I'm still waiting for my Street Fighter movie.

Having seen most of the movie and anime versions of Street Fighter, I'm left with one nagging question: why do video game adaptions often deviate so much from their source material? While I liked most of the Street Fighter movie incarnations as reminiscent to varying degrees of the games I've spent years playing, not a single one of them follows the storylines laid out throughout the series.

Some iterations portray certain aspects but fail on others. The Movie featured themes somewhat related to the actual Street Fighter II game, but the many of the characters were completely unrecognizable from their video game counterparts. Alpha did the opposite, with a fairly accurate portrayal of it's cast but a peculiar storyline unrelated to anything in the Street Fighter universe.

Generations and II V missed the mark almost completely. The main characters (Ken, Ryu, Sakura and Akuma/Gouki in Generations and Ken, Ryu and Chun Li in II V) weren't too far off base, but the plots and most of the other Street Fighter characters were far removed from SF canon. Merely changing some names would've left anime that didn't resemble anything remotely Street Fighter.

There is an American Street Fighter cartoon that, if I recall, takes place after Street Fighter the Movie. Despite that, the characters and the series itself are supposed to be closer to their original forms. I have yet to see it, but all indicators are that it takes several liberties of it's own (and it would have to, if it's based on the Movie's plot).

That leaves Street Fighter II: the Animated Movie. Sometimes mistaken as a sequel to the live-action movie, it's a completely unrelated adaption of the same game as the movie (Street Fighter II). This is the closest they've gotten to successfully putting the game on the big screen, with fairly accurate character depictions and a plot somewhat reminiscent of the game of the same name. It's close in many respects, and certainly more true to it's inspiration than most, but not without taking liberties of it's own.

Street Fighter isn't even the only victim. The Resident Evil movies have little to do with their electronic counterparts. The Mario Brothers movie is some peculiar mix of inspiration from the classic game and an odd, distinctly American Hollywood approach. And just about any game movie Uwe Boll touches becomes something almost unrecognizable (and pretty awful as far as any film goes).

Is it really that hard to translate these storylines into moving pictures? All I want is licensed properties that stay true to it's source material; why would I want one that didn't? I want my Street Fighter to be Street Fighter: is that really too much to ask?

Addendum: A friend just reminded me there's another live action Street Fighter movie dropping soon by the name of "The Legend of Chun Li." Here's hopin' my wish will be granted... but my breath is not being withheld.

Street Fighter IV: Americans Unsurprisingly Love Abel

Americans prefer new SFIV character Abel over the others.

You'd think this was some kind of shock: Street Fighter fans like their Street Fighter cast to look like Street Fighter characters! This sort of thing always boggles my mind. So many Japanese companies decide they need to make their games "American" to sell, when it's the original feel of the game that attracts people in the first place! Street Fighter II wasn't a huge hit because it was Americanized, it was a huge hit because it was a great game, no Americanization necessary.

Time and again we see this happen. Games like Disgaea, a fantastic series of entertaining, deep strategy games, got overlooked for a US release until Atlus decided to "take a chance" on it. The game became so rare that it was selling for more than it's original price when it disappeared from shelves and other American companies swooped in to snap up other, similar titles from the same developer that were previously overlooked as being unmarketable to US audiences. The games we so successful that the developer shortly opened an American branch so they could cash in on distributing their own releases!

That's not the only instance of such a thing happening. With the success of the wacky Guilty Gear, numerous over the top fighting games, again previously overlooked, are garnering North American releases. Schmups - "shoot 'em ups," long regarded as catering only to a tiny niche audience - are starting to reemerge through console releases and online downloads. More and more obscure (to us, at least) Japanese titles are being picked up, ranging from the long-running Fire Pro Wrestling series, the quirky kissing-based Chulips, and numerous role-playing games, from Magna Carta on down.

So why does Capcom feel it necessary to tailor a character to the American audience, and why are they so surprised when gamers pass on the almost patronizing result for a fighter more akin to what you'd see in Street Fighter?