Saving the Street Fighter Franchise

Gamasutra did an in-depth interview with Yoshi Ono, producer of Street Fighter IV, about trying to bring the series back to the quality and popularity of the '90s. Ono also talks about broadening the market to include casual players, who were slowly driven away from the game by the increased focus on competitive play. Quoting: "If you think about chess for instance, a kid and a grandfather can play the same game, with the same ruleset, and understand what's going on. I think through our competitive spirit back then; we were always out to out-complicate each other, and make our systems deeper and deeper. It was ok then because there was a wide player base who understood how to play these games, but that's not true anymore. What we're trying to do with Street Fighter IV is bring them back in. There's not a whole lot of other fighting games out there to compare it to, but hopefully, if we play our cards right and get people back in to the genre, we can blossom the genre itself again and spread things out and get it back to the way it was."

Comments

I Like it

[markass530]

being able to play my nephews at a game i grew up on, and watching them enjoy it also, definetly a nostalgic aspect their I would like to see, so I hope they can retain some of the original gameplay.

I played it at Comic Con

[PhrostyMcByte]

I'm a major fan of the series, so I had a lot of hopes for it. The graphics are noticeably improved, but the gameplay hasn't changed much. These kinds of games don't have a lot of room for depth though, so one can't really expect gameplay to change drastically.

I think the main problem Street Fighter has is that it's best played in an arcade, with a loud energetic environment surrounded by 5-10 people. Most people (in the USA, at least) don't go to arcades anymore.

So I played SF4 at Comic Con, it was fun. I still think Street Fighter Alpha 3 was the best of the series, but I'll definitely be buying this for the PC when it comes out later this year

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Datamonstar]

How can you say fighting games don't have a lot of depth? They are the one video game that I immediately think of when I think of depth. One move can have over a dozen different possible responses, each with their own consequences and benefits. Virtua Fighter is a game that is FULL of 50/50 situations where either player really can't win, only not loose so much and the player who successfully baits or guesses his opponent out will probably win. These are games, situations where you have to think not only about what beats what, but exactly why it beats and how to maximize the use of it. Sorry, but FPS games may have their share of tactics, but it's nothing like a fighting game where the situation is always constantly changing and you are being challenged mentally every move you make.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[PhrostyMcByte]

I agree there are tactics in these games, sometimes much more than any FPS. Combos have certainly stopped being innovative long ago. I would hardly consider combos to be depth. Give me something new!

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Datamonstar]

Combos are not and never will be equal to tactics. Zoning, baiting and trapping are much more important than combos. Combos are just ways to get quick damage. Those aren't the way to win. You win by creating the situation to land those combos. You know, tactics. I'd very much rather eat a 6-hit Akuma combo in Third Strike than get tricked into a 3-hit reset combo. This is because the damage-scaling makes the 3-hit combo much more damaging. Combos actually limit your damage output. Nasty players know how to trick you into thinking you can block the wrong way. Trick into thinking you're safe when you're not. In I play Urien in Third Strike and all I want to do is build my meter and get a single knockdown or air reel that I can capitalize on to start an unblockable chain. Combos are great if I am simply HANDED the opportunity to land one, but otherwise, I want a launcher or a close-standing knockdown situation. Those are tactics. Anyone can do combos, but landing them on a thinking opponent is very difficult.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[prlucas]

Methinks you misunderstand the concept of 'depth'. Meaning of story and meaning.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[prayag]

I think the main problem Street Fighter has is that it's best played in an arcade, with a loud energetic environment surrounded by 5-10 people. Most people (in the USA, at least) don't go to arcades anymore.

This is true for most of the world now. HOWEVER, what were earlier arcades can now be replaced by Wii/Xbox/PS parties where people get together and play on their own consoles. Its not exactly the same but something the new SF (given it is accessible for casual gamers) can find a good support from.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Anonymous Coward]

Counter-attacking is prolly best seen in an old classic on the n64 - Killer Instinct Gold (I still play it to this day). On fastest speed fights can be over in seconds. To say fighting games arent deep and dont have enough tactics is crazy.

The best SF imo would be ex3 on the ps2. The versatility of the characters is insane and the combos even awesomer

If its done right and its an arcade release also then theres no reason we cant get back into the old days :D

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[KDR_11k]

How's that any meaningful depth in a game? If you want a medium specialized on story and meaning read a book or something, don't expect it from a game that's designed for gaming.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[syntek]

I agree. Most fighting games have a lot of depth to them. Someone mentioned Tekken, but I think a better one to site would be Soul Calibur. Any new player can easily pick up the game and kickly learn the basics on attack horizontal (for side stepping opponents), vertical (for quick strikes), and kicks (for an extra mix of quick or devastating attacks). But the further you go into the game you find you can also parry and dodge attacks and that certain moves will leave opponents open long enough to do powerful moves. You can also chain combos together differently to mess up an opponent who thinks you going to attack high, when you attack low very simply by pressing in the directions you want to attack. This is where the depth or complexity occurs. When playing with friends who are well versed in the game (at the arcade or at home) our fights last much longer as we are familiar with the characters and the attack patterns and can anticipate moves and then think several moves ahead for several different outcomes. For instance my friend will try to bait me in, I know he is doing it, but I take a chance and dash in and sidestep out. If he attacks horizontally it will most likely be mid level and a simple block or parry will give me the upper hand for a few quick attacks before I have to retreat to a save distance as my combo will leave me open. Almost all fighting games have this sort of paper, rock, scissors equation to them, and its recognizing it and being able to manipulate this formula that makes a good player.

Also the people commenting below must not be very good gamers as all games, rpg, fps, rts, tbs, (except MMO's) have tons of strategy to them. I excluded MMO's because take wow for example: During a raid, all you must know is the specific timing and what to do for each raid and it's incredibly simple and quite easy. PVP is a bit different, as you have less time to react to situations and the situations is rarely the same. Even simple games like tetris and simular gam,es (read peggle and bedazzled) have strategy. Should you take out the pieces now, or risk letting them accumulate in hopes of getting the pieces you need for an even higher score.

I would go as far to say the majority of games (including video, board, and card games) have quite a bit of strategy and depth to them to any gamer who digs deeper into the system.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Datamonstar]

In this case, depth is literal. the amount of choices that one move can spawn. There are LOTS. Learning how to respond to a threat is the first step. When you learn that your opponent knows that you know how to respond to his threats is step two... Does he know that you know that he knows? Multiply that by the number of moves possible. Depth.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, tactics. I'd very much rather eat a 6-hit Akuma combo in Third Strike than get tricked into a 3-hit reset combo. This is because the damage-scaling makes the 3-hit combo much more damaging.

Wow.. just the fact that you know this makes me feel sorry for you. Ever thought about losing your virginity?

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, tactics. I'd very much rather eat a 6-hit Akuma combo in Third Strike than get tricked into a 3-hit reset combo. This is because the damage-scaling makes the 3-hit combo much more damaging.

Wow.. just the fact that you know this makes me feel sorry for you. Ever thought about losing your virginity?

Yes, he needs to learn to become equally (or more) obsessive about football or Nascar to be considered normal in the USA.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Hatta]

How can you say fighting games don't have a lot of depth?

Because most people just end up mashing buttons anyway.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yea, boxing is much more deep than Fallout 2.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever... that's just like saying Rock, Paper, Scissors has a lot of depth.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right to a point... You make it sound like fighting games are more complex in terms of processing all the info to make the appropriate decisions. You are only playing against 1 person. If they do not adapt, you win by default.

FPS games have the dynamic of mob mentality and team based strategy. I would argue this is equally complicated in terms of processing the data that you're observing on both teams and using that to your advantage. Who knows?

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Dr.Boje]

Not to put words in parent's mouth, but by depth I believe he was referring to the limits of the gameplay itself (and perhaps story and characters). While I agree that fighting games have a lot of re-playability , they don't necessarily have a lot of depth. Don't get me wrong. Sure, the game is very entertaining at first -- you learn the controls, then you learn special moves, then you learn some strategies, but once you get to the point where your improvements only increase ever so slightly, the game essentially becomes very repetitive. You end up doing the same basic thing without improving your skill enough to be meaningful.

However, this lack of depth is not necessarily a negative point. In fact, a lot of the best fighter games (and other genres) have very basic stories and characters so that all of the focus can be placed on the gameplay. In a fighter game, that is probably the most important thing to have done right. That said, I still think it is very important for any game to have an intriguing story and characters. Why? Because, once you get to the point where you have pretty much maximized your skill level in the game, the only things left to keep you entertained are the story, characters, and music.

Take the Super Smash Bros. series for instance (Brawl in particular). The gameplay is pretty easy to pick up and incredibly hard to master. You will eventually get to the point where the victor is always determined by the smallest margin (or by pure luck if items are turned on). There is so much extra stuff crammed into the game that you can constantly find new things to do or look at or listen to once you've mastered or become bored with the gameplay. Then, of course, there are unlockables (hidden character and stages), as well as additional game modes.

This brings me to an all-encompassing point regarding videogames. Games need to have a lot of content! Period! So you've just finished working on your awesome game engine and now you're putting the finishing touches on the gameplay. Well let me ask you this. Who's going to play your game once they tear through the single-player and find out there's nothing left to do? Who's going to appreciate your beautiful game engine when the only way to do so is to play through a campaign they've already beaten? Who's going to have positive memories of your game if they spent $50-$60 on it for a mere 6 hours of gameplay? I hope the answer is obvious.

Of course, before putting content in your game you need to have a solid base to work from. Your gameplay needs to be tight and original, as well as challenging (but not quite impossible). Your setting, story, and characters need to be engrossing. Your GUI cannot confuse or hassle the player ever. Once you have that crap taken care of, THEN you can start putting in as much content as possible. Think back to the days of Quake and Duke Nukem 3D. Okay, sure, Duke3D was pretty much one-of-a-kind when it came out (let's ignore Doom for the moment), so that is probably a main reason people played it and kept playing it. But you also have to consider the amount of content that game had. There were tons of levels, including single-player, cooperative, and deathmatch. There was also a ton of interactivity, stuff that had never been seen in a game before. But I think the biggest thing that kept Duke3D going (or any other FPS around that time) was the inclusion of a level editor (and subsequent releases of expansion packs). Quake 2 took it a step further by allowing people to develop their own mods. So not only have you provided your customers with tons of content to keep them entertained for many, many hours, but now you've given them the tools to create their own levels, art, and game modifications, which in turn will be shared with the community!

This brings me to one last point regarding videogames. If you need additional content, including a level editor and modding tools along with your game will provide it with long-lasting content generati

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Datamonstar]

LOL it does Basic strategy: watching your opponent to know what physical "tells" they give when making particular moves. Advanced strategy: memorized statistical analysis of your opponent. I don't see why it's very much different than basketball. For instance, trying to read Jordan's crossups were near impossible unless you'd studied hours of footage.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Repton]

Reminds me of something I read once on this topic, from someone in the industry (I can't remember details, sorry).

Basically, he said: we want people to be able to sit down at these games and just start playing. If you have to read a 20 page manual before you can do anything, you'll lose a lot of customers. So, button mashing has to be a viable strategy. It doesn't have to be the best way to play, but you should be able to win fights against easy opponents by mashing.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Datamonstar]

I was mostly talking about competitive play between two humans. Computer opponents are too predictable, and in fighting games that's exactly what you want to avoid. The entertaining part, for me, is still being able to find good combinations of strategy in games that are over 15 years old. This is depth.

The ability to put a trap within a trap within a trap and then successfully bait your opponent into seeing only one or two of those traps only to succumb to the third one is depth. It gets deeper with the amount of traps you can encapsulate with that one piece of bait.

This is why some fighting games, like the early Dead Or Alive games were considered to be horrible fighting games. There were very few moves that could be setup and used in this manner because many of them (primarily the counter system) could be defeated entirely at the first trap. Even if you did setup a clever trap string for your opponent, you could easily be frustrated to discover that it was all for naught as a single counter can completely reverse your trap before it is even sprung.

That's what I mean by depth.

As far as replay value goes, no two matches are exactly alike against a human opponent, and for this reason the re-play value in most fighters is near infinite. I still look in awe at some matches of a highly skilled Japanese player named Daigo attempting completely impossible feats right in front of his opponent and totally succeeding. To use my before-used basketball analogy, it's a lot like a player who can stuff every shot an offender makes against you. Only he allows you to *think* you are going to make the shot, and that is your true folly. The trap is actually your own self for going after what you thought to be something good. If you think that gameplay in a competitive game like Brawl can get boring simply because you've mastered it, then you're limiting yourself, which is fine if you are satisfied, but for me, competition is defined by the ability to go ever higher, so I never stop trying to master whatever game I'm playing competitively.

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Dr.Boje]

Now that you've clarified exactly what your definition of depth is, and I don't believe it coincides with the original poster's definition, I have to say there are things I agree and disagree with.

First, I understand the point you're trying to convey. Coming up with clever tactics and using different strategies against different opponents in order to defeat them does indeed add depth to a game and can be very rewarding for the player. And, yes, while there may be an infinite number of ways that a match can unfold, that does not give a game infinite depth. The problem arises after a player has mastered the reflex and tactical aspects of the game. While some may still be inclined to keep playing, learning, and trying to be the best, it's inevitable that most players will simply become bored. I've personally logged thousands of hours on Smash Bros. Melee and, as much as I enjoyed playing it in the past, I've simply played it too much. It's not that I have grown to dislike the game, but it just doesn't keep my interest anymore. I've done everything there is to do in that game and now it's become boring to me.

Second, I want to clarify how people (or at least myself) become bored with these games. For this example, it doesn't matter what game I'm talking about, just imagine that it is a well-made game. You start out by figuring out the controls. That doesn't take too long, but it's not particularly fun since you're probably getting smoked while doing so. Once you have the controls mapped to muscle memory, you can focus on how to best bring your opponent down. Players usually aren't aware of their surroundings once they are in this phase of learning, because they are concentrating solely on the opponent. It takes a really long time to master this phase, because you have to play tons of matches against opponents of varying difficulty levels... in other words, you have to practice your ass off. Eventually, fighting an opponent becomes second nature and the player is now able to focus on other things going on during the match, such as a weapon or health container that spawned on the other side of the map. However, the player cannot defeat every opponent, so more practice is needed. This time around, the player isn't focusing on pressing the right button at the right time, but rather on formulating strategies to counter the opponent's strategies. There is a LOT going on at this phase of learning and it takes a lifetime to master (most will never master it). The problem is that the improvement gains are so minuscule and the effort required is so gigantic that at some point, most people will just give up. Yeah, they could sit there for the next few years and become the best fighting game player in the world, but in the end they really have nothing to show for themselves other than the fact that they just wasted the past few years of their life.

What I personally find boring about these games is the gameplay itself. It takes quite awhile for these games to become boring for me, but they all eventually do. Once I've played a game enough, I start to realize that everything I do in that game is basically the same. I fight, I use my tactics and strategy, my opponent uses his tactics and strategy, we both react to each other the entire match, someone loses and someone wins. Game over. I know every map inside and out, I know every character's moves, I know what people typically do with certain characters, and I know how certain people play. I've basically seen and done everything there is to do and I'm done with it. Want to keep me playing? Give me more content.

Before I wrap this up, there's one game I would like to mention that did a very great job of keeping things fresh. That game is Quake II. What kept this game so interesting and fun to play was the continuous introduction of new game modes and levels. Vanilla QII was awesome, but it got boring. It's been awhile, but I believe Vanilla QII had Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag. Over the years, more and more ga

Re:I played it at Comic Con

[Datamonstar]

Each to their own. You basically just said that a game lacks depth because can get bored with it once you excel at it. While that can be true of any game, it is the difference between pros and amateurs. Those minuscule gains are exactly what a pro is out to achieve. They train every day bot to maintain their skill as well as to achieve an ever-higher degree of skill. I don't think any professional will ever say that his sport is "second nature." I'm sure some aspects of it may be reactionary, but any pro player who is mindlessly playing on trained instinct is going to get owned and loose his spot on the team/retire. I personally get bored with FPS games and I notice that I often die because I become conditioned to respond in certain ways. There's a lot of tournaments to make money and grow in popularity at, so I don't think there's absolutely nothing to show for one's effort. Is it worth the tradeoff of time spent honing one's skill? Perhaps. Perhaps not. but the same can be said of any activity. My boss spends gobs of time and money running marathons and I think that's really boring, but he gets great satisfaction upon completing a race. To him, a few seconds off his bike mile time is another success. Good for him. I have satisfaction knowing that I can recall 8 responses to a wake-up situation with my Urien and know each possible outcome of those 8 and how to exploit them to my advantage. Each to his own.

Too many scrubs

[Datamonstar]

no way the old days will be back. People still complain about a fireball + shoryuken trap, even in 3 when they could just parry out. Games aren't supposed to be complex anymore, just fun for about 2 hours so SF4 won't re-create the scene because everyone's moved on. Sure, we'll still have Evolution every year, and it will be dominated by the same players as every other year, and new tactics will be on display, but that is the large scale, which doesn't change very much. On the small scale, at home and in the arcades (wherever they may still exist), scenes that are established will flourish for a bit, but I see nothing that is going to start up an explosion of smaller, new scenes around the country. Online will be interesting, but without the social aspect, it will feel cold and empty. Street Fighter was just meant to be played by hardcore enthusiasts person-to-person, much like chess, as Mr. Ono equated it.

Re:Too many scrubs

[WDot]

Chess isn't a complex game. It doesn't take long to learn all the moves. However, it is a deep game. It requires cleverness and a lot of thinking (and in some cases, a good bluff).

Conversely, fighting games don't necessarily need to be complex. To bring new blood into the genre, fighting game designers should aspire to develop a game that enforces a chess-like mentality while keeping memorization to a minimum.

The Tekken series has been pretty good with not requiring that users grasp a million concepts before they can play competently, but it's still intimidating to some because in the latest edition, some characters have 300 moves. Granted, many of these are very similar (there's probably 20 or less moves that really stand out for each character), but that's still doesn't look good, especially to a neophyte who goes in thinking fighting games are a memorization exercise.

Fighting games wouldn't be fighting games without special moves. But for this generation, let's only do a few for each character. Concentrate on making players think cunningly.

I completely agree on your point about online fighting. Nothing beats your opponent being right there next to you, with friends/audience in the background.

Re:Too many scrubs

[KDR_11k]

Depends on how you see that, you pretty much have to know the depth in any competitive game so the complexity/depth split narrows. IMO it'd help more if game tutorials went beyond explaining the controls and went into some of the depth too (e.g. "this is how you perform a standard launcher air combo" and "Roman Cancels are used like this"). It's no wonder newbies feel intimidated when all they know about a game is manualspeak (i.e. an explanation that involves more fluff and hyperbole than actually useful knowledge, something that would describe just how fierce an attack is instead of saying "does moderate damage, covers a wide area to the front and top, vulnerable to crouched attacks").

I don't think there's anything wrong with going like Smash Bros or Bleach DS and make special moves single button affairs, if the game is balanced the input isn't needed as a hurdle for a move. You can do as many special moves as you want IMO, I don't think there's a real split between special and regular attacks except where the game adds it (e.g. being able to use a gauge to make specials into EX attacks), new players often think that special attacks are better than regular ones but if that were the case why are the regulars even in the game?

Special attacks aren't necessary or different in any form, you can jut as well merge them into the simple moveset of the character.

Re:Too many scrubs

[drsquare]

Conversely, fighting games don't necessarily need to be complex. To bring new blood into the genre, fighting game designers should aspire to develop a game that enforces a chess-like mentality while keeping memorization to a minimum.

With chess you have several minutes to decide your move. In a fighting game, you have half a second or less to mash the right button. The two are incompatible.

Re:Too many scrubs

[Anonymous Coward]

Chess isn't a complex game. It doesn't take long to learn all the moves. However, it is a deep game. It requires cleverness and a lot of thinking (and in some cases, a good bluff).

While I agree with a good portion of your comment, this one stands out from a programming perspective. The rule set for chess isn't complex, but programming a believable A.I. for it is incredibly complex. At each move you have over 16 possible moves, to which your opponent can reply with another 16, then you with another 16+, and so on. To set up an effective strategy, a chess player needs to look at the pros and cons for every move, some number of moves into the future. Just looking at the move you'll be making after this one is 16^3+ (or 4096) possible combinations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_chess. If Chess was simple, there wouldn't have been decades of research getting computers to play it effectively.

I'd argue that fighting games don't have as much depth, since for each attack there is some means to counter/block, but the move you make now likely won't impact you in 20, 10, or even 5 "moves" in the future.

Besides, we've all faced some kid whose only knowledge of a fighting game is that buttons = attacks and smash buttons means more attacks... then lost to them. That's something you simply cannot do in chess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_chess

Re:Too many scrubs

[SuiteSisterMary]

Chess stopped being fun for me when I realized that so much of it was simple rote memorization.

Re:Saving

[therufus]

Finish him!!!

It's a classic!

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't mess with the classics!

It's been over a decade, but I still know that a lower quarter circle + any punch = Hadouken!

Re:It's a classic!

[Martin Blank]

In the local arcades, people who had their timing down would shout, "No, you can't!" in time with that. Even though I stayed away from the game (I've never been good at such games) and stuck to Raiden and pinball games, I still wanted to beat those who said it over the head.

Re:Saving

[Thomas M Hughes]

Wrong game. That's Mortal Kombat.

Re:Saving

[certron]

I'm just glad they eventually were able to count higher than II.

Re:shit

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you were wearing your depends, senator.

Re:Obligatory

[Datamonstar]

Street Fighter 4 is already out in Japan and in some arcades in the U.S.

Street Fighter will live on...

[Khyber]

... but it won't be how the devs see it. MUGEN pretty much takes up my time when it comes to fighting games. Seriously, it's everything versus everything.

Re:Street Fighter will live on...

[Zombie Ryushu]

Mugen is problematic on Linux right now.

Re:Street Fighter will live on...

[Khyber]

It's problematic on Windows XP as well, and I doubt it'll work in Vista without some sort of modification to the code.

Re:Street Fighter will live on...

[Zombie Ryushu]

Well, here's the thing. The version of Mugen for Linux that exists today was made in 2002, and supports no necessary SDL features or OpenGL for Video accelleration.

The Japanese version of WinMugen works better in Wine some cases because of better support for more content.

(That said Playing as the Green Ranger is a thousand times more fun on Mugen rather than the Sega Genesis game he came from.)

Gee, maybe other fighting games offered something.

[UnknownSoldier]

What are these guys smoking?

Street Fighter while an fun game, died because the gameplay didn't evolve due to the zen of fighting (timing) like Soul Caliber, Tekken, Virtual Fighter, which also had smooth 60fps and 3d graphics.

I also think people got sick of the all variations of SF2. Hyper. Turbo. Enough already!

Re:Saving

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammit! I wanted a fatality, not a friendship!

Mistake in the article

[Datamonstar]

That's good, because the worry is that eventually with fighting games, exploits come out. I don't know if you have any sense of what those might be, or if you've totally gotten on top of all of them. Because... in CVS2, people would constantly roll and throw. Do you think that you've gotten them all out of the way so far?

In CVS2, rolling was not the problem, nor was it the throws. Throws actually beat rolling every time. The problem was that rolls were invincible, and more importantly, they were also considered special moves, which are cancelable into other special moves. And you kept the invincibility. Oops. It only lasts 3 frames, but that's enough.

Idea

[mazarin5]

Why don't they just release more versions of Street Fighter 2? That should work, right?

Re:Idea

[pizzach]

I know you meant it as a joke, but Capcom is still releasing new versions of Street Fighter 2. The latest is called called Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

Jackie Chan

[Dwedit]

Get Jackie Chan to portray Chun Li. (video clip from City Hunter 1993 movie)

I recently stopped developing my fighter

[CrazyJim1]

The reason I paused development is that no one wants to help me develop a NAT punch through. My game plays fine as long as you're not using your router.

I bring a new thing to the table with my fighter: Up to 1,000 players can fight in the same place, up from the traditional 2. The reason this is cool is that you have new dynamics like FFA, Team attacks, and giving one fighter increased statistics so he is like a boss vs everyone else.
And the only reason I wanted to do a fighter was to put me in a position to make an action paced MMOG.
And the reason I want to make an action based MMOG is that traditional MMOGs make me yawn.

To be honest: I'm at a stand still now. I don't know if I want to finish my fighting game or move on to a math teacher. The math teacher is cool in that most people can sit down behind it and learn math. It has many cool features that will make it the WOW of math teachers. The main difference is that not many people foresaw a computer teaching most levels of math and for it to figure out what math you don't know yet.

It is like... I want to make the game because it will be cool... But I also want to make the math program because it will educate people. Anyway my fighter is at: www.roamingdragon.com but it has no fun demos at the current time.

Re:I recently stopped developing my fighter

[plasmacutter]

contact the azureus team. they more than anyone would be able to tell you about getting around firewalls : )

Later Years

[Bwana Geek]

You wanna save the franchise? Base the next game on Street Fighter: The Later Years.

Re:Saving

[CrazyJim1]

Beating a dead horse is the new mini game replacing destroying the car.

Street Fighter the Later Years

[kriston]

The only thing I have to say is watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=street+fighter+the+later+years&search_type=&aq=f

I could accuse you of trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't, but someone else might.

I'll give you that, outside of SF3, the games are not very smoothly animated. SF3 is very pretty and very smooth. Street Fighter has always been about timing and zen, although prior to turbo, the game didn't have fast enough action to really be much fun.

The various versions of all the games are actually quite warranted. Few developers revise their games like this, or even have games that people would buy revisions of. Each revision in SF is generally seen as an improvement, and most have strong enough content updates to be considered separate from the unrevised game.

I'd thought the 3D nonsense was put behind us by the players, despite developers maintaining the delusion. Apparently not. If you look past the graphics for a moment SFIV is still essentially a 2D game, and if you don't, it's not quite as pretty as SF3 3rd Strike.

SF4 is what SF2 used to be

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing SF4 almost daily since its release over here in Japan. This game really brings back memories of how fun it was to play SF2. It also makes up for all of the crap SF3 titles that have come along in the years between the two titles.

"get off my lawn"

[plasmacutter]

seriously, you act as if most people, all the way from the late 80's, were not "button mashers".

The quality of the audience for these games has not changed since then, it was not "better" back then.

Re:Saving

[Creepy Crawler]

NOOB saibot wins! Fatality!

how good is it?

[floatingrunner]

if a franchise is well thought out and well designed, it will stay and no need to do anything special to "save" it. sf has come this far and has its reasons. (maybe JCVD helped yes?)

i am curious to see who will win a fight between a vetern grandparent who seen the birth of SF or a technology-savvy grandchild who's been with games before he/she can walk....

Re:Saving

[thetoadwarrior]

If you don't like it then don't play it. It's not our fault you can't recognise quality.

Smash Brothers?

[orkybash]

Yoshi Ono seems to place a lot of focus on bringing completely new, casual gamers into the SF franchise. So why does the article not once mention the one of the biggest "casual gamer" fighting games? He talks a lot about reducing the amount of memorization needed for a fighting game - this is exactly the argument that my friends used to get me into the original Smash Brothers on the N64. Be as derisive as you want, the Smash Brothers franchise (especially in Melee, somewhat less so in Brawl) is incredibly good at providing a fighting game that casual gamers can enjoy but that can also be played at a much higher level in a flourishing tournament scene (to the point where casual players, while still enjoying the game, have no idea just how good they can get at it until they sign up for a tourney).

Re:Smash Brothers?

[VinylRecords]

Smash Brothers is not a fighting game. It's a beat 'em up. Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter, Tekken, Guilty Gear, CvS, etc. are fighting games.

I'm looking forward to it

[kosamae]

Fighting games these days have two audiences, your VF4 hardcore crazy types, or your Soul Calibur I just want to mash some buttons types. I usually only break fighting games out with friends or family, so hopefully SF4 will give me something new everyone can enjoy.

Re:Saving

[poopdeville]

I'll see you at the arcade, LOSER.

Completely pointless, SC SF

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother? Street Fighter is retarded weaksauce.

Soul Calibur is the only fighting game worth playing.

That is all.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are there no PC fighting games? The genre is suspiciously absent considering the extremely high polygon count a modern PC graphics card could render for what is in effect only 2 models.

SF3 was ok...

[Leonidas89]

But blowing stuff up in Crysis is the new genre...

Is it a mare?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would defanitely beat off to it.

Fuck you. Street Fighter is the mansauce.

[Anonymous Coward]

It gives me back my joystick just thinking about it.

Sex with a mare?

Re:Saving

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I believe that's Return of the Jedi.

Re:Saving

[sortius_nod]

I don't see how this is flamebait. It's quite valid, I was hoping a lot of franchises would die recently:

Street fighter
Mortal Kombat
Mario
Halo
Devil May Cry
Medal Of Honor
Sonic
The Sims

The list goes on, beating a dead horse is one thing, equine necrophilia is another.

Re:Saving

[Anonymous Coward]

wow. you suck.

Eclipsed by Guilty Gear?

[AmiMoJo]

It sounds like Guilty Gear has already done what they are trying to achieve. SFII was quite "hardcore" in that to be really good at it you needed to learn all the combos, get perfect timing etc. With SF4 those things are still there.

Guilty Gear, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of SF in almost every way. Movement is very fluid instead of precise. Combos do /less/ damage with each move. There are complex aspects to it, but because it relies far more on the basics instead of memorisation and perfect timing, it's far more accessible. It's just a shame it's not popular in the west.

No Innovation

[Reapy]

There really hasn't been a new style of fighting game for a long while. To me, they all have the same weakness... learning curve + reaction time.

I've played most fighting games and wanted to like them since probably sf2. But everytime I try to play, the skill level of players is so skewed that one party was constantly not having fun. Getting your ass handed to you alll day long just isnt fun for anybody. You can't even learn moves, since you are too busy getting comboed/stunned/thrown whatever do death. All you really learn how to do is get up off the floor.

Soul caliber did a good job with some button mashing vs skilled opponent equality, but you still have a skilled opponent going in like 30 game streaks on someone who did not own the game.

The only traditional fighting game I've been able to enjoy is DOA:extreem. To win at doa, all I had to do was learn 4 "moves" to reverse my friend. I might not know the game, but I know my friends, and can figure out that they tend to lead with say medium kicks with a certain character. So very quickly I could play on equal footing with my friend who would go 50 and 1 against me in soul calibur.

But there is still a roof. You always have to learn your char, learn combos, proper ways to block, all that. You definitly hit a roof of where you can go in JUST multiplayer alone, and you really need to step back, open a FAQ, then learn and practice moves/combos on your own.

Fighting games just have a lot of technical stuff, on top of that, the time in which you have to react is so small, unless you have the dictionary of your moves, and your opponents moves, in your head, there is no time at all to formulate a game plan.

SF and SNK are particularly bad imho at the moves sets. For the first part of my life I couldn't do a dragon punch, and those SNK super combo things later on, what? Does anybody remember the accomplishment it was to do 2 360's for zangiefs special move? I mean yeah, eventually you learn it, but it sure is frustrating to not even be able to enter the commands to do a move. I know "EO" mode or whatever in some of these games is a solution, but it is still limits you how you can play the game.

I really would like to see some innovation in fighting games. I love the idea of 2 wildly inventive characters squaring off to fight. I just wish they could try to come up with some new control scheme on how to do it. Big health bar on the top. check. Guard meter, check. "I can react in .5 seconds guard/parry button" check. Super meter charge bar, check. 99 Seoncs to win, check. Possible ring out, check. Some sort of bastardized throw/guard/strike triangle, check. Built in combos, check.

They are all, the, same!

For me personally, the buishido blade series really did something unique. They had a DAMAGE model. During the fight, I could disable my opponents arm, and he would have modified animations and combos as his arm hung limp next to him. He fought slower and worse, but could still win.

There has been no advance in the fighting controls and presentation. There have been SOME great new animations for moves (not in the recycled SF world, well, sans 4 now i guess), fun and inventive characters...but they all hit each other the same way. Low, middle, high. I guess this is a nice easy thing to program and debug, but I want to see something new!

Perhaps with the push towards procedurally animated characters lately, I can finally roundhouse kick someone from the left and watch them fall over to the right. I would love a fighting game where I can hit them anywhere on their body, and do damage to the character model, rather then a bar across the screen. Have we gotten to the point where we can do that yet?

But really, all fighting games just feel the same. And I know each one has a different feel within the genera, but a fighting game is still a fighting game. I guess I've seen pushes in every genera for something unique, except fighting games. The last innovation in the genera I've seen is the climb from 2d to 3d. Fighting games have to catch up, where are my physics? :)

Re:Saving

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I disagree about one of those.

Specifically, Mario. That series continues to evolve, from 2D platformers, to 2D plaformers played in two dimension, to Mario 64, the first awesome 3d platformer (apart from Rayman 3, perhaps), to Mario Galaxy (which I haven't played since fucking newegg fucking doesn't fucking have fucking wiis). Even Mario Sunshine is fun, if a bit difficult for people my age (who played M64 for acrobatics and not speed -- those "secret" levels are all about speed)

I don't give a shit about the rest. It's been a long time since 1992. :0)

But if Mario died, I would mourn him sadly, dress up as him for Halloween, and try to get laid. If you lame asses tried it, you might find that you can get some. But don't. It's scary in the grown up world. I was invited into a threesome last night!