In a fit of nostalgia, I bought Street Fighter II for XBOX360 a few years ago (it wasn’t even on sale, so I had to pay a cool 400msp for it – $5). It turns out, it was a good choice because I’ve been playing it on-and-off for awhile; although there are two achievements that are basically impossible due to my skill level and the AI’s computer-assist.

I enjoy playing it, but I don’t think it is solely because I played it as a kid. I like that it is constrained and not an expansive game (there are only 10 characters, but some of them are dups) so the figuring out the limits of the AI/game is feasible, although not overly simple (I guess what I mean to say is that it is easy to understand but difficult to master). For example if I were to be playing SSF2 instead, or one of the later ones, I would be overwhelmed with the number of characters I would have to further learn. Aside: Although perhaps this is an artifact of growing up with SF2. That is, if you were new to SF2 now, you would think there are too many characters; but if you continued playing each successful SF2 sequel (or prequel), you would be familiar with the characters and not think there are too many

Another major factor is because the game is balanced (perhaps only at my skill level). Ryu/Ken are popular and seemingly everyone plays them, but all the other characters are still fun to play and competitive if you’re willing to invest the quarters time to learn them well. In fact, I have a suspicion that they made the damage inflicted by Ryu/Ken lower to balance things better. In the end, I think it is a lot like Smash Bros., except that you can only involve 2 people at one time.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: childhood, games, xbox