Welcome to the world of Street Fighter! Street Fighter was the first competitive arcade fighting game, and was released in 1987 but wasn’t very popular. In 1991, Capcom releases Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, and is an instant hit. This is the beginning of the trend of competitive arcade fighting games of the early 1990s.

SFII was very successful and there were five updated and revised editions of the game released and one coming out soon. They were Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, Super Street Fighter II: Turbo, Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition, and Super Street Fighter II: Turbo HD Remix.

Can you guess who these Street Fighter gals are?

Then there was the Alpha series. Street Fighter Alpha: Warrior’s Dreams was released in 1995, and served as the sequel to Street Fighter, and prequel to Street Fighter II. The series would go on to produce its own sequels with Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3. The Alpha series adapted the “anime” art style, and was fairly popular.

There were no “true sequels” to SFII until 1997, with Street Fighter III: New Generation. The SFIII series did not achieve the same success and popularity of its predecessor due to the fact that there are only four fighters from the SFII series. The series would go on with its own sequels, Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact, and 3rd Strike.

Guess the gals: Round 2, Fight!

The Future of Street Fighter. As I mentioned earlier, Capcom is working on Super Street Fighter II: Turbo HD Remix, which will be coming out on Xbox360 through the XboxLive Arcade, and Playstation 3 through the Playstation Store, will be released Spring 2008. It will come with an arcade accurate version of Super Street Fighter II: Turbo, along with an remixed version using enhanced graphics and in High Definition (HD). Gameplay preview here.

In October 17th of 2007, Capcom released a teaser trailer of Street Fighter IV. SFIV is supposed to bring back the look, feel, and gameplay from SFII. I am not so sure about the look part, but the feel and gameplay part seems right on track. The characters look like they are on steroids, or have been shot by gamma radiation like the Incredible Hulk. No matters, I am still looking forward to this. Gameplay preview here.