Way back when I was in junior high school, around 1990, I was playing a game called Golden Axe. Sega Genesis just hit the home console market and Golden Axe was the craze. 

Next to that arcade game was a game called Street Fighter. A few people were playing this game but I never got in to it. It only let you pick two characters and the two characters had the same Identical moves. Who knew their names would grow to become legends? Not me. 

I was more interested in taking down Death Adder, rather than learning Ryu and Ken moves. I saw the last boss in that game, a kick boxing champion named Sagat. He was pale in comparison to Death Adder, and in the Genesis version Death Bringer. 

Over my summer vacation I went to Coney Island Astroland Park. I went into the arcade section and I saw this game where this green beast was fighting a Green Beret. “Sonic Boom” the Green Beret said. I was amazed. Then I saw a Super Skinny guy stretching his arms and legs, like Mr. Fantastic from Fantastic 4, fighting with a Sumo wrestler. The Sumo then used a slap that hit the skinny guy three times before the skinny guy could recover. I had to leave after I saw the match because my parents were ready to go. But the images were burned into my head.

I only saw that game one time over the summer but I remembered everything. When I got to high school and met up with some of my friends from my old junior high and they were talking about this game called Street Fighter 2. Well when we met up after school in our old hangout spot that game Street Fighter 2 had already been delivered.

It was staring me in the face. It was like the arcade machine was challenging me. I first responded to the challenge and I was fighting this dude who had Ryu. He had great control over Ryu’s arsenal. I had Guile. I didn’t know how to do anything. so I ask the dude “Hey man How do u know all these moves?”

He said “I played the first game and all of Ryu’s moves are the same from the 1st game!” I said what first game? I don’t remember anything like this. He said “You don’t remember Street fighter, the skinny kid with red hair saying Dragon Punch?” I said that game is related to this game? He said “Yeah this is the sequel… Street Fighter 2!”

All the quarters that I spent on Golden Axe, I felt was wasted after that statement. So the guy showed me how to do the Fireball, Hurricane kick, and the feared Dragon Punch. 

Street Fighter 2 took over the gaming world. The final 4 Bosses were Balrog who in Japan is Known as M. Bison, Vega who in Japan is known as Balrog, Sagat from the first game, and M. Bison who is known as Vega in Japan. 

People wondered why those characters were unplayable. Capcom answered those questions with the release of Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition. The first game to let you play with the four previously unplayable characters in 1992. 

They also released Street Fighter 2 on Super Nintendo home console. Street Fighter 2 was literally taking over. I went to school and it was there. I came home it was there. It was everywhere. During this time there were games trying to compete with Street Fighter. Fatal Fury was the 1st game to challenge SF2 dominance, but it only let you pick three characters. 

Street Fighter had a whopping twelve characters. No contest. Fatal Fury went and remodeled. Fatal Fury 2 had twelve characters and SNK had also released Samurai Showdown. This game brought ten characters and the first weapon based fighting game. These games are significant because they challenge Street fighter literally in Capcom VS SNK. 

Capcom released Street Fighter 2 Hyper Fighting in 93. They added a Fireball to Chun Li’s arsenal. But no real changes after that. This is when people started to switch to different games Like Mortal Kombat and Tekken. 

Mortal Kombat brought ultra real blood and guts graphics and fatalities. Tekken brought polygon graphics and a 3-D fighting arena. Casual fans Decided to switch to the other games while hardcore gamers were still brawling with Street Fighter. 

In 1994 Super Street Fighter was Released, and it was the introduction of Akuma who replaces Bison as the Final Boss. Akuma had an outrageous move called “The Raging Demon.” 

This move sucked the majority of life out of you. He also has all of Ryu’s moves and he has an air Fireball. He was the ultimate boss at that time. We spent countless quarters trying to defeat him. 

Super Street Fighter also addressed their Rivals. Fei Long was Capcom answer to Lui Kang from Mortal Kombat and Law from Tekken. Dee Jay was Capcom answer for Eddy Gordo. Eddy Gordo was the 1st character to use Capoeira as his fighting style. Eddy was converting Street Fighting fans at a rapid pace. 

He brought originality as people were getting tired of Street Fighter 2 remakes. Eddy moves can only be done in a 3-D environment. Also the Playstation was being released in 1995 and the arcade games were being converted flawlessly at this time. 

Arcade was slowly but surely dying as games were coming straight to home consoles. Street Fighter went under a three year hiatus. Then Street Fighter 3 Resurfaced in 97. It didn’t have all the familiar characters and that led to Tekken 4 becoming the Fighting game of choice as they added new characters while keeping the old ones that people grew to love. 

Tekken also had a story that is very original. The grandfather hates his son, who hates his son, who hates his grandfather. 

It’s the most dysfunctional family in gaming! 

So while Tekken was making Playstation a household name Capcom was turning its attention to Marvel. Capcom released X-men vs Street Fighter. Then Capcom Released Street Fighter Alpha. Alpha introduced us to Charlie and explained how Bison killed him by throwing him off the Cliff. Capcom made a Trilogy of the Alpha Series. Capcom also released Marvel vs Capcom. This game was a big success but was nowhere near the Early Success of Street Fighter 2 or the Tekken series. Capcom then released Capcom vs SNK. This game was Street Fighter VS all its SNK competition. 

Another clever move by Capcom as they still kept Streetfighter alive by changing their opponents. They released Sequels for both Marvel and SNK versions. It was just 2009 that Capcom released Streetfighter 4. Reinventing the graphics and adding new moves. The story was also fine tooled and takes place after Street Fighter 2 and is a Prequel to Street Fighter 3. This game introduce new characters while bringing back all the favorites. 

This game rejuvenated the Street Fighter franchise. in less than two weeks Street Fighter vs Tekken is coming out to answer all the questions of who is the most dominant fighting game.