Originally popularized in arcades during the nineties, fighting games have remained a popular genre to this day. With the recent release of Street Fighter IV and last weeks news that Midway has put Mortal Kombat up for sale, I've decided to focus the next few articles on these two popular fighting franchises. Street Fighter has been around for more than twenty years and was popularized due to it's fluid control and expertly balanced game play that would become even more polished with each release. This first article will look at the first four games in the Street Fighter series, according to the series timeline, which will cover the original Street Fighter from 1987 and the three Alpha games which were released between 1995 and 1997.



Originally founded in 1979, Capcom (known originally as Japan Capsule Computers) released it's first arcade games in 1984, and while these games were popular they weren't the break out hits that Capcom was looking for. In 1987, Capcom would make it's first foray into the fighting game genre with the release of Street Fighter, directed by Takashi Nishiyama, with planning by Hiroshi Matsumoto, and music by Yoshihiro Sakaguchi. While the original Street Fighter would never become as popular as its predecessors, it laid the ground work for the series and introduced several of the series popular characters in Ryu, Ken, and Sagat. During the game's main mode, you would control Ryu as you battled your way through nine computer controlled opponents one your way to the final showdown with Sagat. Each match played out as a one on one match where you have three, thirty second rounds to reduce your opponent's life bar, thus defeating your opponent. Ryu can fight his opponents with several special attacks including the Hadoken, Shoryuken, and Tatsumaki Senpu Kyaku as well as standard punch and kick attacks. Aside from the single player mode, the game also featured a two player mode where two players could fight each other in a one on one match, despite the presence of a two player mode, the game features only two playable characters, with the first player always controlling Ryu and the second player always controlling Ryu's rival, Ken. Ken's play style is identical to Ryu's, right down to having the same special attacks, which gives the game very little variety.

The story of the original Street Fighter is perhaps the most straight forward of the series, as the game featured only one playable character for the single play mode. Both Ryu and Ken had entered the tournament to test the strength of the Shotokan (Ansetsuken in Japan) techniques they had recently learned from their master, Gouken. The two fought through the tournament but only Ryu was allowed to fight the tournament's champion, Sagat. During his fight with Sagat, Ryu becomes consumed by a dark energy known as the Satsui no Hado, while he is consumed by this evil he unleashes a powerful Shoryuken that defeats Sagat and leaves him with a scar across his chest. With this Ryu is declared the winner of the tournament and Sagat swears that he will get revenge against Ryu for defeating him.

With the first Street Fighter behind them, Capcom would go on to create Street Fighter II in the early nineties, this game would see a number of revised editions released between the original release in 1991 and the most recent, Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, in 2008. After the release of Super Street Fighter II Turbo in 1994, Capcom moved on to a new series, Street Fighter Alpha (Street Fighter Zero in Japan). The Alpha series features several storylines that vary by which character you play, and by chronalogical order within the franchise itself takes place after Ryu defeated Sagat in the original Street Fighter. The Alpha series has an upgrade to the visuals, when compared to Street Fighter II, featured more fluid gameplay and an expanded roster, which featured characters from Street Fight and Street Fighter II, a few characters from Final Fight, and a few original characters. The Alpha series saw five games released, with each revision expanding on the story as well as adding new characters and refinements to the gameplay, similar to what was done with each new release of Street Fighter II, the final verison of the game released was Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX for the PSP in 2006. Street Fighter Alpha 3 sports the largest roster in the series, with nearly every fighter from the first two games, several Final Fight characters, a host of original characters, Yun from Street Fighter III, and Ingrid from Capcom Fighting Jam all appearing in SFA3 MAX, giving the game a total of thirty-five fighters.

The story of the Alpha series, much like Street Fighter II, is much harder to follow than the original game's story. The game's large roster and each character having an ending sometimes makes the endings contradict one another, so I'll only be talking about the storyline of Ryu, rather than the storylines of all thirty-five characters. Ryu's story picks up after he defeated Sagat in the first tournament, in the first Alpha game Sagat confronts Ryu for a rematch in an attempt to reclaim his honor for losing to Ryu in the previous tournament. In Street Fighter Alpha 2, Ryu is traveling in an attempt to find Akuma (Gouki in Japan), the brother of his master, Gouken. After his fight with Akuma, Ryu discovers that Akuma also wields the dark power known as Satsui no Hado, but instead of fighting against the dark power, Akuma gave into it, giving him is demonic appearance and dark powers. Street Fighter Alpha 2 also marks the first appearance of Dark Ryu as a playable character, this version of Ryu has a similar moveset to Akuma, including Akuma's ultimate attack, the Shun Goku Satsu. In Alpha 3, M. Bison confronts Ryu and plans to use Ryu's body as his new host body, Ryu tries to fight Bison off but is unable to until Sakura and Sagat arrive to help.

Street Fighter Alpha was used as a way to flesh out the characters and try to give them each a unique backstory that the fans would hopefully find interesting, this was done because of the lack of any real story in the original and Street Fighter II. After the end of the third Alpha game, the story for Street Fighter II picks up, which will be covered in my next Gaming in Retrospect article. In my next article, I'll be taking a look at Street Fighter II, Street Fighter IV, and Street Fighter III, looking at some of the changes they each brought to the series as well as detailing the story of one or two characters from each game, with the exception of SFIV to keep from spoiling anything for those how have not played it. I'll be following that article up with a look at the various spin-off games from the Street Fighter series and a brief look at Street Fighter outside of gaming. As always, thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoyed it.

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