One of Ryu's win quotes in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. This particular win quote is infamous for having spawned multiple rumors, led to the creation of Akuma and Gouken and influenced an influx of hidden characters in both the Street Fighter franchise and other fighting games.
A win quote is a feature in fighting games that lets the victorious player give a message to their defeated opponent after the fight. The feature is not only used to bolster the entertainment value the game has, but also to provide insight on a character's psychology and personality, their relations with specific characters and insights and hints to mysteries that are found within the game's story and world.
Description[]
Win quotes are in all versions of the Street Fighter games.
In the original Street Fighter, Ryu and Ken would say "I wish you good luck" to each other after a battle. Their opponents would all say the same losing quote after being defeated by either of them: "What strength!! But don't forget there are many guys like you all over the world". The only exception to this would be the final boss Sagat, whose own defeated quote is this: "You've outlasted the best. You are now the strongest Street Fighter in the world!". Should any of the opponents win against either Ryu or Ken, all of them would say the same win quote: "You've got a lot to learn before you beat me. Try again, kiddo!" and give a taunting maniacal laugh.
Some games such as Street Fighter II: The World Warrior shows the victorious player talk to their defeated opponent who is left bloody and bruised, but in Street Fighter Alpha 2, the win screen does not show the losing fighter's hurt face. The message is stored in a pink box when the player is victorious.
While some quotes are mean talking, some quotes may mention other people like Sheng Long from Ryu (which is in truth a mistranslation of his actual win quote "You must defeat my Dragon Punch to stand a chance!"): "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance".
Each character has a certain quote (only one) when they win two rounds of the fight. Win Quotes are supposed to lead to a Game Over if the player is defeated.
Starting in the Street Fighter II series, actual win quotes debuted. Both in the II and Alpha series, characters have universal win quotes like Ken's "Attack me if you dare, I will crush you!". This did lead to some questionable win quotes such as Guile's "Are you man enough to fight with me?" when he wins against Chun-Li. Another questionable win quote is one of Balrog's win quotes in Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, "My punches are stronger than your kicks!", when he defeats another Balrog, because Balrog does not do kicks.
Starting in Street Fighter III: New Generation, some characters would start adopting character specific win quotes that would not only fit their character, but their opinion on the defeated opponent. Examples include Alex telling Necro that both him and his moves are weird. These character specific quotes would revert back to their universal win quote system in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, albeit with more variety than the II and Alpha series. Also in both New Generation and 2nd Impact, the winner's win quote could also be based on their own opinion of their Super Art if the winner used had said attack to win the battle.
Starting from Street Fighter IV onward, each character would get both universal win quotes and character specific ones. Universal win quotes usually consist of the character mentioning their own power (M. Bison talking about Psycho Power) or their opinion of their defeated opponent. Characters like Necalli and Oni even get a unique animation when they defeat their opponent before their quote appears on screen.
In Street Fighter × Tekken, official teams talk to each other rather than use win quotes. The Win Quote screen is used to advance the story and interaction between both characters.
Trivia[]
- The original Street Fighter was the only game to feature characters that have voice-spoken quotes. As well as being the only game where only the loser of the fight can say something after being defeated.
- In the prototype of the original Street Fighter, there was no spoken dialogue.
- Losing to the final boss in the original arcade version of Street Fighter Alpha 3 does not result in a win quote, but rather instead, it shows the bad ending.
- M. Bison's character specific win quote towards Makoto in Super Street Fighter IV is a reference to the losing speech of defeated opponents from the original Street Fighter.
- In addition to this, one of Ryu's win quotes in Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 is also a reference to the losing speech of defeated opponents from the original Street Fighter.
- One of Sagat's win quotes in the SNES Japanese version[1] of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior is a reference to the winning speech of victorious opponents from the original Street Fighter.
- Juri's win quote against Ibuki in Street Fighter × Tekken is also a reference to the winning speech of victorious opponents from the original Street Fighter.
- Sagat uses the original quote from victorious opponents as one of his generic win quotes in Street Fighter V. He even does it in all capital letters.
- Many win quotes against Poison in Street Fighter × Tekken had to be redone due to sensitivity reasons. This includes Chun-Li's former "You are not very ladylike at all, it feels like I was fighting a man" win quote and Kuma telling Poison that she smells like a man. There are still hints of her debated gender in the final game though, such as Craig Marduk saying "Meh, I don't sweat the small stuff. You're hot, that's all I care about" or Jack-X stopping his winning speech when he was about to state her gender.
- Ibuki's win quote against Lili references the Naruto series.
- In addition, her win quote against Marshall Law from Tekken is a reference to how she always has lower health and Stun than what is considered average in every game she appears in, which is ironic as Law has the standard 1000 HP and there is no stun in said game.
- Guile's infamous "Go home and be a family man" win quote is used twice in both Super and Ultra Street Fighter IV: first against Ken and second from within a gender correct variation against Ibuki (as seen below).
- Gouken's "You must defeat me to stand a chance!" win quote from Super Street Fighter IV is a reference to Ryu's infamous win quote from Street Fighter II: The World Warrior as already mentioned above: "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance". What makes this more appropriate is that the Sheng Long rumor itself had unintentionally led to the creation of Gouken.
- Rufus has the longest win quotes from within the entire Street Fighter series due to his loud and obnoxious personality.
- There is a small glitch in the original Street Fighter where it takes the screen a little while extra after defeating Sagat to fully turn black, in which it stays with the top half showing the stage that the battle had took place from and the bottom screen showing perfectly. This is purely aesthetic and does not affect anything.
- Street Fighter × Tekken is the only game where a character's mood can shift, usually from neutral to either angry or happy, depending on the defeated opponent. Other games have the characters in a fixed screen.
- Furthermore, Street Fighter × Tekken is the only team game where both chosen characters say their win quotes after one another, as other crossover team games only feature the character who got the victory give their win quote towards the defeated opponent.
- Street Fighter × Tekken is also the only game where the music in the Win Quote screen varies depending on the characters from each franchise chosen.
- A semi-similar situation to Guile asking Chun-Li "Are you man enough to fight with me?" happens in X-Men: Children of the Atom (also made by Capcom), where Colossus asks Psylocke "You call yourself an X-Man?". It should be noted however that the group collectively is known simply as "X-Men", so he is referring to the group itself rather than gender.
- M. Bison has two oddities in his win quote screen in The World Warrior; the first one could be seen below where he tells his opponent "GET LOSE" compared to the "GET LOST" he would have in every other arcade SFII appearance. The second is, while it is impossible to see his "defeated" icon due to him not being playable and characters getting their endings after defeating him, he does have one programmed. While similar to his future CPS1 defeated icons, it has some graphical errors.[2]
- In the Super Nintendo version of Turbo, Chun-Li has a character specific Win Quote oddly enough when she defeats another Chun-Li; "What a wimpy woman! I wonder if there is a much stronger opponent?". This is notable for two reasons, first it is the first character specific Win Quote in Street Fighter and this was removed by the time Cammy made her debut and was never used again in relation to any other female character (Chun-Li can even state "All men bow before me" when defeating another female character in future games).
- Dhalsim's Win Quote against Rufus in Street Fighter X Tekken is a continuation of their rival battle story in Super Street Fighter IV.
- If the information of Capcom's Side Readers is to be believed in order for Cammy's cannon spike win quote against Ibuki to be true Cammy has to be at least capable of running fast enough to run on the top of water "without sinking an inch".
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