A look at the big man, where did the Capcom giants come from? Final Part

Hugo was a true giant, and a template for many of the great design elements that used to be a part of  the Street Fighter series. He was the second largest ever Street Fighter. At 7' 10" he was just a hair shorter than Abigail. The developers used a number of tricks to make him appear larger-than-life but still relatable. Even when they weren't playable characters in a game the giants were hard to ignore. Andore along with a few Mad Gear members appeared in the ending for Sodom in Street Fighter Zero. Both Andore and Abigail appeared in the Metro City background in Street Fighter Zero 2. To make them appear more imposing they were set apart from each other and framed by their surroundings. Andore stood by himself on top of a stack of I-beams, adding a few extra feet to his presence. Abigail was headbanging at the end of a dark alley, his fellow gang members squatting down next to him so he appeared taller. Even though they were in the distance they remained menacing.

   

These stages also served to tell a story. The events of Final Fight happened during the timeline in between Street Fighter Zero (SFZ) 2 and 3. Jessica had not been kidnapped during SFZ1 and 2. Cody was in jail for throwing Belger out of his skyscraper during SFZ3. Fans of the Final Fight games remember the bad blood that the Mad Gear gang had with Cody, Haggar and Guy. The subtext of having everyone on the level gave audiences a strong sense of nostalgia. At the same time Andore was getting tired of being a mid-level Mad Gear member. He wanted to be recognized. Poison Kiss, a fellow Mad Gear member, decided he should be a pro wrestler and became his manager. The stage backgrounds evolved from Andore sulking in the background to eventually show Hugo as a star on a billboard. The groundwork was set for his debut as a full blown pro wrestler in Street Fighter III. A US development team even took a crack at making a Final Fight fighting game with a similar narrative. Final Fight Revenge was released in 1999.

   

Kinu Nishimura and Daigo Ikeno worked on a number of the Street Fighter III designs. They wanted Hugo to be the new powerhouse, the new Zangief, since only Ken and Ryu were originally meant to return from Street Fighter II. This giant was supposed to use a different play mechanic than Zangief. He was going to play different, move different and thanks to Kinu and Ikeno he was going to look different as well. The basic appearance of Hugo would be the same as it was in the original Final Fight. His look had actually changed a little over the sequels. In Final Fight 2 he sported overalls and in Final Fight 3 he had a white tank-top and dread-locked hair. The pink leopard print tank top and pants returned from the first Final Fight. The large mane of hair, a nod to the early hairstyle of Andre the Giant, had also returned. His inclusion was supposed to rekindle a sense of nostalgia for the legacy characters. Most people didn't notice the number of changes the studio actually made to his design.

   

The new details that Capcom placed on the character were actually enhancing a few elements of his original look. Most Street Fighter characters wore gloves or taped up hands. Hugo was given a studded wrist guard to make his arms look less bare. The chain on his belt became much thicker and more industrial. It now looked more like a heavy duty towing chain, or anchor chain. The most overlooked details were his pants and boots. Hugo was not only tall but he was very heavy. His pants and shoes were actually two large pairs that were sewn together so they could fit him. The cuffs on his pants had belt loops and a belt to highlight that his ankles were as thick as most people's waists. His boots were split down the middle because they were a left and right pair combined to fit each foot. As with all of the great character designs, Hugo's costume told a story.

   

Although Hugo was supposed to be in the original Street Fighter III: New Generation (1997) his sprite wasn't ready until Street Fighter III: Giant Attack later that year. After the events of Street Fighter Zero/Alpha he had accomplished his goals of being a top draw on the wrestling circuit and leaving behind the Mad Gear persona. He achieved a number of championships as a pro wrestler during the events of Street Fighter III: Third Strike in 1999 and Final Fight Revenge. The character had greatly evolved since his debut in 1989 but when a new development team took over at Capcom things changed. When Hugo reappeared in Street Fighter X Tekken (2012) and Ultra Street Fighter IV (2014) he had mentally regressed. The new developers made a conscious decision to dumb him down considerably. Poison had done most of the talking for Hugo but at the same time he could still form his own ideas and opinions in the series. Almost overnight he was turned into a bumbling idiot, like Abigail, and that was a shame. Being a dumb brute was never part of their original designs.

   

The people working on Street Fighter IV and V did not always preserve the character's original designs while updating their look. In some cases they haphazardly slapped together elements that had nothing to do with the fighter. Just look at the changes they made to the character Birdie. Compare the newer costume details placed on Hugo with those placed on Abigail. To let audiences know he was a punk rather than a wrestler they gave him a spiked collar (he originally had a chain around his neck). To show off his size they put truck tires around his biceps. Then hung car tires from his belt and gave him rings made out of small tires. They even printed tire marks on his pants, as if someone tried to run him over. Stealing a page out of Hugo's design they put a belt around his ankles. None of these things were part of Abigail's original design, none of these things were functional in battle and none of these things had the same subtlety of the other Street Fighter costume designs. Remember that Abigail wasn't always a moron. He was a fighter, and he had a temper, but he wasn't an idiot. He was very high up in the chain of command, only Rolento outranked him in Metro City's Mad Gear organization. But you know... tires!

   

Another major difference between Hugo and Abigail in Street Fighter was seen with their inclusion. Abigail was a huge 3D model that was put in Street Fighter V as a spectacle. He took up so much space on the screen he was hard to ignore. His mass offset the scale of the rest of the cast, including Zangief. But Hugo was presented with more forethought in Street Fighter III, he didn't detract from the rest of the lineup. In Final Fight he battled while standing perfectly straight. This made him appear much larger than his opponents, which he clearly was, but it wasn't practical in a fight. He didn't have the flexibility or range of motion of his opponents. Guy was way more agile and even Mike Haggar could run circles around him. In SF III he was only shown a few times standing straight up, these were in some introduction poses and in the ending screen.

   

When the match started in Street Fighter III he actually squatted down and got into a sort of grappling pose. He lacked the techniques of veteran wrestlers but it showed that he had gotten much better at fighting since his Final Fight days. Hugo was still a little bit clumsy in Street Fighter III. Audiences could tell this in his animations. He shifted his weight awkwardly as he advanced. His steps were heavy and flat-footed. He didn’t move on the balls of his feet like a pro fighter would. He relied on power rather than technique. If he had the experience of somebody like Zangief or Darun Mister then he would have dominated the Street Fighter tournament. But since he didn’t there were ways for smaller and faster opponents to get the best of him. When he wasn’t fighting the developers liked to remind audiences of how awe-inspiring the giant was.

   

When Hugo stood straight up the top of his head almost touched the top of the screen, none of the other characters were even remotely this tall. Audiences could tell the character was big but they didn’t realize how big until they saw his game ending. In SFIII Giant Attack he had four alternate endings. In each one he was partnered up with a different opponent; Ryu, Elena, Necro and even the boss character Gill. Each tag team even had a unique nickname. For example Hugo and Elena made up Beauty and the Beast, whereas Hugo and Ryu made up the Soul Brothers. When the characters stood side-by-side it appeared as if Hugo were twice as tall and four times as heavy as his partners. His back was as broad as a double door and quite muscular. The stylized art helped sell the incredible scale of the figures while still keeping them consistent with the universe. This was the benefit of two-dimensional art. The designers could play with the proportions of the characters without losing the sense of realism. It was a trick that they picked up from manga and animé.

   

Tetsuo Hara introduced a number of unique manga rules in the Hokuto No Ken / Fist of the North Star series. Something he showed artists was that the scale of a character did not have to be consistent as long as it served the story. In the post-apocalyptic series Kenshiro often ran into roving gangs filled with giants. The scale of these villains was flexible. In some panels the bad guys looked like they were 10-feet tall, then a page later they appeared as if they were 30-feet tall. Mr. Hara would jump back and fourth between the different sizes depending on what he was trying to convey. In many instances he would highlight just one physical feature. There would be a close-up of a giant head behind Kenshiro so that it looked like he could bite the hero in half. Then in another panel it might be the hands of the giant engulfing the main character.

   

Often times when Kenshiro beat the giant the scene would be drawn from a distance showing that the bad guy wasn’t really the size of King Kong. These visual tricks made the odds seem greater for the hero of the story. Masahiko Nakahira wrote and drew a number of Capcom’s greatest Street Fighter stories in Japan. He was clearly aware of how influential Tetsuo Hara was to the development of Street Fighter II and III. In the Ryu Final manga he used many of the same techniques when featuring Hugo. In some panels he appeared to be several stories tall, capable of stepping over buildings. Then in other panels he seemed closer to his in-game size. Mr. Nakahira wanted to show how easily a giant could manhandle Ryu by messing around with the scale of the character. The thing that saved Ryu was his superior techniques. His relentless training could overpower any opponent, especially since Hugo lacked discipline.

   

The Street Fighter games could never take the same artistic liberties that Mr. Hara and Mr. Nakahira used. Audiences would be furious if characters changed size in between rounds. The distorted scale of hands and feet during special attacks made Street Fighter EX and Final Fight Revenge seem awkward. But that did not stop the designers at Capcom from pushing the envelope with massive characters. The company created a library of giants through the ‘90s. The studio learned that they could create bosses with different body shapes. Yes the majority were hyper-muscular but take a closer look at them. Some had a broad torso, they were as wide as they were tall. Others stood up straight or were hunched over masking their true size. The majority of these people appeared in the Final Fight series. If you look at the size of the heroes and villains you’ll notice that they didn’t always match up. Mike Haggar for example was the tallest and strongest of the good guys in the Final Fight trilogy. He stood 6’ 6” and weighed about 233 lbs. In Final Fight 2 just about every boss was larger than him even though they were listed as being smaller in the official material.

   

Freddie for example possibly had the broadest chest and thickest torso of any Mad Gear boss. This mercenary stood 6’ 4” and weighed 408 lbs. but his sprite was almost a head taller than Mike. Then there was Bratken, the Mad Gear boss that looked like Frankenstein’s monster. He was one of the largest sprites in the game but according to cannon he was 6’ 7” and 434 lbs. One inch of difference between he and Haggar meant a lot to Capcom of Japan. Then there was Won Won. Another of Mad Gear’s tallest bosses was 7’ 4” and an astonishing 450 lbs. Yet he was so muscular he couldn’t stand up straight, similar to Abubo in Rage of the Dragons. So his sprite was actually a little shorter than Bratken. Audiences could tell that the curve in his spine robbed him of his true size. Freddie was a tactical fighter whereas Bratken was a reckless brawler, locked away until he was needed. Won Won ran the streets of Hong Kong and chopped those who opposed Mad Gear in half with his cleaver. None of the bosses were ever presented as being stupid. There was too much at stake for betraying the gang. You couldn’t be stupid and be a boss at the same time.

   

From a design standpoint making someone gigantic worked best when used on the bad guys. From a storytelling perspective it also made sense. Audiences rooted for the underdog. It was hard to make someone like Abigail the main hero in Final Fight because he could steamroll his opponents. This rule worked especially well in the Street Fighter series. Just look at how intimidating Sagat was by design. A seven-foot, dark-skinned, bald, eyepatch-wearing, Muay Thai monster. People couldn’t help but cheer for the tiny Ryu. It took a change in designers to turn things around. Tetsuo Hara worked with Capcom on a couple of projects. He showed the studio that a good guy could also be gigantic. Hara designed the cast for the Muscle Bomber / Saturday Night Slam Masters series. Mr. Hara was a huge wrestling fan, he knew the history of the sport and major players in the USA as well as Japan. He also knew that the Street Fighter characters were more than average fighters, they needed special moves and abilities. So he created a large group inspired by real world wrestlers but each with a unique back story and collection of special attacks. These people would become the backbone of Capcom’s wrestling universe.

 

The tallest wrestler in the series turned out to be a good guy. Titan the Great aka Titanic Tim stood 7’ 9” and weighed 432 lbs. He was the third tallest character in the Street Fighter universe. But of those three he was the one with the most wrestling experience. The real world inspiration for the character were the 6' 6" Rick Bogner aka the Big Titan and 6' 5" Mike Awesome aka the Gladiator. The duo ran roughshod over the wrestlers in Japan during the early '90s. Titan the Great was an amalgamation of these two monsters. He did not have solely power moves in his arsenal but was a well rounded striker and grappler as well. He was agile despite his size. This was necessary when facing opponents that were blindingly quick. Titan was a British native and would sometimes team up with UK underground fighting legend Birdie. The two seven-footers were known as the 500 Million Trillion Powers.

   

Whether good or bad the giants deserved to be in the Street Fighter universe. With that said I was not a fan of the direction of the current Street Fighter series. I have said it before and will continue to say it. The silly mannerisms of certain characters, the constant breaking of the 4th wall during super attacks did not really make sense and detracted from the cast. Think about how absurd each of Hakan’s super attacks appeared on screen in Street Fighter IV. The opponent would be squished between his thighs and then shoot off into an invisible barrier. These invisible barriers also showed up in Abigail’s special as well. He could suspend his opponent in the air and then use them like a punching bag. Honestly, an opponent just floated at the top of the screen, defying gravity like some sort of Warner Bros. cartoon character. Then there was the absurd notion that Abigail couldn’t talk but instead made car noises like an infant that had lost his toy. All of these silly elements betrayed the designs of the earlier Street Fighter and Final Fight games. They simply weren’t a part of the legacy. Capcom used to know how to create fantastic giants, the template was there but they seemed to ignore it after 1999.

   

The goofy antics were all relatively new to the franchise. When Yoshinori Ono took on production duties they seemed to be part of his idea of what Street Fighter should be about. While nostalgia for the older characters is still in my heart I’m also afraid of what would happen if the studio decided to add any more legacy characters. I’d be embarrassed to see what they would do with the Muscle Bomber cast or any other fighter they had previously done. Giants in the Street Fighter universe should be feared and respected, as the majority were boss characters. Maybe someday the studio will remember that but I’m not holding my breath. I hope you have enjoyed this series, please leave a question or comment and I'll try to get back to you. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A look at the big man, where did the Capcom giants come from? Part 2...

Abigail, a character introduced in Season 2 of Street Fighter V had originally appeared in Final Fight, an arcade hit from 1989. The character was a boss in Mad Gear gang, a group made up of the biggest, meanest criminals from Metro City. Abigail was gigantic, even by Final Fight standards which had many characters above 6 and 7-feet in height. In the Street Fighter universe, where the Final Fight story took place in, he was listed at 8' tall and 584 lbs. He was the largest figure in the series and among the largest human character in any fighting game. The tradition of over-sized, muscular characters in fighting games went back to the start of the genre. The third boss in the 1984 Irem classic Kung Fu Master was a dark skinned character named Giant, he was a full head and shoulders taller than Thomas the hero. The trope of gigantic villains in a fighting game really took off however with the cast featured in the Technos series Double Dragon. There were massive villains in the original and sequel; named Burnov, Bolo, Oharra and Abore. They were capable of lifting players up with one hand and even punching down walls with their bare fists. The bad guy that audiences remember most was a bodybuilder-type character called Abobo.

   

Abobo actually changed during the various sequels and remakes of the series. He was a generic bruiser in the original 1987 game. His face paint and spiked wrist guards made him appear like a heel or bad guy wrestler. Abobo was far more fleshed out when the studio created a 2D fighting game in 1995. This newer version of Abobo was more proportional to the rest of the cast and was officially listed at 7' 2" and 336 lbs. He was still huge but nowhere near as big as the character's final appearance. In 2002 the Mexican developer EVOGA created an unlicensed Double Dragon game, which they called Rage of the Dragons, an homage to the series. They avoided legal issues by slightly changing the names of the main characters. The bruiser in this game was called Abubo instead of Abobo. This character was on the absolute extreme end of character designs. He was now 8-feet tall, actually 8.03, and 640 lbs. making him a fraction bigger than Abigail. His arms were so huge that they hung to the ground. This type of large upper half / small lower half character designs had actually evolved through the '90s and were almost commonplace post 2000. I had written a history of these "top heavy" designs when Gigas was introduced in Tekken 7. Abubo and Abobo had set a standard, or rather limit, on what worked when it came to fighting character designs. Believe it or not in the '95 version of Double Dragon the character could grow even larger and more muscular.

   

The "transforming" version of Abobo and the updated cast were based on the 1994 Double Dragon film. In the movie Abobo was a typical punk bad guy. He was already big and dumb but Koga Shuko, the main villain in the film, turned him into a mutated freak for failing to recover an artifact. This weirdly swollen character had muscles where muscles didn't exist. He was literally swollen where his glands, bones, cartridge and neck should have been. The absurdity of his updated look was incorporated into the game where he could temporarily "buff up" while performing certain moves. The movie was absolutely horrid and had nothing in common with the game, except for the names of the characters. It was the first and hopefully last film directed by James Yukich, whom had probably never even played the title. Interestingly enough the story was co-written by Paul Dini (The Batman Animated Series and co-creator of Harley Quinn) who has been one of the greatest comic and cartoon writers of a generation. I guess something was lost in translation when the screenwriters adapted his story. But I digress, character transformations were not a new idea in games, cartoons or comics. The Incredible Hulk for example turned from a small scientist into a thousand-pound green skinned monster. A more contemporary version of the transforming villain was seen with the character Bane.

   

Bane debuted as a Batman villain in 1993. He was an assassin that was trained in the fighting arts and was a perfect rival to Batman. The thing that made him a superior opponent was a synthetic drug, similar to adrenaline, called Venom. It increased his speed, reflexes, strength and durability. He could turn on a pump filled with Venom whenever he wanted to boost his fighting prowess. When the character originally appeared he was muscular but realistic. He had a bodybuilder physique and was not as deformed as Abobo. A really good 3D representation of his original design appeared in DCU Online, the DC Comics online multiplayer game (MMO). However as comic book aesthetics changed, and as different writers and artists took over, the look and purpose of Bane changed as well. In less than 20 years he went from a realistic physique to a grossly disproportionate one. To see how far the character had changed look at the version that was featured in the Batman Arkham games. This new Bane had a gross physique. Not only that but every iteration of Bane seemed to become dumber and dumber. It wasn't long until he was nothing more than a typical brute that used his muscles rather than technique to beat people. Abigail was sliding into modern Bane territory but for over 30 years the designers at Capcom managed to avoid this trope. How did they do it?

   

Capcom developed a template copied hundreds of times over. The idea for Street Fighter was simple, different martial arts masters fighting against each other to prove who was the best. The designers created a library of characters that reflected different nationalities and by default the different fighting arts. One of the reasons the series stood out was because of how unique the character designs looked compared to other games. The artists at Capcom, people like AKIMAN, Shoei and SENSEI created figures that were not quite manga, not quite anime, and not even comic book in appearance. They were instead something in between the Japanese and USA aesthetics. These archetypes worked incredibly well and they helped launch a franchise. The characters were diverse in size, color and body type. Their appearance helped reinforce a particular fighting style. These basic concepts were used and expanded upon by other studios as well. Look at a character like Dhalsim, a slender Yoga practitioner that stood 5' 9" and weighed about 100 lbs. Compare him to the burly Zangief, a 7-foot 400 lbs wrestler. In Street Fighter II the characters had good contrast. When the studio created a new sequel they went with a different designer. Bengus wanted to keep the scale of the characters similar but he used artistic license to exaggerate their proportions. Zangief and Dhalsim had the same height difference in Street Fighter Zero, but Bengus made Zangief much wider, especially on his shoulders, arms and back. He also cut Dhalsim's waist in half, making him even more gaunt. This contrast was more profound. It looked fantastic on screen but did not break the scale of the franchise. The exaggerated proportions ended up influencing a generation of game designers in Japan and even comic book artists in the USA.

   

The proportions developed by Bengus were used by Edayan, Kinu and Ikeno in the other Capcom games from that era. In doing so the giant characters appeared far more menacing when compared to the rest of the lineup. The Street Fighter library had always worked within a certain range of body types. Every character had to be muscular, the sumo wrestler E. Honda had an enormous belly but his arms and chest were well defined. Dhalsim was thin but his muscles had definition as well. As the characters got taller they preserved those same basic rules. Zangief was considered a standard for giant characters in the series but that concept was flexible. Sagat was 7' 4", a few inches taller and slightly leaner than Zangief. Sagat was the original boss in Street Fighter and was a character of distinction in both Street Fighter II and Street Fighter Zero. He stood a head above every other character and did a great job of capturing the boss feel. Yet even Sagat would be replaced as the biggest fighter. T. Hawk was a native character, at 7' 7" he was on the edge of the character sizes that worked within the continuity of the series. Moreover his height was about the limit for any giant character in a fighter. There was actually some real world precedence for this.

   

Professional NBA basketball players were 6' 7" on average with centers being around 6' 10" to 6' 11". Teams were constantly on the hunt for athletic 7-footers. These people represented less than .00004% of the population, and an even smaller fraction of those were healthy and coordinated enough to play at a professional level. The tallest of these men were Shawn Bradley standing 7' 6", Manute Bol at 7' 7" and Gheorghe Muresan also at 7' 7". Think about how imposing it was for T. Hawk to be created at the same height as the biggest NBA players. When you saw these players on TV the height differences between someone 6' 6" and 6' 10" looked much greater. Keep height to weight ratio in mind. A bulky tall person did not appear as tall as a lean person at the same height. Most basketball players were lean because it allowed them greater flexibility and speed. On television thinner people looked much taller than their opponents even though the actual height difference was only an inch or two. In a sport like American football tall players were very muscular. Because of this it was harder to spot the height differences on television.

Most fighting games have characters with a similar height to weight ratio. When you look at the height differences between Zangief, Sagat and T. Hawk it doesn't seem like much. Now think about Abigail. At 8 feet his height was very rare but not impossible. There had been taller people in history. The tallest that ever lived, Robert Pershing Wadlow was 8' 11". He would have broken the 9-foot barrier if an infection and compromised immune system didn't end his life at the age of 22. What made Abigail so awkward in appearance was his weight. The character was extremely muscular, almost to the inflated Bane or Abobo proportions. In the original Final Fight Abigail was shaped more like a professional strongman, with a wide gut, rather than a trim bodybuilder physique. This was actually very believable as there were many strongmen and wrestlers throughout history that were tall with that same body type.

   

The designers at Capcom went overboard with the muscular physiques in Street Fighter IV. I believe it was because the artists were reacting to the trends in Western character designs which favored overly-muscular characters. Look at how big comic book characters were today. When presented as 3D models rather than 2D sprites the extra bulk made the height seem less dramatic. In order to make the differences more noticeable the model heights were exaggerated ever so slightly. Many players did not pick up on the new sizes. When the characters were far apart on the screen most people couldn't tell that the scale was different. But as they got closer it became obvious. Take the character Hugo for example. The original version featured in Street Fighter III Giant Attack was an updated version of the classic Final Fight character. His height was astounding but proportional to the rest of the cast. Fans of the Final Fight series, and those that remember his cameos in the Street Fighter Zero / Alpha series remember how massive he was and therefor his sprite worked. When the character was created in 3D for Street Fighter IV and also for Street Fighter X Tekken he became bulkier and taller. Players really noticed this change when the character model was close to an opponent.

   

Abigail was absurdly huge. He looked as wide as he was tall, dwarfing Zangief and the other large characters in the process. He didn't seem to have the same proportions as Hugo or the other giants. That is to say he was missing his neck and shoulders. This made him look cartoonish in appearance. None of the other characters had the same type of physiology. The addition of car tires around his biceps and belt made little to no sense. I understand they were part of his new personae as a scrap yard owner but they were not part of his original costume. The most jarring thing about Abigail's appearance in Street Fighter V was his personality. Abigail went from high-ranking Mad Gear boss, with a genuine fighting ability to an idiot. He retained his temper from Final Fight but everything else was made up. It was embarrassing watching him putting around and making car noises in his introduction and story mode. Both Street Fighter IV and V had played up the silliness of certain characters while making others seem terrifying. Rufus, Hakan, Birdie and F.A.N.G were some of the other goofy / awkward characters added to the series. The director and producer of the series were certainly playing favorites with the cast. I wondered if the studio created a moronic Abigail to make fun of USA fighting game designs. They had given us a mindless Bane because apparently that's what we thought all strong characters should be like. The studio hadn't always treated their giant characters so poorly. In fact they used to treat their legacy characters with a lot more consideration. We'll look at the ways they used to present giants in the next blog. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A look at the big man, where did the Capcom giants come from? Part 1...

It is a great time to be a fighting game fan. That's a sentence I never thought I would be writing at my age. After fighting games fell by the wayside at the end of the '90s I didn't think they would come roaring back. Thanks to Capcom, Namco, SNK, Arc System Works, NetherRealm Studios and Double Helix Games for keeping the genre alive. An extra special thanks to the community for supporting the wide spectrum of titles. I never thought that Street Fighter would live to see 30, or that King of Fighters, Tekken, Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct would still be going strong as well. Sega might never release another Virtua Fighter but considering that even ARIKA is getting back into the mix gives me hope for the future. Nostalgia is a good reason why many of the titles are still being developed. The games are improving as a whole but fans also want to see familiar characters return. At the 2017 EVO Championships in Las Vegas we were reminded of this. Several major studios held back some details from the E3 in Los Angeles. They waited until they had a dedicated gathering at EVO to announce these major reveals. The biggest announcements were actually for some very old characters.

 

Trunks, a warrior from the future, was announced for Dragon Ball FighterZ. The character first appeared in the Dragon Ball manga in 1991. Geese Howard was the surprise guest announced for Tekken 7. He also debuted in 1991 for the SNK hit Fatal Fury: King of Fighters. Both of these character reveals sent shock-waves through the fighting game community. It was Capcom's announcement that was met with mixed emotions. The studio dug up a character that debuted in the 1989 cult hit Final Fight. Abigail was gigantic in proportion, had a few silly mannerisms and some awe-inspiring attacks. Long time fans of Capcom noticed that he had changed a bit from his original appearance. Some online commentators said that his design was too swollen and disproportionate when compared to his original look. Others thought that he fit right in with the already super-buff Street Fighter lineup. Who was this character? Where did he come from and did he really fit into the Street Fighter universe? In order to understand the significance of Abigail we have to travel back in time.

 

Capcom had marginal success when Street Fighter (SF) debuted in 1987. You might already know that Final Fight was designed to be the sequel to the original Street Fighter. It was originally called Street Fighter '89. In 1987 Technos had a smash hit arcade game called Double Dragon. I chronicled the importance of this game in my Brawling series. Double Dragon was essentially a more polished version of Renegade, a title the same publisher released in 1986. Instead of fighting on a fixed two-dimensional plane characters were free to move around the foreground and background and fight wave after wave of different opponents. This game was far more popular than the original SF and had been ported over to multiple systems. Capcom knew that they could probably make a superior version of the game with their own hardware. Producer Yoshiki Okamoto worked closely with designer Akira Nishitani (founder of ARIKA) and Akira Yasuda (designer better known as AKIMAN) to improve on everything in Double Dragon. They had bigger sprites, better graphics, more stages, more opponents and far more moves. They even created a story for audiences to follow. Among these were some enormous villains, one which was called Abigail.

 

 The story of Abigail and the designs behind the villains was very unique. The Mad Gear gang was inspired by Western pop culture, and in particular heavy metal music. A number of the characters were modeled after popular acts of the '70s and '80s. These included Billy Idol, Sid Vicious and Guns 'N Roses. The character of Abigail was considered a boss. He was very high up in the chain of command. Second only to Rolento, the military leader and right hand man of Belger, the organizer behind Mad Gear. Because of his status Abigail had to visually be different from his contemporaries. His uniform was white, which made him stand out from the darker colors assigned to the other Mad Gear characters. He was also the largest of the gang members, at 8 feet tall and over 580 lbs. he was the biggest character ever in the Street Fighter universe. Hugo Andore was no slouch though, at 7' 10" and 440 lbs. he was the second-largest Street Fighter character ever. Abigail sported some unique face paint. This makeup hearkened to an earlier era in metal music. Alice Cooper was a shock rocker that started the trend in the mid-1960s. He employed magic tricks in his performances, with some of his best illusions created by the Amazing Randi. Cooper's work set the foundation for the makeup and character-driven acts like KISS and King Diamond from the mid-1970s. Abigail in fact was the name of King Diamond’s second album from 1987. Abigail represented the foundation of hard rock while the rest of the Mad Gear members reflected the newer generation of metal stars.

 

From a design standpoint Abigail was somewhat unique but not wholly original. The character in the game was a different colored version of the Andore sprite, with a slightly different head. The Andore family; (Hugo) Andore, G. Andore, U. Andore, F. Andore and Andore Jr., were inspired by Andre the Giant. The Andore family hearkened back to actual wrestling dynasties like the Von Erichs, the Harts and the Guerreros. They were unfortunately large oafish wrestlers who relied on sheer force rather than technique to win fights. The family was among the middle ranks of the Mad Gear organization. In canon wrestling was a way to recruit Mad Gear members and the format that they used in underground tournaments. Sodom for example was another famous Mad Gear wrestler and a boss in the organization. Abigail was designed to be much different than the Andore's in fighting ability as well as in temper. His white uniform, buzz cut and makeup stood out compared to the shaggy-haired Andore's.

   

In the game Abigail was prone to fits of rage and would actually turn red and charge the heroes with his tree trunk-sized arms. Some of these details made it into Street Fighter V while others did not. As unique as he looked Abigail was far from an original idea. One of the major villains in the Double Dragon series was a giant bodybuilder named Abobo. If you go back through the early arcade hits you can draw a number of parallels between the story and characters in Double Dragon and Final Fight. Abigail was the Final Fight equivalent to Abobo. When Abobo first appeared he had the familiar face paint and spiked wrist guards. His size wasn't officially given by Technos in the original game. All players knew was that he was much taller than Billy and Jimmy Lee and about twice as wide. When Technos made a Double Dragon fighting game in 1995 and revisited the character he was described as being 7' 2" tall and weighing some 336 lbs. He was simply massive and at the time was among the largest sprite ever created for a fighting game. More surprising was that he could actually get more muscular with the use of his special move. How Capcom adapted his look and the theme for Final Fight was an important part in the history of the genre.

 

There was a game that predated Double Dragon that was designed by Takashi Nishiyama. When it came to fighting games very few people could be considered the godfather of the genre. My. Nishiyama was definitely one of them. His tenure at Irem was important to the industry. He worked on Moon Patrol, the 1982 science fiction game that introduced parallax scrolling to the arcade. This graphic technique allowed layers to move at different speeds on screen, creating the illusion of depth in 2-dimensions. Double Dragon and Final Fight used parallax scrolling to good effect. Take a close look at the floors in most brawlers and fighting games and see how bricks, tiles and even wood seem to stay in perspective as the characters advance. Then look in the distance, especially if the stage has water or an ocean in the background. You'll notice that the layered effect gives a good sense of depth to a 2D world. As fun as Moon Patrol was, it was Mr. Nishiyama's following game that was even more important. The 1984 game Kung-Fu Master was revolutionary. It was one of the first fighting games and also set the standard for brawling games as well.

 

There was another game from 1984 that could be considered the father of the modern fighting game. Karate Champ developed by Technos was the first player-versus-player, side-profile martial arts game. Kung-Fu Master expanded on that idea and introduced many new elements to the genre. It had a narrative, the hero Thomas fought wave after wave of bad guys in order to save his girlfriend. Predating the same plot used in both Double Dragon and Final Fight. The enemies came in different shapes and sizes and there was even a final boss. The only other influential fighter from this period that I should name was Konami's Yie Ar Kung Fu from 1985. Yie Ar Kung Fu also featured characters of different sizes and abilities. Mr. Nishiyama left Irem to go work for Capcom in the mid '80s. He took his ideas about featuring characters with unique martial arts, adding a narrative and different boss characters when he directed the original Street Fighter.

Mr. Nishiyama and the team at Capcom were heavily influenced by Japanese pop culture. The developers grew up on a steady diet of comics and cartoons and they reflected these things with every game they released. At that time most Japanese audiences would have gotten their points of reference. The fireball thrown by Ryu for example was inspired by the energy attack from the Space Battleship Yamato, a popular animé show from the mid '70s. The story of Ryu travelling around the world fighting masters of different styles was inspired by the '70s manga series Karate Backa Ichidai. The visual language, heroes and villains in western-style costumes in both Final Fight and Street Fighter were based on the '80s manga Hokuto No Ken / Fist of the North Star (HNK) series. The post-apocalyptic setting featured in the HNK stories by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara colored a lot of the work coming out of Capcom in the '80s and '90s.

One of the earliest games to reflect a warrior fighting through a dystopian world was called Trojan. The arcade and NES console title was a sleeper from 1986 but it featured some very unique character designs. The villains, Armadillon, Mamushi and Iron Arm were a mix of mutants and soldiers wearing piecemeal armor. They looked like the roving gang members that inhabited the HNK wastelands. The dark future timeline was used again and again in both console and arcade releases. Bionic Commando (1987), Strider (1989), and Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight (1990) each had their own take on a future corrupted by villainy and greed. The HNK manga shaped the world of Double Dragon as well, especially when it came to character design. The manga had many memorable villains. Some were covered in tattoos and face paint. Some wore armor, others were simply giants that couldn't be hurt by conventional weapons. These were all perfect for gaming.

 

It wasn't just Japanese pop culture that shaped the look and feel of the early Capcom hits. Western pop culture was just as influential. Hokuto No Ken was itself inspired by the films of Bruce Lee, but also by movies like the Terminator (1984), Cobra (1986) and the Mad Max series. The gangs in Mad Max (1979) and the Road Warrior (1981) were poached by Tetsuo Hara for HNK. Characters had very radical designs in these films. They wore armor that was made up of leather, football pads, hockey gear and car tires. Some gang members wore face paint with Mohawks, others were deformed by radiation and hid behind masks. Director George Miller had a very strong visual style. He often worked directly from storyboards that he created while he was finalizing a script. His approach ended up influencing games, comics and other films for over 30 years. One of the lesser known Capcom arcade games themed after Mad Max was called Speed Rumbler, in which the hero drove an armed car and shot up bad guys. Some were in trucks, others in buggies or tanks. Mr. Nishiyama worked on a different type of vehicle combat game after Street Fighter. This new game was set in a science fiction road race. The future looked much more promising than it did in the Speed Rumbler. The new game was called Mad Gear in Japan and Led Storm in the rest of the world. In the planning stages for a Street Fighter sequel Mr. Nishiyama left Capcom to work at rival studio SNK.

   

Arcade operators had their pulse on the trends and would push developers into certain formats. Many of them were interested in a new fighting game following the success of Double Dragon and they let Capcom know. That was when Mr. Okamoto, Nishitani and Yasuda decided to create their take on the brawler. To do this they needed to create an enormous western metropolis that felt more realistic than the world that Technos had established. They needed reference material for everything audiences might see. How were the buildings laid out, what architecture was used, how did alleys and street corners look? They needed to present convincing subway systems, neighborhoods and boroughs that had a distinct "USA" feel to them. Even things like police uniforms, gang colors and street fashion needed to be recreated. These things were all very different than how cities, advertising, pedestrians and gangs looked in Japan or Europe after all. The designers at Capcom studied a number of cult films while trying to create the fictional Metro City. Among these films were the Wanderers, Escape from New York, and Streets of Fire. The films from 1979, 1981 and 1984 respectively had over-the-top characters and settings. Watching the three films you could easily to spot where Mike Haggar, Cody, Jessica and the various Mad Gear gang members came from.

 

Metro City needed to have all of the elements that might be found in New York but without being bound by an actual site. In this way Capcom could take players to the most interesting landmarks within the span of a day, or rather a single play-through. Each location could tell a story, and every stage could be more unique than the last. The new virtual city was created on an island on the North Eastern Seaboard of the USA, right on the Atlantic Ocean. One of the most memorable stages was near the end of the game. Players had fought their way from the slums, through the subway and all the way to the Bay Side. At this point it was dusk and off in the distance players could see the Statue of Liberty. It was the perfect "American" point of reference and one that international audiences could recognize. When Capcom designed a stage for Abigail in Street Fighter V they made sure to recreate that slice of Metro City.

   

The interesting thing about Metro City was how the layout and planning were very similar to the design of South Town. This other virtual city would appear in the SNK fighting game Fatal Fury, almost two years after Final Fight debuted and just as Street Fighter II came out. South Town was set in the southern coast of the USA, closer to Florida but it retained many of the same big city themes as Metro City. I believe that Mr. Nishiyama was putting out ideas for his next fighting game while still with at Capcom. He would have been discussing these ideas with Mr. Okamoto and Nishitani. If you look at the stage progression in both Final Fight and Fatal Fury they were very similar. The final battle in both games took place on the penthouse of the crime boss' skyscraper, and both games ending with the villain getting knocked from the top.

Mr. Nishiyama was thinking about creating three main heroes for the series. They may have been Ken, Ryu and a third fighter, or they may have been three completely new characters. The trio eventually became Andy Bogard, Terry Bogard and Joe Higashi. Mr. Nishiyama also recognized that audiences wanted to see some visual depth to the game. Fatal Fury introduced a system where players could jump to the foreground or background and launch an attack. It wasn't the free-roaming environment of Double Dragon or Final Fight but it was something that had not been tried before in a fighting game. I believe that Mr. Okamoto and Nishitani ran with some of these ideas when they created Final Fight. In honor of their old colleague they named the bad guys Mad Gear gang members. With the return of Abigail we should explore the limits on character scale in a fighting game. How big is too big? What did Capcom get right or wrong with him? We'll look at these things in the next blog. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!