Street Fighter II had many gamers playing a lot at their homes, or at the house of a friend or family member, spending hours of fun and excitement.
Plot. A group of international fighters are called to participate into a tournament known as "The World Warrior". This tournament is hosted by the evil M. Bison (Vega in Japan), the leader of a criminal organization known as Shadowlaw (or Shadaloo), responsible for illegal activities such as the smuggling of drugs and weapons worldwide. Eight fighters have entered the tournament to prove themselves in battle, but some of them fight for their own personal vengeance against Bison. Guile, a former special forces soldier, fights to defeat the one who murdered his best friend, Charlie. Chun Li, fights against Bison to avenge the death of her father. Some fight for power, but some of them fight for us.
Concept. Players can choose one of eight characters, and battle each opponent until facing off against Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and finally M. Bison himself. In 2-Player games, players can play against a friend or a family member, and choose the stages of the 1-Player mode.
Design. The game is 16 to 24 bits of graphics, and characters are rendered in 2D sprites. The stages of the game have awesome perspectives of the landscapes, outside areas, and inner areas of the fighters representing their countries such as: India, Japan, China, USSR, USA, and so on. My favorite stage design is that of Vega's stage, and the music is awesome.
Characters. The original version of Street Fighter II featured eight playable characters, but when the remakes such as: Turbo, Championship Edition, and Super. More characters were playable, including the four bosses of the game. When playing as one of the four bosses most players would either choose Vega or Sagat. Mostly Sagat, because he was the strongest of the four, second to Bison. The character of Balrog is heavily based off of Mike Tyson. However, in Japan the names of the bosses were different from their names in the United States. In Japan, the boxer was named Mike Bison, the Spanish ninja bullfighter was Balrog, while the general looking guy was Vega. The boxer is Balrog in America, because developers thought that the character was too heavily based on Mike Tyson.
Memories. I played Street Fighter II when my brother and sister spent the whole summer of 1992 with me and my cousins. It was really fun to play with my siblings and cousins. My brother was always beating the game for me until I finally did it without his help. Oh, memories.
Rantings. The boss battles that pissed me off as a kid, were those of Vega and Sagat. Vega was annoying because he was always making aerial attacks, jumping around. And when he climbed through the cage, he was unstoppable as he either performed a claw attack, or an air suplex. M. Bison was tough, he always had me crying, and throwing a tantrum when I was a little kid. I was 6 years old at the time I was playing this game.
Good Aspects. The game is really great, it has high replay value, and it is a legend that continues to span around the globe. Street Fighter II is great to play alone, and even better when you are playing with friends and family members alike. Ryu was my favorite fighter, I believed he was stronger.
Legacy. Street Fighter II has become a true legend since it's release. The popularity of the game has spun sub-series games such as: Turbo, Championship Edition, and Super. It also had spinoffs such as: Street Fighter Alpha series, Street Fighter EX, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, and the Capcom Vs. series (which combined various battles against characters from Marvel Comics, SNK, and Tatsunoko). In other media, Street Fighter had an animated movie based on the game, which turned out to be a great success. It also spun an anime series, featuring a much younger Ryu, Ken, and Chun Li. The game also had live-action movie adaptations, which were critically bashed by both fans of the game series and critics alike.
Overall. Street Fighter II is one of the best fighter games ever created, and Capcom is to be credited in high regard for creating such an amazing project. You can download this game on the Wii for 800 Wii Points. This game gets a 9 out of 10