Fighter’s History: Legally Not a Street Fighter Clone

No matter what old video game you’re talking about, there’s someone out in the retrogaming community who carries a torch for it. Sometimes you learn that people care a lot about a game you’ve never even heard of. This was the case with me with the recent remake of Night Stalkers, a horror-themed beat-’em-up released for the Switch this September.

The original game, which hit arcades in 1993, pitted three heroes against an army of undead monsters in the way Final Fight pits three heroes against street crime. And although this game sounds like the exact kind of thing I would have plunked quarters into back in the day, I don’t recall ever seeing Night Slashers in any arcade. Clearly, a fandom exists, however, because I can’t imagine why the publisher, Forever Entertainment, would have bothered to remake the Data East title otherwise.

Back in the arcade version, the three selectable characters were Jake Hunter, an aptly named American monster hunter who fights with cybernetic enhancements; Christopher Smith, a British vampire hunter; and Honghua Zhao, a Chinese mystic and martial artist. The remake adds an additional option: Feilin Liu, another Chinese fighter who also happens to be both a classical opera performer and a master of praying mantis kung-fu — a real renaissance woman! And while it’s odd that Night Slashers would feature two Chinese characters rather than diversifying the line-up with someone from a fourth country, it’s even more unusual that Feilin may look familiar to people who frequented the arcades back in the day. She’s one of the combatants in Fighter’s History, a one-on-one brawler that so resembled Street Fighter II that Capcom actually sued its publisher, Data East again, for copyright infringement, saying that certain characters, special moves, background stages and other elements seemed to be not just derivative of ones in Street Fighter but fully copied from them.

And yes, you guessed it: Feilin was perceived as being a copy of Street Fighter II’s Chun-Li. 

I have the advantage of hindsight, but looking at the two side by side, I see it and I don’t. Sure, Chun-Li and Feilin are both female Chinese fighters, but then again so is Pai in Virtual Fighter, Xiaoyu in Tekken and Xiangfei in Fatal Fury — and none of them seem to be biting Chun-Li’s style, moveset or background story. Iconic though Chun-Li may be, she doesn’t get to own being a female Chinese fighting game character wearing a traditionally Chinese costume. And if you watch Feilin in action, you’ll see that she lacks Chun-Li’s aerial prowess as well as her two trademark moves, the Lighting Kick and the Spinning Bird Kick.

Of course, that’s not what Capcom claimed in its suit against Data East, and that’s not how Feilin was perceived in coverage of the suit back in the day. This blurb from a June 1994 issue of GamePro specifically calls Feilin out.

Via Archive.org.

Weirdly enough, Feilin ended up in gaming news twice in the past few weeks — not just for appearing in the Night Stalkers remake but also because former Game Fan editor Mollie Patterson announced on BlueSky that she’d unearthed a piece of gaming history related to the Capcom vs. Data East lawsuit: a VHS tape featuring Data East’s arguments countering Capcom’s claims of copyright infringement. Patterson promptly posted the video on YouTube, and for that I am thankful because it’s not only a part of video game history but also a triumph of camp.

The video is hosted by Data East corporate liaison Mitsuko Adleman, whose delivery is polished and calm as she explains the intricacies of one-on-one fighting games to an audience that knows nothing about them. Not only is there something uncanny to the way she speaks, but it’s just plain weird to see this style of video game, which otherwise lived in noisy arcades and pizza parlors, being thrust into an antiseptic legal context. For what it’s worth, some of Adelman’s defenses are compelling, but then again she hits below the belt when it comes to comparing Feilin and Chun-Li, saying, “Feilin is a serious, strong woman fighter who commands respect. Chun-Li, on the other hand, grins and giggles, portraying a stereotype of a young girl who need not be taken seriously.” Ouch.

(Also I am fascinated by Mitsuko’s bangs.)

The video also lays out Data East’s explanations for the other six characters Capcom alleged were too similar to Street Fighter’s. I was surprised, for example, that Capcom claimed Matlok Jade, the British punk character, infringed on Guile, because I always thought Jean, the French gymnast character, looked more like him. The way Jean’s tank clings to his muscled body sure screams Guile to me, but I guess Matlok’s vertical hair made Capcom single him out.

Both Matlok and Jean have fireballs and anti-aerial kicks that function like Guile’s Sonic Boom Flask — and with identical inputs! But per the Data East video, Capcom accused Jean of being imitative of Vega, which I really don’t see, aside from the fact that both are European in origin and acrobatic in combat.

Capcom also accused Samchay, the Fighter’s History muay thai fighter, of being a clone of Sagat, but again that seems wrongheaded to me. They’re similar in that they’re based on real-life muay thai fighters, which is why others in other franchises — say, Shura in World Heroes or Joe Higashi in Fatal Fury — look about as much alike as these two do.

And then there’s Marstorius, a big bear of a man and a wrestler to boot, so it would seem fairly obvious that he would be based on Zangief. According to Data East, however, he’s based on the real-life wrestler Bruiser Brody, who was famous for wearing fur kickpads.

And then finally we have the two leads — the Ryu and Ken of Fighter’s History, as it were, and these are the ones I can see the best argument for being distinctly derivative, even if they’re not palette swaps like Rui and Ken were. Representing the U.S., we have Ray McDougall, a banana blond detective who fights in jeans and a tank, and representing Japan, we have Makoto Mizuguchi, who looks like a bare chested Ryu. Both have a fireball move (with the input being the same as the Hadouken’s in Street Fighter) and a spinning kick move (Ray’s being identical to Ryu and Ken’s Hurricane Kick, Mizoguchi’s being reversed). Notably, neither has an uppercut move, perhaps because Data East felt that would be pushing it too far.

On March 16, 1994, Judge William Orrick Jr. ruled that Data East did not infringe on any copyrighted Capcom materials, not because the games and concepts weren’t similar but because the similar characters, ideas and game mechanics were not protected by copyright. (You can read the full text of the ruling here, and there’s a chapter about this in Polygon’s excellent oral history of Street Fighter.) In particular, Orrick opined that “control sequences” couldn’t be protected because, among other reasons, “there were both functional and practical constraints that limited the range of expression available to game developers trying to design control sequences.” Or to put it more simply, copyrighting control inputs would give Capcom an unfair marketplace advantage because other game companies would be deprived of basic and essential tools for making games. (These comments echo ones made by Data East president Tetsuo Fukuda at the outside of the trail, as quoted in this January 1994 issue of Play Meter magazine.)

In a separate section, Orrick also discusses special moves. Though it’s not clear from the text itself, I assume he is referring to the visual elements associated with these moves or the way they function in a given game — how they exist without taking into account controller inputs, because he discussed those separately. Of the twenty Fighter’s History special moves Capcom brought to the court’s attention, Orrick said that five were too similar to Street Fighter II ones that were, in fact, subject to copyright protection. The text does not say which ones, however.

And then when it comes to characters, Orrick stated that while Street Fighter II’s roster essentially amounted to uncopyrightable stereotypes, there may be design features which could nonetheless be protected. Based on these “expressive details,” three of the characters at the heart of the suit did in fact seem too similar. Surprise: It’s not who I would have guessed. It’s Feilin, Ray and Matlok, who, as Orrick saw it, were too reminiscent of Chun-Li, Ken and Guile. Samchay, Mizoguchi and Mastrorious, he decided, “were more different than similar” to Sagat, Ryu and Zangief. (Jean and Vega are not mentioned in Orrick’s ruling, which leads me to believe that for some reason they were removed from the discussion sometime after Data East made the Mitsuko Adelman video. I’m not sure why, but I’m getting my hands on documents relating to the court in an effort to find out this and also more about what special moves were discussed in the case and under what circumstances. I think there is more here!)

In the end, Orrick left the door open for Capcom to take their case to a jury trial, which did not happen. The judge implied that it might be a tough sell, however, saying, “Having viewed hours of videotape and guided by the almost exclusively contradictory opinions of two experts, the court concluded that to the extent elements of Street Fighter II were protectable, many of the comparable elements in Fighter’s HIstory were more different than similar.”

Of course, this may have been the outcome Data East had expected all along, as it had found itself on the opposite end of a similar video game-related copyright lawsuit in 1988. In Data East USA, Inc. v. Epyx, Inc., the former accused the latter of producing a one-on-one fighting game, World Karate Championship, that ripped off the former’s Karate Champ. While a district court initially found in favor of Data East, an appeals court later ruled in favor of Epyx. In fact, that ruling set a legal precedent stating that the scènes à faire principle applied to video games. (Scène à faire literally translates from French as “scene to be made,” and it refers to something that almost always has to be featured in a work of a given genre and therefore can’t be copied. While it had been used in copyright suits involving other forms of media, it was new territory for a courtroom to decide how it could apply to video games.) The great irony of this lawsuit, of course, is that Data East is generally credited as inventing the martial arts fighting game genre with Karate Champ, even if other games preceded it. Viewed in the most reductive way, Karate Champ is a game that features a guy in a white gi fighting a guy in a red gi, and that is essentially the crux of Street Fighter as well. 

While Data East won this particular battle, it lost the war. It went bankrupt in 2003, with most of its library being purchased by G-Mode, including the Fighter’s History series and Night Stalkers. So while it’s great that Feilin gets to live on beyond the span of the Fighter’s History series and show up in this new Night Slashers remake, it’s a bummer for any fans out there wish Fighter’s History had been able to make a dent in the juggernaut that is Street Fighter. In fact, by the time Orrick issued his ruling in the case, Capcom had already debuted Super Street Fighter II, which featured super moves and four new fighters — including Fei Long, a Bruce Lee-type with a similar name to Feilin’s.

While I was eager to publish this post, about the unlikely coincidence of Feilin making news twice in the matter of weeks, years after her heyday, I’m also looking forward to sharing what else I can find by looking through the court documents. Stay tuned!

Miscellaneous Notes

Not counting spinoffs, the Fighter’s History series only comprises two games: the original and the sequel, Fighter’s History Dynamite, which was released in 1994. The sequel introduces two new fighters. One, Zazie, hails from Kenya, meaning that this series introduced an African fighter years before Street Fighter III got an African representative in Elena — and what’s more, it escaped some of the horrendously offensive stereotypes Capcom was considering when it was toying with having an African fighter during the early planning stages of Street Fighter II. (See my most on the weird origin of Blanka and his name for more on that.) The other new fighter, Yungmie, hails from Korea — again beating Street Fighter, which wouldn’t have a Korean fighter until Juri in Street Fighter IV.

What’s interesting about Yungmie is that she’s basically Balrog but with kicks. That is, instead of only relying on punches, Yungmie can only kick. Even her fireball is launched from a kick and not a punch, which is fairly unusual, as far as fighting games go. 

Given that it’s Chun-Li who is most famous for her powerful kicks in Street Fighter, I can’t help but read Yungmie’s existence as Data East saying, “Ha ha, you thought Feilin was a Chun-Li clone? Now we have the best kicker in the whole fighting game genre.”

Not to shade Capcom even more, but it’s interesting how the company went after Data East for infringing on copyrights considering how often Capcom incorporated characters and ideas it did not own into its own characters, particularly with Street Fighter II. I’ve got a history of all the Street Fighter II characters, and if you scroll down to the Chun-Li section, you can see that she was always derivative, the major difference being perhaps that Capcom considered her an amalgamation that added up to more than just the sum of her inspirations. Which is entirely valid, I suppose, so long as the judge who’s ruling sees it that way as well.

Considering how popular Street Fighter II was and how many video game companies used that game as a blueprint for their own attempt at a one-on-one fighter, it might seem surprising that Capcom went after Data East and not other companies. After all, if we are policing the fighting games of the age in search of a ripoff of a Street Fighter character, Ryo Sakazaki from SNK’s Art of Fighting not only looks and plays very much like Street Fighter’s Ryu, just orange, but his name is also extremely close. 

I’m guessing the reason there was not bad blood between Capcom and SNK because Art of Fighting and its sister series, Fatal Fury, are kinda sorta cousins to Street Fighter as a result of a shared lineage. The two chief creatives on the first Street Fighter were Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto. Three years after the release of Street Fighter, Nishiyama was the director of Fatal Fury, and one year after that, Matsumoto directed Art of Fighting. This is also the reason why a prototype Terry Bogard appears in the first Street Fighter, and why it’s not as weird as you’d think that Terry and Mai both are appearing as playable characters in Street Fighter 6.

That said, there does exist a crossover between Fatal Fury and Fighter’s History. Released in 2007 in Japan, Garou Densetsu vs. Fighter's History Dynamite is not a one-on-one fighter but a Final Fight-style beat-’em-up where you can play as Terry, Mai or Mizoguchi.

In 2008, SNK seemingly returned the gesture by featuring Mizoguchi in KOF Maximum Impact Regulation A. 

Points in favor of it being Jean, the French gymnast, who is the Guile clone in Fighter’s History? His full name is Jean Pierre, which happens to be the the first name of Polnareff, the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure character that Capcom meant to name Guile after because the Street Fighter character’s gravity-defying hair reminded them of him. As I explain in my history of Street Fighter II names, someone at Capcom confused Polnareff with J. Geil, and thus Guile is indirectly named after the band that did “(Angel Is the) Centerfold.” 

It’s funny what you remember about a review you read thirtysomething years ago, but I recalled one magazine panning the SNES port of Fighter’s History and noting that the sampled voices were particularly muddled. In fact, the review noted that when Ray shouts the name of his not-a-Hadouken fireball move, it sounded less like “Big Tornado” and more like “Baked Potato.” Listening today, I think it sounds downright decent, by SNES standards, but Reddit disagrees.

As a big fan of fighting games back in the day, I followed the news about the Data East lawsuit. But I was curious and confused about a separate character in Fighter’s History: Ryoko the judoka, who looked and played very similar to another female judo practitioner with the same name appearing in the game World Heroes 2, which was released in arcades the same year. What I didn’t know at the time is that both are based on a real life judo champion, Ryoko Tani. But they’re both so obviously her that I guess it wasn’t a concern that she would sue? Perhaps Japanese people aren’t as litigious, but this kind of collision between real-life celebrities and video games is the exact reason why the English localization of Street Fighter II swapped the boss names around, so the boxer character seemed less like a Mike Tyson reference.

So who if Feilin isn’t the most blatant Chun-Li ripoff — and I’m saying she’s not — then what fighting game character is? My money is on Tia Langray from Breakers for being the closest to an actual Chun-Li clone, because she actually has a rip-off Lightning Kick, even if she’s Thai and not Chinese.

Finally, I want to circle back to what I said about the Night Slashers remake and it being unusual for the game to add a second Chinese fighter rather than bringing in a fourth nationality. That is often how these games worked back in the day, with one representative of all the nations that get representation in this genre, but I think there’s something interesting in Data East arguing that Feilin is not a Chun-Li ripoff because not all female Chinese video game characters are the same. It’s probably entirely accidental, but having Feilin and Honghua Zhao both in the game is another instance of that fact: They are distinct, they are not redundant, and they’re not the same character, even if they’re both what often surfaced in these games as “the Chinese girl.”