Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme) by Hungry Clicker

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection - Retrospective Series: Street Fighter & Street Fighter II

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection / Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition - NEXT ON

Released just in time to completely miss the actual 30th birthday of the original Street Fighter's debut, Capom's Street Fighter Anniversary Collection brings together the obstinate 1987 arcade cabinet as well as eleven of its sequels, including series best installments like Street Fighter II' Turbo: Hyper Fighting and Street Fighter III 3rd Strike: Fight for the Future.

Capcom and curator devs Digital Eclipse have, thankfully, resisted the urge to repaint and reorganise these classics, delivering them in a package not unlike Hamster's wonderful Arcade Archives series. The only thing holding this suite back from being absolutely perfect is the omission of the various Alpha series revisions, like Zero 2 Dash or Zero 3 Double Upper. Also headed our way in 2018 is Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, a rebalanced and expanded re-issue designed to banish the collective memory of the title's original, criminally undernourished 2016 release.

Sakura by Giannis Milonogiannis

Street Fighter by Corey Lewis

20XX's Seventh Gen Favs #3 - Street Fighter IV

Despite creating the excellent polygon scrapper Rival Schools, Capcom has always struggled to translate its premier fighter franchise into a viable 3D property. During the fifth and sixth generations the Street Fighter licence was farmed out to Arika, a dev studio full of ex-Capcom staff, for the short-lived Street Fighter EX series. EX was a love-it or loathe-it side-step, hobbled out the gate in Europe thanks to lousy 50Hz conversions. Regardless, even on 60Hz import the results never touched contemporary 2D instalments. After the wonderful, but undersubscribed, Street Fighter III series it seemed like Ryu and friends were being slowly relegated to nostalgia prompts in big-budget franchise clashes.

The Street Fighter series unexpectedly bounced back in summer 2008 with the arcade release of Street Fighter IV, spearheaded by Yoshinori Ono and The Rumble Fish developer Dimps. Street Fighter IV ditched the arena roaming of modern fighters, instead sticking to 2D planes with 3D assets. The vast cast were rendered as chunky, colourful, charm lumps, blessed with spectacular ultra move movies, and Looney Tunes injury faces. Everything old was new again. Since then the basic gameplay has been tugged and tweaked over five distinct iterations, each designed for maximum scrutiny. At the beginning of this generation Street Fighter was washed up and bled dry. Likewise, the game's parent company Capcom has struggled since the departure of high-profile talents like Shinji Mikami and Hideki Kamiya. That the Street Fighter brand was resurrected so completely during this tumultuous period is nothing short of miraculous. Let's hope Capcom can eventually get their shit together long enough to do the same for the mouldering Resident Evil series.

HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER

This PS4 viral probably heralds an imminent Ultra Street Fighter IV announcement for Sony's new system. The console could do with a beefier fight game library - a tarted up Injustice: Gods Among Us just isn't cutting it. Wouldn't it be fun if it was something a little more left field though? The abundant 16-bit sound samples are probably for recognition's sake, but an upscaled HD Hyper Street Fighter II or the original 1987 Street Fighter rebuilt in the IV engine would be splendid.

ULTRA

By the sounds of it, Capcom are strip mining the less than successful Street Fighter X Tekken for updates assets in the next version of Street Fighter IV. Due next year, Ultra Street Fighter IV is to feature fan feedback gameplay adjustments, as well as six stages and four characters ripped straight from 2012's cross-over. Joining Ryu and the gang are Mad Gear alumni Poison, Hugo and Rolento, as well as the hyper-limber Elena from Street Fighter III. We are also promised a mystery fifth fighter, apparently making their Street Fighter series debut. Capcom Twitter feeds have already discounted Asura (from Asura's Wrath) and Mega Man but, so far, there's been no mention of a certain Mayor Mike Haggar.

Crouching Roundhouse

Making full use of the upload to YouTube option, here's my first online ranked match on Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition. I'm the grey gi Ryu with the yellow bandanna. Don't expect much, still gotta shake out the cobwebs. Far too much jump-in, and slow pokes. That said, I'm having a time with this game. Sat up close with the music blaring stereo, it's like I'm back playing my Dreamcast in 2001, avoiding going to uni.

E3 Street Fighter III Third Strike Online Edition

Street Fighter X Tekken is still looking a little too threadbare to get truly excited about, instead 20XX is pumped for this YouTube clip exporting, hip-hopping, windowboxed re-release of Street Fighter III Third Strike, my second favourite installment of Capcom's deathless fighting series (Street Fighter II' Turbo is still number one). Looking forward to face kicking folks half-way around the world with Urien's big lanky legs. It's why they invented wireless broadband Internets!

Happy Birthday Street Fighter II

Street Fighter II - The World Warrior is twenty years old this month. To celebrate, here's Santora2007 thugging his way through story mode with series posterchild Ryu. Looking back at the original arcade issue, it's interesting to note how the Boss characters were kept secret, only being revealed to the player after a certain amount of victories. There's also extra background detailing that got phased out of subsequent installments, and special moves deliver absolutely devastating amounts of damage.

Street Fighter II kickstarted a global fighting game obsession, geared towards head-to-head competitive play. The arcade industry had slumped in competition to home consoles in the 1980s, Street Fighter II's success allowed a coin-op resurgence that spawned the likes of Mortal Kombat, SNK's yearly King of Fighters installments, and Sega's Virtua Fighter series. To this day, fighting games and competitive play remain constants in the arcade scene. Series creators Capcom continue to tinker with the formula, their most recent iterations including a 3D home console version, and a new Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition.

Capcom Relief Efforts

As well as pledging 100 million yen to relief funds, Capcom are also currently selling Street Fighter IV for the iPhone at a discounted price, with all proceeds from sales going towards helping those affected by the Tohoku Earthquake. UK readers can snag it for 59p, US readers for 99¢. Alternatively, British Red Cross donations can be made here.

Ten Video Games 2010: Super Street Fighter IV

Despite formulating the completely excellent polygon scrapper Rival Schools, Capcom has always struggled to translate its premiere fighter franchise into 3D. The Street Fighter licence was farmed out to Arika for the Street Fighter EX series, a love-it or loathe-it side-step brand, hobbled out the gate in Europe thanks to lousy 50Hz conversions. Regardless, even on 60Hz import the results never touched contemporary 2D installments. After the wonderful, but undersubscribed, Street Fighter III series it seemed like Ryu et al were being abandoned to nostalgia prompts in big-budget franchise clashers. Woe was us!

The Street Fighter series unexpectedly bounced back in summer 2008 with the arcade release of Street Fighter IV, thanks to Yoshinori Ono and The Rumble Fish developer Dimps. Street Fighter IV ditched any pretense of arena roam play, instead sticking to 2D planes with 3D assets. The vast cast were rendered as chunky, colourful charm lumps, blessed with spectacular ultra move movies, and Looney Tune injury faces. Super Street Fighter IV is the third iteration of the IV series, with a fourth, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, on its way. The title heaves with features, from the re-introduction of Final Fight's bonus vandalism stages to minute frame tweaks for combo connects and a comprehensive suite of multiplayer matchmaking. It's an exhaustive package, designed for utter scrutiny, and maximum replayability.

HAGGAR!

Zangief's continued absence from Marvel vs Capcom 3 announces was starting to get a little worrying. It just wouldn't be the same if players couldn't mangle Marvel's finest with a gruff Soviet wrestler. Although it doesn't look like the Red Cyclone will be making an appearance, Capcom have lined up the very next best thing - Metro City Mayor, Mike Haggar. It's a welcome return for Final Fight's moustached one, the character having dodged drafts for both the Street Fighter Alpha series, and Street Fighter IV. Fighting games have missed his absurd, leather belt brawn.

via Kotaku

Corporate Throwdown

Capcom's big announce for San Diego was this franchise clasher. Headed up by Street Fighter IV bigwig Yoshinori Ono, Street Fighter X Tekken sees an undisclosed number of Namco brawlers getting the chunky IV brand ink and oils makeover - Kazuya, in particular, has never looked better. There's a bootleg gameplay clip doing the rounds that helps clue in fans how each respective fight mechanic will be honoured: Tekken characters appear to have a Fatal Fury style plane dodge that'll take them out the path of Street Fighter fireballs, and airtime looks increased to allow for Namco's trademark string juggles. In the Capcom corner, Ryu's moveset is beefed with his Street Fighter III High Side Kick, suggesting we're not just getting tweaked IV gameplay. No word yet if we'll see Fei Long and Law battling it out to determine who is the more shameless Bruce Lee rip-off. Fingers crossed!

Sketch Monday: Dhalsim

Disaster Year has spent the last few days in the company of Super Street Fighter IV. Most excellent it is too. It's especially nice to have the vandalism accented bonus stages back, even if they're not as fun as they used to be. As with all Capcom interim updates, Super IV has gotten beneath the bonnet and messed about with character values. Amongst the buffed is everyone's favourite offensive ethnic stereotype Dhalsim.

Hakan!

Week late video game news! Capcom reveals its latest world warrior; a Turkish wrestler named Hakan. This supernatural stompah oils up for slidey grab and mangles, and poop-shoot eject Ultras. Look at their faces! They wear a scowl of acute misery! Except Dee Jay, he's enjoying himself. Given Hakan's broad grapple outline, it makes you wonder if the character started off as an appearance for Final Fight politician Mike Haggar? It's all there: prowling monster walk, grab damagers, leather pants, facial hair. It's a different kind of comedy seeing a moustached scowler oil up and manhandle though - maybe a little too leather daddy for Capcom?

Fighters ready? Engage!

Super Street Fighter IV reveals its additions roster; newer announces leaning heavily on the series' underplayed third entry. As well as a dash of Final Fight alumni (still no Haggar though), a first game mid-boss, the missing Super Street Fighter II new challengers, and a new-face black widow kicker, expect Third Strikers Dudley, Makoto and Ibuki. Street Fighter IV is swelling to SNK dream match proportions - finally getting to pit Balrog's Tyson thump aggression against Dudley's Eubank dash eccentricity is MUGEN barmy!

Sketch Sunday: Sagat

Sagat kicked his way into our hearts with a stunning debut in 1987's Street Fighter. Built like an enormous, gangly pirate, Sagat was all that stood between the player's red-head Ryu and the title of "Strongest Street Fighter in the World!" Alright! Since then Sagat has enjoyed a fickle personality back-and-forth. In some games he's a mercenary monster, out for a kill. In others he's the slighted consummate martial artist, desperately trying to claw back his pride. Regardless of indecisive Capcom character direction, he's always just the best.



Tiger!

∞

Tremble if ye be maining either of the grapple twins Abel and Seth in Street Fighter IV. Hong Kong's favourite son has a simple, repeatable, dirt-nap combination for those clone clods:



Yikes! Little Dragon would be proud. Wonder if the still absent Championship Edition patch will iron out these encore loops? Dash!