page sixteen

Genesis/Mega Drive betaNine minutes of footage showing a beta version of Special Champion Edition for the Genesis/Mega Drive has surfaced online. Purportedly the video was shown at a press conference (circa 1993) to announce the port to Sega's 16-bit home console. The naming of the boss characters reflects those used internationally but Blanka's name is misspelled 'Branka'! The most notable difference between this and the final version are the lifebars, set in a black letterbox in the beta rather than superimposed on the background in the retailed version. On a side-note, letterboxed lifebars were used in the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 ports of World Warrior, non AGA versions of Commodore Amiga's Super and both the Game Boy and Master System's Street Fighter II—the latter distributed exclusively by TecToy in Brazil.

Super Game Boy SFIIOne of the quirks of playing Game Boy's Street Fighter II through the Super Game Boy peripheral (i.e. on a television via the Super Nintendo) are the stage borders; 16-bit (static) versions of the characters' World Warrior stages framing the 8-bit action. In total there are nine borders, one for each playable character. Dhalsim, E. Honda and Vega are all absent from the Game Boy version, along with each of 'The New Challengers' (from Super) and Akuma (Super Turbo) due to limitations on cartridge space. The port is regarded as an aberration by most players but, despite this, it is highly collectable.

Geki clanGeki, the second Japanese opponent in Street Fighter, reappears in Udon's comics not as an individual but as a clan of identical, clawed ninja. In Ibuki Legends it is revealed that Enjo, the founder of Ibuki's village, fled the Geki shinobi with an abandoned infant who they planned to mould into the perfect assassin. The infant is, of course, Ibuki herself. Through the course of events Enjo defeats the Alpha Geki and the clan is disbanded. In Udon's Street Fighter II: Turbo series Vega commands the Geki to attack E. Honda and Zangief for a place in the tournament final, an interesting touch as a popular notion amongst fans holds that Vega's artistry of the claw was taught to him by Geki.

Lee cameoOn a similar theme, Lee, the first Chinese opponent in Street Fighter makes a cameo appearance in Udon's Chun-Li Legends comic where he fights and loses to Fei Long after dismissing the film star as a phoney. His skills are depicted more genorously in Masahiko Nakahira's excellent Sakura Ganbaru manga where he has the edge on Sakura until she unleashes her dragon punch and finishes the fight. Intriguingly, Yang's Super IV: Arcade Edition ending has Chun-Li remark that, 'I need to pay my respects to Master Lee' leading to speculation that the character, who is uncle to Yun and Yang, may have passed away. Additionally, Lee's portrait makes a rare appearance in both SNK Vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash (1999) and its sequel Card Fighters 2: Expand Edition (2001).

Ken's weddingIn all arcade versions of Street Fighter II the sound test version of the Wedding March that plays in Ken's ending is at least three times as long as that which is heard in-game. The 'extended version' was not only carried over into the CPS-2 sequels (despite all music being re-recorded for Super) it is even given a proper coda which no-one would ever normally hear. The Wedding March was written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1842 and grew in popularity after it was selected by Victoria, The Princess Royal, for her marriage to Prince Frederick William of Prussia in 1858.

FM Towns MartyThe FM Towns Marty was a fifth-generation video game console released in 1993 by Fujitsu, exclusively for the Japanese market. A niche product in its own lifetime, the Marty was the first 32-bit console to be released anywhere in the world and contained both a CD-ROM and 3.5" floppy drive. Conceptually it was ahead of its time, being designed as the first home computer dedicated to playing video games and among its library is an excellent port of Super Street Fighter II. A feature unique to the Marty version of Super (and indeed any version of Street Fighter anywhere) is a colour edit mode that allows the player to completely customise any or all of a given character's palettes.

Akuma's Third Strike endingAkuma's Third Strike ending contains a subtle reference to the arcade system board that was used for all of the Street Fighter III games; the characters CPS-3 can be seen on the bow of the ship monitoring the oceanographic submersible Deep Sea 3000. The 'CPS III' legend can also be seen on the T-shirt of one of the by-standers in the 'Parry the Ball' bonus game. CP System III was home to just six games from 1996 to 1999. It's predecessor, CPS-2, was the base for over forty titles beginning with Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers in 1993. The first CP System board debuted in July 1988 with Forgotten Worlds but is perhaps best remembered for housing the first three iterations of Street Fighter II (1991-1992) and indeed Final Fight (1989). An enhanced version of the CPS-1, the CP System Dash, was released in 1992 and was the platform for just five games, among them Saturday Night Slam Masters and its sequel Muscle Bomber Duo: Ultimate Team Battle, both in 1993.

next page....

"daddy, you believed in me! that win was for our dojo!"

NAME: Makoto

NATION: Japan

HEIGHT: 160 cm

WEIGHT: 50 kg

B/W/H: 80 61 87

BLOOD_TYPE: B