Street Fighter 6: A master class in game design, part 17

At the start of this series I talked about how the Street Fighter 6 developers were using the World Tour to ease a new generation of players into the many fighting game concepts. From random gang encounters, to part time jobs, to selective battles with pedestrians. Each of these things helped build muscle memory, teach range, reaction, counters, and using the Drive Meter. Each of these would make for better fighters, and a better SF experience. One of the more specific ways that the World Tour was prepping audiences for fights with the various masters was through the use of Copy Fighters. These were synthetic humans that popped up on occasion, similar to gangs. Yet unlike a gang member these androids were guaranteed to have many of the special attacks of an actual SF master. To be fair sometimes a random pedestrian or gang member would also have a move or two from a master, but the Copy Fighters had almost all their moves. They were nowhere near as strong as the actual master, like E. Honda, Ryu, or Guile for example, but they did know how to perform several of their combos, and special attack strings. Copy Fighters were sort of like random mini bosses to increase the challenge in the middle of the World Tour.

The idea of a cyborg that could copy the moves of the various fighters had been seen in other games, including Mortal Kombat. In the SF universe the first use of this was the Shadowlaw Cyborg Monitor. They were seen in the SFII anime movie, they were stealing the data, and copying the moves of the various masters. These cyborgs were actually playable on the Japanese Saturn, and Playstation consoles with Street Fighter II: The Interactive Movie. Audiences could take control of the cyborg after a prompt, and try to defeat Ryu in order to steal his moves. This sort of character would evolve in the Street Fighter EX series by ARIKA. There were two humanoid robots called Cycloids; Beta, and Gamma respectively. They each had special attacks from roughly half of the cast. Between the two they could perform all the special attacks from the masters. The evolved version of this character became ACE, and players could choose which moves he would be able to copy.

Copy Fighters, and Cycloids weren’t the only way to get a lighter version of a boss fight. Street Fighter 6 had understudies for several of the masters. They had the moves, range, and strategy of their masters. The only lacked the stamina, and more advanced combo attacks of the main SF roster. For example Zangief was established as a pro wrestler. Arguably he was the greatest pro wrestler in the entire SF universe. This didn’t mean he was the only one. The game introduced a pair of tag team wrestlers. They were Russian brothers named Saou, and Uou. One wore the championship belt with an owl mascot, and the other with a wolf. The two shared lessons from Zangief with the player. They could also be challenged for a match.

There were two other NPCs that were crucial to the story mode. Bosch, your friendly rival introduced in the story mode, had stolen money from the Mad Gear gang. In order to make amends you had to team up with Mad Gear, look for recruits, and fight against the Crows. The leader of the Crows was a punk named Rudra. It turned out that he was an understudy of Dhalsim, who had run away from the temple many years prior. He saw that kids were suffering, and being abandoned on the street. Instead of meditating about the problem he figured had a duty to act. So he would round them up, and teach them how to survive. Despite his punk looks he was a noble character in many regards. I think that was the reason why his abilities developed greatly with Dhalsim as his master. In typical SF6 design, nothing was put into the game by accident. The name Rudra actually had multiple meanings in Hindi, including he "who eradicates problems from their roots".

Rudra was joined at the hip by Chandi. The long-suffering Crows recruit that was doing everything in her power to get senpai to notice her. The writing, and personalities of the two characters came through clearly in the World Tour. Rudra was aloof, and disinterested in everything, but especially in society. Chandi was a sort of opposite. She had a bubbly personality, and earnestly believed in her leader. They easily had my favorite dynamic in the title. As with Rudra her name was important as well. Chandi or Chandika was a Hindu deity. She was a powerful form of Mahadevi (the supreme goddess) who manifested to destroy evil. Both of the characters may have been involved in gangs, but they had a noble purpose. This was opposed to the Mad Gear who just wanted to take back control of the streets, and the city.

I believe that the roots for the characters had actually been planted many years earlier. During the planning stages of Street Fighter V one of the character concepts was called the Clumsy Fighter. She was a girl wearing torn clothing that managed to stumble her way through a fight. She carried a bag with wrenches, and other tools that she could use to her advantage. I could imagine the SF6 team, which also worked on SFV were going through their unused concepts, and being influenced by the tattered clothing, and carefree attitude of this girl. It was also possible that the idea of NPCs in SF6 throwing wrenches came from this concept character. Or it could have come from Pupa Salgueiro from the Rage of Dragons. That young lady also fought with a wrench in an earlier rival studio game.

If you were to tell me a few years ago that there would be a new stretchy-limbed Indian in SF6 then I would have scoffed at the idea. If you would have told me that the character was better developed, and presented than Dhalsim then I would have said it was impossible. Yet in the end I absolutely loved the character. I would go so far as to say I enjoyed his design more than all the new SF characters. To be fair Kimberly, and Marisa had some amazing personalities that shone through their animations. There were so many fantastic elements layered over the punk that it wasn’t fair that he would be an NPC opponent. For example take a look at the little details like his mohawk, and the paint on his head. At first glance it looked like the red stripe on Dhalsim’s forehead. However it was painted in a lightning bolt shape, falling over his left eye. This conjured up images of Ziggy Stardust the stage character created by rock icon David Bowie. He also wore a lot of jewelry. His nose, and ears were pierced with gold rings, he sported a gold chain, and large gold bands on his upper arm, and wrists, plus gold rings on his fingers. There hadn’t been this much flash on a punk since Birdie in SFZero.

Dhalsim was much more subtle in design, and personality. His necklace was made of rope, and his bracelets were metal, I wouldn’t even say they were silver. He was much more humble by comparison. To be fair Rudra was literally cut from the same cloth. His clothes were tattered, and torn. Athletic tape was holding his pants, and boots together. These were the modern equivalent of the rags that Dhalsim wore when he was doing his Prāyaścitta or penance. I could easily imagine Dhalsim being retired, and having Rudra return to fill that role in future sequels. I would frankly welcome that.

If I had one complaint about Dhalsim, or Rudra it would be with how their powers were represented. Previously it made sense that Dhalsim could only stretch his limbs on direct strikes. You could imagine that he could dislocate his joins, and throw a punch, or kick straight forward, and back. However in SFV, and SF6 he seems to be made completely out of rubber. He would contort himself in all sorts of positions, even while throwing simple attacks. There was no regard for his bone structure, muscles, or tendons. As if he were Plastic Man, or Mr. Fantastic from the comic books. The thing was that this type of character had already been done in SFIII. His name was Necro.

Street Fighter III Producer Tomoshi Sadamoto, and designers Yasuhiro Seto, Tomonori Ohmura, and Obata Shinichiro did their best to follow in the footsteps of the previous teams. Their goal was to create an entire new library of characters. They didn’t want to bring back any of the previous World Warriors, except for Ken, and Ryu. They wanted to explore new styles of fighting, and create new archetypes. Unfortunately for them people were looking for new characters that played exactly like old characters. They saw the stretchy Necro, and assumed he was the new Dhalsim. In a way he was. He had almost the same range, and his fire special attacks were replaced with electricity. But then if you dug deeper you realized this character did not employ the same strategies. His setups, his combos, and special attacks were uniquely his own.

The other thing about Necro was that his skin, bones, muscles, and tissue were rubberized. He had been experimented on by Gill, and his Illuminati as part of the G-Project. They were trying to create the ultimate soldier, someone that was impossible to injure. Necro didn’t look quite human. His pupils were gone, his skin pigment was gone. The melanin was replaced instead by a light lavender. The fighter could stretch his face as if it was made of putty. He could twist his torso, arms, and legs past where they would normally break. He seemed impervious to any damage no matter how much he twisted himself up. Capcom shared the earliest designs for Necro in their arcade Secret Files. He was originally proposed to be an android.

Other synthetic lifeforms were created following the Necro experiments, including the shape-shifting characters Eleven, and Twelve. It made sense for Necro to be more flexible than humanly possible given that had been genetically modified. All of that stretching, and flexibility worked in the context of his origins. I don’t think those things should have been applied to Dhalsim in SF6. But that was a minor gripe in an otherwise fantastic game. Thanks to Copy Fighter, Saou, Uou, and Rudra audiences could get practice fighting light versions of the SF masters while in the middle of the story mode. Speaking of which. All of the time spent traveling the globe, and Metro City meant that you were going to compete as an amateur in the Metro City Fighting Tournament. It would be a test of whether or not you had mastered everything that had happened up until that point. We will look at the next chapter of creating this experience in the next blog. I hope to see you back for the next entry. If you are a long time fan of Final Fight, or Street Fighter then I would like to hear your impressions of SF6. If you have never played any game previously then tell me your experiences in the comments section please. 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!