Fighter Cab in Sega’s Battle Arena

I thought “Battle Arena” was just a pretentious name for this arcade’s deadbeat basement.

Turns out the place is a war zone.

This centre cab has stories to tell like a combat-crushed tank and its crew – absolutely f🦆ed up to the bare bones of survival and streamlined by aggressive bombardment to the beating core of its being.

It will survive – it has survived – anything that could possibly destroy it…

…except for the loving touch of another human being.

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The New Versus City is bruised and yellowed and decorated with remnants of peeled and re-posted title cards and tournament rosters. But its stick-and-six is maintained to flawless precision.

Street Fighter II went through five revisions in the arcade: mirror matches, faster gameplay, new characters, super combos, and this.

This is Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition – in which you can play any variation of any character from any game in the SFII series.

The arcade operator can set the game speed. Under the screen it says TURBO3 固定 (kotei) – fixed on Turbo 3, the maximum.

A Street Fighting machine for more than 20 years. Bring on the next challenger.