Street Fighter - The Golden Age Part II

If Capcom was to continue the Street Fighter ‘II’ trend until today, we could end up something like Ultimate Ultra Super Street Fighter II Hyper Champion Dash XXX Edition blah blah blah... Thank God it didn’t happen.

Street Fighter Zero


In year 1995, Capcom followed up by releasing a prequel, Street Fighter Zero, or Alpha in US. The prequel is set between SFI and SFII. Its not called 1.5 for some unknow reason. Maybe their maths is really so bad that they thought the number between 1 and 2 is Zero?

Anyway, Zero distinguished itself from previous series by introducing 3 level Super Combo system. The upgraded visuals and stylish gameplay made the series more appealing to fans. Its interesting to know that, since Super Combo only exists beginning of SSFII Turbo, how was it possible that in Zero, young Ken, Ryu and Chun Li able to perform Super Combos? Are we saying that the normal Hadoken in SFII was actually a powerful version of Zero’s Super Hadoken?



Then, Capcom continued its trend by releasing 2 more sequels to Zero. So we have a prequel to SFII and then a sequel to SF Zero. That makes SF Zero 3 a prequel to a sequel to a sequel of SFII. Confused? Never mind, nobody cares about the chronology anyway.

1995 - Street Fighter Alpha
1996 – Street Fighter Alpha 2
1998 – Street Fighter Alpha 3

Street Fighter EX


With the introduction of 3D fighting games like Tekken and Virtual Fighter in the mid 90s, 2D fighting games had started to lose its ground. Capcom teamed up with Akira to develop a 3D Street Fighter game called Street Fighter EX. It features ‘Super Combo Cancel’ system where a Super Combo can be done right after a Regular, Special or Super combo to create a chain of attacks.



The series also spawned a few sequels...

1996 – Street Fighter EX
1997 – Street Fighter EX Plus
1997 – Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha
1998 – Street Fighter EX 2
1999 – Street Fighter EX 2 Plus
2000 – Street Fighter EX 3

To be continued in Part III where Capcom finally counts to III...