Oh what a strange and wonderful world we live in. While many would consider Street Fighter II to be one of the greatest video games of all time, those same people are absolutely horrified by how terrible the Street Fighter is. The 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle is often referred to as one of the worst video game movies of all time, ranking down at the bottom with House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark. It's as if the movie's production team decided to fit every one of the Street Fighter II characters into a feature film in the most awkward ways possible. Does anybody actually believe E. Honda would be Chun Li's cameraman? And don't even get me started on T. Hawk, E. Honda and (gasp) Dr. Dhalsim.
But I digress, the movie is horrible, that's something we all can agree on. The effects are cheesy, the writing bad, and the acting is even worse. I might even go as far as to say that the movie was completely unnecessary, there are certainly better martial arts films out there and there was no reason whatsoever to try to cram Street Fighter's non-story into a 90 minute feature film. But as unneeded as the movie was, it's the game based on the movie that ranks as the single most unnecessary game of all time. So far on this list we've seen some of the worst games ever made, but there has never been a game more unnecessary than Street Fighter II - The Movie: The Game.
There are a lot of understandable reasons why a movie company would want their film to be turned into a video game. Just look at Spider-Man or Transformers, these two properties lend themselves well to the medium. But what was Capcom thinking when they went along with Universal Pictures and created a game based on a movie that was based on a game? The original Street Fighter II is easily one of the best games ever made, so the idea of turning it into just another disappointing movie-based game is the very definition of ludicrous.
But that's what they did; they made a Street Fighter game based on the really terrible $35 million dollar movie. And they didn't just go back to the Street Fighter II engine, either. They decided to motion capture all of the movie actors and try to make a more realistic Street Fighter game. This effect gives the game a Mortal Kombat look ... only without the blood and fatalities that made people forget about terrible that game controlled. Street Fighter - The Movie: The Game was a complete mess, it controlled poorly, the animation was unconvincing, and the actors they used (such as Jean-Claude Van Damme) didn't fit the parts. But forgot for a moment about all that, the reason this game is so unnecessary is because there was nothing wrong with the original Street Fighter II series. There was no reason for them to "upgrade" the graphics with real actors. There was no reason for them to turn a great playing game into something stiff and unresponsive. There was no reason to make a game based on a movie that was based on a game ... that's the epitome of unnecessary. Street Fighter II was a great game; this "realistic" version only sullies the good name of Ryu, Ken, Chun Li and the rest of the World Warriors. Remaking a game is one thing, but what Capcom did to Street Fighter II may be the most offensive act ever perpetrated on a video game series. Street Fighter II - The Movie: The Game is not just a terrible fighting game, it's the single most unnecessary video game of all time!
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