8. Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (1992)

In a franchise that would quickly become the butt of jokes for its seemingly endless procession of ostensibly upgraded new versions, Champion Edition was the first.

Its mission? Capitalize on the runaway success of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, which it would do by fixing bugs, rebalancing the cast, and fulfilling the wishes of players the world over by finally enabling “mirror matches” and making World Warrior’s four CPU-only bosses into playable characters. Surprisingly, it didn’t add any special moves, though some characters got a new command normal, or had existing ones tweaked. In any case, it was exactly what the market wanted, making Champion Edition one of the best-selling arcade games of all time.

How’s CE as a game? Great, back then. It was a revelation seeing all the Street Fighter characters wearing new colors. Midnight blue Ryu! Pumpkin spice Guile! Alien-ass Blanka and Dhalsim! So rad. Ryu and Ken were finally differentiating, mirror matches took a major stressor out of character selection, and it was wild to finally play as Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M.Bison, even if they weren’t super well-balanced yet.

CE is either great or outdated now, depending on how you roll. The two CPS-1 versions of Street Fighter II that still draw players are Champion Edition and Hyper Fighting (the upgrade after this one). Which game you prefer sometimes depends on where you’re from, as one or the other was historically more popular in any given country, your local scene, etc.

Personally I came to love Hyper Fighting a lot more, and I find going back to the slower action and limited movelists of Champion Edition stifling. However, Champion Edition seems to be the one many more casual enjoyers remember from back in the day, and as a result it’s often the game you see in modern barcades, etc. If you’re down with the more methodical pace, you’re in good company, and should have little trouble finding others to join in on the fun. — Alexandra Hall

A world without champions?

As Matt Leone chronicled in his history of the series, Capcom didn’t even want to make any Street Fighter II upgrades at first . Imagine if it hadn’t: Capcom would’ve missed out on one of its biggest-ever paydays, not to mention how differently the franchise might’ve developed. Gosh…