365//365: Day 070 – Street Fighter 2010 (NES)

2010 has been such a strong year in gaming so far. Not only have some solid titles been released, but this is when Street Fighter 2010 takes place! You’ll play as Ken, who hasn’t fought in 25 years according the the narrative in this game (yet will be in Super Street Fighter 4 this year, not to mention the other 2009 Street Fighter games between now and 25 years ago). He’s been pretty busy in the lab for the last twenty five years after retiring from the street fighter world. His lab partner was killed and left “as a pile of jelly on the floor”. Now armed with bionics, Ken sets forth to find the intergalactic killer of his partner.

First off, lets address this title….

If you’ve been a fan of Capcom games in general, you’re going to be perplexed by this title. Street Fighter 2010? Whatever happened to Street Fighter 5 through 2009?. The Final Fight? Is this a Street Fighter game or a Final Fight game? Just off the name alone, you’re going to give yourself a headache. Pop the game in and you’re going to give yourself leprosy.

As far as any human being can tell, this game can’t be defined as a fighting game or a beat em up game. In fact, I don’t think many first time players will know what in the blue hell to call it. You start off in a small area, where jumping feels floaty and awkward, and attacking show no signs of hadouken or shoryukens. You can punch out small projectiles with the range of a baby throwing a walrus. If you have a turbo controller, it looks like Ken is pulling of a hundred hand slap from E. Honda’s repertoire. Hold down and press attack and you kick upward in an angle shooting a similar limited ranged projectile. You can power it up to about projectile vomit distance, but its still pretty lame. The graphics are pretty cluttered, and it looks like things were randomly colored and put together to make a ‘futuristic’ look.

So my first fight is against Target, which is fine since I like K Mart more. Target doesn’t come out right away. You are given time to jump around like an idiot and break open these weird looking round containers. Some of them will hold the power ups that make your weapons have a slightly longer range. All the while, you have these slow moving, stop and go rockets that follow you around. After some time has passed, Target comes flying down, slashing your prices down to zero. I had to do this fight a dozen times because of the non-existent range of your weapon and the out of reach path Macy’s takes.

Ken vs Target - a tooth and nail battle over the lowest priced ironing board.

When I finally did beat Walmart, I have this message flashing behind me saying ‘FADE IN!’, while some bar called Open is depleting. Okay so I guess I’m supposed to wait here, since that’s probably a timer until I get warped out.

Apparently, waiting kills you.

So another half dozen attempts at Target and I beat him again. Now I’m running around and I don’t see anything that would progress me out of the stage. Timer runs to zero, I’m dead again. A few more tries and I kill the thing again, this time, with a portal opening behind me. Why can’t the game just port me out, or the stage end once I beat the boss?

So I go through the portal, and apparently, none of these bosses have names, as they are all referred to as Target. The room is much smaller, and the boss moves really slow. His attack pattern is unpredictable, and has a ball and chain with a huge range, that can let him swing by fast from one side to the other, or just attack you. There’s no strategy at all, you have to mash the B button as soon as he drops down, and keep at it until he dies, or until you die. After you beat him, you teleport out to your next destination….which is a four step walk to another teleporter. These stages look drab, are arguably unimaginative, and just deplorable. The only thing that redeems this is that after collecting what seems like three dozen power ups, your attack range increases significantly. Too little, too late.

Ken used to throw fireballs, but not this year! Now he performs long distance hundred hand slaps!

Street Fighter 2010 is just wrong in every sense of the matter. The name is misleading, the gameplay is a laughable mess, and another reason why I’ve always thought Ken was such an overrated character (I know that the Japanese release had a different name for the main character — I just have a severe disdain towards Ken). I can’t believe after twenty years, I finally decided to try this game out. I should have waited until I was in the death bed so I could finish the job.

Rating: 1.5