The last great fighting game covers of Arcadia.

The past few Friday’s I’ve talked a bit about bringing my Arcadia magazine collection out of the garage, and into my home library. In the fall of 2023 I had brought over my Gamest magazines, game books, and mooks (magazine books from Japan), manga, as well as my fighting game manhua, or Chinese comics.

As I continue to sort through the collection I wanted to share a quick glance of some of the covers featuring the stars from the fighting games of the generation.

Did you have a favorite fighting game, arcade game, or console game that came out between 2003, and 2013? 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!

Looking forward to Wondercon and check out these Sonic Adventure figs! - A 1UP classic from March 16, 2012

Hello friends, glad to see that you've made it to another Friday. What plans do you have for the weekend? It's my gal's 18th birthday. To celebrate my family and I will be attending the Wondercon 2012 in Anaheim. The show is being put together by the same people that organize the San Diego Comic Con. You might remember that a few years ago Anaheim was in a bidding war to host the Comic Con. Many had been saying for the past few years that the show had outgrown the SD Convention Center and was a logistical nightmare for attendees as well as sponsors.

Despite the best effort from Orange County the hosts signed up with San Diego for a few more years. However the organizers never made mention of the Wondercon. If the show does very well then they are hoping to extend it by a day or two and make it a sort of preamble to the Comic Con in the summer. Right now they have a lot of programming planned and a bunch of sponsors and floor space. We'll find out if they can handle the crowds this weekend. Thankfully the rain will keep the numbers down over the next three days, but there can't possibly be a worse smell than con funk and wet nerdboys.

As I was digging up CD's to import I came across the Sonic Adventure figures I had given my daughter. Take a look at these classic figs.

Almost all of the other action figures that I gave the little gal were loose. To mean that I had taken them out of their packaging ages ago. For some unknown reason I never took the Sonic figures out. Possibly because the series had such sentimental value to me.

It turned out to be a good thing for collectors as the original Sonic Adventure figures go for a pretty penny these days. Check out eBay and see how much a mint set of these figures go for.

Those on a budget may not be able to pick up these classics but there is an even larger set of figures that they can collect from the Toys R Us. The series is celebrating its 20th Anniversary. Figures in the Classic and Adventure styles are out in multiple sizes. Sonic fans owe it to themselves to pick up the figures before they sell out again! I hope you have a great weekend and look forward to seeing news from the Wondercon next week. If you are going then let me know so I can get a pic with you. 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!

Manhwa, Chinese and Korean comics take on Street Fighter - A 1UP classic from June 17, 2011

The previous blogs mentioned that SNK was developing MMO titles for Korea and China. What many in the west might not know is how much the players in both countries are fans of the genre. It extends beyond the arcades and the consoles as well. The characters and icons developed over the years are very much engrained in popular culture overseas. One way of checking the relevancy of the franchises is by seeing how they are represented in comics and graphic novels.

Chinese and Korean comics are called manhwa, or manhua depending on the pronunciation. The Japanese word for comics is manga, which has the basis in Chinese as well. Just about every major fighting game had a mahwa attached to it. The Art of Fighting, King of Fighters and Street Fighter series all had several licensed and unlicensed titles appear throughout Asia. There are noticeable differences between the Chinese Street Fighter manhwa and both Japanese manga as well as western comic books.

The first thing is the size of the volumes. Manhwa titles are in a larger format than comics or manga. They are almost magazine sized volumes. Manhwa are usually stand-alone titles like comic books. Most manga titles appear in a monthly series printed on newsprint or collected in an anthology. Japanese stories are also serialized and released in smaller format books. Manhwa titles are usually in color but aside from the glossy covers the pages are printed on cheaper newsprint.

Mahwa based on fighting games are different from those featured in Japan or the USA for a number of reasons. In manhwa characters are all presented with the traditional costumes or uniforms yet later on in the series they are often presented in "player 2" colors as part of canon. These costume changes often signal a major plot point. In some instances the character that has been defeated or even killed is brought back much stronger and more dangerous. These Player 2 changes also signal a change in personality and in some instances abilities. The next major feature of manhwa are the non-canonical liberties that the writers and artists have with the characters. These titles introduce many new characters, plots and relationships that never appeared in game or in any other comic book. Chun-Li and Ryu for example often end up together in the stories, much to the delight of many fans. Sadly most of the characters and relationships in the series end in tragedy. Characters can actually get killed and they are not guaranteed to return.

The major artistic contribution that the format features is the inclusion of painted panels on several pages. The majority of the art is done with lightly inked panels but some of the strongest poses and frames are actually painted by the artist. Very few artists working in the manga or comic markets are able to do this, let alone on a consistent monthly basis. These painted panels are unique and refreshing to the graphic arts medium.

Unfortunately not all of the painted panels are original works. Many of the poses used for the figures and sequences in the books or the covers are lifted from official art. Even some of the sequences featured in the book can be based off the work from a Japanese manga like Masahiko Nakahira's Ryu Final series or from Udon's Street Fighter comics. The copies of art seem to be rampant in certain manhwa, as if the concept of intellectual property or even artistic integrity were lacking for some of the artists. But that is a cultural bias against the Chinese comics. As a whole there are some interesting takes on the canon and characters of the SF universe.

These comics show a completely different interpretation of the characters by some genuinely talented artist. They show that Japanese and North American artists are not the only ones that can do the Capcom icons justice. In fact many of the best manhwa artists working in Korea contributed to the SF Tribute book.

The hard part is getting access to these books. Not every town is fortunate enough to have a large Chinese community where these comics might turn up. I was lucky enough to find some on eBay and even Italian language versions of some SF books. There were a couple titles released in English a few years ago. One for the KOF series and the other for SNK vs Capcom Chaos. Those collections might still be available in local comic book stores. The only other way to see some of these interesting books would be to try one of the larger free manhwa sites online.

Perhaps someday these artists might get more exposure on the pages of western titles. It would be interesting to see a collaboration of manhwa designs and designers working on the next generation of SF characters, wouldn’t you think?

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!

Fatal Fury City of Wolves, a new game system, and new character revealed!

Not long ago SNK released several trailers with new information for Fatal Fury City of the Wolves. This was the successor to the arcade classic Garou Mark of the Wolves. This was a game that I talked about with every new tease. I thought it was funny that each time a game trailers came out from Capcom, or SNK that my blog would get a significant bump in views. Even though I hadn’t written anything new about Street Fighter 6, the King of Fighters, or any other of games from those studios I still managed to double, or triple my daily views whenever there was any footage released by the publishers. It was humbling more than anything thinking that people that did web searches got pointed to my blog because I had written about them on, and off for years.

I’m going to highlight the things I was able to pull out of the two most recent trailers, those being the REV system, and the voice reveal trailer. I had no idea what the REV system was about, but according to Game Informer: “The REV system serves as City of the Wolves' big new addition, giving players enhanced attacks to bolster their offense. REV Blows are powerful, near-unblockable supercharged attacks; REV Guard serves as an enhanced block; REV Arts are flashy cinematic combo attacks; and REV Accel is a speedy assault of sorts.”

It made sense that the Garou team would be looking for ways to innovate the game play in the sequel. The King of Fighters universe had the tradition of a second “Spirit” bar going back to the Art of Fighting from 1992. Remember that the characters, and game play mechanics of Fatal Fury, and the Art of Fighting were ideas that The Godfather of fighting games Takashi Nishiyama had planned at both Capcom as something that might work in the Street Fighter franchise. Every studio since had been exploring ways to change up the game. V-ISM, Alpha Counters, Rage meters, Revenge meters, Super attacks were all variations on the spirit bar. What made the SNK games different was that you could charge this meter manually, and even drain your opponent’s by taunting them. I had a feeling that the REV system was the logical evolution of that classic mechanic.

I don’t usually talk a lot about strategy, offense, defense, and attacks. There are plenty of people on YouTube that can talk about frames, counters, and strategy. I’ve always been more focused on the visuals of fighting games. The first thing that stood out to me were the stylized graphics featured in the voice actors trailer. I noticed that the characters had lines, almost crosshatches on their skin, and clothing when the camera zoomed in on them. It made them look like they were hand drawn. This level of detail was not lost on me. Having multiple fighting games developed on the Unreal engine made them all look the same. In order to stand out a lot of studios had to develop their own graphics engine. Even if they used Unreal it was still possible to make their characters stand out from their competition by modifying the light, models, and textures used on the characters. The games that used classic 2D sprite proportions, but created in a 3D model definitely stood out from the rest. This was the topic of GuiltyGearXrd's Art Style : The X Factor Between 2D and 3D, a GDC presentation from 2015.

I genuinely loved what I was seeing in the Fatal Fury City of Wolves trailer. The studio managed to recreate a lot of the same stylized figures that were featured more than 20 years ago in Garou, but now in 3D. The level of care that went into creating the visuals should not be understated. It took much more than lighting a 3D model. If you looked carefully the characters didn’t necessarily have realistic shadows. The darkest parts of the figures were designed to highlight muscles, folds in clothing, and even the lines of hair. On the edges there was just a hint of a contrasting light, that caused the edges to stand out from the background. This light source did not wash out the shadows that the art team wanted to preserve on the character models. This must have taken some clever programming to achieve.

The other thing I noticed in the trailer, aside from the amazing looking bright flashes of light, and color when performing special attacks, were actually the ways in which speed was conveyed. The models were blurred when attacking, this was an old trick that I remember seeing during the development of Street Fighter IV back in 2008. What was different however were how strong the blur effect was depending on the speed of the attacks. When a character ran they were blurred a little. The same thing when they were knocked back. However if they were performing a quick special attack the blur effect was even stronger. For the people that don’t understand the distinction between graphics, and aesthetics in fighting games I wrote a three part series earlier on the blog. Here are the links. The aesthetic versus graphics debate, part 1…, The aesthetic versus graphics debate, part 2…, The aesthetic versus graphics debate, part 3....

The character reveal trailer highlighted four returning faces; Terry Bogard, Rock Howard, Tizoc, and Hotaru Futaba. The new person in the lineup was named Preecha, and she appeared to be a Muay Thai specialist. SNK had a tradition of introducing girl characters out of left field in several of their fighting games. For example in the King of Fighters 2000 the studio featured Hinako Shijo. The diminutive girl with taped up fingers practiced sumo wrestling. She could manhandle the largest characters, and shove them with almost supernatural force. It certainly broke tradition, and made for an interesting shift in the way fighting game characters would be received. Before Hinako’s debut when most of us thought of sumo we could only imagine fat men like E. Honda from Street Fighter, Taka-Arashi from Virtua Fighter, Akatsuki-Maru from Buriki One, and Ganryu from Tekken. Hinako had actually followed tradition going back decades. Female judo, Muay Thai, and boxers had been featured in SNK titles as early as the ‘90s. Also there was also a trend of featuring girls that had a unique look, and form of fighting. I discussed this in the Odd Girl Out blog. These characters that broke tradition included Lucky Chloe, Emi, Area, and now Hinako.

SNK was again shaking up the traditional roles with a female Muay Thai practitioner. That form of fighting was brutal in its effectiveness. It was an ancient tradition that was honed in the battlefield. It was a perfect counter to karate in manga, and anime which was seen as a refined martial art. That was one of the reasons why Sagat had that style against Ryu. The most fearsome, and earliest fighting game bosses was a Muay Thai monster. He was the template that Fahkumram from Tekken 7 was cut from. Now we had a young lady that was capable of delivering traditional clinches, elbows, kicks, and knee strikes. If you were not familiar with the different forms of fighting I covered it previously on the blog as well. Here’s the link where I talked about the history of Muay Thai, and Tae-Kwon Do characters in fighting games. Preecha was not the first female to use that form, that would be Chompoo from Capoeira Fighter 3. But two distinct characters in the 45+ years of fighting games let you know how rare it was to assign traditional forms to girls.

SNK had a couple of star Muay Thai practitioners going back to the birth of the series. Joe Higashi, and Hwa Jai made their debut in the original Fatal Fury. Hwa was a villain in the first game, but would return more recently as a playable character in KOF XIII. Given that Joe was a friend of Terry, and Andy Bogard I would say it was possible that he was the teacher of Preecha. There were several reasons why thought this was the case. The first was the most obvious. In the sprite art for Garou Mark of the Wolves 2 from more than 20 years ago we could see Joe Higashi was in arm, and leg casts. Clearly he was not able to fight at that point, but he was accompanying a Muay Thai, possibly kickboxing girl. This was the template that would be revisited for Preecha.

The other thing about having a younger Muay Thai fighter in the game was due to tradition. Many of the characters in the Garou series were young masters of a particular form. They were essentially the new guard, picking up where the icons left off. Even in the sister KOF series Kyo Kusanagi had already surpassed his father Saisyu. Rock Howard was the son of series villain Geese Howard. Yet Rock was mentored by Terry. This meant that his fighting style was a mix of the two, and in time would probably eclipse both of their accomplishments in his battles. The game also featured Kim Dong-Hwan, and Kim Jae-Hoon, the sons of Tae-Kwon Do master Kim Kaphwan, Hokutomaru was a very young ninja master, and understudy of Andy Bogard, the younger brother of Terry. I wouldn’t be surprising to see Lilly Kane appear in the series, the compassionate little sister of the villainous Billy Kane.

Although Marco Rodriguez was an adult, he was still the heir apparent of Ryo Sakazaki, and the Kyokugen form of karate. Of the original three heroes of Fatal Fury only Joe was lacking representation in the Garou series. I think that was now resolved. The thing about each of the new characters was that they were still lacking the complete library of moves, strength, and stamina of their masters. In the voice trailer we saw that Preecha had a number of amazing moves. She had all of the fundamental Muay Thai strikes, and more important she was performing the moves correctly. There were no missteps, or sloppy attacks. What was noticeable was that she did not have the hurricane uppercut of Higashi, the one that caused a small whirlwind to fly across the stage. She did however have the punch portion worked out, just not the projectile.

Preecha was a popular name in Thailand, it meant “wise.” But how do you tell audiences that she was wise, or smart? We got a hint of that with her glasses, which were typically presented on smart characters in popular media. To highlight her youth we got an explosion of color. Each of her fingernails were alternating pastel colors. Then there were the colorful streaks in her hair, with sensible bangs to keep her hair off her face while fighting. Did you notice her arm bands? The traditional pra jiad arm bands were symbolic of the culture. Preecha had purple bands with orange, and sky colored links. Purple was the colors assigned to a lower-level fighter. The colors of the bands could be similar to the colors of belts in karate, or Tae-Kwon Do. In Muay Thai purple meant she was an intermediate fighter, the alternate colors were complimentary to her hair, and outfit. Traditional Muay Thai featured hands wrapped in knotted cord, which were much more damaging to opponents. We could see her hands were wrapped in cord as well, however these were actually gloves made of cord, so that she could put them on quickly. I think the most interesting detail in her outfit could easily be missed.

Preecha had taped ankles, however she also wore slouch socks, which was an integral part of kogal, or gyaru fashion. According to Wikipedia “Kogal refers to the members of the Gyaru subculture who are still in high school and who incorporate their school uniforms into their dress style. These high school girls are characterized by the typical bleached hair, make-up, shortened skirts, and wearing of loose socks.” Preecha doesn’t fit the role of fashionable teen, but she does represent the same youthful energy of other characters in Garou. This was the most important part of SNK character designs, when compared to the Street Fighter cast. I did a multi-part series breaking down the approach from the studio. The links are below.

Hiding the master in plain sight, the genius of SNK's character design... part 1 

Hiding the master in plain sight, the genius of SNK's character design... part 2 

Hiding the master in plain sight, the genius of SNK's character design... part 3 

Hiding the master in plain sight, the genius of SNK's character design... part 4 

Hiding the master in plain sight, the genius of SNK's character design... part 5 

Hiding the master in plain sight, the genius of SNK's character design... final part 

I’m eager to find out more about Preecha’s story, how she plays overall as I enjoyed playing as Joe in earlier entries. I’m eager to see who else is waiting in the wings of this highly anticipated sequel. Anyhow those were the things I was able to pull from the trailer. What things did you notice? Were there any character you were waiting to be revealed? Tell me about it 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!

Married to the Sea, part 3 - A 1UP classic from February 8, 2008

Welcome back to this final part of the sea fairing adventure. Before I cast off let's take a look at the underwater games you might have missed. What makes this group different from yesterday's is the loss of the submarine. There is no metal barrier protecting the heroes of these games, no torpedoes or missiles to shoot at enemies. Just the player and wide open ocean. The majority of these games are based around free diving or small watercraft vehicles. Like the titles featured yesterday most of these games have their roots in the arcade. Early on they relied on a gimmick, like the periscope, to get players interested. The first ones were mostly about swimming around and shooting things with a harpoon gun.

Some of the oldest games were inspired by the movie Jaws, which demonized the great white shark. Atari was the first to make the connection with Shark Jaws released in 1975. A few years later Shark Attack by Pacific Novelty put you in the role of the shark, chasing around divers and eating them whole. The tables were turned and the seeds were planted for one of Scott Stoddard's favorite Shockwave creations Mad Shark.

Not all of the games were in the same format, some tried to mix things up by changing the objectives. K'K Tokki's Kaitei Takara Sagashi aka "Underwater Treasure Hunting" was released in 1980 by Namco. In this game players had to navigate a deep sea diver as they descended from the ship to the ocean floor. Along the way they were expected to avoid sea creatures. Once at the bottom of the screen they had to locate a treasure chest and then bring it up, again avoiding obstacles en route to the surface. This was a fun game but like the submarine titles, the SHUMP format seemed to work perfect here. Sea Fighter Poseidon by Taito was released in 1984. I believe it was the first SHUMP using the personal watercraft in place of the sub.

The SHUMP format seemed perfect for the genre, as divers could now swim as fast as sharks and their mini vehicle could shoot harpoons in the place of machine gun fire. One of the most well thought out games using this format was Thunder Jaws, released by Atari in 1990. Players swam around portions of the sea shooting a harpoon gun at enemies and trying to locate underwater lairs like caves and pipelines. The game then switched from swimming to running and gunning. Not quite the high action of Metal Slug but instead the slower pacing of Rolling Thunder. It was a unique concept but neither the diving nor the gunning was really superb.

this game was recommended to me by Marc and is quite good. Treasures of the Deep by Namco was released in 1997 for the original Playstation. The game allows you to explore the sea floor for hidden treasure. At the same time you have to fight off all sorts of sea creatures and pirates with their own personal watercraft and mini sub. This game is very much like Sea Fighter Poseidon in 3D. You get to travel all over the world, upgrading your equipment and buying different mini subs for certain missions. You can revisit levels and try searching for artifacts to unlock a secret level.

Of course the greatest ocean adventure game came out a year later. I've already said that the Ocean Hunter was one of my favorite games of all-time. What else could I possibly add about the Sega title from 98?

It's tough to put the experience into words unless you followed the game from beginning to end. It captures all of those themes that I had grown up with, including the amazing underwater world, awesome subs, sea monsters, sunken cities and wrapping them into a complete adventure. This is the only underwater game that trumps In the Hunt. It was the perfect design from the get-go. We are presented a steampunk world where science and myth collide. Sea monsters are attacking ships and ports and it's up to you to collect a bounty on these creatures by traveling the world with your hot air balloon and mini harpoon craft. This is a shooter on rails, akin to the other Sega titles Gunblade NY and Gunblade LA. Visually this game is still among the more impressive arcade titles you'll ever see. The only decent Ocean Hunter footage around is not very clear and does not give you a sense to how well made this game is.

The character designs, levels, music and bosses are all amazing. They help create a great atmosphere for the title and help pull you into this world. Too bad Sega never followed up with anything else on this title. I'd put my money down to get this on an arcade classics collection. This was truly one of Sega's unknown gems and worthy of a spot on the real top-100 games of all time list (especially since some magazines rank the dismal Bubsy the Bobcat on their list).

So does this wrap-up my never ending love of the sea and water videogames? Well it would if the genre didn't keep sparking new ideas. Undertow by Chair is a popular Xbox Live arcade shooter. It takes many themes featured in both the submarine and diving genres and mixes them in a western SHUMP format. Japanese SHUMPS are usually linear, the level moves left to right or top to bottom. SHUMPS over here from as old as Robotron to computer titles like Wingnuts 2 or as recent as Geometry Wars have allowed us to move freely all over the screen. While I don't own an Xbox 360 I still like to keep tabs on the genre and the video I've seen has me very interested in it. It also gives hope that developers haven't given up on the sea-based titles.

Well this brings me to the end of another series. I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane and didn't get turned off with my crazy fascination with the sea. I didn't talk about all the popular boat games because those you are more familiar with. Although Aqua Jack by Taito and Hydra by Atari did take the high speed boat and put machine guns and missiles on them... hmm... maybe I should mention them at least.

Plus I never did get Blood Wake for the Xbox, was it any good?

Ah, enough of that. Have a great weekend and let me know what you are up to! 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!