😡 The First Street Fighter - It's Horrible ! 😡 

Playing the original Street Fighter game really puts into perspective the quantum leap SFII was.

Capcom needs to release a new version of the game that fixes the controls and lets you play as the CPU characters.

I would say that Yie Ar Kung Fu deserves honorable mention as one of the first fighting games. It just didn't allow for 2 player vs gameplay. Karate Champ deserves recognition too.

Street Fighter 1 was important to the history of the franchise; but unlike movie sequels, this was one of those rare times the Sequel was better than the original.

I remember playing this at a military AAFES arcade. I was born and lived in Okinawa near a military base and my dad was a mechanic for the US military. I always spent time there playing arcade games with the American soldiers who always gave me Snickers candy bars.

I remember playing this game in Brazil back in the day, around 91. Street Fighter II was a massive hit, and all kids wanted to play it in the arcades. In one corner they had this old arcade that nobody was into it. It was even cheaper than the other ones since the owner just couldn't get rid of it and was trying to make some money. I hadn't much money at the time so I chose to play this version. It was even with the pressure sensitive button system... It was horrible, tiring but it had its charms and I was a stubborn kid that refused to give up. I ended played the game for hours in a couple of weeks before the arcade owner got rid of it... Sweet memories.

I remember this in the arcade, and some guy could do the Hadouken which at the time was like a full 360 on the control stick plus a button. The blast would take like 60% health off the enemy. Everyone was like "whooooaaaa"

A few fun facts: Geki shows up again in Vega's SF5 ending,Joe is based on kickboxer Joe Lewis,& Lee is Yun & Yang's uncle from SF3,Eagle's only SF reappearance was in alpha 3 max,& Ryu has his SF1 costume as dlc in Marvel vs Capcom 3

I actually liked the first Street Fighter, however after playing 2 it's too hard to go back to, because the controls just feel too stiff after playing 2.

Im glad SOMEONE talks about the humble, horrible beginnings of what came to be one most beloved and famous fighting game franchises of all time

I found this game to be a slower paced technical fighter where landing your hits was critical. I have the TurboCD version. Discovered a glitch where if you use the Turbo Stick controller and turned slow mo on, the enemy would not fight back.

The original, and the evolution thereafter. Street Fighter definitely helped set the bar, and quite a legacy. Looking forward to the upcoming project. Cannot wait to see it

I played the entire first Street Fighter from start to end. I regret doing that.

Aside from Street Fighter 6, I hope that Capcom develops a Street Fighter 1 Remake (with improved features and gameplay) in Nintendo Switch.

I love the original Street Fighter, it’s personally one of my all time favorite games…60% of that is nostalgia for an 80’s childhood/ arcades being my 2nd home. The other 40% percent is the love for variety of characters, the homage to fighting/ Kung fu movies that I was crazy about, and lucking up on those special moves every blue moon. It’ll always be one of my favorites.

As an 80's and 90's kid, I grew up during the rivalry between SF and MK. People always love to compare and talk about SF II vs MK2! Great games, both have their ups and downs but both are great. But we never hear about MK 1 vs SF1 lol....I think most would agree MK wins that one for sure haha. Karate Champ inspired both SF and MK and pretty much all fighters, and the Wii controls weren't really gimmicky since they were integral to gameplay then Xbox and Sony copied Nintendo with motion controlled games of their own.

It's amazing how this game ultimately paved the way for such a groundbreaker like SFII, especially in light of the fact that the original is such an astonishing piece of crap. At least they learned and progressed.

"case closed" don't think so according to Akira Yasuda Akiman when he designed Mike Bison for SFII his "designs imagined him as a direct extension of Mike from the original Street Fighter" he states this in the Street Fighter X Tekken guide. I take Akiman the co-creator of the games word over Capcom's any day. So according to Yasuda Mike is Mike Bison.

I remember first randomly finding Street Fighter at a local restaurant, and becoming immediately intrigued. Someone taught me how to do the specials at some point (I think...?), but they were notoriously unreliable to pull off. Still it was a revelation of sorts at the time. Fast forward 2-3 years and I remember seeing a small blurb about SF2 coming in an issue of EGM accompanied by a screenshot of a stretchy Dhalsim fighting Ryu. Then I saw a machine at a local 7-11. I was immediately the best player among friends from my SF1 training, as I was the only one that could pull off the specials right away haha. Its a shame so many gamers now missed out on arcade culture back then, when we would go to different arcades around the city just to look for competition...kinda like Ryu...LOL. Also, SF1 was called Fighting Street on the TG16 CD, which was odd. Def made me want one at the the time.

I remember playing the pressure sensitive cabinet it was awful but at the same time enjoyable and stress relief

I know you're young af cause you're looking back in time. The Street Fighter cabinet with the 12 in dinner plate buttons was a major step forward for my time. This is the perfect take on the Jordan v LeBron debate. It's hard to have a clear view when you weren't there to experience it

I've never actually seen Street Fighter 1 'in the wild' (maybe the arcade was never brought to Australia?). In a weird way, it almost held a mythological status to us Aussie 90's kids.

I swear, I have a faded memory of seeing one of these cabinets with the pressure sensors when I was a kid. I think it caught my attention because of how hard the person playing it had to pound the buttons. And I was just like "What the heck is that thing?" I wasn't going near it, that's for sure!

I remember playing this game pre-SF2, although I never played the one with the big clunky buttons. It was definitely a different experience than SF2 was, in order to do special moves I remember you had to be quite exact compared to SF2 where button mashing joystick swirling seems to cause something to happen. That said the specials were so OP in SF1, I remember playing against Birdie and doing an upper cut as soon as the round started and Birdie jumped into me and it had like 3 hits and he was out, I want to say 3 ticks of the timer went off and that's it. But being invisible through all frames of the uppercut animation was nice, if you could pull them off at will (and yeah they are much harder to do than SF2) you basically can just mow through anyone, someone jumping at you no problem upper cut, shooting something at you? just upper cut through it.

Considering that the fighters were things like Ye Ar Kung Fu... Street Fighter 1 as is is actually a jewel for its time (and a work in progress). After all, Capcom was only used to do beat'm'ups and even then...

I loved playing this back in the day. I remember that learning the dragon punch was key as sometimes it would kill the opponent in one hit!

Thanks for making this. I remember playing both button layout versions at the water park arcade. I was able to get to Saget when they switched over to the 6 button layout. I had quite the crowd around me watching 😁 this one will always be my favorite.

Always impressed me the sheer jump in quality to the second one.

I saw and played on the pressure sensitive version of Street Fighter on Walton Pier, Essex, England in about 1989. Walton seemed to get some good arcade games. Hard Drivin' sit down, Mad Dog Mcree, Space Harrier and Thunderblade sit downs....

Great video. I had heard of the pressure sensitive buttons before, but I assumed that they were the same size as standard arcade buttons. I had no idea that the pressure sensitive buttons were fist size.

I loved the original Street Fighter! The pneumatic pads were awesome and when I learned to throw fire balls and do hurricane kicks, I quickly started winning against most of the people I played. I never got the hang of upper cuts though. I only pulled one off that hit my opponent. Fortunately, it was against Sagat. It knocked him out and I was in shock at the amount of damage it did. When I later played it with buttons instead of the pads, I couldn’t get the timing down. I miss playing it.

Tbh there is one saving grace over SF1. There is a mugen made of that game that has all of the characters from it, so you could even pick Sagat to play. I play this mugen a few times when I feel some nostalgia about SF1. I hope more people in the future get to know this mugen version and have a try. :)

Would love to see someone make a "remastered" port of the original Street Fighter via MUGEN. Such a project could fix the problematic controls, sprite movement & lag to make it play similar Street Fighter II.

“6 buttons will never work” Well we see how that turned out 😂😂😂 now controllers have 8 buttons

Awesome video, as usual, mate! Greetings from Brazil! 👊

I heard about the inspiration for Ryu vs Sagat was the onging Kyokushin Karate vs Muay Thai challenges at the time, revolving around Toshi Fujiwara creating kickboxing after returning from Thailand.

The problem with Street Fighter is that there's no updates that came out later, polishing the gameplay and filling out the roster... which wasn't done due to "time constraints"? And that's the real lesson Capcom took out of Street Fighter because if there was no Street Fight II Turbo, no one would remember Street Fighter II fondly as the World Warrior is kind of not good.

The game itself, wasn't bad at all...the controls were (they even addressed it, in a Capcom manual) it's a roll, of the dice pulling off Ryus signature moves! I remember seeing it, in the movie "Juice" but I didn't actually play it...until the PS2, greatest hits release! I LIVED, in the arcade once SFII was released though!

Still remember playing this arcade game when it first came out. The pressure-sensitive buttons barely worked properly & extremely exhausting. How this arcade game even came out the door after test-marketing is baffling. Glad they changed it to the 6 button control scheme. Control & response is still laggy & quite broken.

i just saw another street fighter channel that's been doing these type of videos also. nice to see street fighter material. great content

Nice timing, I was replaying this the other day.

Mr. Top Hat, this was a masterfully done video💪 i remember trying to play this Street Fighter game when i was in elementary school. The game was horrible, stiff and difficult, however it was addictive, intriguing and a very necessary game. I remember seeing it being played back then and first seeing the Hadoken fireball come out on accident. Everybody was surprised and excited, but nobody knew how to make it happen😅 thank you for this video.

Out of all of the games THIS is the one that needs to be remade before we get SF6.

Thanks for going all the way to Phillyto make this. Didn't realize it all started there.

Awesome coverage! Growing up, the nearest arcade had Street Fighter but with those giant pads to hit for punch or kick. I was always surprised if I ever got past the ninja. Then one day when I was in the Army, in the barber shop I found SF II and spent hundreds of quarters and hours on it. I never believed in Sheng Long though.

Hello from Lancaster, PA. right over 2hrs from Philly. RU-vidr, and fan of yours :P

Fun Fact, Street Fighter shows up in It: Chapter 2 and the director was so ignorant of the game they thought That you could select someone other than Ryu or Ken thus allowing 1 player gameplay footage to end up getting used proving that the play was fake.

I remember this arrived at Hypermart in Garland and I had a hard time playing with those dam big buttons. I was happy when it was finally converted over.

I used to play this game at my movie theater. This game was why I bought a Turbografx-16, and II was why I got a SNES.

I'm 41 years old and I was lucky enough to play the first Street fighter game at an arcade machine in a bodega near my home when I was a kid. The bodega always got "old games" because they were offered at a cheaper price for them so they had street fighter 1, shadow dancer arcade and golden axe arcade next to each other at that time even when SF 2 was already out. My grandmother bought me a GamesPro magazine that had the SF 2 move list for Ryu and translate the hadouken motion for me from English to Spanish. The magazine didn't have arrows notions so the text description was (down, down forward, forward and press punch), that evening we went to the bodega and after a few tries I was able to do the hadouken and got all the way to Adon but to be honest I never reached Sagat. A few weeks later the machine was replaced with SF 2 champion edition but I was able to play the first game. This game made me love the fighting game genre even when the controls were bad

Hey, Top Hat Gaming Man. You should definitely do a review of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior in a future video! Pretty please?

I played this game a lot back in the day. One of my all time favorite

I've been replaying SF1 lately, and I have to admit, it pushes the limits of my skill every time I play it. I went from finally being able to properly throw hadokens to getting as far as Lee in China on one credit. No cheats, no invincibility hacks, just playing it as it was in the arcades. It's a good test in patience, timing, and strategy.

I love the original Street Fighter. I have fond memories of losing tons of quarters trying

It's nice to see my home town, Philly, get a shout out😌

i always liked the first street fighter. i remember beating up on birdie, eagle, joe and mike like it ain't no thing. i would whoop them each in under 30 seconds

I remember reading speculation that Geki was originally planned for Street Fighter II, but Capcom went with Vega/Balrog instead as one of Dictator's Four Kings of Shadaloo. But nothing I've looked into can confirm that. As always, I enjoy your Street Fighter content

I'd actually be very interested in actually trying out the pressure sensor machines. I assume they're all gone now.

I remember in the mid 90's the younger kids thought that Fighters History was the first Street Fighter 😣😣

The only complaint I've got against it is the weird mechanics to perform special moves. Nonetheless, I play it every now and then on my notebook.

Fabulous video, THGM 🎩!!!

Love your content man! I know it’s a sf vid but how awesome would it be if we got a Kung fu master remake/remaster? It would be amazing!

I remember seeing that arcade cabinet somewhere with the giant buttons. It might have been a little bit before the second one came out. But I always associated the first game with giant buttons. I’m from the Philadelphia area, so maybe it was from that original expo, and it went through quite a few places (none of which wanted to keep it).

I enjoyed the PC-Engine port (Fighting Street) and remember raging on the PSP Capcom Classics Collection (either Remixed or Reloaded I don't remember) at Adon and Sagat because they were a monstrous leap in difficulty. Piston Takashi and Finish Hiroshi also made Art of Fighting, which is pretty cool, complex and stylish, albeit very hard.

SNK's Street Smart was Street Fighter I spiritual sucessor. It was akwward and broken as well. Funny that Street Smart was released in the same year as the real predecessor of STF II: Final Fight. By the way the original Street Fighter had a ton of references to popular manga from that era,some well known others obsucure...to english speaking countries: -It is well known that Ken was based on Dio Brando from Jojo Bizarre Adventure, a series thst just debuted in that year (and Dio was inspired by Shin from Hokuto no Ken). -Hurricane Kick/Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku is similar to a move from Double Dragon also released in 1987 (both were inspired by Kenshiro's Hurricane Kick from Hokuto no Ken anime). -Despite saying otherwise Hadouken was based on Goku's Kame hame ha (both creators claimed the move was inspired on Yamato wave gun from Starblazers). -Shoryuken/Dragon Punch is a rip off of a move from Saint Seiya manga/anime. The character Dragon Shiryu main attack is a energy uppercut named Rozan SHORYU ha . In the manga it works exactly like the Shoryuken, but it was changed a little bit in the anime. And Rozan Shoryu ha was already a rip off from a move from another manga by the same mangaka (Masami Kurumada). In Ring ni Kakero the character Shadow Sousui had a identical attack named Shadow Raijin Ken. By the way Ring ni Kakero (1977-1981) was a major inspiration to some SNK and Capcom employees. Not only all STF III Duddley's moves (like Jet Upper,Rulling Thunder )were taken from that battle shonen manga,but also Ralf Jones' signature move Galactica Phantom as well. That series was the first battle shonen ever.Introducing crazy moves and different tournaments (from teams around the world).

The audio, soundtrack, and sound is top notch!!

Hey top hat, you should talk about the 1989 fighting game from SNK called Street Smart.

It should be noted that the scheme of using joystick directions in combination with button presses to pull off different moves had been used many times in home video games by this point. Karateka cam out in 1984, and Way of the Exploding Fist (basically a Karate Champ knock-off) came out in 1985.

I WOULD like to see some of the characters make a return maybe in SF6.

We done a SFI tournament on a bartop and, it was tough!!!

Our local pizza shop in West Tennessee had this game in the late 80's. I really enjoyed it. Although You had to be pinpoint precise and well timed. The characters looked cool with different fighting styles. The colors were awesome too. It was finally replaced by SF II. Which was even more rad. Many quarters spent on both of these great games. Appreciate the vid

It's easy to dismiss the original Street Fighter from the perspective of having played Street Fighter II and subsequent modern fighting games. Looking at it from the perspective from when it was released, the fighting game genre did not exist during that time, and it was really special. The hidden specials like the Hadouken, Shoryuken and Hurricane Kick were a huge discovery, much like the Fatalities in Mortal Kombat. Some things you can only appreciate with the historical perspective of actually being there.

Only played this in the collection rereleases. It's certainly janky & archaic, but I wouldn't say it's as bad as people make it out to be. It is still bad, just not that bad.

how hard was Mike!? the boxer one,like 3 punches and your dead!

Loved your Video, Top Hat Gaming Man as always you challenge "Mainstream" International attitude and history of video games with facts leaving us the viewers to decide for ourselves.

I remember when the game came out as well as Street Fighter 2…. streetfighter 2 was always considered the original even with that thing floating around in the arcades….Nobody talked about the first one

Here’s your 💐 before anyone ever give you any…..your channel rocks out loud

So... What if Capcom redoes Street Fighter using modern controls AND all the stuff they wanted to do but couldn't do? Street Fighter 1+ Never coming to an arcade/gaming platform neer you.

You see, Ryu tapped into the Satsui No Hado when fighting Sagat not because he was unconscious, but because he was so sick and tired of this busted game that he broke the rules and did a lethal Shoryuken in Retaliation for all the coins the player lost.

All this time I thought the reason they got rid of the pressure buttons was that they were always getting broken by all the pounding. They had to change the button design of Konami's Track & Field for a somewhat similar reason.

Please do more videos on mortal kombat & tekken. As well as videos on soul calibur 2,dead or alive,blazblue,bloody roar,snk's world heroes,primal rage,sonic the fighters,pokken tournament,& the fighting/beat em up hybrid pit fighter

I remember when SF1 first came out there was a little crowd around it for a while, but actually playing it was painful. Thank goodness back then the publisher took another chance on a game that wasn't that great but showed some promise. It led to SF2 and it changed arcades forever.

Actually while I thought the six button layout was fairly complex at the time I did believe the prior fighter Karate Champ had the better idea with the dual control sticks to pull off a tremendous array of moves.. Well at least they kinda tried to bring that idea back with the Fight Night series much later on.. Or was it Victorious Boxers that came first!? Nevertheless the SF series ultimately did very well for itself.. It was fairly obvious the sequels were far improved from the original.. But that can also be said of the MKs, Tekkens and Virtua Fighters.. A cool idea would be to remake SF1 like remember we got the VF1 remake included in the package with the Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution on PS2

I only saw the pressure-button SF1 machines recently, at a Street Fighter art exhibit here in Tokyo. But as a kid, I too thought even 4 buttons (Neo Geo) was a lot to remember. NARC had maybe 5 and I couldn’t wrap my head around that. Think about today’s sports, wrestling, and fighting games. Big difference.

I grew up with arcades and didn’t even know the first game existed. I saw and experienced Street Fighter 2 first. On a trip to another country several years later I saw the first SF Arcade cabinet. I was excited to play and try it and yeah it was really bad compared to part 2. I will say though that Eagle’s theme is incredible.

I remember the day it came into our local arcade. it was amazing!! we couldn't stop putting our 10p's in it!! good times.😂

I always wished the would come out with a SF turbo or super where they allow 1 v 1 with all characters available. Keep it 2D but pushed to the max with todays tech.

Glad the Red hair Ryu was a alternative custom on Ultimate marvel vs capcom 3 and Street fighter 5 also on Marvel vs capcom 2

pretty much would say to newcomers to street fighter to watch ryu & sagat's fight in the animated movie to sum up the 1st game's events in a nutshell(odd in the games that field is in australia when ryu spends most of the story travelling through thailand & the asian continent.) as it really is a game where there's no reason to go back to it unless if for a just for fun try in a collection. but do respect it's humble beginnings(still find the characters having the same quotes/voice hilarious,even more if a female fighter had been in it.),would love to see some of it's characters return(eagle especially as i liked playing as him in alpha 3.). and like some of the story in it(ken skipping out on it for a martial arts tournament,birdie being sick to explain his look/dining with ryu after their fight in his 5 arcade route,gen leaving not seeing a worthy opponent,ryu vs. sagat being where canonically when evil ryu showed up to scar sagat which in hindsight would explain ryu's shoryuken being strong enough to nearly strike the muay thai champion's belly open,retsu being friends with gouken/lee having relations with yun and yang in the comics and especially ryu wearing shoes.) along with nishiyama eventually creating fatal fury improving the style.

I'm always astonished at the leap, from this to SF2 is still hard to process, horse & carts to tesla's in a few short years! Amazing

I've been a fan of Lady Decade for a while now and I am just getting into THGM. I love both of your content.

Street fighter 2 was the first game to have large player sprites. They had neve had large sprites like this before for home consoles. Infact it was one of the selling points back in its release.

The special moves in SF1 don't take as much precision as most players think they do. The problem stems from the moves having one distinct difference in the sequels. In SF2, a command is triggered when you press a button. In SF1, it's triggered when you release the button. You can press a punch button and then release it at the end of the quarter circle motion to more consistently throw the Hadoken. (It still takes practice, though.)

I love this game . You didn’t have to hit the pressure sensitive buttons hard, you could just tap on them lightly. Back then people didn’t grasp the concept of joystick movements for special moves. People just moved the joysticks every which way until a move came out on accident. Also I owned the 6 button version and version and because of the way they placed the switches for buttons inside it was hard to pull off moves. I just adjusted the switches to be closer so that when you did special moves they would come out as easy as sf2. Obviously no combos like sf2.

I remember seeing it in 88’ for first time at a pizza parlor….even the adults were in awe of the graphics and movement speed! U had to be there👍

Huh, Never realized just how many characters were in the first game. That's really cool, also kinda helps make sense of things once you realize the order of continuity for all the titles. Only been subscribed to the channel for a couple days and i've already learned plenty about games i thought i knew enough about. 😅👍

The first Street Fighter arcade game is legendary in my opinion. I played it religiously...and found it extremely challenging. We didn't have the "pressure sensitive" version, we had the "6 button" version, which gave me a heads up when SF2 came out (as I had learned/discovered how to perform Ryu/Ken special attacks from constantly playing SF). While Street Fighter 2 gets the accolades and acclaim, SF was the genesis of it all. Capcom should remake the game with updated mechanics.

Man I had almost thought I had imagined this game before seeing this. When I was in elementary school we use to go to a Pizza place all of the time that had a Street Fighter Arcade machine that I would play every time we went. Nice to learn more about it and it's history.

It was terrible, I remember playing this in the arcade at the time and thinking I would rather be playing Target Renegade on the Spectrum. Any thats no slander against Target Renegade.

I remember playing this in the arcade when I was in High School. Always loved those original characters. I also remember the first time someone kid pulled out the Hadoken on me, and I was shocked. Didn't even realize there were special moves like that until I had been playing it for awhile.