Chris Hoadley
Writer, Copy Editor
Bitmob
A characters’ history of Street Fighter 4
Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition Version 2012 is the fourth version of Street Fighter 4 in as many years. It has no new characters, and the developer’s notes read like a foreign language even to other gamers. But even as newer titles arrive, SF4 remains one of the most popular series in the fighting-game community. The graphics may have stayed the same over the years, but each update has changed the fortunes of 39 characters and the players who pour hours into making them great. Read on to see how SF4 became what it is today from the perspective of the World Warriors who appeared in it.
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Sonic Generations races from colorful to realistic and back again
Sky Sanctuary is better than I remember it.
The Sonic & Knuckles stage is reimagined as an ivory mausoleum in Sonic Generations, the video-game equivalent of a greatest hits album for Sega’s mascot. I bounce across clouds to dreamlike music until I reach the section where I circle a collapsing tower and jump into the Death Egg. I reach the top, and nothing is there except for a goal ring.
What a rip off.
Despite that — all aficionados nitpick remastered classics — Sky Sanctuary shows just as much about what the series is about as it did a decade ago. The emphasis of Generations is on the different playstyles of the simple, classic Sonic and the hedgehog of today. It also shows us, however, something hinted at in Sonic Colors that we haven’t seen for some time: the world and art style that was synonymous with Sega’s mascot in the Genesis days.
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Balance between characters has always been a key part of modern fighting games. So why did Capcom design the latest installment of its premier franchise with clear kings of the ring in mind?
With the release of Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition, Capcom intentionally made new characters Yun and Yang the standout warriors of the game. These twins had versatile offenses backed up by safe special moves, strong mix-ups, great damage potential, and decent defensive options.
The competitive community has had to deal with these kung fu masters since the game came out in arcades. But I also wondered what these two mean for casual or intermediate players. So I rounded up four Bitmob members to discuss the issue with me.
Together we talked about character balance, the tier lists players use to rank characters, and what companies should focus on when developing these fighters. Here are the highlights below. For the full transcript with footnotes, click here.
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This makes me a strange person to cover Geektionary, a book that collects over a thousand terms from video games, comic books, anime, and other sources. But like choosing between gamer and player, what words we use tells a lot about how we describe our hobby.
For example, one of the words I never heard of before reading Geektionary was “chew toy,” a tough, role-playing-game character who can absorb a lot of damage. I thought those avatars were better known as tanks, but that isn’t in this text. The meanings are the same, but which is more memorable?
Everyone knows what a tank is, but the noun is so overused that it’s become flavorless. Chew toy, however, conjures images of a dog ripping your hero apart. It’s more unique and fun. In massively multiplayer role-playing games, “kiting” means throwing a bunch of projectiles at enemies from a distance. One can call that action “spamming” as well, but spaming sounds tedious and annoying while the latter, a play on “flying a kite,” is clever and acceptable
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Adding new characters to a fighting game seems like a natural fit for downloadable content: If a shooter can add more multiplayer maps and a single player game can add more scenarios, then why shouldn’t fighting games expand their content with new characters? By announcing DLC so early, however, Capcom is going against the views of one of the company’s own: Yoshinori Ono, producer of the Street Fighter 4 series.
Ono likes to compare his titles to chess. This includes how a company packages a game. When Siliconera asked him about adding in new characters as DLC, Ono said, “We want to avoid doing that [...] It’s like someone playing chess, but selling them the bishop separately. So you would have one guy would be without a bishop and one guy would have one.”
This comparison is very apt. While a DLC map or scenario ultimately doesn’t change the original experience, a new character in a fighting game impacts everyone playing it, whether to they choose to pay or not. At the very least, everyone needs to learn how to fight that new character. And even if you don’t want to play as Jill or Shoma-Gorath, you may still need to buy the DLC if your friends start using them. People spend months learning these characters, and you can’t just tell them to pick someone else.
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In an article on Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game that I wrote recently, I briefly mentioned that the title has an amazing soundtrack by Anamanaguchi. Every video-game genre has great soundtracks to offer; James DeRosa’sBitmob Community Jukebox playlists showcased this.
But I’ve got a problem: If the music is so great, why do most articles only spend a sentence or two on it? In my article, I used a single adjective. Often video-game reviews have too much ground to cover to spend time on music, and most articles don’t reference it unless it’s an interview with the composer.
That should change.
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First of all, the video game solves my main issue with the movie: Neither the titular Scott nor his love interest, Ramona Flowers, connect in a way that justifies fighting a brigade of spiteful exes. Even by the end of the film, I didn’t buy that Scott loved Ramona for any deep reason.
In the game, however, Ramona isn’t a plot device — she’s a playable character. Despite being a simple beat-’em-up, Scott and Ramona seem to develop a partnership while fighting onscreen together. Wordless, still cutscenes between levels reinforce their relationship. I’d fall in love with Ramona, too, if we fought half of Toronto together!
The confines of the beat-’em-up also help the game. It’s easier to suspend disbelief when your goal is to walk down a street and punch people. It’s an action game with romantic elements, rather than a romantic comedy peppered with action scenes. The game renders its story in pixels, contrary to the film, which is half-live action and half-post-production special effects.
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Seth Complaint: “Waa! Seth is overpowered!”
Cheaper Boss: Rugal Bernstein – King of Fighters series
If this was an honest list of cheapest bosses, they would all be from developer SNK. The company is infamous for all-but-omnipotent bosses. Rugal Bernstein isn’t the flashiest King of Fighters boss, but all others follow his blueprint. He’s impossible to fight far away due to his projectiles and reflector shield, he has fast normal attacks with great reach, and his Genocide Cutter anti-air move slices through your offense.
If you understand how the AI works in Street Fighter 4, you can play Seth like a puppet on a string. SNK bosses are not like that. You play by their rules, and if you’re lucky you’ll take out a third of their life before they kill you.
