I bought my Sega Saturn back when I was in college. Before that, I didn’t know a single person who had ever owned one. It had only been off the market for a decade, but games for it were tough to come by; still are. It sold nearly 10 million units. I have no hard numbers on this, but anecdotally, it seems to have barely made a ripple in Canada. Even knowing that the platform was mostly just popular in Japan, I would think I’d remember a section for Saturn games in Zellers.
Of the games I was able to sweep up in those early days, I mostly played Virtual On. However, a more absurd game got the second-most slice of my attention, and that was Street Fighter: The Movie. Or, as my roommates called it, Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game. As it turns out, a sub-par port of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo plus a ridiculous ‘90s movie is the formula for magic. Embarrassing, nauseating magic.
Educational television
If you didn’t see 1994’s live-action Street Fighter, I’m not sure I can make a recommendation. It’s a typical bad ‘90s adaptation of a video game, and sometimes it’s decent, sometimes it’s so bad it’s good, and then other times it’s just boring. For being based on a fighting game and including Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile, you’d think it would at least have some great fighting sequences, but it seems almost afraid of putting fists in front of a camera.
On the other hand, Raul Julia as M. Bison is transcendentally fantastic. Sadly the actor’s last role, he brings incredible life to the character. It’s a dude who’s evil just for the sake of being evil, but Julia really makes it seem like a dude who loves evil. Absolutely fantastic. You could have just made a sitcom involving Raul Julia playing M. Bison in his everyday life, and I would have been glued.
Actually, there’s this scene where Chun Li is giving this big expositional monologue, and Julia completely steals the scene just by taking dismissive glances over at her while she talks. Incredible.
But even though it was already based on an extremely popular game, the licensing machine demanded that the movie have its own game. I mean, it probably helped that Street Fighter was one of the hottest licenses of the ‘90s, so putting it on anything was essentially printing Bison dollars. But, it didn’t just get one game; the console and arcade versions were completely different. The Saturn version of Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game, as noted earlier, is based entirely on Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo.
Quick! Change the channel!
Essentially just being pasted over an already good game is a pretty safe bet, and sure enough, Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game is not bad. It’s maybe only worth playing as a curiosity, but it’s nice that it’s also mostly enjoyable.
The big difference here is that all the characters have been replaced by digitized versions of their actors. Well, not all. Raul Julian and Jean-Claude are substituted with their stuntmen, unfortunately. Also, you can’t really tell if they’re the original actor because the graphics are so grainy. So, like, sure, I can believe that’s Ming-Na Wen as Chun-Li. I’ll take your word for it, Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game.
It also doesn’t have all the characters because someone at Capcom or Acclaim was a coward. T. Hawk and Dhalsim were both in the movie as characters with spoken dialogue, but no one was brave enough to give Dhalsim yoga-stretch powers or make any human stand in T. Hawk’s idle pose.
In their place, we get Sawada, who had maybe three lines in the entire movie. Sawada is kind of like Fei Long, but is dissimilar enough to count as a new, exclusive character. Lucky you, Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game.
It was Tuesday
The big addition is a story mode where you play as Guile (the all-American hero with a Belgian accent) as he tries to take down Shadaloo. There’s a branching route to the finish line, but you’re essentially just choosing who you’ll be fighting against next.
Let me make it clear, though: you can only play as Guile in this mode. This suited me fine in College when Guile was my main, but I’ve lost my touch when it comes to his flash kicks and sonic booms. It’s a bit of a bummer that they didn’t write out narratives for each character, but I guess anyone who uses Guile as their main will be satisfied.
But seeing human actors trying their best to replicate the poses of the Street Fighter II characters is the real charm here. This isn’t like Mortal Kombat, where the characters’ moves are based more on okay poses for humans to take on. This creates a ridiculous effect where two characters will interact in a way that looks like deep kissing or nipple tweaking.
It doesn’t help that the Saturn version of Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game has a lot more slowdown than the arcade. You get a lot of time to really appreciate Zangief sticking his tongue down Deejay’s throat.
Why do they still call me a warlord?
Every time I pick up Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game, I’m surprised by how much I don’t hate it. I think that’s a testament to Street Fighter 2’s gameplay. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the characters and backgrounds are or if the music is so unspectacular that it’s barely there. It all gets held up by one of the greatest fighting game systems created.
My roommates and I played a lot of Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game, right up until I found Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for PS2 and migrated our fisticuffs to that. It’s a decent substitute, and the digitized actors lend an entertaining whiff of kusoge (crappy game) to the whole affair. I’m not saying it should be picked up by EVO, but… No, actually, that should happen. I would totally watch that.
