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Fighting Games & Capcom: My thoughts on the genre. |
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| Written by NU Jin |
| Tuesday, 23 October 2007 00:00 |
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I remember when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old when I played Street Fighter for the first time. At that time, me and my little brother was all into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze, and me, him, and my step-dad at the time just walked into the movie theatres to see TMNT 2, and I saw the Street Fighter machine. I was like "J! Check THAT out!!" Ignoring my Step-dad buying our green-ooze drinks, we ran over to check out the arcade machine. Something woke in me. I knew that I was going to be hooked with this game, and begged the crap out of my Step-dad to let me play this game. He told me "we can see all of the fighting in the movie, you don't need to play this game." I was really let down, and we just went to go see the movie. Maybe a year later, my local arcade at the time just got in Street Fighter 2. I was watching a couple of guys play the game, and again I asked my Step-dad if I can play this game. He gave me 50 cents for me to play the game, and when I grabbed that joystick for the first time, my mind went into an orgasmic stage. I was a zombie, and with my pixie stick-encrusted hands I was mind melded with this game. Even though I was getting the beating of my life, the guys there knew that I was having fun, and my Step-dad eventually gave me $5.00 in tokens to let me play this game. I spent all of those token into that game, and even the store manager at the time told me that I was the first to do that, and labeled me a hardcore Street Fighter 2 player. I didn't know what that meant at that time, but looking back when I was younger, and when fighting games was the buzz in the industry, I see what he meant. I was there when they got in Fatal Fury, Pit Fighter, Sengoku, Mortal Kombat.....I was hooked. When me and my family moved to a different location, I was always at my other local arcade when they received Samurai Showdown 1 & 2, Street Fighter Alpha, Darkstalkers, Primal Rage (yeah, I use to love that game as well),Mortal Kombat 2 & 3, and the grand daddy of them all, Killer Instincts. I would even make out my own strategy guides, and hand them out in school. It was incredible. I just couldn't get enough of the genre. I collected most of all of the games that came out on the SNES, and the Genesis, and me and my brother would get my family to come together, and play Killer Instincts and Fatal Fury 2 for SNES and Genesis, respectfully. I'll never forget when my brother dropped the car on my Dad in KI, and me and my Dad brawling with Hideo and Roy in Rival Schools for the Playstation. What I'm getting at is this. Fighting games back in the day was a craze. Maybe more of a culture shock, because we all played these game, and couldn't get enough of them. And believe it, or not, Capcom and SNK was the pennicle of this genre. In fact, the Street Fighter series and the Fatal Fury/ Art of Fighting/ King of Fighters series was the craze as well. Simply put: arcades ruled, and they were getting their money. But what happened? Simple: US! The industry, and technology. And lets not forget, decisions, decisions, and more decisions. Capcom was too demanding, and we knew how much we loved the SF series. But even after releasing alot of the rehashed SF games, I wanted to see something new. Something fresh, and maybe something a little bold. Street Fighter 3 did just that. It was the next step into animation, fighting engine, and the way we could've looked at games into today. But afterwards, then came the VS series, which changed fighting games once again. It was pretty cool, until they kept rehashing the same outdated gameplay over, and over again. To this day, I first loved, and now absolutely hate Marvel vs Capcom 2, and i site to not ever play that game again because of how Capcom just went completely bonkers on what strategic fighting was all about, and just made the formula completely broken. By then, I lost faith in Capcom. We were all waiting for Capcom to release a true sequel to Street Fighter, while they was still hot in the industry. But by that time, 3D fighting games like Tekken, Virtua Fighter, and Dead or Alive was taking over the fighting game genre, and showing what it is to step into evolution of fighting games. Capcom saw this, and tried to head into that direction by making Street Fighter go into 3D. The results was horrifying. EVERYBODY was hating the games. The final SF 3D game, Street Fighter 3, marked the last straw. Rival Schools was great in my book, but it got some mixed reviews from others who aren't particle to the series. Capcom was losing its audience, and believe it or not, Namco was gaining them with greeat releases like Soul Calibur, and Tekken. And as far as SNK, they continued to gain ground with King of Fighters, and Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves. Sure we loved Capcom vs SNK, but CVS2, while a cult hit to most, but was just wasn't enough. If you even noticed, while most fighting games reused old sprites, Sammy came up with new ones in Guilty Gear, which took over the 2D fighting genre. Even Fatal Fury took a leap into making new sprites for the Mark of the Wolves game. Butu NONE of the other SF games did this, and seeing most of the CVS2 Capcom characters was an eyesore. And releasing Capcom Fighting Evolution was their BIGGEST mistake!! Reused sprites, uninspired fighting engine, and lack of innovative gameplay pretty much told us that Capcom just didn't care about us anymore. Now they want to finally announce Street Fighter 4? About time, I say. About time. But do we all want crazy infinites, and combo glitches in our fighting games these now a days? Or do we all want something meaniingful, and for EVERYONE to really pick up, and play? Even kid friendly games like Super Smash Bros. Melee even have these glitches called "Wave Dashing", "Wave Shine", and "Super Wave Dashing". Winning legimitely? Okay. But pulling off glitches, and infinites in order to call yourself the No#1 player in the region/world/country is just down right bad. Learning to do powerful moves, and to do some massive damage is great. But again with infintes, and glitches.....people is getting tired of that. Nobody wants to feel they mastered the game, and then go to play against some uber geek who discovered an infinite with these particular characters, and then you have to go back, and restrategize your play style to accomendate against a bozo who thinks he's hot stuff now because he found a glitching program to give him the edge in the tournaments. We all miss the good ol' days when our pure skills was just enough to get to the top, not infinites, and such. It can make you a better player, sure! But for those who wants to play to win by playing a great match, and not determining who's infinite will go off first is getting tired of this mess. We hope in the future that we can see some games can take a step forward, and introduce something more meaningful than letting loose infinites, and such to win a hard-trained tournament. Hopefully, Street Fighter 4 will take that step forward. ~Nu Jin of Nu Gen Productions/ Twilight Inc. & Street Fighterx.org. |