Street Fighter: The evolution of Ken and Ryu

Street Fighter III: The New Generation - 1997

Street Fighter III is a direct sequel to Street Fighter II, pitting Ken and Ryu against a host of brand new characters. But it might not have been that way - rumor has it that Ryu and Ken were originally going to be shut out of the game. Capcom did, in fact, cast Alex as the main character, but our infamous heroes returned regardless, if without the spotlight.

SF III was released on Capcom's new CPS-3 arcade board, meaning that the graphics are significantly improved over Alpha and Super SF II. Ryu's hair is now black - something we'll explore further later. Ken's hair has returned to its Street Fighter II length, as his ribbon was handed over to Ryu in the Alpha series.
Ryu's ending involves his typical quest to continue his training and fight more battles. Ken returns to his wife, Eliza, and child, who promptly punches him in the nuts. No, even Street Fighter can't escape the nut punch gag.

Street Fighter III 2nd Impact: Giant Attack - 1997
The unfortunately named 2nd Impact: Giant Attack features a couple of new characters and a few gameplay tweaks. Like Alpha 2's relationship to Alpha, 2nd Impact isn't a sequel to The New Generation, just an update.

Street Fighter III Third Strike: Fight for the Future - 1999
Third Strike, the third of the three Street Fighter III games (say that three times fast), is a continuation of the story in the first two Street Fighter III games. Ryu is maintaining his wandering warrior schtick, this time on a trek through America in search of Ken, who is in the process of winning his third US championship in a row. In Alex's ending, he is defeated by the oh-so-powerful Ryu, but vows that "the show has just begun."

A sprite comparison between Street Fighter III and Alpha 3 shows off the refined animations and upgraded graphical capability of the CPS-3 games. The costume pallet swap in the SF III screen is in place merely to provide contrast.

The "ready" sprites maintain the "front-facing" pose of the Alpha series, with a little more bulk in the chest and arms. The below comparison makes the transition clear - the Street Fighter II sprite is much more forward oriented than the Alpha and SF III sprites. Also note the bent knees in Street Fighter are knocked the other way in Street Fighter II, and are then straightened out in Alpha and III.

Back on the subject of Ryu's hair color - if we trace it all the way back to the original Street Fighter, there is the appearance that it was originally dyed red and has since faded to black.
While it would be a stretch to assume that this was an intentional decision by Capcom, we've created a comparison (left) for fun, in chronological order as dictated by the storyline. Note that we've also seen Ryu with black hair in concept art for Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which further leads us to believe that his hair color has been generally assigned for aesthetic reasons rather than story reasons.
Trivia: Q, a bizarre character introduced in 3rd Strike, was voiced by Len Carlson, who also voiced Ganon in the animated Legend of Zelda series, which aired in 1989.

Street Fighter: The evolution of Ken and Ryu

Alpha Series

Street Fighter Alpha Warriors' Dreams - 1995

The Street Fighter Alpha series takes place before Street Fighter II, and after Street Fighter. Ryu and Ken return in the Alpha series, redone in the series' signature Anime style. Ryu is sporting a white headband, as in the original Street Fighter. Ken's hair is significantly longer, and contains a red ribbon.

We can see the "cell shaded" look of the sprites in the below screen. Ryu's hair, while still brown, has become slightly more red than it was in Street Fighter II. Ryu's uniform is whiter, and his torn sleeves and legs more jagged. Also notice that Ken's stance is more front-facing than in SF II.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 - 1996

Alpha 2 is not a continuation of the story in Alpha - it is an update of the game, and what Capcom had intended Alpha, which was rushed to release, to be. The only new character created for the game is Sakura (right), a spunky schoolgirl who's obsessed with Ryu. There has to be one of them in every series, doesn't there?
The story of Alpha and Alpha 2 (as well as a variety of films and comics) sets up most of Street Fighter's back story. Earlier in the series, Ken and Ryu began as students of Gouken, Ryu's adoptive father. Ken came to Japan as an undisciplined American to study under the master.

The Alpha series sees Ryu return home to discover that Gouken has been murdered by Akuma. He confronts, but does not defeat, Akuma on an island, which Akuma smashes after revealing the hidden power of Satsui no Hadou ("Evil Intent"), which is buried within Ryu.

Ken returns to America after the death of Gouken, where he becomes a famous actor and eventually marries his girlfriend, Eliza. Ken's Alpha 2 story ends with him defeating Ryu, who he claims "wasn't in it." Ken gives Ryu the red ribbon in his hair, which Ryu presumably wears from Street Fighter II forward, explaining the white to red headband transition.

In this scene from M. Bison's ending, we see Ryu being brainwashed, which allows Bison to discover that Ryu's Satsui no Hadou is not unlike his Psycho Power. We're pretty sure Ryu is wearing a white Speedo here, and is not, in fact, a Ken doll.

Trivia: The SNES version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold lacks the hidden characters, the Venezuela stage, and generally sucks.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 - 1998

Alpha 3 is an actual sequel to Alpha and Alpha 2, and is a fully redesigned game. The anime style of the character art is a bit more pronounced, as apparent in the screen below.

In Ken's ending, he defeats M. Bison using Ryu's Shoryuken. Ryu's ending sees him struggle between Bison's mind control and Satsui no Hadou.

Also notable in the Alpha series is the introduction of "Evil Ryu," a version of Ryu who has succumb to his "Evil Intent" (below). This character is a "what if" scenario - Ryu doesn't actually give in to Satsui no Hadou, excepting during his battle with Sagat in the original Street Fighter.

Trivia: There is no one correct way to spell "Hadouken" in English. Not even official game manuals have been consistent, and we've seen various sources refer to the attack as "Hadouken," "Hadoken," "Hado ken," and "Hado-ken." We're most familiar with the "Hadouken" spelling, which is why we use it in this article.

Street Fighter: The evolution of Ken and Ryu

Street Fighter II - 1991:

Defying their humble beginnings in Street Fighter, the duo exploded into the mainstream in 1991 with the release of Street Fighter II. The Soviet Union was collapsing, Desert Storm was underway, and the World Wide Web was on the verge of realization - meanwhile, the kids were perfecting combos in the arcades. Street Fighter II made the fighting genre, with Ken and Ryu as its stars.
The first Street Fighter II game (of many) included eight playable characters. Ken and Ryu were initially the only playable characters carried over from the original Street Fighter.

Ryu's striking red hair is shifted to a muted brown, and his white headband replaced with a red one. Ken appears roughly the same as he did in Street Fighter, give or take a drunk character artist with an affinity for massive oval-shaped eyes and ridiculous snarls.

Street Fighter II Championship Edition (right) sees a redraw of our hero which features a much less passive expression, more refined hair, and even a puff of uber manly facial hair, possibly not seen since.
Super Street Fighter II (below), released on Capcom's next generation of arcade boards (CPS-2), represents a major conceptual jump for the characters. Ryu appears much more disgruntled, and his eyebrows have been toned down to match his hair. Ken gets a complete redraw - his spaghetti hair is now flattened and refined, his grimace modeled into a devious grin, and his giant black eyebrows are now giant and brown.

Each game in the Street Fighter II series represents incremental changes as Capcom attempted to perfect the game. Player feedback and time constrictions molded each of the updates, the most drastic being the jump from Street Fighter II to Super Street Fighter II, which introduced four new characters.

Above: Ryu and Ken spar in Street Fighter II Championship Edition

The story of SF II simply involves another tournament, but our heroes' back stories are truly fleshed out in the next series we'll explore - Alpha

Trivia: M. Bison is not M. Bison! Capcom shifted the boss names around for the US version because they felt that M. Bison (who was renamed Balrog in the US) too closely resembled Mike Tyson and was thus a liability. In Japan, M. Bison was in fact meant to resemble Tyson - the 'M' stands for "Mike."

Street Fighter:The evolution of Ken and Ryu

Street Fighter:

Ken and Ryu are cultural icons. Legends. Even most non-gamers, assuming they have at least a cursory knowledge of '90s pop culture, can recognize them.
Ten years after Street Fighter III, Street Fighter IV is about to cement the formidable duo into the collective consciousness of a new generation. In celebration, we're taking a look at how they became legends in the first place, one game at a time.

Street Fighter - 1987:

Street Fighter, created by two fellows who would later move on to SNK, laid the foundation for a revolution in fighting games. The game itself, however, is merely a relic. Technological limitations prevented it from ever catching on, making it "that one game... before Street Fighter II." Nevertheless, our story of two aspiring warriors begins here.
As the story goes, Ken and Ryu are students of Shotokan Karate. Ken fights in the US martial arts tournament, while Ryu enters the "World Warrior Tournament." Ryu wins, branding Sagat with his signature scar in the process (but only after succumbing to "Satsui no Hadou" - more on that later). Ryu is born as the archetypal "wandering warrior," and his never ending quest for new battles begins.
The only playable characters in the game are Ken and Ryu. There is no character selection screen. In versus, the first player is automatically Ryu, and the second Ken.

Ryu makes his debut with oddly striking red hair, a white headband, black belt, red shoes and apparently a variety of nuts in his cheek to consume later. Ken appears roughly the same (in terms of physical characteristics, not style) in Street Fighter as he does in later games - a red uniform and hair made of pasta.

The sprites are obviously far simpler in the original than in any of its successors. One notable aspect of the characters is that their knees and chests are roughly forward-facing (facing the other character), something we won't fully see again in the series.
It has been asserted that the pairs' uniform colors are a direct reference to Karate Champ (right), an early arcade game and one of the first ever side-view fighting games.
Also notable is that non-Japanese versions of the arcade game contained English dubbed character voices, something that Capcom thankfully did not repeat. If it had, "Hadouken" may never have become the iconic battle cry that it did outside of Japan.

Trivia: In 1988 a port of the original Street Fighter arcade game was released on the TurboGrafx-CD under the name "Fighting Street." The developer, Alfa System, is still making games in Japan, the most recent being Tales of Innocence for the DS.