Speculation on ARIKA's unnamed Street Fighter EX successor, part 3...

Allen Snider was recently announced for the new ARIKA fighting game, let’s call it Fighting Layer EX or FLEX for short. Allen Snider, along with Kairi, were created as sort of rivals / parallels to Ken and Ryu in the Street Fighter EX series. In fact just about every character in the game was a sort of parallel to the Street Fighter II World Warriors. Blair Dame was a balance to Chun-Li, Darun Mister was the perfect rival for Zangief and Doctrine Dark was a military assassin to counter Guile. Skullomania was the oddball character, a sort of Dhalsim or Blanka in the lineup. Akira Nishitani was one of the designers on Final Fight and Street Fighter II. When he left Capcom to start his own company, ARIKA, he didn’t forget the many lessons he had learned from his teammates.

 

One of the things that ARIKA did was dissect the elements that made the Street Fighter II characters iconic. They looked at the color pallet, costumes, martial arts represented, origin stories and nationalities. They they tried to recreated these things. If a character set a standard, like Ken and Ryu did for karate-type fighters, then they wanted to figure out how to top those designs. It was very important that they show audiences that Kairi and Allen were not simply the same character with a different head. The colors, costumes, stance and fighting styles of Kairi and Allen were very unique. The difference between the two was much greater than the difference between Ken and Ryu. At the same time ARIKA wanted it to be understood that Kairi was the star of the game, the Ryu, and Allen was a sort of Ken in the universe, without necessarily being a friend of Kairi’s.

 

ARIKA didn’t settle for simple hue shifts or alternate colors for their characters. They actually created unique costumes as the alternates. Each costume told a story. Kairi’s showed the evolution of his character from fighter to boss-tier master. Allen went from one flamboyant gi to another more outlandish one. Supporting characters like Darun wore different wrestling championship belts depending on his costume selection. C. Jack went from one stylish outfit, including gambler-style hat, vest and tie, to an even more stylish one. This design rule followed every character in the series. But having a unique set of costumes, which were all character appropriate, were only part of the design elements behind the EX series.

 

Allen Snider was a second attempt at creating the Ken character. Takashi Nishiyama was the director and Hiroshi Matsumoto was the designer on the original Street Fighter. The reason they created Ken was to have someone for the USA players to identify with and thus play. Their design choice was far from unique. The white gi versus red gi character had been seen a few years earlier in Technos’ Karate Champ. There was little then that made Ken and Ryu unique. They shared the same moves and aside from Ryu having a different head and pair of traditional Chinese slippers, they were identical. When Nishitani took over the reigns in Street Fighter II (SFII) he and the team wanted to make Ken and Ryu a little more unique. Bengus, AKIMAN, SHOEI and Sensei, a literal who’s-who of fighting game designers introduced small details into the characters. If you look carefully at the official Street Fighter II art Ryu wore a gi that was ragged and frayed whereas Ken wore one whose cuffs were hemmed. That detail was very easy to overlook, especially since the sprites remained identical in the game. So when the opportunity arose to make a new American karate champ they went all out with the designs.

 

The artists looked at the heroes they had in comics, in animé, in martial arts cinema and then made an amalgamation out of these figures. Allen Snider in a nutshell had the hair and sideburns or Chuck Norris, but with the desire to be a breakout star like Bruce Lee. Snider was not simply a cut-and-paste of the two. He was especially not just a carbon copy of Bruce Lee. Many studios tried to put a Bruce Lee clone into their games, including ADK, Capcom, Namco and a few indy developers. But each attempt was just a caricature of the man. He seemed out of place when put in a lineup of figures that were more unique. That were more memorable.

 

So what artists did was focus on the elements that made Lee and Norris unique. They tried to find some symmetry there. Allen was meant to bring back memories of the previous generation of karate stars. Not necessarily the underground legends but instead those that fought in televised contests. The developers had seen how well incorporating elements from real people had worked for Ryu. I’ve talked about it again and again but I always go back the gold standard in character designs. Ryu was inspired by the true-life adventures of Mas Oyama and Yoshiji Soeno. The thing was the character did not look anything like the real men. Yet watching him dominate the competition with his superior techniques would rekindle memories of Oyama, a man nicknamed the God Hand. Snider was the high kicking star from the USA. Someone that was ready for his movie debut. He was not supposed to have the gravitas of Kairi, his drama was more manufactured. He was a reflection of the modern martial arts star. Someone who was more comfortable on the big screen than in the back-alley fights.

 

ARIKA did an excellent job at making the difference between Kairi and Allen more profound than that of Ken and Ryu. Kairi was covered in scars, had long hair and was missing an eye. Snider had the good looks and shaggy long hair of a ‘70s star. Kairi was a tortured soul that pained with every victory while Allen celebrated with gusto. They didn’t want to let tiny details tell the story, there were no hemmed cuffs separating the models. Reusing sprites was a thing of the past. There were fresh uniforms, bright colors and original 3D models to look at. They hammered away at this difference all throughout the series. The way each controlled had to be as unique as how they looked. Kairi was the more experienced fighter, he had a broader library of attacks and could be played more aggressively. Snider was new to the unsanctioned tournament scene. He was designed to be used more tactically. Even the game endings were very different. Kairi was the outcast, haunted by his past he was meant to fight his battles alone. Allen was the budding movie star and got his big break at the end of the first EX Tournament. ARIKA gave audiences another nod to his forefather. If Bruce Lee fought one giant on film then Allen had to fight two.

 

When Allen Snider was announced for the new ARIKA game I was excited. The changes made to the character perfectly reflected his origin. We’ll look at these things on the next blog. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!