Street Fighter Retrospective - Part 1: The Birth of Fighting Games 

Jamaican here. As a zoomer kid just getting into Street Fighter in the mid to late '10s, Dee Jay was HUGE to me. Imagine being from such a small country that it's often forgotten on maps, seeing your culture represented among all of these much bigger countries would've meant the world to you. I used to copy Dee Jay's moves in my room all the time, he was the best character to younger me, although, looking back, he could've represented us a bit better, even I realized this back in the day.

16:21 - 16:39 "Street fighter 1 is the only fighting game in history that fought back" Only the most elegant and well written responses to explain why the design of a fighting game cabinet was horrendous.

_"He wanted to call it Street Fighter to make it sound like a fight could breakout anywhere"_ The series has taken us to some crazy places but the World Tours even cooler with that bit of hindsight

Regarding the inspiration of the Hadoken, while it is true that the Dragon Ball anime came out only one year before SF1, you gotta remember that Dragon Ball was originally a manga, and the manga came out in 1984. So I think Nishiyama was aware of Dragon Ball by then.

I think people who were born after 1991 cannot ever truly comprehend what a *HUGE* deal Street Fighter II was. It really did change EVERYTHING. It made arcades a scene. It cemented a truly competitive aspect to video games. It made a genre template that is still used today. There was really nothing like it, on such a grand scale, before.

As for Cammy's SSF2 ending, Capcom didn’t retconned it out per se, they (Capcom USA) started to use the Japanese ending as canon, where Bison said that Cammy killed for him rather than them being lovers. In otherwords, Cammy being Bison's lover was a Capcom USA invention, something of which happened often in Capcom games when localized in the states. Other examples include Nash being changed to Charlie in SF2 and Gunlock being Guile's brother. There is an article online where one of the Capcom of Japan producers mentioned how during the 90s, the Capcom of USA would ask Capcom of Japan to change something during the localization of a Capcom game "to appeal to western audiences." Capcom of Japan soon realized that Capcom of USA wanted to change character names and storylines so as to make a mark onto the game so to speak. As a result, Capcom of Japan put a stop to it.

Street Fighter is the grandmaster of fighting games Street Fighter II started it all.

None of Thorgi's descriptions of just how big the fighting game boom was is hyperbole. I was there, can confirm. I was NYC-based during the '90s. Arcades where you once played Pac-Man and Defender and Konami beat-em-ups morphed into virtual fighting dojos. EVERY laundromat and video store and most bodegas had at least one fighting game in it. You could legit be a wandering warrior like Ryu and challenge different people in different machines, each like their own dojo with their own crowds, mere blocks from each other. This isn't even bringing Chinatown Fair into the mix. SNES SF2 was THE killer app for the SNES that kids salivated for months before release due to the arcade version blowing up. Then Mortal Kombat did it all over again (for the Genesis, at any rate...). Literally everything _and I do mean everything_ became a fighting game. If it was an established, IP, if it was a new IP, whatever, it got the treatment. PONG was turned into a fighting game, only half-ironically (and definitely unofficially). I watched footage of Battle Arena Toshinden and Mortal Kombat 3 playing on the Jumbotron in Times Square to hype the PS1's launch. Street Fighter II got the ball rolling for my world changing before my eyes. Thanks, Thorgi. Love what you do.

1:25:55 ACTUALLY in Dead or Alive 4, Jann Lee’s ending shows a flashback to him as a poor hungry child, where he became inspired to fight just like Bruce Lee. It’s my favorite fighting game ending and I think of it at least once a week

KoF Retrospective: This is the longest series of videos I’ve ever done. SF Retrospective: Hold mah beer.

Street Fighter will forever be the most famous and blueprint fighting game in history no fighting games wouldn't exist without Street Fighter that goes for Mortal Kombat, Tekken, King Of Fighters, Virtua Fighters, Killer Instinct, Dead Or Alive, Bloody Roar you name them.

If this man covers all the spin offs than he is truly a legend!

I've read that the original two Fei Long characters were suppose to be brothers known as the twin dragons of flame and thunder each one of them having one of those elements in their attacks which might have been interesting but its better off that Dee Jay took the spot in SSF2 because they would later reuse and refine the concept into Yun and Yang down the road

As far as Rainbow Edition goes, I ran into a cabinet in the wild during the 90s. When I tried to tell people about this, they looked at me like I was absolutely insane and it was so hard on kid me because I gaslite myself into thinking that maybe I was tripping.

Gentlemen, it's time.

38:42-39:36 So my eyes *WERN'T* playing tricks on me yesterday! I recently downloaded Street Fighter II The Definitive Soundtrack and added it to my phone yesterday. I saw some familiar names such as Isao Abe & Shun Nishigaki, and then I had to double take 3x to make sure I'm seeing Yoko Shimomora's name as one of the artists. I thought to myself, "The Kingdom Hearts JRPG lady?! Nah, what I downloaded was a bootleg high-quality gamerip of SFII's music. There's no way Yoko help make the SFII music." I'm kinda happy to be proven wrong. And hearing how she made the music with her struggles made the woman go up even more for me then she already has!

Wow. Hearing about Shen Long brought back memories of Guile's gun rumor.

I think the most fascinating part about Final Fight to me is the fact that the setting of the game, Metro City, is also the setting of Captain Commando, another Capcom beat'em'up, except taking place in the distant future of 2026. Street Fighter 6 also takes place during 2023, because every mainline Street Fighter title that isn't a prequel to 3 canonically takes place at the same year of release, which means Capcom has to decide soon whether or not to feature the Captain Commando characters or keep them in their own separate timeline. Most likely the latter, but the way Capcom ends up tying all their franchises together, especially with the MVC series, has always been such an interesting topic to me.

Fun Fact: In the OG SF, you can hold down a button and input the motion command for a special move before releasing the button. After experimenting with executing specials, I found that this was the most reliable method. Granted it's not a very big margin, but it helps. Luckily, this button-first input system would return with great improvements in games like SFV and Smash Bros.

Thorgi constantly uploading quality content… you love to see it!!!

“You ever lose over half your life to one throw before?” …. *Distant Potemkin noises*

Street Fighter will always be the standard fighting game franchise 🍵

Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat 1 were the first fighting games I've ever played, thank you for bringing back some memories.

The amount of times SF2 nearly goofed up on things that would've lead to fighting games being totally different today is insane.

1:26:06 - Capcom of America was REALLY going to a weird place with the translations of some of the Super SF2 characters' endings, but the change to Cammy's is probably the worst, lmao. He doesn't give an anguished statement of love, he tells her "you were my spy, but since you don't remember anything, you're useless to me now, gtfo."

Y'know I just had a thought that I'm surprised nobody thought of while the premiere was going on, SF2 Rainbow Edition is just "RANDOM BULLSH- GO!" the fighting game.

Off topic but still Street Fighter related we need another Street Fighter animated series or anime as well an animated or anime movie we getting another Street Fighter live action movie and I hope it's taken seriously but we'll see how that turns out.

Another amazing video! I honestly think you could do a retrospective on phone books and it would be a banger. Also thank you so much for the shoutout 🙏

You missed something major about Vanilla Street Fighter II: There were no Mirror Matches (excluding Ryu vs Ken, back when they were practically the same). iirc, they were added in the Super Nintendo port as a secret code. It would become standard in Champion Edition.

I like how the evolution of the street fighter franchise is similar to Ryu's character development In the first game, Ryu is a rookie fighter who hasn't reached his full potential yet, similar to the first game having potential, but just not being very good.

That title sequence was so beautiful leading up to the brofist of Ryu and Ken

A small note: in Super, it's not that Ryu's Hadoken will "OCCASIONALLY" come out red. In the previous versions of SF2, there was a glitch that made Ryu & Ken's fireballs sometimes come out red for no reason; it didn't affect any other properties of it - damage, etc. - just a graphical hiccup. For Super, they decided to acknowledge the glitch by turning it into a full-fledged unique move for Ryu, complete with its own unique input command, that could also light the enemy ablaze.

Thorgi has finally done it! A Street Fighter retrospective! Let's enjoy the ride kids!

I've dived into the world of 2d fighters recently and this channel has been a godsend. Every game i have besides skullgirls is covered by this man and thats why he's the goat 🐐

3:41 Guy: “The Rumble Fi-“ Girl: “The Rumble Fish.” Guy: “EVERY TIME!!!”

I am so glad you gave a shout-out to Baberuthless, I found her a little while ago and shes genuinely awesome. 😊

1:22:17 never heard of this James Goddard person until now but this entire section where he kinda fights for his vision of Deejay's design has made me a fan, shoutout to him for making Deejay what he is today

Also, surprised there was no mention of how Special Champion Edition coming out for Genesis was a big enough deal that they actually created a 6-button Sega controller just to play it properly.

Shout outs to growing up in a small town and having your mind expanded by the media you consumed when you were young. I don't know if it was your experience but these places are not exactly welcoming to those who are different, even if they aren't hostile there's still a whole lot of Foghorn Leghorn dismissiveness and these kinds of media were almost like portals to other worlds. And sometimes escape hatches when the decision got oppressive.

After watching this and the previous video on cut characters, I can't help but wonder how different things would have been if Dick Jumpsey had stuck around. Also, on the subject of Capcom nearly giving us characters before other games gave us those characters: Rejected Tiger Mask wrestler nearly became Capcom's version of King a whole 3 years before Tekken gave us King.

The original Street Fighter was actually quite popular at my local arcade back in the day. Nobody could do the special moves as Ryu, but could do them as Ken (for some reason). NOBODY ever saw Sagat. Most players couldn't get past Eagle, but no one beat Adon. It wasn't till MAME I found out how ridiculously overpowered the special moves were.

Its hard to describe how important Ryu was for my childhood. He and Link were like friends and heroes to me, and its carried through to adulthood. I was a weird kid.

My first memory of SF2 was seeing the full body flame effect after a guy hit Ryu with Dhalsims fireball and going "Woah, what the Heck, that was cool!"

The answer lays. **IN HEART OF BATTLE!!!** Yeah babbyy!!!

Sheng Long is how ironically, we got Akuma. Akuma was born from an April Fool's joke since Sheng Long in the screenshot looks almost a lot like him before he was corrupted by the Dark Arts. And I gotta do the thing... 1:23:47 Aurora Borealis?! In this time of year, in this time of day, in this part of cyberspace, located within the entirety of this youtube channel?

I have what the KOF retrospective a thousand times, now I have a new series to watch over and over again!

Street Fighter has some crazy history. Also Capcom can count to three better than Valve at least.

Street Fighter was my first venture into fighting games. I first played it in 1987 when I was 10 years old at an arcade I frequent throughout the years afterwards. My mom would drop me off there while she went shopping at the Hecht's Department store next door. I remember I always played on the first player side and thus my "bromance" with Ryu began and I've been maining him ever since. Now when I found out Street Fighter ii came out, I had got dropped off at the arcade while my mom went shopping next door. It had a bunch of people there playing it. I remember say, while in the crowd, "I didn't know they made a part two! The first one was fun as hell to play!". The other players looked at me like I was smoking crack. I think a couple of them tried to argue me down but I said to them, "Why does it have a 2 at the end of it?". One guy was like "Whatever motherfucker!". LOL!! Edit : When I played SF1, I actually played on the arcade cabinet with, what is now iconic, the joystick and 6-button layout. I remember hearing several years ago about the pressure pad layout.

It's crazy how one glitch created something that's common for fighters now. I wonder how what would happen if it was cut?

From what I've been told about the Street Fighter 1 Specials You can apparently consistently activate them through Negative Edge inputs

I’m glad I get to know more about Street Fighter, Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 2, and of course Street Fighter 2.

Finally time to begin that road to the Street Fighter Retrospective! Loved this video so much I love this series to death and it’s great to see while I’m having a blast with Street Fighter 6 😊😊😊

My body is ready for Thorgi to fill it with ALL the Street Fighter knowledge. LFG!

Been dying to see this!!! SF and KOF is life!!!

Seriously thorgi excited to see this while I play sf6 world tour fun evening ahead ^_^. Cheers for the efforts and skill at keeping the retrospective fresh and wonderfully details with movie length runtime. Hope channel and ideas go from strength to strength

Capcom: Shen Long is simply a misunderstanding I’m sure people will forget about it. EGM Magazine Writers: Allow us to introduce ourselves…

I remember getting into the SF series thx to the 30th anniversary collection for the switch and all the games were great but SF3 took the spot as my favorite in the series bc of the characters/hip hop influence in both the settings and soundtrack and I’m happy to see that aesthetic live on in Street Fighter 6🔥

I now want an SF6 side tournament using "Ancient" controls on set-ups using two pressure sensitive buttons. I need to see if combos can even work in that circumstance.

The Capcom Play System has only been officially abbreviated as CPS, not CP system. The successor to the hardware was called the Capcom Play System 2, or CPS2 for short. Ryu's red Hadouken is NOT random in The New Challengers. It WAS random in previous games, because it was a glitch. However, in The New Challengers, the player can do the burning Hadouken with its own motion, namely the half circle forward, same as Dhalsim's Yoga Flame. By the way, that Chun Li projectile sprite from Hyper Fighting/Turbo is actually a couple of recolored Yoga Fire sprites. The more you know...

Worth noting Dragon Ball was a wildly popular manga and came out in 1984, its very very possible that things were inspired by the manga even if no one had watched the anime. Afterall that is 3 years before the release.

51:53 I wasn't prepared for how ...compassionate Guile's Japanese win quote was. Damn.

So hyped for this series thorgi.

I love what you do. I came across “part 2” before seeing this one, but I am floored by all the detail in these retrospectives. I can’t wait for future parts. Thank you!❤❤❤❤

One more thing I feel like I need to correct you on: In Street Fighter 1, originally you select between four countries; Japan, USA, China, and England. It was in the 30th anniversary collection where, for some reason, they removed the choices of China and England.

I can tell this is a MASSIVE undertaking, if one part is just SF2 then I'm intrigued to see how the other parts are divvied up. Keep up the good work!

This is gonna be extra fun!

Amazing video as always! I will look forward for the next parts of this restrospective.

"A lot of people thought Street Fighter 2 was the first one!" Me hearing people talk about "Fallout 3" being the first Fallout game several years later.

I don’t think you’ve ever done THIS amount of editing before you mad man 🎉

THE PERFECT VIDEO TO CLOSE OUT THE WEEKEND CELEBRATING THE RELEASE OF STREET FIGHTER 6! YOU OUTDID YOURSELF! 🎉👏🏻

This was a great watch, looking forward to the rest of this series.

I’m sad that y’all couldn’t be there!!! SF 1 was AMAZING!! You can’t diss this Jawn compared to new games.

Fun Fact: The skulls around Dhalshim's neck are children who starved to death in his village. Me when I found this out: The fuck?

I remember it took me years to even realize there was a street fighter before 2. But where the heck was SF1? I thought it was probably one of the dozen versions I've seen at the arcade, each so subtly different that it made no sense. Some even had ken throwing fireballs with his shoryuken and guile could fill the whole screen with sonic booms. And I found nothing about it on the gaming magazines. The 90s lack of instant information created quite a bit of legends.

Thorgi: "Ok, I'll stop" Me: "NO THORGI! KEEP GOING! MAKE THEM UNDERSTAND!" 😂

And. Here. We. Go! Havent even turned it on yet, but thank you good sir for these continued retrospectives-these are amazing pieces of work, the time and energy put in this-just thank you, thank you :)

Another great retrospective starts. I hope when the time to talk about the spin-offs comes, you talk about the weird but interesting story of Blade and how he is connected with Guile and the Slammasters series lore, and how that story returned in the CFN for SFV years ago. That alone just made me want Blade to be in a main SF game.

Finally. Now we get to the blockbusters

Bro. That intro has me feeling nostalgic about a series that ive only started exploring this past year or two.

I can't wait for the rest of this retrospective! I always enjoy your retrospectives! Long live SF!

This series is going to be a masterpiece by the time we reach the conclusion everybody, just letting you know

1:25:55 actually Jann Lee does this in doa. He’s literally a clone of Bruce Lee. In the sense he canonically was an orphan who watched enter the dragon in the orphanage and was inspired to learn jeet kun do to grow strong and even gives him self the surname of Lee in tribute to the man who inspired him to be a warrior. So the only person *ryu hayabusa* considers a rival in the series is just a guy who wanted to copy Bruce Lee.

Dude, I absolutely love your retrospectives. Thank you for all the hard work and sharing this with the world. 😊

Fantastic episode! Can’t wait for Pt.2 ! & Pt.3 !

I think (at 1:15:44) for Ryu's red fireball, it was random in the previous games, but a regular special move (half circle forwards + P) in super street fighter II

How many of us can actually claim we were there in the beginning, burning quarter after quarter marching through the arcade mode, only to get to the end for some fukknuckle to challenge you right when you were about to see the story ending of the characters you were playing? Ahh, good times. Not to mention wasn't too much trash talking...since the irl butt whooping was standing right next to you😅😅😅

This retrospective is amazing. You really hit on my childhood with street fighter and so much interesting info 🎉🎉. The whole name thing with balrog, Vega, and m bison is crazy

Man I’ve been waiting for this. Outstanding magnificent video dude. You are the true man of excellent culture.

Never even bothered questioning that the boxer in SF1 might be a different person than Balrog. It's the friggin' Lemon Demon in Friday Night Funkin' all over again.

The hype is real!!!! 🎉

Amazing video as always. Can't wait for part 2.

You deserve an award for this series. Thank you so much!

I certainly do remember the hype around SFII back in the 90s. I was 13-14 years old at the time it released. I first read about it in EGM number 42, the one with Sonic 2 on the cover, then I played it at a local arcade first, Champion Edition, and then the SNES port. It was a good port, all things considered. At first...I didn't like it because I couldn't understand the motions to do special moves. But deep down I still felt compelled to just play it and I found Guile with his charge moves to make it easier for me and soon I became a fan. I moved on to guys like Ryu and such. Good times indeed... I never played SF1 till years later. I agree that it was rough. But it's interesting to see how it started.

I still haven’t picked up SF6,I hate that this will just make me more hyped and excited.However,Thorgi is uploading so I kinda have to.Side note,THAT INTRO WAS AWESOME

52:39 segment was crazy, I lived through it when it was new. I really loved the expression you had... because a lot of us did. I didn't think I get through part 1 and 2 in the same day. Thank you very much for the retrospective. It's been a blast.

Great episode. I knew a lot of this, but did learn a few things and the presentation was great.

I know there's a lot to cover and you did great I do think it should be pointed out that SF2 Championship edition introduced mirror matches to the series (maybe genre too). Its actually a cute story in chapter 4 of polygon's street fighter an oral history. There were 2 little girls dressed up as chun-li for Halloween arguing who got to play play as her at the arcade and one of the guys at capcom USA saw that and had a realization so he called up the Japanese offices and asked if that would be possible.

Sheng long is real you can fight him in street fighter 6! You can finally stand a chance!

I was so ready to click onto part 2 and binge this series but it's not uploaded yet. Can't wait for the other parts.

1:15:04 Just say CPS. PLEASE!!! 😭😭😭 Also incredible video, I legit could not stop watching lol