Street Fighter: All the games of the saga ordered by history

Street Fighter

The Street Fighter saga celebrates its 35th anniversary this year and does so with the announcement of a new installment, the sixth, although later we have some more games that have been fueling the fights of millions of users around the world for years. So when we reach 2022, it’s time to look back to find out everything that hides one of the best-known and most profitable video game franchises in history.

Many fights, but also stories

The history of Street Fighter dates back to the year 1987, when Capcom launched its first game for the arcade machines of the arcades with a first outline of what would be the formula of the fighting genre that it would help to consolidate. We must remember that already in those days there were titles that allowed us to star in one-on-one matches where at the end of a couple of rounds, the champion was proclaimed.

And it is that fighting games are currently one of the most relevant niches thanks, among others, to the work of brands like Capcom, which with their Street Fighters have maintained and fed an industry that over the years has been tempering the number of games available. Now, we have more stable franchises over time such as Tekken , Virtua Fighter , Super Smash Bros , Mortal Kombat or Injustice that, to the phenomenon of delivery or DLC that they launch, we must add some consolidated eSports scenes that always keep them in constant process . update.

Street Fighter is one of those sagas that, surely, you have tried at some time and that from that first fight already marked you forever. No? These are all the games that have come from the franchise with a direct relationship in the lore of their characters.

Street Fighter (1987)

Originally released in 1987 for arcades (JAMMA plate), it only had Ryu and Ken and a fairly rudimentary catalog of hits and barely a dozen enemies spread over five scenarios (Japan, USA, China, England and Thailand) . Of course, we could already hit the opposite with the famous Hadoken and Shoryuken, although obtaining them was complicated. Especially since it was one of the first arcade games to use six buttons to accommodate combinations of kicks and punches with which it was possible to attack. If you want to play it today, it is available in the 30th anniversary compilation that was released in 2017.

Street Fighter II (1991)

We arrived at the key moment in the history of the saga. The game that marks a before and after , not only for Capcom, but for the entire fighting genre, which obtains a nature card and becomes one of the user favorites. With him come the Super Nintendo versions and later the Mega Drive, with Ryu, Honda, Blanka, Guile, Ken, Ryu, Chun-Li, Zangief and Dhalsim. That without forgetting the Balrog, Vega, Sagat (who already appeared in the original Street Fighter ) or M. Bison. With this cartridge, the stories of the characters enter the scene and the possibility of completing each of their paths to access different endings that will be, from that moment on, one of the incentives of the franchise.

In this game the fighting is complicated, the movements are more refined and in the following years it will offer fans versions with different variations on the original game: Street Fighter II Champion Edition (1992), Street Fighter II Turbo Hyper Fighting (1992), Super Street Fighter II The New Challengers (1993), Super Street Fighter II Turbo (1994), and Hyper Street Fighter II (2003).

Saga Street Fighter Alpha (1996-1998)

Between 1996 and 1998, Capcom released for arcades (and consoles such as PlayStation, Saturn, Dreamcast and portable) three games that are considered a kind of spinoff of Street Fighter that we can consider as the main ones, and that tell us about events that fill in the gaps left by the main titles. Also known as Street Fighter Zero in Japan and other countries, we will meet the fighters at a younger age and get to know some of the key events that will mark their lives. In these titles we find characters as classic as Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Sagat, Akuma and M. Bison, or Cammy and Sakura, or Maki (from Final Fight ), Eagle or Yun (from Street Fighter III) who will also join the definitive cast of the franchise.

Street Fighter III (1997)

It is a direct continuation (argumentally and because of the situations it deals with) of Street Fighter II where we can control only ten fighters, although later several will join to make up a much broader cast. At the beginning we will have Alex, Dudley, Elena, Ibuki, Ken, Necro, Oro, Ryu, Matsuda, Yang and Yun and later with the Second Impact version of the game Gouki, Hugo Andore and Urien will do it for, finally in the version of Third Strike , receive Chun-Li, Makoto, Remy and Twelve. Originally released for arcades and the CPS-3 board, it came to PlayStation, it was left with the desire to do it on Saturn but later it was landing on other machines such as Dreamcast, PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

Street Fighter IV (2008)

The success of Street Fighter III and all the intermediate games that continued to feed the voracity of the fans ( crossover with fighters from SNK, Marvel, etc.) meant that it was not necessary to launch a game focused on the stories of the original characters, those that they fueled the franchise’s lore in the 1990s . At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, Capcom sees the launch window for a new canonical installment and this fourth part arrives for arcades, PS3, Xbox 360, PC and, for the first time, for iOS and Android mobile phones.

It is the first to bet on adding 3D graphics but maintaining the 2D effect of the originals, in the words of one of its creators, not to end the legacy of the old Street Fighter II . In Street Fighter IV we have the first contact with the famous Focus Attack in addition to the Ultra combos and the old control scheme with six buttons is recovered. Argumentally, we meet old acquaintances of the saga again so we can control Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, E. Honda, Blanka, Zangief, Guile, Dhalsim, Balrog, Vega, Sagat, M. Bison, Abel, Crimson Viper, Rufus and The Strong. Akouma and Gouku appear as final bosses.

Street Fighter V (2016)

In the month of February, what will be the last of the canonical deliveries of the original 1987 franchise games arrived for PS4 and PC until the launch of Street Fighter 6. It maintains the 2D aesthetic with three-dimensional graphics and it is the first to practically become a service, with seasons that follow one another with new events focused on multiplayer and, above all, on the competitive eSports scene. You do not have to pay every month, but downloadable content does not stop coming out that increases the list of fighters, enemies. etc. So much so that from the initial 18 of Street Fighter V, we have gone to the current 45: Abigail, Akira Kazama, Akuma, Alex, Balrog, Birdie, Blanka, Cammy White, Charlie Nash, Chun-Li, Cody Travers, Dan Hibiki , Dhalsim, E. Honda, Ed, Falke, FANG, G, Gill, Guile, Ibuki, Juri, Kage, Karin Kanzuki, Ken Masters, Kolin, Laura Matsuda, Lucia Morgan, Luke, M. Bison, Menat, Oro, Poison , Mika, Rashid, Rose, Ryu, Sagat, Sakura, Seth, Urien, Vega and Zeku.

Street Fighter 6

Capcom announced in February 2022 that it was working on a new installment in the saga. Unfortunately, the announcement was limited to a fairly visual teaser that serves to give us an idea of ​​where we are going graphically, but completely avoids giving a date or showing the first brushstrokes of the game. Supposedly in the summer of 2022 they will give more information about it, so we should have news about it very soon. And yes, it is the first game in the series to use decimal numbers in the title.

In what order to play each title?

These games that tell us the personal stories of the fighters cover events that are not always told sequentially, so as in other universes related to video games, movies or television, you have to follow a specific order to understand why that some fighters disappear for a while and others are younger even though the game is nominally newer than an older one. So this is the order you have to follow:

  • street-fighter
  • Street Fighter Alpha
  • Street Fighter Alpha 2
  • Street Fighter Alpha 3
  • Street Fighter II
  • Street Fighter IV
  • Street Fighter V
  • Street Fighter III