Characters
The original Street Fighter II features a roster of eight playable characters that could be selected by the player. The roster initially included Ryu and Ken—the two main characters from the original Street Fighter game—plus six new characters from different nationalities. In the single-player tournament, the player faces off against the other seven main characters, before proceeding to the final opponents, which are four non-selectable CPU-controlled boss opponents, known as the "Four Grand Masters".
Playable characters
- Ryu, a Japanese martial artist seeking to become a "true warrior."
- Ken, Ryu's former training partner and rival, from the United States.
- Chun-Li, a Chinese female martial artist who works as an ICPO officer, seeking to avenge her deceased father.
- Guile, a former special forces operative from the United States, seeking to defeat the man who killed his best friend.
- Blanka, a beast-like man from Brazil who was raised in the jungle.
- Dhalsim, a yoga master from India.
- Zangief, a pro wrestler from USSR.
- E. Honda, a sumo wrestler from Japan.
Computer-only bosses
- Balrog (M. Bison in the Japanese version), an African-American boxer, designed with a similar appearance to Mike Tyson.
- Vega (Balrog in the Japanese version), a Spanish cage fighter who uses a unique style of ninjutsu.
- Sagat, a Muay Thai master and the final boss in the original Street Fighter, who was scarred by Ryu in the end of the previous tournament.
- M. Bison (Vega in Japan), the leader of the criminal organization Shadaloo, who uses a mysterious power known as "Psycho Power", and the final boss of the game.
Balrog was designed as a pastiche of real-life boxer Mike Tyson and was originally named M. Bison (short for "Mike Bison") in the Japanese versions, while Vega and M. Bison were originally named Balrog and Vega respectively. When the game was localized for the overseas market, the names of the bosses were rotated because the name and resemblance could have led to a likeness infringement lawsuit. Because of that, they're usually referred as "Boxer" (Balrog/M. Bison), "Claw" (Vega/Balrog) and "Dictator" (M. Bison/Vega) to prevent confusion.
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