Introduction
Street Fighter was a 1987 arcade game from Capcom about going around the world and duking it out with various opponents to see who's the best. There were only two playable characters, Ryu and Ken who played the same, but many different opponents with their own fighting styles. While the version with the pressure sensitive buttons wasn't a big hit, the standard 6 button cabinet was a pretty decent hit.
Fighting Street was a 1988 PC Engine CD port developed by Hudson as part of the launch lineup. This has redbook audio remixes of the arcade original's music but is mostly the same game. There are a few mechanical changes here and there but generally plays the same.
Run notes
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1
- TurboNyma core
- Genre: fighting
- A decent amount of opponent AI manipulation
Mechanics and techniques
- Horizontal movement
- Normal ground movement is incredibly slow since everyone slowly hops around. It's much faster to cover ground with forward jumps but no special moves can be done in the air. Thankfully the opponents generally prefer jumping towards Ryu which means gives good opportunities for heavy damage with the Shoryuken.
- Punches and kicks
- The game has three levels of power for punches and kicks. As this port came out about 4 years before the official 6 mutton controller, the power is dependent on how long the button is held. This combined with the startup for stronger attacks makes hitting with basic moves in this port tricky. They're still pretty useful for getting a little bit of extra damage when needed, especially when jumping towards the opponent.
- Shoryuken AKA Dragon Punch AKA DP
- f - d - df.P
A powerful uppercut that gives invulnerability frames for the entire time it's active. The attack is active on the way up and down. This can potentially hit twice in this port depending on when it's used and what the opponent does after getting hit once.
- Hadouken
- d - df - f.P
A fireball projectile that can hit at a distance. This hits once but is helpful for ending fights if the opponent is far away and doesn't decide to jump over it.
- Tatsumaki Senou Kyaku AKA Hurricane Kick
- d - db - b.K
A spin kick with a lot of windup time that moves forward. This can hit multiple times but the long windup, lack of invulnerability, and frankly limited distance covered by the move makes its usefulness limited.
- Damage
- All special moves do about 40% damage per hit making them the bread and butter for finishing the game quickly. Strong punches and kicks are enough to clear out the remaining 20% of the opponent's lifebar so they're used whenever they an speed up the fight.
- Knockback
- Every hit causes knockback, with stronger hits having more knockback. There are two parts of knockback that are relevant to the TAS.
If they're standing on the ground when hit with a strong attack or special move they get launched far back in an arc. That's a very far distance and generally avoided if it's not possible to get two hits with a DP.
If they're hit out of the air they're directly sent diagonally downwards towards the ground. How far they go is dependent on their height. When using a DP is the best option is to delay using it until the airborne opponent is low enough to the ground. Once they get hit they'll be grounded and able to take another action. If this action is another jump they can get hit by the DP again for big damage. While the second hit will have greater knockback this leaves the opponent at low enough health that another strong attack will finish them off.
An extra note that the forwards/backwards hopping of an opponent technically also counts as being airborne which is relevant for ending rounds with a fireball.
- Ending rounds
- The last hit causes slowdown until the end of round animation start. The end of round animation starts when the victor is in neutral position and the opponent is on the ground.
While the DP is the most reliable move it's not always the fastest way to finish a fight due to the animation time. Using something like a fireball or a strong punch is faster than a DP as they have shorter animation times. It's also faster to get the last hit when the opponent is airborne to reduce their knockback time.
There were points where ending the fight in a damage trade were possible. However, the reduced countdown on the remaining energy bonus didn't make up the time lost waiting on Ryu to get to neutral from the knockback animation.
- Unused technique - pausing
- Pausing the game results in the AI halting their ability to make their next move. This is helpful for a regular player as it allows for cheesing the game via pausing. This isn't used in this TAS as it's both not really needed and it requires also unpausing. A lot of the strategies used also involve having the AI do certain attacks and pausing would only hinder that.
- Minigames
- After every set of 2 opponents there's one of two short minigames.
The first minigame is chopping down blocks with a well timed button press. The longer the button is held on the press, the stronger the chop is. While it's faster to just go with a light chop I decided it's worth spending about 5 frames per chopping minigame for a perfect.
The second minigame is breaking wooden boards. This one simply needs to be completed quickly to stop the timer. It's straightforward enough with forward jumps to get across the screen quickly.
Stage comments
The game initially presents an option to start at any of the four initial sets of fights. Japan is selected since it's the first option available.
- Retsu
- Unfortunately his initial jump doesn't come close enough for an initial double hit DP. Thus the strat done here is a single DP and jump in for follow ups. The first round get a double hit on the second DP while the second round has a jump kick followed by a fireball when Retsu is close to the ground.
- Geki
- Like Retsu, Geki's initial jump isn't close enough for an initial double hit DP. The two rounds have diverging strategies due to Geki's AI acting differently between them. For the first round a DP, jump kick, and fireball is used. The fireball is used to get Geki on the ground quickly. For the second round a two hit tatsu followed by a DP was done to finish quickly. Geki didn't interrupt the tatsu or evade the second hit but his jump attack meant that a DP had to be used as the finisher.
- Joe
- He seems kind of average to me.
Joe jumps in far enough that a well timed DP get get the double hits in both rounds. Both rounds are also finished with a fireball while Joe hops back and forth for a quick knockdown.
- Mike
- I'm pretty sure he's unrelated to Boxer. I didn't bother to check that much.
Mike doesn't really jump far but he does jump in at the start of both rounds. The strategy used for both rounds is a round start fireball, jump punch, and another fireball. Not a single DP was used due to range limitations.
- Lee
- Lee's jump isn't far enough for an initial double hit DP. Due to Lee's hoppy movements both rounds are done with a single hit DP, standing punch, and fireball.
- Gen
- As seen in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. I still don't know who that film was even for.
Gen's jump sets up an initial double hit DP at the start of both rounds. Both rounds also end with a jump punch as it brings Gen back down to the ground quicker than using another DP.
- Birdie
- Apparently showing up sick in this game? That's Capcom's explanation.
Birdie's jump makes it possible to use the same strategy as Joe: an initial double hit DP followed by a fireball. A very straightforward fight.
- Eagle
- As seen in in Capcom vs. SNK 2.
The first round against Eagle was good. A double hit DP followed by a fireball does the job quickly. However, round 2 had Eagle acting a lot more squirrely here resulting in a much slower round. The second round had two single hit DPs and a fireball to finish it up. Other options wither whiffed or denied by Eagle's attacks.
- Adon
- Here's Beavis without Butthead.
Both rounds against Adon work the same. An initial double hit DP followed by another DP. Adon's jump in after the double hit is always an air kick that keeps him airborne for a bit so a DP was the only way to hit him out of it.
- Sagat
- Ducking at round start makes Sagat more aggressive in approaching Ryu. The first round gets a double hit DP at round start followed by a standing punch to stuff Sagat's Tiger Knee. The second round only has a since hit DP at the start but ends input early with a double hit DP.
Possible improvements
Getting better AI patterns, or at least more consistent patterns, would potentially lead to better fights against a few opponents, most notably Eagle. However, I did redo some earlier parts which resulted in AI changes in later fights so it'd likely be a bit trickier to implement improvements while not bleeding time from later opponent AI changes.