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| Yeah...hopefully you won't have to avenge your father many more times. |
Folks, they say history is written by the victors, and it's
mostly true. Sometimes history is written by the victor's bitter enemies,
though.
But it's true in the sense that, if someone spearheads
something that becomes really popular, people are way more likely to study them
instead of checking if benchmarks they made had already been made, therefore
attributing them to the more popular one.
In fighting game terms, Street Fighter, specifically Street
Fighter 2 is the trendsetter, the first, the freshmaker. Sure, a little
research will show fighting games existed before Street Fighter 2 made them a
genre, such ar Yie Ar Kung Fu and Karateka, but generally, we
accept that the genre was shaped by Ryu and Ken's shenanigans.
However, I will have to take away at least one of Capcom's
most prestigious awards: The first woman in fighting games. Sure enough, most
of us recognize Chun Li as the first. Games like Yie Ar Kung Fu could hardly
bother letting you choose character, let alone putting a woman in there as a
playable. However, Chun Li is not the first woman in fighting games
The first woman is, in fact, Gaea, from Konami's 26 Year old
Galactic Warriors.
Pink. Of course.
If you've been following me, you should recognize the title.
It is a 1 player, robot vs robot game. Like Cyberbots but...really sad. On of
Konami's many, many failed attempts at fighting games. Gaea is merely 1 of 3
playable characters. But is she better than Chun Li? Well, It's a matter of
opinion, but I guess it depends on how much you like breasts as projectiles.
That's usually the dividing line.
At least Chun Li
is still the first LADY of Fighting games. Haruumph!
Sure, we could split hairs on whether a robot shaped like a
woman counts as a woman. But that would be (even more) pointless. The guys at
Konami put breasts and hips an d high
heels on a robot so we could identify it as female. I'd say she's as much a woman as a videogame
can let a school of sprites be.
2 comments:
Doesn't Yie Ar Kung Fu II have a female playable character? That's what someone mentioned when I tried to verify Chun-Li's status as First Lady in the chronological sense. lol
Not so. Yie Ar does not allow you to choose characters, according to Wikipedia.
"Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Chinese: 一二功夫; pinyin: yī èr gōngfū; literally "One Two Kung Fu") features the protagonist Oolong (Chinese: 烏龍; pinyin: Wūlóng, Japanese: ウーロン Ūron; see oolong), controlled by the player. Oolong must fight all the martial arts masters given by the game (11 in the arcade version; five to 13 in the home ports) unarmed to win the title of "Grand Master" and honor the memory of his father. On his side is a variety of punch and kick blows reachable by combining the joystick with one of the buttons (punch or kick). He also has the greatest jumping ability of all the game's fighters, with the exception of "Blues"."
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