FIGHTING STREET (PCE)
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a.k.a Street Fighter
Publisher: Capcom. Developer: Capcom. Released: 1988. Genre: 2D beat 'em up. Other versions: AMI; SPC; CPC; C64; PC. Posted 6th January 2013. By Chris Weatherley © 2013 |
Although it was to become a phenomenal worldwide success, the Street Fighter franchise started out with a humble and often forgotten title, the juggernaut of Street Fighter 2 quickly consigning it to relative obscurity. In fact, many who played SF2 ignored the ‘2’ in its title, never once pondering what preceded it. Four years before the pocket money-rinsing cabinet of The World Warrior turned up in arcades, the inaugural Street Fighter did the rounds to a muted reception. Although you only had one generic fighter to play as, and a limited amount of moves available, Capcom knew they were onto something special. Street Fighter laid out the early vital ideas and basic style that was to make its sequels so popular, such as the six button control system and iconic special move commands. Ported to several 8-bit systems to a mostly negative reaction, the 1988 Turbografx-16 version, with its pseudo 16-bit tech, was the closest to the coin-op, and replicated the arcade game rather accurately. Oddly, it was renamed Fighting Street for release and accentuated the faults of the arcade original to boot, thus securing its plunge into the gaming abyss.
On first impression, things look promising. A title screen echoing the arcade with the familiar Street Fighter typeface, which would become a permanent feature with the following titles. The graphics on the whole are pretty good if little understated, with all the elements included from the coin-op. The sprites are well designed, distinctive and animated nicely, and the intro and link screens are identical to the original. The stage backgrounds suffer from being a little drab and flat, and unlike the sequel, completely static. Some are not badly presented, but the majority are unimpressive, lacking detail and coloured poorly. I’m not in favour of the colour palette one bit; far too much cream and brown means it doesn’t jump out and grab your attention. This is not helped by the occasional colour clash with the sprites. Our protagonist, the infamous Ryu has the look we are all familiar with; wearing his white Keikogi and headband, looking a little young and jaded in his fighting infancy with a shocking flock of red hair. The same can be said about his American duplicate Ken (who you can only play as in two-player mode), the black eyebrow and blonde hair combination ever present. What removes several more brownie points from the visuals are the weird glitches; sprites suddenly face the other way sometimes, and even become immobile for a second or so, and this takes its toll on the gameplay.
On first impression, things look promising. A title screen echoing the arcade with the familiar Street Fighter typeface, which would become a permanent feature with the following titles. The graphics on the whole are pretty good if little understated, with all the elements included from the coin-op. The sprites are well designed, distinctive and animated nicely, and the intro and link screens are identical to the original. The stage backgrounds suffer from being a little drab and flat, and unlike the sequel, completely static. Some are not badly presented, but the majority are unimpressive, lacking detail and coloured poorly. I’m not in favour of the colour palette one bit; far too much cream and brown means it doesn’t jump out and grab your attention. This is not helped by the occasional colour clash with the sprites. Our protagonist, the infamous Ryu has the look we are all familiar with; wearing his white Keikogi and headband, looking a little young and jaded in his fighting infancy with a shocking flock of red hair. The same can be said about his American duplicate Ken (who you can only play as in two-player mode), the black eyebrow and blonde hair combination ever present. What removes several more brownie points from the visuals are the weird glitches; sprites suddenly face the other way sometimes, and even become immobile for a second or so, and this takes its toll on the gameplay.
The enigmatically named Player1 and Enemy do battle
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What's Ryu's favourite takeaway? Hadoken Chips! You've heard that one?!
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Before I delve into these playability issues however, an appreciative nod to the audio is warranted. For a title released in the 80s, the amount of sampled speech used in Fighting Street is quite impressive. Nearly all the sound bites from the arcade are included, and while some of these are a little inaudible and distorted, they still have the desired effect to put a grin on your face. The BGM is good too if a little unbalanced, with different tunes for each stage and faithful reproduction of the menu and intro sequences. These short pieces are edited, simplified and somewhat sharply cut, but still very good. The SFX are hit and miss; the shouts and groans of the fighters are fine, but the impact and movement sounds are a bit cheap and silly. For instance, no SFX at all would have been better to indicate a knockout, instead of a strange misplaced dull bleep. Other odd bleeps and pings pop up unnecessarily, which is annoying to a degree, but can be ignored for the most part.
Probably what makes the original Street Fighter so forgettable is its lacklustre game mechanics and inconsistent pacing, something its sequel would banish completely. The general movements of the fighters are okay, and the ideas put into the game have potential, but were not fully realised or executed correctly until the next title. Firstly, blocking is difficult to perform, as are any of Ryu’s three well-known special moves. The theoretical system of performing these actions is fine, but the game engine just cannot respond quickly enough to your button presses. This was a notable fault of the arcade version, and it’s made worse on the TG-16. With the six-button controls in place, the arcade was easy to get to grips with; this version makes things far too frustrating and cumbersome as you cannot perform the moves that you want too, when you want too.
Probably what makes the original Street Fighter so forgettable is its lacklustre game mechanics and inconsistent pacing, something its sequel would banish completely. The general movements of the fighters are okay, and the ideas put into the game have potential, but were not fully realised or executed correctly until the next title. Firstly, blocking is difficult to perform, as are any of Ryu’s three well-known special moves. The theoretical system of performing these actions is fine, but the game engine just cannot respond quickly enough to your button presses. This was a notable fault of the arcade version, and it’s made worse on the TG-16. With the six-button controls in place, the arcade was easy to get to grips with; this version makes things far too frustrating and cumbersome as you cannot perform the moves that you want too, when you want too.
Capcom also learned a lot = they made Street Fighter II
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Ryu is a wanted man after stealing Dorothy's slippers
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Chiefly responsible for this is the control system. As the original TG-16 controllers only had two action buttons, the strength of the punches and kicks are dictated by how long you hold the button down for. As the action is frantic at the best of times, this setup simply does not work well, and eventually it boils down to just hammering away at the buttons randomly, removing much of the skill or precision to the gameplay. This also applies to performing the special moves, as they barely seem to work when commanded correctly, and again you resort to sweeping the D-pad repeatedly hoping that elusive fireball to shoot out. Almost all of the basic moves can be used effectively as required, but there are problems even with this. Jumping into the air to perform a flying kick sometimes results in the kick failing to happen, and then upon landing Ryu performs an unplanned roundhouse. This normally leads to a smack in the face courtesy of your opponent. There is also an element of unfairness too. Hard hits from enemies take far too much energy away; you can be KO’ed in three hits sometimes. All these issues result in unpredictable sprite behaviour and bouts ending in seconds, adding to your frustration.
I can appreciate Fighting Street’s attempt to replicate its arcade counterpart; graphically and acoustically this is partially achieved, but no effort to improve the playability has been made. The coin-op had inherent gameplay problems making it only likable for hardcore beat’ em up devotees, the TG-16 not only heightens these issues, but adds another with a clumsy and somewhat unresponsive control system. The later control pads for the console had six buttons; maybe that game should have been only designed for these. Despite being a rather mediocre affair, it’s fair to remember Street Fighter/Fighting Street because it’s ultimately the genesis of the Street Fighter series. It did have the original key ideas, style and characters that were to make its follow-ups so popular, so famed and so imitated. A title that should not be distinguished by its own lax quality but by what it spawned in its wake.
I can appreciate Fighting Street’s attempt to replicate its arcade counterpart; graphically and acoustically this is partially achieved, but no effort to improve the playability has been made. The coin-op had inherent gameplay problems making it only likable for hardcore beat’ em up devotees, the TG-16 not only heightens these issues, but adds another with a clumsy and somewhat unresponsive control system. The later control pads for the console had six buttons; maybe that game should have been only designed for these. Despite being a rather mediocre affair, it’s fair to remember Street Fighter/Fighting Street because it’s ultimately the genesis of the Street Fighter series. It did have the original key ideas, style and characters that were to make its follow-ups so popular, so famed and so imitated. A title that should not be distinguished by its own lax quality but by what it spawned in its wake.
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