Recently I have found it a bit of a struggle to produce posts for this blog and that’s despite having a great many ideas in my head for discussion pieces and reviews. This writer’s block of sorts is my own fault because I have a tendency to try and turn everything I write into some sort of huge, in-depth feature that takes a lot of time and energy to actually finish off.
So I’ve decided to switch things up a bit. From now on, I will be making the reviews smaller and more bite-sized so that I can get them out faster. I also aim to get to the point(s) more concisely by writing in this way.
For those who are here because they have enjoyed some of my larger, more essay-like discussion write-ups then worry not because those will still happen. There are many more subjects and debates that I wish to cover and so I have every intention of getting around to them at some point.
In any case, I thought I’d just quickly put this out there. To the small number of visitors who follow this blog, I truly appreciate that tiny act of deciding to follow Darkstalker90 Gaming even if you don’t read everything my brain vomits out here.
By now, I’m sure you (and everybody else on the planet) has heard all about Sony’s upcoming Playstation Classic device, the “mini” set to capitalise on the popularity of similar products by Nintendo. I’m not going to go into massive detail on my thoughts because let’s face it: that’s already been done to death on the internet by countless people with greater influence and popularity than me – jus’ sayin’. All I will say is that I think the Playstation Classic will sell very well. The nostalgia boundaries have shifted over the last decade and whereas before it was Atari and Nintendo stuff that people wanted to go back to and revisit from their childhood, now it’s the time of 90’s systems such as the original Playstation.
Anyway, this is going to be a list of the fifteen titles that I would PERSONALLY put on the Playstation Classic (to complete the line-up of twenty) if it were to be tailor-made to me. This isn’t a list of the best games or the most marketable options but just a reflection of what I enjoyed the most on the original Playstation.
Go!
Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer
Honestly, this is a tough call because while most people say that Gateway to Glimmer (or Ripto’s Rage if you live in the US) is the best of the original trilogy, I have a massive love for the original game. In fact, the two are almost on par with one another but I have to give the edge to Spyro 2 simply for its greater depth and versatility. I never tire of revisiting this game either with my original PS1 copy or Vita download.
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
The best of the original trilogy for numerous reasons. Challenging while not being as brutal as the original and slightly more ‘pure’ than Warped, Crash 2 is just right and like the Spyro games, the original style of graphics and the polish originally worked into them by Naughty Dog hasn’t aged badly at all.
Resident Evil 3 Nemesis
This one may be a bit controversial because the original game has the nostalgia factor and the sequel is widely touted as the best game of the series, so much so that a much-demanded full-on remake is at last happening. Resi 3 was not as well loved due to the abundance of ammo removing that resource management factor and also the apparent lack of scares compared to its forerunners. I say “apparent” because as far as I’m concerned, there WERE plenty of crap-your-pants moments. I also much preferred exploring the decimated city itself. Hopefully Nemesis gets a remake too in the future but until then, I’d love to see it on a Playstation Classic.
Final Fantasy VIII
FFVII lovers gon’ hate but they can suck it because FFVIII is better in my opinion. In fact, Final Fantasy VIII is my favourite game of all-time so it has to have a place on this list. Love the gameplay, love the characters, love the music – I love everything about it. Well, not the Malboro monsters and their evil “Bad Breath” attack but nobody likes those in any edition of FF.
Medievil
I’ve spoken about Medievil here on the blog before, back when a remake was announced. Unlike the games above, this is a case of the original being nominated over sequels because while Medievil 2 carries some heavy nostalgia for me, a recent revisit proved to be frustrating and not as enjoyable as I recalled. The original however is absolute classic and while the gameplay itself is merely average, it’s the twisted gothic visuals, haunting music and the lore of Gallowmere itself that make the game so great. As with Spyro and Crash, I could happily play Medievil until doomsday and that’s why it needs to be on this list.
Driver
The Driver series has had some serious ups-and-downs over the years. The first two were highly enjoyable games while Driv3r (worst title for a game ever) tried to capitalise on the GTA craze and include on-foot shooting sections in addition to the titular driving. Unfortunately, it was an awful, glitchy mess that could have fatally torpedoed the franchise for good. Parallel Lines persisted with the on-foot bullshit (but was at least a far more polished game that WORKED) before the most recent installment – San Francisco – made Driver great again. Anyway, the original is a true classic that many like myself will remember fondly for the crazy ‘Take a Ride’ mode with its murderous cop cars and fantastic smashes. The less said about the opening parking lot level though, the better. Could the kids of today even be bothered to get through that?
Tombi
I absolutely adore this 2D platformer. Full of humour and luscious design, it was the kind of game that made the mainstream death of 2D platforming titles seem all the more a tragedy. After all, the PS1 and Sega Saturn often showed us what was possible with more powerful hardware than the 16bits but when these games came along, nobody bought them. Tombi was – thankfully given a digital PSN re-release because otherwise, the only way to play the game would be to shell out on expensive, original copies. To have a Playstation Classic without this would be against the law in my opinion.
Tekken 2
Tekken 3 is set to be on the actual Playstation Classic but while I do very much enjoy the third game in the series, it’s Tekken 2 that does it for me. Today it is a blocky, simplistic fighter compared to the current Tekkens but don’t be fooled because the gameplay here is utter gold. The Playstation version of the game ran at a super-smooth 60fps and the character roster was perfectly formed with many iconic faces. More importantly, the backdrops were beautiful in their simplicity and the music is easily the best of the series with tracks that suit each character’s personality to a T.
Ghost in the Shell
This is another hidden gem of sorts. Rather than playing as the iconic Major Motoko herself, the player pilots one of the Tachikoma spider tank things. You can walk up vertical surfaces, shooting down helicopters and taking out epic bosses. It’s just a really fun game that anybody can enjoy regardless of how much they know about Ghost in the Shell. The game is challenging enough but also immensely satisfying largely in part to the versatility of your vehicle. I’m not sure about the US version of the game but the PAL edition is relatively uncommon and commands a small premium. I own a Japanese copy that I managed to complete (thanks to English-language menus) but I’d certainly be up for playing through it again with the pleasure of having the English VA for the story cutscenes.
Ray Tracers
Ray Tracers is the result of the following formula: Chase HQ + anime characters + 90’s arcade racing games and it’s as good as it sounds. The game is quite short but challenging during the later stages to make up for it. I really enjoyed the 90’s arcade feel to the game with the music and handling of the cars and Ray Tracers just has that general pick-up-and-play goodness going on so it would be a perfect companion to the longer time sinks on a Playstation Classic device.
Einhander
Rarely has a developer deviated from their safe zone which such amazing results. Einhander was the result of Squaresoft taking a break from JRPG’s and randomly releasing their first and last shoot ’em up. And what a shmup it is. I’d heard all of the hype over Einhander for years and was ready for an OVERhyped experience when I got hold of a Japanese import but the game is simply amazing. The futuristic setting is very nicely rendered, the bosses are epic and being able to switch between two different stored power-ups is immensely satisfying.
Toca Touring Cars 2
I may be a bit biased here since Toca 2 perfectly captured my favourite era of the British Touring Car Championship, now looked back on as the “Super Touring” era. The game itself is a fantastic racer though with an incredible amount of polish that really proved why Codemasters had the reputation they did. I would actually take this over Gran Turismo so it’s a shame that the real Playstation Classic’s pads don’t come with analogue sticks…
Kula World
Kula World (also known as “Roll Away” in other territories) was a prime example of creative thinking in an era that many bemoan due to a flood of identikit games and the birth of overly-cinematic gaming. The game is minimalistic but doesn’t need fancy backgrounds or super-duper graphics. What you get is a fiendish puzzler that starts off easy before gradually morphing into a brain-taxing experience that will have you tearing your hair out. There are a 100 levels in Kula World and I only managed to get to 60-something before throwing in the towel. That said, I can’t resist another go.
Space Invaders
Another game with multiple names. In Japan, this was called Space Invaders X. Outside of Japan, it came with the rather more generic title of “Space Invaders“. This was a remake of sorts, not produced by Taito this time due to some sort of licensing deal which saw multiple 70’s/80’s arcade classics revamped for the Playstation era by Activision. Anyway, I really enjoy this game in either single player or co-op. There are some awesome power-ups (acquired by destroying four of the same colour invader in a chain) and massive bosses to test your reflexes. The game doesn’t get a lot of love (it doesn’t seem to be liked that much by the Space Invaders faithful) but I’ve always got a real kick out of playing it.
Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
Crash and Spyro may get the lion’s share of the plaudits when it comes to PS1 platforming but for me, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was right up there with the big hitters from Naughty Dog and Insomniac. Like those other, more popular platformers, Croc‘s 3D visuals adopted a more cartoonish approach and have aged similarly well with outdated textures and the like not being overly distracting in 2018. The game was actually quite challenging as well, especially if you were going for 100% completion and finding all of secrets. I rate Croc highly and would love to see it get a second chance.
So those are my picks. Of the five games that Sony have already confirmed for the Classic, I have to say that I am pretty interested in Wild Arms since it was an RPG I didn’t play and an original copy sells for anywhere between £20-£40 here in the UK at the time of writing this. Ridge Racer Type 4 is a solid racer with a meaty career mode and Final Fantasy VII is also an amazing game, albeit one that has been re-released a bit too much in recent years so its inclusion on the Classic is decidedly less-than-special. Tekken 3 is one of the high points of the fighting game genre (I just prefer Tekken 2) and Jumping Flash…well, it’s a well-known Playstation game but has it aged well?
Obviously this list could have been 2-3 times longer and there would still be many popular games/series’ I didn’t get around to on the PS1 that I’m sure would make the cut on other gamers’ wishlists.
What would you have chosen? Feel free to let me know in the comments!
Ever since the decline of the arcades and 16-bit home console era, there have been quests to find worthwhile modern examples of the genres that were driven close to exctinction by the arrival of cinematic, story-driven games. The beat ’em up is one such genre that flourished in the late 80’s and early 90’s but quickly became irrelevant to the mainstream. Developers attempted to take advantage of polygons and update their classic franchises but the results were a mixed bag to say the very least. After all, the likes of Fighting Force can hardly be discussed in the same breath as Final Fight…not by anybody with any taste anyway!
The PS2/Xbox/GC era was a particular low point as far as beat ’em ups go and there genuinely aren’t many decent ones to speak of. When they did appear, they weren’t quite the same as their 2D forerunners. I’ve already reviewed Final Fight Streetwise here but that game – along with Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance – included semi-free roaming gameplay as well as other features such as stat upgrades, side missions and cutscenes. The core beat ’em up objective (to smash the crap out of thugs and hoods) was still there but the purity of the arcade classics was lost.
One game that frequently gets brought up when gamers are questing for a good beat ’em up from the new millenium is Namco’s Urban Reign for the PS2. Like its rivals however, Urban Reign isn’t quite the game you might expect and simply expecting it to be a straightforward beat ’em up actually invites disappointment as I recently discovered.
A Misunderstanding…
I was expecting Urban Reign to be a 3D version of the old-school arcade beat ’em ups. You would have thought I’d have learnt by now that this just isn’t enough to sell a game in the modern era but even so, I popped the disc in and was prepping myself for perhaps ten to fifteen stages of ‘scrolling’ through streets and alleyways, punching thugs and making my way towards a boss at the end of each level. Bloody hell…get with the times old man! That shit was so 1992.
Instead, there is a brief cinematic introduction to the main character (Brad Hawk) who is apparently the new hard-arse in a town ruled by crime and violence. Brad starts working for Chinese crime boss, Shun Ying Lee, a female swordswoman equipped for the Playstation 2 generation of videogame marketing with a low-cut jumpsuit and an eye-popping B-W-H ratio that doesn’t exactly reflect a typical East Asian woman. The plot is henceforth communicated via narrated text boxes before each mission and is your standard guff about rival gangs, turf warfare and all that stuff so nothing new to see here. I was expecting cut-scenes perhaps but almost thirty missions in (yes, I’ll get to that in a moment), it was still just text explaining why Brad needed to go and beat up a rival gang boss or why Brad had to survive an alleyway encounter with a mob of gang members. Pretty soon I was skim-reading the ‘plot’ and just skipping it all. Wuthering Heights this wasn’t.
Hit the streets and go toe-to-toe with thugs sporting ridiculous names. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
This was beginning to look bad. Urban Reign didn’t sell very well by all accounts and it isn’t difficult to see why. The main character looks bland, the cover for the game is boring and the usual mid-2000’s videogame tropes are all correct and present: female character with huge tits and highly impractical outfit? Check. Generic homie ‘gangsta’ enemies? Check again. Unnecessary plot that tries to hard? Big fat ol’ check. The other probable reason that Urban Reign underperformed at retail (aside from barely being marketed at all by Namco) is because the gameplay itself was likely not what punters expected. Perhaps gamers made the same mistake I did and expected a modern take on the classic beat ’em up style with the same game structure. It’s difficult to know for sure but what you actually get is something a bit different.
Instead of long, roaming stages that trap you with groups of enemies before allowing you to move forwards, Urban Reign serves up bite-sized missions that can be cleared quite quickly. The player is enclosed within a confined, limited arena-like space (be it a street, alleyway, bar etc.) with objective of simply beating all of the enemies. Sometimes you have to take down a more challenging foe in a one-on-one scenario and sometimes there are extra conditions such as defeating opponents within a time limit but the basics are the same. It feels like a series of small challenges and the game more than makes up for the lack of a complex structure with the sheer amount of these self-contained missions.
Repetition – in terms of both the gameplay and the reasons the game gives you for having to fight the next assortment of undesirables – set in with me quite quickly but after clearing thirty missions, something amazing happened.
There’s actually MORE to this game?
So I beat the thirtieth mission and FINALLY a cutscene and some form of plot progression! By this point, I was seriously not expecting it at all but here it was. More importantly, the game gives you a selection of partners that you can take along with you into battle (a roster that gradually increases as you beat key enemies and they join your cause) and this brings special team-up style attacks to the mix. You can also issue directions to your buddy and get them to take out certain enemies or initiate special team-up moves.
It’s a shame that it takes so long for the game to introduce everything it has to offer.
Before I get into discussing the actual game mechanics, I need to take a moment to really look at this late introduction of the rest of Urban Reign‘s features. For it to take thirty missions for the game’s plot to wake up and decide to continue is crazy, even more so when you consider that Urban Reign is not a walkover. I played the the game on the default difficulty setting and many of those first thirty missions were incredibly challenging (for reasons I will discuss when talking about the actual gameplay in a moment) and took a lot of retakes and patience to beat. It’s not hard to imagine gamers getting frustrated by the challenge with (seemingly) no game development being dangled in front of them like a carrot to keep them pushing forwards. That and the fact that it takes this long for the partners to become available. It’s almost as if you have been playing a massive tutorial for all this time except the road certainly isn’t your standard tutorial difficulty.
So with that mini rant out of the way, let’s have a look at the actual gameplay itself because it’s reasonably interesting for a beat ’em up. The most surprising thing for a three dimensional beat ’em up is that there is NO block/guard button. Instead, the whole fighting system is based around countering. Pushing the square button at the precise moment will allow you to avoid a strike or grapple. However, to really do damage and beat the tougher enemies, you also need to get countering and you can either do this by responding immediately with a combo or by pushing the analogue stick left/right while dodging which shifts your character behind the opponent, opening them up for difficult to avoid counter strikes or grapples.
It’s an easy-to-grasp, tough-to-master mechanic and you can get away with not being good at it for the easier missions but many bosses will simply not hit the deck unless you can consistently counter their attacks and punish them with follow-up combos and throws. What this system does in general is force you to either stand your ground and learn to counter or run away and find space but enemies in Urban Reign will catch up to you very quickly so the second option isn’t exactly reliable. It’s a case of getting good…or else!
(Analogue) Stick it to ’em
As far as the offensive combat goes, the analogue stick pays a crucial part. Mashing the attack button will unleash a character’s basic combo string but attacking in conjunction with pushing the analogue stick up or down allows to target their upper and lower body regions with the latter usually being some kind of sweep that can provide crucial seconds to breathe when under pressure. You can also attack downed characters by pushing down on the stick when next to them.
Strongman Glenn is one of my favourite available characters.
Grapples work in the same way, allowing you target specific parts of an enemy and deal greater damage when it comes to “destroying” one of three body zones, allowing for bigger damage when targeting said zone with further attacks. Perhaps it goes without saying but there are different holds and throws available depending on whether you are in front or behind an enemy. Sprinting takes a bit of getting used to because instead of double-tapping the analogue stick or holding a button whilst moving (as in many other 3D action games), you press the X button once and your character begins running automatically, only stopping once you go for another input. You can slide-tackle enemies or even run up walls and leap off to attack enemies from above.
There’s a reasonable amount going on but the real fun comes when experimenting with creating big combos of strikes and grapples. This being made by Namco, there is Tekken-style juggling and wall-bouncing which is both a help and hindrance. On one hand, you can use it to your advantage to extend combos and even grab enemies mid-air for context-exclusive grapples. The downside is that you can get destroyed very quickly by enemies when being smashed against a wall over and over or trapped in mid-air, being comboed by multiple foes. In a sense, losing feels extremely cheap when the CPU goes apeshit on you like this but the counter system does work mid-combo and in mid-air albeit with strict timing so it isn’t entirely unfair. It simply forces you to get good at the game rather than rely on button-mashing and it’s this that sets Urban Reign apart from old-school 2D beat ’em ups. There is some depth to combat here and if you want a better visual demonstration, check the game out on Youtube where there are videos from players doing an amazing job of utterly schooling the toughest enemies on the most savage difficulty.
One issue which I can’t really forgive is the fact that it doesn’t take much to stun your character and render them momentarily dizzy, leaving you unable to respond to attacks with dodges or counters. An SPA (Special Arts) move will immediately snap you out of this state but it consumes precious meter which you are (obviously) trying to conserve to go on the offensive.
Final Thoughts
There are a hundred missions in Urban Reign‘s story mode to clear and once those are polished off, there are some more interesting things to have a play with. Multiplayer for instance gives you more of a fighting chance when an actual person is controlling your partner (though the AI is actually quite solid in this respect and often wins the missions for you). There is also a Challenge mode (think ‘Survival’ against individual foes) and a Free Play mode which allows you to replay all of the story mode’s missions for a rank. This last mode is of greatest interest as you are no longer restricted to using Brad Hawk and can roll with a tag team of any two characters providing they have been unlocked. All of the main allies from story mode are present but you can also unlock the random enemies/thugs as well as brand-new characters including guest stars Paul Phoenix and Marshall Law from Tekken!
Paul is pretty epic in Urban Reign and beating down thugs with his signature moves is worth unlocking him for.
But should you persevere with the main game and go to the lengths of unlocking characters? I would say “yes” because Urban Reign might not be what most people are expecting i.e. a mindless (not meant in a derogatory way) button-mashing beat ’em up that harks back to the 2D days but the game is great in it’s own way. The combat is very satisfying once you have gotten to grips with the counter system and learnt some combos and there is genuine challenge on offer. So many missions made me think “Damn, this is impossible; how are you expected to win here?!?” but you keep coming back and trying again, slowly getting better and better at the game until you get that perfect run on a mission. True, you sometimes have to rely on flukes, CPU slip-ups or cheap tactics to win but for the most part, you feel like you have earnt that victory and it is SO satisfying to finally overcome an against-the-odds mission.
The major downside is the amount of time that Urban Reign needs to get going. Without trying to sound impatient, it takes far too long for any story progression and – more importantly – too long for partners, weapons and all of the special moves to become available. Gradually developing a character’s skills and unlocking stuff in games is nothing new but the issue here is that it DOES take too long and the game does a poor job of communicating your actual progression and end goals. This combined with the often ruthless difficulty will be off-putting to many – especially if they expected a different kind of game structure – but if you can stick with it and learn the mechanics then there is a really enjoyable beat ’em up experience here and certainly one of the best of its generation.
Console exclusitivity…it sucks, right? By and large though, we have pretty much moved beyond these practices over the last few generations and while some may say that it ruins the individuality between platforms, I say “bring it on”. There’s nothing worse than not being able to play all of titles you are interested in without owning multiple systems that cost hundreds and hundreds of pounds each, not to mention the storage space required.
This generation has been pretty kind to me in this respect. Nearly everything I want to play is available on the PS4 with the only Xbox One exclusives able to invoke envy within me being Killer Instinct and Rare Replay. The arrival of the Nintendo Switch didn’t initially mix things up at all but as the decent exclusives began to flow, I was seeing more and more things I liked. The Switch is, after all, the first Nintendo console that I haven’t owned since the N64. That said, consciously deciding to NOT buy a Nintendo console will always automatically lock you out of their exclusive properties so there can be no hard feelings about not being able to experience the likes of Mario Odyssey if you make a decision not to purchase the hardware.
Unfortunately, it certainly does grate my gears when something like this happens, ‘This’ being Nintendo striking a distribution deal with NIS America to make the physical edition of SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy and Switch exclusive in the West.
It’s time to get my moan on!
It’s more fan service-y than a serious fighting game but I’m still interested in playing Tag Team Frenzy.
The game had originally been slated for both the PS4 and Switch. I had personally been aware of the game’s general release window and was looking forward to picking it up but this crappy news only popped up on my radar yesterday. Annoyingly, there IS a physical release available for the PS4 here in the UK (and – I assume – the US) but to get at it, you have to buy the ‘Diamond Dream Edition’, a big Collector’s Edition box that comes with loads of extras and weighed it at around £100. Unsurprisingly, the asking prices for copies on ebay UK as of making this post are edging closer to £200. *sigh*.
This is my own fault for being a bit of a magpie when it comes to having a collection of physical games I suppose but downloading full retail games digitally has never sat well with me. DLC, retro re-releases and indie games…sure, that’s fine but when it comes to the full fat stuff, I want a box and disc for the shelf. Call it future-proofing or obsessiveness but I feel a bit deflated if the only option is digital.
The contents ARE admittedly very cool but (a few exceptions aside) I don’t buy these kinds of CE’s anymore. They are expensive, take up too much room and I’d never touch the extras again (other than the artbook perhaps).
Then there is the other consideration to take into account: The PS4’s HDD space and how fast that sucker fills up just with regular game installs, let alone full games. So the options left for me right now are:
Don’t buy the game at all
Buy digitally (yuck)
Import a physical Asian/Japanese copy but be locked out of any DLC
I will likely opt for the third route even if means not being able to purchase any DLC down the line. I just need to get a good price which is a lot more difficult when dealing with imports versus domestic releases which usually drop in value quite quickly if you are patient enough.
So thanks for that Nintendo though I’m not sure that this game will be the big exclusive hit that you hope for on the Switch.
It’s well past time that I published this third and final part of my look at the fighting game’s “Golden Age” but, well…life/shit happens and I’ve been a bit lacking when it comes to those all-important creative juices. With that said, I’m back now so I apologise to anybody who has been waiting for Pt.3 but here it is – at last. So far in parts one and two, I have declared that the genre was at its peak from 1991-2000/01 and have discussed the reasons (as I see them) for its eventual, disappointing downfall. All things have to come to an end after all but worry not for Part 3 of this mini-series will focus on the happy stuff, namely what made this point in time so bloody fantastic for fans of fighting games…
A decade of innovation
It would be an outright lie to say that modern-day fighting games don’t bring new ideas to the table but it’s a stone-cold fact that the majority of genre staples and general mechanics (that are now taken for granted) were introduced throughout the 90’s and thus is was a very exciting time to be a player of fighting games. What we tend to see in modern fighting games by contrast are refinements, gimmicks (not necessarily always a bad thing) and attempts to be as flashy as possible.
Street Fighter II kicked things off in ’91 and while I have previously said that SFII cannot take any credit for being the original one-on-one fighting game (a statement I stand by), it certainly created a template that is still in use today. Best-of-three, special move inputs (now commonly used across the majority of fighting games), play styles (grappler, charge, projectile etc.) and character archtypes were all either born or made mainstream with SFII. SNK’s Art of Fighting would introduce ‘Super’ moves to the genre (before Super Street Fighter II Turbo popularised them) and Capcom’s other fighting game, Darkstalkers, debuted air-blocking. It’s actually astonishing that for all the visual and mechanical evolution of fighting games, Street Fighter II is still running in the background.
How easy is it to forget that air blocking/guarding originated in Darkstalkers?
The next important innovation was already happening at the very same time that Street Fighter was dominating the scene however. Sega released Virtua Fighter in 1993, creating the first 3D fighting game. Comical moon-jumps aside, VF also championed more realistic fighting styles as opposed to the pyrotechnical wizardry and unlikely gymnastic feats of Street Fighter and began to carve out a niche of its own that would see major fruition with Virtua Fighter 2, a sequel widely regarded as one of the all-time greats within the genre. The likes of Tekken and Dead or Alive would follow (and overtake Virtua Fighter in terms of popularity) but Sega had got there first and created the genre’s second ‘main’ style.
So many smaller innovations were happening at the same time however. Fatal Fury experimented with plane-swapping, The King of Fighters brought team battles to the mix and Capcom’s Vs series would kick off the concept of crossovers between more than one company. Namco’s Soulblade (or Souledge in other territories) gave us weapons-based fighting while developers also experimented with taking fighting games into a more arena-based environment with the likes of Capcom’s Powerstone and Taito’s Psychic Force. Meanwhile, Super Street Fighter II XFor Matching Service and Vampire Chronicle For Matching Service were quietly introducing online play to Japanese console gamers via their Dreamcast modems.
Obviously you can point out that it’s unfair to criticise modern fighting games for their lack of innovation due to the fact that there is only so much you can do with the genre and so the 1990’s would always boast the bulk of new, core mechanics. Regardless, the 90’s has to be remembered with greater fondness for this period of rapid evolution.
Virtua Fighter 2: the sort of huge leap forward that will likely never be seen again within the genre.
Art that blew us away
Outside of the technical stuff, this was THE most incredible period in terms of artistry for fighting games. Hand-drawn backgrounds and sprites were often beautiful to behold with the absolute zenith emerging towards the latter part of the decade. The likes of Street Fighter III, Vampire Saviour, The Last Blade 2, Marvel Vs Capcom and Arc’s Guilty Gear series boasted gorgeous 2D sprites that were a joy to behold and it was fascinating to imagine how many hours of painstaking work and skill we were witnessing on our screens. Today, the same developers behind these games are using 2.5d character models and ‘2D’ characters that are actually layered over polygons as well as cinematic super move animations with multiple camera angles. All of this is far from offensive and does actually look pretty nice but it simply cannot awe in the way that fully hand-drawn characters once did.
Backgrounds and backdrops were just as mind-blowing with the very best featuring ridiculous levels of detail and – in the case of larger crossover games – lots of hidden easter eggs and cameos to pick out. These were often more impressive than the characters themselves and even earlier 3D fighting games featured some lovely, static backdrops that were appealing in their simplicity without needing to rely on distracting background action. Below is a small selection to illustrate what I mean because art speaks for itself…
Savage Reign [Neo-Geo]. Incredible levels of detail. Tekken 3 [Arcade]. King’s stage. The distant, cloud-topped mountains in the background are a simple yet beautiful backdrop. Tekken 2 [Arcade]. Jun’s ‘Morning Fields’ stage. So, so basic yet so beautiful. The peaceful countryside is a stark contrast to the bone-snapping combat but works so well. Street Fighter Alpha 2 [Arcade]. One of the most atmospheric stages in any fighting game. Samurai Shodown IV [Neo-Geo]. Ridiculously beautiful. Capcom were the masters of sprites but SNK were the GODS of backgrounds.
More Samurai Shodown IV because why not when it’s THIS pretty?
And thisamazing, transitional stage from The King of Fighters ’99 that never fails to blow me away…
This is just the tip of a very large iceberg and if you (like me) have spent countless hours exploring the full spectrum of fighting games from this era of hand-drawn artistry, you will very likely have your own nominations and personal definition of the term ‘impressive’. Given the vast quantity of fighting games that were produced in the 90’s, there is so much to see and many, many hidden gems when it comes to stunning backgrounds.
Sounds good to me
Of course, tight gameplay and pretty aesthetics need suitably good audio to match and this golden age of fighting games just so happened to represent developer sound teams at the peak of their powers. Modern fighting games tend to have very orchestral ‘epic’ soundtracks, pulse-pounding techno or mixes of older themes. The former work within the game(s) and are of good quality but are usually not that memorable. The latter – to me at least – demonstrates a distinct lack of confidence on the part of the developers when it comes to composing original, catchy themes that will be remembered in years to come.
Fighting game music from the 90’s though? It stuck in your head and is the kind of stuff that gamers flock to Youtube to listen to again all these years later. Importing expensive soundtrack CD’s from Japan is WORTH it for these OST’s. This was also an era when console ports of arcade fighting games such as Virtua Fighter, King of Fighters ’96 and the Playstation Tekken trilogy featured arranged versions of the entire soundtracks that took advantage of the CD medium. Clear effort was put into re-arranging soundtracks and catchy arcade riffs suddenly gained transitions, extra layers of instrumentation and more depth in general. The best part was that BOTH the arcade and home arrangements were usually worth listening to and I can’t have been the only one who regularly switched them about in the options menus!
There are literally hundreds of amazing tracks to choose from so below are (Youtube) links to just 10 of my favourites from the era.
Those are just a fraction of my favourites and if I’m being honest, I feel that the list does a major disservice to some of the more obscure fighting games of the era as well as some of the major ones but I could genuinely sit here linking away forever to what I consider to be amazing pieces of music.
Heart and Soul
All of this – the innovation, art, music – are however, all mere ingredients that come together to form the biggest characteristic of the fighting game genre in ’91-00/01 that gives it the Golden Age status. That characteristic is SOUL. This was an era when developers were battling to outdo one another at a terrific pace, developing bigger and better arcade boards, fighting fire with fire and racing to be the first to introduce their new innovations to the market. Capcom and SNK slugged it out for the decade (before the incredible Capcom Vs SNK series paid tribute to their war), 3D fighting games evolved at a great pace and bigger and bolder sprites vied for our attention on a constant basis.
Let’s be honest: do modern fighting games feel as colourful and creative as this?
When the dust settled though, it was us – the fans – that were the real winners. Fighting games during this period felt like more than just simple money-making products (which they obviously were intended to be). They felt alive and you could feel how the developers had put so much creativity and artistry into trying to make the best possible product, pushing the available hardware to the limits and beyond (see the necessary RAM expansion cartridges for Sega Saturn ports of several Capcom and SNK games). The graphics, sound and even conceptual character artwork just kept getting better and better as each year passed and it was a real treat to behold.
Modern fighting games are still very enjoyable but there is a lot of focus on the almost clinical tournament play (as it is streamed over the internet as en E-Sport), online play and DLC. The creativity is still there but computer modelled characters and environments simply cannot stop the heart in the same way that hand-drawn animation once did. There is also so much recycling and updating of old music and stages from the past with an over-reliance on the glory days. True, fans don’t help this matter at times when they demand to see throwbacks in order to feel comfortable with a new generation of their favourite series but even so, the current fighting game scene certainly doesn’t feel innovative or aesthetically special (rare exceptions aside of course).
Taking one final, quick look at the stages and music for example, it felt like developers created these specifically to describe the characters that they belonged to, conveying their personalities wordlessly through the tone of the music and themes of the stages. Things are a lot more generic today by contrast.
This was actually a difficult topic to tackle because rose-tinted vision is a very real threat and we – as humans – love to tell the next generation how the old days were better (before they themselves do the same to another younger generation, despite believing that they won’t!). On the subject of fighting games however, I do genuinely believe that 1991 through to around 2000/2001 was the defining Golden Age for the genre. It was when fighting games had the most soul and a capacity to thrill with their visuals and move the heart with their sound. It was the birth of countless icons and still the place for superb gameplay.
And that concludes my three-part look at why I believe this was the one, true Golden Age of fighting games. I’d love to hear what others think!
Now that I have your attention with that outrageous title, I guess I will need to justify making such a statement and with good reason. Whenever the topics of worst videogame reboots and worst modern updates of classic franchises get brought up, you can bet a fat wedge of your hard-earned money that Final Fight Streetwise will make it onto that list. It’s easy to see why too: the game was released in that awkward mid-noughties period when publishers seemed to believe that what their cherished franchises needed to succeed on the PS2 and Xbox was grittiness, tits and gratuitous profanities. Many series’ fell foul of this notion (an entire topic in itself) including Capcom’s much-loved Final Fight beat ’em up series.
Eternally a sucker for the more obscure stuff that lies at the dusty side of this well-travelled road we call “Gaming”, I decided that it was high time I played the game for myself to see if Streetwise was really deserving of its poor rep.
Even bad games increase in value due to their notoriety. The going rate for Streetwise in 2018 is £7-£10.
The shocking thing was that I found myself enjoying the game! After hearing nothing but hatred for Final Fight Streetwise over the years, this was a big surprise. It certainly goes to show that popular internet opinion isn’t always correct and that you should always try a game out for yourself before joining in the chorus of condemnation based on what you have heard/read or seen in video footage.
That’s not to say that the game is a classic or anything approaching that because there ARE many things that are wrong with it. The big elephant in the room is of course the ‘Final Fight’ name on the box and the depiction of the likes of Cody, Guy and Haggar in this game. A lot of the scorn for Streetwise stems from the fact that this game is part of the Final Fight saga and fans of the older games were (understandably) pissed that their beloved franchise and characters were radically different this time around. If Streetwise had traded the Final Fight connections for new, original characters then it probably wouldn’t have invited such a critical pasting and would have simply been another 3D beat ’em up for the PS2 generation. Unfortunately, Capcom decided it was safer (ironically) to trade on an established name, a move that sealed Streetwise‘s fate from the beginning. The irony continues however when considering that Capcom also developed an original 3D beat ’em up title for the PS2 called Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance. This game was objectively better than Final Fight Streetwise in several respects but still no classic yet a lack of connection to an established, much-loved series counted in its favour.
Gritty urban surroundings and guns? The Final Fight resemblance was a bit thin.
To describe the gameplay, I’ve taken to billing Streetwise as a crap version of Sega’s Yakuza. That’s to say that there is a free-roaming nature to the game (albeit confined to a much more limited, less interactive game world) with 3D combat, the use of weapons and an upgradable set of moves/combos. Different areas of Metro City are gradually unlocked as the game progresses and there are a variety of side missions as well as a series of pit fights against opponents that stand out from the general street thugs and gangstas. All of this considered, it’s easy to make the comparisons between Metro City and Kamurocho but if Sega’s highly detailed crime saga can be likened to a Ferrari then Streetwise would probably be a Ssangyong or a Dacia by comparison.
And as a I mentioned earlier, the game fell into the trap of pandering to the teenage boy audience that every publisher was trying to sell games to in the mid-2000’s. Metro City is a gloomy, miserable urban environment this time around with a look of extreme decay and social rot about it. F-bombs and all manner of other swearing are casually tossed about, blood flies during brawls and hookers hang around on street corners, trying to sell the main character their wares. Fortunately, Streetwise doesn’t let you go any further with the latter and the dilapidated city’s porn theatre is conveniently never able to serve you due to the “register being down”. A soundtrack of gangsta beats from obscure artists serves as backing noise (and I really do consider it to be “noise”) and completes the transformation of the once colourful, cartoon-like beat ’em ups from the arcade and Super Nintendo.
Darker and more ghetto than before.
You play as Kyle Travers, brother to Final Fight‘s Cody Travers and an up-and-coming fight club brawler. Many years have passed since the events of Final Fight and Cody is now older with knackered knees that can’t take the abuse of fighting anymore so he puts his time into coaching his brother instead. Cody still feels the burning desire to fight however and finds himself mixed up with shady underworld types and a dangerous new drug called “Glow” that can turn the average man into a superhuman machine at the eventual cost of the user’s mind and humanity. A dangerous gang crashes a drinking sesh at the local bar and kidnaps Cody with the gang’s leader – known as The Stiff – knocking Kyle unconscious at the conclusion of the brawl. This is where the game kicks off properly, with Kyle’s aim being to track down his brother and save him from Metro City’s underworld and the lethal Glow drug. Final Fight has certainly grown up since the old days eh?
Along the way, Kyle runs into strong man Haggar (angrier and swearier than before) and Guy who has now become a gang boss himself, heading up the Japantown district of Metro City. There aren’t really any more links to the Final Fight lineage other than these characters and a few references to their past exploits. The only classic Final Fight enemy to make a return is Andore as an optional pit opponent. Concept art for the game showed Poison and Sodom but neither made it into the final game.
Thus far, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Final Fight Streetwise is a load of nonsense, trying to be cool and hardcore while re-writing the likes of Cody and Haggar to be grittier, more ‘realistic’ characters e.g. exactly what nobody asked for. Gangsta music, a drug-related plot and the more violent nature of combat certainly suggest this so you may be wondering why I’m saying that Streetwise is not actually a bad game?
You say bad, I say so bad it’s brilliant.
Well, the “bad” stuff is often so bad that I found it entertaining with so many crappy aspects of Streetwise lending the game a unique sort of charm. The awful NPC dialogue and quotes for example are just brilliant. Metro City appears to have a large population of flamboyant men making overly saucy remarks to Kyle in passing, (one such comment even referencing a “package”…whatever that means…) while hookers come out with such brazen lines as “Fancy a shag?” or “Wanna have a poke?”…in laughably posh British accents which obviously make the world of sense in an urban, American city.
Side missions often take the form of mini games which are a stark contrast to the game’s moody, violent vibe. One standout distraction is a card shuffling game where you must keep an eye on the winning card as it is shuffled with two others. You play this game by speaking to a suited businessman who just happens to be hanging around in a bad part of town, briefcase of playing cards at his side. Other amusing mini games include (literally) stamping out a cockroach infestation in the diner, smashing up a car that has enraged a local resident by being parked in their way (a nice throwback to the car-smashing interludes in the arcade game) and…blasting rubber ducks in an alleyway shooting gallery to win cash? Yep, that happens. The novelty of these side events does wear off once they begin to repeat over and over but there’s no denying that they are – initially – quirky and unexpected in a game where you expect to simply be fighting.
I’ll be honest, as interesting as this was, I still didn’t bemoan a lack of G-Con2 support.
Speaking of the fighting, it’s actually not that bad. Yes, Final Fight Streetwise had contemparies that arguably did combat better (Urban Reign, Spikeout: Battle Street) but Streetwise is still more than serviceable. There are the standard light and strong attacks to create combos as well as the obligatory throw command. In addition, there is also an “Instinct” meter below the health bar. This energy can be used to enhance the power of moves (by holding down one of the shoulder buttons while attacking) or to fuel the use of stronger special moves such as the drop kick or suplex. Kyle can also counter an opponent’s attack if the player presses the block/guard button at precisely the right moment, sending the game into a brief slow-mo sequence where they can input various commands to evade damage and knock the enemy back. New moves and extensions to the health and instinct meters are purchased from the game’s various gyms, giving the player a reason to collect as much cash as possible from side events and enemy drops.
It’s nothing special but it works and there is a reasonable level of satisfaction to be gleaned from the combat, especially when consistently countering like a boss and sending enemies flying with an elbow smash, nose-breaker or hurricane kick.
Other sweet touches are a cameo fight against Street Fighter‘s Cammy (as a big fan of Cammy, I loved this) and a bonus arcade mode whereby you select Kyle, Cody, Guy or Haggar and attempt to fight your way through hoardes of enemies as in the old-school arcade games. Arcade mode takes on a strange 2.5d perspective with a fixed route and a much simplified moveset including a removal of the Instinct system (so no counters either) and many special moves. It’s an interesting sideshow but good luck beating it on your own without a second player because it’s absolutely brutal. Finally, you can unlock the original 1989 arcade game and play it from Streetwise‘s main menu but in all honesty, I can’t recommend the port as it feels sluggish with a poor resolution. Stick to the Capcom collections on the PS2 or PSP if you want to play classic Final Fight. Or the superb Final Fight One for the GBA.
I wish this costume for Cammy had made it into one of the Street Fighter games as an alternate outfit but I imagine Capcom are keen to forget Streetwise ever happened.
Overall, I have to say that Final Fight Streetwise is not the absolute trainwreck that I was waiting to experience when I popped the disc into my PS2 after all these years of reading negative horror stories. Yes it is a flawed game and no, it isn’t an essential gem in the PS2 (or original Xbox’s) library. There are better 3D beat ’em ups available from this generation of gaming – without question – but I do feel that Streetwise receives a lot of flack for being a bad Final Fight game rather than a bad game in general. Strip away that famous name and you have a serviceable beat ’em up with some interesting quirks. It isn’t a bad game at all; it simply failed to live up to the Final Fight name but that was always going to be the case.
The one major complaint I personally have is that the save system is terrible. You can only save by quitting the game (not explained in-game or in the manual) and loading a saved game puts you back at your last checkpoint (also not explained in-game or in the manual) meaning that until you realise this, you can lose a lot of side-mission progress by believing that you have saved the game at your current point when you haven’t. Other small niggles are repetitive mini games, some fiddly bosses and the final few chapters feeling more like Resident Evil with zombie-like enemies and mutated bosses.
But Streetwise still isn’t a bad game. I couldn’t exactly recommend it but I COULD recommend that you open your mind a little, forget the Final Fight name and give the game a chance because it’s alright.
[Disclaimer:yes, I am very late to be discussing this but I’m way behind on gaming news…]
Later on this year, Nintendo will be hitting us with another killer app for the Switch in the form of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the fifth installment in the fan-favourite smash ’em up which celebrates all things Nintendo while also managing to be a hot tournament favourite for competitive gamers. The game looks set to really live up to its ‘Ultimate’ suffix too thanks to the inclusion of every character that has ever been playable in a Smash Bros. game no matter if they are obscure, a relative clone of a more popular combatant or a licensed guest fighter. Everybody is in for the throwdown.
As you can probably imagine, there is a lot that can be discussed about such a game but surprisingly (or unsurprisingly if you’ve been around the videogame community long enough) the biggest talking point that I have seen cropping up across the internet is how Nintendo have decided to tone down the sexuality of Zero Suit Samus and…Solid Snake? The ACTUAL surprising element to this is that there appears to be greater outrage towards the smoothing out of Snake’s butt than there is for Samus losing a few cup sizes since the Wii-U/3DS Smash Bros.Yes, I have just typed that and no, I can’t quite believe it either.
While I would love to talk about Solid Snake’s butt definition, I’m more interested in the fact that the fan outrage to this change hasn’t been as fierce as I’d expected. After all, I’d like to think I’m pretty familiar with the gaming community having being a gamer since the early 1990’s and in that time, I have seen a lot of anger directed towards developers who censor their games or tone down specific aspects in order to not offend. To name a recent example, it wasn’t too long ago that Street Fighter fans were pretty pissed when Capcom manipulated the camera angles for Cammy and Rainbow Mika’s intro animations so as to hide a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it crotch shot for the former and an ass slap for the latter.
I should know because Iwas pretty annoyed about it. Not because I demand games to be as gratuitous as possible for no good reason but because I am 100% against the act of censoring or modifying existing designs/products/artwork in order to pander to the easily offended “won’t somebody think of the children?!?” brigade. In the case of Street Fighter V, I felt that this is what had happened: Capcom hastily commissioning a scrappy edit to a couple of harmless animations just in case somebody, somewhere would create negative press born of the crazy idea that a bit of mild sexuality is obviously the devil incarnate. Let’s overlook the fact that Street Fighter is built upon general violence, brutal holds and genuinely evil characters like Bison and Akuma. All of that is fine but Mika giving her big butt a provocative smack is just not on. Oh no.
But I’m going off-track here. My point is/was that I have seen enough of these kinds of scenarios over the years to be genuinely surprised that the reaction to Samus becoming less chesty wasn’t as volcanic as it might have been. Sure, I have read comments of outrage and dismay but the change does seem to have been accepted more willingly than I’d anticipated.
With this in mind, I thought it would be fun to discuss it. Was Nintendo right to tone Samus’ anatomy down and does it even matter anyway?
Samus grew even more top-heavy when Nintendo decided to give Team Ninja the reigns on Metroid Other M. Considering their Dead or Alive work, this was still quite tame.
I feel that the place to start this discussion/debate is at the point just before Samus’s Ultimate re-design. The character had steadily grown more and more busty when you look at Metroid: Other M and also her appearance in Smash Bros. for Wii-U/3DS, the latter being particularly notable considering that her breasts were pretty damn big when the rest of her was reasonably slender. The game also included an alternate costume that placed Samus in a swimsuit-like outfit, further emphasising her sexuality and giving the Deviantart crowd much to cheer about. There was nothing inheritently wrong with any of this but it has to be noted that the character of Samus Aran had changed dramatically in a short space of time.
Samus is meant to be a tough-as-nails intergalatic bounty hunter. The fact that she turned out to be a woman beneath her externally masculine Power Suit was one of gaming’s earliest twists. The fact that she was also an incredibly attractive design was inevitable in a visual-orientated medium of entertainment. However, by the time we were playing Smash on the Wii-U/3DS, Samus was less about her action-packed exploits in space and more about her skintight bodysuit and physical appeal. The problem that many have pointed out is that Samus’ design has become less and less suited for her profession and background and had begun to border on daft. After all, those Smash 4 bunker-buster boobs can’t exactly aid her agility and it’s improbable that a hardened veteran of countless cosmic adventures and deadly battles against the likes of Ridley and Kraid should resemble a flawless supermodel beneath the armour.
So when we see that Nintendo have decided to tone Samus’ figure down, should we be less concerned about meddling for the sake of satisfying Nintendo’s traditional family-friendly audience and more interested in the fact that they might just be trying to get their heroine back to being more believable? It certainly seems to me that this process already began with Metroid: Samus Returns, looking at the concept art below:
Smaller boobs but no complaints at all.
In the Samus Returns art, the character has a flatter chest but is still an attractive design with a more than ample, womanly figure. This to me is getting closer to what a I believe a realistic Samus should look like beneath the armour. I’m all for the sexy-sexy in videogames (as my love for DoA confirms) but even I think that Samus should be an athletic woman in terms of build with some musculature. I would personally go even further with a shorter, more functional hairstyle and an even more athletic figure with more muscle.
Swinging back to the other end of the figure scale, it’s interesting to note that Nintendo originally described Samus Aran as a 6″3, 200 pound muscular woman (source: Nintendo Power) which would put her firmly in the amazonian category where you would expect a woman to perhaps have a more curvaceous, striking body. This was allegedly later re-conned to say that Samus is only that tall when wearing the Power Suit but even if we were take the original description of Samus as how she should look sans armour, the outgoing Zero Suit version from Smash 4 still wouldn’t make much sense. She wasn’t depicted as a mighty amazonian or an athletic girl – just a slinky blonde that had been given large, prominent breasts for pure sex appeal.
The original depiction of Samus…
In this sense, it’s actually surprising that Nintendo had let us have this rendition of Samus for so long because they are traditionally a family-friendly company not known for sexualising their female characters, especially in Western releases of their games. They have also been quite strict in recent times when it comes to censoring games e.g. Tokyo Mirage Sessions (upskirt views blurred/blacked out, certain costumes edited to remove cleavage) and Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water (lingerie-style costumes removed). So you could say that this change for Samus is not surprising at all, especially when the Switch is doing so well and being marketed at an all-inclusive age range.
The flipside of the argument for greater realism is that gaming is meant to be pure escapism so if Samus has bigger boobs and the face of a model then…so what? Not much else in gaming is grounded in reality so why do we need to pick up on certain characters or games and ask for them to make more sense? Gaming is meant to be fun and it is meant to be fantasy so a push for greater realism on any level feels like a direct contradiction. A lot of people like to slate the Dead or Alive games for how their women are designed/depicted and while I am aware of a much larger and more complex debate behind the criticism, the games are ultimately daft and just harmless fun. I can only speak for myself but I don’t play these games and then have an expectation of real women to resemble the likes of Kasumi or Tina. It is escapism and fantasy.
An ocean of sexy ZSS artwork has appeared online since the character’s debut, proving the popularity of the design regardless of realism (or lack of). [source: vengarlsolarblade @ Deviantart.com] Of course, cynical character design and sexy for the sake of sexy is never a very clever thing. I don’t however believe that Nintendo ever set out along this path when they designed Zero Suit Samus. Obviously they must be aware of the reasons for the character’s popularity but do I think that they (or associated developers) have intentionally set out to gradually increase her bust size in order to sell software? No, I really don’t.
Ultimately (pun 100% intended!), I am fairly neutral about what Nintendo have decided to do with Samus. On the one hand, I can’t deny that I like the bustier rendition of the character and I would certainly be aggrieved if Nintendo have actioned a reverse boob-job purely to appease the easily outraged. However, they have given Samus a slightly more realistic figure while maintaining overall attractiveness so I think to get too angry about this would be a bit silly provided the reasons are genuine and not born out of a desire to sidestep potential lashbacks from pressure groups. And as I detailed a little earlier, I would happily go even further and design a sexy, athletic/muscular Samus that strikes an even greater balance between looks and believability.
Besides, there’s always Deviantart for your E-cup (and beyond) equipped Zero Suit Samus…
In the first part of this little series, I explained that the one true ‘Golden Age’ of the fighting game genre took place – in my opinion – from ’91 – ’00/01. I’ve also discussed how I believe the decline of the arcades was a major factor in this most excellent era coming to an end. Now it’s time to continue where I left off with Part 2, where I will discuss two more factors that I consider to be highly influential to this disappointing demise.
Capcom pulling out of developing new titles/sequels
Like it or not, Capcom are a major driving force in the fighting game arena and what they do can have a massive effect on the genre as a whole. Fighting games DID exist before Street Fighter II (International Karate, Yie Ar Kung Fu and even the original Street Fighter to name a few examples) but SFII became a template for fighting games to imitate, something that is still happening today. The move inputs for specials for example were near enough universally adopted by every following fighting game with the same input motions still in use today.
I also made a note in Part 1 of how Capcom eventually returning to the fray with Street Fighter IV revitalised the genre, encouraging the revival of other dormant fighting games and creating a hospitable breeding environment for brand-new challengers to emerge. This is a clear example of Capcom’s actions carrying serious clout. No, the genre didn’t fully die out while they were away from the action but the return of Capcom and Street Fighter brought much-needed attention and popularity back to the world of fighting games.
Niche productions such as the upcoming Blade Strangers may never have existed if not for a resurgence in fighting game popularity that goes back to Street Fighter IV’s emergence.
So when Capcom backed out of developing new titles post-Capcom Vs SNK 2, it was a big blow to the genre and the community. I will be going into more depth on those barren years for fans of fighting games in a separate post but Capcom basically focused on brand-new console franchises such as Devil May Cry while keeping their fighting game heritage on the backburner with some re-releases and compilations. In fairness, these were welcome additions to any fighting game fan’s library. The likes of Street Fighter Alpha Anthology,Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection, Hyper Street Fighter II and the PS2 port of Third Strike represented immense convenience and (in the case of the collections) fantastic value for money. Nobody could knock the quality of these releases but they weren’t proper, new sequels and gamers began to ask questions. Would we ever see new Street Fighter, Darkstalkers or VS games again?
Capcom did try something new with the 3D Capcom Fighting All-Stars, a project which was eventually cancelled. They then disappointed with the underwhelming Capcom Fighting Jam, a lazy crossover game featuring a jarring collection of re-used sprites and a limited roster. The game wasn’t broken but it was surprising to see such a poor original effort from a company that had previously been the gold standard.
Street Fighter was a household name and at this point, it was slipping into the background with the more casual gamers that had been caught up in the franchise’s prior popularity no longer being that invested in fighting games as a whole. Without any new, good games in the series, SF became a relic of a bygone age, something that people who had owned the game on the SNES talked about in nostalgic tones. 3D fighting games such as Tekken and Dead or Alive carried on thanks to the polygon-based side of the genre being more resilient such was its appeal to both the hardcore fans and casual console gamers alike. 2D fighters however became a serious niche and games like Guilty Gear and The King of Fighters were still around but consigned to a more obscure status. These were games that resembled Street Fighter to the casual observer – that old fighting game thing that they remembered playing in the 90’s.
A nice idea and a bit of a novelty but the backdrops had more characters than the game. Also: look at that ancient Demitri sprite!
This is why I consider Capcom to be so influential. If they or the Street Fighter series aren’t around, it gives the impression that there’s no confidence in the genre or money to be made by publishers weighing up whether or not to greenlight a sequel for one of their own franchises. Capcom helped define the genre as we know it, the genre faded away as they took a step back and it finally experienced a resurgence when they returned. Whether you like Capcom or are more partial to the offerings of a different developer, there’s no denying their influence.
The bankruptcy of the original SNK
Every warrior needs a sparring partner or a fierce rival to help them push their mind and body further. SNK played this role for Capcom back in the 90’s and it was almost a decade of the two giants trading blows. SNK pumped out series after series: Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters, The Last Blade and Garou: Mark of the Wolves to name the more well-known games. Not all of these games were great and the clunkiness of the older ones prevented them from being true Street Fighter II beaters but SNK were in this for the long run. Their Neo Geo MVS arcade hardware was massively powerful and long-lasting, easily capable of hosting fighting games that could beat Capcom’s for aesthetic detail and on-screen action.
If that wasn’t enough, the Neo Geo AES was essentially a consolised, home version of the MVS meaning zero reduction in quality when playing the latest King of Fighters on your TV as opposed to in the arcades. The downside was the immense price tag that the AES came with and the prohibitive cost of cartridges which quickly marked the system out as a premium product that only the richest gamers could afford to put beside their TVs. There were conversions to the Playstation, Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast available but these were largely confined to Japan with the Saturn needing a RAM expansion cartridge before it could handle the games.
In any case, blow-for-blow was traded in this little war. SNK introduced team-based fighting while Capcom put their iconic characters up against Marvel’s comic book heroes/villains for the innovative and very epic ‘Vs‘ series. Street Fighter III introduced the legendary parry ability to separate the men from the boys. SNK replied with the equally beautiful Garou: Mark of the Wolves which just so happened to feature its own counter system – the Just Defend mechanic. SNK had a Ryu-alike character named Ryo so Capcom had a playful dig back at their rival when they created Dan Hibiki, a parody of the Sakazaki family’s moves and win poses…garbed in a pink gi.
The Last Blade 2: SNK at their zenith.
As the 90’s drew to a close, Capcom and SNK had actually teamed-up for the fantastic Capcom Vs SNK, an amazing event for fans of the genre which would receive a sequel and also a quirky version from SNK themselves (SVC Chaos). When the dust had finally settled, it was gamerswho had won. Capcom had hit hard with Third Strike, Vampire Saviour, Marvel Vs Capcom and Rival Schools but SNK held its ground with Garou, The Last Blade 2, King of Fighters ’98 and Samurai Shodown IV. SNK had began the decade with ambitious but clunky and sometimes crude efforts such as the original Art of Fighting but they were eventually able to legitimately match Capcom for quality art, animation and fantastic gameplay.
Sadly, the original SNK went into administration before being acquired by Playmore and being subsequently rebranded as SNK Playmore. King of Fighters games continued to arrive but the quality severely dipped during the 2000’s with the constant re-use of ancient Neo Geo sprites being less and less impressive each time they were wheeled out for the latest KOF game. SNK Playmore also mirrored Capcom with a slew of ports and collections of their back catalogue to newer systems. As with the Capcom re-issues, these were solid, desirable products but not exactly new games. Still, where Capcom binned Fighting All-Stars, SNK did at least manage to release TWO 3D spin offs of the King of Fighters even if they weren’t all that great.
But if Capcom’s fighting game properties had fallen into obscurity then spare a thought for SNK. New ports to the PS2 and Xbox were published by the unreliable Ignition Entertainment and sometimes extremely difficult to track down on release such was the niche nature of their fighting games post-bankruptcy. Essentially, it was only those in the know and an ever-dwindling fanbase who sought out the likes of KOF: Neowave and Neo Geo Battle Colisseum. A giant had fallen and it is arguable that SNK would have needed Capcom’s active presence within the genre to continue thriving had they not found themselves in trouble. In any case, the end of the rivalry and the loss of the original (and still the best) incarnation of SNK was a defining moment in the genre’s history.
KOF lived on with the likes of Neowave (pictured here) but the sprites were showing their age by this point and no longer impressing anybody.
All of these reasons for the golden age of fighting games coming to a close are closely interlinked. The decline in arcade popularity for example pushed Capcom to withdraw and focus their efforts on the profits available in the booming console industry. Street Fighter used to be their cash cow but there was greater commercial sense in developing new Resident Evil and Devil May Cry sequels for Sony’s world-conquering Playstation 2. Had SNK not run into financial issues, they too would have been affected. Given how ALL of SNK’s properties were arcade-centric, it’s a (thankful) miracle that they are still around today. It’s important to note that they also had their own issues to contend with such as piracy of the Neo Geo cartridge format.
With all of the negativity out of the way, join me for Part 3 when I take a closer look at the top reasons that make ’91-’00/01 such a special time for the fighting game genre.
Gaming is a vast medium with an enormous history, some of it mainstream but much of it niche or obscure. However deep you choose to delve into our hobby however, there will always be great games that never get a modern re-release on the likes of PSN, XBLA or Steam due to licensing issues, a perceived lack of profit potential for the IP owner (often a legitimate reason) or for more bizarre reasons such as Sega claiming to have lostthe source code for such classics as Panzer Dragoon Saga and the original House of the Dead (arcade version). Ignoring ALL of these boring, technical explanations for a moment, I’d like to kick off a new series where I look at some retro titles that I’d love to see re-issued for modern platforms. Take my money!
#1 – Outrun and its sequels
The original 1986 Outrun has been re-released several times and is fairly easy to play. Discounting period conversions that all differed wildly in accuracy, some ‘arcade perfect’ ports eventually appeared including the Sega Ages edition for the Saturn and – more recently – a handheld version for the 3DS under the ‘Sega 3D Classics’ umbrella. Outrun‘s sequels haven’t been shown the same love however and that’s a shame. My personal favourite is Turbo Outrun which swapped the Testarossa for the mighty Ferrari F40, added a turbo boost feature, more hazards (such as oil slicks and wet surfaces) and fantastic music. Japan were lucky enough to receive a 3DS conversion of Turbo Outrun but that’s it as far as accurate arcade conversions go. Then there was the visually-thrilling Outrunners, a further sequel that seems – bizarrely – all but forgotten by Sega despite it channelling the essence of the original game and being a lot more exciting to behold.
To go even further, there were also the console-exclusive sequels like Outrun Europa and the divisive Outrun 2019 but I would be stoked just to have a digital collection containing arcade-perfect conversions of Outrun, Turbo Outrun and Outrunners. If the (long expired) Ferrari license is an issue then Sega could just slightly alter the details on the cars as they have been known to do before.
#2 – Capcom Vs SNK (and other Capcom VS series fighting games
Capcom VS SNK 2 is a near-universally loved fighting game that brought the curtain down on the 1990’s and a fabulous era for fighting games. The game deserves the love it receives and it is a firm favourite of mine BUT the original Capcom Vs SNK is also a tremendous fighting game that is – in some ways – superior to its lauded follow-up. The stage backdrops for example were among the last to be hand-drawn and animated by Capcom for example (the sequel uses 3D and while perfectly attractive, aren’t as impressive) and the music is superb as well as exclusive to the original game. Sadly, the original CvS only saw period Dreamcast and Playstation conversions with the latter being the only way to play the ‘Pro’ update outside of Japan without resorting to importing the Dreamcast version. Even worse, CVS: Pro on the Playstation suffered (like with many of the VS series) from downgraded animation + audio as well as frequent load times as Sony’s machine struggled to host the game. The PS2 version of the sequel has been re-issued on PSN but the original game is mysteriously forgotten about. As somebody who no longer owns a DC, I’d dearly like for Capcom Vs SNK to get a re-release.
And while on the subject, not many of the Marvel VS series entries have been re-released. Marvel Superheroes and the original MvC had their arcade editions packaged together for an ‘Origins’ digital re-release but the other early entries in the series – X-Men: Children of the Atom, X-Men Vs Street Fighter and Marvel Superheroes Vs Street Fighter – remain exclusive to the arcade, Playstation or Sega Saturn. Capcom began producing VS games again with MvC3, Ultimate MvC and the recent-ish Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite so the sensible time to whack the older games on PSN/XBLA seems to have been and passed. Add in the poor performance of Infinite and it would seem that the window of opportunity may have disappeared which is a shame. A compilation of all the older games would be an instant purchase as far as I am concerned.
#3 – Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder
The debate over which Golden Axe game is the best is a popular one. Some say that the arcade original is the only answer to the question while others have a fierce, nostalgic sentiment towards its Mega Drive conversion. Golden Axe II floats the boat of others while almost nobody opts for Golden Axe III or the spin-off, Golden Axe: The Duel. And if you try to claim that Beast Rider on the PS3/360 is the best? Get out of here! The tragedy of this once great side-scrolling beat ’em up series is that its best installment remained exclusive to arcades. The Revenge of Death Adder is bigger, brighter and so much more expansive than any of its predecessors with new characters, fantastic effects and more depth than ever before yet it has never been re-issued on anything at all, not even receiving an obscure port in some form on a Japanese-only computer. It’s understandable that Sega would see little merit in watering everything down to cram Revenge onto the Mega Drive or even the 32X but a belated Sega Saturn conversion would have been perfect. A counter argument would be that interest in 2D gaming and beat ’em ups was waning by the time of the Saturn but you only have to look at how revered the likes of Guardian Heroes have become to see that Revenge would have fitted the Saturn like a particularly snug glove. Besides, how many other styles of games that were perceived to be of little consumer interest were nonetheless released for the Saturn and Playstation in the 90’s?
#4 – Snatcher & Policenauts
It might seem odd now but Konami actually used to make a lot of great games. Even typing that feels wrong but unfortunately, they have lost their way with high-profile stories about poor treatment of employees and severe scaling back on active use of their wealth of enviable IP. Yes, Konami may be a Metal Gear Solid/Pro Evolution creature propped up by pachinko machines and the Yu-Gi-Oh!! card game but in the past, they put their name to such games as Snatcher, a distopian cyberpunk graphic adventure that remains frustratingly difficult to play by conventional means (emulation and bootleg fan translations notwithstanding). The only English-language version of the game was released on Sega’s Mega-CD (Sega-CD in the US) and now commands insane prices due to it’s desirability and notoriety for being a game very much worth playing on a system where the quality of the software library otherwise borders on being schizophrenic. At the time of making this post for example, copies are selling on ebay UK for between £250-£300 with ease. Higher condition copies with the spine card are pushing £500 while even loose discs have been snapped up for close to £100.
Spiritual follow-up, Policenauts, suffers an even harsher fate having never received an official translation of any kind. Both games were released for the Playstation and Saturn in Japan (along with various native home computers and – with regards to Policenauts – the 3DO) and language-patched translations are available for emulation or chipped consoles capable of playing back-ups but wouldn’t a proper, digital release be nice? Translate both games and I wouldn’t be able to hand my money over fast enough for the double pack.
#5 – Violent Storm
I’m ending part one with another old-school Konami game: 1993’s Violent Storm, an arcade beat ’em up designed (like so many games of the period) to capitalise on the popularity of the likes of Final Fight and Streets of Rage. Thing is, Violent Storm is every bit as slick as Final Fight but manages to be a bit more light-hearted despite the main attraction still being smashing in the faces of thugs. The characters are big and bold while the crazy music and questionable enemy designs help Violent Storm stand out from its peers as an amazing beat ’em up in its own right. Unfortunately, the game wasn’t ever converted to a home system and – for some reason – it is quite obscure and unknown today outside of those in the know. Yes, I play it on MAME but I’d still happily pay for an official re-release.
Well, that’s part one done and dusted (with many more still to come no doubt). Please feel free to comment with your thoughts on my choices or for any suggestions for other games that are crying out for a modern-day re-release. We can but hope that some of these wishes may some day become a reality!
The gamer sitting here typing this is currently wondering what he was smoking when he pre-ordered the collector’s edition for the upcoming Soul Calibur VI at a cool £130. After all, I’ve long since sworn off collector’s editions (a whole topic in itself), I have nowhere to store another enormous box and there is also the small fact that I absolutely abhorredSoul Calibur V to the point that any attempt to give it another chance only ever results in utter fury. However, history is repeating itself because I distinctly recall feeling the hype for SCV pre-release and – again – ordering the collector’s edition. Am I trapped in a loop just like the neverending battle between Soul Calibur and Soul Edge?
I wanted to just buy the standard edition of the game and play it safe this time (those SCV-shaped scars still sting y’see) but of course, Namco-Bandai went and put a 35cm statue of Sophitia in the box didn’t they? The fiends. How could I resist? Will the quality be worth the price? Should I be angered that the US version looks superior with an artbook and steelbook that don’t appear to be here in the European CE? Will I remember that I could simply just cancel the pre-order on Amazon? I know I won’t do the latter because a) I’m a magpie for collectable shit and b) Sophitia is one of my favourite female characters in the series (and gaming in general, I suppose).
What this DOES stand for however is the final, final, final (I really mean it this time!) chance that I am giving this series. Soulcalibur has always been one of my favourite fighting games since I found myself enthralled by Soulblade on the Playstation but it hit a high point with Soulcalibur II and has gone downhill ever since. Soulcalibur III is my personal favourite (a view not shared by hardcore tournament types who were irked by alterations to certain characters’ move sets) but it comes from the same era as SCII and is similar in many ways.
It’s a shame that the series reached its peak so long ago. Can SCVI come anywhere close to being so well-received?
Inspired by my insane pre-order, I’ve revisited SCIII, IV and V over the last week. I would have obviously gone back to SCII as well but unfortunately, I only have the Gamecube version and that console isn’t currently set up. Ditto for Soulblade on the PS1 (thanks to my PS2 refusing to play PS1 games at the moment) and as for the original Soulcalibur, I’ve never had a Dreamcast so it’s the one game in the series I haven’t played.
I hammered SCIII for a few days, re-learning the moves of my favourite characters and simply really enjoying it, a happy experience that ended with frustration when I attempted to start a new game on the ‘Chronicles of the Sword’ strategy game and was thwarted by the infamous save data corruption glitch. The time I DID spend with SCIII however was marvellous. Visually the game is very similar to its predecessor but with greater detail and the music is some of the best ever produced for a fighting game in my opinion. The character roster is fantastic, the creation tool is still fun and there are plenty of modes for the solo player to sink their teeth into. Back when I first got this game in the PS2 era, I utterly destroyed it and the amount of time that the disc spent in the tray was rivalled only by the likes of GTA San Andreas, Tekken 5 and Persona 3.
Here’s hoping that Cassandra makes it to SCVI…
Even today, the game and its animation are still incredibly easy on the eye. Sure, it took some re-adjustment after playing the later HD sequels but the character models and detail are still among the best on the Playstation 2 and it only took me ten minutes or so to forget how ‘old’ the aesthetics were in relative terms. This game along with Tekken 5 showed Namco to be one of the best at wringing the best from Sony’s second machine.
Soulcalibur IV is a strange one. Even as a relatively early PS3/360-era game, it still looks beautiful today and the character models are a big step-up from the previous generation. Roster-wise, things are great again with most favourites making a return. General gameplay is tight but the niggles were creeping in at this point. Destructible armour/equipment was a nice touch but the ability to instantly win a match by ‘soul crushing’ your opponent and activating a super move was more questionable. Thankfully, it wasn’t too easy to pull off and as such, not intrusive. Unfortunately, Namco had meddled with movesets yet again and the single-player experience was very shallow – a stark contrast to SCIII‘s box of goodies in that department. And the Star Wars guest characters? Very ill-fitting product placement (Revenge of the Sith was out at the time so it was a loose tie-in of sorts…) and the ‘Apprentice’ character is a cheap-as-fuck arsehole that I cannot stand. That said, I’d be outright lying if I didn’t admit to enjoying the Star Destroyer Loading Bay stage with the Star Wars main theme as the soundtrack.
These irritations all came flooding back when I popped SCIV into my PS3 but overall, it is still a decent, fun game with lots of positives…compared to what was to come afterwards – oh boy!
Let this totally out-of-place, emo disgrace to the series sum up SCV.
As I said at the very beginning, I’ve given Soulcalibur V numerous chances and every time, I wind up incensed with fury. As a videogame, it is a good game and clearly a very polished effort that doesn’t deserve to be labelled a “bad game” but as a Soulcalibur game, it outright SUCKS. To begin with, single-player mode is virtually non-existent (Namco prioritising the online and tourney types) and then there is the roster which was dramatically overhauled. The game’s story is set further down the line than SCIV‘s so many of the popular characters like Taki, Kilik and Sophitia have been exchanged for students, disciples and offspring of those much-loved fighters. Problem is, they simply aren’t as endearing so when you play as Pyrrh (for example), you really want to be playing as Sophitia or Cassandra and the fact that the movesets for the descendant characters aren’t quite the same just make the fact worse. New characters like Z.W.E.I and Viola are incredibly out-of-place in the fifteenth century setting and multiple slots are wasted by characters with randomly selected fighting styles. The latter was a novelty back in the day with Charade (and Mokujin in Tekken) but having lots of these characters simply frustrated me in SCV, especially when one of them – Elysium – resembled the absent Sophitia. What a tease!
But it’s the gameplay and how Namco overcomplicated it that really lets SCV down. The first cardinal sin was messing with the core risk/reward Guard Impact ability and making it reliant on meter rather than free-to-use. Then there were ‘Brave Edge’ attacks – upgrades of standard attacks that use meter to enhance the number of hits and power, similar to EX moves in Street Fighter. Finally, those appalling Critical Edge super moves because obviously, every fighting game must have intrusive, super move cinematics that interrupt the flow of the game and deal massive damage. Worse still, the losing player will receive free meter in the final round to give them a chance to come back, pandering to those who would like fighting games more accessible and less punishing. I went into this latest SCV revisit with an open mind but I simply couldn’t deal with it for long.
Playing this game is akin to seeing how you can hold your breath beneath water before drowning. Without the Guard Impact, the game definitely suffers and those super moves are a ill-conceived travesty born of ends justifying means. Even if I COULD condition myself to this new way of playing, there’s simply nothing to do for a player that doesn’t enjoy online fighting. The only positive element of Soulcalibur V is the highly-detailed character creation tool which I’ve honestly spent more time than the game itself, creating characters that I can’t even be bothered to play with. Let THAT sum up how I feel about SCV.
Soulcalibur VI is coming and doesn’t it look good?
So can Soulcalibur VI save this once magnificent fighting game series from continuing down a path of mediocrity? My early thoughts (based on all the footage and reveals thus far) are cautiously optimistic. The roster has gone backwards to include many favourites from the past and I’m pleasantly stunned to see the likes of Zasalamel returning. Guard Impact is meant to be free-to-use again and aesthetically, the game looks lovely to behold. As of now, my two biggest concerns are the returning super moves (which seem more cinematic than ever) and the big question of how much SP content there will be this time. I hope that Namco have learnt from their previous effort but at the same time, fighting games in general have been slashing offline content for a while now and even offering it as DLC down the line so an online-weighted structure should hardly be surprising.
This is definitely the series’ final chance to get me back onboard though so it HAS to be good.
