Street Fighter / Fighting Street - Arcade / TurboGrafx CD / PC / ZX Spectrum / Amiga / Commodore 64 / Amstrad CPC / Atari ST / PSP/ PS2 / Xbox (1987)

Street Fighter (Arcade)

Street Fighter (Arcade)

Street Fighter is, of course, the prequel to Street Fighter II. If you haven't played this game, don't get excited. It's one of the worst fighters ever. Ryu He should need no introduction, although he's got red hair here. Ken Ken is pretty much just player two. He shares the exact same moves with Ryu. Gen This older gentleman is an assassin who would be brought back into the series in Alpha 2. Birdie This British punk would be redesigned and brought back in the Alpha games. Mike An American boxer. He is the first incarnation of Balrog - remember, in Japan, his name is Mike Bison in the later games. Eagle This British guy attacks kali sticks and would later appear in Capcom vs. SNK 2. Retsu This huge eyebrowed fellow is a practitioner of Shorinji Kempo. Geki A ninja who wields a claw and hurls shurikens. He can also teleport. Joe Just a generic kickboxer. Lee Just a generic Chinese martial artist. Adon A Muay Thai practitioner who would be brought back into the series in the Alpha games. He is a student of Sagat. Sagat Needs no introduction. Doesn't have his familiar chest scar yet. Street Fighter was the first non-grapple based fighter with controller motions. The only thing good about this game at all is watching Ryu, or in two player mode Ken as well, perform a fireball or Dragon Punch in a more low tech Street Fighter game. Even that bit of enjoyment doesn't save it from being terrible. The gameplay is relatively modern, if that is what you are looking for, but the controls are possibly the worst in fighting game history. Trying to execute a move is a crapshoot. The game has without a doubt the least responsive controls in a fighter ever. Any innovations the game made are destroyed by the terrible controls. Street Fighter also has strange walking animations for Ryu and Ken. They do that Bruce Lee style hopping-around-while-fighting walk thing, and they can't attack mid step. The movement and the controls make this game frustrating to play. The original version of the arcade machine has two giant pads that are meant to be punched, making the controls even less accurate. The harder they are punched, the more powerful the move that Ryu or Ken will execute. Needless to say, it was extremely difficult to pull off the exact intensity of punch or kick you wanted to perform. Players complained so the two giant pads were replaced with the now-standard Capcom six button layout. The audio is kind of what would be expected from a 1980's action movie with Jean Claude Van Damme. It has digitized voices though, with Ken and Ryu yelling out the names of their special moves. The American version has the voices changed to English. The game also had some pretty awkward English voice acting. Check it out for a laugh. Despite all of the game's problems, the graphics are pretty amazing. The backgrounds are especially detailed. They are best of I've seen in a fighter from this time. The China level is my favorite, with it's lushly detailed deep background and billowing clouds above. Capcom included a lot of nice touches like the Grand Funk Railroad reference in the America level or the names of other Capcom games spray painted on the wall on the title screen. This game was ported to several platforms. The TurboGrafx CD version, which was retitled "Fighting Street", is the most accurate of the early ports. Despite being one of the first titles for the system, it only uses the CD format to play arranged music and all of the strange voices are still synthesized. The PC, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, and ZX Spectrum ports make this terrible game seem even worse. The Commodore 64 version has different visuals for the different regional releases and is as bad as any of the other computer ports. The American C64 version is better than the European C64 version, but remains a horrid game. Recently, the game was more accurately ported to the PSP in Capcom Classics Collection Remixed and to the PS2 and Xbox in Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2. The game was ported so well that it actually is more fun and much easier to play than any of the other versions. However, the game is still not great compared to its peers. As a side note, the director for this game, Takashi Nishiyama, and the planner for this game, Hiroshi Matsumoto, would leave Capcom after producing this game and go on to develop most of SNK's fighters.

Street Fighter (Arcade) Street Fighter (Arcade) Street Fighter (Arcade) Street Fighter (Arcade) Street Fighter (Arcade) Street Fighter (Arcade) Street Fighter (Arcade) Street Fighter (Arcade) Street Fighter (Amiga) Street Fighter (Amiga) Street Fighter (American)

Screenshot Comparisons

Arcade	TG16 CD
Amiga	CPC
Commodore 64 (American)	Commodore 64 (European)
PC DOS	Spectrum ZX

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo - Famicom Disk System (1987)

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo is a fighter is similar to Yie Ar Kung Fu, except not nearly as good. Like most early fighters it doesn't have a multi-player mode. It is still a good game, though, so definitely check it out if you can play Famicom Disk System games. The point of the game is to defeat ten challenging opponents. Moves are executed similar to most early fighters. To input a command, hold a direction and a button at the same time. This game's controls are slightly different from other games, however. Jumping is executed by holding up, as in many modern fighters. When you hold button A and a direction, your character will execute an attack. If you continue to hold this button combination for an attack, your character will repeatedly perform that move. Certain attacks can be executed by merely holding a direction. Hit detection here is similar to Karate Champ. The controls might be a little awkward at first, as with many early fighters, but you'll quickly adjust to them. Each character has a health meter as with many modern fighters. Every once in a while a bowl of food appears and that can be collected to replenish lost health. Stages 3, 4, 9, and 10 have platforms at multiple levels that you can jump to. The game's audio is good, but it doesn't stand out from the rest of the early fighters. The character sprites are well designed and backgrounds look decent.

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo Fuuun Shaolin Kyo

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo: Ankoku no Maou - Famicom Disk System (1988)

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo: Ankoku no Maou

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo: Ankoku no Maou

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo: Ankoku no Maou

"Fuuun Shaolin Kyo: Ankoku no Maou" is the sequel to Fuuun Shaolin Kyo. Like it's predecessor, it was released exclusively for the Famicom Disk System. Unfortunately, it still doesn't include a multi-player mode. AnM's gameplay is quite different from the original. Attacks are performed by tapping A or B to do a mid level punch or kick. To perform high or low punches and kicks, tap up or down and the corresponding button at the same time. Jumping is executed by taping A and B at the same time. A very powerful jump kick that can be executed by tapping A, B, and down at the same time. The hit detection is a little bit better than the original. As with a modern fighter, certain moves will deplete more of the health bar than others. The game always starts with the same first boss, a palette swap of your playable character. After that the player progresses through a series of levels where there are two opponents to choose from. The final boss is always the same character and is impossibly difficult. Certain levels have conditions that affect play. There is a level where wind will blow your character left or right while you are fighting. There is also a level where lightning can strike both your character and your opponent. The audio is good and the background music provides a decent mood during the fights. Graphics here are fantastic. They can't really be appreciated from looking at screenshots. The first level looks amazing. Levels after that have few background details, but they have nice touches like lightning flashes or plants blowing in the wind.

Fuuun Shaolin Kyo: Ankoku no Maou Fuuun Shaolin Kyo: Ankoku no Maou

Barbarian / Death Sword - Amiga / Apple II / Commodore 64 / PC / BBC Micro / Atari ST / ZX Spectrum / Amstrad CPC (1987)

Cover

Barbarian (Commodore 64)

Barbarian (Amiga)

Barbarian (known as Death Sword in the States) was a fairly popular fighter for its time, as evident by how many platforms it was ported to. The gameplay mainly consists of two Conan the Barbarian look-a-likes whacking each other with swords. You can perform different moves holding the joystick in a direction, but they're just vague variations on the same sword swing. There's no real strategy behind anything, so it gets repetitive pretty quickly. Barbarian's audio consists of effects yanked directly from the movie Red Sonja and it also has really bad music. The only nice detail is that you can execute instant kills fatalities which will lop off your opponents head. I'm only bringing this game up because of its popularity. The gameplay is really lacking in this title. If you must play this game get the Amiga or Atari ST versions. The others are not worth the time. A version was also planned for NES but was canceled before it was released. Possibly one of the reasons for Barbarian's popularity can be attributed to the appearance of British model Maria Whittaker who posed on the cover. There was also a sequel called Barbarian II in Europe and Axe of Rage in America, although it's more of an action adventure than a 2D fighter.

Barbarian (Atari ST)