Results tagged “fighting games”

Shortly after my post yesterday about Street Fighter and Tekken getting in bed with each other, AndriaSang posted a translation of a comprehensive interview session Famitsu did with Yoshinori Ono. A lot of people around the internet are asking various questions about this game, along with it's brother, Tekken x Street Fighter. It answers a lot of them.

I said the game would probably be out by the end of 2011. It turns out that Ono isn't expecting for this game to be out for two years. In fact, they don't plan on showing it again until Captivate 2011, which should take place sometime between March and May of next year. You'll have plenty of time to play Marvel vs. Capcom 3 by then. Ono also thinks that Tekken x Street Fighter won't be available until after Street Fighter x Capcom, which is belivable given how we've seen footage of the latter. Anyone fearing that Capcom might be stagnating the genre is very incorrect.

Also: the build you saw in the video is only two months old. It was evidently very early considering it was using Super Street Fighter IV's announcer and music.

Given that Capcom isn't releasing a big fighting game during the second half of 2011, that might mean Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike: Online Edition might make it out during that time. Hopefully with plenty of new features in tow -- perhaps some rebalancing, widescreen, no Backbone Entertainment or Udon involvement, for instance -- since otherwise there wouldn't be much incentive for people not to just load it up and play it on GGPO. Just don't expect them to redraw all of the sprites, as some people are suggesting.

There are a lot of fighting games on the horizon all of a sudden -- with another of the most recent being Arcana Heart 3 for consoles -- leading to fears that the fighting game genre will reach stagnation like it did before. I don't think some people really remember how it actually happened the first time. The downfall of the fighting genre was exacerbated by the death of arcades, meaning the easiest way for American gamers to get together to play games was evaporating. Considering this was the late-90s, an era without a concept like "online play," there really wasn't a place for fighting games to go. Now, things are a little different.

So yeah, I think we'll be OK. For the time being at least.

Super Street Fighter IV made me realize that having 35 characters in a fighting game is the worst idea ever.

But only because it makes it so hard to pick one to stick with. It's overwhelming! So many different fighting styles to choose, along with so many more match-ups to learn. Don't be surprised if, upon playing this game the first few times, you'll find yourself winding around the character select screen trying to settle on someone to main. It was bad enough with 25, but add ten more and craziness ensues, especially when they all look intriguing. Most of them have the potential to be pretty good.

I played quite a bit with both Guy and Ibuki. I managed to rack up more wins with Guy pretty quickly, but once you really get into him, you'll begin to realize he isn't all that great. I had a lot of fun playing him in the Street Fighter Alpha titles, but his incarnation here feels a little...stiff, to put it plainly. I thought Chun-Li had a floaty jump, but Guy's makes hers look normal; and his jump is much more floaty than the Alpha games. What also hurts is that his elbow drop doesn't go diagonally down anymore, and it can be blocked in a crouching position. He's still fun to play, but ugh.

Ibuki, on the other hand is pretty good. Maybe too good. She does take a plethora of practice, though. It took me about 40 matches to really get a grasp of her normal and special techniques. It's what happens when your character has a command list that consists of 20 unique moves. But she is quite the powerhouse. There aren't a lot of characters in the game that can get 400 HP damage from one combo without using a super or an ultra. She might be the best of the new characters. I can't super jump cancel into Ultra II to save my life, though.

Having fun with Makoto in Street Fighter III: Third Strike, I decided to play with her a little here too. Her situation is the same as Guy's, except far more severe. She's nowhere near as dominant as she was in Third Strike, and it's incredibly difficult to get wins with her. That kind of makes me sad, because though she was a tough character to learn in Third Strike, she was at least competent.

Capcom's also doing the nice (though admittedly silly) alternate costume situation again. Again, you can't unlock these through the game itself like any other fighter, you'll have to purchase them in five for $4 packs released incrementally. Price gouging that a company like Namco or Activision would be proud of, but damn if they don't look nice. Well, most of them.

I mentioned in the review that the story overall is definitely worse, but Arcade Mode is worth playing at least once to see the credits. It's absolutely beautiful. The theme itself contains a remix of many of the most popular themes from the franchise, along with seeing the characters move in slow motion. It's heavily focused on the most popular characters in the series. And Juri, who I guess is pretty popular now. It comes across as a big tribute to Street Fighter; watching it gives off the feel that this game is the last in the franchise. Which is pretty sad.

So yeah, I'm enjoying this game. Super Street Fighter IV may not be the last game in the franchise (not if there's any justice left), but this will be my last post about it here for a while. On to Marvel vs. Capcom 3, then.

Super Street Fighter IV is what most fans of Street Fighter IV could ever want from one of the most venerable fighting game franchises today. But people reading this that are the least bit interested are probably already sold on it, and are getting their fill of the online play as we speak. So there isn't much more to say here. Go buy it.

Ah, but we live in a time where reviews are held up to a specific standard, regardless of whether that length is justified. So you'll just have to settle for this detailed review about its intricacies. Sorry.

A popular point of conjecture around its announcement was that SSFIV was just Capcom being Capcom. This means that the company, upon the success of the previous product, has decided to milk this game to hell until fans get seriously sick and tired of the formula. Ostensibly, it's a pretty good consideration given their penchant for it, but the fact that it actually started is silly in itself. This version has ten characters over last year's game, with balance changes made to the existing 25. The existing characters have also been given another Ultra Combo, with the game allowing you to choose your Ultra on the character select screen; in that vein, it's similar to choosing your Super Art in the Street Fighter III games. There are also five new stages (one is a redesign of an older stage) that look absolutely gorgeous and completely outclass all of the existing ones. There was plenty of variety before, but now...man. Anyone who thinks this is a typical cash-in shouldn't be taken seriously again, because they obviously can't discern the difference.

There are ten new characters here, but only two of these are brand new. Eight of them are fan favorites from previous games in the franchise. T. Hawk and Dee Jay make it in to complete the Street Fighter II cast. Though the first game went out of its way to avoid the inclusion of anything Final Fight, Guy and Cody make it in here. Adon joins the cast from the original Street Fighter, though more people know him from Street Fighter Alpha. Dudley, Ibuki, and Makoto make it in from the Street Fighter III titles. Meanwhile, Juri is the first Korean Tae Kwon Do fighter in the franchise. Oh, and she's evil. And you have Hakan, an oil wrestler who is one of the silliest characters in the franchise. It helps that's he's charmingly silly, though. They both bring unique fighting styles to the franchise, and while Juri is pretty easy to grasp, Hakan is going to require some serious practice.

More importantly, Capcom fixed a critical flaw that unfortunately hampered the playability of the original: multiplayer lobbies. Being dubbed the clever name "Endless Mode" here, these lobbies allow up to eight players to gather and take turns fighting each other. It's a mode to relive the glory days of arcades with people who don't live near you. It's just that, you know, it's online. There's also a Team Battle mode that allows teams of up to four players to compete against each other.

That's enough modes to keep you playing for a while, but the most important aspect to consider are the balance changes, and they've made plenty. Sagat was a little too dominant in the last game, so he's received the heaviest changes. They've toned him down heavily, reducing his overall damage output and removing the light kick/Tiger Knee block-string shenanigans. He has one new technique, the Angry Scar, which allows him to make his next Tiger Uppercut stronger (and it's the only new move attached to an existing character). He also has more combo potential, but it's nothing that makes him as strong as he was before. Also, Ultra Combo damage has been reduced all over to help makes this game less defensive than the last one.

Everyone in the original cast has been given both buffs and nerfs in some way, with some of them just getting the former and the latter. For instance, while Rose has a very slightly nerfed backdash, she has increased damage on some normals, more combo potential, and a very useful new Ultra. And they even buffed Dan! You wouldn't believe how many air attacks his low taunt stops. Meanwhile, Fei Long, who was near the bottom of the tier list before, was given zero changes. Who knows why Capcom hates him so much, but he'll still have the name Fail Long.

The online netcode overall is pretty good, being a notch better than the one found in the original. That's not to say it's lag free though. Even in a four bar match, the highest possible connection instead of five from the last game, there's still some obvious input delay problems present there. It's nothing you can't adjust to, but it's that process that can make things a little frustrating. It's no problem finding a match in Ranked, but sometimes you can be paired against people with less than stellar connections in both Endless and Team Battle modes. Online games are usually better on 360 rather than PS3, so if you had the choice of both, I'd choose the former.

The online competition so far is a pretty varied, ranging from people who obviously had a lot of experience with SFIV to people who are not yet warriors, but beginners. Oh, and if you weren't a fan of the scrubby crap that people could only get away with online (mashing reversals, turbo abuse), they're here to entertain you again. The nerfs to certain characters help with some of the inanity, but it still exists in spades. But despite all that, there are going to be a large number of people that can kick your ass legitimately too, so be prepared for that.

The three fans of the single player modes are actually going to find less variety here. Arcade Mode is still as intact as it ever was, with rival scenes for every character. Unfortunately, aside from six of them, everyone from the last game still has their same rival scene. That's pretty lazy. Capcom also promised that the anime story sequences would be better this time around, but the animation itself is still spare-every-penny cheap. And though Capcom promised a better story this time around, it seriously isn't. In fact, it's worse.

The Time Attack and Survival Modes are gone, which is good since they were a serious grind. Challenge Mode is back, and though there are plenty of new challenges for each character, some are recycled for the existing ones. Just for you, the ones that are recycled are the same that gave people grief in the last game. Aren't they sweet?

The main problem with the single player is that there isn't a mode to introduce gamers new to Street Fighter to the game. Challenge Mode helps in teaching them some moves, but it also helps in teaching you combos that no one in their right mind would ever use in a real match. No one will burn their entire Super and Ultra meter for a paltry four hit combo.

If you played the original, you may remember that the music for the individual stages, save a couple, was some of the blandest material to ever grace a fighting game. However, the music that played during the Rival battles in Arcade mode, which consisted of mostly remixed tracks from older games, was fantastic. The same music still graces the stages here, but you now have the option of using the remixed tracks for regular battles against human opponents. While seven characters from the previous game didn't have a rival theme, they do now. They're all quite exquisite.

Despite a few flaws that hamper its experience, Super Street Fighter IV is well worth the buy for anyone with even the slightest interest. If you enjoyed Street Fighter IV and like fighting games but haven't jumped in the pool yet, then why the heck aren't you playing this right now? And it's not at all a cash-in, as Capcom has learned their lesson. Now, if Super Street Fighter IV Turbo comes out next year, we may have to rescind that logic. Don't count on that happening, though.

It took a while to get here, and the wait was one of the worst I've ever had. But my copy of Super Street Fighter IV has finally arrived. Yeah, yeah, it's just an upgrade to last year's game, sure, but this release is special to people who really enjoyed that for too-damn-many hours. That, and Capcom has thrown a lot into this game, with ten new characters (eight returning from older games), more online modes, and new moves for the existing 25. In other words, it's a heck of a lot more than what Capcom's offered for their older upgrades. And it's a lot more than what you'd get with your average sports upgrade. So stop complaining.

And the game's pretty good too! I'd been itching to try out the ten new characters and see what techniques they have, along with trying out some of the newer tricks with the older ones. And by that, I mean I was doing it obsessively; well into the night. Otherwise, I would have probably posted about this last night.

Concerning the single player material: I'm glad that I'm not required to unlock the other 1/3 of the cast, or that unlocking taunts and colors doesn't require grinding through some unbelievably boring modes. In fact, said modes - Survival and Time Attack - aren't even included in this version. Challenge Mode, however, is back from the last game. And it's just as sadistic as ever, if the challenges I've done so far (Ryu, Chun-Li, and Juri's) are any indication of the whole cast's trials. Quite a few of them made me want to punch a hole in the wall.

Right now, the only question is which character I want to main and take online. There are so many of them! I'm thinking about Ibuki, though I can't Super Jump Cancel into Ultra II consistently to save my life. And I've always been intrigued by Guy's move set since the Street Fighter Alpha games, so I'm considering trying him as well despite plenty of people saying that he's pretty bad. Cody, Juri, Dudley and Adon also seem like a lot of fun to use. Makoto, unfortunately, appears to be a shell of her glorious Street Fighter III: Third Strike iteration, which makes me sad. I should have more impressions tomorrow, so stay tuned or something.

As of today, Super Street Fighter IV's official release is only a few days away. And I say "official" because there are already plenty of people who have already managed to acquire a copy. The bastards. Anyway, since that game is nearly upon us, it's time for a retrospective about the game that inspired its name: Super Street Fighter II.

Super Street Fighter II continued the franchise's popularity among fans when arcades were still considered a popular destination in the mid-90s, 1993 for this particular game. The last three games had been very well received, responsible for making the fighting game genre relevant. To maintain its momentum, Capcom decided to produce another sequel to keep fans interested while plenty of other games within the same genre begged for more attention.

Actually, part of that is a total lie. SSFII was the turning point in the franchise in a very bad way. Its release marked exactly when fans thought the franchise was becoming long in the tooth, and it arrived at a period when arcades were beginning to lose their stronghold on the average person as a popular hangout - though the effects of it wouldn't be seen until around four years later; a slow-but-gradual depopularization. It was also the game that began the reduction of Street Fighter into a niche franchise.

SSFII actually represented one of the largest jumps in the franchise, especially in terms of its aesthetics; as it should have. It was the first game in the series to make the jump from CPS-I to the CPS-II arcade board ("CPS" standing for "Capcom System"), which it displayed through its additional visual effects. Anyone who played the previous games in the series was accustomed to hearing the same male voice for almost all of the characters. Not so here, as everyone received their own distinct voice to further solidify them as having distinct identities. The character art has also been completely redone, and the music is given an enhancement. The endings have also been completely redone, and Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and Bison actually have real endings now (they were just text before). Lastly, the game has new sound effects, and the announcer was changed to the infamous "Big Bird" iteration.

(Side note: The new announcer also provided Guile's new voice. With dreadful results.)

The thing is, those are all aspects that only the most dedicated fans of the series could appreciate. But that's not to say there wasn't anything to offer for the average player. Realizing that the aforementioned enhancements wouldn't provide anything useful, SSFII also added four new characters: Cammy, Fei Long, Dee Jay, and T. Hawk. All of them had their own unique movesets to deviate from the preestablished 12. Additionally, the aforementioned 12 also had at least one new technique, whether it was a normal or a special move. Capcom figured this was enticing enough to get people to try this game, to show that they just weren't regurgitating the same thing over and over again.

They were dead wrong.

The fact that it even looked like the previous games was enough to keep anyone with wavering interest in the franchise at bay. It takes a special, abnormal person to appreciate the admittedly minor aesthetic changes the game received, and though they give the game a different feel - mainly one of pseudo-realism - none of them really change the core gameplay. Many fans felt that Capcom would never get to Street Fighter III at this point, and that they would be doing anything but.

(They eventually did, but it wouldn't be until 1997. And its first incarnation was an obvious beta.)

But it's not like the game itself was neglected quality. In fact, SSFII has one fatal flaw that makes the entire game feel like a step back: the speed. When fans first played Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting/Turbo/Special Champion Edition (good grief), they admired the speed boost it had received to increase the intensity of the game's pacing. Capcom apparently didn't realize this, and decided to reduce the speed. All of that new momentum and feel you obtained from playing hours and hours of Hyper Fighting? Gone. What a great idea this was!

It was sad to see the franchise that revived the fighting game genre slowly fade into obscurity, but Capcom has no one to blame but themselves. And it's not like this is their only franchise this happened to with Capcom.

So how did the home console version fare?

Not very well!


Super Street Fighter II hit both Super NES and Genesis in July 1994, less than a year after Turbo and Special Champion Edition hit both systems, respectively. Though the port itself was good, the home release makes for a perfect example of releasing a sequel too soon, and how a company can severely overestimate demand for its product.

The home version fixed the flaw that crippled its arcade counterpart: the speed could now be increased in the main menu. You couldn't set it as high as Turbo before it (unless you used a code), but it was still pretty fast. In order to compensate for the increased data, the music for both versions was done in unfortunately lower quality. Some of the sound effects from the arcade version didn't make it into the home games either. However, interestingly enough, the Genesis version had sound effects from the arcade game the SNES didn't. The Genesis version's music was definitely emphasized the bass and drum sound effects more, though. If you wanted a game that would be the basis of a good comparison between the SNES and Genesis' sound chips, it's this one.

People are undoubtedly complaining about how Super Street Fighter IV is Capcom's way of going back to the old days of milking their franchises, but said people fail to stack together the dissimilarities between their releases. Street Fighter II: World Warrior and Turbo were both pretty expensive, costing $60 and $70, respectively. Following the trend, SSFII demanded an even higher price at $80. Capcom couldn't have been more misguided when they figured everyone who made the last two games worldwide successes would flock to this one. Retailers marked the price down after only a few months on the market. SSFIV adds a bunch of characters, online modes that seriously should have been in the first game, and a bunch of balance changes. And it's priced lower than the original was. It's basically what SSFII's home release should have been.

You could consider Super Street Fighter II the textbook example of how to release a sequel the wrong way. A good thing Capcom has learned from its mistakes these days with adding significant content and selling it at a cheaper price. Well, unless they come out with Super Street Fighter IV Turbo next year, but that's doubtful.

Game images courtesy of VGMuseum.

Everyone who likes Capcom's crossover games is now free to squeal like a little girl.

Though the original rumor said the announcement wouldn't be until May, word came out at the end of last week that Capcom was planning to reveal it a little earlier than that. Capcom held their Captivate event last week in Honolulu, with Marvel employees posting on their twitter that they were also headed there. The announcement was inevitable when we learned the news embargo was to end today, when Capcom officially confirmed Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds.

For anyone who was stressing over which console(s) the game would head to - because gamers on the internet are a fickle bunch - the press release confirmed that it's coming to Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The bad news? We're going to have to wait until Spring 2011 for its release. Ouch. Also, there are no gameplay shots or videos as of yet; Capcom's probably waiting to unveil those at E3 in mid-June.

The all CG trailer, except for perhaps the very end with Ryu, that went up today on the official website (which contains nothing but that) confirms that it will be using MT Framework, which has been used to power most of Capcom's current generation games (Dead Rising, Resident Evil 5, Lost Planet 2, etc.). Looking at the staff at the end, it looks like the Tatsunoko vs. Capcom development team is working on this, which is perfectly fitting. Also, as you can see above, Shinkiro is providing artwork for the game.

According to the official press release, MvC3 will once again have 3-on-3 fights like Marvel vs. Capcom 2 before it. And as expected (and to the chagrin of some), the game will be in a 2.5D style. In an article on Kotaku from producer Ryota Niitsuma says they're aiming for a little over 30 characters, which is a steep step down from MvC2. It makes sense, though, since that game only had 56 characters because Capcom had a plethora of old sprites ready to reuse. This game is being created with brand new assets, and the official Marvel vs. Capcom twitter says the non-Shinkiro individual character art going around are actually in-game assets. That's pretty crazy!

The only characters that are already confirmed are Wolverine, Iron Man, and Hulk from the Marvel side, and Ryu, Morrigan, and Chris Redfield on the Capcom side. We probably won't see any gameplay footage until E3, but to help ease the pain, we can make do with guessing who the characters in the silhouettes are. Some of them are really obvious, because who couldn't guess Chun-Li, Captain America, and Deadpool? Some of them require a little more thought. Dante, Frank West, and Felicia can be made out on the Capcom side, while the guy in the hood could be Dr. Doom or Moon Knight, and the guy with the pointy ears is probably Super Skrull (from Fantastic Four). As for the woman in the heels on the Capcom side, I'm going to guess that it's Trish from Devil May Cry based on her stance in the Shinkiro art silhouette.

So, uh, is there a good reason why Spiderman is missing so far? He's one of Marvel's flagship characters! It's possible they're just saving him for a later unveil.

That's everything that's been revealed now, but there are still plenty of questions. Who are the remaining characters? Will it play more like TvC or MvC2? Who will be the boss(es)? Why is there no logo? Knowing Capcom, they will be unveiling everything at a pretty slow pace, especially since this game is about a year off. Until then, we can occupy ourselves with Super Street Fighter IV (next week!) while we wait for E3. Or some random Famitsu issue.

A rumor arose last week that Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is in development. While it initially seemed like some meaningless conjecture from the internet at large (it does that a lot), what really made this seem legitimate was the source. This is coming from the same source that unveiled the existence of Super Street Fighter IV a month before it was to be announced, and then revealed all ten characters that were being added to the game with 100% accuracy. And we won't have to wait long to see if it's true either; the rumor says it will be unveiled next month.

The possible - and I say "possible" because it could still be untrue, you never know - existence of this really isn't a surprise. Capcom has always expressed interest in making another Marvel vs. game, but unfortunately couldn't for a couple of reasons. Upon initially losing the Marvel fighting game rights after Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was released for Playstation 2 and Xbox early last decade, EA purchased the rights to create the utterly wretched Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects. Since then, it's been in limbo. Capcom wanted to scoop up the rights again to make MvC3, but Marvel apparently wasn't convinced that the Capcom vs. games were still a viable property. Cue the existence of the inevitable "test the market" game: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network.

And it appears that test was passed, as MvC2 is one of Capcom's best selling digital games ever. And it outsold Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix in a shorter timeframe as well, which has to bite a little since HD Remix was a significantly more expensive project. But hey, the results could be good, as Marvel is convinced that the property is still incredibly popular.

Assuming that MvC3 exists, one question would be what form it will take. Quite a few fans of the original and Capcom vs. games in general are hoping for 2D. It's pretty safe to say that this is not going to happen, given Capcom's recent successes with 2.5D in Street Fighter IV and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. Speaking of those games, it's probably the development team behind the latter that will be responsible for handling this game (Eighting) as opposed to the former (Dimps); especially given how the former is just working on the finishing touches to SSFIV and will be working on its arcade release for summer.

(Though I'd like to see 2D if only for them to reuse that mid 90s-era Morrigan sprite purely for hilarity's sake. Again.)

Some fans also would like to have the same control scheme MvC2 had return, which is OK. But some of them would like a Street Fighter-style six button control scheme, which, like the 2D sprites thing, is very unlikely. TvC uses an even simpler three button scheme, which apparently works very well in that game. It's likely that it will use four, though; not including dedicated buttons for assists, of course.

As for characters, I wouldn't expect the same amount as MvC2 had here. The only reason that game had that many characters was because of all of the old sprites they could use from the previous games. I'm hoping for at least the same amount of characters as TvC did

It would probably be best to build upon the foundations of what made TvC so great, especially since it's going to be 3D. And though it may not have the best character balance ever because of having so many characters, but it's not like that matters in the end. It will still be plenty of fun. So, on to May.

Fans were elated to see the return of SNK's long-running King of Fighters franchise with King of Fighters XII back in 2008, and for good reason. SNK had been using the same 2D sprites and the MVS arcade system and Atomiswave (which also powered the Guilty Gear games), albeit with some slight modifications along the line. While hopefully no one was expecting new sprites on par with any of the Street Fighter III titles -- something we can count on never seeing again due to the expense and workload -- they still looked and animated great, despite not actually being in high definition.

Then the game released, and all of that elation came to a crashing halt. KoFXII ended up being one of the worst received games in the franchise. That's a shame, because the series was beginning to find its footing again with King of Fighters XI, only to tumble right back over.

But things may be looking up again with the recent unveiling of King of Fighters XIII, which was shown to the public the first time in Japan last weekend. The game looks exactly like what KoFXII should have been. While it uses a lot of the same sprites from XII (and why wouldn't they, with all the work they put in), the game itself is much faster; comparable to the speed of the older games. The view distance is also zoomed out in order to see more of the play field, which is good since the close distance combat in XII meant there was practically no zoning game whatsoever. Also, it appears the characters will have most of their techniques back, since many of them were conspicuously missing in the last game.

Oh, and Mai is back, which you couldn't help but see given how she was all over every promo poster SNK had at the event. That means everyone who boycotted XII because of her absence will by it now, regardless of its quality! Sadly enough, this really was a deal breaker for some people.

In addition to Mai, King and Yuri are also making it in. Given how this game will be story-based, all of the characters are being placed on teams of three again. They all aren't known as of yet, but I'm sure they'll be revealed at a pace of one or two at a time within Famitsu. Rumor has it that Vice and Takuma will also make it in, which is no surprise since their data was on the KoFXII disc. And word has it that SNK accidentally uploaded an image with the name "Team K'," so another fan favorite is confirmed. It doesn't look like Vanessa will make it in, though, which makes me a little sad, but Vice will make up for that.

I'm really hoping that KoFXIII is successful. That's not only because I want it to be an enjoyable product, but SNK also commented that if this game isn't successful, it's the end of this franchise. So here's hoping SNK really rectifies the reason why the last game really wasn't successful, especially outside of Japan: the online play. The game hits arcades this summer. In the meantime, you can check out its rather spiffy Japanese website.

Super Street Fighter IV took a turn for the hilariously bizarre when Capcom finally revealed Hakan this week, the final character for the update to last year's biggest fighting game. We've known about him and his gimmick for a while (since the Tokyo Game Show in September), but now we're finally able to see him. He actually has a rather appealing and endearing character design, though that's noticeable when we're not laughing at his main gimmick. Or his quotes in and out of battle.

And from the videos released this week, all over the internet from playtests from the Game Developer's Conference, it looks like he could be pretty formidable. Hakan uses oil to allow him to slide across the ground to his opponent, which is also an attack that hits low. It's sure to catch people off guard if they don't know the match up, and definitely has the potential to work incredibly well online. I can see this seriously pissing some people off online, which is great if you like hate mail or hearing people raging through the mic.

He also has the most hilarious Ultra combos in the game, definitely outdoing Dan's - who, might I mention, has a second Ultra that's very much a homage to Ryo and Robert's super from the Art of Fighting/King of Fighters games. You can take a look at both of them on the official Japanese website, or look at the American trailer. This game really needed another grappler character aside from the two we have (Zangief and Abel), and you can never get tired of seeing this guy's particular grapple.

(I still think this game could have used Alex, though.)

With Hakan, all ten characters for SSFIV have been revealed, so the only thing now is to wait until April 27th for the game to release. In the meantime, there are plenty of videos going around of match videos from GDC, and there are extensive walkthroughs (and I mean very extensive) for the Street Fighter III characters - Dudley, Makoto, Ibuki - on GameTrailers from US Champion Justin Wong. I think all the new characters should have lengthy walkthroughs like this. I'm sure Capcom is currently preparing a big trailer that will showcase all ten characters, the new stages, and features to entice anyone who still thinks this could have all just downloadable content. And when it's only $10 more than what Street Fighter IV goes for right now (and not full price, like Capcom's older Street Fighter updates), it should be more enticing than a lot of other semi-sequels.

Blazblue: Calamity Trigger happened to be a case of a fighter releasing at precisely the right time when it came out at the beginning of last summer. Street Fighter IV had successfully brought people back to -- and, in a few cases, made new fans of -- the fighting game genre, making a market for fighting games again. But SFIV couldn't be the sole fighting game people wanted to play online exclusively for long; there comes a time where we need a little variety to balance things out, and Blazblue, releasing a tad over four months after SFIV, was just that game.

You could also say that SNK's major screw up could have been in developer Arc System Works and publisher Aksys Games' favor. SNK actually released three fighters in the early summer period; but it turns out they didn't realize that gamers actually need and like functional online in their fighting games. I hope they realize it now since they're still in the game, but who knows.

Blazblue was born of Arc's unfortunate inability to acquire the Guilty Gear franchise from Sega, who subsumed it when they purchased Arc's former publishing arm, Sammy Corporation. Upon losing their flagship series, Arc sought to make a new one that captured the spirit of that, and they succeeded. Well, mostly. Blazblue still hasn't hit its stride like Guilty Gear has, but it's steadily working its way towards that.

Blazblue's console release was very good. With a limited edition that cost no more than the average standard edition (with actually useful and practical contents), an appealing anime aesthetic and design (depending on your preferences, of course), and the best online play in a console fighter, people welcomed the game with open arms. The only aspect that held it back was its imbalance, with three characters dominating over the rest of the cast. But that didn't stop it from being a very enjoyable game.

And for anyone who wants to enjoy the experience portable, Blazblue: Calamity Trigger Portable just released for PSP in Japan this past week, with an American release coming on March 9th. The screen shots make it look pretty bad, worse than Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus on PSP in fact! But it apparently doesn't look as bad in motion. The resolution is seriously downgraded from its native 720p resolution, but the results should be fine on a small screen.

Also: would you believe that the first game still isn't out in Europe yet? It's due for a release there on March 19th. To its credit, the European release is receiving a rather spiffy limited edition, but it's a little tough to make up for it being eight-and-a-half months late. It especially hurts when the next installment is already out in arcades in Japan.

And said sequel, Blazblue: Continuum Shift, is due for a home console release on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 in Japan on July 1st. It hasn't been announced for an American release yet, but hopefully Aksys can get the game out in America at around the same time like Calamity Trigger. There's been some dispute around certain parts of the 'net about this game being more of a shameless cash-in than Super Street Fighter IV, since CS features three new characters (one of which is exclusive to the home version) instead of SSFIV's ten. And that's silly, since Arc System Works is nowhere near as big of a company as Capcom. I also mentioned before that Arc is no stranger to sequels (or "updates," whatever), but funnily enough, CS is more significant than any of their usual upgrades.

While Blazblue is destined to stay, it would be nice if Arc could re-acquire the Guilty Gear series in order to make a new game in HD. Oh, and I guess a Guilty Gear and Blazblue crossover would be pretty nice.

For as great of a game as it was, and as saddening as it was, it probably wasn't a surprise for fighting game fans to see that Virtua Fighter 5 didn't take of as well as Sega intended when it released on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 back in 2007. The PS3 version, though, sold around 500,000 copies worldwide, and it might have been enough for the game to make its budget back. Those sales were pretty OK for a game released on a console in its infancy, and for a fighting game with no online play. What probably hurt Sega more is the enhanced version of the game they made Xbox 360, which bombed pretty hard despite having more and enhanced gameplay modes and online. But there's a good excuse: the 360 was hardly known as a fighting game console back then (can you believe how far it's come in two years?), so fighting game fans hadn't gravitated towards the console just yet.

Oh, and releasing it in October, right when everyone else is releasing their big games, wasn't a good idea either. But hey, this is the same company that released Valkyria Chronicles in the middle of November, and is releasing Yakuza 3 and Resonance of Fate, two of their most important upcoming games, within one of the biggest months for gaming this year. Who knows when Sega will actually learn that this is not a good idea.

But the Virtua Fighter franchise has since lived on in Japan with Virtua Fighter 5: R, which according to fans is a healthy upgrade to the original. Whatever problems VF5 vanilla had are remedied; it has quite a bit of rebalancing, a few more stages, better music, and a couple of characters (returning sumo Taka-Arashi from VF3 and new character Jean  -- pictured to the left and right of the pic above). Upon hearing this, and realizing that the fighting game market is far better now than it was then, fans clamored for a console release for it. But it was not to be, with Sega still reeling from the commercial failure that was the last game.

But there may be still hope that a new edition of VF5 can hit home consoles. At the AOU (Arcade Operators Union) expo last weekend, Sega announced Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown. As the name implies, this will be the final upgrade to VF5. Details of what it will have specifically are unknown, but you can bet that it will be a hell of a send-off for a game that's lasted so long and has been so popular in Japanese arcades.

But hey, wouldn't it be great if was ported to consoles too? Absolutely. But it's incredibly uncertain given Sega's prior precedent as far as VF5, though its existence could be the reason why Sega hasn't ported R to consoles. The fighting game market has almost worked its way back to being completely lucrative thanks to the likes of games like Street Fighter IV and Blazblue: Calamity Trigger -- and I'd be saying Tekken 6 here too if Namco Bandai hadn't fudged up the netcode initially. But who knows if Sega themselves realizes this.

Personally, I'd be pretty saddened if Final Showdown never released on consoles. Virtua Fighter has always been my favorite 3D fighting game. There's something inherently appealing (or masochistic) about a game that requires a lot of dedication to learn, since that means it dissuades scrub-friendly behavior and has a gameplay system that makes sure button-mashing isn't the key to victory. Many other fans feel the same way, though they show their affection for it much more vocally than I. So let's hope Sega pulls a Yakuza 3 here, however minimal its chances are.

(And by that I mean localizing it and not removing content.)

...was the most important day of the month for many Street Fighter fans. But for me, it was Tuesday. But it was a pretty exciting day.

But man, dedicated Street Fighter fans are something else. Endless lists about characters they want for the next installment, balance changes they feel need to be made, and other usually minimal criticisms that they feel are important. Not to say some of those aren't important (usually when it comes from someone sane), but there's a lot of crap you have to wade through to get to the sensible, genuinely concerning material.

But last week, dedicated fans of the franchise got something they really wanted; something...some characters, rather, that they wished were a part of the original Street Fighter IV. Within the pages of Famitsu last week, Dudley, Makoto, and Ibuki from fan-favorite Street Fighter III: Third Strike were revealed to be a part of Super Street Fighter IV, which releases on April 27th in North America. And as you could expect, they all look great within a 3D space; more than some of the existing characters.

(Yeah, they were pretty much already known because of the leaked "rumor" list from late September, but actually seeing them is pretty special for a lot of people.)

Before they became well liked characters within Street Fighter canon, SFIII's characters actually received a lot of bile directed towards them. That's mainly because the game did away with all of the fan favorite characters everyone had become attached to after quite a while. It was a pretty gutsy move on Capcom's part, and the game lost them quite a bit of money since it required an incredible amount of 2D artwork from hard working, dedicated artists to animate so fluidly. But it wasn't long until fans grew to like the new characters, and despite the general audience finding the game a little too difficult to learn, the game still demands a cult following.

But fans wanted that representation within SFIV as well, since it's the game that's drawn both general and dedicated fans. And by adding these particular new characters to SSFIV, producer Yoshinori Ono has proven that he really does listen to fans. So the main concern now will be whether the developers can keep the game balanced with so many characters, a cast whose final number will apparently be 35. Vanilla SF4 is a pretty well balanced game, moreso than many other Street Fighter games before it, and it would be great if they could maintain that. The 3rd Strike characters look pretty solid, judging from the multiple videos. Especially Dudley, who looks pretty beastly.

It's also funny to see the opinions of these characters from people who never got into any of the SFIII titles. Some think Ibuki looks like some Naruto rip-off  (despite the character existing a little before the Naruto manga came around) and think Makoto looks a bit too masculine. The latter of which is rather understandable, as upon her unveiling for 3rd Strike, many fans weren't precisely sure of her gender. Now with the obvious cleavage there's no way you can't know -- her chest was only slightly visible in her dizzy stance before.

At this point, there's not much longer to wait for its release, so hopefully you've started saving for a SSFIV Tournament Edition Fightstick S. Or if you're already set, you can just sit and wait until Hakan is eventually revealed.

(I still would have liked Alex and Karin, though.)

If you ever needed a word to quickly sum up the entirety of the package that Tekken 6 offers, that word would be: Confounding.

Not to say that it's a bad game at all. No, Tekken 6 is at its best when all it involves is its core fighting mechanics. If you've been following the game at all, you've probably heard about how enjoyable of a fighting game it is, and how it's been the most popular arcade game in Japan for nearly two years - that's including the original Tekken 6 arcade release and the refined Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion, the latter of which is what the home console iteration is based on. The game is not the problem; the problem is almost everything else.

If you've ever dipped your hand into the Tekken pool before, this game will instantly feel familiar to you, aside from a few new additions to the fighting system to not make the game feel like a rehash. If the aforementioned "dipping" requires playing the console versions, you're probably aware of Namco's penchant for not being content with leaving just the main fighting game for console owners to enjoy. Since Tekken 3, Namco's added a bunch of modes to increase the value of the home console version. Some of them are good fun, like Tekken Bowl and Tekken Ball, while some are just exercises in frustration, like...well everything else. Unfortunately, Tekken 6 has none of the former, and too much of the latter.


This is a fighting game, and you'll probably (hopefully) want to spend most of your time with the actual fighting, and that's where Tekken 6 is at its best. There are plenty of single player modes that you'd expect to be here, like (an admittedly very short) Arcade Mode, Time Attack, Survival, Team Battle, and a Practice Mode to brush up your skills against a dummy. There's also a Ghost Battle mode to fight the ghosts of tournament players, and if you get sick of the amount of them there, you can feel free to download the Ghost data of online players.

But the majority of the fun is, of course, to be had with another human player, which most people - unless you live in Japan - will have to find online. The netcode in the game now fortunately isn't the one that existed in it when the game launched; the one where lag was prevalent even when your opponent was only a state away. The current version of it, which was patched in on Thanksgiving Day, is actually very workable. Of course, this depends on the connections you'll find. A five bar match is almost comparable to an offline bout, while four bars is only slightly worse. A three bar match will have a little input lag, but it's still workable. You'll want to avoid anything below that, though, as it will be unplayable because of both input and on-screen lag. Overall, it handles better than Street Fighter IV online, but keep in mind that Street Fighter is a bit more lag friendly than Tekken.


As much as you'll want to immediately jump online to play some of the competition, the game's structure will unfortunately prevent that for some players. When Tekken 3 released back in 1998, it came with a mode called Tekken Force, a side-scrolling beat 'em up mode with fighting game controls. After playing it, the mode was certifiable proof that fighting game controls seriously don't work in a side-scrolling environment at all. You'd think Namco would get the message after throwing it on us once (Tekken 3 required you to play the mode to unlock the very bizarre Dr. Boskonovitch), but no, as Tekken 4 also had it, as well as 5. And, as you'd expect, Tekken 6 has it as well in the form of the story-driven Scenario Campaign mode. And, as you'd expect, it's an absolute exercise in frustration.

The Scenario Campaign takes you through the adventures of the Swedish Super Saiyan-inspired Lars Alexaanderson and his robotic companion Alisa Boskonovitch (who happens to be the robotic daughter of the man mentioned above). The two of them will be responsible for stopping the former protagonist Jin Kazama from plunging the world further into war and seeking to revive the ultimate evil, Azazel. The campaign will involve you beating up mindless drones and finding items and equipment that you can use to increase the stats for your characters. You can also use the equipment for the characters themselves, if you're planning on maining them. Nice ideas, but it's the execution that's the problem.


Trying to hit your opponents with a combo is a problem with mechanics that are meant to be used against one opponent. And things get really frustrating when you're surrounded by a ton of opposition, and at least one of them knows precisely when to hit you when you're trying to attack. It feels like it represents some of the worst brawlers of the early 90s in its cheapness, which might have been excusable back then, but times and standards have changed. The worst thing is that if you want to see all of the character endings, you have to play this mode. Unlike previous games where you could see them if you played a few matches to arcade mode, Tekken 6 are unlocked when you go through one-on-one fights in the campaign's Arena mode; and to unlock the characters to play them, you'll have to beat them at the end of the levels in the campaign. Also, if you want to customize your character's outfits for all to see online, you have to play suffer through this mode.

And that's because the equipment and extra outfits for customizing individual characters is hilariously expensive. For instance, I wanted to customize my Lili with a different shirt, pants, and hair style, along with a few other minimal details for her to stand out. The shirt cost around $400,000, and the pants around $650,000. The pony-tail hair-style? $1.5 million. They can't be serious. And you can forget raising that kind of money with the other modes. A battle online or in a Ghost battle will only get you around $6,000 to $8,000 per fight, depending on the ranking of your opponent; which means a hell of a lot of grinding. Meanwhile, completing a level in the scenario campaign will get you $80,000 to $3 million on average. Yeah, you can tell which one Namco would like you to play. Confounding indeed.

It's a real shame that the overall package is so frustrating, because as a fighting game, it's one of the best in the genre this generation. Tekken 6 enhances the fighting of the original game by adding something called bounding, which gives another opportunity for you to juggle your opponent to make some big combos. It does make an already juggle-happy game even more juggle happy, sure, but it also adds a new layer of depth. These combos aren't easy to perform, especially depending on the character you're using and the learning curve they'll require.


And speaking of characters, there's 40 of them at your disposal here. Many of them are returning, but six are new to Tekken 6. Most of them play pretty differently, with some of them being easier to learn (Paul, Lili, Bob) and some being a little tougher to get a grasp on (The Mishimas, Julia, King). It's where Tekken is at its finest, and it's what Namco Bandai's focus should have been on. A shame it wasn't, which was especially evident when the online was in shambles upon release.

There may be a lot of frustration in this review, but I actually like Tekken 6 quite a bit. But that mainly goes for the competitive aspect of it. It's everything else that's the problem. I'm glad they fixed the online - though it was a bit too late as its sales undoubtedly suffered due to poor word of mouth. I sincerely hope that Namco Bandai learns from their mistakes with this one and realizes that no fans like having a half-assed brawler forced upon them. It kind of detracts from the overall experience. But I sincerely recommend it for anyone looking for a fighting game right now.

My, what a fitting time for a Darkstalkers post!

But actually, this entry mainly exists because Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower was just released on Playstation Network for PSP in America this past week, and since a new audience, however minimal, are going to be playing this game for the first time, they'd probably want to know how good it is. It's very good, actually, and one of the best 2D fighting games on the system. It's also an excellent port of a game that ties with Last Blade, in that it's one of the most horribly underrated fighting game franchises in existence.

Actually, The Chaos Tower is a bit more than a port of any of the older games - though it is a port of the Japan-only Dreamcast title Darkstalkers Chronicle: For Matching Service. It includes most of the elements from all of the previous games, similar to what Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition did for the Street Fighter II series. There weren't too many significant differences between each installment of the franchise, and not all of them were given home console releases either, especially outside of Japan.

For anyone who's never heard of the franchise and likes fighting games, this is now the time to give it a try. It actually inspired the gameplay systems of quite a few games in the genre, and most people probably don't even know it. The gameplay you see in the Capcom-developed Marvel games and Arc System Works' most venerable fighting franchises (Guilty Gear, Blazblue) takes cues from this game. The latter titles also take another cue from this game, as its characters and setting are incredibly bizarre.

Indeed, Darkstalkers has an incredibly colorful cast of characters, and they're all unique in their peculiarity. Your usual fighting game will only have a few off-hand characters for the sake of balance, just to make sure that not all of its characters are "normal." That actually describes Darkstalkers entire cast, as not even its normal-looking characters are exempt of craziness.

Someone like Donovan, for instance, looks like your average guy at first glance, until your realize that (a) he's half-vampire, (b) his sword is actually a living being, and (c) he travels around with a strange-though-intriguing young, emotionless female companion (Anita). And Baby Bonnie (B.B.) Hood is even worse! A young girl who resembles Little Red Riding Hood to a tee; well until she whips out her Uzi. They're all weird, sure, but that's part of what makes them appealing. Capcom designed them to be bizarre but not repugnant, and you'll definitely find one character that you'll want to stick with.

( Oh, and B.B. Hood the best character in the history of the genre. Fact.)

The good thing about a 2D game is that most of them will always look great in the future, especially if they're preserved well. Darkstalkers is no exception to that, as each character is given various animations to make them look as exaggerated as possible. It was a game that, at the time of its original release (way back in 1994), used the anime-style fighting game graphic design in the best way. Yet another way in which it inspired Guilty Gear, whose unique style relies on the same technique.

Darkstalkers is also the game that made chain-combos popular. Chain combos are executed by pressing one button after the other in order to string together a quick-though-easy combo. A beginner's example would be light punch, medium punch, and then hard punch, with minimal timing required. The characters whose learning curves are low will all be able to perform that combo, but anyone who requires some practice may have other bread-and-butter combos. As you practice and get creative, you'll be able to perform larger and more complicated chains. Overall, they're much easier to deal with than Street Fighter II and IV's link combos, which themselves require incredibly strict timing and rhythm to perform. Street Fighter Alpha would later incorporate the chain combo system found here.

Darkstalkers characters also have movesets similar to what you'd find in the average 2D fighter, with some characters requiring either circular motions to perform special techiniques, while others require charging. That's perfectly OK, unless you're using a PSP-1000, whose directional pad and wonky square button couldn't be more unfriendly for this game. You'll want to use these techniques to finish off chain combos to maximize damage.

This game, The Chaos Tower, also sports a new mode called...uh, The Chaos Tower. It's similar to the World Tour mode in Street Fighter Alpha 3, where you'll have to fight various opponents while surviving with three chosen characters. It's not as tough as surviving the mission mode of a Guilty Gear game, but things will naturally become more difficult the higher you go up. It's nothing that will replace the main experience, but it's a fun diversion.

Unfortunately, there are a few problems with the port. Anyone who likes to preserve the original aspect ratio of their games may find a problem here initially, as the widescreen view is achieved by stretching the game's previous 4:3 ratio to fill the screen. Fortunately, you can turn this off, but it's a shame that Capcom didn't put enough care into the game to make a true widescreen image. Perhaps too much effort for what was essentially a low-cost port job.

If you've ever wanted to play a Darkstalkers game, this is definitely your best option. It's a shame we couldn't have had all of the games individually like the Darkstalkers Collection that was released for PS2 in Japan back in 2005. Unfortunately, these days Capcom doesn't see the franchise as a profitable venture, so it's unlikely that we'll ever see another game in the series ever again. Though given how Arc System Works still makes games similar to this one very well, maybe they could have them develop a new one. A game with Street Fighter IV's graphical style wouldn't be so bad either.

While I was looking through the list I made of ideas for Street Fighter articles, it occurs to me that one of them unfortunately didn't make the cut. This happened either because (1) I planned for each entry to only have one feature a day, and this one unfortunately didn't make that, or (2) I was too damn lazy to write it. I'm pretty sure it was the latter, though. Whoops.

So anyway, that brings us to this entry now, just a little late. The Street Fighter franchise's arcade entries have had numerous ports to home consoles, some perfect, and some slightly less than perfect. But there's a subset of them that usually aren't mentioned too often: intentionally imperfect ports. These were the ports that no one in their right mind expected to be anywhere near perfect, but the developers intended for them to be something we could make do with on lower-end platforms. However, they were still perfectly playable and enjoyable, despite their compromises.

On the surface, you'd think the team of people who thought porting Street Fighter II to the Game Boy were crazy. A fighting game that relies on six buttons for input on a system with two? It seriously sounds bizarre, but Capcom was able to make it a pretty solid, but not spectacular, diversion from its big brother. Place extra emphasis on diversion, because there's definitely not enough here for it to replace the original. The monochrome iteration didn't leave much potential for anyone to show off the dazzling combos they could do on the console versions; especially if your favorite character was either Dhalsim, E. Honda, or Vega, since they were cut from this version.

Due to the Game Boy's incredibly limited memory, the backgrounds also weren't as vibrant as the console version, though you could get a partial picture of the color background if you played it through the Super Game Boy; though that's a little redundant if you're playing it on a system that has three great Street Fighter II titles. Don't expect any of the franchise's token voice samples here either, though the nearly 8-bit music samples actually turned out pretty well. This was something you played to keep yourself occupied outside of the house, or merely played for novelty's sake.

It was 1996, and the Playstation, Saturn, and Nintendo 64 (and those other systems that died a quick death) were now on the market. But some of us were still stuck in last-gen with our Super Nintendo's and Genesis', unable to plead to our parents that those new consoles were well worth the asking price. While the Street Fighter franchise had moved on to having a home on the Playstation and Saturn, Capcom thankfully looked out for anyone who hadn't upgraded yet, and made a version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 for SNES. A shame they decided to pass on releasing it outside of Japan for some reason, but Nintendo decided to publish it in America and Europe. The port was expectedly not as good as the PSX and Saturn versions -- which also weren't arcade perfect, by the way -- but it was an incredibly good replica.

SFA2 was one of the few SNES games to have loading times, a testament to how much data was needed to fit into the cartridge. Every character from the game made it into this version (except for a few admittedly silly alternate versions), and unlike SFII for GB, it was a very good alternative to the other versions. Most of the sound effects made it in, and the SNES had six buttons, enough for a player to use every combo they used in the other versions. Though it was a little tough to perform techniques that required pressing all three punches/kicks, but there were arcade sticks made for the SNES. There's no way music on a cartridge could match CD-quality material the other ports had, but the replica the SNES game has is pretty good. It was well worth your time if you still hadn't decided which system to purchase yet.

For the three of you who wanted to know how the original Street Fighter Alpha: Warrior's Dreams would look on an NES, Capcom answered your pleas with a port of the game to Nintendo's short-lived Game Boy Color. In a way, it's kind of similar to the Game Boy version of SFII, in that you're hindered by only having two buttons (you won't be showing off your fancy chain combos here), most of the sound effects and music are left out, and it really only works as a diversion. However, it's not similar in that this game is two-times better than SFII for GB.

The best thing about the port is that it feels fluid, like your moves actually have an impact on your opponent. The main problem with SFII for GB was that it felt like your moves didn't have enough "oomph," but you can actually perform combos here. Also, every character from the original version made it into this game with most of their techniques. Even Dan! All of the stages made it in too, though the original didn't have many to begin with.

Really, the only crippling flaw is that it doesn't allow for link cable battles. It's single-player only. I don't even...what?

Next, we have Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival for Game Boy Advance, the first really stellar portable port of a Street Fighter game. Actually, calling this merely a port is doing it a disservice a little, as it goes slightly beyond that. Capcom added quite a bit to this version, including new special effects (the super-triggering effect is ripped right from the Alpha games), alternate stages for 1/3 of the cast (Chun-li has her Alpha 2 stage, Ken has his SFIII: 2nd Impact stage, etc.), and the character portraits have all been completely redrawn - a sample of which is included in the banner. The fan-favorite bonus stages were also re-added to this version, which were absent from the original. The gameplay is just as balanced as the original, and this time you're only hindered by having four buttons instead of two.

But there always has to be a problem, and the issue here is that ST Revival comes jam-packed with so many glitches that you'll wonder if this game had any QA. In the original game, you had to fulfill specific conditions in order to face Akuma as the final boss instead of M. Bison. That's included here, but instead of fighting him, you're greeted with the game freezing while the background music plays Akuma's theme. There are also other bizarre instances, but the aforementioned one is pretty inexucsable.

That still doesn't stop ST Revival from being a great port of the original, though. It's the best version of the game available on a portable system.

The last portable compromised port we have is Street Fighter Alpha 3 for Game Boy Advance, which is even more of a faithful port than ST Revival. Somehow, Capcom was able to jam most of the console version's features into a GBA cartridge. That includes all 32 characters from the console version; heck, they even added a few - Maki from Final Fight 2, Eagle from the original Street Fighter, and Yun from Street Fighter III. Most of the voice samples didn't make it in, though that's not surprising considering the plethora of sound effects the console version has.

That didn't stop this from being a great version, though, with the game's flow being precisely similar to the console version. Anyone with experience with previous Street Fighter games could easily jump right in with minimal problems (excusing the fact that the GBA only has four buttons). It was the best portable version of SFA3 until the PSP version would come along a little more than three years later.

Anyone who knows Capcom well knows that they're definitely no strangers to porting all of their games everywhere, and Street Fighter was nowhere near an exception here. The good thing is that they did a great job with most of their ports, which shows how much they were concerned with quality and money; pretty different from too many other companies that just love to cash in with haphazard ports that don't work to a specific console's advantages and disadvantages, and that's, sadly, too many companies to name.

By the way, I'll try not to post anything Street Fighter related here for a while. OK? OK.

If you were ever considering purchasing Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny, you only need to ask yourself two questions: have you ever had a passing interest in the franchise? Or, if you've played it, have you ever thought about how good it would be to have what's essentially a portable version of Soul Calibur IV? If you answered yes to either of those questions, you're in luck! For Broken Destiny is an essential purchase. And really, when you know that, who needs a review?

Ah, but I have to adhere to tradition, and you'll have to suffer through text describing the game in precise detail.

Or maybe you don't have to suffer. There's something peculiar about the questions asked above, in that they only raise further questions. Why is Broken Destiny a good buy for someone who hasn't even dipped in the water of the franchise before? Who would want to play a portable version of IV with no online? The latter could easily be answered by the fact that the online is a laggy mess and is pretty much dead now because of it, but though Namco advertised the game as a beginner friendly game, it offers a lot for veterans as well.

You may not have thought that Soul Cailbur IV, originally released for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 last summer, could faithfully be replicated on PSP. With this, Namco felt determined to prove to us that they could, and the results are pretty spectacular. Broken Destiny includes all of the regular characters from the franchise - that means no Star Wars characters or broken bonus characters, and that's good - along with two newcomers: Dampierre, a hilarious con artist whose style will make you laugh enough that you won't realize he's kicking the crap out of you. The second is the franchise's requisite guest character, this time in the form of Kratos from the God of War franchise. I hate to use the word "cheap" to refer to anything in a fighting game, since a lot of people who play them like to blatantly misuse the word, but Kratos here is the definition of it. Though it's not like Namco cares to balance the Soul Calibur franchise anymore.


But they sure are concerned with it looking nice. Namco was somehow able to replicate the console version's visuals incredibly well. You could say that it's basically IV in standard definition, but merely saying that doesn't emphasize how good it looks playing on a PSP. In fact, it looks quite a bit better than Soul Calibur Legends on Wii, which probably says quite a bit about how sorry of a sack that game was. And here people (me included) thought Tekken: Dark Resurrection would be the pinnacle of how good a PSP fighter could look.

Since Broken Destiny doesn't have any online play - though it would in some form if Sony bothered to release Ad-Hoc Party for Playstation 3 outside of Japan - it has to rely on robust single-player modes to keep its longevity. And to this end, it...well, kind of succeeds. Within the game are four specific modes of play: Trial, Gauntlet, Quick Match, and, if you have the benefit of knowing someone else with the game, Versus Match. Of course, there's also a Training Mode.


The Gauntlet is, well, mostly what you'd expect. It's a mode that does an excellent job in teaching the player what basic moves they'll need to know to win a match. For anyone who's never played a Soul Calibur game before, it serves as a great introduction to all of the mechanics. But that's not all it is, as it also provides some of the best and most clever dialogue exchanges the franchise has ever had, and that's entirely because it doesn't take itself seriously. Characters you wouldn't expect humor from will suddenly be hilarious. It's not canon, of course, but that doesn't stop it from being entertaining. It's a nice break from the serious-though-insipid normal storyline, which really isn't present at all in this game.

Trial Mode is, more or less, a slightly enhanced version of the arcade mode present in every Soul Calibur mode, though it's less fulfilling. And that's a shame, because it would've been perfect for a portable game. There's something nice about a short, fulfilling arcade mode that can be digested in about ten minutes, so it's a shame this doesn't have it. Trial gives you specific rules you have to follow, dealing with either offense or defense; your score will be higher depending on your performance. Endless Trial almost qualifies, but it's more of a "Survival Mode" than anything, and fighting mostly custom characters isn't as enjoyable as fighting the main characters.


Speaking of custom characters, yes, this game still gives you the ability to create your own character with one of the move set of one of the main characters. Anyone who's played Soul Calibur IV competitively can tell you that this is both a blessing and an absolute nightmare. Having someone of your choice paired with someone you created is nice in theory, but it's precisely what breaks this game. A trick people like to use is creating a small custom character with the move set of a large character. Someone big like Astaroth will have a number of moves that can are punishable between animation frames, but a smaller custom character using said moves can get away with it unscathed. Astaroth is a big character, meaning he's a big target, but a smaller character could easily use moves he couldn't get away with, making things a bit unfair.

(This means that, yes, you can go ahead and cleverly call it Soul Calibur: Broken Gameplay.)

But thankfully this game isn't really intended for much competitive play, though if you're looking for competition, plenty of it can be found within the Quick Match mode. Quick Match has a setup very similar to that of an online lobby, with each opponent having a specific tag and title. It also displays that opponent's win and loss record in order for you to gauge how good your opponent is. The fights you'll have aren't completely similar to fighting a human opponent, given how there isn't much reliance on outsmarting your opponent or mix-up games (or cumbersome lag that plagued the online portion of the console game in spades), but damn does it come close. Some of the opponents, hilariously, love to spam the same move over and over again in a sometimes-failed attempt to exploit a common weakness human players may exhibit. Exactly what tends to happen online! No rage-quitters here, though.


Most of the music and stages are the same that were present in the console version, but a few have a little variation. The Athens stage has another version that takes place during sunset instead of daylight, though its original is still present as a stage. Meanwhile, two stages were unfortunately removed entirely in the transition. Still, what's here is good, and their remixed music is some fantastic stuff.

Keep in mind that this review was only for those of you who are concerned with detail, as the conclusion is still in my lede: Broken Destiny is a great game for beginners, and veterans of the franchise will like that it perfectly replicates the console experience on a portable system. Gamers with plenty of experience with the franchise will also find Quick Match addictive and portable friendly, thanks to its rapid pace. It may not be the most balanced fighting game around, but it's definitely fun.

You can now completely tell that the fighting game genre is back from its extended period of dormancy: we're now starting to see yearly sequels. But the fortunate thing is that it's nothing as bad as the multiple iterations of Street Fighter II, which took things a bit too far for the average consumer - though the price of cartridges back then certainly didn't help either. Quite a few people around the internet are surprised to see updates to games released as little as less than a year ago, but I don't see why. Heck, we already knew about some of them, like an update to Blazblue: Calamity Trigger.


Though it was merely hinted at by developer Arc System Works earlier in the year - even before the console release of the first game - Blazblue: Continuum Shift was officially revealed within the pages of Famitsu a few weeks ago. But what ostensibly seemed like an update that could easily be provided via downloadable content turned out to be much more. It's actually a sizable upgrade over Calamity Trigger; too sizable, that is, for them to release it as a DLC pack. It not only contains at least two new characters, but new stages (while the older ones are revamped a bit) and quite a few balance changes. The last point is the primary focus for them, and it really should be since the first game's biggest problem was the serious character balance issues.

The funniest thing is that people are shocked to see that Blazblue is getting a new iteration so quickly, but I'm wondering if they were even paying attention during the last generation. That's OK, though, because it's only been a year since the genre returned to a sense of relevancy. Do you know how many releases and updates the Guilty Gear franchise had last generation on PS2?

From left to right:
(Top) Guilty Gear X Plus, Guilty Gear XX, Guilty Gear XX #Reload, 
(Bottom) Guilty Gear XX Slash, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus. Whew!

Yup, that's six games. Ridiculous? Definitely, though Continuum Shift seems like more of an upgrade than lots of these, save Accent Core. Look forward to four more Blazblue games after this one!

(No, I don't think there will be that many. At least I hope not!)

It's going to take a while before this one hits home consoles. It's currently in playtesting stages in Japan, with an ambiguous release date of "this winter" for the actual arcade game. Given the time games like this usually stick to arcades, and given how popular Calamity Trigger was in Japanese arcades, I'd say summer 2010 is a good estimate...which would make it precisely a year after Calamity Trigger hit home. I hope it's not full price.

Oh hey, and there's also an update to Street Fighter IV coming soon as well, and they're calling it, well, Super Street Fighter IV. I believe the reason why they're calling it that is to signify how big of an update it is. It's nothing completely related to semantics, but the thing is that Super Street Fighter II was the first significant upgrade out of the four Street Fighter II received. So far, they seem to be capitalizing on that point, though most of what we know is through interviews with Capcom staff. I have no doubt, however, that they'll fully realize them.

But a lot of people definitely doubt that thus far, and think this move eerily parallels Street Fighter II and Street Fighter III's multiple iterations. They've already confirmed that they're not going to make the same mistake by saying it won't be a fully-priced release. That was precisely the reason why SSFII was a colossal bomb at retail, releasing at a whopping - if memory serves -- $79.99. Yeah, I sure miss buying cartridges! For a more recent example of this, just look at Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution's sales in Japan. It tanked badly, despite its arcade iteration being incredibly popular. It was released for full price initially, but retailers slashed the price in half upon realizing copies would never move at its introductory price. Fortunately, they had the sense to release it in America at a budget price.

Back to SSFIV, what we have seen so far is three characters. Two of them, T. Hawk and Dee Jay, are returning characters, while there's a new character named Juri (that's her pictured). Reaction to her has been mixed so far, though it's been surprisingly a tad negative in South Korea. I say "surprising" because Juri is a Korean character, the first for the franchise. Me? Oh, I think she's perfectly fitting for a Street Fighter game, and the internet reaction is pretty similar to when C. Viper was revealed for the original SFIV. So yeah, par the course.

There's not much known at this point, as you can see. But rest assured that Capcom is making sure they divulge every piece of information as slow as excruciatingly possible. In other words, they're building it up just like the previous game, which is pretty good for marketing purposes. Apparently, they don't know whether it will receive an arcade release or not, but it'll hit PS3 and 360 in spring 2010.

Yet in all of this talk, there's still one game that's regrettably left out of most conversations about the genre: Virtua Fighter 5 R. VF5 R is, well, an enhanced version of Virtua Fighter 5, originally released on PS3 and 360 - the latter of which with online play. Some vocal fans of the franchise outside of Japan have been clamoring for the game to receive a console release, but Sega won't budge. It's a shame, given all of the rebalancing and enhancements R has - including the inclusion of one returning character and one completely new - but it's perfectly understandable that they haven't. You see, the fanbase for this game is vocal, but it's undeniably niche, and a console port would be a hard sell anywhere. It's popular in Japanese arcades, but usually that doesn't equal brisk console sales, and the franchise was never that popular in America or Europe. It would be a gamble, and it's definitely one Sega isn't willing to take. It's a shame though, given how well balanced it apparently is, and how good VF5 is online.

With this, I think you can really say that the genre is back among the living. We've received plenty of games in the genre this year (admittedly with some misfires), and Tekken 6 is due for a release at the end of this month; further proof that the genre isn't letting up -- unless it's also a misfire; Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection and Soul Calibur IV don't give me much hope. There will be quite a few to juggle, so it's a good thing they're not coming out right on top of each other like the five we had between June and July.

I'd been anticipating King of Fighters XII for a while. For too long SNK relied on the same sprites powered by the same technology for all of their games in the franchise. Not to say they don't look nice, of course, but come on; everyone who plays every game in the franchise likes to have something new every once in a while, and though the mechanics improved, the aesthetics remained a little too similar. That's not to say that those old sprites don't have their charms (they do, and by the bucket load), but it was time for SNK to embrace newer technology. And by that, I don't mean 3D.

And they did! With King of Fighters XII, SNK finally redesigned the sprites from the ground up. What's basically the first generational leap in the franchise is a celebratory event for longtime fans of the franchise, and it should be enough to regenerate interest in a franchise a lot of gamers lost interest in because of how stagnant it became (which actually paralleled the entire fighting game franchise a few years back). It seemed like SNK was doing everything right with revitalizing their flagship franchise, but there's one thing that's hindering its success: SNK.

Specifically, their decisions as to how they're releasing it. I was nearly dead set on purchasing it, but hearing about its problems makes me hesitant about paying a $60 price. That's also not helped by some pretty negative reviews. The apparent main problems with the package are the lack of single player modes, bone-headed AI, and worst of all, horrible online. At best, matches tend to handle fine and with minimal lag/input delay. At worst, which is apparently usual, matches can be equated to having a one-bar connection in Street Fighter IV, which I can say from experience is one of the most frustrating things ever. When we have games with great netcodes like Blazblue, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix - and Street Fighter IV, if you substitute "great" for "passable" - stuff like this pretty unacceptable. This is stuff that we would expect in 2004, not 2009.

The first warning signs arose when the XBLA releases of Garou: Mark of the Wolves and King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match were releases with online play that was kind of crummy. This was a real shame for Garou, but a heart breaker for Ultimate Match. Most big fighting game fans have been playing Garou for a while via emulation and GGPO, but this would've been the only way to play Ultimate Match online. How SNK handled its release is soul crushing, not only because of the online, but with the quality of the rushed port as well. Instead of being a port of the great Playstation 2 version, it's a port of the not-as-great arcade game, meaning it's lacking the 3D backdrops and arranged music. Oh, and the win quotes, which are still entirely in Japanese.

That's not even mentioning certain issues (which are kind of hilarious in a way, unless you main Raiden or Elizabeth. They're also reminiscent of something) that KoF XII itself has. Yeah, it's pretty apparent that someone didn't test the gameplay thoroughly before releasing it. The good news is that they do plan on patching it again, and publisher Ignition Entertainment is listening to fan complaints in order to help. Hopefully they can grab SNK by the balls and get them to cooperate.

All of this is a real shame, too, because apparently the gameplay is pretty great. I'd really like for SNK to get this right down the line with another patch, and by that I don't mean with the next game. I'd love for the XBLA release of King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match to be mostly completely flawless, but I'm not entirely optimistic at this point. They have until 2010 to release that, so let's see what happens.

Short answer: It's impressive! And I am impressed.

Long, unnecessary answer: So Marvel vs. Capcom 2 arrived early this morning on to Xbox Live Arcade. First, I'll say that I'm surprised I'm still pretty competent at this game, despite not having played it seriously in about six-and-a-half years. Second, I have to pat Backbone Entertainment on the back for doing a superlative port with great online play. It seriously makes the Playstation 2 version* look like an amateurish hack job in comparison. I don't know how I even played that after so long after its laundry list of problems.

The game itself handles just as well of the Dreamcast version, which this apparently is a direct port of. The biggest change is the removed hassle of unlocking half the cast (that's 28 out of 56 characters), palette swaps of stages, and extra colors. The game itself looks beautiful too, and you can tell Backbone did a careful job with upscaling this game to HD resolutions. For smaller touches, it also has a new, simpler menu design and three graphics options for you to fiddle around with: Classic (its original form, though it doesn't look as nice in HD), Smooth (i.e. utterly hideous), and Crisp (a nice little mix of the last two).

But what's most important here is the online play, and how it's integrated. For this, Backbone looked back to the stellar job they did with HD Remix and built on that, and the results are great. The netcode is just as good, if not better, than HD Remix. In the 20 or so matches I fought (all under 100 ping for a good connection), I only had one that bizarrely devolved into a laggy slideshow by the end of the match, though the ping was around 58; that makes me very curious. We've all seen what can happen when a game has a bad netcode, and thankfully this game is one of the better examples. I really hope Capcom of Japan consults their American team so that the next Street Fighter game can have a netcode better than Street Fighter IV's merely passable one.

As for the competition, well, it's so lop-sided right now that it's almost hilarious. My battles with random people in Ranked Matches have either finished with me dominating them, or me being dominated. I only had one match that came down to the wire, where he was winning most the time until I went berserk when I noticed the timer only had 20 seconds on it (which is accompanied by the announcer saying "Hurry up!"). I haven't used any characters that go beyond mid-tier, so I'm not surprised that I didn't stand a chance against a team consisting of top tier all-over-the-place characters like Cable, Magneto, Sentinel, and Storm. But the fact that most of my matches didn't consist of them gives me hope for its longevity. 

I'm glad for Marvel vs. Capcom 2's digital release, since because of its comparative accessibility (you know, compared to the nearly half-dozen other fighters released this year) I'm sure it'll find a new audience. And it comes at a great price too. A lot of people are skeptical to support the new "1200 points is the new 800" trend that's gripped Xbox Live Arcade games this year, but rest assured that this one is definitely worth that price. And hopefully everyone buying it -- and that seems to be plenty, as I didn't have a lack of competition -- will push Capcom to put more fighters on XBLA/PSN. Capcom vs. SNK 2 would be a no brainer there, since it runs on the same arcade board (Naomi, which is based on the Dreamcast's architecture). Keep your fingers crossed.


*And I guess the Xbox version too, though I haven't played it.

So I managed to totally forget that Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix - previously also released as Pocket Fighter - was part of the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology. Technically, it's not part of the series, but its colorful graphics very much resemble the art style those games had. And really, it's a pretty easy mistake to make because it's not a part of that series; it's mainly included as a bonus game on the disc for people who purchased the anthology to feel like they got more for their money. Because it sure isn't worth playing by itself!

Mini Mix is basically the fighting iteration of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. It uses most of the same sprites and the same voices, and puts them in a fighting arena. Like its sprites, Mini Mix isn't meant to be taken seriously in the least, which you can't help but realize when you play the game. Puzzle Fighter already represented a light-hearted-though charming take on the Street Fighter and Darkstalkers worlds (though it's more Street Fighter-like than Darkstalkers), but leave it to Mini Mix to make things even more jovial. Sure, it's obviously a different kind of game than Puzzle Fighter, but this game also differs in that it's unfortunately much less enjoyable.


The fighting mechanics themselves are somewhat similar to what would be an amalgam of Street Fighter and Darkstalkers, though with nowhere near the learning curve. Or the fun. The controls are a little more loose than either of those two games, and you can still perform some of the combos you did in those game. The difference is that here you're confined to a three button scheme for your main attacks, with one more button mapped to using a special attack that's unique to this game.

The "Gem Fighter" aspect of the title comes in when you're required to collect gems that are dispersed throughout the playing field. Just like Puzzle Fighter, the gems are in three colors, red, yellow, and blue. Though each of them will fill your Super Combo gauge, they also each serve a specific purpose of boosting whichever special move that the color is mapped to, which is displayed on the bottom of the screen (and also helpfully tells you how to perform the technique). Your special moves can go up three levels, which will build up as you collect more gems.

You can also collect items to throw at your opponent for hilarious results. Also, in addition to the usual Street Fighter and Darkstalkers combos that you're probably used to executing if you play these kinds of games (I hope you are), there are also special combos that allow for character transformations. Some of the transformations are parodies of characters you probably know if you've played any Capcom games from the 90s or before that. For instance, during some of Chun-Li's combos, she'll transform into Jun from Star Gladiator/Plasma Sword or Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil games. Also, Felicia has a combo where she'll transform into a female catgirl version of Mega Man. And be sure to take a look at the backgrounds to see various characters from various Capcom games.


The music is pretty good on its own, though it would've been nice if the characters had their specific themes. Still, what's here is merely OK and pretty catchy, which fits the mood of the game. They also fit the absolutely crazy backgrounds. If you're the kind of person that likes to complain about being distracted by too active backgrounds, then you're going to love to hate what's on display here. Though your complaints will be completely unwarranted because it's so easy to win at this game, even if you're not a fighting game veteran.

With how cute it is and for how good an idea it is - not to mention it being loaded with fanservice - it's a pity that the game overall falters. When you first lay eyes on it, you'll think it's the cutest thing ever and a really neat idea. But it isn't until you really dig into it that you realize there isn't much depth here. And it's presented in a way that's pretty deceptive as well; Mini Mix wants you to think that it's merely a chibi iteration of the fighting game franchises that you like so much, including an intricate-enough gameplay system that would also help in making it a similar alternative like Puzzle Fighter. But really, the experience comes off as just a dull (though not at all brutal) distraction.


It's kind of sad when you see what Mini Mix could've been as an alternative to the cute-though-deep Puzzle Fighter. As it stands, it feels like, well, one of those games that would just be included as an extra to make an overall package look more attractive from a bargain standpoint. Its inclusion in the package represents how much the standards have changed in the gaming industry in the last decade. This game was originally sold by itself for the PSOne as Pocket Fighter in the US, and it really wasn't worth it then. It's the kind of game you play solely for curiosity's sake, but it's nothing you take seriously.