- For the home video game with the same title, see Street Fighter: The Movie (home video game).
Street Fighter: The Movie is a fighting game based on the 1994 live-action Street Fighter movie; this is the first game of the series that uses digitized images of the film's cast posing as the characters in the game. While a home video game also titled Street Fighter: The Movie was released for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, it is not a port but a separately produced game based on the same premise. The game's arcade version was developed by Chicago-based Incredible Technologies and distributed to the arcades by Capcom.
Gameplay[]
The arcade version of Street Fighter: The Movie differs from the previous Street Fighter II games such as Turbo, in several ways. The game gives a greater emphasis towards air combos or "juggling" than previous games: the player can continuously attack their opponent while they're falling in the air with a series of attacks. Additionally, players can cancel any Special Move while performing it into another Special Move. This can even be done with projectile attacks.
Many of the returning Street Fighter characters feature new Special Moves exclusive to the game, such as M. Bison's "Electric Arc" and Guile's "Handcuffs", a Special Move based on a glitch in the original Street Fighter II. Characters such as Zangief and Balrog now have the ability to deflect projectile attacks back to their opponent. Many of these new Special Moves require for the player to hold down a specific attack button, input a directional-based command on the lever and then release the button.
The method for grappling attacks was reversed for the game: perform the throw command while holding the joystick towards an opponent will throw the opponent to the opposite direction and vice versa. The player has the option of inputting a specific to "escape" a throw with no damage or perform a "counter throw". However, a character can counterattack a "counter throw" by performing a "reverse", while reversing a counter throw can ultimately be countered with a "slam master" technique.
Other techniques exclusive to this game include "interrupt moves", which are perform after blocking an opponent's attacks, and "comeback moves", which are special moves that can only be used when the player's life gauge is on the "danger" level. The Super Combo gauge from Super Street Fighter II Turbo is featured in the game. Most of the characters in the game (with only a few exceptions) have at least two Super Combo moves: one that leaves a trail of blue shadows and another that leaves a trail of red shadows. In addition to Super Combos, the players can also perform a "Regeneration" move when their Super Combo gauge is full to restore a portion of their vitality gauge.
The standard single-player mode consist of a series of 14 matches (including a clone match), ending with a final match against M. Bison. There are also several secret game modes, including a Tag Team Mode. In a Tag Team match, the player gets to choose two characters and fight against other tag teams in single-round matches, switching to the second character only after the first one has been defeated.
Characters[]
The game's cast contains most of the characters from Super Street Fighter II Turbo, with the exception of Fei Long, Dee Jay, T. Hawk, Blanka and Dhalsim. Akuma was a regular character for the first time in any game. Two new characters were also introduced: Sawada, an original character from the film, and Blade, a member of Bison's shock troops from the film. Arkane, Khyber and F7, who were all palette swaps of Blade and have moves similar to Dhalsim, appear as secret characters. The non-playable Super Bison appears as the final opponent in the Tag Team Mode.
Street Fighter: The Movie is the only game in the series where the boss characters Balrog, Vega, and Bison, as well as Akuma, were addressed by their western names in Japan. The Japanese instruction card features the original Japanese names of the characters written next to the western names in parentheses to avoid confusion.
All of the characters are billed as being portrayed by the actors who played them in the film (with the exception of Akuma, who was not in the film, and Blade, who has his head and face covered by a full helmet), with some of the actors dressed differently to more closely resemble their video game counterparts.
While Raúl Juliá was credited as Bison, his likeness only appears in the game's attract sequence and cutscenes, which used footage from the film. Juliá's stunt double, Darko Tuscan, was used to digitize the character in the game instead. Kenya Sawada was also supposed to be Fei Long but he only appears as the character sometimes in the Dungeon stage (see comparison picture below). Roshan Seth who played Dhalsim made character sprites but was unable to be in the final cut. Gregg Rainwater (T. Hawk's actor in the film) was scheduled to digitize, but never showed up. Footage of Blanka and Dee Jay was also recorded, but they were unable to be included for time constraints (though they are present in the home version, which was in fact a different game). However, Blanka does appear in the arcade version as a cameo if a player wins 50 consecutive battles.
Interestingly enough, Sheng Long was once considered to be in the game as a bonus character, but couldn't make it because Capcom was unsure if his inclusion in the game would be a good idea or not.
Appearance | Name | Actor |
---|---|---|
Akuma | Ernie Reyes, Sr. | |
Arkane | Alan Noon | |
Balrog | Grand L. Bush | |
Blade | Alan Noon | |
Cammy | Kylie Minogue | |
Chun-Li | Ming-Na Wen | |
E. Honda | Peter "Navy" Tuiasosopo | |
F7 | Alan Noon | |
Guile | Jean-Claude Van Damme Mark Stefanich | |
Ken | Damian Chapa | |
Khyber | Alan Noon | |
M. Bison (Super Bison) | Raúl Juliá Darko Tuscan | |
Ryu | Byron Mann | |
Sagat | Wes Studi | |
Sawada | Kenya Sawada | |
Vega | Jay Tavare | |
Zangief | Andrew Bryniarski |
Development[]
According to Alan Noon:
- Incredible Technologies originally envisioned the game as Street Fighter III during early development. Planned characters included Retsu, Geki (redesigned as a female character), Lee, Gunloc and Mega Man, but they were scrapped early on (when they were informed the game was to be based on the movie) and were never digitized.[1]
- As mentioned above, an interpretation of Sheng Long was considered as a playable character.[1]
- Benny Urquidez was intended to play a new character named Raven (whose moveset resembled that of Gen).[1]
- This is the first Street Fighter game where Akuma is a selectable starter character, instead of being a usual hidden playable character. However, Alan Noon has stated that he intended him to be a secret character from the start (with Raven on Akuma's roster slot), but a combination of events led to him being moved to the default roster.[1]
- Guile was portrayed by both Jean-Claude Van Damme and stuntman Mark Stefanich. The reason for this was that Van Damme was only available for four hours, so Stefanich was used to finish the session.[1]
- Emma Kearney digitized Cammy at first, because the crew members were afraid that they couldn't get Kylie Minogue due to her tight schedule. Eventually, Kylie's schedule freed up and Kearney's footage remained unused.
The development team was somewhat disappointed about the fact that Damian Chapa didn't resemble Ken, so they made a session in Chicago with an unknown individual playing Ken. According to Noon;
"He was a young guy barely out of high school I think, if at all, but he had martial arts training and most importantly: long blond hair. His costume was a red gi, though it did not feature the torn sleeves and pant legs. Instead, his long sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. The shoot went well, and we approached Capcom with the idea that we sub in second Ken for Damian Ken. Capcom ultimately decided that we had to go with Damian Ken however, and second Ken’s raw capture stayed on his CD. We were disappointed at the time, but looking back, Capcom made the right decision with Damian (Chappa's) Ken in my opinion."[1]
Trivia[]
- The graphics of both the arcade version and home version of this game are similar to the early Mortal Kombat games. The gameplay in the arcade version is also similar to that of Killer Instinct. The developer Incredible Technologies is also known to have created the self proclaimed "Mortal Kombat killer" fighting game BloodStorm.
- This is the first game in the series to have a Tag Team mode (though it's impossible to switch characters at will, only when the first is defeated). This feature would be later seen in Street Fighter EX3, and in crossover games such as X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Street Fighter X Tekken.
- Remixes of the character's "classic" (SFII) themes play during their endings, and can also be heard during gameplay through the use of codes in the versus screen. Sawada uses Fei Long's theme, and Blade uses Blanka's theme, as they weren't in previous games. The game's intro also uses a remix of the SFII intro music.
- Interestingly, both Blanka and Fei Long also have cameo appearances in the game, which suggests that of the many characters that were cut, they were the closest to completion.
- Despite Blanka not being playable, an ending[2] for him is present in the game.
Gallery[]
References[]
See also[]
List of moves in Street Fighter: The Movie (arcade game)