7 Glitches In Video Games That Became Essential Features In Their Franchise
4. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior - Combo Strings
Street Fighter II is rightfully considered the most influential fighting game of all time. It’s the founding father of the PvP 2D fighter gameplay style that continues to be the framework for other properties like Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Injustice. But this is due to a mistake, not by design.
Cancelling, the ability to input a second command before the character has finished the first one, was an unintended glitch that enabled a character to launch into a second move without suffering the recovery animation of the first. This allowed skilled players to combo moves together in an unblockable chain of attacks after the first blow had landed. It wasn’t game breaking, and the developers felt it would be too difficult for players to consistently pull off.
Well, they were wrong. Combos became the skill-based totem pole young arcade goers had to clamber to be the best around. Their effect on gameplay and ability to reward complex combinations and timing made them a mainstay in the franchise, and pretty much every fighting game since. Juggling, dash cancels, block cancels, throw cancels, and combos are so intrinsic to modern fighters that a game can scarcely be called a fighting game without them, allowing kids everywhere to glitch slap their enemies into submission.