"Fighting Street" - Turbografx/PC Engine CD

It's our first Turbografx CD! And it's Fighting Street! What, you don't know Fighting Street? What if I rearrange it to Street Fight... er?

That's right, this is Street Fighter! The original! You haven't played it, I haven't played it, all we know about it is that it had big slappy buttons in the arcade, and we're in for a night.

The game was developed originally in 1987 exclusively for arcade by Capcom but is ported here by Alfa System. This was the game that standardized the concept of the 6-button control, and served as one of the first major outings into what became the modern fighting game genre. I've often heard that Street Fighter's first outing was a beat 'em up, and I guess we'll see, but Wikipedia says that it's actually a competitive fighting game that takes place over rounds.

Since the PC Engine controller only had two buttons, the home version of the game did away with the 6-button controls and replaced them with a simpler 2-button scheme, where the duration of the button hold determines the power of the attack.

And by the way, that's right, this is the first game I've played that uses the mystical Turbografx CD expansion. Fighting Street takes up over a whopping 200 MBs, presumably to contain the voice clips that I've been promised by reading about the game. This sucker was a whopper much like the Sega CD addon, taking up as much/more space than the console itself.

I mean you've got room for one PC Engine. How about two PC Engines?

We'll see just what other incredible fantasy powers this CD system loans to Fighting Street, I'm sure, if we pop it in and give it a try:

That logo looks familiar... but wrong.

----- Playthrough -----

In Fighting Street, you play as a hardy Japanese youth: Ryu. It's unclear what motivates him to push on but for some reason Ryu has decided his goal in life (at least in the short term) is to take a plane all over the world and beat up people in every country until he's just basically the strongest person on the planet whom he hasn't beaten up (although I imagine he'll beat himself up too whenever he loses a round along the way).

He is also cultivating the world's thickest eyebrows, but is currently outclassed by this guy.

Playing as Ryu, you'll be given some options to how you want to approach the game. You've got to take out two dudes in every country on the map that you have interest in: The USA, the UK, China, and Japan. Once you're done with that you'll go off to Thailand to finish off the two roughest, toughest fighters in the whole world.

You can start with any of the four countries you want, but you'll have to do them all. They seem to increase in difficulty as you go up the order (China seems to be the hardest, Japan is definitely the easiest). After playing for an hour or two, I decided my strategy was going to be to tackle China at the outset and get it out of the way, because the rest of the game would be easier at that point.

"What do you mean you can't give me change!? SURE YOUUU CAN!" (Please kill me)

Your options as Ryu are to use the 1 and 2 buttons on the controller to perform punches and kicks. The arcade game had a 6 button setup, but since this is the PC Engine, you have those two, and the power of your hit is decided by how long you hold the button. Tapping 2 will cause a little jab to come out, while holding it will throwout a meaty hook with some knockback.

For the first hour or so of playing I didn't think that Ryu's special moves were in this game, but it turns out the Hadouken, Shoryuken, and UBLACACKABLUUUGEN (the spinning kick thing) are all here. It's just that they're almost impossible to actually fire off. But once I read online that they were in the game, I went back to the first stage of Japan and sat there trying to do the Shoryuken for almost 30 minutes before I accidentally did a Hadouken instead.

I'LL TAKE IT!

Some more practice eventually got me enough skill with the controller to make a Shoryu come out at least every 5-6 tries. Honestly, they require such precision (and I read that the game's input reading is broken anyway) that I can't imagine doing much better than that, but maybe if I played the game more religiously it would happen.

From there on it was pretty smooth sailing. Back to China, and just sitting there inputting the Shoryu motion over and over again hoping for the best. The best came true, and eventually I took down Sagat and all his cronies and had the honor of being recognized as the international power that I truly am. Thanks Fighting Street.

I already knew it.

----- Impressions -----

How long did I play?
2 hours, 13 minutes.

How much did I beat?
I beat the game.

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Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

I'd say Street Fighter is about as intuitive as any other fighting game-- pressing the buttons will quickly teach you what moves you have at your disposal (a punch and a kick), and a little extra experimentation will teach you they get heavier the longer you hold the button.

Because of the strict inputs however, it would require truly a brutal amount of experimentation to EVER figure out the moves for the hadouken, shoryuken, and whatever kick. I'd go so far as to say that you would never figure them out, because even knowing them, I was convinced they weren't in there from trying to make them happen.

Gameplay: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel? Too difficult?

At first it's frustrating, especially because of the difficulty: the game feels impossible, but once you learn to shoryuken fairly reliably, you're in fat city.

The invincibility frames (time during the animation where you can't be hit) are basically the entire shoryu motion, so if you input it mid-air and have it happen again when you hit the ground, you're basically an invincible whirlwind of death that will decimate every enemy in the game. Sometimes it even hits twice and does almost 2/3rds of the enemy's health bar in one move.

You'd think after 15 times he'd stop jumping in, but I guess not.

That being said, making it happen reliably is very difficult and will take some practice. Unfortunately, once you have it down, that's about all you really need to do in this game-- any other strategy is pretty much suboptimal (aside from maybe tossing out a hadouken when they're far enough away).

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

Apparently roundabout 2 hours. Use some save states though or something, and I'm sure you could finish it in half that time and not have to practice quite as hard. It's really just beating all the enemies in succession that's trouble, not any individual one (though some are harder than others, they all become the same difficulty once you learn to shoryu).

The inclusion of the special moves theoretically makes this deeper than alternative fighting games of similar types like Yie Ar Kung Fu, but unfortunately I think it actually makes it less fun once you know how effective they are.

Presentation: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

Despite any other limitations, I'm pretty sure that Street Fight-- sorry, Fighting Street, is the prettiest game that we've seen so far in the primarily 2D era. The sprite work looks pretty good, both the levels and the characters. The animations are pretty good for what they are too.

It's like I'm really there on the great wall, jumping and punching, myself.

The real beauty of the game comes through in the Turbografx/PC Engine CD's capability for high quality music. The game features a remastered version of the arcade soundtrack, and it's honestly got some pretty sweet tunes, especially for the time period. 

Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

I've never really gotten along with fighting games very well, but I happen to like Street Fighter II, as it's the one I've had the most exposure to and actually know how to play a little bit (I learned how to not just button mash as an adult). Because of that, and because of Ryu being my favorite character in that game, this game has a little bit of a personal chord for me, but there's nothing about it that jumps out for any other reason than that really, aesthetically. The music's sweet though.

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

Honestly, probably not. The game is quaint, and at times it even approaches fun, but ultimately it's just a race to learn how to input that shoryu. I'd really recommend instead that you go play the game that basically birthed the fighting game genre proper-- this game's younger sibling: Street Fighter II.

You can still play this though if you want to, don't let me stop you.

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