This has got to be one the least-discussed, lowest-profile official Streetfighter game ever. Try looking on the internet or usenet - barring one review on GameFAQs, one blurry picture on a Gamesomething.com “History of SF” feature and another review on Streetfighter Legends (who I am not linking to because they reviewed this a few weeks ago, totally stealing my glory here today) - I couldn’t find anything at all.

And it’s understandable really, because it’s one of those godawful “interactive movies” that swamped the first batch of CD-based consoles like some horrible, sentient tide of diarrhea back in the early nineties. You probably remember them; running on these futuristic-looking black consoles and displaying clips with beautiful CG animations, or, oh my, real footage of real people!

God, fuck you, “7th Guest”.

Of course the bubble burst eventually, once people actually tried to play the things. The genre was soon flushed away to be replaced by some other gimmick cash-in - I think it was SF2 rip-offs that came next.

So here we have something of an anomaly, the best videogame franchise ever in the worst videogame genre ever. Can the SF magic triumph in a genre so typically devoid of gameplay, interest and excitement?

The answer is quite simply, no.

Spanning two CDs, Street Fighter 2 The Animated Movie casts the player as one of Bison’s Monitor Cyborgs, charged with the enviable task of watching the world’s greatest street fighters in action, capturing their data and wearing a jacket with the word JESUS on it.

Basically this translates as you, the player, sitting there and watching 90% of the SF2 anime, and during fight scenes you call up your crosshair to take a ’snapshot’ (can’t think of a better term) of every punch, kick, throw or special you can. The more data you collect, the higher your cyborg’s own battle stats become, and if you do well enough, you stand a faint chance of beating Ryu in a single, one-round match using the Super Streetfighter 2 Turbo game engine right at the very end of the game.

Sounds great, yes? Like all interactive movies, it’s a lazy, half-assed concept; and about as interactive as a brick wall. On top of that, it’s technically shoddy, poorly presented and generally uninteresting to anyone but the crazed Streetfighter fan.

The first thing the player sees upon loading is the animated intro. This to me is one of those nifty little things that almost validate my purchase. Ignoring the somewhat grainy video quality and the noticeable lack of colours it’s really rather cool. A mountain range encircles what looks like a map of the world, with the now-familiar Shadowlaw winged skull superimposed on top of it. We then cut to Ryu, standing atop one of the rocky pinnacles surrounding the map. Then Chun Li is seen somersaulting along, and she jumps onto an opposing spire. Then Ken joins them, and Cammy makes up the fourth point. From the sky (?) the Monitor Cyborg drops down onto the map, and then Bison appears and the four warriors attack. It’s all very exciting (and more than a little pretentious) and all the images and animation are brand-new, and while they don’t quite match the look of the characters in the movie itself (Chun Li in particular) - they’re close enough to make it fun.

Once it ends you find yourself on the title screen. The three options available are “GAME MODE”, and two modes titled with Japanese characters. Although I can’t translate, it’s easy to see what they do. “Game mode” is unsurprisingly the game itself, the second option (unlocked after you beat the game once) is “BATTLE MODE” - where you can “enjoy” the fighting part of the game without having to play through the FMV to reach it and the third is something like “EXTRAS” - which I will discuss later.

So after entering ‘Game Mode’ the following options are made available: Start (ie, a new game) Load (from one of two save slots) Options (customise the controls) and Back.

The player can save their progress to the Saturn’s internal memory at the start of any scene in the game, or, alternatively you can record your progress and ability level through a 20-digit password.

Starting a new game throws you straight into the action. Surprisingly the game doesn’t begin with the wonderful Ryu/Sagat fight (that isn’t even in the game!) - it instead opens on the US Air Base, where Guile meets Chun Li for the first time.

It soon becomes clear that substantial compression was used to fit the video, sound and game onto two CDs. The movie quality is grainy and lacks colour and definition - the window it plays in taking roughly 3/5 of the screen. The sound is similarly unimpressive - the scratchy tell-tale sounds of a low sample rate and an irritating whine whenever a voice clip/sound effect plays. I’ve downloaded an watched worse; but not many.

Interaction during the non-fight scenes is bare minimum. Pressing the C button at any point will pause the film and if there’s anyone onscreen at the time, bring up a list of their statistics in yellow text. If there are two onscreen it’ll display two sets of stats (just name, age, weight and 3-size) - but any more than that it’ll pick the most prominent two. As well as the street fighters, you can also find out about the other characters - the minor roles, the thugs, gang members, promoters, guys in suits, Eliza, Gouki and so on, although some of the descriptions that come up, such as “girl” are less than interesting. You can even scan the cars - there a couple that will bring up the model and make if highlighted.

I’m not sure if doing this actually affects the game in any way, but it’s one way of passing the time. The player can also pause, check their stats, save and exit at any time as well.

Anyway, the action then switches to the introduction of the Shadowlaw base (inside that statue thing) - and it’s also around here I really noticed the Japanese music. Obviously the whole thing uses the Japanese soundtrack/voiceovers, and first time through it’s quite surprising just how different it is from the ‘rawking’, aggressive western soundtrack. It’s also a fine chance to compare voice actors, and I’ll add a bit about this towards the end.

Once the bosses, sorry, Bosses have made their way to their command centre, the Monitor Cyborg is introduced. In the anime, it was green/grey with dark grey ‘additions’ on it’s face and body. For some reason the game has changed that, and the new improved Cyborg is purple, with red accessories. Purple; the perfect camouflage colour for a stealth unit. Now I don’t know why it was changed, and it looks far worse than the rather cool original, but changed it was. Therefore, all shots of the Cyborg in the animation have been edited to instead show the new, coloured version.

Once the little scientist has said his piece, the scene changes to Ryu, climbing a mountain. Oh wait, I forgot to mention that before most scenes begin, you get a still image of a world map and a tiny little video window opens up, and the scientist guy says something in text only, with a two-frame speaking animation. First time it was funny. Fifteenth? Gah.

Ryu’s mountaintop escapades provide the first opportunity to ‘capture’ some moves. Holding the B button down activates a white, screen-sized crosshair, which can be aimed by moving the D-Pad. It’s none too fast, but just about adequate for the job in hard. Leaving the B button held down without moving the pad for five or six seconds will start the crosshair circling the screen of its own accord.

Anyway, Ryu flashes back to his soon-to-be Streetfighter Alpha incarnation, sparring with Ken. Holding B and pointing the crosshair, the aim is to press the A button at the exact moment and in the right area of a punch, kick, or other move. If it’s a miss, nothing will happen, if it’s successful, a metallic “ching!” will sound, and you’ve captured the move and increased (ever so slightly) your level. I can’t say if kicks strengthen speed and punches strength or what, but it’s important to capture as many moves as possible. Each fight scene allots you a limited number of snaps, ranging from 10 to about 45, so there’s no point just clicking randomly and hoping.

According to the stats screen, the Cyborg has six points on its body which can be “levelled up”; head, shoulder, forearm, hand, lower leg, and foot. I’m not sure how each one effects the end fight - speed and strength are clearly noticeable - but I can’t make out what the others do.

After the flashback, Ryu does his Shoryuken (showoff) - an easy capture - and the scene moves on.

I do think that having seen the movie multiple times is a big help when it comes to capturing moves. I know the indicators of most of the attacks in the game, and on my second playthough I’d say I got about 4/5 of them.

After you make a snap, there’s a two-second pause before you can take another one, which in some cases can be tricky - as there are several moments in the movie where a character does a ‘combo’ attack - they’ll do a kick or sweep, and then a special move. I snapped Ryu’s sweep in the Ryu/Fei Long fight, and was thus unable to capture the Hurricane Kick he does immediately after it - so a little fore planning is required. That said, I still managed to get three ’snaps’ out of Chun Li’s Hundred Foot Kick in her fight against Vega.

It has to be said that some of the scenes your cyborg is apparently attending are quite frankly a bit strange. Sure, there was one watching when Ken fought T.Hawk, and when Dee Jay knocked those punks out. I can even buy the presence of one at the Ryu/Fei Long fight, and when Guile is fighting Bison near the end of the movie … but there was one in shower with Chun Li? And how the fuck is it possible for me to be watching and recording Ryu’s flashback scenes from seven or eight year ago? Never mind.

The next scene sees Ken and Eliza meeting up. I thought Japanese Eliza sounded really familiar; and I was right - her voice actress also voiced Bulma in Dragonball.

If you’ve ever seen the anime, you’ll probably have noticed that there have been a couple of scenes from it that I haven’t mentioned. And the simple reason for that is because they’re not in here. I have no idea why the Ryu/Sagat fight at the start is missing - I mean that’s one of the few fights where a Monitor Cyborg IS actually watching and recording. Other omissions that stood out were Cammy’s assassination of the Minister, Chun Li’s discussion at Interpol, E.Honda’s fight with Dhalsim, the assassination in India, Zangief’s fight with Blanka and I’m sure there are other, smaller scenes and shots missing too.

After Ken and Elize comes Ryu and Fei Long’s fight, then their little chat, then Ken vs. T.Hawk, then part of the assassination in India, then the scene on Bison’s VTOL, and then Guile and Chun Li’s meeting at the Air Base late at night. I mention that one, because in the Japanese version, the music Guile has playing on his car radio is a tinkly, laid-back rendition of Chun Li’s SF2 theme! That’s so cool, and I’m really sad that a blatant reference to the games such as that was removed from the western version, where it was probably replaced with angsty shouty rocker types.

After that, we meet Dee Jay (his Japanese voice is APPALLING), and then there’s the infamous Chun Li/Vega fight. Sadly all traces of Chun Li’s heavenly orbs have been removed from the shower scene - but I’m not bitter and it’s not like we don’t all have gifs and screengrabs of that scene saved in our C:VIDEOGAMES HONEST GUYS folder anyway.

Oh yeah, and there’s a spicy upbeat rendition of Vega’s theme playing on the radio in Chun Li’s boudoir of love apartment during their fight, which is simply lovely.

I’ve neglected to mention the HUD the game has during all scenes bar the last fight scene vs. Bison. It’s pretty horrible; it surrounds the video window and is full of wireframe green lines and lattices, as well as some woefully unconvincing graphs, patterns and numerical readouts. It could have done with being a lot subtler, looking as it does distinctly 16-bit.

After the Vega fight, we move on to Ken and Eliza in their car. Ken has a flashback (snap those punches!), drops Eliza off and promptly gets kidnapped by Bison. We see Guile visiting Chun Li in hospital, and then we’re back with Ken during his Psycho Powered hypnosis session - and another flashback scene.

Things are gearing up for the grand finale now, Ryu’s training at Honda’s mountaintop home and Guile drops by (totally the plot for every gay porn movie ever) - Bison shows up with “Evil” Ken, Guile gets his ass kicked, Honda and Balrog fall off a cliff, Ken attacks Ryu and then has a teary flashback moment and awakes from his hypnosis. After Bison blasts the now-woken Ken into the forest below, there’s another exciting change in the events.

Ryu makes to run off after Ken, but the Monitor Cyborg steps in! (Hopefully) powered up by the player’s surveillance and analysis skills, the fight begins!

I shouldn’t be using exclamation points, really, because the fight itself is rubbish. After all those years of pondering how it would work, of poring over one or two tiny, blurry screenshots - I always wondered, how would the Cyborg play? Would he have moves from different characters? Or new ones? Would he be customisable? What would his super combo be? Well after all that waiting and wondering, the answer presented itself to me:

He’s Ken.

Obviously.

He has every single move, and move property of Super Turbo Ken, from the Flaming Shoryuken, to the Forward Knee Grab and the (oh so funky) kicks. Every move recovery time, move range, speed and execution is 100% Ken.

I’ll admit I was disappointed, but I’ll also admit I was an idiot for expecting anything more.

The whole engine you fight under is SSF2T through and through. The fonts and lifebars, the gameplay nuances, everything is there; buffering into supers, landing from throws, chain hit combos - it all works exactly the way it does in ST.

The only differences are; the varying speed/power/stamina of the Cyborg based on how well you did through the game, and a couple of new AI routines for Ryu. I’ve been playing ST for 9 years now, and I’ve never seen CPU Ryu do a close standing Forward, or use the Fwd+Fierce dash punch as an anti-air, nor use his overhead attack.

The Cyborg sprite itself is pretty lame. Resplendent in his purple armour, he moves exactly the way Ken does (and even has Ken’s “raised arm” win pose) - and just looks like … a robotic jerk.

It’s not just the character that’s a let down, this whole climatic encounter is a bit on the crappy side. It’s one round only, you, vs Ryu, on a rocky mountainous background (with Bison’s VTOL on the far right) with some distinctly sub-Cyberbots music warbling in the background.

On my first play-through I was demolished; my Cyborg was weak as hell (Ryu’s attacks did about three times as much damage as mine, and he took a third of the damage I did) and he walked like he was on a treadmill. Second time round, I’d captured a lot more attacks, and was almost a match for him. That’s to say, I was almost up to the default speed and strength you’d expect in a game of Super Turbo.

If you manage to beat Ryu, and it isn’t hard, providing you’ve captured at least 2/3 of the attacks in the game, you get an alternate ending; featuring a scene not in the anime, where Bison congratulates the Cyborg, and the scene then cuts to some kind of presentation, where said cyborg is unveiled by Bison to an appreciative audience, while Sagat and Balrog look on, and a cloaked Ryu runs on to attack as the scene ends.

If you lose, the way I did first time though, then the anime picks up where it left off - Ryu fights Bison, Ken gets better, Ken joins in, Ryu and Ken fight Bison, QCF+P, the base gets blown up, Guile and Chun Li act like dorks in the hospital, Ryu and Ken say their goodbyes and then Bison tries his hand at vehicular manslaughter. The end.

The first disk lasts forty-eight minutes, the second, twenty-four (the changeover point being the Ryu vs. Cyborg fight) - bringing the total play time, from the very start of the first scene, right through to the “Presented by Capcom” logo at the end to one hour and twenty-two minutes, twenty-three minutes shy of the total runtime of the movie. The video sequences, even the non-interactive ones are unskippable so once you start up, you’re stuck with the whole thing through to the end.

My first playthrough was a woeful experience. I spent the entire time hoping that every fade to black heralded the long-awaiting SSF2T fight mode, and as such I felt pretty down when I finally reached it, right at the end, and died in about ten seconds.

The second time was much better. I knew what was going on, what to expect, how it worked, and most of all not to sit there waiting for a fight that arrives right at the end. Also, on my second time through, the shock at not hearing the English dub/soundtrack had abated and I was able to experience the original soundtrack with a far less biased view point.

I don’t know if there will be a third run-through.

So that’s “game mode” taken care of. Once you’ve beaten it once, there are some exciting new things to check out in the menus. These new things are probably the high point of the game, as there’s some interesting stuff to see for fans of the movie.

The second option on the main screen (remember that?) is BATTLE MODE. Unlocked after you beat the game once, you can now battle Ryu any time you choose.

The options in this mode are familiar stuff; there’s the option to enter your password, plus the usual SF play options (difficulty, timer, controls, etc.)

The battle itself is unsurprisingly poor. It’s you, the Cyborg versus a hologram of Ryu, in a fight in Shadowlaw HQ (look at the giant skull on the ((badly done)) scaling floor tiles!). The music is insanely forgettable and more than a little droning.

So you fight, in a traditional best of three rounds battle. You lose it, you’re given the option to continue or quit… you win it, and you’re given the option to continue or er quit. That’s it, no other characters, no increasing difficulty, just one match, over and over again.

The two-player mode (for there is one) is little better. Both players are Cyborgs (one purple, one a fetching brown) - and there’s no option to choose Ryu or anything. Such fun.

The third and final game mode is, of course, the EXTRAS mode.

This menu divides into three sub-menus. The first contains character bios for all the World Warriors and New Challengers (but not Gouki). Alongside the usual details, each character has four or five black and white sketches of their faces in various profiles - concept art for the anime I believe.

The second option in the extras menu is a few pages of character art (no bios) for the minor characters - the Doctor, crowd members, no-name fighters, Eliza etc.

The final menu leads to a further menu where you can choose from five more options, which turn out to be storyboards for the Vega/Chun Li, Ken/T Hawk, Guile/M. Bison and Ryu/Fei Long fights. These are very cool indeed.

There are a couple of other hidden items - small video clips activated by ’snapping’ certain scenes and moments, ones that you wouldn’t usually expect.

There’s a new, short one of Ryu, from when he’s up on the mountain, one of Gouki, clearly tired of sitting by that wall, standing up and cutting to his fireball pose. It lasts about 8 seconds, but it nice to see.

The third is by far my favourite. I don’t know how it’s activated ingame, as I ripped it from the CD, but in it we have Chun Li, in her fight with Vega, throwing A FUCKING KIKOKEN FIREBALL. Oh god yes. Now whether this was a deleted scene, or something made just for this game, I cannot say - It’s damned good all the same.

Aside from the secrets, probably the best thing about this game is the yummy artwork and presentation that abounds within, and outside of the game. Even the box itself is a fabulous thing, lovely animated movie-style pictures of the main characters on a purple background and a nice bright STREET FIGHTER II MOVIE logo near the bottom. The instructions come on a single folding A3 sheet with, yes! - a nice poster on the back, and the ingame menus and load screens all have very nice still of characters and montages in the background.

One final benefit owning this game brings is the chance to experience (to some degree) the Japanese version of the SF2 anime, albeit in a poor-quality, stunted, non-subtitled form. As I said much, much earlier, my first playthough came with a generally negative impression, but once I’d gotten out of my brainwashed state, I found that on my second try I enjoyed it much more.

Like many dubbed efforts - the change is immediately noticeable and far-reaching in it’s effects. There’s a lot more silence, making for a more subtle, atmospheric mood. When there is music, it isn’t greasy long-hair thrashing, it’s either poppy, uplifting stuff, or inspiring “magical adventure” type tunes. The song that plays when Ken and Ryu team up against Bison at the end is just amazing, vocals and all. It’s also available here, if you’re interested.

The voices provide a similar change in overall tone. Ken, Ryu and Guile sound like you’d expect. Chun Li is squeaky (which to me sounds wrong), Dee Jay sucks and E.Honda is done by the same guy who voiced MR. SATAN in “Dragonball”. M. Bison was a little disappointing - he’s so campy and evil in the dub, but in the original he sounds, well, normal. Not menacing at all - which considering he wears a gnome suit and floats three inches above the ground is hardly appropriate.

The overall effect is a movie slightly more thoughtful and restrained than the dub version. Based on what I’ve seen here, I’d happily buy a DVD with this soundtrack option available. But we already knew that.

Street Fighter 2 The Animated Movie: the game is … interesting. True it’s barely playable, low-tech, clumsy, tedious, pointless and an immense disappointment - but it’s still really … interesting. I guess if you’re a big SF fan like I am, and feel like making the extra effort and spending the extra money to seek it out, then this sort of thing has value as a curiosity object - and the extra movie clips and sequences and extras make it almost seem worthwhile at times.

It’s not a game though, not really, and I simply cannot say this something I’m going to play often, if indeed, I ever touch it again. However I like to think it’s the sort of curious treat that I can uncover every couple of years, and kill a Sunday afternoon playing through it.

Just, don’t expect too much of it and you’ll be fine.

• Publisher/Developer: Capcom
• Score: 50%