I was a hopeless addict by mid teens.
I Got the PS2 SF anniversary collection and I swear all's I had to do was hear Guile's and Ken's tracks again and I was *this close* to springin' an eye leak...............
the
series'll always have a place in my heart.
Everybody remembers Street Fighter II and its many incarnations, but how many of you, like me, are just barely old enough to remember playing Street Fighter ONE? I was 12 and it was about 3 years old when I first saw it(it was released in summer of '87) and I thought this was the awesomest thing i'd ever played......for about the first match. Then I ended up getting in so much trouble with my folks the amount of cursing and hitting this machine to get it to work right *nostalgic chuckle*. In MY day we didn't have these plastic strips running the sides and bottom of the screen of fighting games that told you what each character's special moves were, oh no, in the Street fighter one days the three main special moves that Ryu and Ken had(who were, by the way the only two selectable characters in the first game-If you put your quarter(just one quarter......SIGH) in the left slot, you got Ryu, if you put it in the right slot, you got Ken, and the only possible player-against-player matchup was Ryu vs. Ken. Came a long way come time for SFII in '90-91) were heavily guarded secrets passed down only by word of mouth, and even then they only worked half the time. But they were far more potent-timed and landed just right there was a chance you could knock the other character out with one shot(used to be a mark of a master SF One player who could win a round with 99 seconds still on the clock). Remember back when you did the Hurricane Kick and you hovered in place?* snicker* 'Cept I only ever got to play it the once 'fore it got "retired" and nobody taught me
You would think I'd be a natural to flock to SFII when it came out 90-91. And I was. SFII, at this time , literally changed everything; The graphics and animation were good enough that even 10 years after they were last updated(Super SFII-1993-4) they only *now* are beginning to look dated, gameplay was smoother(for those who knew the special moves they now worked ALL the time done right), a whopping EIGHT characters to choose and 4 bosses(in later versions they became playable too, and in the last two you got 4 additional characters as well) and, you guessed it, this was the first time that I became aware of a game whose MUSIC just gave it that punch that astonished me in ways I never at the time could concieve a game would. It gave that extra dimension to each character's "character" If you will.
A patriotic, strong, yet subdued tune accompanied Guile's airbase backdrop as you fought under the sunset-accented F-16(in later versions it was changed to midday. I liked the sunset better).
It fit with the description everybody got back when the home game instruction books still gave a story for each character: "Calm and emotionless on the exterior, Guile is fueled by rage at the death of his friend etc.etc..."and at least in the early version of the game you could even hear the barely-buried rage in his voice effect whenever someone made him throw a "SONIC BOOM!" and it's almost as if the music was telling that story too.
"A student of the Shotokan school of karate, Ken is a natural athlete. Unfortunately, Ken's natural fighting skill has also fueled his giant ego and he is constantly reminding his opponents that he is the greatest
fighter of all time. Over the past year, however, Ken has let his skills deteriorate and has spent most of his time on the beach with his girlfriend etc etc........." One gets the picture of this fun loving, partying surfer dude who has enough discipline to be a
fighter, but seems cocky enough to almost be walking that fine line between being a "bad ***" and being just an "***". And this was punctuated in all versions of the game that, though Ken had the same moves as Ryu, Ryu was more of a calculating opponent while Ken immediately took and kept the offensive if you let him.
And you kind of get a more rounded out picture of that as you hear that kinda fifties-meets-eighties surfer-rock kinda beboppy tune as your character faced Ken while his friends cheered you on from the boat anchored just off the dock you fought on.
"At the award ceremony, the crowd can be heard whispering....'Where is the champion? Where is Ryu?.....Already seeking the next challenge, ceremony means nothing to him. The fight is all."
And you get a sense of that kind of "never-give-up", adrenaline charged spirit in Ryu's (Pronounced "ree-YOO", not "RYE-oo" goddammit) theme atop his castle rooftop(again it began as a sunset background and in later versions was darkened to nightfall. I liked the sunset better. And theyt got rid of those Kanji signs you could chuck the other guy into, I missed that too).
And who didn't almost get chills the first few times someone would land a perfect KO with either Ryu or Ken and the screen would slo-mo that final Dragon Punch amidst that conviction-filled shout of "SHO-RYU-KEN !!!" ( roughly, "Rising Dragon Punch").
That was the first time I'd ever seen a game that fleshed out its characters to this degree and it fixed forever in my mind the idea of music as a narrator(which for a 12 goin' on 13 Andy was pretty deep I guess) now that I start kickin ideas of my own around.
I've found one of my old favorites, Mortal Kombat 2 
