Street Fighter V is nearly with us and Capcom is doing a great job at keeping anticipation high.

A steady string of reveals and some interesting new characters suggest it’s going to be something quite special.

In anticipation of Capcom’s new game, we’ve been reliving some of our favourite battles from past Street Fighters, and this stunning match between Daigo and Justin is easily one of the most memorable. In fact, we’ll say it’s the best we’ve ever seen.

It’s not only the best comeback of all time but throws in insane parrying skills to boot. Watch it and be in awe.

If there’s one thing we miss about the original Shenmue it’s Ryo’s endless questioning about the mundane. Actually, we didn’t like it at all due to the terrible voice acting, but it did end up making the game unintentionally funny as a result.

This classic video from Mega 64 replicates this perfectly, with one of its members dressing up as the popular character and asking members of the public the exact same questions Ryo did. Some of their responses are certainly worth watching.

It’s amazing how far a piece of hardware can go when it’s fully understood an exploited by programmers. If a console lives long enough, the early games don’t look even a bit like the later ones, such are the improvements made to coding. Here are six games that people couldn’t quite believe their machines could manage…

For decades, advances in hardware have reshaped our gaming lives – sometimes with great fanfare, sometimes going almost unnoticed. Join us for a look back at 20 innovations with legacies that still impact gaming today

1. The first commercial console

Hardware: ZX81 | Year: 1981 | Company: Sinclair Research

The computer that took British homes by storm in the early Eighties did so on account of its price – £49.95 in kit form, £69.95 assembled – and it couldn’t have achieved that without some incredibly innovative hardware design. The computer utilised a mere four silicon chips and no moving parts – even the keyboard was a plastic membrane model. The machine also leveraged household items, using your TV in lieu of a monitor and a cassette player for data storage. Not only did the ZX81 produce a generation of bedroom coders that provided the foundation of the British gaming industry, it set the stage for similarly affordable computers throughout the Eighties.

2. Backwardscompatible gaming

Hardware: ColecoVision Expansion Module #1 | Year: 1982 | Company: Coleco

As well as fostering brand loyalty, backwards compatibility can help a new console through the transition between generations. This was something that Coleco recognised when launching its ColecoVision in 1982, and backwards compatibility was provided by way of an expansion module. But Coleco didn’t have a previous console to provide the library, so the ColecoVision Expansion Module #1 allowed the ColecoVision to play Atari 2600 games. It was a bold move – not only was Coleco offering compatibility with a competitor’s machine, but the new Atari 5200 itself completely lacked backwards compatibility. Atari failed to stop the device through litigation as the 2600 could be replicated without infringing on proprietary technologies. Atari was eventually forced to release the Atari VCS Cartridge Adapter for the 5200. Coleco’s device not only proved the value of backwards compatibility, but forced platform holders to better protect their hardware designs from unauthorised cloning.

3. The chip that saved gaming

Hardware: NES | Year: 1985 | Company: Nintendo

Some innovations benefit players; others are designed to aid businesses. Nintendo’s greatest innovation with the NES definitely fell into the latter category. The NES features the 10NES lockout chip, an addition to the original Famicom design which gave the company a powerful weapon against unlicensed development and piracy, as well as an effective means of regional lockout.

Hardened importers may baulk at the idea of region-locking as a key innovation in gaming history. However, Nintendo’s control over the supply of NES software was one of the key factors which allowed it to prevent the console market from being flooded with low-quality software as it had been prior to the crash of 1983. Without the 10NES, it’s unlikely that Nintendo would have regained the trust of North American retailers and consumers.

Ironically, the 10NES would cause as many problems as it solved, as the chip was central to the machine’s reliability issues. It ultimately didn’t matter, as other platform holders quickly implemented similar lockouts, creating the closed and restrictive console market that has existed to a greater or lesser degree ever since.

4. Hardware boosting games

Hardware: NES Game Pak | Year: 1985 | Company: Nintendo

The NES wasn’t endowed with a great amount of RAM, so cartridges often supplemented it. But the improvements didn’t end there – on-board memory management controller chips provided capabilities beyond what the stock NES could achieve. Later, cartridge-based systems allowed for similar capabilities, leading to the likes of the famous SNES Super FX chip and the less famous Sega Virtua Processor.

5. Controller design

Hardware: NES controller | Year: 1985 | Company: Nintendo

Early consoles had a range of designs, from joysticks to vertically-oriented controllers with over ten buttons. When Nintendo introduced the Famicom in 1983, it came close to standardising console controllers, with two action buttons, two function buttons and the cross-shaped D-pad borrowed from its Game & Watch range. The export NES version further refined the design and competitors caught on – the Atari 7800, Sega Master System, NEC PC Engine and Amstrad GX4000 offered similar pads.

Whenever we want to annoy the Retro Gamer team, we like to remind them of the things they’ll probably never own. Sure, they have practically every console under the sun and even arcade hardware, but they could always upgrade their Mega Drives and PlayStations to something a little rarer, a little cooler, and a damn sight more expensive. But they’ll have to pay hundreds of pounds to do it, and it eats them up inside. Take a look at some of our favourite taunting mechanisms…

As the Dreamcast entered its final death throes, games began to get cancelled left, right and centre. Some of them moved across to systems such as the PlayStation, Xbox and Gamecube, but others were simply outright cancelled, never to be heard of again.

One of the most famous of these missing games was Take The Bullet by Red Lemon Studios. In addition to have frantic multiplayer elements, it was also going to have an expansive single player campaign. In short a lot was promised and it sounded fantastic – but then it vanished.

Fortunately, old games typically don’t disappear for long and Tom Charnock of The Dreamcast Junkyard has an exclusive video that highlights just how promising Take The Bullet was looking. Check it out below and, if you’re a love of all things Dreamcast, be sure to check out the Dreamcast Junkyard too.

Will the Dreamcast ever truly die? It’s looking doubtful. Some 15 years after the system was discontinued and almost a decade after the final official game hit the shops of Akihabara, homebrew developers are still making games for Sega’s little white box – and there’s an eager audience willing to pay cash for them.

The latest such effort is Xenocider, an on-rails shoot-’em-up that pays homage to the likes of Space Harrier and Sin & Punishment, which is currently on Kickstarter seeking $92,000. Unlike most Dreamcast releases in recent years, it actually uses the machine’s 3D capabilities, allowing players to enjoy some authentic low-poly goodness.

In an unusual turn, there’s even a playable demo available for the game – and if you don’t have a Dreamcast, you can also grab it for Windows, Mac and Linux. A 3DS version is also promised in the Kickstarter, but no demo is available. Take a look below and see what you think.

There’s something odd about Sega fans. They seem to like petitioning for things, quite a lot – whether that’s Sonic Adventure 3, a new model of Dreamcast, or even HD remasters of the first two Shenmue games. Thousands of people sign them, unconcerned with feasibility, commercial appeal and other such trivial matters.

Now, the latest bizarre Sega-related petition has arrived, and this time it concerns a game that was never even released in the first place. The goal: get Propeller Arena released on modern download services.

If you’re not familiar with Propeller Arena, it was an aerial combat game for the Dreamcast featuring vintage planes, which was heavily geared towards online multiplayer. The game was cancelled despite being basically finished, as Sega fairly assumed that players couldn’t be trusted with a game featuring skyscrapers, aircraft and voice chat in the wake of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Of course, like many other Sega petitions, it’s got some major problems – for a start the game featured heavy usage of licensed music, which would all need to be replaced.

Take a look at the game below and tell us if you’d like to see it revived for modern audiences.

It’s been about a decade since downloadable games became commonplace, thanks to services like Xbox Live Arcade and later the PlayStation Network store and the Wii Virtual Console. But while we’re all downloading games today, these were far from the first machines to offer downloadable games – in fact, people have tried to offer these services for about 35 years now. Take a look back at some examples…

If you’ve ever wanted to join up with your friends to take command of an alien tank battalion and blow up Tokyo, today is your lucky day – but you’ll need to dust off your Dreamcast to do it.

Sega’s Alien Front Online was a bit of a revelation back in 2001, with voice chat using the Dreamcast microphone and online deathmatches for up to eight players. However, the game was switched off in 2003 in the great North American Dreamcast server massacre.

Now it’s back online thanks to the efforts of dedicated fans Petter3k and Shuouma. If you want to play it, check out that link – just be aware that the server’s in beta and you’ll need a special Raspberry Pi kit to access it.