Street Fighter II: The World Warrior

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior is a 1991 Fighting Arcade video game by Capcom. Street Fighter II was widely popular upon it's release, and helped popularize the genre of 2D fighting games. Street Fighter II is the sequel to the 1987 game Street Fighter, and the second game in the Street Fighter series. Street Fighter II was originally released on arcade platforms in 1992, but was soon ported to the Super Nintendo in 1992 to popular success.

Overview
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (ストリートファイターⅡ -The World Warrior-) is a competitive fighting game originally released for the arcades in. It is the second entry in the Street Fighter series and the arcade sequel to the original Street Fighter released in. It was Capcom's fourteenth title that ran on the CP System arcade hardware. Street Fighter II improved upon the many concepts introduced in the first game, including the use of command-based special moves and a six-button configuration, while offering players a selection of multiple playable characters, each with their own unique fighting style.

The success of Street Fighter II is credited for starting the fighting game boom during the 1990s which inspired other game developers to produce their own fighting game franchises, popularizing the genre. Its success led to a sub-series of updated versions (see below), each offering additional features and characters over previous versions, as well as several home versions. In 1993, sales of Street Fighter II exceeded $1.5 billion in gross revenues, and by 1994, the game had been played by at least 25 million Americans in homes and arcades. The video game console ports to the Super NES and Mega Drive sold more than 14 million copies, and it remains Capcom's best-selling consumer game of all time as of March 31, 2012.

Platforms

 * Amiga
 * Arcade
 * Commodore 64
 * Game Boy
 * Mobile
 * Sega Master System (Street Fighter II')
 * SNES
 * TurboGrafx-16 (Street Fighter II')

Critical reception
In the February 1992 issue of Gamest magazine in Japan, it was revealed that due to low stock the games were selling for seven times the cost (15000 yen in Japan, equivalent to about $119.19 and £65 at the time). The original arcade version of Street Fighter II was awarded Best Game of 1991 in their Fifth Annual Grand Prize, which also won in the genre of Best Action Game (the award for fighting games was not established yet). Street Fighter II also placed No. 1 in Best VGM, Best Direction, and Best Album, and was second place in Best Graphics. All the characters, with the exception of M. Bison (the character known internationally as Balrog), were featured in the list of Best Characters of 1991, with Chun-Li at No. 1, Ryu at No. 3, Guile at No. 4, Dhalsim at No. 5, Zangief at No. 6, Edmond Honda at No. 8, Ken and Blanka sharing the No. 9 spot, Vega (M. Bison outside Japan) at No. 13, Balrog (Vega outside Japan) at No. 16, and Sagat at No. 22.

In the following year, Street Fighter II Dash was also awarded Best Game of 1992 in the Sixth Annual Grand Prize, as published in the February 1993 issue of Gamest, winning once again in the category of Best Action Game. Dash placed No. 3 in Best VGM, No. 6 in Best Graphics, No. 5 in Best Direction. The Street Fighter II Image Album was the No. 1 Best Album in the same issue, with the Drama CD version of Street Fighter II tied for No. 7 with the soundtrack for Star Blade. The List of Best Characters was not dominated by Street Fighter II characters this time, with the only character at the Top Ten being Chun-Li at No. 3. Street Fighter II also won the Golden Joystick Award for Game of the Year in 1992.

In the February 1994 issue of Gamest, both Street Fighter II Dash Turbo (Hyper Fighting) and Super Street Fighter II, were nominated for Best Game of 1993, but neither won (the first place was given to Samurai Spirits). Super ranked third place, with Turbo at No. 6. In the category of Best Fighting Games, Super ranked third place again, while Turbo placed fifth. Super also won third place in the categories of Best Graphics and Best VGM. Cammy, who was introduced in Super, placed fifth place in the list of Best Characters of 1993, with Dee Jay and T. Hawk at 36 and 37.

In the January 30, 1995 issue of Gamest, Super Street Fighter II X (known as Super Turbo internationally) placed fourth place in the award for Best Game of 1994 and Best Fighting Game, but did not rank in any of the other awards.

The SNES version of Street Fighter II was also very well received, named by Electronic Gaming Monthly as the Game of the Year for 1992. EGM awarded the follow-up title Street Fighter II Turbo with Best Super NES Game in the year after. In July 1995, Famitsu magazine's Family Game Cross Review gave the Super Famicom version a 28 out of 40. It was also one of the three games chosen by Electronic Games magazine's Electronic Gaming Awards for the Video Game of the Year category, along with NHLPA Hockey '93 and Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

The Mega Drive version of Street Fighter II received 10 out of 10 for both graphics and addiction from Mega, who described it as "a candidate for best game ever and without a doubt the best beat-'em-up of all time". MegaTech scored it 95%, and commented "the greatest coin-op hits the Megadrive in perfect form". Guinness World Records awarded Street Fighter II three world records in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. These records are "First Fighting Game to Use Combos", "Most Cloned Fighting Game", and "Biggest-Selling Coin-Operated Fighting Game."

Commercial reception
The original version of Street Fighter II sold more than 60,000 video game arcade cabinets, followed by Street Fighter II': Champion Edition selling 140,000 cabinets in Japan alone, where it cost ¥160,000 ($1300) for each cabinet, amounting to ¥22.4 billion ($182 million) revenue generated from cabinet sales of Champion Edition in Japan, which in 2009 is equivalent to ¥24.6 billion (over $300 million). The sales for the arcade versions of Street Fighter II in the Western world were similarly successful. In 1992, the game captured 60% of the UK coin-op market, with individual machines taking up to £1000 per week, for an estimated total of £260 million per year

The numerous home versions of Street Fighter II are listed among Capcom's Platinum-class titles (games which have sold more than 1 million units worldwide). As of March 31, 2012, the SNES version of the original Street Fighter II is still the company's best-selling game, having sold more than 6.3 million units. The SNES versions of Street Fighter II Turbo and Super Street Fighter II also sold 4.1 million and 2 million, respectively, followed by the Genesis version of Street Fighter II′: Special Champion Edition with 1.65 million sales. In total, more than 14 million copies were sold for the SNES and Mega Drive / Genesis consoles. In 1993, sales of Street Fighter II exceeded $1.5 billion in gross revenue, equivalent to $2.32 billion in 2011. By 1994, the game had been played by at least 25 million Americans in homes and arcades.


 * Arcade cabinets


 * Home software


 * The game broke both first-day and first-week sales for a download-only title.