Street Fighter II: The 1991 video game that packs a punch

“SFII stood out visually with huge characters and beautiful animations, but what really grabbed me was the crowd around the machine,” says Killian. “Competing against a live opponent, in front of strangers, to see who kept their quarter, and who went to the back of the line? The experience was intoxicating.”

Like a Hurricane charts the creative storm that inspired SFII, as well as industry battles (particularly involving Capcom and rival company SNK), cultural contrasts, pre-internet communication glitches between Capcom’s Japan and US offices, and what sound like toxic working environments (gruelling hours; alleged bullying “banter”). The game’s predecessor, Street Fighter (1987), had limited reach but bold ambitions, which set the stage for SFII’s ground-breaking incarnation.

“If you pit a boxer, for example, against a kickboxer or someone who knows bojutso… you get all these very interesting combinations,” says SF director Takashi Nishiyama, who conceived the first game with planner Hiroshi Matsumoto. “So Matsumoto and I ended up coming up with these ideas together, to give the game deeper story and character elements.”

Character-driven fighting

For SFII, Capcom’s team had shifted (with Nishiyama and Matsumoto departing for SNK), but the game’s characters and range were enriched by the vivid artwork of Akira Yasuda, and a six-button/joystick control design that (perhaps accidentally) allowed players to deliver swift combo attacks. Shimomura’s poppy melodies and effects – including the cries that heralded different characters’ special moves (“Hadouken!”; “Shoryuken!”; “Yoga fire!”; “Sonic boom!”) – also heightened the sense of personality. You grew familiar with these characters, and genuinely rooted for your favourites; SFII established a kind of rapport that arguably hadn’t existed in gaming before.

“It’s rare that a game makes such big strides forward in so many different ways,” says Leone. “And it all fit together so well — you could look at how Capcom loosened up the control input requirements, which blended well with the game’s animation and made players feel like they were more in control, which fed perfectly into the game’s competitive elements, which fed perfectly into how arcade games made money.”