Handheld gaming is more than a compromise of power and portability. Whether it’s the ability to play anywhere, multitask or hold an entire console in your hands, it’s a special experience consoles have never replicated. In a world where high resolutions and teraflops reign supreme, we take a look at a portable relic every month and reflect on what makes it memorable. Be warned, spoilers may occasionally populate these articles.
Street Fighter is an extremely forgettable game, so much so that the majority of people only know about it because Street Fighter II exists. Street Fighter II, on the other hand, is what made fighting games a popular genre. Street Fighter II was incredibly popular in the arcades back in 1991 and has been ported to just about every conceivable platform. The first port of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior was for the SNES, and although it needed to be scaled back and simplified to cram the arcade game into a 16 megabit cartridge, it was a faithful reproduction. Later ports of later versions of Street Fighter II were also respectable endeavors, coming as close as possible to matching the coin-operated machines' grandeur while making necessary concessions to accommodate the hardware. But great success often leads to great hubris and in 1995 someone ignored the wisdom offered in Jurassic Park: they were so concerned about whether they could do it, they didn’t consider whether they should do it. And that is why Street Fighter II exists on the original Game Boy.
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Here Comes a New Challenger
It’s common knowledge that there are five different Street Fighter II arcade games that serve as the basis for the countless different incarnations that have appeared on home consoles. The Game Boy version is based on the original 1991 Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. This is the version that has twelve characters, eight of which are playable and four non-playable boss characters. This is also the version where each character only has one color, but that’s kind of a moot point in the Game Boy version. Despite being based on the original version, a few of the character portraits are taken from later versions of the game. This is the only element from the upgraded Street Fighter II. There are no special move power meters or additional attacks, such as Chun Li’s fireball or flaming Shoryukens. But they did include the ability to play as the boss characters.
Concessions had to be made on all cartridge ports of Street Fighter II, and naturally, Game Boy had the biggest cuts. The original Street Fighter II’s roster of eight playable characters and four bosses was the smallest of the Street Fighter Twos, but even that was too much for Game Boy. The violent rubber-limbed yoga master Dhalsim, the thousand hand-slapping sumo wrestler E. Honda and pretty boy Vega were cut from this version. These three might not have been the most popular characters, so decent choices to cut, but for variety’s sake they should have kept one of them and got rid of Ken as he is essentially just a palette swap of Ryu, though I would miss his stage’s music.
One of the things Street Fighter II was known for was its six different attack buttons, three different punches and kicks and varying speed and power. While not exactly the same layout as the arcade, this configuration translated well to SNES and PlayStation controllers. Sega Genesis was trickier on the standard three-button controller, but the six-button controller they introduced later was the closest to the arcade layout. Game Boy had only two buttons, so one was designated for punches and the other for kicks. The length of the button press determined which attack was executed. It technically worked, and was probably the best solution given the hardware, but just because something is the best solution does not mean it’s a good solution.
Game Boy Must Defeat Shen Long to Stand a Chance
Street Fighter II has three different game modes: Arcade, Survival and Versus. Arcade is where the player fights the remaining characters (one of which may be themselves) until it culminates in the championship match against M. Bison. There are five difficulty levels, compared to eight in most of the other home ports. Survival is a series of fights against an endless stream of opponents with minimal health regeneration. Versus is where the player can face off against another player, assuming both parties have a copy of Street Fighter II, a Game Boy and a link cable. Multiplayer was an option on this platform, but it wasn’t something that really ever took off.
Game Boy itself was never known for being a graphics powerhouse, and if minor graphical simplifications were necessary for 16-bit systems, major cuts had to be done for Game Boy. Character models were smaller and less detailed, and many details, such as background characters and breakable objects, had to be cut from the stages. Despite being greatly simplified, the characters and their respective stages did retain a strong resemblance to the original version. The music was hit just as hard as the graphics were. The tunes have been given an 8-bit demix, which takes the power out of some of the tracks, but the familiar melodies remain intact and recognizable.
Nowadays, gamers have reached a point where advertising 30 frames per second is met with scoffs, as many demand 60 FPS or higher. Street Fighter II on Game Boy looks like it’s running at about 5 FPS. Even for that era, the animation is terrible. Many different attacks look similar, as certain animations were cut and others reused to save space with the cartridge’s limited memory, but even with this approach, the animations are disjointed and choppy. It’s not as bad as those Tiger handheld games, but it’s unfortunate enough that it feels like the halfway point between one of those and the actual arcade game.
Go Home and be a Family Game Boy
Street Fighter II on Game Boy is something that should be examined with a nuanced approach. Cramming the arcade game on a four megabit Game Boy cartridge is an impressive feat, and even with the numerous concessions listed above, it’s still recognizable as Street Fighter II. The gameplay elements, which are the most important aspects, such as combos and special moves, did make their way into the handheld port. Given the technical limitations of the handheld hardware and the necessary concessions to make this port possible, this is probably the best anyone could have hoped for in 1995.
This is also a case where Street Fighter II might just be a bit too much for Game Boy, though. There are enough elements left intact that this can scratch the Street Fighter II itch on the go, but to offer any praise beyond being a serviceable port would be an act of charity. As a technical feat, it’s impressive that there’s a passable version of Street Fighter II on this platform, but it still isn’t a very good version of Street Fighter II.
Street Fighter II is one of the most important games in the genre’s history. It has been ported to countless home platforms, including current gen consoles. The fact that it even got a Game Boy version is testament to its popularity, as it has been ported to just about every platform imaginable. Even so, this is a contender for the worst version of Street Fighter II available, as there are better handheld versions available as either standalone releases or as part of compilations for Game Boy Advance andPlayStation Portable. It’s difficult to recommend this version of Street Fighter II to anyone except for those individuals who have a compulsion to purchase every available version of Street Fighter II. It can be worth a playthrough to experience and analyze how the development team was able to get this game on this platform, but there are many better ways to play Street Fighter II.
