Capcom
Street Fighter II

Summer 1992. I'm hanging out with friends at the village bar that hosts my pre-teen vacations, still far from puberty but completely addicted to arcade game bits, when I notice it. It's in the middle of the small game room and a cursing kid is violently using the directional joystick, egged on by other pimply kids who reek of second-hand smoke. I read on the side of the cabinet: Street Fighter II. I couldn't know that my gaming life would change forever. In the days to come, we spent tons of coins on that red slot. By the end of the vacation, we realized that only thanks to our contribution, the bar owner was able to replace his old natural gas Fiorino with a brand new Croma.

The karatekas Ryu and Ken, the monstrous Brazilian Blanka, the sexy and wild Chun Li, the Indian yogi Dhalsim, the hefty Rikishi Honda wearing a tiny mawashi, or the gigantic Russian communist Zangief, without tattoos but full of scars, the American Guile, with his big blonde crest. We were always undecided about whom to choose and kept little notes in our pockets to remember how to execute special moves. Scattered notes here and there, derived from experience or the pages of Console Mania.“Hadoken”, the “Wave Motion Fist” was the move everyone knew but few could pull off. A half-moon and a punch on the button. It seemed easy, but it required great coordination. Statistically, the most popular characters were Ryu and Ken, two different twins separated at birth (actually great childhood friends), coming from the distant shores of a shared ocean. Both practice Ansatsuken (shotokan karate), one in Japan, the other in the States. Whom to choose? That was a true Freudian dilemma, which ultimately gave way solely to trendy currents and led us to lean towards the son of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Branded Capcom, the Street Fighter saga is still among the queens of the scrolling beat 'em up category. In 2008, it received three awards in as many categories and was included in that year's Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition book. This second 2D chapter remains, in my opinion, the most fun and iconic. Besides being the best-selling title of the Japanese company ever, it also has the merit of inspiring many future video games. The screen, with few but essential moving sprites in the background, made the locations hosting the challenge very compelling, relative to the few bits and the graphic quality that the era could offer.

The plot (it surely exists) tells us that this second chapter is set nine years after the first and seven years after the Alpha series.

The evil General Bison, leader of Shadaloo (a ruthless criminal organization), aims to become even more powerful and decides to organize a worldwide martial arts tournament, the Street Fighter Tournament II. His intention is to identify and defeat the strongest fighter in the world and possess their psyche, thus becoming an invincible being.

The fighters are selected by Bison from those who stood out the most in previous tournaments (the reference is to the Alpha series). Every participant is driven by a personal motive. Some fight to investigate Shadaloo or to annihilate Bison as revenge for his crimes. There are also those who do it solely for fame, glory, and money or to acquire the powers of the General. And there are those who fight to have a rematch with other tournament fighters, as in the case of Ryu against the Thai Sagat.

We realized our familiarity with the game and the chosen character was growing when, after defeating a couple of opponents, we could attempt the demolition of a gray Lexus LS400, merely to collect points. It might have been one thing to demolish the body of the Japanese flagship with kicks, through boots large enough to hold an umbrella stand, differently, it became surreal when doing it barehanded through a whirlwind of slaps. But it was extremely gratifying and failing to complete the demolition did not affect our progress towards the tournament victory.

The very first version of the game allowed us to choose only the eight canonical characters. Capcom never produced a third chapter but developed several versions of the second (seven to be precise, including the fifteenth-anniversary celebratory one). From the second chapter, "Champion Edition", it was possible to also choose the antagonist characters who were previously "locked" (Vega, Sagat, Balrog, and M.Bison, part of Shadaloo), have a two-player challenge selecting the same character, as well as combine with each choice color variations for clothes or uniforms. Subsequently, with the version “The New Challengers” of 1993, additional protagonists were added (Cammy, Fei Long, Thunder Hawk, and Dee Jay) and some moves were varied. It must be said that each version received improvements or modifications in terms of gameplay and speed, also and especially to increase the appeal.

Two films were made in 1994. An animated one, "Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie" and a live-action “Street Fighter – The Final Challenge” starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile and Kylie Minogue as soldier Cammy. The latter was under the employ of the ruthless M.Bison, played by the never-forgotten Raúl Juliá (who was also the best Gomez Addams ever). A year later came an anime with 29 episodes, "Street Fighter II V", also aired in Italy. In our country, a comic book series published by Italycomics was released, now hard to find.

I would say that since the arcade days, this video game has come a long way and seen many punches and kicks.

After 1991, the year of the arcade release, Street Fighter II spread widely into our homes through personal computers and especially with the commercialization of 16 and 64-bit consoles (Sega, Nintendo). A Sega Mega Drive or a Nintendo 64 might arrive for Christmas, a birthday, or even as a reward for a good report card. A Neo Geo (our myth, unattainable for almost everyone) we could only dream about. The cartridges (we called them that at the time) were made to annihilate our monthly allowances. And so loans would start, bartering with friends, when cash was already almost no longer available, and a festive Saturday night was in sight. I remember the most interesting and expensive games were the prerogative of friends with divorced parents. Their parents' guilt worked wonders. As for me, my parents were very close even then, the allowance was very low, and the games in the drawer were always the same, to the point they were no longer tradable.

Gradually, the passion for video games turned into a passion (or rather obsession) for women. And if money was already scarce, ça va sans dire...

Thirty summers have passed, interests have changed, video games too, but those eight brawlers and their tournament still remain today in the hearts of us genre enthusiasts. We wear t-shirts, keep gadgets on our desks even though it seems absurd, yet we no longer play Street Fighter II.

We lack the time, the console with the game inside is missing, but the desire never lacks. But let's not despair, we will have a way to introduce Ryu and his gang to our children. Provided they don't then ask us for an allowance increase.