Street Fighter !

The Commodore 64 is deemed to be the best selling computer of all time. The success of this computer has boomed. A great reason to see a famous arcade game from Capcom: Street Fighter ported to the 8bit Commodore micro computer !

This 1988 port was created by Tiertex, a studio in the outskirts of Manchester, for the PAL version (Pacific Dataworks International for the NTSC version), and was ranked alongside other popular fighting titles already on micro at that time: Yie Ar Kung-Fu or The Way of the Exploding Fist. Well, let’s just say… It didn’t really work … Let me explain.

Firstly, it’s important to remember that the C64 hardware was not of the same caliber of the PCB in arcade gaming, which made ​​it even more difficult to convert. It was also the case for many other arcade games ported at that time.

Be warned, this is one heck of a spoiler-alert. And I’m not going to beat about the bush.

You want enemies? You won’t be disappointed.

Ryu is on the job. The now famous fighter wearing a white kimono has to confront a whole range of enemies in this round the world trip!

Some enemies have special moves; the only one I think really stands out from the rest at this level is Geki. The guy has the ability to teleport and throw … shuriken. Sagat, on the other hand, seems to be able to throw his famous fireball. However, the others did not reveal any hidden talents in combat during the numerous combats I did for this test. But most disappointing of all is that the total lack of special moves for Ryu, even though they are in the arcade version. The famous Hadoken and uppercut have disappeared.

You want to travel? Jump on board!

In Street Fighter, you get around. Ryu takes a plane just to go beat up a guy he doesn’t even know! I know this is part of a tournament (I think), and I hope at least it will benefit tourism a bit! From a dojo in Japan, to the disreputable streets of England, to the American railway system via the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China – your eyes are in for a treat to the point where you can almost get carried away! So Ryu the local tough guy visits 5 countries to demonstrate his talents.
Between each country you will also be entitled to a bonus stage where you have to show your ability to break the wood. Literally. I let you enjoy the scenery.

Plenty of manoeuvrability – or not!

When it comes to addressing the subject of maneuverability in this game, tread carefully. Don’t forget that the microphones at the time had a lever for a joystick with a single button. You can probably imagine how hard it is to make all the possible shots in the arcade version of the game that has 6 buttons, 3 punches and 3 kicks. It is a combination of the single and multi-directional button would eventually will trigger the various fighting techniques of Ryu. It is not the intensity of the blow that’s important here. Everything is delivered with the same force. The contact areas on the other hand, are rather vague. Sometimes you touch the enemy by hitting 1m into the empty space front of him, sometimes you miss. As we are not quite sure what we’re doing, the developer had the presence of mind to show a kind of black spot when we strike a blow and we hit.

You want sound? “Hear” you go!

There are no sound effects. As soon as the music is on, this is the only sound you will hear during the game. And that’s OK because it is really rather good, quite a success, I’d say. The lively rhythm will drive you to defend yourself and to tackle head on each arena! See extract below.

 

The NTSC version was a big surprise!

When writing this article I naturally had to widen my video game culture by doing further research on this subject. Having got bored of waiting for the original cassette tape that I have to load and also for the sake of ease, I quickly turned to the emulated version of the game. Then during the course of a ROM, surprise! I launched the U.S. version and right from the title screen, what a difference. A total difference in the game! Even the music is different. Then memories came flooding back that back then, sometimes each continent has its own version, and this is the case because as I mentioned in the introduction, the NTSC version was developed by Pacific Dataworks International. And I must say they really worked better. But as pictures always speak for themselves, I put together a quick comparison video just below.

 

 

It’s like this at Commodore

For added perspective, you can see in the instructions that I attached to this article that the joystick connection varies depending on the version you have … Minor flaws of the C64. On the NTSC version you plug the joystick in port 1 #1 and #2 in port 2, which seems logical. But the PAL version is the other way around …

How do the others do it?

Here’s a brief overview of “equivalent” 8-bit versions of CPC, Spectrum and also the original Arcade. Just to really bore the socks off you.

All in all…

HADDDDOOOOOOOOOKEEN

Despite all this, oddly, I still had fun with this number, could it be guilty pleasure? I don’t think so. It was definitely the element of surprise and the whole loser/kitsch thing that made ​​me laugh. Not sure I would be so forgiving the next time I have a go at it… That said, you should try this Street Fighter, even just for your culture, to know where the title comes from and how many other fighting games have indirectly been inspired!

La version française de cet article est disponible sur www.retrogamer.ca