Reminiscing about console ports of Street Fighter 2...

[Azathoth]

This is the main reason I got into Neo Geo - I was paying Fatal Fury instead and enjoying myself while the SF2 cabs were like a mosh pit you couldn't even get to the front of.

First time I ever played FF was an arcade I visited with my brother. They had a Neo cab next to a SFII:CE cab that was priced at 50¢, which was one of the first times I ever saw a regular upright, non-driving cab priced that way.

We'd plunk 25¢ each into FF, play 1 player against the computer until it looked like they were going to win, then hit 2p start and have a 2 on 1 match against the computer followed by our regular versus match.

 

[Ajax]

Man, I suspect a number of kids who turned out to be Neo Geo fans got started this same way. I've mentioned it here before, but at an arcade around here, the SF2 cabs were just too hot, and I was just 7 or so. A lot of times, I was left to find something else to play instead, and this is how I discovered World Heroes. In a lifetime full of good game-related memories, that instance is among my fondest.

 

[LoneSage]

You know, I sometimes wonder if I enjoyed reading the magazines more than playing the games

Unlike Mot, I tried to kill the boy inside me and threw away or gave away all my magazines. EGM, OPM, Sega Visions, Gamefan, Nintendo Power. Some of them had my name back when EGM and OPM still had message boards (which eventually lead to me joining here).

After 10+ years, I can say Mot made the right choice.

 

[StevenK]

Unlike Mot, I tried to kill the boy inside me and threw away or gave away all my magazines. EGM, OPM, Sega Visions, Gamefan, Nintendo Power. Some of them had my name back when EGM and OPM still had message boards (which eventually lead to me joining here).

After 10+ years, I can say Mot made the right choice.

I still have all of mine, or should I say my poor parents do, somewhere.

I had a few issues of EGM, I think that was the only US mag that was readily available here. I liked it for the pce stuff, which got zero coverage in british mags.

I read, over the years, Mean Machines, CVG, Megatech, Go, Mean Machines Sega, Nintendo Power, Crash, Zap, Sinclair User and a range of amiga publications I forget the name of. There were others too, I reckon I probably read 5 mags a month cover to cover.

I think I might even have managed an early wank out of a couple - some slut holding a game gear partially over her tits rings a bell (end).

 

[Moob Butter]

You had to get creative pre-internet.

Although even a pixelated side boob in SSM would have made me cream at age 13.

 

[Ralfakick]

Is it actually fun as a pass the controller / party game with friends even in 2023? Hard to get a feel for it from watching YouTube videos.

I had a friend whose parents were getting a divorce so they got him a 3DO. We had such a great time playing Twisted at another friend’s house when he brought the system over. I haven’t played it since the 90s I’d be curious how it holds up today.

Back on topic I was a Genny kid first and got Champion Edition from my parents for Christmas or something else. I don’t think I had a six button controller at the time.

I had a friend I used to go over and play turbo with, I got an SNES and that later but the Champion Edition was my first home version.

Later when I worked at a game store in the area,Microplay, while in college, we had a access to the Saturn version, but we still loved playing Alpha 2 on the SNES it was a great port for the limitations the system had at that point.

 

[Azathoth]

This was left folded up in the instruction manual after I bought my buddy's SNES collection many years ago.

 

[wataru330]

Fuck all that etiquette, lol. If it’s in the game, it’s fair game. I was 15 when WW came out, so there wasn’t any intimidation going on; we’d Guile handcuff a scrub quick.

At time of release, a lot of SF teeth cutting in Southern California (I bounced around from San Diego, to Orange County, to Torrance/Redondo Beach) was at donut shops and pizza shops, and 7-11s as much as the arcade.

Grizzled locals without a ton of money to spend at the mall, were rugged with SF and the Red version and Rainbow, and the other wild hacks. You got good at those, and could just mop the floor with civilians playing vanilla CE at the mall.

I’ll give the mall this, tho:


SSFII Tournament Edition (4 linked cabs, 8 players at once) was the jam. UTC Mall’s Arcade had it; and, many a Nightmare Tony sighting. Loke tests galore back then.

Sadly, the space that Arcade once occupied was a poster shop the last time I visited.

My 1st home port was the PC•Engine CE Hu. That game was my go-to SF until the Saturn Street Fighter collection hit.

Stumbling upon the ‘old’ version of characters, in Super (by holding the button down as you chose a character until their color changed) was mind blowing. This was before me or my friends had home Internet, and there was no wiki or gamefaqs for it.

It was hella funny to pick old against someone that wasn’t smartened up to the trick yet…

“Hey, why doesn’t your Sagat have a super bar…”

-WHY AM I EATING ALL OF THESE TIGER BLOWS?!?-

“Fuck you, Jim-*not* a good game.”

+the ‘old’ versions of the characters in Super had distinct advantages like Sagat zoning w/ screen filling Tiger blows, or Guile having his CPS•I damage scaling

 

[zaneiken]

I found it weird that the US version of SSFII on SNES had this weird reverb thing happening with the music, where the JP/PAL versions did not.

 

[roker]

Unlike Mot, I tried to kill the boy inside me and threw away or gave away all my magazines. EGM, OPM, Sega Visions, Gamefan, Nintendo Power. Some of them had my name back when EGM and OPM still had message boards (which eventually lead to me joining here).

After 10+ years, I can say Mot made the right choice.

I left for college and studied abroad and when I finally made it back to see my parents, they had moved out of their old home and thrown away all of my Nintendo Power and EGM and NES/SNES cardboard boxes. Dang shame.

Oh well, it would have been more shit I would have to store and try to get rid off.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

 

[Moob Butter]

BBC retrospective on SF2 came out recently https://www.bbc.com/culture/article...ter-ii-the-1991-video-game-that-packs-a-punch

 

[snes_collector]

Those British gaming mags were the best back in the day. I looked forward to getting those just as much as playing the games. I’ve still got a box in my garage of them that have been through 5 house moves that I haven’t look at it in 20 years but I just can’t bring myself to throw them away.

As someone who probably does enjoying reading magazines even more than playing games I agree. I imported a bunch of Super Play Magazines and they are really good (even better than EGM's and the like of the day here.) The coverage for Street Fighter II in all of the magazines was insane and probably bigger than any other game, ever. I wasn't old enough to properly enjoy this stuff back then so it is fun to read about it all as an adult now. If you ever want to get rid of them I'm probably take them off your hands, even though shipping would suck.

In terms of actually playing SFII, I'm pretty sure Turbo on the SNES it was the first video game I ever played so I guess it is the reason I'm into all of this. When my parents bought my cousins Super Nintendo they bought me a copy of Street Fighter II to go along with it since he'd sold his copy. We had no idea that Turbo was a different version, so not being able to play as the bosses was a bummer for me- but I still played it nonstop.

 

[theMot]

If you ever want to get rid of them I'm probably take them off your hands...

 

[max 330 megafartz]

View attachment 63640

Mr. bojangles… paging, Mr. Bojangles!

 

[terry.330]

(even better than EGM's and the like of the day here.)

Like that was such a high standard lol. I had 2 or 3 long file boxes full of old gaming mags that I got rid of around 2005, anytime I think I miss them I just go look up old articles and am reminded that they were all horribly written immature junk intended for 12 year olds. Which was perfectly fine when I was actually 12 but as an adult, nah. That stuff is best left to nostalgic memories.

 

[theMot]

Like that was such a high standard lol. I had 2 or 3 long file boxes full of old gaming mags that I got rid of around 2005, anytime I think I miss them I just go look up old articles and am reminded that they were all horribly written immature junk intended for 12 year olds. Which was perfectly fine when I was actually 12 but as an adult, nah. That stuff is best left to nostalgic memories.

That's all true, it's all very juvenile. Only good for a quick flick through these days. A lot of the information in them is also wrong.

 

[max 330 megafartz]

That's all true, it's all very juvenile. Only good for a quick flick through these days. A lot of the information in them is also wrong.

Yo back in the day when Dreamcast was on the horizon and they released that texture demo from Shenmue, and EGM had early coverage of it, I got my first non-piss boner as an 11 year old. Shit was amazing and the magazine basically just said forget your past young faggot, if you buy this system you will be living in the future on another planet.

This style of writing was a major part of our childhoods, i miss it. Would i believe it now? No. Was it really cool in a pre-internet is everywhere world? Yep.

 

[theMot]

Yo back in the day when Dreamcast was on the horizon and they released that texture demo from Shenmue, and EGM had early coverage of it, I got my first non-piss boner as an 11 year old. Shit was amazing and the magazine basically just said forget your past young faggot, if you buy this system you will be living in the future on another planet.

This style of writing was a major part of our childhoods, i miss it. Would i believe it now? No. Was it really cool in a pre-internet is everywhere world? Yep.

 

[jro]

Good lerd is it nice to play Metroid Fusion again. I have zero knowledge of the flaws/emus/ects, but this seems quite good. I can very much remember sitting in the hallways at CSU playing this between classes and going FUCK when I had the last five minutes to get to class on time.

 

[Azathoth]

Did anyone else get hyped when EGM published their SNES Game Genie boss code? I imagine that sold a ton of them for that code alone.

If it worked correctly it was something that should have been screamed from the rooftops, instead it gets a tiny mention on the cover and was printed in the letters column instead of the cheat section. They had a single screenshot and if you actually used the code you'd realize how cherry picked that shot was. All it did was poorly map the boss sprites onto Ryu. The color pallette was completely broken and most of the time the sprites were just a pile of garbage.

Boss code aside, I used my Game Genie and Action Replay a ton for both the SNES and Genesis ports. I thought it was awesome they could do the majority of the tricks in the Rainbow Editions, mainly mid-air specials, super slow/fast fireballs, and no charge times.

 

[roker]

Did anyone else get hyped when EGM published their SNES Game Genie boss code? I imagine that sold a ton of them for that code alone.

If it worked correctly it was something that should have been screamed from the rooftops, instead it gets a tiny mention on the cover and was printed in the letters column instead of the chest section. They had a single screenshot and if you actually used the code you'd realize how cherry picked that shot was. All it did was poorly map the boss sprites onto Ryu. The color pallette was completely broken and most of the time the sprites were just a pile of garbage.

Boss code aside, I used my Game Genie and Action Replay a ton for both the SNES and Genesis ports. I thought it was awesome they could do the majority of the tricks in the Rainbow Editions, mainly mid-air specials, super slow/fast fireballs, and no charge times.

fuck yeah

disappointed with the shitty game genie code but fucking around rainbow style on the ports was fun as fuck. Air fireballs and other tomfoolery.

It was fun to mess with for 20 minutes or so if it didn't crash on you before then

 

[RBjakeSpecial]

You know, I sometimes wonder if I enjoyed reading the magazines more than playing the games

OMG Yes. I'd eagerly read the reviews over and over ....

This is a nice thread. It's cool to get the EU perspective on what the SF2 release was like. I first played it at a shopping mall before the SNES had come out (maybe it had JUST came out). There was a line and someone was beating everyone with Chun Li. I thought it wasn't fair because we couldn't play her. Finally someone beat him with Zangief and then we all thought she was the strongest player.

The game had been out in arcades, but with the game pads and the mall unit we could play unlimited games so it felt different.

I remember my friend's Nintendo Power magazine with guile on the front.. .and I got the EGM with guide in it.

I even remember the size of the sprites and the animation just being *better* than everything else. It was definitely the game that changed everything.

Crazy to think how long ago this was and that we were there for the very beginning.

 

[GutsDozer]

To this day my favorite home ports of Street Fighter in no particular order are:

*Street Fighter Ex Plus a (PSX)

*Street Fighter Hyper with the fixed difficulty from the Fighting Collection (PC)

* Street Fighter II Special Champion Edition (Gen)

*Street Fighter Alpha 3 (SAT)

*Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold (PSX)