Street Fighter Week: The evolution of Ken and Ryu

Table of Contents
Street Fighter|Street Fighter II|Alpha series|Street Fighter III|EX series|SF: The Movie and Gem Fighter|Marvel vs. Capcom series|SNK vs. Capcom series|Misc. games|Sprite comparison|SSFIITHDR and Street Fighter IV|Comics, films, and more

Street Fighter The Movie - 1995

Oh dear lord. Not only is this arcade game worse than the original Street Fighter, it is perhaps one of the worst fighting games ever created. If anything, it may be slightly better than the movie it's based on.

The console port was somewhat improved in that it directly utilized the Street Fighter II engine. That doesn't, however, negate the incredulous cheesiness.

The character sprites are actual images of the actors, giving us an entirely new look at Ryu and Ken.

This depiction of Ryu is the most disappointing. It chews up, digests, and vomits out all of our wild conceptions about this legendary warrior, destroying his mystique and replacing it with Byron Mann, a California lawyer.

This guy'sonly resemblance to Ken is his red uniform, and even that fails to be the right shade of red. Shameful.

Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix (AKA Pocket Fighter) - 1997

Gem Fighter, which features characters from multiple Capcom franchises, was released on the CPS-2 arcade board, and ported to multiple consoles. The storyof these "super deformed" versions of Ken and Ryu is rather straight forward.

Ryu wishes to see a lady named Tessa. He has heard much about her during his journeys.

Ken ends up on a forced shopping trip with Morrigan and apparently gets an eye infection...

And is confronted by Eliza! What a player. All he wanted was to have tea with some pretty girl. That scamp.

Gem Fighter's characters are just about identical to the characters in Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (below), except that the Puzzle Fighter versions exist within the pre-Street Fighter II era, giving Ryu a white headband and Ken long hair.