“Gimme your hand, fool!” The good, the bad and the ugly from the world of Street Fighter!

If you love nothing more than laying the virtual smackdown on your best buds, then chances are you’ve taken at least one Street Fighter game for a spin at some point. 

Since its inception way back in 1987, Capcom’s fighting franchise has become synonymous with the intense button bashing brawls that make this genre so compelling, morphing into an absolute media franchise that has spawned countless sequels, a cringeworthy film teeming with unintentional hilarity and even an esports discipline.

So, as yet another Street Fighter title hits the shelves, we thought there’s no better time than the present to look back at everything this franchise has served up down the years.

Contents:

• Street Fighter
• Street Fighter II
• Street Fighter X Tekken
• Street Fighter: The Movie
• Ultra Street Fighter IV

Street Fighter

Time to strap yourselves into the Delorean for this week’s first entry as we take a trip back to 1987 and the “golden age” of arcades with, you’ve guessed it, the original Street Fighter.

However, whilst this franchise has since become the stuff of gaming legend, this title wasn’t initially a smash hit upon release. In the original version of this game, players could control either Ryu or Ken, using an 8-way joystick to move around and 2 buttons for kicks and punches, which would perform different moves based on how hard you pressed them.

Realising the error of their ways, Capcom revamped the controls with the release of a 6-button control system, which laid the foundations for the modern Street Fighter control system that we all know and love today.

Street Fighter II

We shift our attention now to Street Fighter’s direct successor (achievement unlocked +10,000 predictability points), Street Fighter II, which built upon the achievements of its predecessor to produce a compelling beat ‘em up that packed a serious punch.

In addition to the introduction of a combo system, perhaps the most significant innovation which Street Fighter II brought to the table was an expanded roster of fighters, each of which with their own fighting style, a feature which would later become a mainstay of other fighting games such as Namco’s Tekken series.

As a result, this title became one of the most successful games of all time, selling more than 200,000 arcade cabinets and 15 million software units worldwide. What’s more, its fiendishly popular two-player mode shifted competitive gaming away from beating high scores towards head-to-head competition, inspiring grassroots tournaments, such as Evolution Championship Series (EVO) in the process.

Street Fighter X Tekken

Given how synonymous both Street Fighter and Tekken are with the world of beat ‘em ups it seemed like it was only a matter of time before the world of Namco and Capcom’s premier fighting franchises would collide in a crossover title.

As the name would suggest, Street Fighter X Tekken transports the likes of Heihachi, Kazuya, Jin and Law into the 2d world of Street Fighter. Whilst playing with Tekken’s household names in a Street Fighter game wasn’t without its appeal and this game attracted praise from critics, it also courted its fair share of controversy when it was revealed Capcom’s release of DLC for this title meant players were essentially paying to play as characters who were already on the game disc.

What’s more, Namco was also slated to produce their own take of this crossover called Tekken X Street Fighter, which would use Tekken mechanics as the basis of its gameplay. However, development for this project was put on ice way back in 2016 and doesn’t show any signs of resuming any time soon.

Street Fighter: The Movie

There’s no nice way of saying it, Street Fighter: The Movie was pretty craptacular as all it really had to offer viewers was bundles of unintentional hilarity. 

So, it’s quick fitting that the video game which bears it’s name is widely viewed as the black sheep of the Street Fighter franchise. Whilst it wasn’t actually that terrible a game and was still quite fun to play, it didn’t offer gamers anything new and was about as shallow as a paddling pool.

Ultra Street Fighter IV

Last but not least, we’ve got what’s arguably the most complete recent Street Fighter game, Ultra Street Fighter IV.

Released 5 years after Street Fighter IV first saw the light of day, Ultra SF breathed new life into this game’s winning formula with a whole host of daring new additions, such as a cast rebalance, offline match recording and, arguably, most crucially, W-Ultra, which doubled your smackdown options by giving you access to both of your character’s ultra combos rather than one or the other.

Add tasty visuals and gripping basic gameplay into the mix and you’ve got the recipe for what’s arguably the best Street Fighter game to date.