Well, it invented the genre of the fighting game, which is basically endlessly complex

The fighting game genre was invented years before Street Fighter 1. Like I say they were underwhelming.

There's a world of difference between SFII and its successors on one hand and all the efforts that came before on the other.

I agree, but SFII was incremental improvement. It wasn't like it created the fighter genre. There were load of fighting games around before and during SFII hit the scene. Of course it was the most popular but the point i'm making is that, historically, it was nothing new.

But... it was. It's like trying to argue that Super Mario Brothers was nothing special because there were already a bunch of games where you controlled a guy and jumped on enemies. While it may have been derivative in some sense it was such a huge leap in sophistication that it turned a marginal genre into a huge craze.

I felt the same about Super Mario Bros. At the time it was just nothing new.

Well I don't know what to tell you man. No work of art is entirely original.

Thanks for reading. We'll never see anything like the technology leap we had back in the late 70's early 80's ever again. I mean, even the internet wasn't that great a leap. Simply connecting PCs.

The internet was a "bigger screen" of the lets-connect-two-computers-together breakthrough. Still mind blowing though. Thanks for the walk down memory lane. I'm a huge fan of side/top scroller shootemups (R-Type being up there at the top as one of the hardest games ever made).

Honestly, I couldn't be more envious. There's nothing left here.

By the time the 90's came along, the Arcade scene was on it's final breathe in my home.

I'm a little too young to remember the previous era, hence my bias. :)

Its is my personal favourites, but also I'm hoping to not miss out anything important. It's also a trip down memory lane to, its not just about the games. it's a about the era too. Thanks for spending the time to read it, and more to follow soon!

Thanks for reading and also for confirming my initial observations. Narodni had a really big impact (as I'm sure you can tell)

Would love to here more to add more details to the article, so could I ask you to comment there too, I'd really appreciate it.

Caching issue. Now cleared and working. Thanks for the heads up !

Yes. Absolutely. It's good to setup an environment and a routine.

Thanks a lot. Start. Now!

I third It!