When Street Fighter II hit arcades in 1991 it was the first of it’s kind. A highly competitive one on one fighting game that brought with it insanely deep controls and gameplay and an instantly memorable cast of characters from around the world. There’s Ryu and Ken, two martial arts masters and best friends from across the globe who love to slap one another around. The Indian yoga master Dhalsim and the Russian bear-wrestling Zangief. The Japanese sumo E. Honda. The all American solider Guile and Chinese spy Chun-Li, both out for revenge. And who could forget the freak of nature Blanka, from the jungles of Brazil. Each awesome character is perfectly balanced with their own unique style and list of special moves to master. Move’s that require timing and skill to perform. Directional motions on the joystick, the now famous quarter circle from down to forward plus a punch to toss Ryu’s Ha-Do-Ken fireball. Charge down for two seconds then tap up and a kick to unleash Guile’s Somersault Kick. The game’s balance, loveable roster and incredibly deep controls redefined the fighting game genre forever and have been imitated ever since.

Fans eagerly awaited a home release of Street Fighter II, which I think is the game responsible for the “pre buy”. When it made it’s debut on July 01, 1992 exclusively on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System it marked a historic day in gaming. It was a turning point in the current “home console war”. It’s release dealt a crushing blow to the SNES’s main competitor, the Sega Genesis. If you didn’t want an SNES before, you would now. Street Fighter II madness had taken over homes and Nintendo had it right by their side exclusively, for two full years.

In the early 90’s home consoles making a game “arcade prefect” or creating an exact port of a current arcade machine wasn’t a question. New arcade games just couldn’t properly be emulated on a home system. The consoles had their limits. So the fact that this SNES version was missing animations, had lower quality audio samples and smaller characters with less detail didn’t matter much. The graphics were still great for home, arguably the best on a console when it was released. Capcom did a smart thing by releasing the game on one of the biggest cartridges to date, 16 Megs. It helped make this port as close to the arcade it could be in 1992. The size did bring with it a higher price as well with the game retailing for $84.00! It mattered not. The most important thing was that you were able to play Street Fighter II against a friend on your couch, for free.

An arcade stick was released by Capcom called the “Power Stick Fighter”, for any fan missing that arcade feeling but it really wasn’t needed. The control on the regular SNES pad worked surprisingly well for fighting games. It is one of the best overall controllers ever, so it’s really no suprise.