Figuring out the changing Street Fighter Style, final part

In the previous blog I mentioned that the characters in the King of Fighters, and King of Combat series tended to go over well with the broader Asian market, especially the Chinese. If you wondered why Asian-style leads were younger, or less muscular than the archetypes that Americans tended to favor I want you to think about pop culture. Think about every anime, and manga you had ever seen. There were some very muscular stars throughout history. Hokuto No Ken / Fist of the North Star, Dragon Ball Z, and Baki featured swollen leads. However those titles were the exception, and not the rule. The vast majority of manga, and anime featured characters with skinny-to-average builds. More often than not the stars were high school, or middle school kids. It wouldn’t make any sense for them to be huge, or vascular.

By comparison comic book, and animation heroes in the US were fully grown adults. They almost all had bodybuilder physiques. The villains were sometimes even more physically imposing than the heroes. Think of the difference between Batman, and Bane, Spider-Man, and Venom, the Hulk, and the Abomination. There was a distinct size advantage to the rivals. Even relatively young characters like Robin, or Kid Flash were often drawn more muscular than the average child. It stood to reason that Japanese studios would try to create equally buff characters when trying to appeal to the west. 

I think that the market had a bigger influence on the design changes happening at SNK, and Capcom than they had discussed publicly. Money talked, and if a studio wasn't hitting their goals then they had to find a new direction. In the previous blog I mentioned that DIMPS had co-developed Street Fighter IV. It was something that not everybody in the fighting game community was aware of. I believe that they had a hand in influencing the look of C. Viper, and Rufus. Even studios outside of Japan got a chance to shape the direction of the series. The Malaysian company Streamline Studios helped in pre-planning and development of Street Fighter V It wasn't the only time that an outside studio had shaped the direction of a flagship title. Most publishers outsourced some work to smaller developers. They might have built assets from the game, painted backgrounds, or created the title, and ending credits. The bigger the budget the more work a studio had to build from, and possibly outsource. If a game didn't perform then the publisher had a reason to cut down the team size, or try something different.

Street Fighter IV sold over 9 million units, across all versions, and platforms. It was credited with relaunching the fighting game craze. Street Fighter V sold over 6 million units, across all versions, and platforms. Both were hits, but they did not outsell Mortal Kombat X, which was just shy of 11 million units, and Mortal Kombat 11 which sold 12 million. The lack of numbers compared to MK, plus the drop off in sales from SF IV to V probably had a hand in seeing Yoshinori Ono leave Capcom. It wasn't the only reason that a change was warranted. Mr. Ono had lead the company to some interesting places during his tenure. He brought back a number of classic characters, but also introduced a number of odd ones as well. Rufus, Hakan, and F.A.N.G. stretched the idea of what worked in the series. They looked, and played like he was trolling audiences. He brought Gouken back from the dead. His murder was integral to Ryu, and Ken's story. All of a sudden he was alive without explanation. Then he introduced Kage, and Oni which were evolved versions of Evil Ryu, and Gouki respectively. These characters were already well designed, they didn't need an upgrade. To many in the community he was pushing the series very far from its roots. 

A new team made up of internal members had to step in. Director Takayuki Nakayama was joined by Producer Kazuhiro Tsuchiya, who had been with Capcom since 1992, Produced Asura’s Wrath, and was the lead Producer on the Mega Man series since 2018. Producer Shuhei Matsumoto had worked on Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Collection, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers. Designer: Yusuke Hashimoto had Produced Bayonetta, and Directed Bayonetta 2. It was up to them to steer the ship in a new direction, without losing the Street Fighter Style. They had mentioned in interviews how they wanted the game to feel like a worthy successor to SFII. That meant they wouldn't have as many fantastic elements, and over-the-top characters as audiences had seen previously. The game would be focused on fantastic, but plausible fighters. Closer to the World Warriors, rather than Rufus, and other joke designs. So let’s have a thought exercise. If you were Japanese employee, working at Capcom, and tasked with creating a character that would appeal to American audiences, who would you come up with? It might be a pro wrestler, as wrestling was still popular, or it could be a more contemporary mixed martial arts (MMA) star.

Luke appeared like an up-and-coming MMA star. The new designers followed the rules that Capcom had established in 1987. He was a muscular, blond haired white guy. He could certainly never be mistaken for the skinny Kyo, or Shun’ei. The difference for Capcom this time was that the character was much younger than the other leads in the series. He was younger than Ken, Alex, and Abel when they made their debuts in SF, SFIII, and SFIV respectively. He was roughly the same age of Ryu in Street Fighter Zero / Alpha. Using the SF style of character design they tried to give him a pseudo-traditional martial arts outfit. MMA fighters often wore shorts, sometimes a rash guard. Luke was given both. He also had striking gloves instead of larger boxing gloves. His color scheme was distinct, he wore gold, and blue, the colors of the Capcom logo. The pride in his nation was displayed on his main, and alternate costumes. The USA logo, the dog tags, the US Army fatigues, and Team USA basketball jersey to name a few.

Despite his age he was a special forces op. He was a skilled fighter with a patriotic duty, somewhere in between Cammy, and Guile. The thing about his main costume was that it didn’t allow much material to establish his color, and identity. By comparison think about how much the colors, and costumes on Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li helped frame them. The designers at Capcom made up for it by covering his arms, and chest is solid black tattoos. It wasn’t the only thing the studio did to give him a distinct look. They gave him cartoonishly large forearms, this completely changed his profile. It made it so that despite his height, it looked as if he could hold his own with larger characters. They were design choices that wouldn’t have necessarily been used in a newer KOF game. The differences between Luke, and Shun’ei reflected both the aesthetic of Capcom, and SNK, as well as the target audience that they were going after. Capcom wanted to push the series forward in SF6, age the cast slightly, and give them new costumes. Luke’s uniform was changed to cover him up. Not only that but he lost the logo colors, going now to black, blue, white, and orange. His forearm tattoos were replaced with scars, and the chest tattoo was put on his rash guard. I think it was a good choice to leave the tattoos behind because patriotic symbols had been co-opted by the far right in recent years. 

Despite these changes you could still identify him even with just his outline because of his cartoonish proportions, and wavy haircut. I’m not sold on the colors selected for the fighter. I think that blue, and gold worked better for him. That’s my opinion anyhow. I think he would still be popular among new players. With character costumes becoming more casual, and more conservative in SF6 do you think that Capcom was moving closer to the SNK style? That's how it seemed with designs like Cammy, and DeeJay. Was this a good idea to attract new players? Do you think this was a business decision? I’d like to hear your take in the comments section. Let me know what you think defines the Capcom, SNK, or any other publisher style. As always if you 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!

Figuring out the changing Street Fighter style, part 3

In the previous blog I talked about how different studios tried to create fighting game characters by using Capcom’s template from Street Fighter II. One of the missteps that some studios made was in overtly pandering to the western audience. The examples I used were Max Eagle, and Magic Dunker who wore costumes made up the stars, and stripes of the USA flag. There was no mistaking who these characters were, and what they represented when they literally wore the nation’s colors on their shorts. Yet great character design was more often subtle. It was subtle in the sense of how people thought Chun-Li’s costume was traditionally Chinese even if there wasn’t’t really anything classical about it. There was another way this subtlety was accomplished. SNK would not always use traditional outfits on their fighters. Instead they would put their martial arts masters in street clothes. But they weren’t just any outfits from the mall. They were on the leading edge of fashion, if not predicting it by a few years. These outfits were more than just flashy, they were carefully assembled to tell a story. The star of Fatal Fury, and poster boy for a lot of SNK’s greatest hits was Terry Bogard. Take a look at the evolution of his costume over 30 years, and see what you could identify. For the sake of this blog I am going to leave out the updated look that he received in Garou Mark of the Wolves. Since that involved a time jump.

Terry was the “Wild Wolf” of the King of Fighters universe. He didn’t represent any traditional form, like his brother Andy, instead Terry learned how to fight on the streets. He was a western character, the typical blonde-haired protagonist, however SNK didn’t play up those features. They covered him up with a trucker cap. His colors were red, white, and blue, but they weren’t the shades that you would find on the US flag. The blue on his jeans was a very faded light blue. This signaled to players that he spent a lot of time living, and working outdoors. He wore a white tee shirt, something classic, and humble. He wore a leather jacket, tough, and durable. It had a single star on the back, but it was saturated with more orange than crimson. He wore white sneakers, casual, but sporty. These would be swapped out for red ones which contrasted better with his outfit in later revisions. The tweaks that SNK gave his outfit only further reinforced the story elements from his costume. The sleeves on his jacket would be torn off to reveal huge muscles. By King of Fighters XII he was at his most muscular form. A few years later he was slimmed down, and the sleeves put back on his jacket. His jacket turned from leather to jean material, lighter, and more flexible. The majority of characters got similar makeovers post KOF XIII. Why was this?

With the exception of Ryo Sakazaki, SNK had mainly pushed leading characters in very fashionable street costumes. The character that carried the torch in the KOF series was Kyo Kusanagi, he wore a very hip take of a gakuran, or school uniform. Not unlike the way Jamie wore his kung-fu outfit with a Hip Hop vibe in SF6. The young Kyo’s powers were cloned for the even more fashionable Ash Crimson. There were many characters introduced in the KOF series who wore flashy outfits. This was one of the things that distinguished their lineup from Street Fighter’s. SNK changed the look, feel, and overall aesthetic of KOF with XIV. They saw that the swollen characters in XII, and XIII weren’t necessarily going over well with audiences. The studio then put former Capcom developer, and SFIV team member Yatsuyuki Oda in charge of KOF. He focused more on making cool-looking characters that would appeal to their target audience. In this case they wouldn’t try to guess western tastes, but instead try to create archetypes that would be more popular in Asia.

Fighting games enjoyed popularity all around the world. North, and South America, the Middle East, Europe, and England had millions of fans, all eager to get the next game, and hopefully see a little representation in the lineup. In Asia there were countless fans, more so than just Japan. People in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand loved the game. There were a number of changes happening between developers, and publishers all throughout Asia, some of which directly influenced the franchises. 37Games from China bought a majority stake of SNK in 2015. The studio created, and distributed browser, and mobile games in North America, and Europe, as well as China. The owners were fairly large company with a market cap of $7.14 billion. By comparison Capcom headquartered in Japan had a market cap of $5.18 billion. Both companies were of course mindful of the new media juggernaut. The biggest publisher in China was Tencent. That company had a market cap of $446 billion, by comparison Disney had a market cap of $175 billion. It would make sense to try and get Tencent’s attention, and become partners on a game somewhere down the road.

Since China was becoming the biggest gaming market. It only made sense for SNK to make a title that could win over Chinese fans. This was why the two new leads in KOF were added to Team China. Meitenkun, and Shun’ei made more sense in that role than the “Psycho Soldier” team of Athena, and Sie Kensou. The team also had the elderly master trope of Tung Fu Ru, who was a mentor to Terry, and Andy Bogard. Meitenkun, and Shun’ei were decidedly unlike the super-strong brawlers that Americans were used to seeing. They weren’t tall, weren’t buff, and weren’t “manly” by western standards. The sleepy Meitenkun was a decidedly soft boy with incredible internal power. He was a sort of pretty boy that could be appealing to female fans. His name actually sounded like the Mandarin saying “mei tian kun” which meant “sleepy everyday". The other character Shun’ei was meant to be the star character. He was an updated take on the cool guy, the new Kyo essentially. His school uniform was just as fashionable, and he even wore it with one pant leg rolled up, take that Jamie! The designers behind Rock Howard, the young star of Garou Mark of the Wolves, had a hand in creating Shun’ei.

Many of the KOF star characters did not represent a traditional martial arts style, they were given awesome powers instead. Very much like comic book heroes. Kyo had flame powers, as did Ash. Shun’ei had both flame, and water powers. These were reflected in the red, and blue psychic hands that he attacked with. The design, and choice of colors I think was done in response to the popular home-grown Chinese game Xuan Dou Zhi Wang aka King of Combat. Jade Studio developed the game for publisher Tencent Games in 2011. It would receive new characters, and stages over the next eight years. This was well before 37Games acquired SNK. Those that had seen King of Combat, and had played it could say that it was a clone of the KOF series. The character selection, and even stage design seemed lifted from SNK’s best work. I had already talked about this connection with Shun’ei, but essentially his look was an amalgamation of Ell Blue, and Yan Fung, the stars of that game. 

Two years before SNK was sold Tencent announced a crossover where KOF characters would appear in King of Combat. This raised the status of the game, and made the copycat title appear more legit to the Chinese fighting game community. It also helped make sure that the aesthetic that SNK used would remain more Asian influenced. These things helped explain the shift in changes from slim-to-buff, back-to-slim characters in KOF. There was something happening in Capcom as well. I'm going to talk about it on the next blog. I hope to see you back for that. I’d like to hear your take in the comments section. Let me know what you think defines the Capcom, SNK, or the style of any publisher. As always if you 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!

Figuring out the changing Street Fighter style, part 2...

The previous blog had us trying to figure out the Street Fighter Style of character design. I used Chun-Li, and Jamie as examples. Capcom had historically done a great job at creating fighters from various nations in pseudo-traditional costumes. This made it so that audiences from any country could easily figure out who the character was, and what form they represented. Even if you didn’t speak English, or Japanese, you could look at just about anybody in the SFII lineup and tell a lot about them. There were two karate guys, one wore red, and one wore white. There was a huge wrestler, a sumo wrestler, and a female kung-fu practitioner. There was a buff American in military fatigues. The odd ones were a stretchy Indian, and a green skinned beast man. They were the outliers that literally added some color to the lineup.

Every successive Street Fighter made sure to strike a balance between easily identifiable archetypes, with the occasional oddball thrown into the mix. Capcom made a fortune with SFII, and the successive updates. They were so good at what they did they gave some studios the impression that it would be easy to make their own fighting game. I mean all you had to do was follow the template right? Here was where design, and experience came into play. The artists in every company had their own style, their own aesthetics. An art team in Japan drew differently than a team in Taiwan, or Korea, or Hong Kong. Yet there was some aesthetic overlap, and audiences in the West could tell that the designs were from Asia, even if they couldn’t necessarily pinpoint the country of origin. Now imagine if a studio wanted to make their own fighting game, and put archetypes from a certain country in it. They wanted to release this game in all the markets, and capture some of the sweet arcade money that Capcom had enjoyed. If they didn’t want to use the military look for an American then how else could they convey their nationality to audiences?

The studios could absolutely say “here’s Number One Yankee GI Joe”, and wrap that character in the stars, and stripes. Audiences the world over would instantly be able to tell a lot about that person. In fact it would be fair to do that. The point of reference about westerners many studios in Japan had were the over-the-top wrestling personalities, and sports stars they saw on TV. Even in formal karate tournaments they had seen actual contestants from the USA show up in gaudy outfits. The obnoxious red, white, and blue gi of Allen Snider from Fighting EX Layer was based on reality. Of course this type of character design could also be seen as pandering. It didn’t always translate well with the target audience. The lack of cultural understanding, or sensitivity also had a lot to do with it. In 1994 SNK published three fighting games where the Black characters were given basketball attacks, and a fourth game where the Black guy used dance attacks. Imagine the fallout if a studio perpetuated the stereotype of Blacks only being good at dancing or basketball today. Experience with the target audience helped senior designers know when they needed to change the direction of a character, or cut them altogether. For over 30 years Capcom had designed characters with Western markets in mind. The focus on guessing western tastes became more prevalent starting with Street Fighter IV.

By now you were aware that Capcom originally created a tall Black character as a rival to Ken. A sort of Sagat for the US legend. This character evolved to become King Cobra. Unfortunately his style of fighting was called “breakdance kung-fu.” The idea of a dancing Black guy in 2008 was outdated, and I’m sure despite his awesome appearance it wouldn’t have been appreciated by everyone in the community. Those dance fight moves would eventually find their way to Jamie in SF6. King Cobra would evolve to become Rufus, which I would consider to be the worst fighting game character of the past 20 years. There were plenty of odd choices coming from Capcom. 

It turned out that part of the reason why some of the character designs seemed out of place was because their roots were not necessarily from Capcom. The studio had outsourced some of the development work to DIMPS. That company was filled with former SFII staffers. They had created some amazing 3D fighting games, including the Dragon Ball Z Budokai series, Spikeout: Battle Street, and The Rumble Fish. Two of the characters from The Rumble Fish looked to have directly influenced two new characters slotted for SFIV.  It was becoming apparent that the Producer Yoshinori Ono had been steering the franchise in a silly direction. It was as if he had not paid attention to the process that Capcom had used previously. The studio would talk about how Western audiences playing early builds of the game were not drawn to the characters they had created specifically for them. If you understood the design elements that I had mentioned previously then you would understand why Abel stood out.

Abel had the pseudo-traditional costume. Given his size, and build, he looked like an actual fighter. By comparison audiences skipped Rufus because he was seen as a fat joke character. Crimson Viper looked like a sexy spy. Mr. Ono assumed that Western players would be drawn to this mysterious character. Instead test players immediately went to Abel because he looked authentic. Mr. Ono misread this attraction because of his size. He thought that western players would only use characters if they were hyper muscular. It would help explain why every male character in SF IV was absolutely swollen. Even “skinny” characters like Dhalsim were much bulkier than ever before. The trend continued with every expansion, and DLC fighter especially Gouken. By the time of Street Fighter V the biggest character in SF canon was put into the game as well. Abigail was eight-feet-tall. He was so massive he wore truck tires around his biceps as if they were armbands. It was definitely pandering as if Yoshinori was saying “here he is, look at this super buff American for you to play with.” I don’t think he was aware of how to fix the bad character ideas, or how to improve on the good ones. We could see that through Hakan, and El Fuerte, as well as his insistence of adding Rufus to the lineup. If we dug deeper we could also see the fixation on muscles with the original design of Abel.

The earliest version of Abel was a sort of oddball character, like Blanka, or Dhalsim. The character was still a judoka, however he was not massive. In fact he was a skinny little androgynous boy in pigtails. Age wise he might have been the youngest person ever featured in the series. He was supposed to be incredibly quick, and have the ability to flip any character onto their head. I think that Daigo Ikeno had come up with the earlier concept because he was trying to put together a lineup with different sizes, and abilities. Maybe Abel would have always ended up being a big man, or maybe he was pushed in that direction because the team didn’t understand his appeal. Whatever the reason the changes went over well with the test audiences. What I think this did for the team was reinforce the idea that people in the US wanted to see big blonde characters in leading roles. That somehow the game narrative should be written around them. It was a tradition they started with Ken in 1987, and Guile in 1991 because they wanted to give Americans someone to play as. They never considered that Ryu, Chun-Li, Cammy or another character would be more popular with westerners. They repeated that way of thinking when Alex was introduced as the star of Street Fighter III: New Generation in 1997. Yoshinori saw the reaction to Abel, and it must have influenced his decision to push for Cody, Ed, and Luke as central to the story. Big muscular guys didn’t guarantee a fighting game would be more appealing to westerners. It was simply an aesthetic choice, this was a lesson that SNK learned in 2009.

The King of Fighters series could be considered one of the true rivals to the Street Fighter series. The SNK school of design differed from Capcom in that they often had their cast in street wear. The costumes on the characters from 1994 to 2022 were roughly the same. At least there was more consistency in their look than the jump Capcom had between Street Fighter V, and 6. In 2009 SNK published KOF XII with completely new sprite art. SNK mastered Dot Art graphics which allowed for larger sprites with more frames of animation, and greater fidelity than their rivals. Several of the characters in the game were far more muscular than they had ever been. They made the changes Mr. Ikeno put on the SFIV cast pale by comparison. I’m not sure if SNK had assumed that the new swollen characters would instantly be embraced by western audiences. The game sold well, and it got a sequel with KOF XIII in 2010. However the time, and price of developing high resolution sprites didn’t seem worth it to the publisher. By KOF XIV the studio switched to 3D graphics as well. That was not the only change from the studio. They decided to steer their school of design away from the west. We will look at how Capcom, and SNK adapted to their audience in the next blog. I hope to see you back for that. If you have any thoughts on the topic please share them in the comments section. As always if you 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!

Figuring out the changing Street Fighter style, part 1...

Over the last month I had talked a lot about the new, and returning faces in Street Fighter 6. I studied their outfits, the colors assigned to them, their nationality, and physical build. I did my best to try to figure out their roots, and fighting method, and share it with the visitors to my blog. In the end it reminded me that there was a style of character design that could be considered uniquely “Street Fighter.” By that same token there was a style of design that worked for Mortal Kombat, Tekken, King of Fighters, and Killer Instinct. The aesthetic of Capcom was distinct. This was thanks to the legacy of artists that had worked there. Akiman, Shoei, Bengus, Daigo Ikeno, Edayan, Kinu Nishimura were brilliant artists that had a hand in developing the style, and direction of the SF series.

The newest designer Yusuke Hashimoto, was now putting his own unique stamp on the lineup. Yusuke had produced Bayonetta, so he was comfortable designing all manner of characters with different outfits, skin colors, builds, and body types. In short, he was the perfect person to shape the direction of this generation of fighters. With that said let’s try to figure out what made the “SF Style” distinct. The most obvious thing would be the costumes the characters wore. Could you really put a SF character in just any outfit, and would it work within the context of the game? I’m not saying that every character had to be wearing an authentic martial arts costume. That type of visual storytelling did not work great in SF. Instead there was a mix of pseudo-authentic costumes, and casual uniforms to break up the monotony. Consider for a moment what it would look like if everyone in the lineup wore casual clothing. Concept artist Xin Wang came up with fashionable makeovers for the SF cast in the Chinese mobile game Street Fighter: Duel. I would argue that Mr. Hashimoto’s designs were sort of a counter to that. He wanted to bring back the classics, but not go overboard with their costumes.

Long time fans would enjoy seeing their favorite characters in new outfits. However what did this do to new players? How did the game change by shifting just one element? Were new players able to make out the style of fighting that a character represented based on casual wear? Were they able to figure out what they could do based on the color of their skin, or their physical size? Now consider what costumes affected from a game play perspective. Was it easy to read the action on the screen if a character was covered up with long sleeves, or pants? What about vivid patterns, or clashing color choices on an outfit? Did these things make it easier to play the game, or were they distracting? I could argue similar points for excessive splashes of color, lightning, fire, smoke, etc. while the characters performed special attacks. There were many individual elements that made up the main costume choices for the SF cast. In the early days arcade cabinets, and game consoles lacked the memory, and processing power to render anything too detailed. The developers were limited to a simple outfit, and a primary color. This set the standard that was copied the world over. Now that consoles, and even mobile devices were more powerful then it became easier to create characters with highly detailed outfits, and millions of color choices. Was is then critical to take advantage of all this processing power? Or did putting too much into a costume’s detail take away from the overall presentation of the character?

I welcomed the addition of Story, Arcade, and Battle costumes that were put into the library in SFV. I was not against a character getting an updated main costume in the series, as long as it didn’t stray too far from the original design. The importance of a primary costume still remained. This was why I had no objections to the new designs for Dhalsim or Blanka in SF6. There was even a chance for the studio to take a good idea, and make it even better. I thought this was the case for Juri’s update. I saw the studio taking a step backwards when they revealed the new look of Chun-Li. They took away the small details that added up to make her costume truly stand out not only in the lineup, but across the spectrum of fighting games. Chun-Li perfectly encapsulated the Street Fighter school of design. It didn’t matter if you were from the Middle East, South America, or Europe. It didn’t matter if you had played a million fighting games, or if this was your first. When you looked at Chun-Li for the first time you almost instantly thought “Chinese Fighter.” Why was this? 

Audiences had seen Chun-Li’s prototype appear in pop culture generations before the game came out. Whether in story, film, photo, television, cartoon, or comics. The artists working at Capcom were pulling from various influences. People saw the repetition of heroic Chinese fighters, especially in Taiwanese, and Hong Kong cinema. They had seen physical Chinese representations in the form of certain hairstyles, makeup, and fashions. The cut of a dress, the use of ribbons, belts, sashes, and how they were assembled could be considered Chinese, or Mexican, or French, or American. Audiences had seen some combination of a wu shu uniform, or a traditional cheongsam at some point in the past. These were actual, traditional outfits from China. The genius of Capcom was how Akira “Akiman” Yasuda arranged certain elements when designing Chun-Li. The puffy shoulders, the pantyhose, wrestling boots, wide belt, and weighted bracelets had never been used in an actual martial arts costume, let alone any traditional Chinese dress. Audiences filled in the blanks with what they knew. They saw elements that they had seen before, and they assumed the rest was traditional Chinese. It was an absolutely brilliant trick, and set a standard that few studios could match. Yusuke Hashimoto showed that he was aware of what Akiman had done. Jaime in Street Fighter 6 followed the exact same design path of Chun-Li.

I want you to compare Jamie, and Gato who was a fighter from SNK’s Garou Mark of the Wolves. I had already highlighted Jamie’s various elements on my blog, but let me point them out again. Street Fighter 6 Director Takayuki Nakayama, Producers Kazuhiro Tsuchiya, and Shuhei Matsumoto, along with Yusuke Hashimoto spoke about the influence that Hip Hop had on SF6 in several interviews. Jamie was from Hong Kong, and at first glance it looked like he was wearing a traditional kung-fu outfit, but his costume had a decidedly urban flair to it. Just like Chun-Li it wasn’t apparent until you looked closer. The crop top, long sleeves, and wide collar were tailored to his frame, they were not baggy at all. This fit hadn’t really been worn in any traditional form of Chinese kempo, or kung-fu. The pants with one leg rolled up was a style from USA Hip Hop circles. The color of the fabric looked authentic, until you looked closer, and saw that it had a Louis Vuitton-inspired pattern on it.

Jamie also wore sneakers with a cloud pattern at the front of what looked like the Nike swoosh design. Even his haircut wasn’t quite traditional. The long braid was supposed to make audiences think of the queue worn by men during the Qing Dynasty. Yet that hair style required the men to shave the front part of their scalp. Jamie instead had a modern fade on the sides, and back of his head. Jamie had a red rope belt with a wine gourd strapped to his hip. Many classical heroes in Chinese mythology such as Lu Zhishen, Ji Gong, and Li Tieguai carried a wine gourd as well. Capcom swore that Jamie was drinking a special juice, and not booze from the gourd. Jamie’s design really captured the SF Style, but it did not reflect the quality of the designs placed on some of the returning characters.

Cammy for example had an entirely new look that was much more casual than earlier looks. I felt that her short jacket, and leggings outfit betrayed the spirit of her original military-inspired uniform. My old friend DarthEnderX mentioned that she looked like a knock-off Blue Mary. That was a valid comparison. I had done a three part series on Blue Mary from the Fatal Fury series by SNK. Mary was essentially a female version of the protagonist Terry Bogard. She wasn’t a Sakura in terms to counterpart either, but more of a super cop like Chun-Li. Her look of jeans, and jacket was warranted as she was supposed to be very Western character. The casual costumes featured on the majority of SNK characters helped distinguish their lineup from Capcom’s. The Street Fighter-Style of character design relied on putting fighters in pseudo-traditional outfits. They had to be instantly recognizable to represent a certain country, school, or style. Like Ken, Ryu, Chun-Li, and Jamie. SNK had an entirely different approach. The genius of SNK’s design was that they hid the martial arts master in plain sight. They might be wearing a three-piece suit, a tuxedo, or a Hawaiian shirt, and flip flops. In every case they were unstoppable brawlers.

A good chunk of the Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and King of Fighters lineup were trained martial artists in street clothes. There were some with classical outfits sprinkled through the series, like Gato, Joe Higashi, and Kim Kaphwan. These traditional designs helped connect the audience to the well-dressed modern archetypes. If you are a budding designer, and are trying to figure out if your style works for SNK, Capcom, or other studios then practice creating fighters of common martial arts. See if you can put a karate fighter in a pseudo traditional gi. Or what that fighter would look like in a suit. How would audiences be able to tell that this person was a fighter? It’s a difficult exercise for sure. Capcom, and SNK had actually been broadcasting who their designs were targeted for in the past decade. We will explore these things in the next blog. I hope to see you back for that. If you have any thoughts on the blog please let me know in the comments section. As always if you 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!

Some details in the Street Fighter 6 trailer I wanted to talk about

Thank you to everyone that visited the blog as I went through all of the formerly announced, and leaked characters in Street Fighter 6. I wanted to take a moment, and talk a little bit about some of the other things that were shown in the first trailer. You may or may not know that I am a huge fan of the Final Fight series. I like to remind new fans of the fighting game genre that Final Fight was released after Street Fighter. It was originally called Street Fighter ’89. The success of Double Dragon made Capcom want to make their own version of a brawler. The team wanted to replace Ken, and Ryu with Cody, and Guy respectively. Plus a big wrestler named Mike Haggar to round out the lineup. Arcade owners liked the concept, but they also wanted to see a formal one-vs-one fighting game as well. So the studio relabeled it Final Fight, and started work on an actual Street Fighter II which was released in 1991. Over several games, manga, cartoons, and comics Capcom officially connected the characters, and events featured in Street Fighter, Final Fight, Muscle Bomber / Slam Masters, and Rival Schools games. Having the studio circle back to Metro City in the latest version of a Street Fighter was almost a love letter for long time fans.

In the Luke preview I talked a little bit about Metro City, and how the SF6 trailer began in the Metro City gym. That was the same place where Final Fight began more than 30 years ago. If you had never played the game then let me set the scene. Mike Haggar was a former wrestler, and street fighting world champion. He was born, and raised in Metro City. He saw that it had become corrupt, and run down so he decided to clean it up. He was elected mayor, and no sooner was he settling into his new role than the Mad Gear gang tried to extort him. They kidnapped his daughter Jessica, and told him to stop trying to turn the city around. Instead of negotiating with the thugs he recruited Jessica’s boyfriend Cody, and his friend Guy to literally take the fight to the gang.

The trio fought through every borough on the trail of Jessica, and the ringleader of the gang. They discovered that they couldn’t even trust the cops of Metro City, as one of their biggest officers Edi E. was also a Mad Gear boss. This didn’t deter the heroes as they fought all sorts of memorable characters. The search for Jessica lead them all the way to the top of a skyscraper where they discovered that a kingpin named Belger was pulling the strings. The three defeated the gang, but Cody ended up throwing Belger out of his penthouse office. He would be arrested for the murder of the villain, and sadly there was nothing that Haggar could do to keep him out of jail. Cody spent a few years behind bars. Upon his release he was still a dangerous fighter, but decided to pick up where Mike had left off. He ran for, and became the new mayor of Metro City.

Haggar ended up fighting for the people a few more times. The Mad Gear gang had unfinished business with Mike, they kidnapped Guy’s finance’, and her father. So Haggar was recruited by Maki, a ninja that trained alongside Guy, and Carlos, a South American swordsman to take the battle around the world in Final Fight 2. By the time he returned to Metro City a new gang had set up operations. This time they were run by an evil general named Black. In Final Fight 3 Haggar recruited Guy, a good cop named Lucia, and a mysterious newcomer named Dean to take out the Skull Cross gang. We can assume after all of this traveling, and fighting it was time for the Mayor to retire. The Street Fighter 6 debut trailer featured a shot of multiple areas around Metro City. In on particular scene we saw a statue dedicated to Haggar. A lot of fans online, myself included, were worried that the statue was erected following the death of the former mayor. I’m hoping that the statue was built because he managed to actually turn the city around. He fought corruption, and crime with his bare hands. He made the people feel safe, turned the economy around, and made Metro City a beacon of hope. Perhaps the big reveal in the game was that Haggar was now running for Governor, Senator, or a higher office.

The SF6 developers were shouting out a lot of other Metro City locations in the debut trailer. I have a feeling that a number of them would be used as background stages in the SF6 tournament. For example we saw a subway. The subway took our heroes through the boroughs in Final Fight. But it was also used in one of the memorable stages in Street Fighter III. I’m wondering if players will be able to visit every corner of the city, and whether or not they will have to fight Mad Gear members along the way.

We saw China Town, basketball courts, and downtown Metro City as well in the footage. The studio made sure to give everybody a glimpse of Abigail’s Scrap Metal shop. Abigail was the biggest character in the Street Fighter universe. This was saying something because every member of the Andore family was well over seven feet in height. Abigail was eight-feet tall, and had a bad temper. He was one of the Mad Gear bosses, who happened to run his own small business on the side. I had talked about Hugo, and Abigail in the history of giant fighters.

Even though Haggar had cut off the head of the snake, by defeating Belger, and Retu. The individual soldiers, and generals of the gang were still very much alive, and active. Even if we did not get Abigail as a playable character, it was a great nod to the history of the franchise to give him a shout-out. He was not the only general we saw in the trailer. Damnd / Thrasher was a low-level general in the organization, and the person that called Haggar in the very first Final Fight. He was the first general we had to fight in the game. He was a good brawler, but he tended to hang back, and whistle for reinforcements to do most of the fighting for him. Seeing him in the trailer now in the role as the President of the Mad Gear Gang Motorcycle Club was a nice touch. I had talked about the origins of the Mad Gear Gang, and its members earlier on the blog. Damnd seemed to be in charge of faceless villains taking on Jamie in the trailer. Well to be fair, they were not faceless, these people instead wore boxes over their heads.

The idea of generic people being represented with box heads had actually been done by Hong Kong artist Michael Lau. He had a comic strip in East Touch magazine featuring the “gardeners” they were kids from the street. He eventually made 12-inch figures out of his original characters, and helped spark the urban vinyl movement. He had gallery showings in Japan, and the US with these figures. They went on to influence character design in animation, gaming, and toys. The majority of the gardeners had distinct looks, then there were a handful of generic pedestrians that had boxes for heads. This was over 20 years ago, and I have no doubt had a hand in influencing the generic Mad Gear fighters in the trailer. Speaking of faceless characters, I’m wondering if Street Fighter 6 features a create-a-fighter option.

The trailer has a nameless, faceless fighter walking the streets of Metro City. It was inferred that SF6 would be the first open-world Street Fighter game. Yet instead of walking around as Ken, or Ryu we actually see a guy in a hoodie wandering around. The trailer made sure to hide the face, and identity of this person, but I could see from the corners of his face, finders, and ankles that this was a Black person. I’m pretty sure this is not supposed to be Black Cobra, but instead a generic fighter.

The thing about this generic person is that we see a number of them in the opening scenes at the Metro City gym. While Luke is punching a heavy bag there are a number of male, and female fighters sparring, stretching, and exercising as well. The thing about all of these background characters is that they are almost all the same build. They are the same height, and weight. They do have different skin colors, heads, and are barefoot or with shoes. I don’t think these models were created only to be background people. The gloves, striped pants, and sneakers of the person we follow around on the trailer were also used on the gym members. I have a feeling that players will be able to customize their walk around character as well.

The other thing that I thing that I think was leaked, or suggested in the trailer was that this character can learn things from the various named Street Fighters they came across. Or they pick up new moves by completing side missions. It looked like the character climbed a ladder in China Town, and came across Ken Masters. Then in the next frame we see the character performing a Dragon Punch. Maybe the person in the background was some random long haired blonde, and not Ken, but that’s what I made out. Did you see anything different about this? Street Fighter 6 wouldn't be the first time in the series that you could have a character learn moves. The Cycloid cyborgs in Street Fighter EX had moves from every character in the game. The character ACE in SF EX 3 could copy moves as well. The Cyborg in the Street Fighter II Movie game could also steal moves. Twelve in Street Fighter III could copy an entire character. Of course the boss character Seth from Street Fighter IV could also copy moves from the cast. 

There were countless other call outs to Final Fight, and Street Fighter games of the past. The back alleys, China Town, downtown, and playgrounds all looked very familiar. Other web sites pointed out that stage backgrounds in SF III were recreated in parts of Metro City. Many people inferred that some of the levels took place in New York City, but Capcom might have been retconning it to take place in Metro City instead. There were plenty of shop signs, and billboards that made direct reference to characters like Hakan, Hugo, Gill, and Marisa. Did you notice any other details that piqued your interest? I’d like to hear about it in the comments section. As always if you 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!

Chun-Li's new look in Street Fighter 6. Is it a step backwards?

Today we are going to look at the last character I had yet to talk about for Street Fighter 6. Chun-Li was an icon. I had her listed #2 on my list of the 30 most important Street Fighter characters of the past 30 years. When she appeared in the SF6 debut trailer audiences all over the world celebrated. Fan art started pouring in online featuring her in the new costume. The reaction so far had been overwhelmingly supportive. I’m sure this pleased SF6 Designer Yusuke Hashimoto. I was happy to see her return, along with the rest of the original World Warriors. What I didn’t care for frankly was her new outfit. I think it's actually regressive, and betrays the spirit, and design that made Chun-Li unique.

Let’s take a deep dive into the origins of Chun-Li. The nation of China and the Chinese martial arts were perfect for video games. They were celebrated for their visual splendor, and fancy moves. Especially in Hong Kong cinema. Fan and Star were featured opponents in Yie Ar Kung-Fu, released by Konami in 1984. They were the first female martial arts fighters in a game. They predated Chun-Li by six years. In fact before Capcom even created Chun-Li they had designed a trio of female martial artists that could hold their own against the titular character Strider Hiryu in the arcade game Strider. The Kuniang Martial Arts Team aka The Tong Pooh Three Sisters appeared in 1989. Chun-Li would not appear until 1991. The sisters were fabled bounty hunters, selling their deadly talents to the highest bidder. Their pseudo-traditional Chinese martial arts uniforms beguiled their amazing powers. The sisters could cut tanks in half with their powerful kicks. They were the perfect challenge to the futuristic ninja Hiryu.

In some of the earliest design notes Chun-Li was essentially credited as another one of the sisters. Her method of fighting was originally listed as Northern Praying Mantis. Not only that, but her special attack was based on whipping her hair. Capcom was one of my favorite companies growing up. I loved their games, yet looking back I could see that some cultural stereotypes were also perpetuated by the studio. Chinese characters in fighting games were often presented in some sort of pre-revolutionary martial arts costume. It didn't matter if the characters were appearing in a current timeline. They were often dressed in the costume that would have been appropriate in the late 19th century rather than in casual modern clothing. For example the Three Sisters were presented in outfits that made more sense in classical Chinese Opera rather than in the science fiction future that Strider was set in. Even Chun-Li was presented in a pseudo-traditional costume in Street Fighter II. Within the context of the game however her costume made sense. It took a lot of subtle changes to get Chun-Li just right. Let’s talk about her evolution.

Chun-Li was going to be a very generic female kung-fu practitioner. According to the “father” of Chun-Li; Akira “Akiman” Yasuda said she was inspired by Tao from the anime Genma Wars: Harmagedon (1983). Japan had a fondness for setting stories in China, or borrowing cultural touchstones from China in the '80s. This included putting characters in traditional dresses, even if they didn’t reflect contemporary Chinese fashion. Lynn Minmay was a half-Chinese heroine in Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982), Son Goku in Dragon Ball (1984) was a retelling of Journey to the West, then there was Pai from 3x3 Eyes (1987), and Ranma from Ranma ½ (1987) to name a few. Chun-Li was going to be as middle-of-the-road Chinese character as you could get. Even in the early design notes from Capcom she was labeled “Chirei” which translated to Chinese Daughter. Something amazing happened though. The studio kept going back and revising the cast again, and again. They poured more people into the development of Street Fighter than had ever been assembled on any other Capcom game. The end result was nothing short of amazing.

It was the insistence of all the senior developers in making the lineup better than any of their concept art. Producer Yoshiki Okamoto, and Designers Akira Nishitani, and Akira Yasuda pushed the staff to create a lineup that would not only define a franchise, but set the standard for the genre as well. With Chun-Li they really dug into the heart of the character. They knew that it would be great to have a representative of the different fighting arts as playable figures. In the earliest drafts they even had a military contractor, and capoeira master set for SFII. Yet they knew that audiences wanted more than a plain karate guy, or kung-fu girl in the roster. These characters needed to have more dimension, more personality, and more details than were provided in Yie Ar Kung-Fu. Chun-Li came to life when the studio realized that she was actually an undercover cop in a fighting tournament.

Her costume was literally a disguise, it was something to hide her true identity. Although the cut, and color of the outfit seemed authentic, there was nothing remotely classical about it. The short dress with open sides, large puffy shoulders, dark tights, wrestling boots, and weighted spiked bracelets had never been worn by an actual practitioner of any Chinese martial art. The genius of Akiman was that he assembled all the elements in such a way that on first glance they looked like authentic kung-fu garb, that was until you looked closer. Akiman, and SHOEI would paint official character art to remind us what Chun-Li was like in between fights. They presented her with her hair down, sometimes without makeup. She was an actual person. These were some of the most important illustrations that defined the character. We could see that she had an Adidas sports bag where she kept all her gear. She would rather be wearing sneakers when traveling instead of slippers or boots.

Audiences were reminded again, and again in the ending screens that she was a modern woman. She was not a stereotypical Chinese girl from manga, or anime. Chun-Li was often presented either in her police uniform, or in casual urban clothing. She didn’t stay in costume once the fighting was done. Sometimes she was seen in workout gear, or while going out on a date with her friends. This didn't really change until 1999, when in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike the company turned her into a sort of martial arts instructor that stayed in costume. Prior to that the studio did a major revision to her in Street Fighter Zero / Alpha in 1995. They created a costume for a young Chun-Li. With it they had her in a striped bodysuit, weighted bracelet, a pseudo-traditional crop top, and sneakers. She kept the Capcom logo colors of blue, and yellow even in this outfit. It went over well with audiences as they were reminded of the striped bodysuit worn by Bruce Lee in his final film the Game of Death. The original, and young versions of the outfits were so well crafted that it would be easy to dismiss them as traditional Chinese, but were actually costumes put together for a modern woman. These were the things that Capcom had started ignoring when designing alternate costumes for her in Street Fighter V. The goal seemed to be make Chun-Li sexier, and sexier with every revision.

I think the SF6 developers completely missed the mark with her as well. It was as if they took that first-glance understanding of Chun-Li, and perpetuated only the Chinese stereotypes. They essentially regressed the character to Chunrei. Her costume became more formal, the dress became longer, with pants, and flats. No more wrestling boots, gone was her spiked bracelet, replaced by a more modest gold, and mahogany bangle. Her subversive design elements became more conservative. Chun-Li had inspired the creation of other female kung-fu masters in the genre. Most of the developers working on their own variation never got past the Chinese Daughter look. Sega most notably had Pai Chan, the daughter of Lau Chan in Virtua Fighter from 1993. It was no accident that her costume was blue with gold trim, or that she had her hair in braids. Pai’s costume was much more authentic, and it made sense in context. Sega was trying to make their series look, and feel more realistic than Street Fighter. The plausible fantastic was one of the things audiences enjoyed most with the design of the World Warriors. It was possible to have a seven-foot one eyed muay thai master, it was possible to have an air force pilot with a wild flat top. You might never see them, but they could be out there. With Chun-Li's new look she was easily out there because her outfit was so middle-of-the-road. 

When I look at the changes that Capcom made to Chun-Li I saw them going backwards. They were forgetting her evolution, and what the countless artists working at the studio changed during the revision process. She was never designed to be an ancient Chinese master, like Gen, or Lee. She was an Interpol officer working an undercover assignment. The world seemed to offer more for her other than fighting in the story mode. Seeing her floating in the air like Ip Man, acting like a movie hero in the SF6 trailer made me doubt the studio. I’m sure she still plays like Chun-Li, and will be a top tier character. No doubt about it. I do hope that they consider her original design, and purpose moving forward. I’ll be eager to see what DLC outfits they have planned for her. Like Ken, Ryu, and Cammy, I’m not feeling her new look. That’s my take anyway. Please let me know what you think about Chun-Li’s updated design. Will she be a character you try out on day one? Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you 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!