230. 2010 Street Fighter (Capcom, Famicom, 1990)

2010 Street Fighter is actually a spin-off of the original 1987 Street Fighter, developed before 1991's historic Street Fighter II. It's weird to see a piece of media set in the future but also 10 years in the past, but I guess that's only going to start happen more and more as I get older. Instead of bearing any resemblance to a fighting game (or Street Fighter), 2010 Street Fighter is more of an acrobatic platformer starring some kind of teleporting warrior named Kevin. 

Kevin is extremely acrobatic, he can flip around and cling to vertical surfaces. It feels great for a Famicom platformer, and pretty distinct, like a much floatier Ninja Gaiden. You have one main medium-range punch attack that can be used rapid fire on the ground or shot a single time in the air. Most levels include upgrade pickups for this attack that you can collect to boost its power and range.

In addition to the controls, the level variety is a real highlight of 2010 Street Fighter. In the first 4 levels you have an open arena where you can collect resources until a boss appears, a small room with a single boss enemy, a horizontal auto scroll stage, and vertical auto scroll stage. Every stage ends when you defeat a particular boss target or enough of a smaller enemy to fill a gauge to power up your teleporter. Then, you have 10 seconds to find the portal that has appeared and make your escape, which is another cool little touch.

Sometimes when you use the portal, you are temporarily teleported to some kind of interdimensional zone with psychedelic graphics, and have to defeat enemies to earn enough energy to open up a portal. The first time this happened it was so cool. The only real downside of 2010 Street Fighter is that the difficulty has some pretty high spikes, so it's not a game I can just breeze through and chill with. Still, it has enough joy in the movement that I can forgive certain less enjoyable levels.

4/5, an acrobatic platfomer with a lot of variety and challenge