The State of Capcom Today

[kedawa]

When I look back at the games that really define classic Capcom for me, half of them were developed by Mitchell. Other than that, all they have is Street Fighter and Resident Evil, neither of which are in very good shape these days.

[Anthony]

Cry all we want, Street fighter 4 did the most important and impressive thing I have EVER seen a fighting game do. It took fighting game fundamentals and made them accessible. Or at least 45 times more accessible than ever before. It made casual people actually, to some degree, play fighting games the way they were designed in a relatively short amount of time. It's really incredible, I was very impressed.

That being said, for someone who actually plays fighting games it is slow, plodding, and had no semblance of an entertaining offense. But the game wasn't meant for us. It wasn't designed for us to play and that's ok! Evo wouldn't be getting 130k views if it were.

[Diff-chan]

I don't think SF4 is accessible, though. Especially compared to something like TTT2. It's a really complex game with mechanics like FADC that are not easy to grasp.

I still think the game blew up because it had the original cast.

It's a good game, I enjoy playing it, but man, those Evo streams were brutal. The game just is not that much fun to watch.

[kedawa]

They've done a good job of milking it, too.
The game released in arcades 5 years ago, and they still have at least one more version in the pipeline.
For comparison, it took less than three years to go from World Warrior to Super Turbo, and that involved actual system changes and not just tweaks and character packs.

I'm happy that Ono managed to make it all happen, and I do enjoy SF4, but I get the feeling that the suits only agreed to it because they liked the iterative business model that the series is known for.

[MechDeus]

I don't think SF4 is accessible, though. Especially compared to something like TTT2. It's a really complex game with mechanics like FADC that are not easy to grasp.

You don't have to utilize FADCs to start playing and Tekken has moves with ridiculously stricter requirements than anything in SFIV. SFIV loosened up the inputs and made the game a shit ton easier for new players to actually start playing and consistently pull off moves, especially on a pad. It was perfect both for new people and those who loved SFII back in the day and came back with atrophied skills.

[Darmonde]

Not even just that. SF in general, and SF4 especially is very accessible in a lot of different ways.

Every fighting game breaks down in the highest level play. Unfortunately, most opinions come from people who talk about tiers and watch matches at the highest level, but don't actually play there. It makes for a lot of noise.

For the people playing at the 20-90% level, SF4 is very accessible. Its obvious what does damage, what buttons people are pressing, and what hits high and low.

Tekken is the complete opposite. It has a lot of normals moves, and it's not intuitive which button combination does what. The animations don't always match visually with highs, lows and mids. And its hard to know without experience what moves are safe and unsafe.

[Anthony]

I don't think SF4 is accessible, though. Especially compared to something like TTT2. It's a really complex game with mechanics like FADC that are not easy to grasp.

I still think the game blew up because it had the original cast.

It's a good game, I enjoy playing it, but man, those Evo streams were brutal. The game just is not that much fun to watch.

Yeah what mech said to a degree. If you want to dp, you can dp out of situations whenever. The focus attacks and FADC's are nice, but not necessary to play. Links are good, but you can still just do HP-> DP and get good damage. I have seen people advance to the point of actually playing a fighting game much, much faster than they do in other games. Soul Calibur for example is "accessible" in the sense that people can play and do relatively well fairly easy. But the accessibility I was talking about is a game that forces you to learn spacing and risks and mindgames easily. I think SF4 is an incredible example of that. SF2 WOULD be, but throws are too strong and dp's are too hard and important. SF4 basically took the fundamentals from SF2 but made dps super easy and throws weak.

[kedawa]

Tekken also has glacially slow walk speeds and limited mobility, as well as a lot of nonsensical juggling and kicking air.

[Diff-chan]

Fair enough.

[gameoverDude]

(re: SFIV) I still think the game blew up because it had the original cast.

Likely the reason SF III didn't catch on quite as well. "Only TEN fighters? WTF!?!?" "What, no more ______? No way." I'm not saying "Be like Tekken & World Heroes, keep everyone"- but maybe another 4 characters from SSFIIT should've stayed for New Generation (In that case, I'd have picked Chun-Li, Blanka, Zangief, & E.Honda to join Ryu & Ken) to make the roster 14.

The Revenge system should be reworked so comebacks are not TOO easy. Instead of enabling you to totally decimate an opponent with the Ultra combo, it should give some more subtle perk like moderately increased damage or faster Super charging for a limited time. Have the Ultra combos stay in, but require 2 super levels to use them.

It wouldn't surprise me if there is another SFIV beyond Ultra. And if there is? Bring in Alex.