Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (ストリートファイターⅡ -The World Warrior-) is a competitive fighting game originally released for the arcades in 1991. It is the second entry in the Street Fighter series and the arcade sequel to the original Street Fighter released in 1987. It was Capcom's fourteenth title that ran on the CP System arcade hardware. Street Fighter II improved upon the many concepts introduced in the first game, including the use of command-based special moves and a six-button configuration, while offering players a selection of multiple playable characters, each with their own unique fighting style.
The success of Street Fighter II is credited for starting the fighting game boom during the 1990s which inspired other game developers to produce their own fighting game franchises, popularizing the genre. Its success led to a sub-series of updated versions (see below), each offering additional features and characters over previous versions, as well as several home versions. In 1993, sales of Street Fighter II exceeded $1.5 billion in gross revenues, and by 1994, the game had been played by at least 25 million Americans in homes and arcades. The video game console port to the Super NES sold 6.3 million units and remained Capcom's best-selling consumer game of all time until 2013, when it was surpassed by Resident Evil 5.
Street Fighter II follows several of the conventions and rules already established by its original 1987 predecessor. The player engages opponents in one-on-one close quarter combat in a series of best-two-out-of-three matches. The objective of each round is to deplete the opponent's vitality before the timer runs out. If both opponents knock each other out at the same time or the timer runs out with both fighters having an equal amount of vitality left, then a "double KO" or "draw game" is declared and additional rounds will be played until sudden death. In the first Street Fighter II, a match could last up to ten rounds if there was no clear winner; this was reduced to four rounds in Champion Edition and onward. If there is no clear winner by the end of the final round, then either the computer-controlled opponent will win by default in a single-player match or both fighters will lose in a 2-player match.
After every third match in the single player mode, the player will participate in a "Bonus stage minigame" for additional points. The bonus games includes (in order) a car-breaking event similar to another bonus round featured in Final Fight; a barrel breaking bonus game where the barrels are dropped off from a conveyor belt above the player; and a drum-breaking bonus game where drums are flammable and piled over each other. The bonus games were removed from the arcade version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo (although they are featured in the Game Boy Advance version).
Like in the original, the game's controls uses a configuration of an eight-directional joystick and six attack buttons. The player uses the joystick to jump, crouch and move the character towards or away from the opponent, as well as to guard the character from an opponent's attacks. There are three punch buttons and three kick buttons of differing strength and speed (Light, Medium and Heavy). The player can perform a variety of basic moves in any position, including grabbing/throwing attacks, which were not featured in the original Street Fighter. Like in the original, the player can perform special moves by inputting a combination of directional and button-based commands.
Street Fighter II differs from its predecessor due to the selection of multiple playable characters, each with distinct fighting styles and special moves. A bug in the game's code enabled the player to "cancel" during the animation of some moves by performing another move, allowing for a combination of several basic and special moves. This "combo" system was later adopted as a standard feature of fighting games, and was expanded upon in subsequent Street Fighter installments.
Street Fighter II is regarded as one of the most influential video games of all time, and the most important fighting game in particular. The release of Street Fighter II in 1991 is often considered a revolutionary moment in the fighting game genre. It featured the most accurate joystick and button scanning routine in the genre thus far, allowed players to reliably execute multi-button special moves (which had previously required an element of luck), and its graphics took advantage of Capcom's CPS arcade chipset, with highly detailed characters and stages. Whereas previous games allowed players to combat a variety of computer-controlled fighters, Street Fighter II allowed players to play against each other. The popularity of Street Fighter II surprised the gaming industry, as arcade owners bought more machines to keep up with demand. Street Fighter II was also responsible for introducing the combo mechanic, which came about when skilled players learned that they could combine several attacks that left no time for the opponent to recover if they timed them correctly. Its success inspired a wave of other fighting games, which were initially often labelled as "clones",[41] including popular franchises such as Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, Virtua Fighter, and Tekken.
Street Fighter II was also responsible for revitalizing the arcade video game industry in the early 1990s, to a level of popularity not seen since the days of Pac-Man in the early 1980s; it was the best-selling arcade video game by far since the golden age of arcade video games. Its impact on home video games was equally important, with its release being a major event that boosted sales of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Since then, many of the best-selling home video games have been arcade ports.
The game was also responsible for popularizing the concept of direct, tournament-level competition between two players. Previously, video games most often relied on high scores to determine the best player, but this changed with Street Fighter II, where players would instead challenge each other directly, "face-to-face," to determine the best player, paving the way for the competitive multiplayer and deathmatch modes found in modern action games. Another impact it had on the gaming industry was the concept of revisions, with Capcom continuously upgrading and expanding the arcade game instead of simply releasing a sequel, paving the way for the patches and downloadable content found in modern video games.
