Street Fighter II/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


See also:

Index:


  • Breakout Character: Arguably, Chun-Li as she has appeared in every sub-series following this one being the only one of out the world warriors to do so baring Ryu and Ken. She is also required to appear in all Capcom vs. Whatever games
  • Ear Worm:
    • Most of the stage music of II qualifies: there are many gamers who will never stop humming the stage themes of Ken and Guile.
    • Also, the theme tune. If you can't hum that and see a nameless fighter punching his opponent's lights out in your mind's eye, you weren't even alive in 1991... or you were playing the SNES versions.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Zangief is always a fan favorite, even though he's never been in a leading role. Fans clamor for him whenever he's missing from a game, to the point that neither Ken nor Akuma made it to the Marvel vs. Capcom 1 roster, but the Red Cyclone did!
    • Cammy was the first of the "New Challengers" to be present in most later games, and the only one other than Akuma to be involved in early crossovers.
    • Not to the extent of Cammy, but Fei Long was the only other "New Challenger" to make it to the console ports of IV. That has to say something.
  • Evil Is Cool: M. Bison. Must be the uniform.
  • Follow the Leader: All the knock-offs, which did eventually lead From Clones to Genre with games like Virtua Fighter and Tekken.
  • Fountain of Memes:
  • Game Breaker:
    • World Warrior Guile status as a Game Breaker is legendary, to the point that some considered it as one of the most broken fighting game character of all time. In fact, it was considered the same character that invented Touch of Death-esque combo(hit confirm that resulted in a KO) into the genre with his Four Fierce Combo. This, on top of his ussual Flash kick and sonic boom.
    • Bison's Champion Edition version has deadly priority with most of his attacks, and he has a scissor kick combo that can completely shut down half of the cast. Even when he was nerfed in Hyper Fighting he still had some ridiculous combos.
    • In Super Turbo and its successor HD Remix, Akuma is banned for having ridiculously overpowered combos and juggles. He was eventually balanced out in later games, with his most balanced form so far being in IV.
  • Growing the Beard/Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The original Street Fighter sucks by modern standards: two playable characters that are just a few pixels from Palette Swap, unresponsive controls, special moves that rarely if ever work. Street Fighter II, on the other hand, became the Trope Codifier for the Fighting Game.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Out of all the SF characters, Chun-Li has the most fan-made pairings, namely with Ryu, Ken, Guile, and Charlie (and to a lesser extent, Cammy). While it's not really bad when it comes to most shipping wars, it has caused a bit of varied mileages in the fandom. The Street Fighter anime from the 90s (and to a lesser extent the manga) have helped Ryu, Ken, and Guile in avoid this.
    • Justified in the case of Charlie since the official storyline states that they posed as husband and wife while traveling in search of Bison.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • Dhalsim. And it's not all memetic.

Dhalsim: I will meditate and then destroy you.

    • Bison, due to his final boss difficulty and The Movie.

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me... it was Tuesday."

  • Memetic Outfit: Chun-Li's Qipao costume is so iconic that when she was given a new, more realistic outfit in Alpha, all subsequent games in the series provided the option for the player to use her old outfit.
  • Memetic Molester: Zangief is half man, half chest hair, is Friend to All Children, and has a primarily hug-based moveset. Do the math.
  • Mexicans Hate T. Hawk. and Japan hates Dee Jay: Although no one seems to be complaining about their inclusion in SSFIV. Probably because all the other great characters they brought in at the same time distracted people from complaining, or maybe because of the Nostalgia Filter from having the entire cast of Super II Turbo back again.
  • Porting Disaster: The Xbox Live Arcade version of Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting. The game had serious lag on most stages, even more lag on Balrog's stage, horrible balance, and an infinite timer on the character select screen. That last gaff, when coupled with the ability to de-select your character, led to long times at the character select screen due to counter-picking.
    • Not the whole game, but the Sega Genesis port of Super II had horrible music. Quite pathetic considering the port of II Turbo had music that was very faithful to the CPS1 original music.
  • Second Installment Wins
  • Sequel Displacement: Before the Internet, you could count the number of people who played the first Street Fighter game on one hand. Turns out, it's for the best.
  • Squick: In the games with better animation (Capcom vs. SNK Millennium Fight 2000, Street Fighter IV), you can see Dhalsim's limbs actually snapping back like a rubber band after doing one of his stretch attacks. Yech.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: One of the top examples of that trope.
  • That One Attack: No, Blanka! Not the headbite!
  • Unfortunate Implications: The title screen of the original edition of SFII has a white guy punching out a black guy. That got removed on all subsequent updates.
  • The Woobie: Cammy.
  • Woolseyism: "Vega" is a fairly common Spanish surname, making it somewhat more appropriate for him than the dictatorial Bison.