Street Fighter II graced arcades around the world back in March of 1991, and it's hard to believe that it's now been 20 years since that iconic game came out and initiated the fighting game boom that took place in the 1990s. It was four years behind the original Street Fighter, which introduced gamers to the six buttons that would allow them to kick and pummel their opponents into submission.

While not everyone here at G4 is old enough to remember the arcade craze this game ushered in as it rose to far greater heights in popularity than the original Street Fighter.  After all, Street Fighter II spawned Street Fighter II Champion Edition, Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and more. Even the fairly recently Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix edition traces its roots directly back to Street Fighter II. But most of have memories of it in some form or another. 

Step back in time as G4 remembers Street Fighter II, and the lost hours of youth.

Stephen Johnson: E. Honda’s hundred-hand-slap (which we renamed the hundred-pimp-slap) is greatest special attack ever.  I will slap your face and make you die, foo’! Eventually, when my friends down at Jo-Jo’s pizza figured out how to counter my massive hundred-pimp-slap, I moved on to the even cheaper tactics of Yogic master Dhalsim. Ah, memories!

Jake Gaskill: Street Fighter II for the Super Nintendo was the last Street Fighter game I played/owned. I was a very casual fighting game fan as a kid, and have zero interest in the genre now, but I spent quite a bit of my youthful gaming playing SFII with friends, and loved every minute of it. Guile was my player of choice, because of his sonic boom and backflip kick. I also just really dug his animation for whatever reason (especially the way his hair bounced after he would comb it). I used Blanka for a while too, but just because it was so thrilling to be able to electrocute fools. I remember hating Vega with a passion because of his fence-climbing, metal claw BS and Dhalsim because of his across-the-stage reaching arms and legs (stretchy, cheating jerk!). Oddly enough,

I think my favorite thing about SFII was being able to punch/kick a car to pieces. I mean, talk about a dream realized. Going to town on that ride (which I always pretended was a Honda, so I could imagine the title card of “Honda vs. Honda” with the car staring down E. Honda on the title card). While I did outgrow my interest in fighting games, I’m still in awe of the modern breed of titles and what skilled players are capable of achieving in them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to sonic boom the back of Stephen Johnson’s head.

Ernie Moreno: Oh, Street Fighter and I go way back, I remember a great arcade in Whittier called 1942. It was in the Santa Fe Springs Mall, which has since been demolished. It was a great little hole in the wall arcade and it was where I laid eyes on Street Fighter II for the first time. It totally entranced me because before that I had never seen a video game that put two fighters against each other. Before that my games had consisted of two-player platformers like Mario Bros and Contra, so this game really blew my mind. It was so amazing that I spent the rest of the day yelling “HADOUKEN!” and “SONIC BOOM!”. Needless to say my family really got annoyed with me that day, it was great.

Kevin Kelly: What's funny is that I wasn't that into fighting games, but I remember getting into a fight over Street Fighter II. Longtime arcade denizens are well aware of the fact that when you stick quarters up on the signage of a game, it means you're calling "next." I'd stacked up some bits, ready to take my electrifying Blanka action into the fray against the current champ of the machine, and when he finished off his previous opponent, some guy stepped in, ignoring the quarters and the line that had formed. I politely tapped his shoulder and informed him, "I got next." He looked at my, extremely confused, and I simply pointed to the quarters. "What the hell does that mean?", he asked. Then I electrified his body and shocked him into a coma. 

Okay, well. What really happened was that he said "Oh, sorry. But I already put my quarter in." So I stepped back and let him play. At least he got his ass handed to him.

Matt Keil: I still remember the days when Chun Li tick-throwing was considered an advanced tactic and someone who could reliably do Shoryukens on cue was unbeatable. Rumors swirled about Guile’s handcuffs, Chun Li’s ability to throw her bracelets, and the true identity of this Sheng Long guy we had to beat to stand a chance. It was pre-internet, so word spread slowly and through people who visited out of town arcades. Why was Chun Li’s dress orange in the character portrait but blue in the game? What did “M.” stand for? Was it “Gyle” or “Gwee-lay”? There was an air of mystery around the game and the phenomenon that sprang up around it that simply doesn’t exist today with the instant answers of the online world. It took months for anything Street Fighter II related to pop up in the major game magazines of the day, and by then it was ancient news. Half the game was theory, and the theory took place in real life, at the arcades and street corners where discussions went on long after the quarters ran out.

In fact, Street Fighter II is the first game I can recall being an actual problem as far as interfering in my normal life. I would sit in geometry, my last class of the day, and spend the whole time practicing combos in my head. I can recount specific matches of Street Fighter II from 1991 down to the round, but I can’t clearly recall a single day of geometry class. That’s okay, though, because knowing about Street Fighter II has turned out to be way more important to my career than knowing how to find the radius of circles. Er, I mean, stay in school, kids!

J.P. Shub: To this day, anytime I see the original Street Fighter II somewhere I instantly smell pizza. The pizza shop around the corner from my house was the first place to get an SFII machine and it was love at first Hadouken for me. For the next six months, I spent almost every weekend in that tiny backroom arcade anxiously awaiting my turn to put a quarter on the screen and call “next.”   

Dana Vinson: I really don't remember Street Fighter II. I was too busy going outside and playing in the sun.

So what are your Street Fighter II memories? Hit us up in the comments below and let us know what you remember.