Street Fighter

Did You Know?

• Irish software company CryptoLogic released a Street Fighter II slot machine themed after the series.
• White Wolf released Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game in 1994, using mechanics from the World of Darkness games.
• Daigo Umehara holds a Guinness World Record for the most successful player in major tournaments of Street Fighter.

Games

The first Street Fighter, designed by Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto, was released as an arcade game in 1987. Players control martial artist Ryu in a worldwide tournament across five countries against 10 opponents, with a second player able to control Ken Masters. The game features three punch and kick attacks varying in speed and strength, plus three special attacks—Hadōken, Shōryūken, and Tatsumaki Senpūkyaku—executed through joystick and button combinations. It was ported to home computers including MS-DOS, released on the TurboGrafx-16 CD as Fighting Street by Hudson Soft in 1987, and later included in compilations such as Capcom Classics Collection: Remixed (2005) and Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection (2018). Street Fighter II, released in 1991 after an unsuccessful attempt to brand Final Fight as a sequel, was one of the earliest arcade games for Capcom's CP System hardware, designed by Akira Nishitani and Akira Yasuda. It was the first one-on-one fighting game to let players choose from multiple characters with unique moves, each having approximately 30 or more moves including grappling and throws, plus two or three special attacks. In single-player mode, the player faces the seven other main characters then four CPU-controlled bosses; a second player can join anytime for competitive matches.

Other media

An anime film, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie by Group TAC, was released theatrically in Japan in 1994, with an English adaptation by Manga Entertainment on home video in 1995. Group TAC also produced the TV series Street Fighter II V (1995) and the OVA Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie (1999), both adapted into English by Manga Entertainment, though ADV Films produced an early English adaptation of Street Fighter II V for the UK. An American animated TV series, Street Fighter, produced by InVision Entertainment, aired on USA Network from 1995 to 1997, focusing on Guile leading a group against Bison. A second OVA, Street Fighter Alpha: Generations, was produced for the English market by Studio A.P.P.P. in 2005. The short educational film Street Fighter: Return to the Fujiwara Capital (2004) features Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and E.Honda learning Japanese history with no battle scenes, released only in Japan. The OVA Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind was released by Studio 4°C in 2009, directed by Jirō Kanai, included in the Collector's Edition of Street Fighter IV for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Reception

Capcom's Street Fighter series kicked off in August 1987. By 2014, home software sales had reached 35 million units, climbing to 46 million by 2021. Over 500,000 arcade cabinets were sold, generating more than $1 billion in revenue. As of 2014, it was Capcom's second-biggest franchise after Resident Evil; it now ranks third in software sales behind Resident Evil and Monster Hunter. The standout title is Street Fighter II, which earned over $10 billion in total gross revenue, mostly from arcades, and sold more than 14 million cartridges on Super NES and Sega Genesis. As of 2017, it stands as one of the three highest-grossing Japanese arcade blockbusters ever, trailing only Taito's Space Invaders and Namco's Pac-Man. In 1994, while promoting Super Street Fighter II, Capcom called the series "the most successful video game series of the decade."

In popular culture

Street Fighter influenced mixed martial arts; the first Ultimate Fighting Championship event in 1993 was promoted as a real-life fighting video game tournament alongside Super Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat II. Street Fighter II has been sampled and referenced in hip hop music, beginning with Hi-C's 'Swing'n' (1993) and DJ Qbert's 'Track 10' (1994), and the Street Fighter film soundtrack (1994) was the first major film soundtrack to consist almost entirely of hip hop. According to Vice magazine, the series' mixture of competition, bravado, and individualism translates into rap. Grime MCs such as Dizzee Rascal sampled Street Fighter II in 2002, and it has been sampled by almost every grime MC, becoming integral to BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ Charlie Sloth's Fire in the Booth freestyle segments using sounds like 'Hadouken' and 'Perfect'.