Street Fighter

Street Fighter (ストリートファイター) is a 1987 arcade game developed by Capcom. It is the first competitive fighting game produced by the company and the inaugural game in the Street Fighter series. While it did not achieve the same popularity as its sequels (particularly Street Fighter II) when it was originally released, the original Street Fighter introduced some of the conventions made standard in later games, such as six attack buttons (only found on some versions of the game) and special command based techniques.

It was released on the TurboGrafx-CD console under the title Fighting Street (ファイティングストリート)

Gameplay
The game begins with the player being prompted to choose one of two destinations (or four, depending on the DIP switch settings) as the setting of their first fight. There are four countries to choose from: the US, Japan, England and China. Once a country has been selected, the player must fight against the nation's two fighters in best two-out-of-three matches. Once the player has defeated both of the nation's fighters, they must go through a bonus round before proceeding to the next destination. Once all four countries have been cleared, the player character travels to Thailand for the last two opponents in the game.

There are two types of bonus rounds in the game: one in which the player must break wooden boards held by three or four men (depending on the progress) and another in which the player character must break a set of stacked roof tiles with proper timing.

Characters
The original Street Fighter features a cast of twelve fighters: two playable characters and ten CPU-controlled opponents. Of these characters, only Ryu, Ken and Sagat would return in the game's immediate sequel Street Fighter II, although characters like Birdie, Adon, and Gen would resurface in the Street Fighter Alpha series.

Unlike the subsequent Street Fighter games, the player cannot choose his or her own character. Instead, the first player is assigned to play as Ryu, while a second player can join in and play as Ken in competitive matches. The player can perform all three of Ryu and Ken's signature special moves, but the timing is very difficult. Also unlike later games, doing 1 or 3 of these moves could easily defeat an opponent in a matter of seconds.


 * Ryu - The main character. A Japanese warrior entering the tournament to test his strength.
 * Ken - Ryu's former sparring partner and rival. Ken appears primarily in competitive matches, as he is controlled only by the second player.

Japan stage

 * Retsu - A master of Shorinji Kempo who fights in front of a temple. While the character never appeared in another Street Fighter game, he still forms part of the later games' backstories (being established as a friend of Ryu and Ken's teacher, Gouken).
 * Geki - A claw-wielding ninja who also uses shurikens and teleportation techniques. He fights in a meadow from where Mount Fuji can be seen. Just as Balrog is said to be an evolution of Mike, it's possible that Vega's agility, fighting style, and choice of weapon (a claw) were taken from Geki.

USA stage

 * Joe - A blonde-haired American kickboxer who fights at a subway train yard. He is seen in the opening movie in Street Fighter II.
 * Mike - A black heavyweight boxer who fights in front of Mt. Rushmore. The character of Balrog from the later games is often considered to be an evolution of Mike, as Balrog's original Japanese name is M. Bison or Mike Bison in full. He is seen in the opening movie in Street Fighter II being punched by Joe.

China stage

 * Lee - A Chinese martial artist. He fights in the Great Wall of China. The twins Yun and Yang from Street Fighter III are his nephews.
 * Gen - A Chinese assassin. He fights in a deserted commercial street, during nighttime. Reintroduced in Street Fighter Alpha 2.

England stage

 * Birdie - A tall British punk. He fights in a suburban London street, before a closed pub. He reappeared in the Street Fighter Alpha series with a radically different character design.
 * Eagle - An English gentleman who wields twin kali sticks. He fights in the fields that surround a Medieval-style castle in the countryside. He reappears in Capcom vs. SNK 2, the Game Boy Advance version of Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX for the PSP.

Thailand stage

 * Adon - A Muay Thai fighter and student of Sagat. Reintroduced in the Street Fighter Alpha series.
 * Sagat - The final opponent in the game. A Muay Thai expert who holds the title of "King of Street Fighters." He would return in Street Fighter II, bearing a scar on his chest and a grudge against Ryu.

Development
Street Fighter was directed by Takashi Nishiyama (who is credited as "Piston Takashi" in the game) and planned by Hiroshi Matsumoto (credited as "Finish Hiroshi"), who both previously worked on the overhead beat 'em up Avengers. The two men would leave Capcom after the production of the game and were employed by SNK, developing most of their fighting game series (including sequels to Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting). A strong similarity is evident between Street Fighter and these early SNK fighting games.

Arcade versions
There were two different arcade cabinets produced for the game. The first cabinet used a punching pad rather than buttons. The player would punch or pound the pad to register the strength of the attack they wished to use. This layout was only used while the game was still in its testing stage. In later revisions, Capcom replaced the pad with the now standard 6-button layout.

In the American and Worldwide versions of the game, Ryu's and Ken's voices were dubbed so that they yelled the names of their moves in English (i.e: Ball of Fire, Dragon Punch, Hurricane Kick). The localizations of the subsequent games left the characters' voices in their original Japanese language.

The game can also be found on Ultracade multi game arcade machines.

Ports
This game was ported onto the TurboGrafx-CD with remixed music, yet the controls, graphics and gameplay was left intact, and was renamed Fighting Street. An inferior Amiga version was published as well, although it is missing a lot of features of the original game, due to technical limitations or rushed development. Tiertex has ported the game to the Atari ST. That port of the game had no sound effects, poor animation and inaccurate gameplay in comparison with the arcade version. In 1989, Tiertex released a game named Human Killing Machine, which was identical to the Atari ST port of Street Fighter but with different graphics, no stage scrolling, and no two-player mode. Street Fighter was also ported onto the Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded for the PSP and Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2 for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.