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If the EX series of games are sidelined as non-canonical then the Street Fighter: The Movie titles are something else entirely. With characters portrayed by their respective actors from the film, two games were produced (one for arcades the other for home consoles). Due to their use of digitalised sprites these games strongly evoke Mortal Kombat, albeit without the gore. But there is something inherently wrong about seeing Street Fighter performed in live action, especially so crudely. Street Fighter: The Movie must be unique in being the only game based on a film, based on a game: this alone is fateful but considering how wide of the mark the film was, the tie-ins were doomed from the start. Capcom have tried to distance themselves from the whole episode; neither the film nor the
games are acknowledged at all in Street Fighter: Eternal Challenge, a retrospective book commemorating the series' fifteen year anniversary.
Returning playable characters in Street Fighter: The Movie are: Akuma (even though he isn't in the film), Balrog, Cammy, Chun-Li, E. Honda, Guile, Ken, M. Bison, Ryu, Sagat, Vega and Zangief. Additionally, Blanka and Dee Jay are included in the home version. Fei Long and T. Hawk are not in either title. New characters, taken from the film, are Arkane, Blade, F7, Khyber and Sawada. Negative feelings towards the games are clearly heightened due to this being a bastardisation of Street Fighter II and a rip-off Mortal Kombat but there's no denying the games are cumbersome and utterly charmless, deviod even of the bloodlust that has sustained the Mortal Kombat series.
Knowledge of how to access the scroll test in World Warrior has revealed a number of previously unknown details about the stage backgrounds to the wider public. Principle among these is the discovery that behind the elephants in the foreground of Dhalsim's stage are a number of large windows revealing the starry night sky outside. Unfortunately during gameplay, when the foreground elephants are overlayed, these windows are completely obscured. With the windows revealed the stage is very evocative of Arabian Nights, and on that note, Alph Lyla, Capcom's house band, made up of members of the sound team in the '80s and '90s, took their name from the Arabic title for One Thousand and One Nights; Kitab alf laylah wa-laylah.
Guy's stage is once again home to a number of cameos from Final Fight, this time in Street Fighter Alpha 3. From left to right, the following Metro City regulars can be seen: Hugo Andore, Poison, El Gado, Axl and Mike Haggar. Note also the reference to Mega Man on the billboard in the distant background and well done for spotting the little black cat in the cardboard box on the left in the foreground! Hugo also makes an appearance in Cody's Alpha 3 jail-break stage, appearing on a gigantic billboard in the background on the far right of the scene (inset on main image). The text reads '[...] vs. Hugo', which is partially obscured during gameplay.
Hugo made his debut as a playable character in Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact - Giant Attack but it is a well known fact that he was intended to be included in the first game in the III series. Time constraints meant that he was cut, however, via a memory hack it was discovered that a prototype version of Hugo does exist in the code for Street Fighter III: New Generation. The sprite is heavily outlined during movement and the character has no moves. Nevertheless, Hugo must have been quite far into development before he was cut as, in addition to his sprite, an unfinished version of his stage background from 2nd Impact is also present in the code.
The symbol visible on Akuma's back in certain win animations is the kanji 'ten' (from the Chinese 'tian' so not to be confused with the Japanese number ten, 'jū'). The symbol conveys both sky and heaven as well as god or gods. Despite Akuma being associated with the hellish/demonic (particularly in his Oni incarnation) the kanji 'ten' communicates his unearthly, transcendent status. The symbol is also seen on the box art for Warriors' Dreams disclosing his inclusion as a hidden character. On a side-note, the symbol on Evil Ryu's back is 'Metsu', 'Perish'.
Nin-Nin Hall is the location of Balrog's stage in Street Fighter II. Similar to the Buppo reference in Ken's Super stage, Nin-Nin is actually the nickname of Akira Nishitani who, alongside Akira Yasuda (Akiman), were principal planners on Street Fighter II and are listed first in the game's credits. This also explains why the owner of the default high-score in Street Fighter II is 'NIN'. In Super this becomes 'POO' the alias of Funamizu Noritaka, who became lead planner for the revision. Upholding the tradition, 'ONI' is the top-scorer in Hyper: Anniversary Edition, it being the nickname of Ryota Suzuki (a.k.a. Oni-Suzuki), lead planner on that instalment.
