Dali said:
... until SFV is released ditching the ape-men and chubby wushu girls by grace of better overall aesthetic/art direction and also adding improved game design and better controls. Then maybe people tempted to call the game a classic will see it for the comparative pile of poo it is. Also, if we're lucky, Capcom will be high on the power of the name, Street Fighter, and won't feel compelled to make the majority of the roster characters we've played ad naseum 20 years ago just to sell it.
Okay guys, who hacked Dali's account?
I never agree with this guy, and this post is so fundamentally right it's not funny. It's almost as if I hacked his account and posted this myself.
Dali +100!
Raging Spaniard said:
Except that if Capcom took your advice back in the day, SF III would have never happened because it reinvented the wheel.
Well if SF3 was just a gussied up SF2 like SF4 is, I would have had the same problems. Fortunately SF3 ignored the high level of retardation and scrub pandering going on in the Alpha series and headed out in it's own direction which felt like a logical evolution of SF2. Back when there was fighting game evolution and gobs of competition for my arcade dollars.
We may never see that level of experimentation again as companies like Capcom are desperate to appeal to the Call of Duty / Madden players who will never get fighting games. Dumbing down ≠ evolution.
SF3 was pure fighting game Darwinian bliss. SF4 is a concession to folks who stopped playing SF2 on the SNES and folks who never touched a SF game.
I'd have no problem with 4 being Street Fighter Alpha EX or Street Fighter Gaiden; but as a numbered entry in the main franchise the game play just isn't up to snuff and visually you know where I stand on it.
SonOfABeep said:
Disagree. SSF4 is probably one of the most balanced iterations of the franchise. It's worth being remembered for that. It may have made it a relatively bland game because there's no chun li "AIE AIE AIE AIE AIE" low forward, super " AIE AIE AIE AIE AIE" crap but I think SF4 is a fine competitive game. Not the best fighter ever, but quite good. Watching footsie matches between really good players is still fun and the game has loads of strategy at a high level. If people just mash out SRKs and Ultras, then they suck and will forever be stuck at a low level of play.
Besides, it has done so much to bring more people into the scene, and that's important, because Fighting games without people playing them are useless.
I just don't understand the mentality that if you like 3S you have to hate SF4. They're different games, both with their own advantages and disadvantages.
SF4 matches are a terrible bore to watch. Nowhere near the amazing stuff I see in 3S matches. That's not just the Daigo/Wong match either. Watching less known players using Hugo and Necro amazingly and pulling things I never considered is always fun. 4 is just watching and waiting for the same boring exchanges of the same lame combos everybody uses.
I defy you to post a SF4 match as compelling as any 3S match.
And it's not just I love 3S so I hate 4. Fundamentally 4 was wrong from the inception, moving to 3D visuals. Adding Ultard moves. Adding auto correct (the only SF game I've played where Guile has EVER flash kicked in the wrong f*cking direction, really?). Dumbing down the inputs instead of requiring players learn the inputs like we did 20 years ago in arcades at a substantially higher cost than the $59.99/$39.99 Capcom charged for the home versions of 4.
There's crap in 4 I'd pardon if they still used the Alpha ISM system, or had one of the numerous "Noob" modes we saw in past SF games over the years; but setting a lot of this flawed sh*t in stone was a huge mistake.
SonOfABeep said:
No, it was Street Fighter 3 that almost killed the franchise. 3S salvaged what was a fairly poorly received fighting game.
SF3 was also released when life support on arcades in the West had been pulled. It went from being able to hit a SF2 cabinet with a dead cat in corner stores, Kmart lobbies, video stores, and arcades - to needing to drive five or more miles out to play a game of SF3. Assuming the arcade operator maintained their machines. Closest 3 machines to me had busted buttons, which = NO PLAY.
No viable home console release didn't help either. Capcom still thought they were a SF2 era SNES king maker, but SF3 needed to be available on more than a mere SEGA console that inevitably failed thanks to lack of consumer confidence.
There were a number of bad Capcom business decisions that contributed to the lukewarm reception of the 3 series, even accounting for the poor reception it initially had on alt.games.sf2.
deadmuffin said:
i thought it was always cool seeing Akuma with grey hairs...showing that he can age, but is still just as powerful or better than he was when he was young
I enjoyed the seeming aging of the characters in the 3 series. Not only were they physically different, but Capcom started putting forth more effort to differentiate the shotos and whatnot. It's a little thing and doesn't mean much to the game overall, but it was appreciated.
