Current Events > Why does Street Fighter 2 get so much nostalgia jerking

(+) Yeah! (+)

But Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter 3 are forgotten to time? u_u

Im mostly talking about the way SF2 gets referenced in things like Wreck it Ralph

SF2 kind of invented the genre and introduced a lot of mechanics (intentionally or otherwise) that still persist to this day. It's like asking why Pac-Mac gets so much attention when it isn't the only "navigate the maze" game out there.

Maybe because there were like 10+ versions of Street Fighter II alone.

SF2 is borderline revolutionary

Normies know SF2, they don't know the others

Forgotten? SF3 is hardly mentioned outside that Daigo match.

Was Street Fighter 3 a big deal when it came out or was everyone busy playing Final Fantasy 7?

I was an N64 kid so I didnt have it

Evolician posted...

Was Street Fighter 3 a big deal when it came out or was everyone busy playing Final Fantasy 7?

I was an N64 kid so I didnt have it

SF3 at launch almost killed Capcom. People remember "Third Strike" but that came out nearly 2 1/2 years after the base game came out. SF3 in general doing as poorly as it did is partially why Capcom took almost a decade before releasing SF4.

It's a positive feedback loop.

Mega Man 2 is not even in the top 20 Mega Man games, in my personal opinion, but it's the one everyone knows you're supposed to think is the best so it's the one everyone thinks is the best.

I'd wager most players haven't even played 20 Mega Man games. Most of them probably don't even know there are 20 Mega Man games.

Evolician posted...

Was Street Fighter 3 a big deal when it came out or was everyone busy playing Final Fantasy 7?

No, it basically took SF out of the mainstream until SF4.

I used to love the Alpha series so much and no one barely even knew it existed.

Street fighter 2 pretty much created what we call the fighting game genre, Almost every fighting game has borrowed from the base it created

Though i do admit i do wish that SF6 didn't pander so hard to the SF2 characters, Dhalsim, E-Honda, Zangief and Blanka do kinda bore me character wise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEdbR0jnfvQ

PballDepot posted...

No, it basically took SF out of the mainstream until SF4.

I used to love the Alpha series so much and no one barely even knew it existed.

Its unfortunate that the thing most known and remembered from the Alpha series is Chun Lis outfit

Evolician posted...

Was Street Fighter 3 a big deal when it came out or was everyone busy playing Final Fantasy 7?

Nope.

It was a combination of:

• The game dropping all of the previous characters except Ryu and Ken. (Chun-Li and Akuma were brought back in later versions, but it didn't really solve the issue.) In fact, neither Ryu or Ken were even planned to be in the game, but Capcom knew they needed a recognizable character for players to be interested.
• The game being overall slower than the Alpha series or the Marvel Vs. series.
• The game using sprites--albeit beautiful, very detailed and well-animated sprites--when the industry and the general audience saw sprites as very pass and were going all in on 3D graphics.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Yeah, both SF6 and Tekken 8 did the same thing with bringing back the main villain who was presented as being killed off for good in the prior entry. It's like, if they weren't going to stick with it, why even bother to begin with? (Even worse with Tekken 8, when they introduced Reina as Heihachi's successor.)

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Do you find Dhalsims are annoying to play against or are you just not a fan of the characters design

there was sf2 everywhere when I was a kid. alpha 3 and 3s were rare and came out when arcades weren't exactly dead but weren't quite alive either.

also every retro arcade Japan seemed to have entire aisles dedicated to sf2. it's just that iconic to the scene, I guess.

Solar_Crimson posted...

* The game using sprites--albeit beautiful, very detailed and well-animated sprites--when the industry and the general audience saw sprites as very pass and were going all in on 3D graphics.

It really is a shame because all the animations from Alpha and 3 are still beautiful.

Meanwhile the graphics from nearly every early 3D game have aged like dookie.

Evolician posted...

Was Street Fighter 3 a big deal when it came out or was everyone busy playing Final Fantasy 7?

I was an N64 kid so I didnt have it

For me personally, I didn't even know about SF3 until I saw the arcade at a bowling alley two years after it had came out. I don't recall ever seeing it in any video game magazines unlike some other fighting games that came out around the same time. IE Mortal Kombat 4, Marvel vs Capcom or Street Fighter EX.

And what didn't help is that the Dreamcast was the only console that it got ported to at the time.

I didn't know 3 and the Alpha games existed until a few years after they were a thing. I loved 2 as a kid so I would have been into whatever that came out after. Somehow I never heard about them.

My cousin had a Sega Dreamcast and it had a really fun Street Fighter game I used to play on it. Probably one of the most fun SF games I can remember playing, but I dont remember the name. It had a team building mechanic and after a match you could recruit the opponent to your team if you wanted to. Thats really the biggest thing I recall. I have always wanted to play that game again someday.

Evolician posted...

Meanwhile the graphics from nearly every early 3D game have aged like dookie.

Yep.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3ab3619f.jpg

What did SF2 do different to the original to the point it's lauded as inventing the genre?

haloiscoolisbak posted...

What did SF2 do different to the original to the point it's lauded as inventing the genre?

For one, SF2 was actually playable.

As I mentioned in another topic about my local expo today...

Starks posted...

Main hook is definitely going to be the Street Fighter 2 cabinets in a literal aircraft hangar so you can fulfil your Guile's Theme fantasies.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/53248377.jpg

haloiscoolisbak posted...

What did SF2 do different to the original to the point it's lauded as inventing the genre?

Have you looked into what Street Fighter 1 was like? If not, just watching a video should give you an idea. In addition to playability already mentioned, only Ryu (or Ken as 2nd player) could be played. All the other characters were computer controlled only.

s0nicfan posted...

SF3 at launch almost killed Capcom. People remember "Third Strike" but that came out nearly 2 1/2 years after the base game came out. SF3 in general doing as poorly as it did is partially why Capcom took almost a decade before releasing SF4.

Even Third Strike was not popular when it first came out. It took years for people to discover it and for it to gain the reputation it has for being a great competitive fighting game.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

What did SF2 do different to the original to the point it's lauded as inventing the genre?

If you've ever played SF1 and SF2 the difference is really apparent. The basic concept is there in SF1 but the control is really unresponsive. When attempting special moves it's just luck whether they come out or not even if you do the motion perfectly. The jerky animation also doesn't help. SF2 by comparison is much smoother and more responsive. There are also only two playable characters (Ryu and Ken) in SF1 vs. 8 characters in SF2.

It also helps that not only is it most people's first Street Fighter, but also has the best stage music.

Evolician posted...

Was Street Fighter 3 a big deal when it came out or was everyone busy playing Final Fantasy 7?

I was an N64 kid so I didnt have it

Nope. When it comes to fighting game players at the local arcades everyone was more about the 3D fighters like tekken (especially tekken 3) and soul calibur in comparison, or games with 3D graphics like killer instinct. Even mortal kombat started to flounder at the arcades since mortal kombat 4 was not good.

That is why capcom had their own 3D fighter attempts like star gladiator, rival schools, and the street fighter EX games. King of fighters was barely hanging on in certain regions in the world (definitely not in north america), but even that couldn't prevent SNK for hurting. The trendsetter with street fighter 2 now attempted to chase trends when it comes to 3D fighting games. Luckily for capcom though while their hit series street fighter was no longer the goliath it was at that point they just so happened to have struck gold with their brand new resident evil series and thus capcom priority shifted to resident evil n' survival horror (there was a time where even dino crisis popped off for a bit and got 3 games in succession. The demand for survival horror was definitely there) above everything else.

By the time the early 2000s came around that is when arcades in general started losing appeal with the mainstream video game audience (home consoles not only caught up to a arcade game's capabilities for arcade-perfect video game ports, but with the dreamcast home consoles started to flat-out surpass what a arcade can do with the dreamcast's port of soul calibur compared to the arcade original version. Arcades always had that appeal where the experience looked and sounded a whole lot cooler than what consoles was capable of, but when we got consoles like the dreamcast, the PS2, the gamecube and the xbox you no needed to go to the arcades to get those better than at home experiences.......for most genres anyway. Hydro thunder and time crisis in the arcades was awesome, lol).

Its hard to believe now but at the time of it's release majority of gamers didn't even care about something like marvel vs capcom 2. That was the fighting game community giving playtime and money to that. Fighting games as a genre whether 2D or 3D lost a lot of popularity during this time. Tekken tag tournament was doing ok, but it wasn't doing like, gang-buster sales numbers compared to games that was all the rage during the time period like halo and the all-encompassing GTA 3.

When street fighter 4 came out and was a huge success this game really was like a renaissance for the fighting game genre as a whole.

UnsteadyOwl posted...

Even Third Strike was not popular when it first came out. It took years for people to discover it and for it to gain the reputation it has for being a great competitive fighting game.

If you've ever played SF1 and SF2 the difference is really apparent. The basic concept is there in SF1 but the control is really unresponsive. When attempting special moves it's just luck whether they come out or not even if you do the motion perfectly. The jerky animation also doesn't help. SF2 by comparison is much smoother and more responsive. There are also only two playable characters (Ryu and Ken) in SF1 vs. 8 characters in SF2.

Also, SF2 added combos, albeit on accident, but it added them. And they were the missing piece in the fighting genre.

Shamino posted...

Also, SF2 added combos, albeit on accident, but it added them. And they were the missing piece in the fighting genre.

Yeah, I didn't want to list everything SF2 did that was an improvement but being able to cancel attacks into specials was a big thing that originated there. SF2 also added throws/grabs. That's a fundamental aspect of fighting games that SF1 didn't have at all.

I wonder how many fights started in the arcades over throws?

i was obsessed with it back in the day.

there wasnt a lot of anime-style media in the first place

all other fighting games were complete garbage before it came out

the music was awesome, and literally every character was actually iconic. Adom, Birdie, and Rolento just don't quite cut it.

I've never felt like SF3 didn't get a lot of attention. I remember being really impressed by it's animations. Same for Alpha1/2/3 when they came out as well!

Umbreon posted...

I wonder how many fights started in the arcades over throws?

That is the beauty of having to play against opponents in-person/not playing online......at best most people just kept their anger to theirselves instead of confronting the person that just whipped them and so silently shuffle away, at worst go punch a wall or something off to the side, and just go home salty as hell while complaining to the gaming friends or family about how cheap this character and their moves/throws/etc. in their opinion is.

Most people that were barely like 5 foot 7 and weighing no more than a wet paper sack (gotta' remember in the arcade's heydey the gamer stereotype was being super skinny compared to being rotund) weren't trying to actually get their ass kicked by the person right beside them if they started a serious argument about getting thrown, lol.

Gamers only really display that extra bravado and the most vicious shit-talking via the safety of online anonymity and their opponents on the opposite side of their online connection most likely being thousands of miles away.

Honestly I never actually seen a fight at the arcade before. Hell I don't even remember seeing shoves. (Yall remember that thing some dudes used to do before they fought....a couple of shoves back and forth, and then the thing where they press their chest against once another and start spinning in circles. Almost lookin' like a kiss was about to happen). People would talk smack, but it was always the more standard "I bet your ass that game bro", "bah you always doing that move (this is where the throw complaints was at, like with my childhood best friend's lol), and "you ain't good with that character, lol. Let's go" kind of stuff.

Nobody remembers the 3D SF games lol

Mortal Kombat 4 one of the jokiest games ever. They still did alright for themselves eventually. I was at the age to care about MK4 I just eh MK2 peaked and then there was the Trilogy and I was good. Anyhow to bring it back to SF2. That was the fighter at the time. Turbo or Movie edition *wink*

I remember reading EGMS and people asking when is Street Fighter 3 going to come out and there was a barrage of Street Fighter Alpha 2 and all this all stuff. I wonder if the teasing of a SF3 was part of the strategy. I doubt they'd be that self aware back then.

capcom's by far biggest fumble with alpha 3 was to never release the console version for newer platforms AND made it competitive by removing some of the insanely broken stuff

I am sure fight fans know the foibles of Capcom. How the first release of Street Fighter not only was it a bad game, but you had to physically slam and mash the button as hard as possible:

https://youtu.be/1RhCeOHrYoM?si=tNU9oG4pVoRaztVG

I tried to mark the moment. It's around 5:39. They made two different arcade machines. 7 minutes. I think is my point. Pressure sensitive. It wasn't how fast you could hit it but how hard you smashed it.

Here's a quick screen grab I did:

I know it isn't completely related to what SF2 became but the fact that well watch this video and here is a schematic: Hit the buttons harder do more lol this is really a thing I got stuck on.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/351693ca.jpg

TC must be a young buck to not know how revolutionary SF2 is

I feel like Third Strike is the one that competitive players won't shut up about. 2's characters are definitely iconic, but it's not like later entries don't have their share of beloved favorites

Because the initial versions of SF3 weren't all that great.

Street Fighter 2 was truly a revolutionary game that has stood the test of time, it will always be remembered whenever the title "street fighter" or the genre of fighting games is brought up

Thinking about it, part of it might also be that when SF2 was new that was pretty much the only time when new players could get into the genre and feel like they're on more or less equal footing with other people playing, because it was new to everybody. It quickly became a genre where serious players are going to far outclass someone just starting or just playing casually.

There's a fairly large set of people that spent an enormous part of their childhood feeding tokens/quarters into an arcade machine with a crowd of people around due to this game. It wasn't just a game, it was basically a social event. It forged entire communities and even started rivalries.

It was pretty amazing.

Karate Champ inspired the movie Bloodsport which inspired the games Street Fighter & Street Fighter 2