Street Fighter II

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior is the sequel to the original Street Fighter game (known as Fighting Street on the TurboGrafX-16). Originally released for arcades in 1991, it was eventually ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and many other systems afterwards.

Why It's Worth The Hadouken

 * 1) It's overall a major improvement over its inferior prequel, and improving the controls.
 * 2) 17 unique characters to choose from, as of the newest edition, Ultra Street Fighter II:
 * 3) *Ryu: A Japanese martial artist who is the series' main protagonist and the current world champion, Ryu enters the tournament to test his skills against new opponents. Fights using the Ansatsuken style.
 * 4) *Ken Masters: Ryu's American friend and rival. Fights using the Ansatsuken style.
 * 5) *Chun-Li: A Chinese Interpol officer and the first-ever woman in a fighting game. Enters the tournament to exact revenge on M. Bison for killing her father. Fights using Chinese martial arts.
 * 6) *Edmond (E.) Honda: A Japanese sumo wrestler who seeks to show the world how great his fighting style is.
 * 7) *Blanka: A feral man from the Brazilian jungle who has developed an interest for street fights. Fights using feral maneuvers and electrical powers.
 * 8) *Zangief: A Russian (Soviet at the time of the game's release) wrestler who fights for the glory of his country. Fights using a mix of American and Russian wrestling.
 * 9) *Guile: A Major in the US Air Force who enters the tournament to avenge his friend, Charlie Nash, who was killed by M. Bison several years prior. Fights using a combination of martial arts and wrestling.
 * 10) *Dhalsim: An Indian yogi whose goal is to raise money for his plague-stricken village. Fights using an esoteric yoga style.
 * 11) *Thunder (T.) Hawk: A Native Mexican-American who enters the tournament to reclaim the lands of his tribe, which were taken by M. Bison, and save his beloved one. Fights using the martial arts of his tribe, the Thunderfoot.
 * 12) *Cammy White: A British MI6 agent whose goal is to find answers for the strange connection she felt with the tournament's organizer, M. Bison. Fights using the Special Forces training fighting style.
 * 13) *Fei Long: A Hong Kong action movie star based on Bruce Lee (this game wouldn't be complete without one) wanting to prove that he legitimately is a talented fighter, as seen in his movies. Fights using kung fu.
 * 14) *Dee Jay: A Jamaican artist looking for a new rhythm for his new album. Fights using kickboxing.
 * 15) *Balrog: A greedy, arrogant American enforcer of Bison's. Fights using boxing.
 * 16) *Vega: A narcissistic, self-loving Spanish man who serves as Bison's bodyguard and enters the tournament under his orders. Fights using a mixture of the ninjutsu fighting style of his country and bullfighting.
 * 17) *Sagat: A Muay Thai fighter from Thailand who was the final boss of the first game, Sagat seeks to have a clean rematch with Ryu, who defeated him in the final of the previous world tournament.
 * 18) *M. Bison: The main antagonist and final boss of the game, he announces the tournament in hopes of luring Ryu and recruiting the fighter into his criminal organization, Shadaloo. Fights using the Psycho Power technique. He is of unknown nationality, although he fought in Thailand.
 * 19) *Akuma: An emotionless and extremely powerful warrior from Japan who seeks worthy opponents to fight. Fights using a mysterious technique called the Satsui no Hado (Surge of Murderous Intent). He can replace Bison as the final boss if the player defeats all of the enemies up until the last stage without continues, earning at least 3 perfects along the way. He can also be chosen as a playable character by doing the following commands: highlight Ryu and wait four seconds, highlight Guile and wait four seconds, highlight T. Hawk and wait four seconds, highlight Cammy and wait four seconds, return to Ryu and wait four seconds and finally press low punch (note that these commands are not needed in Ultra SF2, since Akuma is unlocked from the beginning)
 * 20) *There's also Evil Ryu, Violent Ken and Shin Akuma, who were added in Ultra Street Fighter II.
 * 21) Numerous updates were released such as "Champion Edition" (adding four bosses as playable characters and improved game balance), "Hyper Fighting" (faster gameplay, new special moves for Ryu, E. Honda, Blanka, Ken, Chun-li, Zangief, and Dhalsim), and "Super" (adding four new characters - T. Hawk, Fei Long, Dee Jay and Cammy, and added more new special moves).
 * 22) Awesome soundtrack including "Guile's Theme", a song so good that it fits well with anything. Other awesome themes include Fei Long's, T. Hawk's and Vega's.
 * 23) Some of the most recognized characters in fighting game history, including Ryu, Ken Masters, Chun-Li, Zangief and M. Bison.
 * 24) It is also the first fighting game and video game in general to allow the use of combos.
 * 25) *Amazingly, the use of combos was done completely by accident. A game developer noticed the use of combos which would make opponents unable to fight back, but didn't remove it from the game, thinking gamers wouldn't pull it off. By the time gamers did pull it off, it became one of the great gameplay mechanics.
 * 26) Easy-to-learn special moves that can still be remembered years later.
 * 27) It had an amazing anime movie.
 * 28) The gameplay is very well-constructed with great controls that still feel very smooth to pull off, and several unique gameplay gimmicks that felt influential for their time, and also with a challenging difficulty that is hard yet fair to the player, making the game very fun for new players and a real treat for those who want a tough but fair game experience.
 * 29) Beautiful 16-bit graphics for their time, with the character sprites being extremely fresh and well animated, and the backgrounds looking sharp and clean for their time, and the game having a good color-palette that makes the game look like a beautiful sight to see, and with the game being released in the arcades in 1991, it makes the game stand out from other games released in that year.
 * 30) It was the very first fighting game to feature versus multiplayer in a more proper manner that feels competitive when compared to other fighting games at that time, as while it wasn't the first to feature it fully since the previous game had this feature in mind, it was the first time that it was executed well with it fitting with the hard yet fair nature of the game and helps it to give the multiplayer a cooperative feel to it, which makes the game a blast for two players.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some ports weren't that great, such as the Game Boy port, MS-DOS, Amiga and C64 ports and a Tiger Electronic handheld.
 * 2) The VS. mode is exclusively multiplayer, even in the most recent ports (like the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions).
 * 3) Blanka is an unnecessarily cheap opponent to fight in Arcade Mode.
 * 4) The AI would get more Unfair and Unfair starting Super Street Fighter 2 as the game gets updated (atleast in the arcade version), sure, its not noticable until Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (Until Ultra Street Fighter 2 reduced to difficulty a bit from Super Turbo), such as E.Honda's grab mashing the button so fast, to the point where it is barely survivable even at full health, Guile not needing to charge his Flash Kick, just to name a few
 * 1) The AI would get more Unfair and Unfair starting Super Street Fighter 2 as the game gets updated (atleast in the arcade version), sure, its not noticable until Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (Until Ultra Street Fighter 2 reduced to difficulty a bit from Super Turbo), such as E.Honda's grab mashing the button so fast, to the point where it is barely survivable even at full health, Guile not needing to charge his Flash Kick, just to name a few

Reception
Street Fighter II remains one of the best fighting games ever made and the most popular Street Fighter game. It was also responsible for the fighting game boom in the 90's.