Board 8 > Can someone give me a primer on the Street Fighter series?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I just got the 30th Anniversary collection, which includes basically every unique SF game except the Genesis SF2 or something.

Can someone explain the differences between all of these versions? Are they supposed to be completely different tournaments or are they just slightly different mechanically with a character or two added?

Rankings of SF2 versions are welcome.

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Street Fighter 2 Turbo is the last edition released, probably safe to not bother with the other versions of SF2.

Alpha series is a prequel to SF2, a little faster, more complex gameplay with super attack levels and better story modes. All 3 of the Alpha games are good but Alpha 3 is going to be the most complete package.

Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike is the only one you should bother with for SF3

Bonus Street Fighter chronology:

SF1
SF Alpha
SF2
SF4
SF5
SF3

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Every numbered installment is a brand new game with new mechanics and characters

different versions of the same numbered installment vary on whether they add new gameplay mechanics or characters or both

Story timeline is

1
Alpha
2
4
5
3


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So SF2 Turbo is the definitive version of the game and there's no reason to play the others?

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Super Turbo is considered the definitive edition, but each version of SF2 brings something unique to the table. Each version of SF2 is the same tournament, canonically.

also if you want a plot guide (at least through SFIII because this guide is old) this is the one you need

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/198819-street-fighter-alpha-3/faqs/14699

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As someone playing them for the 1st time not really

if you've played them all throughout the years you may prefer one over the other due to how they were balanced

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I mean you can play the other versions if you want to test them out, they're going to feel a lot slower after playing Turbo. Turbo has super attacks and the most characters available

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ALL of them add gameplay tweaks, I think theres too many to name

Street Fighter II

Street Fighter II Champion
(adds the 4 kings)

Street Fighter II Turbo
(faster gameplay)

Super Street Fighter II
Adds the 4 new characters

Super Street Fighter II Turbo
Adds Akuma

and then theres shit like Hyper Street Fighter II, which takes each version of each character from each installment and puts them into one game

and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

and the one on the Switch is the latest version of SFII which adds Evil Ryu and Violent Ken

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Oh ya go my Ultra Street Fighter 2

Violent Ken!

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I don't play sf2 really but I thought it was more

World Warriors (original) -> Championship Edition (genesis version that let you play as bosses) -> Turbo (faster gameplay, play as bosses + new characters) -> Super (new characters but slower than turbo) -> Super Turbo (which I assume is the definitive classic version) -> HD Remix (dunno about any gameplay changes here vs. super turbo) -> whatever the Switch version was called (has some other changes and some new characters, but they're like palette swaps or something).

someone can correct me if I'm wrong here.

edit and other people posted while I was typing like I was expecting
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Ok so Super Street Fighter II Turbo is the favorite

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Each version also tweaks each character's movesets and properties.

For example, Ryu and Ken are basically clones in SFII vanilla but they play very differently by the time you get to Super Turbo.

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For SF2, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo is the favorite, followed by Hyper Fighting (aka regular Turbo). If you care about these sort of things, it can be worth looking at the earlier versions just to see how dramatically the art changed overtime, along with the music and other aesthetic trappings (UI, announcer, etc). If you just want the "essential" SF2 experience, just play Super Turbo.

For the Alpha series, Alpha 2 is essentially an upgrade of Alpha 1, same storylines but with more characters and better gameplay. There's almost no reason to play Alpha 1 aside from seeing its stages and hearing its music, which are different from Alpha 2. Alpha 3 is a sequel to Alpha 2 with new stories, characters, and mechanics. In the tournament scene Alpha 2 is more well-regarded than Alpha 3 (better balanced), but only Alpha 3 has online play in this collection. There are technically further arcade revisions of Alpha 2 and 3 but those are universally rejected and not included here. This collection also ignores the console ports which add more characters (from other SF games, not any brand new ones) and features.

The different versions of SF3 have a lot of aesthetic and mechanical differences. The only one that people like to play for the gameplay is Third Strike, however.


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Interesting. It's weird because I had never heard of Cammy, Akuma, etc until board 8 circa 2004, since I guess I only ever played vanilla and champion edition SF2.

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Didn't they patch in or are planning to patch in online for some of the other titles

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ninkendo posted...

Didn't they patch in or are planning to patch in online for some of the other titles

I thought this collection was fairly comprehensive, no?

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No I mean only 4 of the 12 games have online modes when the collection first released

I thought they were patching in more to have it

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OK I found it

it's only the steam version they got the patch in November that lets you play street fighter 2 champion edition and street fighter alpha 2 online

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I don't think they did. I vaguely recall seeing a fanmade hack of the PC version that could do it somehow? Might be imagining that

edit: Oh, that may be it. I knew it had something to do with PC version only

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I think you were actually right it was more of a fan patch

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El Fuerte is the best and you should main him in 4.

That's all I got.

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WazzupGenius00 posted...

For the Alpha series, Alpha 2 is essentially an upgrade of Alpha 1, same storylines but with more characters and better gameplay. There's almost no reason to play Alpha 1 aside from seeing its stages and hearing its music, which are different from Alpha 2.

Yeah, even in terms of canon, Alpha 2 completely overwrites Alpha 1.

But the Alpha series is the only one where people are split on which one is best. I'm an Alpha 2 guy, but a lot of people like Alpha 3.

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Alpha 3 they started doing that shit where you press two buttons to throw

Which is why I like Alpha 2 better

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Alpha 3 is straight up my favorite street fighter game

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Alpha 2 for life

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also Alpha 2 has customized final bosses for every characters

not just Shin Bison where you only have one shot at him before you get a game over

god dammit

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Although I should say my actual favorite Capcom fighter is Capcom vs SNK 2

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Punnyz posted...

not just Shin Bison where you only have one shot at him before you get a game over

just gotta play it safe until you can bait him into wasting his Psycho Crusher and then he's easy

but yeah Alpha 2's story mode is way cooler because it means that not everyone's final boss is Bison

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Mine is too actually

I wish smash and soul cal got the voice clips from there for Terry and Haohmaru than from whereever the hell they got them from

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Other thoughts?

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What do you want to know exactly? I mean are you trying to win EVO or just play through the arcade modes or what?

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skullbone posted...

What do you want to know exactly? I mean are you trying to win EVO or just play through the arcade modes or what?

Good question. I guess playing the games canonically will suffice. So pretty much playing through as the winner of each tournament? Or do I need to get every "real" ending?

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Most of the games have no "canon" tournament winner (heck, in Street Fighter Alpha, there's no actual tournament!), but there are multiple endings in every game that are considered canon (other than winning the tournament). There's really no way to tell which endings are canon or not until you play the next game.

Well, it's blatantly obvious when some endings aren't canon, but yeah.

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Honestly most of Alpha 2 and Alpha 3's story modes are worth playing for all the characters you like, or even some you don't for character interactions. The non canon stories are really fun sometimes. Street Fighter Alpha games have really underrated plot imo.

SF2-4 I wouldn't recommend as much. They don't have as much personalization in stuff that isn't the ending.

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Yeah, part of the reason I love the Alpha series is because of all the little character interaction moments. The games after that tried to imitate it somewhat but never quite recaptured it.

Alpha 2 even has secret midbosses with more dialogue that you can activate under the right conditions (although I forget what they are off the top of my head. I think it's a certain amount of rounds won with a Super Combo and no matches lost).

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ninkendo posted...

Although I should say my actual favorite Capcom fighter is Capcom vs SNK 2

Forever and always.

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I'm coming in here to say that the only street fighter games I've ever played are SF2 original and I think Alpha 3 once at somebody's house.
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they made so many versions of street fighter that i can't remember which one specifically i had a blast on

I'm fairly certain it was street fighter 2 alpha on the SNES. i wouldn't recommend starting with any of the games before that. it felt like they were still figuring out the best flow/controls/pacing before then

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The SNES version of Alpha 2 is the worst version of the game!

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I love loading times on my SNES game

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What versions did the 30th Anniversary Collection grab? Arcade ports?

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30th Anniversary is all arcade versions.

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Wow OG Street Fighter is fucking weird (and bad)

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But it was the first and there was nothing much like it

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Yeah its like the 4th ever fighting game
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yeah the original Street Fighter is bad

but the ones that came before it were worse

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Like Karate champ

Remember how Karate Champ was in Bloodsport?

Bloodsport was already like a fighting game with all of the eccentric Fighters Gathering from around the world to fight in a Martial Arts Tournament, And this is a time before fighting game tropes Were not even tropes yet. .

And yet somehow it was self-aware enough to pay tribute by having karate champ in there. And mortal kombat would eventually later be inspired by blood sport some years later.

It was almost prophetic

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If the original Yie Ar Kung Fu had a VS mode I might say its actually better than Street Fighter 1

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