Yes, after that headline most of us are thinking about how this article and video is about to skewer Street Fighter 5 for its many sins, or perhaps take a shot a Street Fighter 6 because we like new costumes and hate throw loops, but removing the more recent emotional impact of those experiences, neither game comes up in the discussion.
Instead, Guile Win Quote takes us on a historical journey back to earlier points in the franchise’s story where, instead of possibly miscalibrating the risk vs. reward dynamic between throws and Drive Reversals, they were learning hard lessons about game speed and physics.
Did you know that, of the five initial versions of Street Fighter 2 (World Warrior, Champion Edition, Hyper Fighting, New Challengers, and Super Turbo) four of them still have regular followings while one does not?
If you’ve spent enough time in the fighting game community, you might be able to divine the ugly duckling as you tend to hear about the four that are still actively played in casual conversations. Each of these has a charm that’s allowed it to cling to a kind of grandfathered relevancy, save for New Challengers.
Mr. Win Quote details why he feels this is as he points out the subtle but significant differences between the many Street Fighter 2 entries. We actually featured an incredible 19-hit SF2 combo last month on this site, which felt strangely unprecedented for SF2.
It turns out a big part of the reason that sequence and others like it might be seen as novel is because it’s only possible in New Challengers, thanks to the fact that hit stun in this version of SF2 is one frame longer for everyone. That’s just one of the goofy oddities that characterized New Challengers, but rest assured there are plenty more.
Guile Win Quote also delves into one other classic Street Fighter title that he also deems worthy of being in the worst Street Fighter game discussion. We won’t spoil it exactly, but will share that it hails from the days of Street Fighter 3.