"Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

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JimDaBim
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"Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by JimDaBim »

Would it have been possible to program a decent version of "Street Fighter II" (without "Turbo") for the NES?

Let's assume we use smaller sprites, like standard 16 x 32 ones instead of the huge sprites that are seen in the arcade and Super Nintendo version. And let's ignore all the visual tricks like the floor that changes the perspective and the moving background objects. Let's just use static backgrounds.

And if we imageine that the original "Street Fighter II" is played with just one punch and one kick button, how faithfully could the gameplay be recreated? Would it be possible to create a game that, from a pure gameplay point of view, basically plays like the arcade and Super Nintendo version?

What would you say?
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by mikejmoffitt »

It could be done, but you'd have to take shortcuts with hitbox accuracy, collision detection, etc. Using two buttons, and having the speed of the button presses determine the button strength could work, like in Capcom vs SNK for Neo Geo Pocket Color.

"Just like the arcade" I would not expect, but it could definitely be better than the existing pirates.

Aside from framerate issues, the Street Fighter 2 for Game Boy (regular, plain 4MHz 4-color Game Boy) is surprisingly accurate with gameplay.
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James
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by James »

get nemulator
http://nemulator.com
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rainwarrior
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by rainwarrior »

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Dwedit
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by Dwedit »

How about a real attempt, not a low quality bootleg version?
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tepples
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by tepples »

Any "real attempt" would need Capcom's OK. Otherwise, it's still a bootleg.

The concept of an NES fighting game comes up from time to time on NESdev BBS and in EFnet #nesdev. I ended up figuring out that a version with a scale of 4 cm = 1 pixel, or roughly 48 pixel tall characters, would probably be realistic for the NES without too much flicker. The hardest part of making an NES fighting game would be to find people willing to draw hundreds of frames of animation, roughly 120-160 for each original character, but then that might not be hard if we can enlist MUGEN fans in this effort.
JimDaBim
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by JimDaBim »

mikejmoffitt wrote:Aside from framerate issues, the Street Fighter 2 for Game Boy (regular, plain 4MHz 4-color Game Boy) is surprisingly accurate with gameplay.
No. No, no, no, no. Just no. This game is horrible. It plays nothing like the real "Street Fighter II". "Street Fighter Alpha" for the Game Boy Color is a decent port. And "Mortal Kombat II" for the Game Boy plays surprisingly well and accurate. But "Street Fighter II" for the Game Boy is an abomination. The characters jump much too high, the reactions are laggy. And overall, the physics are not like in the actual game. I play "Street Fighter" games in the same way, no matter if I play the Super Nintendo version or an emulation of the arcade or the Game Boy Color version of "Street Fighter Alpha". But with "Street Fighter II", I just cannot play like that. Because the gameplay is totally screwed. Even the pirate card "Street Fighter III" for the NES plays better than that piece of crap.
James wrote:Joy Mech Fight?
I actually really meant "Street Fighter II", not just any fighting game. Otherwise, there's already the "Turtles" game. But I'd specifically be interested in how a decent conversion of "Street Fighter II" would look.
tepples wrote:Any "real attempt" would need Capcom's OK. Otherwise, it's still a bootleg.
Yeah, but there's still a difference if you are some obscure Asian company trying to make quick money. Or if you're an actual fan who honestly tries to make a decent port.
tepples wrote:The hardest part of making an NES fighting game would be to find people willing to draw hundreds of frames of animation, roughly 120-160 for each original character, but then that might not be hard if we can enlist MUGEN fans in this effort.
If people would not do an original game, but indeed a port, you could automatically rescale the original sprites from the arcade.

Another option: Instead of trying to replicate the arcade game, you could do the "Street Fighter II" equivalent of the NES conversion of "Final Fight": "Mighty Street Fighter II". Someone even created screenshot already:
www.listentome.net/omgrngs6.gif
www.listentome.net/omgrngs7.gif
tepples
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by tepples »

JimDaBim wrote:
tepples wrote:Any "real attempt" would need Capcom's OK. Otherwise, it's still a bootleg.
Yeah, but there's still a difference if you are some obscure Asian company trying to make quick money. Or if you're an actual fan who honestly tries to make a decent port.
It's still something that could wind up screwed by the lawyers. Capcom sued Data East over the latter's remake of Street Fighter II with original characters. Capcom lost, establishing precedent that character appearances are what make a fighting game original.
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by Quietust »

rainwarrior wrote:It's been attempted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hQjFpGB6_k
That's actually one of the poorer attempts - this one (which is not by Yoko - it's a titlescreen hack of this one) is a bit better.
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MottZilla
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by MottZilla »

I'm pretty sure a good version is possible. And if you wanted you could even have all 6 attack buttons as plugging in a SNES controller is easy. Or you could do that goofy 3 Attack Buttons and the last button switches Kicks and Punches.

The video Quietust posted looks like they did a pretty good job graphically atleast.
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by tepples »

Or have it contextually determine whether a punch or kick is appropriate based on the directions + A and the character's fighting style. One popular two-button fighter has this system:

On ground
  • A: Jab
  • Forward+wait+A: Strong
  • Down+wait+A: Low
  • Forward+A: Fierce
  • Down+A: Sweep
  • Up+A: High
In air
  • A: Spin
  • Up+A, Down+A, Left+A, Right+A: Strong attack in that direction
This frees up B and directions+B for the special moves.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by mikejmoffitt »

tepples wrote:
JimDaBim wrote:
tepples wrote:Any "real attempt" would need Capcom's OK. Otherwise, it's still a bootleg.
Yeah, but there's still a difference if you are some obscure Asian company trying to make quick money. Or if you're an actual fan who honestly tries to make a decent port.
It's still something that could wind up screwed by the lawyers. Capcom sued Data East over the latter's remake of Street Fighter II with original characters. Capcom lost, establishing precedent that character appearances are what make a fighting game original.
This is pedantic. His point is that a cheap quickly-produced knockoff by people who presumably are not versed in the technical workings of a good fighting game engine is not going to be nearly as good as a conscious non-financially-driven effort to make a quality version of the same. Whether or not it is using Capcom's IP is not the point here.
JimDaBim
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by JimDaBim »

tepples wrote:It's still something that could wind up screwed by the lawyers. Capcom sued Data East over the latter's remake of Street Fighter II with original characters.
Yeah, because Data East is a company that sold their game. But I doubt that Capcom would give a damn about some NES ROM that can be downloaded for free. This is one of the positive things about Capcom: They usually don't try to shut down fan projects. Just take a look at this:
http://sf2nes.smeenet.org
This one pretty much proves that Capcom doesn't care. I doubt they would do anything to stop the creation of some fan-made ROM that tries to recreate "Street Fighter II", a game from 1991, and that is supposed to run on a hardware that isn't produced anymore for more than 15 years.
Besides, when they saw the "Street Fighter X Mega Man" game, they even officially licensed it. So, who knows. If some capable programmers were actually able to create a worthy port of "Street Fighter II" on the NES, maybe in the near future you could order it as a cartridge with Capcom's official logo on it or download it as a ROM from their website.

About the different attacks: I think for a start, it should be enough to be able to use one kind of punch and kick button. If the game is good, two versions could be included: Tap button for weak attack, hold button for strong attack. Using the directions is not good since this could interfere with many of the special attacks, especially the charge attacks. And switching between punch and kick: Well, this isn't Sega, so I would be against it. Same with the program deciding it based on context. After all, this shall recreate the original gaming experience as good as possible. So, stripping the medium punch and kick would at least preserve the general input routines. Fiddling with the d-pad wouldn't be faithful "Street Fighter" controlling anymore.
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by Celius »

You could also use a controller with the turbo buttons for other attacks...
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tokumaru
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Re: "Street Fighter II" for the NES theoretically possible?

Post by tokumaru »

mikejmoffitt wrote:It could be done, but you'd have to take shortcuts with hitbox accuracy, collision detection, etc.
I disagree. Older fighting games (like Street Fighter II) are not computationally intensive at all, seeing as there are few active objects and hardly any object management (objects aren't created/destroyed that frequently or in large quantities). They also lack any significant level management, since arenas are hardly wider than 2 screens and have very few interactions with the players.
Quietust wrote:this one is a bit better.
Graphically, this one is pretty decent. Character portraits could be better, but in-game sprites are pretty colorful and are moderately large. As is usual with pirates though, physics and controls leave something to be desired.
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