street fighter

Street Fighter 2 [Arcade – Concept]

Developed by Capcom, Street Fighter II was released in 1991 as a sequel to the original 1987 Street Fighter and it’s credited for starting the fighting game boom during the 1990s. Its success led to the production of a series of updated versions, each offering additional features and characters over previous versions, as well as several home versions. The roster initially included Ryu and Ken plus six new characters from different nationalities. [Info from Wikipedia]

In EGM issue #33 there was an interesting article with some early character designs, that show different versions of Vega (Balrog), Chun Li and Blanka.

Thanks to Celine for the scan!

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Street Fighter 1 [Arcade – Beta / Proto]

The original Street Fighter made its debut in the arcades in 1987. It was designed by Capcom’s Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto. The player took control of martial artist Ryu, who competed in a worldwide martial arts tournament, spanning five countries and ten opponents. [Info from Wikipedia]

Street Fighter 1 went through some changes between the prototype and the final, some of the more notable changes is the main character Ryu’s victory pose has changed from prototype to final, some of the characters not programed into the game, and no voices for the game. Below is a list of noticeable changes, with the help of  Torentsu who was kind enough to do a little digging into the coding, so please if you see him on the U64 Forums, please give him a pat on the back.

The prototype version:

* No Demo Mode, goes to high score table and then back to the title screen
* There are different colors used in the high score table.
* Title Screen animation is different
* Is buggy
* No voice samples.
* Characters share stage music.
* Ryu’s victory pose is different.
* Every sound effect is different from the final.
* Different intro/outro music.
* Instead of best 2 out of 3, you must win a best 3 out of 6
* There is a typo on the victory screen, “Rut Don’t Forget…” instead of  “But Don’t Forget…”.
* There’s no level select, it just goes down a list of fighters.
* The Hurricane Kick isn’t in the game.
* The Build Date is earlier than the final, possibly a demo version of the game
* Enemies are missing from the beta, but the stage maps are there, and there are some differences between the beta and final.

Below is a video comparing gameplay from the prototype build to the final, note some of the changes are shown. If you have any information about this prototype, let us know in the comments.

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RS Links: the lost Street Fighter II HD’s Intro

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is a remake of the famous fighting game, that was released for the PSStore and XLArcade in november 2008. The game uses high definition graphics drawn by UDON Entertainment, at least in the gameplay sections. Robert Seddon linked us to the official UDON blog, where we can read that:

While everyone knows that UDON recreated HD versions of all the sprites, backgrounds, and character select shots…what you don’t know is that we also recreated the classic intro sequence for the game!

Unfortunately, it did not make it into the final version of the game. But, presented for here for the first time, we have the the full intro with redone HD artwork by UDON!

 

Street Fighter IV Flashback [X360/PS3 – Concept]

street-fighter-4-flashback-logo

Street Fighter IV Flashback was a concept created by Backbone Entertainment in 2006, to try to pitch a full project at Capcom. It’s not that strange that Backbone proposed something like this, as they are in good relationship with Capcom: they developed various  games published by Capcom, like 1942: Joint Strike, Wolf of the Battlefield and the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Also, keep in mind that this concept is not related to the real Street Fighter 4, which development started only much later.

Sf4: Flashback was meant to be a 3D sequel to the Street Fighter series, with the classic 1 vs 1 fights, online play and a full single player adventure mode, know as “Ryu’s Journey”.  Ryu’s Journey was supposed to be a free-roaming 3D action game, in the vein of Ninja Gaiden or Onimusha, with levels to explore, lots of enemies to fight, NPC to talk to and final bosses.

The concept behind the “Flashback” had various meanings. The single player mode was set in Ryu’s flashback to SF2 and the story would have followed classic Street Fighter moments and revisit familiar characters.  Also,  there was meant to be a new game mechanic called “flashback ” that let the players  to rewind time to undo mistakes.

The concept arts of Street Fighter IV Flashback were made in collaboration between Backbone, Massive Black and UDON (that in the end worked on the SSFII Turbo HD Remix arts). Unreal 3 would have been used as the main 3D engine for the single and multiplayer modes.

Even if the project could have been interesting, this concept was not approved by Capcom: probably not even a playable prototype was ever made and only these few concept artworks / 3D models remain to preserve the existence of this game that will never be.

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