Street Fighter 2 celebrated its 30th anniversary on February 6, 2021. The game released in arcades back in 1991 and ignited a craze that spread from the arcade to home consoles across the world. Since then, the series has gone on to spawn numerous sequels, spin-off games, anime, movies, toy lines, and more. Thirty years later, the game that revolutionized the fighting game genre is still impacting the fighting game genre and gaming culture in general to this day.
The original Street Fighter was a very different form of what would become arguably the most iconic fighting game in history. With the release of Street Fighter 2, however, Capcom refined the game’s core gameplay and defined some of the characters that are now among the most recognizable in gaming history. Its release had eager players dumping quarter after quarter into arcade machines and excitedly snapping up console versions of the game once it released on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. Street Fighter 2 is celebrating its 30th anniversary, but the game still impacts games available on even the newest PCs and consoles.
The fighting game genre has become one of the more popular in gaming, with big tournaments like the Evo Series drawing millions of viewers and featuring the biggest titles in the space like Mortal Kombat, Super Smash Bros., and of course Street Fighter. That craze truly began back in 1991 with the release of Street Fighter 2. Capcom had refined the elements of its previous beat em’ ups into a system that is still the industry standard for play thirty years later. And its arcade roots are still being celebrated today with various releases of mini-arcade consoles and rereleases like the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection that includes Street Fighter 2’s current iteration and several other classic Street Fighter games in the Alpha series and some others.
It’s hard to overstate Street Fighter 2‘s impact on the genre. Today’s 2D fighting games like Dragon Ball FighterZ still utilize mechanics that were pioneered in Street Fighter 2. The iconic “dragon punch” command is a safe bet for any fighting game veteran who is attempting to test out a new game’s commands for special attacks, and performing quarter circles on the analog sticks, D-Pads, or arcade sticks are still the go-to move for testing out a new controllers feel for many fighting game players. Over its 30 year history, Capcom has refined the formula, but it’s not always perfect and Street Fighter still has many broken characters in its history. The core gameplay of Street Fighter still sets the bar for balancing any new traditional 2D fighting game nonetheless.
The number of spin-off titles that have come out from Street Fighter can be staggering. Cross over games like the popular Marvel vs. Capcom franchise sees Ryu and other Capcom fighters squaring up against Marvel’s mightiest heroes and villains. And the often underrated Street Fighter x Tekken was meant to be the first in a pair of crossover titles, but ended up becoming a standalone game. What was once Capcom’s biggest competitor in the fighting game space, SNK, also worked with Capcom to create crossover games that saw the cast of King of Fighters and other SNK titles fighting against Capcom’s stable of warriors. And newer titles featuring Street Fighter characters, and naturally Street Fighter V, are considered by many to be among the best of the PS4 and Xbox One generation.
Thirty years later, many players still enjoy the original Street Fighter 2, and whether they’re playing Street Fighter V or not, most fighting game players are still impacted by its legacy. Almost all modern fighting games owe at least some inspiration to Street Fighter. And many modern fans are still excitedly awaiting any new information about Street Fighter 6. The legacy of Street Fighter 2 is hard to ignore, and it doesn’t seem like the franchise is going away any time soon, even as the new generation of consoles and PCs has arrived.
Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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