Street Fighter 6: A master class in game design, part 16

Capcom had set the gold standard of lineups when they released Street Fighter II in 1991. I could argue that the greatest character they ever made was Chun-Li. It stood to reason that when they wanted to introduce a new female that they would use her as the template. Cammy was designed as the young upstart, and British special forces counterpart. In Street Fighter EX the characters Pullum Purna, and Blair Dame were inspired by Chun-Li as well. The most popular character post Street Fighter IV was Juri. She borrowed heavily from the design from Chun-Li as well. Street Fighter 6 Designer Yusuke Hashimoto was tasked to create another Asian female villain. Black was a color traditionally given to bad guys in pop culture. Red was an excellent accent color. Black hadn't really been assigned as one of the primary colors for any of the classic characters. The combination would be obvious go-to colors from the beginning. Mr. Hashimoto had to be aware of what the studio's contemporaries were working on. Whether the game came from Japan, China, or the US, he had to be conscious of how the genre had evolved over the past 30 years. Would it be possible to create A.K.I. in a vacuum? I think it was impossible. There would always be elements of some other character that could be pinned on any new one. Many in the fighting game community noticed that there were parallels with A.K.I. and those that came before. 

For example the Chinese kung-fu master with a unique hairstyle, that was wearing black, purple, and red, who also fought with a quick snake fist had been seen almost 20 years ago! Duo Lon made his debut in the King of Fighters 2003 in sprite form, and been revealed to be a 3D DLC character in KOF XV fall 2023. Just in time for A.K.I. to appear now that I think about it. Then there was an even earlier character who also eerily predated the look of A.K.I. The silver-haired, form-fitting costume, poison-claw-wearing Kurow Kirishima was created by Capcom in 2000. The ninja was the main villain from the game Project Justice. It was the sequel to the cult favorite Rival Schools. He was poisoning, and brainwashing students from different schools, and turning them against each other. If you've never heard of the series I want you to imagine Street Fighter featuring high school kids. It was one of the early 3D fighters the studio made, and has long been cited in fan polls for a reboot. I could imagine Kurow, and Kimberly having a heated rivalry. But I digress!

Fans were definitely onto something. The look, choice to be a villain, and move selection from Capcom seemed to mirror earlier antagonists. A.K.I.'s design could actually be traced back even earlier than Luo, or Kurow. In the previous blog I talked about the concept art from Street Fighter III. One of the designs proposed was a Mysterious Assassin. This was supposed to be an Indian character that had his own unique fighting style. The designs were from 1995-96. Many of the ideas were tossed, but there were a few solid ideas that would be revisited in the future. The Assassin was one such character that seemed to stick in the memories of the Capcom staff. In some cases these early concept figures included possible moves, and special attacks. For the Assassin the studio wanted him to have "mysterious movements". His hands would be obscured by long sleeves. His legs would be hidden under a long cloak, making it look like he could float.

  

While this character didn’t really go anywhere for SFIII I believe that many of these details were revisited in SFV. Specifically for the creation of F.A.N.G. The assassin with strange movements, that appeared to be able to float certainly fit the bill! By Street Fighter 6 the design elements were revised, and refined once more, and the character A.K.I. appeared. In 2022 I wrote that the design was giving off a dragon lady vibe. When the teaser for the character dropped during EVO 2023 my suspicions were confirmed. The longer move reveal trailer from just a couple of days ago showed that she had strange movements as well. She slashed with outstretched fingers, just like the Assassin concept art from many years prior. 

Eagle-eyed viewers noticed that several of A.K.I. moves were based on poisonous animals, she could slither along the ground like a snake, and even employ some kicks from the fantastic scorpion style of kung-fu. Hats off to the animation team, it must have been tremendous fun creating her attack library. The trailer gave us the best example of how to present hidden strikes. I want you to think about your favorite characters, and how they stand with their hands forward, or exposed to the game camera. If you threw a punch for a kick, then it would be easy to track on the screen. A.K.I was turned away from the opponent. This meant that several of her attacks were actually obscured from the game camera. A.K.I. could backhand, or hook kick opponents. Her torso hid which hand she used, and her dress covered which kick was being delivered as well. This mirrored how the Assassin concept fighter hid his attacks under a long cloak. The more difficult part for either F.A.N.G. or A.K.I. were creating lethal strikes that could be described as poisonous.

The turned stance was seen in several forms of actual Chinese wushu, and Shaolin kung-fu. The use of stealth, and sneaky moves was not a new thing in fighting games. One of the best, and rarest fighting games to use classic kung-fu forms was Martial Masters by IGS from 1999. The game featured a sexy fighter named Red Snake, she used the snake form, and a flirtatious ladies man known as the Scorpion.  I had written about the game from a Taiwan studio a few years ago, and how much they were influenced by the Capcom games from the mid-'90s. The characters in the game were inspired by a few classic kung-fu movies, not the least of which were the Once Upon a Time in China films featuring a young Jet Li playing the folk hero Wong Fei Hung. Martial arts cinema from Hong Kong, and Taiwan had a major hand in influencing the development of Street Fighter, and the entire fighting game genre. With regards to F.A.N.G., and A.K.I. there was actually a lot of precedence for having a "poison fist" fighting style. 

In cinema there was an all-star film from 1978 called The Five Deadly Venoms. In it the assassins were all trained in a particular deadly art; Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard, and Toad. One or several of these poison fists were referenced in many classic manhua, or comic books. The villains often mimicked the attacks of these dangerous creatures. Some of these techniques were so dangerous that even a single touch could kill. This was the case for Elder Guan from the Four Constables. His hands would turn dark when he summoned the Black Death Palms technique. A live action version of this power was seen with the character of Yuan in the 2010 film True Legend. There was no doubt that the people at Capcom were heavily influenced by these stories. The most powerful characters in myth could perform a dim mak, or death touch. The Shun Goku Satsu from Gouki / Akuma was probably the most popular death touch in modern culture. A.K.I. was a sort of nod to these mysterious, and often deadly techniques, but there was much more to her design.

A.K.I. had to be an over-the-top villain in order to stand out from the rest of the Street Fighter lineup. She couldn't just be a kung-fu practitioner that happened to be mean. It wasn't enough that she had some sneaky moves either. Every part of her presentation had to be more outrageous than the traditional kung-fu characters like Chun-Li, or even Jamie. This meant that she had to have stances, and grapples that twisted, and contorted her body. She would fold herself in half before slashing, or drop flat to the ground before kicking. Not knowing where the next strike would come from would throw off opponents. The fighting game community had first seen these types of awkward angles, and strikes through the character of Voldo from Namco's 1995 hit Soul Edge. Voldo was an assassin, and could strike with his razor sharp katars from any position, including while laying on the ground.

In the gameplay reveal trailer we could see A.K.I. slither on her back. It was unnerving seeing the character move like that. This snake crawl allowed her to get under ranged attacks, and close the gap on opponents. Previously the franchise did feature snake-like movement with at least one other character. In the Street Fighter EX series by ARIKA Dhalsim could perform a Yoga Throw. The setup for it was very unique. The Indian yogi would wind around his opponent like a serpent before grabbing their torso and flipping them on their head. It remained one of my favorite fighting game animations to this day. I'm certain that Street Fighter 6 animators were able to pick, and choose the best elements they could find from pop culture, from actual kung-fu, and even earlier games while fleshing out the moves of the new assassin.  

For the developers it also wasn't enough to have a character that fought, or moved like a snake. She had to look dangerous,and untrustworthy. From a visual perspective A.K.I. was figuratively, and literally a toxic person. The pale white skin was unnatural, as if she was drained of her blood. The cut of her hair was reminiscent of the amanita phalloides aka the death cap mushroom. As far as her costume went it could be argued that Street Fighter 6 Designer Yusuke Hashimoto was making a bold fashion statement. The use of modern tulle sleeves, and pants under a traditional cheongsam was only the beginning. His choice of costume, skin color, jewelry, and haircut were very avant-garde. Every detail added reflected the same fashion sense that he tapped into when creating the designs in the first two Bayonetta games. Had Juri, F.A.N.G., or Kurow never existed then I'm certain that A.K.I.'s introduction would have had a greater impact on the franchise. 

Capcom must have known that between Juri, and A.K.I. the toxic female Asian trope was becoming redundant. I'm not sure why they felt like they had to double-down on this route. The question remained. Was Capcom doing right with character representation? Could this simply be chalked up to an artistic choice, and not a jab at the Chinese villain trope? The studio had done much better with Dhalsim, Blanka, and Rashid in this title. However A.K.I seemed to be a step backwards, at least to me. Street Fighter 6 was doing a lot to address the mistakes in the past. To make up for ugly characters, and ugly design choices. To become more inclusive when it came to ideas of sex, and gender roles. There would be a lot of positive new changes, faces, and game design elements introduced into the franchise. One of the major shifts to the cast came with the addition of NPCs to help carry the story. We will look at how in the next blog. I hope to see you back for the next entry. If you are a long time fan of Final Fight, or Street Fighter then I would like to hear your impressions of SF6. If you have never played any game previously then tell me your experiences in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Street Fighter 6: A master class in game design, part 15

In the previous blog I talked about how Capcom was revising old character designs, and trying to make them more palatable to modern audiences. Every popular character was getting a redo. In the early stages of SFII Blanka had started off as an ugly Black brute in chains. He was turned into a green mutant, a wild man from the jungle. For SF6 this wild man was dressed in overalls. He was turned into a businessman starting up his own jungle tourism company. In the Street Fighter II concept art Dhalsim had started off as the Great Tiger, an Indian mystic wearing a Ganesh Balinese costume. He was turned into a stretchy limbed yoga master. Some of his more offensive costuming choices, specifically the child skull necklace was removed, and replaced with a necklace depicting the mudras. He would become a yogi, and instructor of yoga at a temple.

You would think that following the success of SFII the designers at Capcom would be more mindful of their international audience. For the most part the studio was able to create characters around a certain form of fighting. Whether they represented kung-fu, karate, wrestling, Muay Thai, or MMA. Those fighters had a look that reflected their style. The problem was when trying to create a design for a new fighter that didn’t represent a certain style. Blanka, and Dhalsim were examples of that. They fought in an unorthodox fashion, and thus had an unorthodox look to them. Before starting on a new game the designers would throw out all sorts of ideas, and see which ones stuck. For example one of the ideas for a SFIII character was simply titled “Rollerblade.” This character had some odd armor, and a helmet / hairstyle.

Designing an entire fighting style around a person that could inline skate didn’t go anywhere. Instead the studio took the skating, and made it a hobby for one of the kung-fu twins they were working on. The older of the two Yun, would be a skateboarder, inspired by Ken Lieu an actual skate legend. Yang was more than likely based on the Yasutoko Brothers, Takeshi, and Eito. Both of them were aggressive inline world champs. I would argue however that at least the spiky helmet in the concept sketch was turned into spiky hair for the younger twin. Not every design was as neutral. Some designs were right on the edge of offensive. What might have been meant as an homage to a certain archetype could be seen a stereotype to another person.

Let’s take a look at how the studio had been trying to incorporate a Middle Eastern character in the franchise for over 25 years. Some of the oldest drafts in Street Fighter III had a mysterious Indian assassin character. This fighter was dressed in classic Arabian fashion. I mean these costumes might have worked in a storybook, or Disney cartoon. That concept was fairly mild compared to the Witch of Islam. An enormous musclebound character that could be mistaken for a djinn, or genie. If you don’t think the design could be considered problematic then I wouldn’t know what to tell you. The Street Fighter 6 team didn't seem to be able to let some of their older designs go, no matter how far out of step they were with representation. 

In Street Fighter V there was an NPC named Azam that was the attendant / bodyguard to Rashid. The duo represented a lost kingdom in the desert. Azam wore costuming that made sense in one of the classic tales of Sindbad. You could easily imagine the musclebound character in a fight with a cyclops, pirate, or sea monster. He looked nothing like a modern person from the Middle East. He was reminiscent of the Witch of Islam concept. Capcom thankfully thought better than making him a main character. The studio still had to develop somebody whose look spoke to Middle Eastern culture. I would argue that they leaned heavily into orientalism when presenting Rashid in Street Fighter V. The studio didn’t lighten their approach to Azam when updating him for SF6, Rashid was another story. 

The developers didn’t second guess using a font that imitated the Arabic language, and script when announcing his return. It was a clever design choice, and I'm certain that Capcom had tremendous love, and respect for the people of the Middle East. This did not mean that some of their choices were not rooted in outdated ideas. Orientalism was the representation of Asia, especially the Middle East, in a stereotyped way that is regarded as embodying a colonialist attitude. This was something that had always been a part of character design from Japanese studios. I'm talking about magic, harems, genies, and inflatable characters! I created a series exploring the origins of these tropes. If you have some time please visit the following links; The Middle Eastern fighter, pt. 1, The Middle Eastern fighter, pt. 2, The Middle Eastern fighter, pt. 3, and The Middle Eastern fighter, pt. 4 (is where I talk about Rashid).

I would say that the newest version of Rashid was greatly improved over the previous. Let’s take a look at the differences between the designs in SFV, and SF6. One of the biggest problems I saw with the original look was the plain color scheme assigned to Rashid. Street Fighter II set a standard for character costumes, one of the reasons they worked was by sheer coincidence. The hardware that Capcom developed on was powerful for its time, but still had a limited sprite size, number of animations, and particularly limited palette of colors. The designers made sure that each character was given a strong primary color, and a complimentary second color. They would be easy to pick out of a crowd. If you think about Ken, and Ryu the colors that come to mind are red, and white. When you think of Chun-Li the color is blue. When I mention Blanka the color is green. You get the idea. For Rashid the color was primarily white, with a black belt. Something was lost when his costume was very similar to Ryu’s.

Designer Yusuke Hashimoto gave Rashid a makeover without losing too many elements from his original look. The first thing he did was expand the the secondary color black to cover the top half of his costume, and added orange as an accent color to separate him from Ryu. He also shortened the beard into something more realistic. He also did away with the overt technology the fighter relied on. Rashid was an expert at parkour, he was exceptionally quick, agile, and athletic. These things did not necessarily make him a dangerous fighter. He supplemented his strikes through technology. Hidden in his boots, and costume were tiny engines that created whirlwinds. In his original look he wore a large backpack to power these devices. The new costume got rid of these things.

His keffiyeh, the traditional headscarf was previously large, and puffy. This was swapped out to a visor head wrap with a long orange headband. His green viewfinder was ditched, as he was not a Sayan from Dragon Ball Z. His shoulders were now covered, there was no sign of the straps that had randomly criss crossed his arms. His smart devices were now integrated into his gloves. His sandals used to be plain looking, but were now stylized more like sneakers with electronics. Mr. Hashimoto pulled Rashid’s design into the 21st century, tried to leave the fairy tale elements out, while still making it unlike any traditional Arab costume. It followed the rules that went into the costumes of the other classic characters. After all Ryu, Chun-Li, and Guile’s costumes looked authentic, but only pulled a few cues from actual uniforms. His work should be studied in greater depth by anyone looking to create, or update a library of fighters.

Street Fighter 6 was evolving with the times, and pushing for a more diverse cast, without losing their unique eye. The Mysterious Assassin, and the Witch of Islam may have been the inspiration behind Rashid, and Azam, however they more directly influenced the creation of F.A.N.G. in SFV, and A.K.I. in SF6. We will look at how in the next blog. I hope to see you back for the next entry. If you are a long time fan of Final Fight, or Street Fighter then I would like to hear your impressions of SF6. If you have never played any game previously then tell me your experiences in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!