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

Street Fighter 6 Designer Yusuke Hashimoto had an impossible task. Update the look of the classic SF characters without causing an all-out riot with the fans. I did a quick take on all the leaked designs last year, like Zangief for example. Mr. Hashimoto had impeccable fashion sense, knew how to work with color, and use fabric, and layers to tell a story with costuming. He worked on Bayonetta, and Bayonetta 2 previously. Those games had some amazing designs, turning witches, demons, angels, and other religious figures into a dazzling runway fashion show but with guns, and cheeky humor. I would argue that he approached each SF character with a certain level of respect. He wouldn't be turning them into Bayonetta characters, but preserve their roots as best as he could while trying to update them a little. He might have asked himself what did they wear in a formal setting? What did they wear when they weren’t fighting? I believe that half the SF6 lineup were wearing casual outfits on purpose.

We wouldn’t expect Chun-Li to walk around the city wearing 30 lbs. spiked bracelets on each wrist, and wrestling boots. So she was given a very casual makeover that still looked like classic Chinese costuming. The same applied to Luke, Jamie, Kimberly, and the other new faces. They each had fight wear, and street wear as alternate costumes or vice-versa. Mr. Hashimoto had probably gone through the Capcom archives to see what some of the concept art was for each character, and even abandoned characters like the Fighting Literary Master that was in the planning stages of SFV. The bearded professor archetype would be easy to apply to the Red Cyclone. Presenting Zangief an intellectual when he wasn’t wrestling perfectly captured his personality. Zangief was absolutely dedicated to his craft. When he wasn’t training we could expect to find him learning new subjects with the same level of intensity. In the game he finished books faster than he finished reps in the weight room.

The animation team was as insightful as Mr. Hashimoto. They dug into the archives when modeling the cast. The studio used concept art to create taunts, and victory poses from. They captured an absurd amount tiny details for each character that either was missed, or never created in the first place. For example Zangief was known for being covered in scars. This was because he wrestled bears in the Siberian tundra. However all of his scars were only on his front. As a trained wrestler he never gave his back up to an opponent, and never ran from a conflict. In canon he actually had one scar on his back, but this was from taking an assassin’s bullet for the former president of the Soviet Union. I think it was only mentioned in a novel, and never illustrated in any manga. This tiny, insignificant detail was modeled, and skinned onto the character. As I said previously, the amount of work that went into SF6 was absurd.

The SF6 art team also had to figure out what style, aesthetic, and proportions they were going to go with for the cast. One of the things that really made Japanese audiences upset was when the studio changed the look of Cammy between SFIV, and SFV. many Japanese gamers said Cammy looked ugly in Street Fighter V. They said the studio was trying to appeal more to European tastes, rather than keep her looking more like an anime character. I had covered the aesthetic debate previously on this blog. It was hard to make the visuals of a franchise stand out from the competition. Every now and then we would get a genius like BENGUS to create new looks for the character that were recreated in sprite form. The SFIV models were based on Daigo Iken's work, and SFV models were trying to use the BENGUS style. Unfortunately proportions that worked in 2D did not always work in 3D.

The models in SFIV, and SFV were getting bulkier, and bulkier, and it was hard to see relative heights between the fighters because they were so thick. Not to mention that the character models looked like they were made out of lumpy clay. The exaggerated BENGUS proportions that looked brilliant as sprites in Street Fighter Zero / Alpha were hard to recreate in 3D without making the characters look grotesque. The SF6 team went back to the more realistic proportions that AKIMAN, and Shoei used when designing the SFII lineup. These more lifelike designs were easier to read on screen, their moves, and animations flowed better, and the differences between fat, skinny, tall, and short body types really stood out.

Cammy got a similar type of ground-up makeover. I don’t know what the average Japanese or global reaction was for the cast. Based on the fan art I’ve seen online it looked like people on both sides of the Pacific were really digging her new look. She still had a youthful appearance, but her eyes weren’t too big, or cartoonish like with Lily. Her muscular frame was still there, as was her love of cats. For anybody that believed athletic women couldn’t have her model looks I would argue that she might have been based on Team USA weightlifter Samantha Wright. Her bright eyes, soft features, and naturally pursed lips beguiled that she could easily out lift many men in the gym. It turned out that it was possible to find a balance between realistic, and stylized aesthetics for the cast. In this way it could be argued that the developers were able to strike a look that could appeal to international audiences.

In my book Capcom had knocked Street Fighter 6 out of the park. Every element that went into the game was influenced by 35 years of the Capcom legacy. We're not only talking about the Street Fighter franchise but also Final Fight, Rival Schools, Tech Romancer, Vampire / Darkstalkers, Star Gladiator, Muscle Bomber / Saturday Night Slam Masters, and Warzard / Red Earth. It also allowed players to enjoy more than a dozen classic arcade games in a virtual arcade open 24/7. The studio was making nods to anime, manga, wrestling, and pop culture all throughout the adventure. Capcom was doing all of this while pushing the franchise into the future. Character design, plot, music, sound, animation, modeling, balance, level design, stage layout, world building, control, and balance were executed to perfection. Capcom did the impossible. They elevated the fighting genre, and put it on par with the best AAA adventure titles. The games that took 30 or 40 hours to complete now had competition from a completely different format. We did not have to play as Link, Mario, Spider-Man, the One-Armed Wolf, Kratos, or any other named character. Instead we could make up our own avatar and become the hero of the Street Fighter universe. I do not think that any other studio could have pulled it off. At least not nearly as well. In fact I do not think that any other studio did anything more revolutionary for gaming in 2023. Street Fighter 6 was an absolute master class in game design.

I’ve spent the past three months on this blog showing the individual elements that when combined made for what I consider to be the game of the year. What more could I say to convince you? When voting opens up on the various forums, and websites later this year I sincerely hope that you consider Street Fighter 6 as the best of the lineup. Thank you for joining me on this series. I appreciate every view, share, and comment. I put a lot time, energy, and myself into this series. I'm exhausted, and will probably rest for a few months before writing something new. Thanks for watching me massacre the English sentence structure. I wouldn't have done it without you. 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!

Street Fighter 6: A master class in game design, part 31

In an earlier blog I mentioned that the US had a terrible track record with adaptations from Japan. It didn’t matter how big the budget was, or how many writers, producers, or directors they threw at the project. If they didn’t understand the source material, and they didn’t meet the characters at their level, then the project would fail. To be fair the major US Studios couldn’t even get US comic, or cartoon properties right half the time. This was no where else more apparent than Capcom Studio 8 and their trainwreck called Final Fight Streetwise. Let’s start with the most obvious thing, the visuals.

I had been collecting Capcom books, and magazines for over 30 years. I especially loved the game guides. I could see the character art, and concepts as they were designed by my favorite art team. Final Fight, and the related titles always had a strong anime aesthetic. Bright costumes, bold colors, over-the-top designs. Everything was played up, there was nothing remotely serious about their approach. Even though the situations, and locations seemed serious, they were presented in a melodramatic fashion. It was something that not a lot of fans of the franchises understood. This was obvious in the writing, and direction of Streetwise. It was a dark game, very much in the vein of Beat Down from the year before.

The only difference between the two Capcom games were the character designs. One was created by a Japanese studio, and the other by a US team. Both were trying to capture the same serious look, and feel. Only the US team actually had the FF property to work with. A preview of how bad things would be were seen in the limited edition Streetwise comic. You could get one if you pre-ordered the game. It was Illustrated by Trent Kaniuga. The credits included; Story by Dave Ralston, Gerardo Sprigg, and Trent Kaniuga. Scenarios written by Tom Mason, Dan Danko, and Gary Reed. The comic introduced us to a character named Kyle Travers, the brother of Cody Travers. Right away my head snapped back. I was like what?!? I had played every game in the series, and was fairly certain there had never even been a mention of a brother. The comic was filled with smoking, drinking, realistic depictions of violence, sexual overtones, and gun play. It was the very definition of tell me you’ve never played Final Fight, without telling me you’ve never played Final Fight.

In the back pages of the comic we were treated to the concept art of the various locations in the game. As well as art of new, and returning characters. New faces like the tattoo-covered Lou “The Skin”, gangster-looking Simms, the Rasta-trope Reefer Madness, and the scummy Weasel. Returning characters included Poison, Sodom, and Andore. Cammy would even turn up in the game with a makeover as well. Everything was dark, and ugly. The streets, and businesses in Metro City were much worse off than they were in the original FF. The bright colors, and cartoonish designs of the Mad Gear members were absent. Instead replaced with the tough guys that would be found in an angsty teenager’s sketchbook. Learning that the comic creator, and writer also turned out to be the voice of Kyle suddenly made a lot of sense. This would the game industry's most expensive self-insert fanfiction.

The game would give realistic makeovers to the other classic characters including Mike Haggar, and Guy. If you played the game for any amount of time, and were familiar with pop culture then it was obvious the direction that the team was going. Capcom Studio 8 was trying to turn FF into a cinematic experience. It would be something more akin to the movies Fight Club, or Snatch. Both gave dark, and gritty portrayals of illegal underground fighting tournaments. This was opposite of Streets of Fire, the cult ‘80s film that influenced the development of FF. The shirtless Kyle Travers surrounded by drunks in a makeshift ring was a substitute for Brad Pitt from the aforementioned movies. Except Kyle looked more like Mickey Rourke, which to be fair he was the macho rugged guy that predated Brad. The dialogue in the game, and themes were very mature. They predicted where Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series would be going.

The problem was that this was a Capcom game, not a Rockstar game. The developers were doing a major disservice to the source material. They were creating an action brawler that in, and of itself, was worth exploring. However by attaching it to the name Final Fight then audiences were expecting something similar to the previous four titles. If it couldn’t be similar then at the very least it should capture the spirit of the previous games. The move to 3D was not as jarring as the content. The casual drug use, swearing, and violence meant that it wasn’t aimed for general audiences. The combat was not well done, the dialogue poor, character development absent, and plot was nonsensical. A drug / stimulant was taking over the streets of Metro City called “Glow.” It acted very much like “Venom” the drug that Bane used to increase his strength, speed, and stamina in the Batman comics.

The climax of the game featured Kyle, against a Glow-overdosed Cody. What they did to the iconic character was as sad as you could possibly imagine. Every step of the journey reminded me how far the studio was walking away from the original. These were all conscious choices, this wasn’t their first rodeo. Capcom USA worked side-by-side with senior Japanese developers on Final Fight Revenge. They didn’t understand the quirky humor that was the basis for Mad Gear bosses. Such as Sodom, he was an obsessive Japanophile, however he couldn’t even write kanji correctly, or speak Japanese. They saw firsthand how the characters were designed, what the tone of the moves, world, and story was. They even had Zombie Belger doing Michael Jackson’s Thriller dance moves in the FF Revenge credits. If that didn’t explain not to take the world too seriously was then nothing the Japanese team could have said would have mattered to the US. It wouldn’t be the first time a western studio would try to rewrite the legend of a beloved franchise to fit their own vision.

In 2009 Grin released a 3D adventure game called Bionic Commando. Directed by Ulf Andersson, Produced by Ben Judd, and Designed by Anders Jonsson. It was based on one of the greatest classic games ever made. The original Bionic Commando I would consider one of my favorite games of all time. What audiences couldn’t understand was how off the tone, and design of the 3D remake was. This was especially jarring considering that the same studio released Bionic Commando Rearmed the year before. It was a 2.5D version of the classic title, and it hit all the right notes for fans of the original. It was a smash hit, and even the critics held it up as an example of how to properly adapt a classic NES game to modern consoles. A year later they said the full 3D version was an example of what not to do with a beloved IP. But I digress…

The Street Fighter 6 developers did not acknowledge BeatDown, or Final Fight Streetwise as being part of canon. Those games were missing from the tiles in Beat Square. The only one this did recognize was Final Fight Revenge. The SF6 team returned Metro City, the Mad Gear gang, and various cameos back to their full color lighthearted tone in the World Tour. I would argue that Capcom in Japan did sneak in a jab at the horrid western remakes. I’m convinced that the poster of Cody at the end of the subway cars was made to look like Patrick Bateman from the American Psycho film. As if this is the version of Cody that a US developer would have given us in SF6. 

Thankfully the Street Fighter, and Final Fight IP was back in good hands. The studio was keenly aware of how fan reactions from around the world were coloring the way the had to approach their designs. The growth of the internet made sure that audience feedback was instantaneous.  Japanese fans were being very vocal about their dissatisfaction of one of the most popular characters in SFV. What the SF6 team did to this character, and the rest of the cast was simply sublime. We will dig into it on the next blog entry. I hope to see you back for that. 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!

Street Fighter 6: A master class in game design, part 30

When the idea of a World Tour was brought up at Capcom HQ in Japan what do you think the team considered before settling on their format? I would argue that the first thing they had to discuss was whether or not they should have players follow around one of the named characters. Make an adventure game out of Ryu, Ken, or Chun-Li. I’m still convinced that a Chun-Li game using the SIFU engine would be amazing. But that would make it a side game, and not a proper numbered SF title. There wasn’t much precedence for this type of game. Not including Charlie Nash, and Cammy appearing in the shooter GunSpike / Cannon Spike in 2000. That title was co-developed by Psykio as well, so it doesn’t really count as a fighter. Focusing on just one character that already became a master of their specific style would be hard to develop a narrative around. We would need to begin with nothing, and build our character up. Even Kratos, and Link had to start with weak weapons, and low stats at the beginning of their respective games; God of War, and The Legend of Zelda. Focusing on a player-created avatar, and making them the star of the game, and then having all of the SF characters have a hand in training them was the best possible decision by the SF6 team.

Off the top of my head the only franchise game that tried to make a solo adventure out of a star character was Death by Degrees. It featured Nina Williams, one of the main characters in Tekken, and also one of the first 3D fighting game females. It was developed and published by Namco in 2005. The game made an honest case for turning the tried-and-true Tekken mechanics, and combo systems into a 3D adventure. Nina had already been presented for years as a spy, and assassin in the Tekken cutscenes, and intro cinemas. This time we would be following her on a James Bond-type adventure. The game was good in concept, but just didn’t work in execution. Namco discovered something that was a wild card for 3D fighting game design. How to you balance free roaming 3D combat? An opponent could easily sidestep an attack, and of course if your angle wasn’t dead-on then your attacks might not even land. Also how would a camera work in this type of system? Capcom knew better than try to make the SF6 World Tour a free roam 3D brawler. As soon as a confrontation started it instantly moved to a 2D perspective. Thus there was no difference between the Arcade mode, and the World Tour.

The late ‘90s saw several studios making the transition to 3D game design. Many shuttered further development on their 2D sprite engines, and got designers 3D workstations. Of all of the early 3D fighting games there were three that tried to show the possibility of story driven fighting adventures. Many from my generation had a soft spot for Tobal No. 2. It was a brilliant console game. Developed by DreamFactory, and published by Square for the Playstation back in 1997. It was a follow up to the groundbreaking Tobal No. 1, which was Square’s first game for the PS. It wasn’t just a well balanced 3D fighting game, with designs by Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball Z, Sand Land), but also offered an adventure mode, like traditional RPGs. Then there was Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring by Namco from 1998. It was a well done fighter, featuring different level elevations, and dynamic environments, and also offered a quest mode. The peak of these types of 3D fighting adventures probably came with Power Stone. Produced by Capcom in 1999 there was nothing else like it in the arcade. The anime-style characters, special moves, random power-ups, and rapidly evolving stages had a sort of kinetic energy that you needed to play with a group in order to appreciate.

As fun as these games were they didn’t quite translate the feeling of a traditional fighting game into 3D. The most ambitious attempt at AAA 3D fighting adventure went to Sega. The studio was one of the first to use polygon graphics in racing, flying, and fighting games in the early ’90s. If anyone could crack the code it would have been them. Sega actually tried to build a 3D brawler franchise, starting with Dynamite Cop, and then creating SpikeOut. It was an excellent game, and one that I actively sought out when I saw an ad for it in a Japanese game magazine. It got a more fighting game friendly update called Spikers Battle in 2001, and a console exclusive sequel called Spikeout: Battle Street for the Xbox in 2005. As fun as the game was it highlighted the difficulties of trying to make a brawler in 3D.

Capcom wanted to be the studio to create a modern Final Fight. An urban brawler that was more mature in tone than other games. The Gen-Xers that grew up on the classic arcade hits were now adults, many with children of their own. They had gravitated to more serious titles. This was especially true of many in the US. The Twisted Metal, Grand Theft Auto, and God of War series demonstrated the look, and feel that a lot of players wanted to see. A developer named Cavia had created a dark, and gritty 3D brawler named Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance. You could recruit, or extort rival gangs on your quest to take over a city. Capcom published the game in 2005. That same year Namco also released an urban brawler named Urban Reign. It used the Tekken combo building mechanics, and the moves from various Tekken characters for your custom characters. Both titles allowed you develop your own movesets. Which was something new to the format.

Both games failed with critics, and audiences. They were average-at-best experiences despite some solid ideas, and decent character designs. Capcom knew that there was still a demand for brawlers, and fighting games. They decided to dig into their IP, and make a big push for the genre. In 2006 Capcom Studio 8 would release the first new Final Fight game in seven years. It would also be the first game created exclusively by their US studio. If anybody understood the western audience it would be the Team USA members. The game that came out left me bewildered.

Actually I wasn’t as bewildered as much as I was disappointed, saddened, and angry with the treatment of the IP. My reaction was all before the game even came out. I got a preview when I attended the E3 in 2005. I was looking at the early footage, and wondering what was going on. Why was this ugly Fight Club wannabe was getting passed off as a Final Fight game? I showed my brothers the video I recorded, and they were confused as well. I’m too upset to talk about it now. We will dig into it on the next blog entry. I hope to see you back for that. 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!

Street Fighter 6: A master class in game design, part 29

The success of the Street Fighter series could be chalked up to incredible planning, incredible luck, or a little bit of both. Earlier in the series I mentioned how different directors, and planners had a hand in shaping the franchise. It began with Takashi Nishiyama, the genius behind Kung-Fu Master / Spartan-X, Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, The King of Fighters, and the Rumble Fish. He was essentially The Godfather of fighting games. He left Capcom shortly after SF came out, so a new team had to come up with a sequel. Double Dragon was the breakout hit of 1987, so the Capcom developers decided to pursue the brawler format instead while creating Street Fighter ’89. Despite their contribution to the genre Double Dragon’s Directors Yoshihisa Kishimoto, and Shinichi Saito don’t really have as high a status as their Capcom rivals. Why was that? I think it had a lot to do with them retreading the exact same ground over, and over. Double Dragon II: The Revenge came out in 1988. The game had improved on the visuals, and stage designs, but it didn’t feel revolutionary. Worse yet the woman that you saved in the previous game, Marian was shot to death at the beginning of the sequel. Hunting down Willy, the leader of the Black Warriors, and making him pay wouldn’t be bringing her back. The game was difficult, and simply felt like an excuse to take your credits as fast as possible.

Capcom knew that they were working on something superior to the prior two Double Dragon games. The first thing they did after witnessing DDII’s soft debut was rename their game Final Fight. This allowed them to work on two franchises, a brawler, and a 2D fighting game. The Street Fighter II developers were tasked to create an actual sequel to Mr. Nishiyama’s game. Do you know what Technos did while Capcom was breaking new ground? They doubled down on their franchise. The least memorable of their arcade follow-ups was Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone. It came out in 1990. They were now copying the competition, they introduced a third Lee brother named Sonny. Each of the brothers played exactly the same, as opposed to Cody, Guy, and Haggar’s unique skill set. They also introduced micro transactions where you could pay more credits for more gear, weapons, or other characters. I haven’t met any people that played that arcade release given how slow, clunky, and stale their franchise had become. It was retooled for Japan, and the shop was removed. By the time Technos realized the many mistakes they made it was too late. Street Fighter II had been released. The world was forever changed. In order to be relevant again Technos would have to create a Double Dragon fighting game, but that would be a blog for another day. 

The ‘90s saw tremendous growth for Capcom, and with it came an impossible demand for more. More fighting games, more consoles games, more of everything. Capcom began licensing out their IP, and looking for partners to help produce animation, and movies. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Hollywood did not have a good track record for adapting Japanese content. The studios thought they understood the culture, the audience, and a million other demographics according to their marketing people. I would argue that if they did not enter with an understanding of the IP then they would completely miss the mark. This lesson didn’t just apply to Japanese IP. Studio heads would put the wrong people in charge of massive domestic projects. From producer all the way down to director, writer, and actors. They each contributed to multi-million dollar failures. This could be seen in the colossal string of flops released by Warner Bros. in recent years. That studio owned the DC Comics IP, they had animation directors that were creating hit-after-hit using the very same IP. Unfortunately their live action teams were an entirely different part of the company. They had no interest on what the comic book, or cartoon writers, directors, or producers could do for them.

Capcom of Japan didn’t know, or care that Western adaptations had a spotty track record. They were experiencing rapid growth, and in order to take advantage of the market they needed to diversity their portfolio. This meant getting cartoons on TV, and toys on shelves. Whether the US writers, directors, or toy designers had any idea what they were doing was besides the point. Capcom would be aligned with the popular cartoon series G.I. Joe, and later on have a Vampire / Darkstalkers cartoon made as well. To say these were horrible shows, and forgettable toys would be an understatement. The anime, or manga style that drew the attention of audiences in the first place was substituted to more US comic book, and cartoon aesthetics. The look, and feel of the fighting games was missing from the very first episode. These efforts never gained momentum, and could be chalked up as losses for the company.

Capcom wanted, and needed to have a team in the US that could adapt their games to the western market. At the same time they wanted to assemble a team that could create original IP that would appeal exclusively to the west. This would make sure their portfolio could keep growing, and keep investors happy. This was how we ended up with Capcom USA, later renamed Capcom Production Studio 8. Their first game was Final Fight Revenge. It had a lot of input from Capcom of Japan, but was assembled by the US team. You could see it in the credits. It was directed by Yoshiki Okamoto, and David Siller. The producers were Tetsuya Iijima, Jim Wallace, and Mark Rogers. The lead designer was Tetsuya Iijima, and lead artist was Raymond Fung. Final Fight Revenge was released in 1999, and looked very blocky, very low polygon when compared to other 3D fighters of that era. It didn’t seem to have the same level of polish that ARIKA’s Street Fighter EX had from a few years prior. 

I cannot confirm who wrote the story, or selected the lineup for the game, but I think that it was the Capcom Japan studio. This was given how closely they mirrored the lineup, and villains from the original Final Fight. The other reason why I think it was the Japanese studio was because of how the final battle with Belger turned out. If you had never played FF the way the game ended (according to canon) was Cody had rescued Jessica from Belger, but had kicked him out of his penthouse window. Those actions were understandable. He knew that turning him over to the authorities meant he would escape justice. His lawyers would fight the charges, and the crooked cops would make sure Belger would be released that same day. Kicking Belger out of a window to his presumed death was the only way he could protect the woman he loved. Cody fought the murder charge given the circumstances, but was still sentenced to prison for involuntary manslaughter.

Despite the fall Belger actually returned shortly after. In the Famicom / Nintendo console game Mighty Final Fight (MFF) from 1993. It was a sort of kid-friendly retelling to the arcade hit from 1989. It was also released at the same time as the Super Nintendo / Super Famicom exclusive Final Fight 2. Capcom wanted to make sure that this remained one of their more popular franchises. Almost all of the characters returned in MFF, and allowed players to relive one of the great arcade adventures. In the end they faced off against Belger, who was kept alive with cybernetic parts. I guess we could tell which side of his body hit the ground first when he fell. I’m sure most of us were convinced that the character was going to stay dead this time after his second fall. Not to mention that FF3 would feature a new gang, and a new villain named Black.

Belger returned one more time in Final Fight Revenge. He was now kidnapping people from beyond the grave. The final battle with the character had him appearing as a zombie in the underworld. It was some sort of dark graveyard with a massive demon in the background. The character moved sluggishly, but could vomit poison, and stretch his limbs like Dhalsim. He could also pounce, and bite opponents. This over-the-top storytelling, and absurd gameplay highlighted the same tone that Capcom of Japan leaned into when they were creating Mighty Final Fight. The rest of the game was a passable fighter, even going so far as to give several of the cast members their moves from Street Fighter Zero / Alpha. I would argue that Capcom of Japan was getting Capcom USA up to speed on development. They were experimenting with how a Street Fighter game might look in 3D without using the main SF cast. After all, they wouldn’t want audiences saying that their 1999 3D Street Fighter was inferior to ARIKA’s Street Fighter EX from 1996. 

Capcom USA tried out new ideas for 3D combat, such as the cast being able to pick up weapons, and them use during a match. These reflected the same things you could do in the traditional FF titles. It was only at the reveal of Belger returning from the great beyond that we got to the punchline. The events of this game didn’t really constitute a Final Fight 4. It was just something to keep the IP fresh. The overall tone was a type of absurd humor that I don’t think the Capcom USA team got, or understood. The reason I say this was because Capcom Studio 8 would develop another fighting game that would not be acknowledge as part of SF/FF canon. We will dig into it on the next blog entry. I hope to see you back for that. 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!