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Street Fighter Alpha Anthology


Street Fighter Week: The evolution of Ken and Ryu

Two of gaming's most iconic fighters are dissected, game by game

Words: Tyler Wilde, GamesRadar US

Table of Contents
Street Fighter | Street Fighter II | Alpha series | Street Fighter III | EX series | SF: The Movie and Gem Fighter | Marvel vs. Capcom series | SNK vs. Capcom series | Misc. games | Sprite comparison | SSFIITHDR and Street Fighter IV | Comics, films, and more 

Street Fighter The Movie - 1995

Oh dear lord. Not only is this arcade game worse than the original Street Fighter, it is perhaps one of the worst fighting games ever created. If anything, it may be slightly better than the movie it's based on.

The console port was somewhat improved in that it directly utilized the Street Fighter II engine. That doesn't, however, negate the incredulous cheesiness.

The character sprites are actual images of the actors, giving us an entirely new look at Ryu and Ken.

This depiction of Ryu is the most disappointing. It chews up, digests, and vomits out all of our wild conceptions about this legendary warrior, destroying his mystique and replacing it with Byron Mann, a California lawyer.

This guy's only resemblance to Ken is his red uniform, and even that fails to be the right shade of red. Shameful.

Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix (AKA Pocket Fighter) - 1997

Gem Fighter, which features characters from multiple Capcom franchises, was released on the CPS-2 arcade board, and ported to multiple consoles. The story of these "super deformed" versions of Ken and Ryu is rather straight forward.

Ryu wishes to see a lady named Tessa. He has heard much about her during his journeys.

Ken ends up on a forced shopping trip with Morrigan and apparently gets an eye infection...

And is confronted by Eliza! What a player. All he wanted was to have tea with some pretty girl. That scamp.

Gem Fighter's characters are just about identical to the characters in Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (below), except that the Puzzle Fighter versions exist within the pre-Street Fighter II era, giving Ryu a white headband and Ken long hair.


 
8 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
Grundler24  - 9 months 17 days ago 
First???
The arcade version of this is amazing, i've gotten the chance to play it
at an arcade in china town and my friends grandpa owns it so i got free tokens and played it forever. SF never seems to end its reign of ass kicking.
Bigpapa360  - 9 months 13 days ago 
Second.
Man I love seeing how all these games get their start.
Auron00  - 9 months 13 days ago 
Not that anyone will really care too much, but, just to keep this retrospective a bit more clear, Ken Masters was never an actor, he is a world famous martial arts tournament champion in america (multiple times over even) and his father is the third richest man in the world (in the SF world anyway).
Sonneilon  - 9 months 12 days ago 
Reading thru all these, feels like I should get a degree with all this SF knowledge now!
WiqidBritt  - 9 months 10 days ago 
what? no mention of Violent Ken in SVC Chaos?
Arukami  - 9 months 6 days ago 
All beatiful recalls....aboveall th first SF! and SFII with that big pic with Vega with his hands open...i'll Kill you!!!!!! U understand me!!! I'll kill you Vega! XDDD!
Great article!
beoftw  - 9 months 2 days ago 
lol street fighter 2: the animated movie shold have gotten alot more praise than it did. imo i thought it was alot better than the otheres.
jackrabbitslims  - 8 months 18 days ago 
"and apparently a variety of nuts in his cheek to consume later" LMAO. Great article, I love catching up on the history of street fighter.
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