History YMMV / StreetFighterII

* LauncherOfAThousandShips: Out of all the ''Street Fighter'' characters, Chun-Li has the most fan-made pairings, namely with Ryu, Ken, Guile, Charlie, [[HoYay Cammy, and Juri]]. While it's not really bad when it comes to most [[ShipToShipCombat shipping wars]], it has caused a bit of varied mileages in the fandom. The various ''Street Fighter'' anime from the '90s (and to a lesser extent the manga) have helped Ryu, Ken, and Guile in this regard. Though while they are only good friends in the series one of the reasons why Ryu is fairly popular in this regard is that unlike the other three men mentioned here Ryu is the only one who's still alive and not HappilyMarried. This is {{justified|Trope}} in the case of Charlie since the official storyline states that [[UndercoverAsLovers they posed as husband and wife]] while traveling in search of Bison during ''Alpha''.

-->'''Dhalsim:''' ''I will meditate and then destroy you.''

--> ''"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. [[ButForMeItWasTuesday But for me... it was Tuesday.]]"''

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw59Yzyd3gE Chun Li's ending theme]] in [[VideoGame/StreetFighterII Super Street Fighter II]] is lifted from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Jo4pndFVc the main theme]] of Film/TheLastEmperor, written by [[Music/TalkingHeads David Byrne]].

* AmericansHateTingle: Mexicans hate T. Hawk and Japan hate Dee Jay, respectively.

** The 30th Anniversary Collection made by Digital Eclipse contains emulations of all the original arcade-released games, but with noticeably flawed emulation quality including issues such as increased input lag. These problems also extend to its online functionality, which runs on save states so there is no way to actually select a stage. Hope you like only seeing E. Honda's bathhouse if you play ''Hyper Fighting''. ''Super Turbo'' actually has it even worse. It has more save states (thus more available stages), but if you somehow get Zangief's stage, then the save state has the Turbo setting inexplicably set at the wrong speed: 1 setting higher than the default. It is widely considered one of the worst ways to play ''Super Turbo'' in any online capacity.

** Guile in the original edition. His defense is virtually unbreakable, he can spam out Sonic Booms that other characters have a hard time getting through, he's very mobile, his Flash Kick has good reach, hits enemies above him, and can either knock opponents away for further distance or rip them apart, he has a combo that can knock 60% off an opponent, and overall, he doesn't have any significant weaknesses. If you can name a strategy in ''II'', chances are Guile was best at it. It's been said a few times that Guile's stayed essentially unchanged over the years, because all he really needs is his original moves to stay competitive. ''World Warrior'' Guile status as a Game Breaker is legendary, to the point that some considered that incarnation of him as one of the most broken fighting game character of all time. In fact, it was considered the same character that invented Touch of Death-esque combo (hit confirm that resulted in a KO) into the genre with his Four Fierce Combo. This, on top of his usual Flash Kick and Sonic Boom.
** Bison's ''Champion Edition'' version has deadly priority with most of his attacks, and he has a Double Knee Press combo that can completely shut down half of the cast. Even when he was {{nerf}}ed in ''Hyper Fighting'', he still had some ridiculous combos.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw59Yzyd3gE Chun Li's ending theme]] in [[VideoGame/StreetFighterII Super Street Fighter II]] is lifted from [[https://youtu.be/cXUMB19WkT8 the main theme]] of Film/TheLastEmperor, written by [[Music/TalkingHeads David Byrne]].

** [[https://youtu.be/Sp0alNxwcis Chun Li's ending theme]] in [[VideoGame/StreetFighterII Super Street Fighter II]] is lifted from [[https://youtu.be/cXUMB19WkT8 the main theme]] of Film/TheLastEmperor, written by [[Music/TalkingHeads David Byrne]].

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-14W5XTqL5U Ken's theme]] sounds a lot like [[Music/CheapTrick Cheap Trick's]] [[https://youtu.be/oLoSzlq57Ps Mighty Wings]].

** The Xbox Live Arcade version of ''Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting''. The game had serious lag on most stages, even more lag on Balrog's stage, horrible balance, and an infinite timer on the character select screen. That last gaff, when coupled with the ability to de-select your character, led to long times at the character select screen due to counter-picking.

* CriticalResearchFailure: Blanka's backstory is that he was a boy named Jimmy who fell from a plane and landed in the Brazilian side of the Amazon. He named himself Blanka after hearing two natives speaking the Spanish word ''blanca''. The catch is that Brazilians speak ''Portuguese'', not Spanish.

** The 30th Anniversary Collection made by Digital Eclipse contains emulations of all the original arcade-released games, but with noticeably flawed emulation quality including issues such as increased input lag. These problems also extend to its online functionality, which runs on save states so there is no way to actually select a stage. Hope you like only seeing E. Honda's bathhouse if you play ''Hyper Fighting''. ''Super Turbo'' actually has it worse: it has save states with more stages, but if you somehow get Zangief's stage, then the save state has the Turbo setting inexplicably set at the wrong speed: 1 setting higher than the default. It is widely considered one of the worst ways to play ''Super Turbo'' in any online capacity.

* AmericansHateTingle: Mexicans hate T. Hawk and Japan hate Dee Jay, respectively. Although no one seems to be complaining about their inclusion in ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterIV Super Street Fighter IV]]''. Probably because all the other great characters they brought in at the same time distracted people from complaining, or maybe because of the NostalgiaFilter from having the entire cast of ''Super Street Fighter II Turbo'' back again.

* RecurringFanonCharacter: One of Ryu's winquotes states "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance!". Players immediately began to speculate who Sheng Long was, and it eventually became rumored that Sheng Long was the name of Ryu and Ken's unseen master. Gamepro magazine seized on this idea and launched an April Fools issue in which they gave a detailed (and false) description of the absurdly difficult and convoluted way to unlock Sheng Long as a boss. But there was no Sheng Long; Ryu was telling his opponent that to stand a chance, they had to overcome "Sheng Long", which is a [[BlindIdiotTranslation translation error]] for his "Dragon Punch". But Capcom liked the idea so much that [[AscendedMeme they later introduced Akuma]] for ''Super Street Fighter II Turbo''. This did not end fan rumors or fanon about Sheng Long, however, and Gamepro ''again'' posted another April Fools prank for ''Videogame/StreetFighterIII''. Years later, for ''Videogame/StreetFighterIV'', Capcom finally introduced Ryu and Ken's ''real'' master, Akuma's brother Gouken, who had almost all of the abilities that Gamepro had once claimed Sheng Long had, stated "You must defeat ME to stand a chance!", and had "aka Sheng Long" as one of his equippable titles just to put the issue to bed. Despite all of that, though, Sheng Long is still a popular fanon character and occasionally reappears as an AlterEgo of Gouken, a third brother to himself and Akuma, or a forgotten student who trained alongside them, amongst others.

* RecurringFanonCharacter: In ''Videogame/StreetFighterII'', one of Ryu's winquotes states "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance!". Players immediately began to speculate who Sheng Long was, and it eventually became rumored that Sheng Long was the name of Ryu and Ken's unseen master. Gamepro magazine seized on this idea and launched an April Fools issue in which they gave a detailed (and false) description of the absurdly difficult and convoluted way to unlock Sheng Long as a boss. But there was no Sheng Long; Ryu was telling his opponent that to stand a chance, they had to overcome "Sheng Long", which is a [[BlindIdiotTranslation translation error]] for his "Dragon Punch". But Capcom liked the idea so much that [[AscendedMeme they later introduced Akuma]] for ''Super Street Fighter II Turbo''. This did not end fan rumors or fanon about Sheng Long, however, and Gamepro ''again'' posted another April Fools prank for ''Videogame/StreetFighterIII''. Years later, for ''Videogame/StreetFighterIV'', Capcom finally introduced Ryu and Ken's ''real'' master, Akuma's brother Gouken, who had almost all of the abilities that Gamepro had once claimed Sheng Long had, stated "You must defeat ME to stand a chance!", and had "aka Sheng Long" as one of his equippable titles just to put the issue to bed. Despite all of that, though, Sheng Long is still a popular fanon character and occasionally reappears as an AlterEgo of Gouken, a third brother to himself and Akuma, or a forgotten student who trained alongside them, amongst others.

* StoicWoobie: Guile.

** As mentioned above, the 3D simulation ride has Bison trying to escape into our world. In ''Disney/WreckItRalph'', it's Bison who asks the titular protagonist if he's "going Turbo" (i.e. breaking the rule of leaving one's own game).

** Cammy was the first of the "New Challengers" to be present in most later games, and the only one other than Akuma to be involved in early crossovers. She even made a cameo in ''Disney/WreckItRalph'', albeit wearing something more modest,[[note]]to wit: her camo pantyhose is entirely green now[[/note]] along with M. Bison, Chun-Li and Zangief.

** The port of ''Super Street Fighter II Turbo'' found on ''Street Fighter Anniversary'' (PS2, Xbox) features the remixed music from the [=3DO=] port, but better controls due to having six buttons instead of five (or three, in the case of the original [=3DO=] controller).

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Zig-zagged. A casual gamer playing this after games like ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha Alpha 3]]'', ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterIII 3rd Strike]]'', or ''IV'' may wonder what all the fuss was about, [[SeriousBusiness but it's definitely averted in]] TournamentPlay.
* SequelDisplacement: Before the Internet, you could count the number of people who played the original ''Street Fighter'' game on one hand. Turns out, it's for the best. These games (or, at least, series of games) are the most well-known games of the ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' franchise; when most people talk about ''Street Fighter'', chances are that they really mean ''Street Fighter II''. It is one of the most innovative and popular video games of all time; it brought the "tournament fighter" genre to the masses and popularized six-button controllers, and its influence has not waned in the years since its debut.

* FranchiseOriginalSin: ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' was criticized for bringing back very few characters from this game and mostly replacing the cast with newcomers. Thing is, this game did it first, with very few returning characters from the original ''VideoGame/StreetFighterI''. The main difference was that very few had played the first game, while ''Street Fighter II'' made the series famous.

** The ''Hyper Street Fighter II'' port is probably the most beloved version of the game from the pre-HD era, being a smooth PS2 port and featuring the ability to select any version of the characters in the game.
** Whilst the updated balance in ''HD Remix'' proved to be extremely controversial, the updated graphics and soundtrack look and sound ''gorgeous,'' and the Classic mode gives access to the final version of ''Turbo'' from 1995.

** Zig-zagged with the 3DO port of ''Super Street Fighter II Turbo''. While the graphics are far more accurate to the arcade version than other ports and features excellent music, the game ''loads when you jump''. Though the loading times are faster than expected for a game of its era, they are still slow loading times and interfer with player controls, rendering it nearly unplayable unless you are playing single player. The score system is also not accurate in the least and backgrounds don't scroll. [[{{Bowdlerise}} Then there's the censorship of blood and bruises.]]