Throwback Saturday: Street Fighter II: Champion Edition released!!
On this day we celebrate a new milestone in video game history, a legendary game was released with hopes of being the best fighting game in recent years with what was available at the time in terms of gaming systems. it’s a nice spring morning in 1992, a Wednesday if memory serves and something amazing happened on this day while you were either going to school, going to work or just starting your day out late. Street Fighter had just been released in arcades all over the country!!
Alright I over exaggerated a little bit but that caught your attention a little bit, didn’t it? today though really is a historic day in the gaming industry though, on 03/18/1992 Street Fighter II: Champion Edition was released in arcades. now a lot of the younger audience don’t really know why the arcade was really important but that’s okay! You see its basically the hangout spot for a lot of the older generation back in the day, after going to school or working a full-time job even or busy raising a family whatever was going in life, we always had the one spot where kids, teens, and yes adults would go to play one of the best games at the time. The Arcade was a safe zone you could enjoy, but enough distractions let’s get to the topic at hand!
This is huge considering the fact in 1992, there wasn’t much buzz from the gaming industry because it was still in its archaic stage where the only way you could actually play games was at arcades mainly, but that didn’t stop the anticipation this franchise had was causing and we can see why. after a successful first release of the hit game Street Fighter, CAPCOM decided to release another installment in this successful franchise and kept the moment rolling for future endeavors by them, but they first had to clear this hurdle above all else considering the wall they were facing, but that didn’t seem to faze them. in fact all it did was fuel the fire.
The graphics weren’t that great, but that didn’t matter for everyone loved the mechanics and how addicting the game was. you played over and over cause all the punches and kicks you were doing that you didn’t care if you won or lost but the adrenaline was pumping as you were beating your opponent. fighter style games especially have a harder mechanic that most games didn’t offer at the time and that was a 1 v 1 versus a computer AI or fighting a friend, rival, gaming enthusiast or even just some random stranger you just met 5 seconds ago. everyone got together just to have a little fun playing a well respect game. but little was known at the time about how far this franchise would go in terms of games and entertainment.
The game did so good that it prompted a movie release just 2 years later in 1994, that’s huge since video games weren’t really a big thing in that day and age. it was picking up steam but not at the pace we have grown to see in the last 2 decades, but still it carried enough moment to keep the ball rolling fort many years to come and the biggest reason was what game was being released that very year the movie was set to release. You could say it was its rival at the time but that would be an understatement. it was more like an enemy of the state for CAPCOM considering the years of dominance it held before this franchise but yet it knew they would give them trouble for many years to come. but the movie was no laughing matter, it delivered well and helped the game bring an even bigger audience than anticipated.
There no denying the fact this game made huge waves and still continues to and has a loyal audience to boot, all with such simple controls such as a joystick and some buttons and you had to spend money to continue playing but this game created many experiences for everyone and every single one of them was different from one another. All in all, this game received some great reviews and left some lofty expectations for CAPCOM, but the ceiling was high thanks to how successful this franchise turned out to be. But this was only the beginning thanks in part to the berth of their rival a couple of years later. who was said rival? Lets just say that the King of the Iron Fist Tournament had to live up to their name.
