Game:

Street Fighter II (1991)

Duration: 29:20

1,151 views

13

This is a playthrough using Balrog in an early prototype version (25/03/1993) of Street Fighter II: Champion Edition for the Genesis / Mega Drive. Read on below for more information...

Balrog is the 1st of 4 bosses in this game. He is also a regular selectable character.

===== ABOUT BALROG =====

Probably the most famous fighting game boxer (in a non-boxing-focused game of course)... back in SF2:WW he was clearly designed to reference Mike Tyson, and the chance of a potential lawsuit from him is the reason on why Capcom USA switched around the names of 3 of the bosses.

In Champion Edition, it was the first time that Balrog was made a playable character as he was unplayable in World Warrior. He had to be toned down significantly of course, which meant that he is more like a proper character with logical punch and kick hit strengths.

===== BALROG IN THE 25/03/1993 PROTOTYPE =====

In this protoype, he is directly ripped from the SNES version of SFII:WW. You can tell this because in-fight, he uses mostly all the same sprites from the SNES game, and his arms are smaller when you do the straight punches (the final version of him in SFII:SCE looks very different, as he is redrawn). However he does have many more animation frames than the SNES WW counterpart, some examples being his standing MP and MK/HK. Despite this, frames are still lacking, and this is shown by the fact that his standing HK is exactly the same as his standing MK (the stomach punch). Other corner cuts include his standing HP, which uses a frame taken directly from his Dash Straight special move. It's also interesting on how they've tried to make his stance/standing neutral animations "look like" the Arcade version of it, but do not have enough frames to do it, lol.

===== BALROG SPECIAL MOVES =====

-- Dash Straight: charge B, then F + Punch
-- Dash Upper: charge B, then F + Kick
-- Turn Punch: charge all 3 Punch buttons and then release. The longer you charge it the more powerful the punch will be.

===== ABOUT PROTOTYPE 25/03/1993 =====

This is another "early" version of Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition (or Street Fighter II' Plus in Japan) for the Genesis / Mega Drive. The game is quite different to the final version, with significant differences in graphics and sound. The music is completely different.

In comparison to the later prototype (called Street Fighter II Turbo), the major difference is that in the gameplay screen, the lifebars at the top are situated within a black border. The lifebars and "K.O." icons themselves also look different as well, and the name font of them is the same style as in SNES SFII:WW minus colours. The "punch" and "kick" sound effects are also not the same.

In comparison to the final game (SFII:SCE), the animation frames for some characters appear to be unbalanced in usage for certain actions. For example Ryu, Ken and Vega's neutral standing animations has more frames (it actually animates like the Arcade version), but the penalty for this is that frames for their other areas/moves has been cut, making them look quite choppy. Other characters also have more walking frames, but again the penalty applies for other areas/moves.

Perhaps rather surprisingly, this version of the game features the proper "danger" music (for when characters are low on life) like the Arcade version... this is the only 16-bit version of SFII to have this feature. As we all know, it was changed to just speeding the music up in the final version of the game, just like the SNES and PC Engine versions.

===== THE STORY =====

Basically, Capcom outsourced to an unknown third-party software company to make the game for the Mega Drive. Capcom of Japan suddenly became unhappy with the quality of the port late into it's marketing and discarded everything made in this port. Capcom then decided to do the whole thing themselves.

===== MEDIA =====

A similar version to this prototype was shown in some video game magazine articles and TV shows back then. See as follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFXlY7v5w60

And here's an even EARLIER version which is NOT the one in my video, this version is not available:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70lftKow39s

===== CHAPTERS =====

00:00 - Title, Character Select
00:17 - Regular fights
09:25 - Bonus Stage 1 (car)
10:02 - Regular fights
18:52 - Bonus Stage 2 (falling barrels)
19:28 - vs. Balrog
21:39 - vs. Vega
24:24 - vs. Sagat
26:35 - vs. M.Bison
28:07 - Ending and name entry

Other Statistics