticism from fans for continually releasing yet another re-hash of a Street Fighter II. In 1997, a true sequel was released in the form of Street Fighter III.
Many of these were both arcade and console video game hits.
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