Can even the mighty Desk figure out how to make combos work in the almost unplayable Game Boy port of Street Fighter 2?
Do you doubt his powers?
For the first decade or so after its creation, handheld ports of Street Fighter games served as arguably the most interesting versions to look back to see how developers managed to make the fighting game run. Would they sacrifice graphics to try and make it feel like the original, or would they put everything into the visuals instead?
The original Game Boy port of Street Fighter 2 decided to go with the latter option to create a visually impressive yet nearly unplayable version of the beloved classic, which combo maestro Desk recently tried to break wide open.
From all of his research for the video, Desk notes that he couldn't find a single combo video for the Game Boy port anywhere and was initially convinced it had no combos at all.
There are no attacks that cancel into each other, and the game itself apparently runs at a slideshow pace of only 7 frames per second — with high input latency to boot.
Through what I can only imagine to be a frustrating experience of trial and error, Desk finally discovered how to perform a handful of combos with the cast that actually look pretty true to form.
You can check out the glory of Street Fighter Game Boy combos below, and take a look at Desk's previous work with the better-playing Game Boy Color port of Street Fighter Alpha if you haven't already.