Some of you may be too young to remember the days when Street Fighter II dominated all aspects of entertainment. Games, movies, cartoons, toys, this franchise was everywhere and fans (like me) couldn’t get enough of it. Cue this tie-in with GI Joe maker Hasbro that rushed Street Fighter toys to a ravenous fan base eager for more Ryu, Ken and Chun Li. Kotaku has posted a quick look back at these toys, and how, uh, bizarre they were at the time…

I distinctly remember rushing to Toys R Us to find these alleged Street Fighter figures, and when I did, I was more than a little disappointed. If you kept up on your GI Joes, it was clear these toys were just old figures, slightly repainted and given new heads; Chun Li was Scarlett, Ken was Storm Shadow, Blanka was Road Pig and so on. This wasn’t altogether surprising, as Hasbro was already known for selling palette swaps as new, full price toys. However, despite my inital sadness, joy quickly returned as I made my brand new Blanka figure punch M Bison into the sun. The sun in this case was the ceiling light in my bedroom, btw.

The ridiculousness continued with things like Guile’s Sonic Boom tank, which is impossible to explain for myriad reasons. Does the tank travel faster than the speed of sound? Does Guile just sit in an unexposed cockpit while this is happening? Why would Guile even bring a tank to a street fight? So many questions, somewhat curbed by the fact that each vehicle came with a toy recolored to look like their Champion Edition incarnations. So blue Blanka, red Chun Li, and so on – a nice touch, making the variants actual in-game colors.

Fun fact: Seth still has this commemorative diorama on display in his office  

I’ll stop rambling now and toss back to Kotaku . Check their post out and be thankful you have much cooler Street Fighter merchandise today!