Street Combat

Street Combat is a fighting game centered around a world martial arts tournament of the same name. The game's primary mode has the player take control of Steven, a genius scientist and Kung Fu expert. P. terrorist organization.

I. J. himself. Every match starts with the player choosing between two versions of Steven, though they differ very little in ability.

The original Japanese version of Street Combat, titled Ranma ½: Chōnai Gekitōhen, was developed for the Super Famicom by NCS Corporation and would be published under its Masaya Games label in Japan on March 27, 1992. It is based on the manga series Ranma ½ by Rumiko Takahashi, which is centered around its titular protagonist, Ranma Saotome, a cursed martial artist who switches genders when exposed to either cold water or warm water. The plot of the game features Ranma competing in a fighting competition to win a trip to China in order to reverse the curse.

Graphical designer Hitoshi Ariga recounted that after the completion of Masaya's Cyber Citizen Shockman 3: The Princess from Another World he was promptly asked by company producer Toshiro Tsuchida to join the Chōnai Gekitōhen team midway through the latter's creation. As Ranma ½ was focused on martial arts, it was decided that it should be a fighting game. Despite the explosive popularity of Capcom's arcade hit Street Fighter II during this period, Hitoshi doubted that copying its style was ever a consideration as Chōnai Gekitōhen featured a simpler control scheme more akin to action games of the time. The characters were made graphically similarly to Ultraman: Towards the Future with sprites animated with independent, angled parts.

Critical reception for the original Japanese Ranma ½: Chōnai Gekitōhen was mostly favorable. The game was compared to the arcade hit Street Fighter II, which had yet to make its way to home consoles at the time. Jean-Marc Demoly of the French publication Joystick gushed over its variety of attacks, fluid animation, detailed backgrounds, and audio design. In a brief import review, GamePro contributor Dave Winstead similarly called it "a blast in two-player mode" and concluded, "This isn’t quite Street Fighter II, but it's as close as you can get right now on the Super Famicom!"

The game was received warmly by a panel of four reviewers in Japanese magazine Famitsu, though a few of them noted an extreme difficulty from the CPU opponents and a general lack of polish. In a later retrospective, Hardcore Gaming 101 was highly critical of its control responsiveness, hit detection, graphics, and sound.

A Super Famicom sequel from the same developer titled Ranma ½: Bakuretsu Rantōhen was first released in Japan in late 1992. Unlike Street Combat, the SNES version of this game from DTMC, titled Ranma ½: Hard Battle, was mostly unchanged from its Japanese counterpart. Both Chōnai Gekitōhen and Bakuretsu Rantōhen were present at the Evo Japan 2018 fighting game competition with the organizer stating that there was continuing online appeal in the series to warrant their inclusion.