Street Smart

Template:GameInfoboxStreet Smart, is a 1989 beat 'em up arcade game by SNK/Treco. The game's objective is to win money, girls and glory on the streets. It is notorious for its level of difficulty requiring a great deal of brawling before the player's opponents go down.

Gameplay

The gameplay resembles other fighting games like Double Dragon where the player can move in all eight directions in an arena fight and the player can kick, punch or do special moves. The player can choose to fight as "Karate Man", a martial arts expert with lightning quick moves, or "Crusher" with a powerful punch. Unlike most side-scrolling fighters, the players fight in an enclosed arena space, similar to Pit-Fighter, Violence Fight, or Aggressors of Dark Kombat. If two players are present, they can take on the enemy together but will always have a "Grudge Match" in the next round to determine who gets a bonus life/points. The two players can play through the entire game together. Opponents:

• "Slippery" Sam Santana (Age: 38; Weight: 205 lb)
• "Tiptoes" Tommy (Age: 45; Weight: 310 lb)
• Jake "The Wrench" (Age: 40; Weight: 185 lb)
• Larry "Legbreaker" Lubinski (Age: 19; Weight: 220 lb)
• Antonio "Crybaby" Palermo (Age: 25; Weight: 265 lb)
• Mike "The Muscle" McDermit (Age: 30; Weight: 290 lb)
• Bobby Brown (Age: 21; Weight: 175 lb)
• Mr. X (Sega Genesis/Mega Drive version)

Ports

This arcade game was ported to the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in 1991, developed by Treco and published by Sega. The port uses fewer (though brighter) colors and, to compensate for the large sprites animating on screen, it features top and bottom black frames; the player's data is shown on the top bar, including a visible life bar for the opponent (which the arcade game lacks). The game implements a betting system where players can win money for winning a fight or throwing one (similar to the later PSP game The Con), as well as a new last boss. Due to memory limitations of the system, this port lacks the two players vs. the CPU mode (two players only fought onscreen in the "Grudge Match" after each taking turns against a CPU opponent). Additionally, "Karate Man" wears a red outfit instead of a white one. Both characters are also given a new spinning "power move" (done by pressing all three buttons at once) that can take an enemy down in one hit but reduces the player's health.

There are three endings to the game, depending upon if the players are broke or not when the final boss is defeated. Should players be "broke", the final image is that of the players in rags, sitting in the gutter. Attaining a respectable amount of money will see the character well dressed, in a fashionable car with an attractive girlfriend. If the character earns an outstanding amount of money (usually gained by gambling all winnings on the player to win before each round), he is shown as a made man with four girls, in an apartment full of money.

A final difference between the Genesis/Mega Drive port and the arcade game lies in the console version's ability to grant the player "points" at the end of each successful match that can be assigned to character attributes. The player can gain a larger lifebar, greater speed or power, for example, so that the character will be much more deadly by the end of the game than at the beginning.

The original arcade version was later included in the 20-game compilation follow-up to SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1, titled as SNK Arcade Classics 0, which was released in Japan on April 27, 2011. The game was included in the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection on the PS4 in 2019.

Trivia

• The music that plays in the first stage can be heard in Fatal Fury, when the players fight each other in versus mode.
• The Player 1 character (Karate Man) looks very similar to the members of Sakazaki family, being the arcade version compared to Takuma and the Genesis version to Ryo, mostly because their karate outfit colors (white and orange/red respectively) as well having similar faces.
• Outside the game, Karate Man also appeared in some SNK illustrations in character groups, like in the cover of SNK Characters 2: All About Illustrations and in artworks of SNK Arcade Classics 0 and SNK 40th Anniversary Collection (the latter also included Crusher).