The colors and characters popped off the screen in ways Yie-Ar's super-deformed avatars never did. Where Street Fighter differed was in the execution. Joining them was elderly Chinese assassin Gen, Caucasian punk Birdie, thinly veiled Mike Tyson clone Mike, and Thai bosses Adon and Sagat, the eye-patched Mauythai master and dead ringer for Ichidai's villainous Reiba, the Dark Lord of Muaythai. like shuriken-throwing ninja boy Geki and tonfa-wielding Eagle. The health bars were identical to Yie-Ar's, and several of the ten fighters scattered across the globe were curiously familiar. Gamers played as Ryu, a solemn, red-headed Shotokan Karate master in a torn white gi and red slippers. Cosmetically, Nishiyama and Matsumoto didn't deviate far from Yie-Ar's example, and Inafune had cribbed heavily from 70's manga and anime Karate Baka Ichidai for several character designs. Street Fighter landed in arcades in 1987. They named their project after the Americanized title of Sonny Chiba's 1974 beat 'em up classic, Clash! Killer Fist.
Okamoto put director "Piston" Takashi Nishiyama and project planner "Finish" Hiroshi Matsumoto - the team responsible for Capcom's overhead beat-'em-up Avengers - on the job, and stuck newly hired 22-year-old graphic designer Keiji Inafune on the team to design the fighters. Capcom wanted its own fighting game, combining the best elements of Karate Champ and Yie-Ar Kung Fu, and outdoing both. Konami answered in 1985 with Yie-Ar Kung Fu ( One-Two Kung Fu), staring martial arts master Oolong as he put the hurtin' on fighters like sumo wrestler Buchu, shuriken-throwing ninja girl Star, and tonfa-wielding Tonfun until somebody's health bar was gone. Data East had release Karate Champ, a basic fighting game, in 1984. The next step involved Okamoto taking on his old employers. Together with Tokuro Fujiwara's one-two punch of Commando and Ghosts 'n Goblins, 1942 helped put Capcom on the map, and ushered in their move on the American market. They were shifting their business model from electronic game machines to video games, and Okamoto - their second R&D hire, after designer Noritaka Funamizu - put one of their first hits in arcades with 1942, a scrolling World War II aerial shooter that, ironically, encouraged players to wipe out the Japanese air force on their way to Tokyo. YES NO Five-year-old Capcom scooped him up. Two years later, under orders to create a racing game, he made classic shooters Time Pilot and Gyruss instead. Round 1 - Fight! Konami hired high school senior Yoshiki Okamoto as a graphic artist in 1982, despite the fact that Okamoto didn't like video games and didn't want to make them. But only one can become the world's greatest street fighter. Some only seek worthy opponents in a never-ending quest to improve their knowledge and skills.
Some search for answers, some for glory, some for revenge. They travel the world to meet and battle each other, and above all, to win. Blunt instrument or elegant weapon, the choice of discipline isn't important. They are Russian wrestlers and tonfa-swinging Englishmen, American boxers, Indian mystics, New York brawlers, crazed jungle monsters and quiet masters of the martial arts. Two warriors meet to test themselves against wildly different styles of combat.