Street Fighter is about as big as it gets in the fighting game world, and the recently released Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection has made it possible to play every single mainline title prior to the series' fourth entry on your Switch. Amazingly, though, information has surfaced revealing that Street Fighter was once in development for the NES, before being ultimately cancelled.
The news comes from video game archivist, historian, and developer Frank Cifaldi who worked on the 'Museum' section of the recently released collection. In his Twitter thread below, Cifaldi mentions that the screenshot you can see above "was buried deep in a Capcom marketing archive, undiscovered for decades". This is the first time the image has ever been revealed to the public.
He also goes on to discuss more interesting facts about the series that you may not know, including the fact that a very "different" version of Street Fighter II was once in development. The image below shows the cast of characters that had been designed for the game, but the project was apparently cancelled early on before evolving into beat 'em up title Final Fight.
If you're a fan of the series, we'd recommend taking a look through this series of tweets and diving into the game's Museum feature. You may well find yourself discovering a whole load of awesome new information.
In the meantime, though, have you got your hands on a copy Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection yet? Make sure to let us know if you're enjoying it in the comments, and feel free to check out our review if you'd like to know more.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 29
Interesting look back... and a good decision.
Funny how in that cast of characters for early Street Fighter 2 the only guy who doesn't look like a monstrosity is the guy in the mask.
Yet sega master system got a port of Street Fighter 2!
I'll pick up my copy later in the week though I'm slightly less enthusiastic as I was about it though since Alpha 3 upper is not included and it's my favorite out of all SF games.
Here are my thoughts on the collection... (from the other thread)
Big regret buying this. Don't like it at all - menu structure is a mess... doesn't feel like you are ever playing a complete game. The button mapping in menus is terrible.
Id have much rather you boot it up and select a game and all the modes for that game come under a set menu for that game - it just feels a mess and like a home made emulator... I don't feel like I am playing a complete game at any point and it feels more like loads of demos all thrown together.
I don't like anything about it to be honest... I don't know why they have done it like this.
I don't like the display options and how they are handled. The menu names and navigation is terrible - by the time I got to a fight I didn't really know what mode I was in and didn't feel engaged at all.
I enjoyed the couple of fights I had when I was in it but I didn't really wanna do more. I used to love playing the "story" mode in SF games and battling through and I didn't even feel like that mode was there (I know it was) it just felt all wrong.
Id have much preferred the menus to be like other collection (Rare for example).... you select a game and all the history and everything for that game is under that heading...
WWE 18
MXGP 3
SF collection...
My three games of shame that I regret buying... (MX is on me I knew it was bad but at £15 I had a punt)
Well i remember Street Fighter 2 was on the C64 back in the day
@GameOtaku It still amazes me what they managed with that port.
I hope all that information is included in the Museum feature in the compilation.
@Bunkerneath Yeah, I remember being amazed seeing a demo of the port on a cover tape on some C64 rag at the newsagents back in the day. The NES and the C64 shared (kinda) the same processor so I wondered if the NES and C64 ports were related. I had a look here though: https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Street_Fighter_II, the graphics look totally different!
@Moroboshi876 I think it is. It's got a ton of art, info etc.... that nes pic is in there with an explanation.
This collection is amazing btw. I love how they incorporated everything. The online lobbies can switch between games in the series every fight if you want it to,great spectating feature and pretty smooth online so far. No lag yet for me.
The changes you make in settings like controls are set across all titles and I really like how the museum is set on a timeline. So happy with this purchase
I've played SF casually since 1991. And somehow, I spent 4 hours yesterday going from game to game. It's a fantastic purchase for me. Playing SFIII 2nd Impact in widescreen is delicious. Here's hoping for a Darkstalkers collection.
@DownRightSam Thanks for the answer. I hadn't quite understood if it was an extra info or it was in the Museum too.
Well, I'm looking forward to getting this game since it was revealed, but unfortunately Switch owners who want to get the retail version have to wait a little longer. Which is weird, because some people got it days ago and are even selling it in the black market -and I've seen real pictures-, but anyway.
Here @Stocksy didn't like it at all because of how it's organized, and that scared me a little, but I gotta say I bought USFII back in June last year and don't regret it, despite bad reviews. The collection has been more successful in that regard.
The only thing I don't like about USFII, aside from the absence of bonus stages and a tournament mode -which was absent in almost every SF game anyway-, is the poor graphics when choosing "old style". I don't care about the resolution old games were made to reach, I have arcade archives games in my Switch and they look much better. VS. Super Mario Bros. looks gorgeous and clean, for instance.
Was browsing through this yesterday as well, and when I found that out, I was completely surprised.
You know the bajillion Famicom pirate carts of SF2 that exist? ...They all look better and more accurate than...that. Is that even something outside of a prototype phase?
I haven't seen the 'tweets' or museum section, but to clarify, this was a proposed port of Street Fighter, not Street Fighter 2? Seems some are muddling the story? Would've of been a step up from Urban Champion!
@TheMongrelCat @Bod2019 and everybody else...
I think he meant an NES version of the Street Fighter 1. Which explains why that background looks a lot like Sagat's stage from that game, and those early sprites look like Ryu and Sagat.
that sucks, but i never owned the NES. however, it would make a great addition to the NES classic mini...
That bottom right picture with what looks like Balrog in a chained collar....? Needless to say that would have invoked a huge controversy in the States.
Honestly, YOKO's pirate NES port of "Street Fighter II" was pretty darn good for what it was.
@Magrane
I was thinking it's Birdie. Or an early version of the rework they made of him for the Alpha series. He uses chains in some of his attacks.
Is that Star Man from Pro Wrestling?!?
@SmaMan Whoops! Yeah, you're right - Cifaldi wrote it right there in his Tweet! Was curious though and I went poking around the Wikis and just read that U.S. Gold published SF1 in Europe for C64 and the other usual suspects. A) I had no idea and definitely hadn't seen it before, and B) There was a ZX Spectrum port...what must that have been like???
@TheMongrelCat Did you know that U.S. Gold also published a terrible, unofficial sequel to the original Street Fighter? Meet Human Killing Machine...
Very glad that Capcom decided to change the way blanka looked befor sf2. His escaped slave look was a bit racist tbh
@Magrane that was actually supposed to be the original design for blanka. There's a did you know gaming episode about street fighter that explains it
In the end at least the NES still got a Street Fighter game, a weird but better one at that too.
I could have sworn that Nintendo Power reported SFII for NES was in development.... of course I'm recalling reading this in the early 1990s.
@SmaMan Buhahaha...no I didn't but that video made my morning. KWON IS STRONG!
@SmaggTheSmug
I think Chun-Li is the best looking out of this weird bunch ...
@Stocksy I think this is more on you than the game. Its really not a complicated design.
Tap here to load 29 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...