Side Arms Hyper Dyne takes the ordinarily spaceship-driven shoot-em-up formula and replaces the ships with giant mech suits, while adding a layer of weapon customization reminiscent of Konami's Gradius series. Defending an attack by the alien Bozon empire, Lt. Henry and Sgt. Sanders jump into their Mobilsuits to take the fight to the aliens, wielding several different selectable weapons upgradable via power-ups. Shooting a power-up switches it between weapons, speed upgrades and an orbiting orb that enhances your firepower, allowing players a fair degree of freedom in choosing their weapon loadouts. Death can come swiftly, as the game plays notably faster than many shoot-em-ups of its era, but it doesn't feel cheap. The visual style and deeper weapon selections foreshadow the feel that would define Capcom's Forgotten Worlds three years later.

The first sequel to Street Fighter Alpha picks up where the first game left off, adding Dhalsim and Zangief from the original Street Fighter II as well as several newcomers (including playable bosses from the first game), and further developing the core gameplay. In addition to the Super Combo system, Alpha Counters, Air Blocking and Fall Breaking of the original, it adds a Custom Combo system that allows players to expend Super Combo energy to create their own combos, as well as updated stages and backgrounds, other gameplay updates and additional balancing.

The third and final game in the Street Fighter Alpha series, released in between even more Street Fighter games from other series, adds a variety of new characters to the previous games' roster while further developing its fighting systems. Alpha 3 centers on the addition of "Isms," a set of three selectable fighting styles that mimic various other games in the series (A-ism is similar to the previous Alpha games, X-ism works similarly to the combo system of Super Street Fighter II Turbo and V-ism is a variable style focused on custom combos). It also introduces the Guard Power Gauge, which depletes every time you block an attack, ultimately leaving you vulnerable to a Guard Crush (both your Ism stance and character choice influence the size of your Guard Power Gauge). Along with numerous other updates, these changes make Alpha 3 a significantly different beast from previous entries in the series.

Amid Capcom's continued development of new fighting games such as Darkstalkers following the success of Street Fighter II, it returned to the series with Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams in 1995. Featuring all new art in a more expressive style influenced by its post-SFII games and the Street Fighter animated movie, the game depicts younger versions of the original characters as well as several new characters. Alpha further developed the Street Fighter formula with the inclusion of the Super Combo system introduced in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Alpha Counters, an Auto mode for less experienced players and tactics such as air blocking and chain combos.

Building on the boundary-smashing success of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Capcom released Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting less than a year after Champion Edition. This third game in the series was designed to up the ante as players mastered the game (if the use of both "Turbo" and "Hyper" in the title wasn't a giveaway), with accelerated gameplay that required more precise timing and additional special moves for most of the characters. With other refinements including new color palettes, Hyper Fighting further polished the characters and gameplay of the original Street Fighter II.

Street FIghter II: The World Warrior is largely credited with creating the fighting game genre as we know it, and Champion Edition built on its success with refinements that made it more competitive within its genre, becoming the best-selling edition of the game. Champion Edition's key additions were the ability to play the four boss characters (Balrog, Vega, Sagat and M. Bison) and to play mirror matches with the same character, though it also updated some of the fighters' moves and added various balance tweaks and refinements to the game. Street Fighter II is considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time, and the Street Fighter series is still among the most popular within the competitive fighting community.

Based on the CPS-3 hardware, which allowed a new level of visual fidelity, the Street Fighter III series continued to evolve the Street Fighter formula with the addition of new mechanics: the ability to parry attacks, leap attacks, as well as Super Arts, selectable special moves that use a power gauge. In addition to adding a variety of new characters to the Street Fighter III roster (because it wouldn't be a new Capcom fighting game without them) and new stages and endings tied to the returning characters, and continuing the EX special moves from 2nd Impact, 3rd Strike adds the Grade Judge system, which awards special bonuses based on how well you performed across several metrics (in case your friends and opponents trash talking you wasn't enough).

Strider brought an audacious combination of visual style, gameplay mechanics, level design and sound design to unsuspecting arcades in 1989, creating a dazzling spectacle that would influence countless games to come. Based on contemporary manga Strider Hiryu, the game puts players in the shoes of a ninja on a mission to assassinate the Grandmaster, who rules over the dystopian future world. Strider's constantly changing setting, moving from gleaming fortresses to sprawling airships and beyond, sets the stage for one of the most acrobatic platform/hack and slash games of its era — it requires both careful timing and constant judgment of exactly what you can run, climb and jump on in your relentless push forward. Its high level of difficulty, creative bosses and even the hero's iconic arc-shaped blade animation have helped make it an arcade legend that still deserves attention.

Inspired by games such as Sega's Puyo Puyo series, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo merges falling block puzzle gameplay with superdeformed versions of characters from Street Fighter II, resulting in an odd mashup that probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as much attention if not for its Street Fighter connection. As in numerous Japanese head-to-head puzzle games, players must maneuver falling blocks in a narrow playfield to match colors, clearing blocks as quickly as possible while sending "garbage blocks" to your opponents side to slow them down. The twist here is that only sparkling Crash Gems will actually clear the blocks, making it possible to set up huge chain reactions but also requiring more careful planning to avoid overflowing your playfield. The game's charming presentation and music, including battles in the center of the screen that mirror whether you're winning or losing, make it worth a try even if puzzle games aren't necessarily your thing.

Nestled somewhere between its earlier scrolling beat-em-up games like Final Fight and Magic Sword and its later Dungeons and Dragons series, Capcom's The King of Dragons brought 3-player fantasy combat to arcades in 1991 with five playable characters of varying abilities. The party must fight its way through hordes of orcs, trolls, minotaurs and other fantasy baddies to fight the red dragon Gildiss, who has besieged the land of Malus. Though the combat system is relatively rudimentary, it does feature a magic system which attacks all characters on-screen at the expense of health, providing a measure of tactical depth, in addition to a leveling system that increases player health and attack strength as you continue. Though not a classic on the level of Golden Axe, the game does have a colorful graphic style that evokes a certain era in arcades.