An Introduction
Street Fighter II is one of the most popular fighting games of all time, with eight iterations and dozens of home computer and console ports. With such a massive selection of possible ways to play, there would inevitably be terrible versions. Fans often argue about how the PlayStation release has horrible input lag or how the Game Boy version looks the worst. However, none of these ports of Street Fighter are nearly as interesting as Street Fighter II’ on the SEGA Master System.
The Master System was considered old when Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, the first version of Street Fighter II, was released in the Summer of 1992. Both of its final official games in Japan and North America were released in 1991 and 1992, respectively. However, the console continued to be supported in Europe and South America. European support dried up in the late nineties but South American support for the system is shockingly still going.
Most notably, TEC TOY continues to release the Master System to this day. TEC TOY was founded in 1987 specifically to bring electronic toys to the Brazilian market. Brazil has infamously high tariffs on electronics meaning gadgets are either produced locally or sold as luxuries. After a deal with SEGA, they got the license to produce and sell Master Systems, Mega Drives, and game cartridges in the country. This saw wide success in Brazil and is why the Master System continues to sell thousands year after year. TEC TOY is the main protagonist of this story as they are the only reason the Master System even got a port of Street Fighter. From all the research I have done into Street Fighter II’, this version of Street Fighter originated from TEC TOY alone. They mainly developed it without the support of CAPCOM, the copyright holders of Street Fighter.
A Rocky and Agreement Breaching Development
TEC TOY had the licenses, but that did not guarantee they could release a game legally. As a part of the contract, SEGA must approve every game. When they initially presented the idea, SEGA shot down TEC TOY’s idea declaring that a version for their old console was impossible. But that didn’t deter them. TEC TOY began the porting process by using emulator software to extract sprites from the Mega Drive release of Street Fighter II’: Special Champion Edition. They then created movement prototypes to show SEGA that a port was feasible. This still did not convince them. Nonetheless, TEC TOY continued the development without approval. After all, SEGA had very little control over cartridge manufacturing or sales in Brazil. The only option they could respond with was cancellation of the contract which would be a very nuclear reaction to just one video game. The only other company they had to convince was CAPCOM.
There is a famous story about how TEC TOY managed to convince CAPCOM to sign off on this version of the game. TEC TOY gave a live presentation of the prototype playing on hardware in front of CAPCOM executives. They intentionally placed a Mega Drive on the table and acted as if the gameplay was coming from it. When the prototype was finished, they revealed a Master System that was hidden under the table as the source. CAPCOM was convinced by the presentation and allowed development to continue. Though the game was notably low quality for a Mega Drive game, it was impressive for the Master System.
Reportedly, the game had seven months, at most, of development. A sizable portion of that time was dedicated to the sprite rips, about one to two months. The game was released in September 1997 for ages thirteen and up. The sale numbers are unknown, but presumably did well due to name recognition.
Why is the Title Like That?
The game is titled Street Fighter II’ on the case and title screen and STREET FIGHTER II on the cartridge. There is no other Street Fighter game with this title. Most likely, the title is meant to reference Street Fighter II’: Champion Edition or Street Fighter II’: Hyper Fighting. However, the Master System version is not a port of either game, so why it is there is unknown. The apostrophe is pronounced as DASH in the Japanese market but is nonverbal in the West. As such, it is not inappropriate to pronounce the title as just (Street Fighter Two.)Graphics
The game looks notably worse than its arcade counterpart or other home console releases. The original arcade board used was the CAPCOM Play System, or CPS, with a color depth of 16-bit. This means that it could produce 65,535 unique colors, with 4,096 being on screen at a time. In comparison, the Master System could only muster 6-bit colors or 64 unique colors with 31 on screen. This is what this port is most infamous for and probably why SEGA never signed off on it. Sure, TEC TOY could make the game run, and it resembles Street Fighter. But they could not make it look good on such limited hardware.
Almost all character sprites are taken from Special Champion Edition and translated to Master System colors. Notably, the character portrait art on the selection screen was taken from Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers. Special Champion Edition only featured artwork based off of the arcade release of Street Fighter II’: Champion Edition. As such, it is unknown how TEC TOY ported this art into the game.
The backgrounds are very limited. They weren’t ripped from the Mega Drive version but were created by TEC TOY. The quality is notably bad, with less detail and color than in the arcade. The original version of Street Fighter II had moving backgrounds with people and objects often moving, dancing, and cheering on the fighters. Instead, the Master System has none of that, and the backgrounds are bland, with no one in them beyond the stages of Chun Li, Guile, and Balrog.
Audio
Street Fighter II’s music is some of the most iconic in video game history. However, Street Fighter II’ butchers all of it. Unlike the graphics, the sound was composed for the system it is running on. The music is based on The World Warrior’s soundtrack and does its best to sound like the original. However, it is nowhere near as enjoyable as any of the other versions or ports with audio.The audio is not credited to anyone at TEC TOY despite being composed by them.
Choose Your Fighter
The character selection is completely unique to this version of the game. Street Fighter II was released with eight playable characters but eventually had twenty due to rereleases. Street Fighter II’ has eight. However, they are not the original eight.
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior stared Ryu, E. Honda, Blanka, Guile, Ken, Chun Li, Zangief, and Dhalsim. Boss characters included Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison. Later releases made the bosses playable characters, added Akuma, and notably expanded the roster in Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers.
Street Fighter II’ removed E. Honda, Zangeif, and Dhalsim and replaced them with all the bosses except Vega. As stated before, no other Street Fighter game has this roster, and it is unknown why TEC TOY decided on these characters. The most likely reason was cartridge space. Not only were the boss characters inevitably going to feature, but the characters they did cut were larger than the others. Dhalsim’s arms and legs caused his sprite art to be larger than other characters his size in the arcade, and both E. Honda and Zangief’s bodies were larger and took up more space on the CPS board’s memory. Most likely, TEC TOY decided to scrap them to fit on a Master System’s 8-megabyte ROM cartridges.
General Gameplay
The gameplay is very similar to the arcade. Two fighters face off, best two out of three wins, health bars, and special moves. However, the Master System is limited control-wise compared to the original. The World Warrior supported two players with an eight-way joystick and six buttons for each. Half of the buttons were kicks, and the others were punches. But the Master System’s controllers only have two face buttons.Street Fighter II’ makes this work by having button 1 perform the punch and button 2 is the kick. However, this dramatically reduces the amount of special moves possible in the game. The World Warrior had three special moves for each character, with more added in later editions. Street Fighter II’ has two for each character.
Single-Player Mode
The single-player mode is separated into three difficulties: Easy, Normal, and Hard. However, only playing Hard will get you the ending. You play eight games against all the characters and end with a fight with M. Bison. There are no bonus stages.
The ending is nothing special. The arcade had unique endings for each character, with classic scenes like Chun Li declaring that she’ll return to living as ’a young single girl’ or Zangief dancing the Prisiadki with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The Master System only has the faces of the three bosses floating over text reading: ‘You are the “King of Street Fighters.”’ The credits will play after several seconds.
The staff role is the same as that of Special Champion Edition, but with TEC TOY mentioned at the end. None of the people who worked on this port are credited in the game.
Two-Player Mode
There isn’t one.No, seriously, Street Fighter II’ does not have a versus mode like every other version of the game. Instead, it has challenges. Challenge matches have existed since the first Street Fighter in 1987. Anytime during Single-Player Mode, a second player can challenge the first by pressing a button on the second controller. If the second player wins the game, they will continue with Single-Player Mode in place of the first player. This is the closest to a Two Player Mode that the game has.
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