10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Street Fighter

4. Multi-Player Support Was Pushed As An Arcade Solution To Difficult AI In Street Fighter II

While Final Fight was mostly a success for Capcom, several staff members became weary of difficult AI and the impact that it can have on arcade machine popularity and usage. To remedy this, the choice to have 8 playable characters in Street Fighter II was implemented in order to promote the multi-player aspect of the arcade machine, meaning players would spend more coin in order to fight their friends and wouldn't be so deterred by the threat of difficult AI opponents. Unwittingly, this made Street Fighter II a huge success due to the competitive element it contained, a change that would revolutionize fighting games and eventually lead to it being treated as competitive sport. The first Street Fighter only had two playable fighters - Ryu and Ken - which were palette swapped versions of each other. By introducing additional unique fighters to emphasize multi-player, Capcom stumbled upon another appeal of modern fighting games in the form of larger rosters, which in turn led to varied strategies, match-ups and styles. These changes helped create more variety and excitement in game-play, hence why Street Fighter II is often regarded the first 'real' fighting game of the modern era.