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Street Figher 2: An Oral History

entremet

entremet

Member
http://www.polygon.com/a/street-fighter-2-oral-history

Matt Leone writes:

Street Fighter 2 is one of the game industry's biggest success stories, but its history is often told secondhand, through official statements and loosely translated interviews. In an effort to remedy that, over the past year we tracked down more than 20 former Capcom employees and business partners and asked them to tell it in their own words.
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Full feature at the link. Very detailed and great job by Mr. Leone.
 
H

Horseticuffs

Full werewolf off the buckle
Damn, can't wait to see this! I just ordered a ps4 this morning and the rumors of Ultra Street Fighter 4 coming are enticing. I've also recently gotten into a rapper with a song about championship edition which has put! In a Street Fighter mood.

One thing you've gotta credit polygon with is their features.
 
B

bootski

Member
while i get where this is coming from, why SF2 and not 1? i know that 2 was bigger and had more of an impact but the game itself was almost completely based on the work done by the ppl who created SF1.
 
C

ColossalLazy

Member
At chapter 2. loling at this:

Yoko Shimomura:

Chun-Li has big thighs, right? So back in the day, I asked Mr. Yasuda, "Why does she have such big thighs?" And he started shouting and went off and was like, "I can't believe you don't understand the appeal." And he started explaining the attraction. And you know, I'm a woman and I asked the question but it kind of got awkward when he started explaining his fetishes. I mean, he has really strong feelings toward his creations. There's a reason for everything being the way that it is. When I heard that, I thought maybe that's something that everybody thinks, but everybody doesn't go out telling everybody. But he just told me.
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FrankCaron

FrankCaron

Member
The most ironic part and greatest part of this article is that the little button on the title slide that lets you turn on the "Guile's theme goes with everything" Guile theme, which fittingly really does go great when reading the article.
 
N

NeoGAF.

Banned
This is great.
Errbody hates Polygon but I can't think of many other outlets providing these lengthy vidya game articles.
 
C

Clawww

Member
I always love reading about SF2. In the history of games, it's easily one of the most interesting and amazing stories.
 
O

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
I know everyone thinks Third Strike is the bee's knees but man, SFII had such personality. It's easily my favorite series of the SF franchise.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
He would prank you. He'd send over ideas for video games and want me to give him my input, and it would turn out to be porn. ... I just remember putting the CD into my laptop and playing it for [then Vice President of Sales and Marketing Bill Cravens] and some other people who were in my office at the time, because I thought [it showed] new games and I wanted to get their input on it as well. And instead, I treated them to a porn display. So that's what I was sort of known for after that.
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Holy shit lmao
 
L

liquidtmd

Banned
He would prank you. He'd send over ideas for video games and want me to give him my input, and it would turn out to be porn. ... I just remember putting the CD into my laptop and playing it for [then Vice President of Sales and Marketing Bill Cravens] and some other people who were in my office at the time, because I thought [it showed] new games and I wanted to get their input on it as well. And instead, I treated them to a porn display. So that's what I was sort of known for after that.
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2dPuX.gif
 
Sapiens

Sapiens

Member
Great read. The stuff about the american artists hating the original art was pretty infuriating. I remember seeing the early 1992 SF articles in the mags back then where they were using a lot of the EPIC original art, but then seeing the american SNES box art was kind of...deflating in a way.

"Don't they know how great this is? Why is the art so bad on the cover and in the instructions!?," I would say to myself.

I'm still kind of insulted by it.

I mean -
It's easy to look back on these things with hindsight. You know, anime was not anywhere near the acceptance [it's earned as time has gone on]. So we were always creating box art — whether it was Mega Man or Street Fighter — we were always creating art that would sell the game in the U.S.
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Look, dude, Akiman's art would have been fine.
 
C

Clawww

Member
Ian Rose:

The American sales force, of course, they were kind of freewheeling guys. They were well compensated, but they kind of played by their own rules or by the rules of the industry as they understood it. And you know, [as time went on] there was a tension there [between Capcom USA and Capcom Japan].

Jeff Walker:

It was definitely polar opposite cultures. You know, I had a nice, big office in Santa Clara and I got paid a ton and all my sales guys drove Porches and Mercedes, and we had unlimited expense accounts, we golfed Pebble Beach every month. It was crazy. I go over to Japan, and my same counterpart is making a fraction of what I'm making and he's sitting in a cubicle.
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damn yo

the structure is still similar in japan, isn't it? in terms of employment/compensation, I mean.
 
M

mattp

Member
fucking matt leone
man

that guy is the only reason i look at polygon
and its a GREAT reason to


this feature is so awesome
 
Sapiens

Sapiens

Member
Lord, Lorri Thorton thinks she invented Street Fighter. She refers to the staff as "my programmer in japan" when discussing a controversy involving the local news claiming some dude had a video of E Honda exposing himself.
 
C

Chavelo

Member
Dang, and as soon I was about to head out the door, I decided to give this a quick read.

An hour or so later, and now I feel like staying home and play some ST. Really good write-up.
 
C

Clawww

Member
Damn, I had no idea CE was an American concept. USA got competitive first!

Chavelo said:
Dang, and as soon I was about to head out the door, I decided to give this a quick read.

An hour or so later, and now I feel like staying home and play some ST. Really good write-up.
Click to expand...

Yea, I just finished reading this, broken-up throughout the afternoon, and man, what a great piece.
 
M

Mistouze

user-friendly man-cashews
Not done reading it yet but the part about Akklaim buying all the ad space in the Street Fighter comic is awesome.

Great article, that's what good video game journalism feels like! Props to Matt Leone, thank you man.
 
S

Shadow Ranger

Member
ah, always love reading about one of my favourite Ips.

Finished Chapter 1. Was a pretty good read and will definitely continue this.
 
R

richiek

steals Justin Bieber DVDs
I love how they got the guy who did the crappy US Street Fighter boxarts to do the illustrations for the article.
 
B

Bizazedo

Member
Hahaha...

Gender Views from SF2 said:
You know how each character has a life bar? At one point, I wanted to make the power gauge for Chun-Li shorter than for the other characters because women are not as strong. But Nishitani didn't want to do that. We both had legitimate reasons, but then we came to an agreement to not make it shorter.
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Hilarious. This is a good read for everyone.
 
J

jett

D-Member
Surprising to read that American sales people were responsible for virtually thinking up and designing SF2's update-sequels. Not surprising to realize that American sales people were virtually responsible for running SF2 into the ground. :p
 
G

George Claw M.D.

Member
Those damn egotistical Americans!

Tom Shiraiwa:

Back then the developers were not so familiar with overseas projects, so whatever the U.S. people said the developers felt like they had to do; otherwise the game wouldn't be accepted overseas. And I kind of believed in that too. But after a few years we started to realize, "Hey, this is just their ego." ... They wanted to change everything they could [so they could say they played a role in the development]. Even the titles, right? Like Biohazard to Resident Evil. [After] we learned that, developers actually often refused to listen to their suggestions, or tried to get a second opinion from someone else. But back then on Street Fighter 2, whatever Americans said was the absolute truth we had to follow.
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J

justjustin

Member
Really fun read. Seems like the prevailing attitude back then was to do whatever the heck you wanted; not to imply they would just goof off-- obviously it was a really talented and organized team. It's crazy how the game didn't even have a budget. Only after it was finished did they bother looking back to see how much it cost.

Only problem with the article wasn't with the article itself, but that it used the wimpy SNES soundtrack for Guile's theme. Even the original CPS1 version is better, but Super Street Fighter II's is the best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlz6qgahnYQ
 
Q

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
At one point, [Yasuda] wanted to live a healthy life, so he said, "OK I'm going to drink milk." So he'd always buy these little packs of milk. He'd be working, and then he'd reach down to his little milk packs and drink them. Around his desk, he had like 100 of these packs. So he'd grab one, shake it, and whenever he'd find one with milk in it, he'd drink it and put it back, without even looking at it. And he never knew what the expiration dates were. So he started drinking milk to be healthy, but he was always complaining he had diarrhea.
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LOOOOL
 
CamHostage

CamHostage

Member
jett said:
Surprising to read that American sales people were responsible for virtually thinking up and designing SF2's update-sequels. Not surprising to realize that American sales people were virtually responsible for running SF2 into the ground. :p
Click to expand...

Two things about that. One is, at the time all that "Edition'ing" (especially when it came to home versions, which we had to pay $50 for each time) was ridiculous and was fodder for playground jokes, but looking back now (especially now that games like Madden and CoD are annualized,) we got some amazing new versions of Street Fighter II out of that sequence. And with Street Fighter III proving to be an all-but-impossible follow-up (no matter the fans of SF3, Capcom would never hit upon that perfect balance of gameplay for everybody until three generations of game hardware later, and even that didn't reach the same heights,) better versions of SF2 seem the smarter bet to have put focus into. Two, it's funny how much influence America had over Street Fighter. I always thought the US just was involved in the Balrog/M.Bison/Vega debacle and that's it, but they were also involved in a lot of key aspects of the series, from the boxart (even though there's some goofiness, I like the US boxes better, a rarity) to the naming to the sequel cycle to the balance/bug-squashing. I always considered SF an exclusively Japanese work, I didn't know how much stuff I appreciate about it came from collaboration across the pond.

Excellent article, Matt Leone!
 
W

Wedge7

Member
Fantastic work!

Man, some of those quotes are incredible. Just going through it now, but I love, love reading these kind of in depth pieces. Good shit!
 
D

dragonlife

Member
Great and insightful read; I love stuff like this. Thanks!

I was very surprised to read how much influence Capcom USA had. It was impressive and eye-opening. Kind of scary, too. It's also neat seeing just how damn different gaming companies were back then.

I was also surprised to read about police/FBI raids to counter piracy in different locations--even foreign countries--and that it was mostly the US side that did this and not Capcom Japan. Arcade sales sounded like some serious mafia-like business.

The James Goddard guy also sounded like a hot-headed know-it-all, but he basically says he was a very explosive person back then. I wonder how much he's changed. He did make some good calls, though.
 
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