Street Fighter: The Movie (arcade game)

Street Fighter: The Movie is a 1995 head-to-head fighting game released as a coin-operated arcade game. The game is based on the 1994 live-action Street Fighter movie, itself based on the Street Fighter series of fighting games, and uses digitized images of the film's cast. While a home video game also titled Street Fighter: The Movie was released for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, it is not a port but a separately produced game based on the same premise.[1] The arcade version was developed by Chicago-based Incredible Technologies and distributed to the arcades by Capcom.[2]

This article is about the arcade version of the Street Fighter: The Movie video game. For the Sega Saturn and PlayStation game based on the same film, see Street Fighter: The Movie (console video game).
Street Fighter: The Movie
Developer(s)Incredible Technologies
Publisher(s)Capcom
Designer(s)Leif Pran Marwede
Alan Noon
Programmer(s)Jane Siegrist
Artist(s)Ralph Melgosa
Composer(s)Kyle Johnson
Platform(s)Arcade
ReleaseJune 1995
Genre(s)Fighting
Mode(s)Up to 2 players simultaneously
CabinetUpright
Arcade systemIncredible Technologies 32-bit
DisplayRaster, 384 x 256 pixels (Horizontal), 32768 colors

Gameplay
Ryu faces Akuma.

The arcade version of Street Fighter: The Movie differs from the previous Street Fighter II games in several ways. The game gives a greater emphasis towards air combos or "juggling" than previous games: the player can continuously attack their opponent while they're falling in the air with a series of attacks. Additionally, players can cancel any Special Move while performing it into another Special Move. This can even be done with projectile attacks.

Many of the returning Street Fighter characters feature new Special Moves exclusive to the game, such as Bison's "Electric Arc", Cammy's "Whip Choke", and Guile's "Handcuff" (a Special Move based on a glitch in the original Street Fighter II). Characters such as Zangief and Balrog now have the ability to deflect projectile attacks back to their opponent. Many of these new Special Moves require for the player to hold down a specific attack button, input a directional-based command on the joystick and then release the button.

The method for grappling attacks was reversed for the game: performing the throw command while holding the joystick towards an opponent will throw the opponent to the opposite direction and vice versa. Player has the option of inputting a specific command to "escape" a throw with no damage or perform a "counter throw". However, a character can counterattack a "counter throw" by performing a "reverse", while reversing a counter throw can ultimately be countered with a "slam master" technique.

Other techniques exclusive to this game include "interrupt moves", which are performed after blocking an opponent's attacks, and "comeback moves", which are special moves that can only be used when the player's life gauge is on the "danger" level. These would later return as Alpha Counters and Ultra Combos. The Super Combo gauge from Super Street Fighter II Turbo is featured in the game. Most of the characters in the game (with only a few exceptions) have at least two Super Combo moves: one that leaves a trail of blue shadows and another that leaves a trail of red shadows. In addition to Super Combos, the players can also perform a "Regeneration" move when their Super Combo gauge is full to restore a portion of their vitality gauge. This would later be seen in Street Fighter EX3 and Street Fighter III.

The standard single-player mode consists of a series of 14 matches (including a clone match), ending with a final match against M. Bison. There are also several secret game modes, including a Tag Team Mode. In a Tag Team match, the player gets to choose two characters and fight against other tag teams in single-round matches, switching to the second character only after the first one has been defeated.

Each fighter's ending sequence consists of a promotional still or two from the movie with accompanying text describing the character's fate after the events of the tournament, followed by the staff roll.

Characters

The game's cast contains most of the characters from Super Street Fighter II Turbo, with the exceptions of Fei Long (who was not used for the movie), Dee Jay, T. Hawk, Blanka (although he appears quite rarely in Dhalsim's lab by jumping into the stage and doing his electric ability) and Dhalsim. Akuma, who was a hidden character in Super Turbo and X-Men: Children of the Atom, is a regular character for the first time in any game. Two new characters were also introduced: Sawada, an original character from the film, and Blade, a member of Bison's shock troops from the film. Arkane, F7 and Khyber, who are all palette swaps of Blade, appear as secret characters. A powered-up version of Bison (called S. Bison) appears as a final computer-controlled opponent exclusive to the game's Tag-Team Mode and can be selected via codes like the other secret characters. While Blanka and Dee Jay would be added to the selectable cast of the home versions, there is leftover data in the arcade game indicating that Blanka was meant to be a playable character in this version as well, as there is an ending for him accessed by playing as S. Bison in the arcade mode.

Street Fighter: The Movie is the only game in the series where the boss characters Balrog, Vega and Bison, as well as Akuma, are addressed by their western names in the Japanese release. The Japanese instruction card features the original Japanese names of the characters written next to the western names in parentheses to avoid confusion.

The actors in the film are credited with reprising their roles for the game, with some of the actors dressed differently so as to more closely resemble their video game counterparts. While Raul Julia is credited as Bison, his likeness only appears in archive footage from the film due to his death shortly after the game entered development. Julia's stunt double, Darko Tuscan, was used to digitize the character in the game instead.

Characters each had between 600-800 digitized frames of animation, for a total of 32 megabytes of graphics. Each character had a 256 colour palette, compared with 16 colors in previous CPS-based Street Fighter games, and 64 colors in Mortal Kombat.[3]

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Street Fighter: The Movie on their July 15, 1995 issue as being the thirdteenth most-successful arcade game of the year.[4] According to Maximum, the game "was reasonably successful in the arcades."[5]

Next Generation reviewed the arcade version of the game, rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "Despite this digital crossover - neither brilliantly conceived nor sleepily dull - this game features the former fighting moves from Super Street Fighter II Turbo and excellent new ones [...] which adds to the growing Street Fighter series' depth."[6]

Notes
  1. All About Capcom Head-to-Head Fighting Game 1987-2000, pg. 288
  2. All About Capcom Head-to-Head Fighting Game 1987-2000, pg. 179
  3. Interview with Art Director Alan Noon, February 12, 2007
  4. "Game Machine's Best Hit Games 25 - TVゲーム機ーソフトウェア (Video Game Software)". Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 499. Amusement Press, Inc. 15 July 1995. p. 25.
  5. "Street Fighter Real Battle on Film". Maximum: the Video Game Magazine. Emap International Limited (1): 119. October 1995.
  6. "Finals, Street Fighter the Movie". Next Generation. No. 9. Imagine Media. September 1995. p. 108.
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References
  • Studio Bent Stuff (Sep 2000). All About Capcom Head-to-Head Fighting Game. A.A. Game History Series (Vol. 1) (in Japanese). Dempa Publications, Inc. ISBN 4-88554-676-1.
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