Ever since I found out that there was a Street Fighter game for the NES I had a vision of a nice simple, 8-bit fighting game. Knowing the Nintendo Entertainment System, there's not many (good) fighting games. Street Fighter 2010 was a different story; it was more of an action platform. I've always wondered why the original Street Fighter was never released for the NES. It was around during the time, and the NES was a very popular system. Then I played the actual Street Fighter on a multi-arcade that included several Capcom games. I wasn't pleased.
 

There was still a void, however. Seeing that Street Fighter II was done on the Game Boy Color, I often wondered if the NES was capable of handling a decent Street Fighter game. That's where pirates come in.
 

Searching through reviews of pirated Street Fighter II games, I always seem to find the same result: they all suck. Of course, there's no experience better than trying something firsthand. So I bought a lot of Street Fighter II pirated carts and would, hopefully, sort out the good ones.

To my expectation, most of them were the same, with minor alterations. Luckily, the ones that were all the same were, in my opinion, decent.
 

First we have the Street Fighter II/Master Fighter II variants (some distributors had the guts to use the official title). Either way, it's the same game. It starts off with a nicely rendered scene of the Street Fighter II: World Warrior intro, except without the animation. The title music plays decently -- pretty good, actually. However, when the game enters the player select screen all hopes are diminished as there are only four playable characters; but hey, the music is pretty good. Unfortunately, the gameplay suffers the most. The movement is quite choppy and hits seem to register back and forth within a two-player game.

 The game, although short, is actually quite difficult due to the 1-continue limit. After defeating your three rivals (you don't fight yourself) you must confront Vega (or M. Bison depending on your region). The backgrounds are rather ordinary and the characters are a bit cartoonish; Zangief is also relatively smaller! The nice (and funny) thing about this game is the endings: a bunch of badly butchered English slop. At least it has an ending, though - unlike many NES games of the time; and lo, credits! The people at Yoko really had the nerve! Again, I must commend the nice job on the music.
 

Next there is Street Fighter II Pro. Apparently Cony implies that this is an improvement. At first glance it does seem so, too: eight playable characters, fighter stats, in-depth color and backgrounds, and great music; however, upon closer evaluation, the player will notice the shoddy gameplay. At first, it seems there's no special moves, even though the CPU performs them all the time. It's simply a matter of pressing both buttons in sync with the control pad in the right direction -- button mashing, no?

I'd hate to disappoint, but there really aren't any endings here...just a simple credits screen. There's not much to say about this version except that the music really shines, although some tracks are off (Ryu and E. Honda's themes are switched). At least Zangief is correctly proportioned.
 

Now Street Fighter III (or my favorite title: Super Fighter III) is nothing to scoff at. The first thing to notice is the altered music; there is a different theme for the title. In fact, each fighters' stage has different, and in my opinion, bland background music. Now there are nine playable characters, not including E. Honda, Zangief, and M. Bison (or Balrog in the States). Everyone else is in there, with no repeats (unless you include Ken).

Anyways, you pick your guru and fly straight to China, and what a sight! You are greeted by a beautiful looking Chun-Li (:D) and the courtyard of the Forbidden City. ;p Yet, the rest of the stages resemble each fighter's actual Street Fighter II stage to a certain degree. The next appalling aspect are the controls, yes the gameplay! You have four attacks: weak kick, strong kick, weak punch, strong punch (which, in my opinion, is better than the cumbersome six attacks in the original). Most of the special moves are intact as well. A few characters, like Vega and M. Bison, have pretty cheap moves and offer a major handicap to play as or fight against, especially Blanka.

Probably the most annoying element of this game is the intended slowdown when a fighter loses. On top of that, a round can drag on twice as long as a regular match on the SNES. With nine fighters with at least two rounds each, this game can last pretty long. Lastly, there are endings: all still pictures with no words avoiding any possible embarrassment, except for special characters, like Vega, who have an image of themselves standing on a podium with two other fighter below them. The name of the developer seems to be nowhere on this game. It's a shame, too, because this is perhaps the most well-done pirate of Street Fighter for the Famicom! You can quote me on that. :)