Street Fighter is almost 35 years old, and it is still one of the most iconic and popular fighting games in the world. It’s no surprise that it already has several games from different generations and continues to receive news today, such as Street Fighter 6, which will be released in 2022.
Its first version was released for arcades and over the years of existence the game has gathered many fans. It’s a fighting game with characters coming from all over the world, with classic moves that keep on getting new features with each generation.
Read also:
9 Facts About Mortal Kombat
Halo, Pokémon, Street Fighter 2 and Donkey Kong are inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame
9 facts about Street Fighter
To celebrate the success of this franchise, which also includes movies and cartoons, today we are going to disassemble some curious facts about it. check out:
1. Blanc May Not Be Brazilian, But He’s a Favorite of the Game’s Creator
Blanca’s nationality is still a matter of debate among Street Fighter fans. Although most know that he is Brazilian, his origin in this regard leaves a flea behind his ear. What is known is that Blanca was in a plane crash and crashed in the Amazon Rainforest, where she mutated from exposure to an electric eel.
Many people say that he was not born in Brazil at all, where he fell when he was young, in fact Jimmy, an American boy. Other theories claim that he was actually born in Brazil.
But regardless of the character’s nationality, he stands to be a favorite of franchise creator Yoshinori Ono. He has always had a little Blanca doll and it became public on the Internet, even as he himself posts several pictures with the doll on his social networks.
2. Many of the characters were inspired by real people
Like some fighting games, many of the characters in Street Fighter were inspired by real people. The most famous are Balrog and Fei Long, characters inspired by boxer Mike Tyson and actor Bruce Lee, respectively. But they weren’t alone.
Several other real-life fighters also served as inspiration for the other characters. Ken himself, one of the most famous characters in the franchise, is a legendary American karate fighter who was inspired by Lewis. Ryu, on the other hand, was inspired by a character from a manga who, in turn, was inspired by another important karate fighter, Masutatsu Oyama.
Other examples are Zangief, whose look was inspired by fighter Ivan Koloff, and DJ actor and fighter Billy Blanks, who invented the Tae Bo style, a combination of Tae Kwon Do and boxing.
3. Chun Li risks being vulnerable
Chun Li is one of the great attractions of Street Fighter, one of the favorites of many players. She was the first female character to appear in the game, introduced in Street Fighter 2, and has already landed a significant role.
However, she was almost the victim of an idea that could be considered sexist and was a common cultural idea of the time. When Chun Li was created, the game’s creator Yoshiki Okamoto wanted his health bar to be lower than that of other fighters, as, according to him, “women are not that strong”. But the game’s designer, Akira Nishitani, didn’t like the idea, and luckily, it didn’t come to fruition.
4. Other character ideas discarded
During the making of the game, some ideas for some of the characters were considered and abandoned in the process. One is that in Dhalsim’s original concept art, he would have 6 arms, 3 arms on each side of his body. The idea would be inspired by Ganesha, a Hindu deity, and because of that the fighter would still have the head of an elephant.
There was a change in Zangief as well, but in this case it was in relation to the character’s name and origin. He was initially supposed to be called Goblin Vodka, and was banned from the Russian Wrestling Organization after allegedly participating in a drunken tournament, thus breaking the rules.
Another character that changed was Vega, a medieval knight in her early drafts, even gaining armor, a sword, and a shield. This was when they were looking to bring in participants from different eras of history. But as soon as this concept changed from participants from different countries, the idea was abandoned. However, not entirely, as the mask and blade he uses are remnants of that idea.
5. Final Fight will be a direct continuation of the first Street Fighter
Final Fight is a very successful beat up game, but not many people know that it was initially designed to be a direct continuation of Street Fighter. Its original title was Street Fighter ’89 and it also earned the title Street Fighter: The Final Fight in a Japanese magazine promotion.
However, they changed their mind just before the game’s release, which just became Final Fight and turned into another franchise. According to designer Yoshiki Okamoto, this was because the two games had different styles, one fighting and the other green, so it would be very confusing.
But that relationship kind of continued, as characters from Final Fight had already appeared in the Street Fighter franchise. Guy and Sodom can be seen in Street Fighter Alpha, while Rolanto appears in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Kodi Alpha 3.
6. Street Fighter – Two Games Based on the Final Battle Movie Released
Street Fighter won a movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia, and Kylie Minogue. Despite the success of the Games, the film was not well received and arrived with many problems, becoming the target of criticism. However, he won 2 games inspired by the feature.
That is, the movie based on the game won 2 of the two games that the movie was based on. vague? little. Street Fighter – The Arcade Version of the Movie Movie is completely independent of the “original” Street Fighter franchise, starting with the visuals. The characters have the look and feel of the film’s actors and their style is very much reminiscent of the franchise’s rival, Mortal Kombat.
The idea was really to divert attention from Mortal Kombat at the time, but it didn’t help much because, like the movie, it wasn’t very well received. There was also a version for the console, but it was produced by Capcom itself and already brings a style similar to the original Street Fighter series. It was released for PlayStation and Saturn and brought back characters cut from the arcade version, such as Blanca and DJ, and took Blade. It was also not very successful.
7. Sheng Long was created with a game translation error
Sheung Long, Ryu and Ken’s mentor, only appeared in Street Fighter 4 as one of the fighters in the series, but few know that wasn’t his plan either. It all started with a translation error. In Street Fighter 2, after the opponent is defeated by Ryu, the phrase “You need to defeat Sheng Long to have a chance to win” appears.
In fact, the correct phrase would be “You need to defeat Shoryuken to have a chance to win”, referring to one of his most iconic powers. But the game ended with a translation error in the ideogram, and in English it was like Sheng Long.
Then, in 1991, EGM magazine ran an April 1 joke stating that Sheng Long could be found in-game and even unlocked in the arcade version. Capcom took advantage of all the facts to finally create Sheng Long.
8. Combos were also created unexpectedly due to a bug
Another detail of the game that came out unexpectedly was the iconic fighting combos that began to be seen in the game mechanics from Super Street Fighter II. It turns out that during the making of the game, producer Noritaka Funamizu realized that there was a bug in that bonus stage of destroying the car. In the bug, the character took another hit.
But as he believed that no one would be able to perform this mechanic as it was too difficult and complicated, he left it there without improvisation. I was wrong, as many players managed to do this while finding bugs, and with it one of the most interesting elements of Street Fighter was born: the combo.
9. Some records of this sport are recorded in the Guinness Book
The bug that introduced the game’s combo was hailed, in order to guarantee the success of the mechanics and Street Fighter one of its Guinness World Records. Among them are “the first fighting game to use combos”, “the most clone fighting game ever” and “the best selling arcade fighting game of all time”.
