Street Fighter II generated over $10 billion in inflation-adjusted revenue, and its publisher still shuffled boss character names to avoid a likeness lawsuit from Mike Tyson. This episode traces the franchise from the 1987 original by Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto, with only Ryu and Ken playable and brutally strict joystick inputs, to the 1991 sequel by Akira Nishitani and Akira Yasuda that offered eight selectable characters and turned matches into real-time chess through hitboxes and frame data.

We cover the international name rotation that turned Mike Bison into Balrog, the bootleg Rainbow Edition that prompted Hyper Fighting, the ROM-board upgrade model behind Champion Edition, Super, and Super Turbo, the Alpha series and Marvel vs. Capcom crossovers, and the 1994 live-action film with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia that ...