The WAR: Game History



Street Fighter Game History Here's the abridged history of SF and the designers: 1982: Yoshiki Okamoto was hired in his senior year of high school to do some graphic art for Konami. He never liked games and didn’t want to work on them. In fact he claims to this day that he was tricked into designing games. One day his boss asked him to design some games and he did, Gyruss and Time Pilot were the results. He asked his boss for a raise and was fired the next day. 1984: Yoshiki gets hired by Capcom as the second person for R&D after Noritaka Funamizu. Both go on to make some pretty memorable titles but Yoshiki goes into a slump. 1988: Yoshiki is asked by his superiors to make a sequel for Street Fighter as vendors and some fans liked the concept. Yoshiki looks at Double Dragon II: The Revenge, and thinks that the control is simple, the gameplay fun and given Capcom’s hardware they could make a game that looks better and plays easier than Double Dragon. Yoshiki created Street Fighter 89 and showed it to vendors. They wanted a sequel and not a whole new direction for the franchise so Capcom re-labeled the game Final Fight and put Yoshiki back under the task. He decided that he should create a game with elements from the original: Ken, Ryu, secret moves that will go over well with fans and the prestige of mastering tactics in the arcade. 1991: Street Fighter II became a smash hit when it was released. In order to capitalize on the fighting game craze Capcom began working on minor upgrades to the game, each released in a relatively short amount of time. The short span of time between the release of Street Fighter II’ and Super Street Fighter II X really rubbed a number of artists and programmers the wrong way. 1992: After Street Fighter II Turbo was released many programmers and artists were under the impression that Capcom would give them the time needed to come up with an entirely new cast and engine for SF III. Unfortunately Midway had just released Mortal Kombat to rave reviews and had Mortal Kombat 2 under development. Capcom did not want to fall behind Mortal Kombat in terms of popularity and evolution so they began pushing the development team to create another upgrade for SF II. 1993: Feeling pressured a full half of the original SF II team left Capcom and joined SNK to eventually create Samurai Spirits. The half that was left at Capcom released the uninspired Super SF II upgrades. 1995: Veteran programmer Akira Nishitani started up ARIKA under Capcom’s banner and took the remaining majority of the original SF II team with him. Akira eventually created Street Fighter EX to mixed reviews. Arika, and Capcom had fallen behind the curve as far as 3D fighters went and its original SF EX looked horrid when compared to Virtua Fighter 2 and Tekken 2 in arcades at the same time. 1995 was the breakout year for Street Fighter Alpha. While ARIKA and Capcom could not compete in the 3D arena, fresh designs by Capcom artist Bengus were incorporated into a new type of Street Fighter that looked more animated and hit with audiences everywhere. Sequels of Street Fighter Alpha soon followed. 1998: Only one member of the original SF II team remained at Capcom with Yoshiki and Noritaka. Without the input of the entire original SF II team SF III failed to make a significant impact with fans and the industry. Ever since the fateful release of Super SF II X Capcom has been unable to capture the financial success of SF II. 1997-2004: Ex-Capcom and Street Fighter series artists, animators, programmers and designers have turned up at various studios working on titles such as the King of Fighters, Guilty Gear and Rumble Fish. They have also had a hand in developing hardware that rivaled the work coming out of Capcom R&D. 2004: Noritaka Funamizu leaves Capcom with Katsuhiro Sudo to start the Craft and Meister studio.