Street Fighter II #1 One of the most cloned fighting games and its effects on gameplay

Introduction

The original Street Fighter II is a famous fighting game. Players select from one of eight characters: Ryu, Ken, Blanka, E. Honda, Zangief, Chun Li, Guile, and Dhalsim to do battle with. They must then use their combat strengths to defeat the other seven fighters followed by four boss characters: M. Bison, Vega, Sagat, and Balrog. Each character represents a certain country and has their own reasons for wanting to win against the others.

Each character contains his own selection of basic fighting techniques based on three styles of punches and three styles of kicks. The effect of each of these changes depending on the characters orientation (ducking, airborne or standing still). Street Fighter 2 made famous the "button combination" style of gameplay used to unleash powerful moves specific to each character. These include the ability to project fireballs, channel electricity or capture the opponent in a tight suplex.

Street Fighter 2 is one of the most cloned fighting games and its effects on gameplay and fighting games specifically can not be understated. Street Fighter 2 is responsible for making popular several different elements.

Controls

D-Pad Down

Crouch

D-Pad Left/Right

Move character. Use Left and Right to make your controlled character move in those directions; depending on which side of the screen they are facing will make them move toward, or away from, their opponent.

Block when holding back and opponent is attacking. When an opponent is within close proximity and on the offensive, holding back on the D-Pad (i.e. the direction the opposite side of your opponent) will cause your character to block, and holding down + back together will block low attacks. Blocking regular attacks will keep your character safe from damage, however for special moves, a small amount of damage will be sustained.

D-Pad Up

Jump

Select

View button key on World Map screen

Start

Begin the game at the Title Screen

Confirm choices in menus

Pause the game during play/resume when paused

There are three different types of punch. The 'Jab' is performed with the Y button; it is the quickest to pull off but inflicts the least damage. The 'Strong' is performed with X; it is a little slower than a jab but deals more damage for a successful hit. Finally, the 'Fierce', performed with L, is slow, but deals the most damage of the three punch types.

A

Forward (medium kick)

B

Short (light kick)

X

Strong (medium kick)

Y

Jab (light kick)

L

Fierce (hard kick)

R

Roundhouse (hard kick)

Like punches, you also have three kick types. The same principle applies to kicks as do to punches; a 'Short', done with the B button, is the quickest but also the weakest. A 'Forward', done with A, is medium in both strength and quickness; and a 'Roundhouse', done with R, is slowest to pull off but is the strongest kick move.

Each character has one or more throw or hold moves that are executed by pressing the D-Pad direction against your opponent, together with a medium/hard punch or kick button. Some characters can do these moves in midair.

Dizzy Recovery: If your character takes a succession of hits and gets knocked down, they can get dizzy and thus left vulnerable to attack as the character is unable to move, attack or defend themselves in this state. Simply tap Left and Right on the D-Pad and attack buttons repeatedly to shake the dizziness off. There are two types of dizzy: Stars and Birds; the latter of which takes longer to shake off than the former.

Rules

Each fight consists of up to four rounds, fought in a 'Best-Of-3' style - basically the first fighter to claim two victorious rounds over their opponent is declared the winner of the bout. To win a round, you have to completely deplete the health bar of your opponent with the use of your attacks and special moves, while trying to prevent yours from being depleted also. Should you lose a fight, it is Game Over and you are taken to a countdown screen, where you have a 9-count to press Start to continue. Should you fail to respond to the countdown, you lose the game and will have to start from the beginning again. You do, however, have an unlimited amount of continues.

Winning a round is most often done by completely depleting your opponent's health meter, however it can also be done a second way; should you have a timer enabled, each round has a 99-second time limit. If no winner is declared within the time limit, whoever has the most health remaining will therefore be declared the winner of that round. However should both fighters have the same amount of health remaining at the end of a round when the time limit has expired, the round is declared a draw. Another way to draw a round is if both warriors, on low enough energy manage to hit each other at the exact same time, in effect knocking each other out. The round is declared a 'Double K.O.'. Drawing a round is the only possible way to get to a fourth round (known as 'Final Round/Round 4') in this game.

Final Round is merely a tie-breaker to determine a clear winner of the bout. There are no bonuses for winning, and should you still be deadlocked, you get Game Over.

Trivia

In the 1993 movie City Hunter starring Jackie Chan, there's a part where Jackie, who is playing private eye, fights villains on a shipboard. Accidentally he gets smashed into arcade machine... with Street Fighter II running on it. After electric shock he transforms into Honda, then Chun-Li, Guile, Dhalsim (stretching limbs included) and fights an enemy who transforms into Ken.

In the music video Juicy, by The Notorious BIG, he has a couple of homeboys play Street Fighter II for SNES on a big screen. Even in the song, after the chorus, he starts the third verse by saying: “Super Nintendo, SEGA Genesis, When I was dead broke, man I couldn't picture this!”

Remember the Sheng Long controversy? Whenever Ryu won a match he would say his trademark phrase just as anyone else, but his was a little more cryptic than the others: "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance" (???) Who the hell is Sheng Long?? That was what most western SF2 players though. The answer as usual was in a botched translation effort: Sheng Long is the chinese pronunciation of Sho-Ryu, as in Sho-Ryu-Ken, aka the Dragon Punch. Ryu was saying that you had to master his technique in order to beat him, but for some odd reason that we'll never know English, Chinese and Japanese got all mixed up in some poor translator's head and the "Sheng Long" was phonetically transcribed as it was, and coupled with Ryu's cryptic message gave the impression that he was talking about some hidden character.

The rumor flew around from day one (among other famous SF2 hoaxes like the one about you being able to ride Guile's Jet or beating up the bystanders in some stages), but it really spread like wildfire when as an april fool's joke EGM published an article about how there really was a secret character named Sheng Long unlockable via ungodly gaming prowess (beating all characters in "perfect" matches). Regardless of how ridiculous the rumor was, every kid out there (myself included) poured coins after coins in the SF2 machines and spent hours in front of the home versions in an effort to unlock said character. What did Capcom do? They watched as the money poured in by the shitloads! Ah.... Don't you miss when those things could happen in the fantastic world of videogames??

Tricks

Play with alternative colors

At the Capcom logo screen, press: Down, R, Up, L, Y, B.
If done correctly, you'll hear the sound that plays when selecting a character and the title screen's background will be blue. Now both players can use the same fighter. To use the Champion Edition color, press Start. If your opponent has chosen the same character before you but is using the original color, your fighter will automatically be dressed in their Champion Edition garb.

Cheat Codes

Blanka: Electric Shock

Hold Down and Press Y, Y, Y, Y, Y.

Chun Li - Rapid Kick

Quickly Press B, repeatedly, this will execute a ton of rapid kicks from Chun Li.

Championship Mode

To enter Championship Mode, wait for the Capcom logo, then press Down, R, Up, L, Y, B.

Chun Li - Spinning Bird Kick

Hold Down for 2 seconds, then Press Up + A.

Defeating Balrog

Select E. Honda as your character. Execute the "Hudred Hand Slap" move during the match. You will hit him before he is able to hit you everytime you execute this move.

E. Honda - Rapid Punch

Quickly Press Y, Y, Y, Y, Y. This will execute Rapid Punch.

Easy completion for first eight stages

Choose "Game Start" and select any character. Once your opponent is seen, remember that person and press STart on controller two. Select the person that would have been your opponent (remember from before?), now defeat that character. An X should appear on the place you fought at. Repeat those steps to easily complete the next 8 stages.

Guile - Flash Kick

Hold Down then Press Forward + B.

Have SFII as your initials.

Enter a blank entry for your intials to have SFII appear in their place.

Ken or Ryu - Dragon Fist

Hold Right for two seconds then press Down, Right, X, or Y.

Perfect Points.

30,000 Points - If you get a perfect on a normal player.
50,000 Points - if you get a perfect on a CPU Boss.
80,000 points - if you get a perfect on M. Bison.

Special Ending

Set the diffuculty to the highest level and choose any fighter. Complete the game without using a continue. You will view a special ending.

View Profiles

Wait for the first character profile to appear after the game starts. Hold L + R on controller two to keep the profile on the screen. Continue to hold the buttons to view more profiles.

Zangief - Special Move

Spinning Pile Driver - Press Down, Down, Down, Forward, Up, Forward, Punch.

Controller Configuration

Hold Select as the first match begins. The controller configuration screen will appear for you to change.

CPU Vs. CPU

Want to see computers battle it at? Select tournament mode, highlight the End selection, and press Start. The CPU will control both player in the patches. Press any button to speed up the current match.

Defeating Any Opponent

Go to the options screen, and set the game to no time limit. Set the diffuculty level on 0, the nexit the options. Select one of the following fighters to go faster: Ken, Ryu, Blanka, Zangief, or Chun Li. Defeating M. Bison is easier then Sagat.

Defeating Sagat

Select Ryu or Ken. Do the fireball when the round begins. The fireball is a faster move then the Sagat's Tiget move. When he jumps over you, press R to do a kick to stop him. Then guess what? Do the fireball again. Repeat.

Ken/Ryu - Spinning Kick

Hold Down then Press Back, B, this will execute Spinning Kick.

No Information Bars

Power on the SNES, enter the options screen the nexit the options screen. Repeat this 26 times, then start a match.

Player Vs. Player Championship

Press Down, R, Up, L, Y, B when the Capcom logo appears before the title screen. The screen will turn blue to confirm correct code entry. Enter Vs. Battle mode. Press Start to change the color of the fighters' costumes or A to keep them identical.

See Character Specific Endings

Enable the Player vs. Player championship code. Press Start + R before the screen fades after beating M. Bison.

Sound Test

Check out some new sounds for SFII. You can change the sound effects in the Options Mode by pushing the R button rapidly on either 25, 26, or 27. You'll hear some new sound effects on 1f through 23.

View Profiles

At any character profile screen hold L + R on Controller Two. Now you can access all the profile screens without interruption.

Different Clothing on the Characters

When turning on the game, wait till it says “CAPCOM” and rapidly enter the following code: Down, R, Up, L, Y, and B. The screen with the street fighter logo will now turn blue. Select any character but instead of pressing A, press Start

Same character in 2-player mode

When the “Capcom” logo comes up, quickly press Down, R, Up, L, Y, B before it disappears. Then go into VS Mode and now you can play the same characters at the same time! Note: The second character will be slightly stronger than the original and will wear different clothing.