Thursday, December 9, 2010

Calming the Raging Demon

Since its release in 1994, I've been mystified by Super Street Fighter II Turbo's ultimate antagonist, Akuma. At the time, SSF2T was only available in arcades; but since none of my local hangouts seemed to care about Street Fighter anymore (perhaps rightfully so) I never did get a chance to do battle with the gee-clad killer.

The only time I'd seen this screen was in the pages of Gamepro magazine.

A few years later, the Street Fighter collection was released for the original Playstation, consisting of Super Street Fighter II, SSF2 Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold. I was more interested in the Alpha series back then, so even though I finally had access to the elusive Super Street Fighter II Turbo for the first time ever, I just didn't play it much.

Thanks to my undying love for Chun-Li, Ryu, Guile and the gang, I often revisit the Street Fighter II series. Since I prefer the older CPS1 entries, anything that begins with "Super" is usually not at the forefront of my fighting frenzies. But the other day I popped Super Street Fighter II Turbo into my PS3 with the intent of meeting and defeating the walking powerhouse that is Akuma. It was a street fighting challenge 16 years in the making.

I'm not going to make it seem like it was epic - it wasn't. The Ancient One is just  Ryu with an air fireball and a highly mockable haircut, just like we've all known for years. But even though I had the game set to the easiest setting, that despicable demon still threatened to make my teeth into necklace of bloody Chiclets. A few lighting kicks and kiokens later, I had managed to take him down. And then... it was over.

The last great mystery of Street Fighter II had been explored. I still feel a little empty inside, like the day after Christmas or the morning after a big, drunken party, preferably with pinatas.

We trade wonder for knowledge. Sometimes it just isn't worth it.

Still, I totally kicked Akuma's palette-swapped hiney. Not for nothing, that's a pretty nice consolation prize.

1 comment:

  1. See, if you could program for mugen you would never run out of mysteries.

    ReplyDelete