Karate practitioner Ryu enters an international martial arts tournament to test his strength. At any point in time, a second player could jump in and start a versus match - a feature pioneered by SF.
Street Fighter II (1991-1994)
SF2 expanded on the two-player versus concept, allowing players to choose from eight world warriors, each with different signature moves. The idea of 'combos' also emerged in the first edition as an unintended glitch; it was officially added in subsequent revisions.
Street Fighter Alpha (1995)
Compared to SF2, SFA was a lot easier to play. Players could now block in the air. More emphasis was also placed on flashy combos, performed in this instalment by simply pressing attack buttons in the order of increasing strength.
Street Fighter Alpha 2 (1996)
In short, this was SFA1 refined, balanced and perfected. More SF2 characters returned. The new characters introduced here - Sakura, Evil Ryu, Gen - quickly became favourites.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 (1998)
Pitched as an anthology, SFA3 starred more than 30 pugilists, each offered in three distinctive flavours: X-ism (SF2 style that does more damage at the expense of combo potential), A-ism (a balanced, SFA2 style), and V-ism (original; offers better combos, but also lower damage-per-hit).
Street Fighter III (1997-1999)
Though innovative, this was the least-liked entry in the series because of two reasons: few returning characters (Ryu, Ken, Akuma, and Chun Li) and a parry system in which you hit forward on the joystick at the exact same time as your opponent's attack to nullify it. Not only were parries difficult to execute, they also greatly limited the effectiveness of projectile attacks. This paradigm shift was preferred by some players, but the vast majority agreed that it no longer felt like Street Fighter.
This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.
