Fighting Game News and Speculation 2007-2009

[Thongboy Bebop]

If Scott Bakula ran into 14 year old me and told me that one day SF4 would come out and I would barely be able to muster enough interest to click the 500 youtube links I've been sent this week, I'd comb that bitch's head with my goon hand for sure. But honestly... I just don't care.

I heard "Life Changes" on the new Wu Tang album, and my eyes welled up. I heard SF4 was finally coming, and nothing. Am I the only one?

N

[Xenozip.]

First, Capcom never gets it right on the first try. How many games do we play that was the first of the series? Much like every one of their titles, I don't think it will be "THE GAME" until the second title (if one is ever made).

Second, I don't care about SF4 at the moment, but honestly I'm taking the same approach to it that I do with every game: I'll wait until I can actually play it.

I'm sorry, but if it's not currently in my hands then I just don't give a damn. I can't get hype for something that I can't even play. A lot of games are cool on paper, but I really just have no interest unless I can get a feel for the game by actually playing it.

I've also been avoiding a lot of the SF4 buzz that goes on in chats and forums, but not because I'm uninterested in how it will turn out, I'm really just very disinterested in theory.

One of the few things that I read was that the percentage amount that has been completed with the game is still single digit area. And that's about where my interest level is at.

[Maj]

I loved the SFIV debut trailer. I'm happy that they're finally making the game. I'm looking forward to the new faces that this will bring in, cuz there's absolutely no downside to converting more players to the glory of ST.

As far as my opinion of SFIV itself ... uh, whatever. I'll probably play it when it's released but who knows if i'll take it seriously. I'm avoiding the SF4 forum on SRK and i'm barely following the news. It would be dope if all major developments got posted in this thread so i wouldn't have to sort through ten years of fanboy speculation unleashed. Cuz at the end of the day, i do care enough to want to know about new screenshots or character art or whatever.

I guess i'm more excited about the idea of SFIV existing than the eventual opportunity to play the actual game itself. What i really want to play is SF4 Hyper Fighting.

[Xenozip.]

I've peeked in there a few times, but sadly I only saw bad things, so I stopped peeking. But more importantly the game is unfinished, so anything and everything that is posted there really isn't carved in stone, and probably shouldn't be treated as such.

So once again, I'd rather just wait till the release. All the little tidbits there that I could collect are nothing more than smoke and mirrors to me.

[fullmetalross]

I'm basically of the opinion of Maj.. with maybe a little more excitement to see what comes out of the combo systems and just gameplay in general. I'm not expecting it to be perfect I just want to see what happens.

[Maj]

It would be kind of funny (in a depressing sense) if the HF/SSF2 fiasco happened all over again. History repeats itself, and all that jazz.

Like if Sirlin implemented all these fancy exciting changes in STHD that Capcom chose to ignore while making SFIV, then it ruined the franchise foreva!

[Mike Z]

I've been keeping myself out of the hype mostly, since I prefer to play it, but I'm interested for one reason:
I hope it's true, but I read (on a Guilty Gear player's blog, no less,) that it's being developed by Spike. ( http://elvenshadowmike.blogspot.com/ search for Spike.) Not sure if this is old news or what, since I didn't see it anywhere else...but that's the company run by the guy who decided what was what for the other SFs before CFJ, as well as DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2 (thanks TBBB), so I'm holding out hope that it won't be bad. Forgive me if this was already mentioned somewhere in all the hype.
[edit] I would also hope that they would be applying all the things they know from having made the other games. The first-in-a-series games usually end up being broken because of a new feature, not because the game itself isn't any good, but it also usually takes a while to find out that the feature is broken.

Also if it's really single-digit percent complete, there is no way in hell they would release in 2008 and have it be any good.
Mike Z

[Xenozip.]

I read on the Capcom USA forums and in the EGM thread located on SRK that it's not being developed by either Spike or DIMPS. Those were rumors spread around pre-announcement. But since we're on the topic here's what I've read:

- It is being developed internally by Capcom Japan.

- Producer Yoshinori Ono (SFA, SF3).

- Character Concept Design Daigo Ikeno.

- Character Design Tatsuya Yoshikawa

- It's 2.5D. They are aiming for pure 2D gameplay with 3D graphics, which means the camera angle won't budge during gameplay.

- Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and Dhalsim confirmed. The timeline for the story is supposed to take place between SF2 and SF3 (after 2, before 3). Because of the timeline you can deduce what kinds of characters they will likely bring back. Obviously no deceased characters (so no Bison or Rose), and probably no characters that showed up much later in the SF3 timeline.

Aside from that, I have read a lot about the system mechanics, but absolutely nothing that I have read about the mechanics sounded like a good thing to me, so I won't bother posting it. And again, I did read that the percentage the game is done was in the single digits when Ono was interviewed, and Ono doesn't have a concrete plan for a lot of it, so I rather not bother with that kind of information anyway.

[Goryus]

...

Also if it's really single-digit percent complete, there is no way in hell they would release in 2008 and have it be any good.
Mike Z

Well, they appear to have a fully-functioning graphics engine, a working physics engine, a functional input system, and a build that is stable enough to allow some guys from EGM to mess around with it. So pretty much by definition, the programming side of things is more than 10% done.

I suspect that what's going on is that the art assets we've seen so far - two characters and one unfinished stage - are all they have at this point. So the other characters and stages probably still need to be modeled/mapped/textured/animated. Plus, they need to work on gameplay balancing, etc.

The 2% or whatever figure they were talking about is probably "percent of gameplay actualized", something a consumer might understand, rather than "percent of the total project completed." It probably took them several months of work to get where they are now.

[ShinjiGohan]

I'm looking forward to it, so long as I have a console to play it on lol.

Hopefully it won't come to the arcade though, I really don't want another series of arcade/console port discussion.

[Robyrt]

I'm sure I'll buy and play this game when it comes out. Until then, there's not much point in eagerly lapping up every whiff of speculation. I did that with OMF Battlegrounds (and other games) and the final product turned out to be very little like the original concepts. I'm glad they're making a sequel, I'd be interested to see what happens to the iconic characters because I'm a brand dork, but right now there's so much quality game content out there that my mind is on other things.

[Xenozip.]

Oh right, that's something else that I read regarding ports. They haven't decided what console yet, most likely. In the EGM article it says Ono suggests if "they deem the market suitable" Capcom could do a PS2 or DS release.

But that could mean anything.

[ZenFire]

Someone linked me to scans of the EGM article and after reading it I have to say some of my worries were gone. Ono's personality (albeit 2nd hand info) seemed to reassure me that he was a big enough fan of the series to do it justice/not screw it up. Not only that, he's actually been around enough SF games to know what SF is about, so I'm not afraid of something way off base. Throw = LP+LK, that was nice. I always said that was one of the big things I liked about SF3 and added a lot to the strategic depth. The whole muscle structure and deforming faces thing sounds nice but I have no idea if I'll like it until I see it in motion. All the talk about Chun-li's thighs and Poison's package put a smile on my face. It's a good feeling when the people making the game as as fanboyish as the people that play the game.

[Maj]

Sirs, thanks for taking one for the team and relaying filtered info. I'm totally a fan of the artist, Daigo Ikeno. Never heard of Tatsuya Yoshikawa, but let's hope he knows what he's doing.

An arcade release wouldn't cause tournament version disputes. Most likely it'll be developed primparily for one of the major next gen consoles. Then if they decide to have an arcade release, they'll glue the CD tray shut and duct tape the console to the side of a cabinet. Maybe cover up the wires with some leftover Okami stickers.

[Xenozip.]

So I checked out the thread: new video? on SRK's SF-IV board and downloaded the video.

After watching the video I was inspired to take still-frame screenshots of certain things in the video and put them somewhere for a select few people to view and share.

Tonight you can view the images I took: here
Disclaimer: This is a private link, do not pass around. The link will only be active for tonight and will be gone tomorrow. I intentionally took shots that looked "bad" or "goofy" on purpose as a result of my initial impression of the video.

Mirror site for the images I took.

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGuqh6v-gNk

[Maj]

If they add a little more detail to the character models, i think it'll be fine. I like the overall style they've adopted cuz there's no need to go for ultra-realistic character designs. It's definitely comforting to see the game moving at turbo speed. Also i dig the fancy fireball effects. Hopefully they won't be distracting during gameplay. EvilNeil brought up an interesting point on another forum:

I was talking to a friend about this game the other day. He's someone who I used to play SF with back around the time of SFA2, but he's long since lost interest while I've gone from strength to strength. We were talking about how, when SFIV comes out, for a very brief period new and old players alike will suddenly be on an almost equal footing.

Obviously having background knowledge, better reactions, hand-eye co-ordination etc. will help, but it'll still be largely new and fresh to everybody. Of course those of us with our own websites and forums, with subscriptions and bookmarks and youtube channels and contacts will soon race ahead, but that first day will still be quite awesome, I think.

Now i wouldn't say that it's gonna be anywhere near equal footing, but on the positive side, whatever it is, it will probably last longer than a day. Based on what we know so far, it'll probably last as long as it takes for people to figure out how to deal with all the comeback mechanisms. Maybe a week? Though if new players want to keep up, they can certainly get by with a little effort.

I have two bothers and the youngest one has been playing SF for almost as long as i have. He goes to FFA to play 3S and he can hold his own against the average tournament player. Brother number two is familiar with the series, but he never really got past struggling with special move inputs so he never quite got to the heart of SF. I've started looking forward to SF4 cuz it'll give me the chance to finally get him up to speed. Even if i have to limit my playing time so i don't jump ahead, i'm not gonna waste the opportunity to finally show him what we've been seeing all this time. I guess i could show him with ST or A2 or something, but i he probably won't enjoy it as much as whatever Xbox360 soccer game he's playing. After he gets good at SF4, i'm definitely introducing him to ST though.

[Xenozip.]

Nah that actually is a valid point. The very first day that I get a new fighting game, my brother and I have so much fun playing it for the first few hours. Then we both start actually learning how to play, and I start consistently winning, and it quickly becomes unfun and he quits playing.

And that's pretty much every game I can think of. It's fun until you learn what you're actually doing.

[Xenozip.]

On a side note, I don't really care how the game looks. I just took those shots because some of them were pure comedy. If I play the game or not it will be based on how the game mechanics actually pan out, not how it looks.

But for right now, the juggle system and the revenge meter sound completely retarded and made of fail to me. But I'll reserve my actual judgment for when I have it in my hands and can actually play the damn game. I hate speculating.

[laugh]

So I'm not the only one that got some red flags on the mechanics from watching the video. The revenge system worried me the most. The idea of giving you something when you get hit or block isn't new (ie. gives you meter in most games now) but the functions of the meter itself had me worried a lot. I can only hope for the best first installment.

I'm ok with the graphics so far. I was more appreciative of the graphics in a lot of aspects because I had just bought an EX2 arcade board almost that same day that video came out and the memory of how EX2 looked like was still fresh in my head.

[Maj]

Famitsu has posted a new trailer and new images including a clearer illustration of the new female character. The link to the streaming video is at the bottom, but it's under a minute long and doesn't show anything new besides maybe chain combos. Guess we'll have to see how that pans out.

[Xenozip.]

The first new character revealed looks straight out of KoF, complete with a cliche name "Crimson Viper." This directly contradicts Ono's interview statement that SF4 characters would be "serious fighters."

{original post}

I really think people need to cut that new character some slack.

First, I personally have only seen a character concept artwork of her. I have no idea what she looks like in-game. She could look the same, or she could remove her glasses and gloves and tie, she could have all legitimate special moves and normals or maybe quite the opposite, who knows. But regardless, I think she looks fine.

Regarding the hair, she isn't the first Capcom character to have wacky hair.

Rose, Birdie, Guile, Charlie, Akuma, Yang, etc.

Sure it's a little goofy. So what? Personally I'm glad they gave her something a little goofy because I really think that's part of Capcom's general style to get a little funky with hair. As an artist, I know that it's very important to create character designs that you can immediately recognize just from a silhouette, and I think she fits the bill. In the list of characters that I posted above, I love each and every one of them as a fan and I don't think the hair takes away from their personality, if anything it adds to it.

So the suit looks like something out of SNK, but it also looks like stuff out of Capcom to me as well. It reminds me of something I'd expect to see in either the Alpha series, Vampire series, or Rival Schools series. But what does that have to do with the seriousness of how she fights or as a fighter in general?

The design for the clothing is a little KOF looking but at least she's not a mutant or cyborg or dinosaur. To me she looks like a biker, with those gloves of hers and large glasses, at least. For all we know she could get into plenty of streetfights/fistfights at biker bars.

She look to me a fuck of a lot more "serious" than Blanka, Dhalsim, Necro, and Oro

Not to knock those characters of course, but why is it ok for Capcom to create characters that are mutants and unrealistic fantasy characters that you'd never ever see in real life, but for this new chick to look a tiny little bit SNK-ish it's suddenly not OK and she isn't serious?

Ok, so she's no Chun-Li, but we already HAVE Chun-Li.

[/End vent-rant-blah]

[Maj]

I hadn't noticed it until Zakuta-AI brought it up on HVO (page 53), but Crimson Viper kinda resembles a Shadoloo doll. If that's her origin, instant approval!

Btw i'm also digging how the Capcom Japan SFIV website has her listed as C.Viper.

[jchensor]

I really think people need to cut that new character some slack.

First, I personally have only seen a character concept artwork of her. I have no idea what she looks like in-game. She could look the same, or she could remove her glasses and gloves and tie, she could have all legitimate special moves and normals or maybe quite the opposite, who knows. But regardless, I think she looks fine.

Regarding the hair, she isn't the first Capcom character to have wacky hair.

Rose, Birdie, Guile, Charlie, Akuma, Yang, etc.

Sure it's a little goofy. So what?

I have to count myself as one of the people who absolutely hate this character design of Crimson Viper. Hate. But then again, I've hated a good chunk of SFIII's characters as well.

The reason I am so against Crimson Viper's look is because... what on earth is she? The thing that made SFII so appealing is that all the characters have a theme. You got big wrestler, American dude, a Boxer, a Muay Thai guy, etc. etc. Blanka is weird, true, but he's just half-man half-beast. Dhalsim, well, anyone who's seen The Man with the Flying Guillotine knows where Dhalsim came from. ^_^ About the only character that's "weird" based on story is M.Bison (Dictator).

Once we reach Street Fighter III, we started getting characters like Remy and Oro and Necro and Twelve. I mean, really, what are they?!? Okay, Remy is human, but he's just dumb (just put GUile in the game, dammit). And they started going the route of making characters... something based on whatever weird story concept they wanted. It even started in Alpha with Rose, another character design I hate. I'll defend R.Mika over all of these characters any day because R.Mika is your prototypical Japanese female wrestler.

So here we have SFIV. There is a great chance for the game to go back to its near BLoodsport-like roots. Make it about fighting again. I don't want secret societies. I don't want magical powers. I don't want weirdly hip dressed characters who belong in a FInal Fantasy game. I want fighters. Put Dudley, Makoto, Elena, and Ibuki in the game. But leave out the Uriens.

This is why I hate the Crimson Viper character. KOF is filled with all these random characters that just happen to fight. I want characters who are supposed to fight. Street Fighter is about fighting, let's bring it back to its roots.

- James

[Xenozip.]

The reason I am so against Crimson Viper's look is because... what on earth is she?
-snip-
- James

I understand exactly where you're coming from. Actually I've seen Master of the Flying Guillotine quite a number of times and I'd say Chun's from there, too. :)

I don't know what C.Viper is because I haven't seen a bio for her. To me she looks a lot like a biker chick, some one who probably gets into fights at bars (hence, a fighter!). I don't know what her suit is, maybe a dealer at a casino or a bar tender or even a bouncer at a club, I don't know. But this is speculation, something I'm not fond of, so I'll just leave it at that.

And I see what you're saying. You can't really tell just by looking, and that can be irritating. Or we can assume she's just a fighter and not really "anything", and that can be irritating as well. But for me that would be jumping the gun since I don't actually know what she is, and even not knowing right away I personally don't mind that either.

However, you really can't please everyone though. If they made a stereotypical black male with all the stereotypes associated with it then you'd have people flaming them for recycling old dead cliche's and racist stereotypes. And then on the other hand you'd have some people who absolutely love the character.

But it's not as though it hasn't already been done. We have the boxer, we have the kick boxer, we have several kung fu characters, we even have the capoeira fighter. The roster for SF4 is very likely to see a lot of these generic realism stereotype characters from the SF2 games as it is, because they are bringing a lot of them back, so I don't see why the additional characters should be rehashed versions of the older characters on top of it.

Also, personally I think it'd be crazy of them to hand tailor everything for the American audience. They should be targeting Asia. And if that's what they want, then personally I say go for it, more power to them.

Then again I'm in that demograph of players who actually dislikes the cliche stereotypes. Call me crazy, but I actually like Rose. And I like Zappa and Faust from Guilty Gear as well. I also like Chizuru from KOF. And I really like Yukari from Touhou/IaMP. And possibly my two favorite character designs weren't fighting game originals in the first place, but found their way into fighting games anyway; Dio Brando and Spiral. So I guess I'm one of the ones who will forgive negative realism for the sake of a character with a lot of personality and charisma. But, I'd like to point out that all the characters I've listed off (Rose, Zappa, Faust, Chizuru, Yukari, Dio, Spiral) are characters I don't play or even enjoy playing when I play these games. In those respective games they come from, I pick the character to main based on how they play, not how they look, and often times that means the character that I think looks cool and the character I actually play are not one in the same. Really, I don't main any of those characters that I've listed as the ones that I actually do like.

But see, the reason I was playing Street Fighter and not Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct was because Street Fighter had better designed game mechanics. If aesthetics actually mattered to me, then yeah you bet your ass I'd be playing MK and KI. But I'm glad that I'm one of the ones who doesn't let aesthetics get in the way of the gaming experience in the first place. And yes I'd like to emphasize "get in the way".

But before I digress further, regarding the topic of C.Viper specifically; yeah probably not their best design. But I doubt it's the worst either. Even the unpopular characters they make get surely and thoroughly loved by at least some one who appreciates the design. Chikyuu is one of my fighting game heros (Blip's too) for rocking those wacky nonsensical (and usually low tier) characters in every game he plays. I'm hoping C.Viper will turn out that way too, but it remains to be seen since all we have right now is concept art. If they made her like a Amazonian princess or a Pirate, except with fire and lightning based attacks, then yeah I think she'd get a lot of love. But I for one am very glad that they didn't, because I'm personally sick of seeing those gimmicky generic characters that we have in every game already.

More specifically, I'm sick of seeing the uniform, I want to see the character. I'd prefer to see a cool person waring jeans and a t-shirt, than seeing a dull character with a police uniform or karate gi slapped over them just to market to people who can hypothetically relate on some level.

[ZenFire]

I only just noticed the long ass braid viper has curling behind her. Also, what are those dark lines under her eyes? At first I thought they were glasses. The more of these 'dynamic stills' they put online the more I'm bothered by the models. Their mouths are huge. Their feet are huger, which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't look so blocky (I don't mean low-poly, just not organic). Ken obviously shares He-Man's stylist; the hair is just so lame. More of an animation thing, but Tatsu's shouldn't be this one (bad) pose rotated along the y-axis, but a more stretched out vertical leg and have it look liike every rotation looks like they're exerting energy to swing that leg over. Now it looks like they're actually riding a hurricane and have no control. I don't know what exactly, but something about Ryu's eyes bother me.

[Maj]

Can't believe you haters are hating on the first new Street Fighter character in nine years.

[Maj]

Well, that settles it. Guess i'ma be making SF4 combo videos after all. Here's to the next 5-7 years of Sonic Booms!

[Maj]

Ladies and gentlemen, i bring you the greatest web page ever to grace the entire internet:

The Greatest Web Page Ever to Grace the Entire Internet

Holy shit, so much awesome being handed out for free: Chun Li's helluva thighs, Guile's upside-down kick, Dhalsim's blurry foot, Zangief's splash!!

Some of the image filenames are pretty funny too: gai01.jpg, darusimu02.jpg, bura.jpg ...

[Goryus]

Look at Guile's face.

http://blog.capcom.com/wp-content/uploa ... _02_52.jpg

[Magnetro]

wow that's horrible. is the white guy in the gi with the fucked up legs supposed to be jewish? cause it looks like he has those funny half-hats they wear.