How hackers fixed Street Fighter 2

[@ModernVintageGamer]

Did you play Rainbow Edition back in the day? Lemme hear your stories!

[@Raphael_De_La_Ghetto]

Yes. It was inside of a small video rental store near my home. When i saw the attract screen, i swore the machine was broken😅😅but once i played it, i started to get good at it, and lured unsuspecting friends to the game so i could dominate them 😂😂

[@blahdelablah]

I found it on a ferry crossing the English Channel sometime in the 90s, remember the gameplay looking absolutely bonkers, haven't seen a Rainbow Edition cab ever since.

[@Fifth313ment]

I never played the Rainbow edition but I remember saving up for SNES Super Street Fighter 2. It was $70 way back which would be $$152.37 today (that's insane)! I spent my own money. I also loved the TMNT & Clay Fighters games but sadly my love of fighting games ended there. I became a sci-fi nerd. 😂

[@siliconbreakfast]

I remember the first time I saw this in a small taco joint in Sacramento. I was blown away and played for a few hours.

[@Run187]

I did . I found it in a shop that an " arcade" it was a flat that put a sign on and called in it an arcade. The same place later became my friends house. The first time I played re it was set to max difficulty. I was stood thinking wtf? I beat the game after many pounds because of maximum difficulty, I needed a towel to wipe off the sweat ( not for that ) I then asked what do I win? Then I started playing the mortal kombat next to it, again set to max, I asked the guy what is wrong with you? Lol ..

[@AnayranPinheirodeAzevedo]

Here in Brazil this game is most known as "Street Fighter de Rodoviária", meaning that is a street fighter to be played on a bus station

[@felipe_falkiner]

I was coming here just to say this hahahaha

[@rgbcrafts]

This. It was a heavy hit on everyone. 🤣

[@ricardonacif5426]

Heavily modified 😂

[@rgbcrafts]

@@ricardonacif5426 it was absolute fun back in the days.

[@IncognitaEX]

Eu chamava de Street Loco

[@dravenlee4473]

I remember kids in school telling me about throwing fireballs in air and all kinds of weird things. I thought they were just making stuff up until I saw Rainbow in a shady arcade. I honestly didn't like it because it was too crazy but it's a fond memory and one of the first mainstream bootlegs that I can remember.

[@blackflagqwerty]

Lo,l It's like these were only available in 'shady' arcades.

[@Longlostpuss]

I first saw the cabinet in a local cab station waiting area, not sure if that qualifies as a shady arcade.

[@worsel555]

​@@blackflagqwertyback in the day at the ski place in Marquette, Michigan, they had a cabinet with Rainbow Edition in the lodge, and it was a great time.

[@jaysonbell7369]

Lmao likewise

[@casedistorted]

I remember hearing about it too and thinking kids were crazy because I never saw it myself. It blew my mind years later to find out that it actually existed.

[@user-uz1yv2oc9v]

3:56 I Think you mean 1988 not 1998 for the cps-1 release. Used to repair arcade boards from 89-2002. Rainbow was fun to play. The bootleg cps-1 boards were a lot more temperamental than ones that re-used original hardware with replacement mask-roms.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

you are correct!

[@rustymixer2886]

​@@ModernVintageGameroriginal thumbnail might be better

[@ShinGoukiSan]

It is a common misconception that there is one "Rainbow Edition" but in reality there are dozens of SF II CE hacks that while similar have different mods done to the game. They were Grey Market boards from Tiawan that were hacked by a multitude of people.

[@MrSlowestD16]

But I think in this context "rainbow edition" refers explicitly to the release created by this company.

[@RomantiqueTp]

That's true, but Rainbow was most likely the most widely distributed one in America back in 1992. I believe it was available as an "upgrade" kit for legit Champion Edition boards. There's a very good chance that this was the one that inspired Hyper Fighting, which Capcom also made made available as a CE upgrade kit. In other countries, it wasn't uncommon to get a whole bootleg board with these hacks already applied.

[@ShinGoukiSan]

@RomantiqueTp I am in LA and there were DOZENS of them I encountered all over the place

[@1stCallipostle]

​@@MrSlowestD16Even then, I think it has several iterations. I mean look at even official Capcom. The first 5 entries in the Versus series have like 5 revisions a piece. Some adjustments would be pretty easy to make and then just slap on boards for a while until the next revision.

[@GatsuRage]

and also came out for multiple platfoms my very first exposure to SF2 was through a 8b famicom console which was a bootleg port of SF2.

[@nathanbutcher7720]

I remember playing the hell out of Rainbow Edition in Adelaide's central market back in the day. I recall finding out that Capcom was upset with the speed of this hack because it took the game from methodically reacting to opponent moves, to actually having to anticipate or predict future opponent moves. It truly broke the game, but it made it as fun as hell. Capcom responded with a more balanced Hyper Fighting and the rest is history.

[@JoeStuffzAlt]

Honestly, X-Men vs Street Fighter is fast, you can do supers like crazy, and you can play it aggressively. I can see where they might have gotten it from

[@ratinthetub5048]

They have the Rainbow Edition at the beach house in Glenelg last time I was there.

[@decomodus]

In Brazil rainbow edition was known as: "Bus station Street Fighter" - as it was usually found at cheap bars in these places. Good times

[@enrique7934]

No one cares.

[@eeaahh]

???

[@gtPacheko]

​@@enrique7934 silêncio

[@Shaflugi]

@@enrique7934 I care and you're making an ass out of yourself.

[@EWOODJ]

​@@enrique7934You're on a video where everyone worth a damn cares. That only excludes you, yet here you are.

[@EarlHare]

SF2 Turbo is the best Street Fighter ever made. Now I know that we have modders to thank for it. Modders been saving gaming since the dawn of time.

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Modders gave us Ms Pacman too.

[@basshead.]

Bethesda wouldn't exist without modders.

[@BienSwinginbase]

Street Fighter on the Xbox, and I think Chuck E Cheese when I was a kid was too bueno bossman when they mod them they're still excellent.

[@exelmans8855]

Third strike is the best.

[@lordhughmungus]

@@basshead. Bethesda shouldn't exist

[@Mr_LH1980]

We found a rainbow edition of Street Fighter 2 in the Manchester Laser Quest. I remember Jon played it and was WTF when he did a dragon punch and there were 10+ golden fireballs. That day visit to Laser Quest nobody played the laser gun game and everybody crowded around the machine to play this ridiculousness. It also appeared in a video rental place in Radcliffe Manchester before it was bought out by Blockbuster, then turned into a gym, last time I was in Manchester (7 years ago it was a Tesco), and the same machine moved to another video shop further up the road. The last time it was seen when it moved to a Kebab shop opposite the Blockbuster. It always attracted a fairly small crowd. The machine owners were making bank as we no longer had to travel to Manchester city centre to play. The local residents got scared of big groups of yoofs seemingly hanging around. All these arcade machines vanished when there was a stabbing over a heated game. Essentially it came down to who did a dragon punch first and unleashed 10+ golden fireballs. It was 10p a go back in the 1990s and everybody'd spend everything on it.

[@slashrose3287]

Just to say there were made at least 10 different "Raimbow Editions", probably from different hackers/bootleggers. Broken, but WAY to fun to play (Ryu shoryuken covering the entire screen was fantastic). Great video as always MVG.

[@Addictedtocollecting01]

Yeah, it's actually quite difficult to get all 10.. I tried lol (ended up downloading 3 of the same version)

[@kf7721]

I was able to play a couple versions back in day. I remember one had no cooldown time or charge time for attacks so you could go nuts with sonic booms and razor kicks mid-air, etc. Also, I immediately preffered these versions over vanilla. I called one crazy edition and another super crazy edition.

[@kf7721]

And I just remembered that there were differences in whether the projectiles followed the player, went wavy up and down, or flew at a fixed extreme angle, or just straight.

[@Default_Dave]

@@Addictedtocollecting01 "Red 6" is the best version IMO - That's what we also had at our local arcade.

[@Addictedtocollecting01]

@@Default_Dave Thank you! 😁

[@mutee333]

Mid 90s in Pakistan, I played the hacked Street Fighter extensively, for years the bootlegs were the only edition of game available in arcades. The kids all called them different names, Street Fighter 3, 4, 5 and so on. My favorite one was called Kouryu edition, the name I later found out of course. Thank you for making a video on this subject.

[@ColbyPerry]

I remember walking into the local arcade (Birdcage Arcade in Northern California) and seeing the Rainbow Edition and thinking "WTF" and not comprehending how fast it was. I was initially turned off by it, but grew on me as I spent my quarters..

[@Grandeurious]

Randomly walked into a local restaurant and pub in Lakewood, Washington, back in 94. They had an SF2 cabinet that had rainbow edition. I never saw it again after that in the wild.

[@truesus1718]

Alfy's Pizza in Lynnwood, WA had it as well. Our baseball team would have the end of season party there and one year they had RE and the next year it had been switched to either CE or Turbo. I remember the charge attacks didn't compensate for the speed up so they could be pulled off instantly. As I recall, we discovered that spamming Chun-Li's upside down kick was unstoppable (at least for our little tween brains).

[@LukeEganLyrics]

My best friend in high school had two arcade cabinets at his place. I have no idea how he got them, but one of them was Champion Edition and the other was Rainbow Edition. We spent many hours on both games.

[@SirDeathpepsi]

You can just buy them, back then there were more expensive, but now a days they are quite cheap. Also, my cousin's uncle does the local arcades in my area, so when I was younger we used to go over and play them. He actually when asked moved his Terminator 2 pinball machine into our back porch, we played the hell out of it until almost everything was brokeb

[@gfdgdfgdfgdfggfdgdfgdfgdfg9709]

Yeah and my friend had a jet plane, that took us home after school to play competetive digger on his robotron in his mansion on his private island.

[@1e0isfdkorblpg]

@@gfdgdfgdfgdfggfdgdfgdfgdfg9709 aint that rare to have a rich friend.

[@LukeEganLyrics]

@@gfdgdfgdfgdfggfdgdfgdfgdfg9709 Some people, like my friend, are very blessed. Sorry that triggers you.

[@renakunisaki]

Yeah well my friend's dad was NASA and we'd play Nintendo 128 on the moon

[@Kulex6969]

Street fighter de playa (beach street fighter), that was the name here in Chile years ago 😂

[@afropovic]

Love that name

Such a nice take on how the game is different from the standard. Here in Brazil we called it "Street Fighter de rodoviária" (bus station), but it could actually be found in bars, bakeries, gas stations, snooker joints, and various random places that would have arcade machines.

[@guillermojperea6355]

What a bizarre version, i don't understand how any arcade owner would use it, but I didn't know it had influenced Hyper and Turbo like that, cool!!

[@RomantiqueTp]

Most arcade operators just wanted to get Street Fighter 2 for cheap. A lot of them probably didn't even realize they were getting a hacked version, especially in poorer countries. There were modified program chips you could buy for an original Champion Edition board, but I believe those were not as common outside of America.

[@8-bitJoe]

​@@RomantiqueTpThese were riff in the UK. Especially in launderettes, fruit machine amusements, video rental stores, snooker/pool clubs, etc. These establishments didn't care what version they were getting, so long as the money kept coming in. The bigger more established arcade amusements didn't have these, I believe.

[@ricardoandradex]

Its s new version of sf2 more quicker and dificult, play sessions are more quicker and because that more profitable. The owner not care if is official or not

[@GatsuRage]

it influenced a whole genre like MVG points out pretty much entire mvc game was based off of this or so ppl believe since the entire marvel serie is basically rainbow on crack.

[@colinstu]

if you watch the video he explains why

[@ultimateman55]

First time I played Rainbow Edition it was on Callus in the late 90s when I was using my PC to emulate arcade games for the first time. I was downloading every SF2 rom I could find and came across Rainbow Edition and I had no idea what it was. After booting it up, it was obvious that it was a hack but I assumed someone had made it for emulators. It wasn't until many years later that I found out it was used in actual arcade cabinets in the mid 90s.

[@derkoi]

SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC, SONIC BOOM! Was my experience in the arcades with this. lol

[@TopShelfTheology]

IIRC you could also chain flash kicks, they were chargeless and could be done in mid-air (again like MvC would do later), so that you could infinitely kick yourself off the top of the screen, lol

[@GamerGee]

Yes. Guile was unbeatable. LOL. Throw a hundred sonic booms. Profit.

[@jasonsantiago6308]

That was the jam, being 8 years old and just flicking the control stick back and forth and killing everyone

[@messi_data3089]

Exactly!!!!! One that knows , knows!

[@rhikter_937]

Holy crap dude! I saw the reflection of that guy in the cabinet screen at around the 8:00 mark and I about flew out of my chair because I thought someone was behind me!

[@billwall267]

😂

[@theeveshamgamer]

First came across this in a chippy in spittles cross opposite the now gone Eden Valley School in Edenbridge, Kent UK. Must have been 1992/93. The multiple fireballs and characters morphing and zipping around the screen was mental! Ahhhh. SF2 Rainbow edition and a bag of chips...nice 👍

[@Cooperboy1976]

I remember visiting Sega World back in 1994, located within the Trocadero in Picadilly Circus, London. A row of SF2 cabinets were lined up all unlocked so no money was needed to play. All were playing 'Rainbow Edition' and none of us knew what we were witnessing. It was amazing and something I have sought to play eversince.

[@8-bitJoe]

@@Cooperboy1976 I miss that place. I remember spending most of my time in Funland arcade amusements and Sega World. Funland, for some reason, always attracted so many girls LOL!! Maybe because they knew all the boys went there. Fun times as a teen. Girls and games 😂

[@ThePopolou]

​@@8-bitJoe​ Ah the memories...yup when we were first allowed out during breaks, it wasn't long before us lads could always be found here. It became such a popular hang out at that age.

[@neoKushan]

Ah this brought back a core memory for me! My brother and I played a lot of SF2: Turbo on the SNES back in the mid-90's, so I felt like I knew that game like the back of my hand. Then one day I was at a birthday party in a play gym place that had a few arcade cabs, including Street Fighter 2. Naturally I couldn't resist and had a go - only to get absolutely demolished by the AI who was throwing out fireballs left and right, teleporting, changing character, etc. I had zero idea what the hell was going on and honestly left a little deflated, because even though everything said it was Street Fighter 2, it didn't play anything like it. I appreciate looking back why rainbow edition was popular but for a pure "casual" like me, I felt a bit swindled.

[@PurpleSanz]

10:18 It's funny how people keep mispronouncing Ryu's name in 2024, especially when everyone can pronounce the word "ShoRYUken" correctly.

[@brizoni]

I will never call him Ree-ew.

[@PurpleSanz]

@@brizoni Rye-You it is, then. ;D

[@JAYCEEDOUBLE]

It's not a big deal really. It will always be raiu for me.

[@azure1259]

Never saw a Rainbow edition in the wild but Street fighter 2 was one of the key moments in arcade and home console gaming history, most of us who played it back then in the arcades could barely believe just how good the SNES version was in terms of how close it was to the arcade, which was the gold standard for home conversions at the time. An admittedly expensive £70 cart did a good job of being as good as a £2000 arcade machine. I still play them today and even have grown to prefer the slower pace of the original game, as good as the turbo versions are as well.

[@kri249]

I only learned of this from Whangs gaming mysteries video covering it a few years ago. The thing I love most about this edition is all the stories everyone has about their mystery encounters with it at random locations. Today the mystery is easily solved with the internet but back in the 80s and 90s this would have felt like the gaming equivalent of a UFO or bigfoot sighting. Unless they were there or had their own encounter no one would believe you.

[@beardalaxy]

Reminds me a lot of Project M and how Nintendo ended up using some things from that game in future, official Smash titles. Great video, definitely learned some more gaming history.

[@tarquinnff3]

I remember a hacked version that was labeled Street Fighter III on the decals. The characters were colored differently and the moves were all mixed up, for example Blanks shot Sonic Booms out of his eyes and his roll went diagonally. Rainbow Edition looks very similar to it but there were certain moves that I remember seeing that weren't present in your video.

[@hwogrillo]

There were a ton of different hacks that all were known as rainbow edition. I believe the one in the video here is the original rainbow edition, the others were derived from that and just kept getting wackier as they went.

[@thecastiel69]

Modern Street Gamer

[@SvenS2]

Awesome video! Small correction at 5:42, Champion Edition was released in 1992. The Genesis port, however, was released in 1993

[@trip2themoon]

And Turbo arrived in the arcades way sooner than the end of 1993. Super came out in 1993 and Turbo became available on the consoles in the summer of 1993.

[@stopwearingwatches]

Well remembered here in the UK in the early-mid 90s. Practically every seaside town had a chip shop with a dodgy SF2 or MK2 hack (like Challenger Edition). However it's often suggested that Capcom got the idea for Dhalsim's teleport from Rainbow edition, but this is overlooking that Street Fighter 1 had the ninja with a teleport move!

[@HappyCodingZX]

My rainbow story - about 20 years ago I picked up a Jamma cab with a Neo Geo one slot from an arcade repair shop and the friendly chap said he'd throw in a street fighter 2 for me as well. Having played it to death in a sleazy bar in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe where I was living for a year, I was pretty excited to have it at home, especially since, ironically enough, the cab that I had played it on all that time ago was also a regular Jamma so I was used to playing with four buttons. So I fired it up and immediately thought it looked a bit strange, and sure enough it was the rainbow edition, though I didn't know it at the time. I couldn't believe what was going on, and was especially surprised to discover that you could literally climb up off the screen with jump / fireball. I found it almost impossible to get past even a single level, until i started to cheat as much as the computer did. Even then, their punches and kicks seemed to do ten times as much damage as mine. As I recall however It was certainly a lot of fun when i had friends over just to see their confused faces when they tried it.

[@luisvalente3654]

I don't remember ever seeing this rainbow version in particular, but there was another version we locally called "street fighter 2 and a half altered", where Ryu and Ken would shoot 2 fireballs at once that would move in a syne/cosyne trajectory, criss-crossing all the way. Other projectile attacks would do the same, like Guile's Sonic Boom. You could also jump, throw a fireball, jump again, throw another fireball, and so on, until you dissapeared from the top of the screen and reappeared at the bottom. Even characters that didn't throw any projectile attacks would throw fireballs, like E. Honda or Balrog. I remember I used to love playing with the last one, you didn't have to charge back his most powerful punch, just back-forward and strong punch, and you would cross the entire screen in less than a second, hiting your opponent for a third or more of their health bar, while also throwing 2 criss-crossing fireballs. You could clear the entire game in a couple of minutes lol.

[@thebasketballhistorian3291]

As an adult, it looks totally janky and broken but as a silly kid, I could imagine being completely amazed by it.

[@tech1238]

I liked the SNES version of SF2 because you could modify the speed and difficulty. Still my favourite fighting game

[@plaztik767]

My friends and I used to throw a game genie on the world warriors! Trying out and discovering all kinds of crazy codes. Mid air moves, palette swapped characters. Unlimited fireballs ect. We would each experiment at home then share our latest findings with one another at the arcade or school.. Great times..

[@Komeuppance]

​@@plaztik767Still got those codes? Lol

[@davidwilliams5649]

I remember the first time encountering Rainbow Edition! My cousin took me and my brother to a small, almost hidden arcade in Mexico. They had a lot of SNK arcades, but in the center was Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, except it was very weird from what me and my brother usually played! We saw stuff like Zangief throwing dozens of fireballs, characters doing special moves in mid-air, Vega climbing nonexistent cages in mid-air, and characters being swapped mid-game. I was actually creeped out by this! So much so that I didn't even try to play it. My brother and I just played Fatal Fury Special there (our first time ever seeing and playing this version of Fatal Fury). This happened in the early 90s, but it always stuck in my head how weird that Street Fighter game was. In the late 90s/early 2000s when we finally got home internet, I looked up what that game was!

[@joecrackin3783]

There was this little family owed video star I used to go to as a kid called Lincoln Video back in Cali. That place was so great, and I miss going there so much these days. Anyways, they had a couple arcade games there and one day this game showed up. I remember watching this kid fill the screen with sonic booms. It was wild watching all the crazy things that could be done. I played it every time I went while it was still there. This was pre-internet days so when I would tell my friends on the playground they didnt believe me. I thought I was crazy for so long until videos of it started popping up on youtube and it became infamous in the community. Im so glad people are still talking about this version, and making me not feel like I just imagined it.

[@vorenge]

The first time I saw this version in the arcade, I thought the machine was glitched out, but kept playing it because it was so interesting. I was actually worried that the game would fix itself, not realizing that it wasn't glitched or broken, but learning years later that it was a ROM hack.

[@c0wg0d]

My local arcade had a big screen arcade machine (I think the screen was about 65") that went through a few different games. I went there almost every weekend when I was a kid and I remember being completely floored when I saw it was updated with this weird version of SFII with a rainbow logo. I was watching people play, and it was INSANE. Chun Li was flying across the screen with her helicopter kick, causing a loss of half your health if you happened to try blocking it. E. Honda and Guile could do their Back-Forward-Punch attacks with NO warm up required, and with infinite fireballs, Guile could fill the entire screen with slow mooving sonic booms. Ken's shoryuken would fly half way across the screen. People could glitch into the ceiling by jumping, throwing a fireball, then jumping again in mid air over and over to get several screens worth in the air, and then fall down. It was hilarious and amazing. I spent SOOOOO much money playing that game. I was so sad when it disappeared from the arcade, and I wasn't able to play it again until I was grown up and learned about MAME. Still just as fun to play today as it was back then!

[@ne7andyL]

the most ubiquitous hack back in the day in London, UK was Blackbelt Edition, oddly enought I've not seen this dumped: it had the text characters for Champion Edition altered to read Black Belt Edition on the title screen and a more balanced set of hack/s applied including directional fireballs (slow = ultra slow) medium went up and hard punch went down (fireballs) and no charge for charge moves. Someone did a SNES bootleg with the same name but it was very different in comparison :) the more hilarious common one we had was called 'alpha edition' and featured a metallic effect over the SFII logo and absolutely silly amounts of fireballs/sonic booms on screen at once and ridiculous speed :) I actually have a board for Alpha knocking around somewhere as its a great party arcade game :D nice vid

[@IceGorZilla]

I remember it like it was yesterday a local 7-Eleven in the Pacific NW USA. I explored it and loved it as much as my fistful of quarters would allow, then I never saw it again.... that was no public internet or anything other than word of mouth...... But for decades it was in the back of my mind and after we All got PCs in the late '90s, But it's was decades before we sought out that version of Street fighter 2....

[@javierortiz82]

Here in Colombia this was the defacto version of SFII in the arcades, I can't recall more than one "original" SFII board in my city. The speed of the game was noticeably different from that of the Capcom version and sure it changed the game for good. Thanks also for mentioning the tedium that people eventually felt towards SFII, the game was everywhere and after two years or so, people grew tired of it. Then, Mortal Kombat appeared and it refreshed the arcades for two weeks, but after two weeks of seeing the same fatalities, we learned to appreciate the way deeper gameplay of Street Fighter and went back to where quality was.

[@sidesw1pe]

I remember the rainbow editions, there were quite a few different variations if I recall. One of them was crazy, you could fill up the screen with fireballs or sonic booms. I played it for amusement but never took it too seriously.

[@roberto1519]

There's a version which was really popular here in Brazil, where Ken/Ryu cast two hadoukens at once. My brother and I liked to play as Zangief since you can Lariat in the air (and the lariat itself has a yoga flame that is launched from its feet), jump and do so that you can loop the screen infinitely, so you can just piledrive the enemy where he can't touch you. But Guile, Ken and specially Balrog (boxer) are more fun to use, specially Balrog, you can crush enemies within 3 or 4 seconds.

[@itchyisvegeta]

Was never a fan of the sped up gameplay, as Champion Edition is peak street fighter for me. Side note, I remember taking the 1st SNES game, and my friend and I getting some Game Genie codes that brought a lot of these features on the SNES World Warrior game. Made it feel like a new game with the codes that added air fireballs, air hurricane kicks, sped up gameplay or fireballs, etc.

[@hwogrillo]

I remember using the Game Genie codes that would let you play as the bosses on the 1st SNES version. If I remember right, it would glitch out after like 15 seconds and you'd have a jumbled mess of random sprite bits as a character, but it was still playable.

[@itchyisvegeta]

@hwogrillo Yep, I did the same. It basically swapped out Ryu with one of the bosses sprites and move sets, but still moved like Ryu, which is why it was so glitchy.. I also remembering something where I turned the game genie off on that front switch, and the computer would then play through the entire game as that boss character after using those codes. It was neat to watch. Especially Vega who did the climbing the background move on everyone's stages. Then if that "boss" managed to beat Bison at the end, the game would freeze since there was no ending programmed for those characters.

[@hwogrillo]

@@itchyisvegeta Those were the days. I couldn't even count the number of hours I spent with game genie and just seeing what random chaos you could create

[@itchyisvegeta]

@@hwogrillo I think that boss code was the reason I bought the Game Genie

[@neat3468]

I had a Game Genie on the Genesis where it had "Dead Codes" and one of them was so long to type in, but you could choose the hidden character Smoke, the game crashed if you tried to perform any special moves BUT if you just kept to leg sweeps, uppercuts kicks and punches the game would run fine. I miss the days when you had access to Action Replay and Game Genie to try and hack your games. (PS I bought the cart because I wanted to play Ash and Shiva from Stage 1 on Streets Of Rage 3)

[@Cuebix]

I spent a long time looking for this version of SF. I remember the multiple fire balls with one in orange being a special moment. It’s been at least 30 plus years. Thanks for the video.

[@chucholotz]

I remember a version that let Zanggief perform infinite Lariats on air, each one making him levitate higher until he reached the top of the screen and, in Pac-Man style, come back from the bottom of the screen, making him invincible but Zangief could still grab his opponent and perform a multi-screen piledriver 😂

[@MRJOELDC23]

YES!!! I remember this version as a kid/teen... I didn't know it was called "Rainbow" edition at the time, but I do recall the rainbow logo. The speed of this game was intense and it was so much fun and indeed, when going back to the original Road Warrior, it was much slower. Thanks for sharing!

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

Arcade hardware security mistakes where made...

[@AmmoniaSulphate]

Hung Hsi Enterprise did not make this hack. That string appears in unmodified versions of the Champion Edition rom, and the same text also appears in the graphics banks of some other Capcom games. It was simply the name of a distributor of the game in Taiwan, I have no idea why people have latched onto this falsehood.

[@Tuxosaurus]

10:18 I'm sorry I must... you know... it's Ryu, not Rayoo. Think "shoryuken" and it should fix that for life :) Great video, I had never seen the arcade game, WW or CE, but couldn't believe those who did and reported things like homing fireballs. Rainbow was everywhere.

[@casedistorted]

The one thing I miss the most about growing up was Arcades. So many good memories in them as a kid. I had A LOT of big birthday parties in the 90's in Aladdin's Arcade.

[@GearSeekers]

My brother and I played the crap out of Rainbow Edition at our local Video Ezy back in the day.

[@craiglizt8074]

I definitely remember seeing these modded SFII games in the arcade back in the ‘90s. Back when everyone would go to the arcade and play games late into the night. Good times.

[@foureight84]

I remember running into this edition at a Laundromat as a kid. I was 14 or 15 at the time and it blew my mind. Midair fireballs or even throwing consecutive fireballs only existed in my imagination prior. Sadly, that arcade machine wasn't there for long. They had replaced it back to the original version a few weeks later. It wasn't until years later when I got into emulation that I was able to rediscover this game.

[@mullenio4200]

I remember playing something like this and Guile was massively OP as sonic booms were effectively instant. You could fire then out with ease and fill the screen with sonic booms. So everyone would go Guile. But then the controller on the right in my little arcade was superior so the person on the right would usually win.

[@phweengee]

That was fun, thanks. I do remember seeing this at my local arcade, was amazed to see ken/ryu's hurricane kick going off mid-air, and taking them even higher-up. I didn't know at the time it was due to such an unauthorized update. I wonder if the arcade owners knew they had bootleg tech?

[@kristinaF54]

I remember talking with my mates in the school yard about SF2 Rainbow Edition but we never got to play it. Lots of rumors swirled about it, such as; Ken's and Ryu's Hadouken was a double spinning shuriken fireball called the 'shuriccane'.

[@MrBozack]

I remember "Ian the arcade guy" went out of his way to source this Street Fighter for us. Everyone stood around it for hours. Slow Sonic Booms were the best. Rainbow came out just before Darkstalkers, from memory.

[@RiftWarth]

Yep I remember this vividly... 10 year old me was blown away and instantly fell in love with this hacked version. 30 years later and still lovin this hack.

[@W0lfenstrike]

I remember playing a hacked version of SF2 in an arcade on a hotel we were staying in many years ago, it was very likely to be the Rainbow Edition, I remember it had "fire hadoukens", mid air jumps and all sorts of craziness that later became canon in future Capcom games, as broken as it was, that arcade was indeed very addicting and we just couldn't go back to playing SF2 on the SNES, lmao.

[@TheWalkman33]

after playing sf for 20 years i literally just noticed the shapes inside hadokens was Ken/ ryus hands lol

[@suryans5851]

That's because the attack wasn't originally meant to be a "fireball" but a double palm strike and the "ball" is meant to represent the the attack moving through the air. Eventually, it got evolved into an energy attack as shown in Ryu's intro to Super Street Fighter II and has stayed that way ever since.

[@Ninz306]

I bought a cabinet from a guy in California back in 2017. Today I watched your video and found out it’s a rainbow edition in the same cabinet. Now I know why it plays different from the one at my local barcade. It was a pleasant surprise and I wouldn’t trade it for a regular championship edition as it is painfully slow compared to the one I have at home.

[@LambChopper678]

There was a world warrior rainbow edition I had in my arcade 93-94. It was only lightly modded with a little more speed, air moves and the second skins were dark grey. I’ve been searching but can’t find the roms. By far the best version I played

[@seculartapes]

I hadn’t heard of the Rainbow Edition before encountering it at a pool hall in the mid 90s. When the guy I was playing started switching characters mid-round I knew I was seeing something different. I went back to that pool hall to play that cabinet dozens of times.

[@Chadleyization]

I remember seeing at least 1 Street Fighter 2 machine back in the day where Ryu could fill the screens with fireballs, so I guess that was Rainbow Edition. I thought it was glitched or something like that. SF2 was such a phenomenon in the arcades back then, it was incredible.

[@matt_kelly]

I remember encountering it a couple of times in the wild after hearing kids at school talk about it. I was a huge SF2 player so I picked it up pretty quickly, even though it was cheap it was a heck of a lot of fun. In the version I played the fireballs weren't enemy-seeking, they just floated up and down. You could also do a mid-air fireball and then jump from that position and I remember my cousin doing it like 30 times and screen wrapping a bunch of times. I think there were some other things not listed, but I'm sure there were many versions. Thanks for the nostalgia!

[@wesh3338]

this was a big source of discussion and speculation amongst those of us in second grade recess who liked to yell "hadouken" or were excited about mortal monday

[@lostintranslation1957]

This is how I completed it with every character in the arcade down in a small arcade in Canvey Island, Essex. Good times!

[@crispytreatt]

Where any mistakes made? Every video must answer this question. Love this channel.

[@C.I...]

How are there two comments in a row that say "where" instead of "were"?

[@paulm2518]

So. Finally. 30 odd years after I saw this in an arcade as a teen and was utterly confused as to what was going on 'Rainbow edition" is explained to me. I swore I wasn't making it up in my head, this brings back crazy memories 😊

[@allenussher5884]

We had a rainbow edition at the convenience store across from my school. I was blown away at how fast and nuts it was the first time I tried it. I remember my favorite thing was the insanely fast hurricane kicks that sent you across the screen. I loved watching players use it to get out of being cornered, but also to add some stylistic flourishes to the game.

[@JohnnyGooch79]

This made its way down to South Florida back in the early 90s as i was visiting a friend and we went to the local arcade there, i just thought i was plunking in quarters to play SFII and next thing you know the characters were all throwing fireballs, doing moves in the air that you couldn't before.. it was shocking and then became really fun once you figured out what was going on.

[@willitine]

KOF2002 had a ton of bootleg games as well when it later came out. They had KOF’02 2004 version which was kinda explicit lol. Then they had another KOF’02 version where you could increase your speed like crazy with max mode activation multiple times. Anyway great video covering SF rainbow edition history, MVG.

[@Great_White_Great_White]

"You made our boring game BETTER?!?! Here! Have a draconian DRM mod with a fuggin' BATTERY THAT DESTROYS THE WHOLE GODDAMNED ARCADE GAME!!!" -Capcom, probably

[@nothingelse1520]

When I was a kid the local arcade had the Rainbow edition up on this HUGE screen, right next to X-men 6 player on two giant TVs. Good times.

[@Somelucky]

It's pretty much the same story as with having native apps on the iPhone. When it was released, there was no SDK and everyone was told to develop web apps. Within months it was jailbroken and an unofficial SDK was cobbled together to successfully build native apps. That showed Apple what kind of mobile apps people wanted.

[@marckoliver]

In Brazil it was known as "Bus Station Street Fighter". Was a sensation in all arcades that had it...

[@TheArchfiend]

The only time I ever saw a Street Fighter 2 Rainbow Edition was at a West Coast Video in Burlington, New Jersey. I remember playing it and thinking that it must just be some sort of error or broken machine and not a deliberately made game. I even remember the demo screens doing the Rainbow Edition stuff. I can also remember telling people at school and then not believing me. The machine had a very short run at the West Coast video that I mentioned so I imagine most people never did believe me.

[@Hezkezl]

I had no idea this was ever a thing, so this video was very educational! Thank you for your high standards of work, MVG!

[@shanojebs]

The cab in Netherworld Brisbane (a great night out with good beers too) is not CE, it's Hyper Fighting, which was Capcom's answer to Rainbow. I only ever saw it in corner stores and video stores in Sydney, and sometimes was gone a few months after it appeared. It was so much fun. So glad it's now on Fightcade

[@KosmoCrisis]

I remember the rainbow edition at the Manteca Water Slides in Manteca, California in the 90s. It was the first time I had ever seen the wavy fireballs endlessly thrown while Ryu slowly descended back to the ground. It the ultra slow low punch sonic boom followed by blazing fast high punch ones, or his full screen HK flash kick. Chun-Li ha Ryu's fireballs. It was insane.

[@WhatAboutZoidberg]

I only heard legends of the cabinet for years, thinking it was an old Arcade urban legend. Then a few years back I think MaximilanDood made a video about it and the history and I was blown away. It's such a cool hack and so wild to play, just anarchy and fun.

[@skelatorswrath]

I remember being a kid living in Mexico and seeing like 20 fireballs in the same screen and thinking that was "impossible" because I was so used to playing World Warrior on SNES. The legend of Rainbow edition has eluded me all my life. Every time I see one it makes me happy and nostalgic.

[@KyokujiFGC]

I think it bears mentioning just how common these bootleg rainbow edition cabs were at the time. They were everywhere. Even random pizza parlors would have them sometimes.

[@Somelucky]

I remember rainbow edition. My friend always told me it was the local university EE students that hacked the SF2 machines in a nearby arcade. Now I know that it was likely those pirated ROMs from Tawain that were installed. Out of the 4 arcades I recall regularly visiting in the 90s, only two ever had non-legit SF2 machines and only during that time period after champion edition. It does seem like Capcom rushed out the Turbo version to help arcades flush out Rainbow.

[@chancepaladin]

I don't know what hacked version it was, but the bowling alley had a hacked edition and blanka was super messed up and it was an absolute blast. you could tell even in the demos that would play while people waited, the hack screamed, "PLAY ME I'M broke in a good way!"

[@rmyers99]

I didn't know Rainbow Edition but I did play SF2:CE at the 7Eleven across from my high school. And then in 1994 I got a job working at an Aladdin's Castle and they had the SF2:HF editions there. They also had pinball machines which are all but extinct in arcades nowadays. I learned how to work on the machines and found a love of them. I own a few arcade machines now. One of mine began life as an SF2 cabinet.

[@TheSuperiorDrift]

I remember playing it so much in the local 7-11 as well. It was really interesting, because when I was a kid, I always thought it was an official release and not just a hack.

[@Imperatrixxy]

Loved the timing of me clicking the thumbs up button right before MVG said not to forget leaving a thumbs up. XD

[@andrew1977au]

Cool vid dude, i remember playing this and ninja turtles at the fiah and chip shop back in the early 90's, im getting old...😅

[@TrackSol]

Man this hack was crazy! I remember doing flash kicks with Guile over and over to go past the top of the screen and come up from the bottom. We would spend a whole match seeing how many time we can loop the screen!

[@chriscmb]

The first time I saw this was in 1993 in the theater/Cinema, in New York, after watching Jusrrasic park. We were passing by the arcade games and I saw Ken do a dragon punch and 6 fireballs came out and I was like how did they do that. about 2 years later in a Dominican Resterant in Miami I got to finally play it and it was freakin nuts how that game worked. It finally quenched my curiosity and also telling people that I did actually see that.

[@Addictedtocollecting01]

It's always nice to get a new emulation device loaded with tons of SF games... then to find Rainbow edition would always be a treat.

[@mikaela5938]

i played through rainbow edition at a place that was half bowling and half a club with music and drinks and stuff and it was really fun, Chun Li spinning bird kick was so overpowered it was crazy and really fun

[@HeyImGaminOverHere]

This turned up at a local grocery store one day. I was enamoured and played the living crap out of it. Drew quite a crowd too and definitely made that grocery store some money with all the people waiting to play it buying food and such. God this was so good and pretty damn innovative for its time.

[@Zenocide]

It was 1998. We were visiting family in southern California and also had just gone to Disney Land for the first (and only) time. Cousins had a laundromat near by and we entered it through the back ways. It was our first time seeing this thing and I remember going, "wtf" the whole time lol. We put in several quarters in and had a blast. I think there was a Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix there too (aka Pocket Fighter.)

[@waynosdaboss]

My dad owned a Music shop in the early 90s and used to rent video games etc. At one point he had a street fighter 2 arcade machine in there as well which turned out to be this rainbow edition (took me years to find out what it actually was)… kids used to come far and wide to check it out and I remember it vividly. The shop was usually pretty dead most of the time but this machine made the place pretty busy for a while !

[@erikprestonTV]

I hated the rainbow edition. Someone owned an arcade argued with me that real players preferred the rainbow edition. I don't think his arcade is still in business.

[@dinkyflix]

LOL at 1:12, just letting the PCB hang by the JAMMA harness. What could possibly go wrong? LOL!

[@ZX81v2]

Great video MVG :) I always wondered why there were so many versions of the hacks in M.A.M.E. This explains it all well so thanks for that :)