Street Fighter II: The World Warrior Longplay (Arcade) [60 FPS]

Developed and published by Capcom in 1991.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. Capcom certainly took W.E. Hickson's proverb to heart following the release of the original Street Fighter arcade game back in 1987. The original game in the series was a relatively mediocre fighting game that didn't play particularly well, but it certainly sowed the seeds for what was yet to come.

It's difficult to talk about Street Fighter II without using a slew of superlatives, suffice to say that Capcom managed to capture lightning in a bottle with the release of the sequel.

On a technical level, Capcom's CPS1 arcade board delivered a truly exceptional experience. Each of the fighter sprites is large, well-animated and highly detailed. Even though home consoles received extremely good conversions of the game, they still didn't offer quite the same experience that a dedicated arcade board. Perhaps, most impressively of all, is the audio; the music in particular is certainly a step above what other arcade games were delivering at the time.

Perhaps the most important thing that Capcom got right was the controls. Although the original game introduced special moves that were executed via a combination of joystick movements/button presses, their execution were not easy to perform. Executing special moves in this this sequel is extremely easy to do once the player knows the correct combination (something that some of the home computer versions of the game managed to get so disastrously wrong).

Character balance in the game is also well considered. Each of the fighters in the available roster have strengths and weaknesses; all are equally capable of winning fights, and it is the mastery of your chosen fighter, plus understanding the abilities of the opponent, that leads to victory.

Sprite collision detection is precise and consistent, famously cementing the games "feel" amongst gamers. During development of Street Fighter 4, Capcom implemented hit detection much more in line with that of their older 2D fighters because many players felt that the new title simply didn't feel right.

There isn't much else that can be said about the game. For once, there's nothing that I can think of that is truly wrong with the game; many variations of the game would follow, each offering refinements and tweaks and additional mechanics, but this game still continues to offer one of the best gaming experiences to date.
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