Fighting games like ‘Mortal Kombat’ have come a long way

Street Fighter. King of fighters. Tekken.

These classic video games have more in common than being part of the fighting game genre. Their lists are full of different faces from very different places. Prior to the new calls for greater diversity of protagonists and characters in these games, these games allowed players to play as someone who resonated with them on many levels. Multiple actors become an essential feature of fighting games and now recognize that they are the basic definition of the genre.

Unlike most video games with a single main actor, fighting games show a lot of faces for players to choose from. their will be the protagonist. Having “pre-existing” several pre-existing characters puts fighting video games in a position to be more diverse than other video games. This is not only the diversity of unique character archetypes and movements, but also the appearance, race, ethnicity, gender, and beliefs of the characters. Actually, as a fan of the genre myself, I consider these differences (shared with real people) as important as the differences in style of play in the list of characters.

Start with this Street Fighter

By modern standards the first “real” fighting game was Capcom’s Street Fighter II, a classic that presented the basic formula of what fans expect from the genre. Not only does it offer innovative behavior, Street Fighter II one of the most varied lists of his time also appeared. Considering that the main premise of the game was based on bringing together the strongest fighters in the world to compete in a big tournament, diversity made sense. This was a unique game that many players from all corners of the world could look at and relate to the designs, beliefs and backgrounds of the characters. Definitely, in the arcade era of the 90s, white men who weren’t other kids could see themselves reflected in the games they were playing, even if these reflections came with some problems.

Street Fighter 2 it may have introduced a great new concept and broadened our horizons a bit, but it also included the curse that the fighting game genre would struggle over the years: prominent racial stereotypes associated with many of the characters on these huge lists, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny.

File integrity Street Fighter the series has been a particularly serious crime in relation to these stereotypes. Each ethnic character in the series is represented by almost a stereotype. Balrog (in the Japanese version of M. Bison Street Fighter), Is a significant example of Mike Tyson’s highly aggressive dark-skinned African-American boxing. A highly polarized Indian / South Asian Dhalsim, wearing a cropped skull necklace and labeled as a “yoga master” who struggles with elongated arms and supposedly struggles to breathe with curry flames. Both are examples Street Fighter II which rubs the fans in the wrong way. Even in the latest versions Street Fighter, problematic representations of these characters appear. 2008an Street Fighter IV, Balrog has two outfits. One of them is to darken the skin and throw on the stereotypical “Black Thug” outfit, an elastic basketball cap and a thick hat called by Capcom called “Horror / Halloween Costume”. These racist cartoon representations are in their final entry in 2016 Street Fighter V, With Birdie, you first found an unplayable enemy in the first place Street Fighter the game, an example of a black caricature (even more so than he was Street Fighter Alpha), and Laura, the first Brazilian fighter to appear Street Fighter V, a woman of excessive color, who is too dark or not stereotypically attractive. These are just a few examples of the mine of discriminating characters who suffer from fighting games, and these are just some of them Street Fighter.