Street Fighter II Appears Twice

Street Fighter II shows up twice. It’s just there, solid, in two of these top-three lists—not at first glance, but once you see it, you notice it’s the only game both developers picked. Somehow that’s more interesting than if they’d agreed on everything.

Famitsu asked four of Japan’s most respected game developers for their all-time favorites. Daisuke Yamamoto made Puzzle & Dragons. Kaname Fujioka made Monster Hunter. Keiichiro Toyama directed Siren and Gravity Rush. Yasumi Matsuno made Ogre Battle. Just their top three each—no scoring, no context, just what they thought still mattered.

Yamamoto went straight to the fundamentals: Street Fighter II, Pokémon Red and Blue, Tetris. Games that pretty much invented their categories. Fujioka landed on the same wavelength—Mega Man, Street Fighter II, Castlevania. Games made for machines you fed quarters into, games you had to *learn*, not games that held your hand. Toyama didn’t even pretend modern gaming had anything to offer him. Space Harrier, Xevious, Virtua Fighter—three arcade cabinets, three games about reflex and nothing else.

Matsuno was the outlier. He listed Zelda, which made sense, but then jumped straight to Ultima Online and Red Dead Redemption. He’s the only one who let his taste wander past 1995. He’s saying something different.

I’ve never actually made one of these lists. It would be different every month. Deus Ex definitely, maybe Ultima Underworld. Dark Souls. But the thing about lists like this is they’re not trying to be right. They’re just what you carry with you when someone asks.