Fighting Layer, return of the dragon, part 8...

As Fighting Layer progressed gamers moved deeper and deeper into Zausu Island. They also moved higher into the property of the host Vold Ignitio. The stages went from open air arenas to enclosed rooms. You would think that at some point the designers at ARIKA would paint themselves into a corner but that wasn't the case. At no point did the levels make gamers feel claustrophobic. Each room in Vold's castle seemed to take up 5000 square feet. Even the corners of the castle seemed to stretch out forever. The Entrance Hall was possibly the smallest room on the estate. There were three doors leading to one of three animal bosses. I'll start at the top and work my way down through these rooms.

The second highest point in the castle was an observatory called the Bird Room. A mis-translation labeled it the Bard Room in the arcade screen. The dome was the perfect setting for the giant Falcon that Vold Ignitio kept as a pet. An enormous painted mosaic of the sky framed the dome. Players fought the Falcon on top of an elevated platform. The bird was difficult to reach as he could fly higher than any player could jump. He would then swoop down suddenly and strike with claws extended. Players that managed to get the bird down to their level had to strike it in rapid succession and hope that they could connect with a special attack. Otherwise it would fly back up and wind down the clock. The alternate animals were no easier to fight.

Players that chose the second door from the Entrance Hall went right to the heart of the castle. It turned out that the host of the tournament had prison cells located underneath his opulent rooms, enough to hold an entire populace. Perhaps the missing residents of the island in fact. The Spawn Room was where the Tiger waited. Players found themselves locked in the cage with the creature. There was of course only way out, to defeat the man-eater himself.

Players could actually reach the Spawn Room if they took the alternate underground path but they could not reach the Bird Room from the underground passageway. The final animal room could only be reached by going through the Aquarium. Players found themselves on the ocean floor in an eerily illuminated cave underneath the castle. There was no rhyme or reason for how players were able to survive underwater without breathing apparatus. I would simply chalk it up to sorcery of some sort. There were many unexplained things about Zausu Island and this was just another one.

The Sea Zoo was the home to a great white shark that enjoyed feasting on fighters and whomever else crossed Vold. An unknown number had met a watery grave in this stage. No manga or animé series had even attempted to explore the possibility that a fighter might stand a chance against a shark. Tigers, bears, lions and giant falcons were plausible in the comics but sharks were absurd. ARIKA gave players a chance to try their hand against the perfect killing machine. Punches and kicks seemed ineffective against the Shark. The best strategy would be to strike with a fast combo and then get out of the way. If it got close enough to players it would grab them with its mouth and shred them to pieces. It only took a couple of bites to kill the strongest fighters.

 

Players that managed to defeat one of the animal bosses would be able to advance to the next stage. It was assumed that the bosses on each level following had proven their worth by defeating the animal boss as well. Starting at the topmost level there was the Blue Room. It was set in the same observatory as the Bird Cage. This time the platform was lowered to floor level so that players could make out the intricate details on the walls. An enormous Chinese Zodiac dial was hanging on the wall. It was pointing at two sets of characters. The zodiac actually consisted of multiple animals, there were the 12 animals known popularly for the year. However there were also animals assigned by month, day and even hour. These were known respectively as the inner animals, true animals and secret animals. The dial in the Blue Room was pointing at the Dragon Year and Dragon Month, which meant that the Fighting Layer tournament took place between April and May every 12 years. This "Double Dragon" competition had been going on for centuries. One dragon would be crowned and would have to face the dragon that resided in the castle. The Blue Room was the stage where players faced Joe Fendi. The flashy Fendi fit right in with the ornate decorations and gold filigree that covered the walls of the room. Dark burgundy corridors lead to unknown rooms and unknown challenges off in the distance. The Blue Room had a lot of storytelling elements applied to it. Budding game designers could learn a few things by dissecting the construction of each room.

 

The core of the castle was known as the Red Room. It seemed that Vold had amassed a private army and kept it well hidden. Enormous war machines lined the walls. They were parked row after row and level after level. Players could see that they ran all the way into the distance, into one of the cavernous antechambers underneath the castle. The room lived up to its title as players fought on red iron grates. The room was the stage where players fought Preston Ajax. It made sense that Vold would have the mercenary acting as the leader of his military force. Ajax had seen combat action all around the world and was responsible for the deaths of untold numbers. With his wire garrote and explosives Preston may have been the most dangerous of the sub-bosses in the game.

 

The Green Room was in the lowest level of the castle but it certainly wasn't treated like a basement. In fact it may have been the original location for the final match of the tournament. A multistory library was hidden behind enormous red tapestries that hung from the ceiling. There was a wrestling ring in the center of the room and the canvas of which had an ornate pattern woven into it. Fancy hardwood chairs were arranged along the wall, for unseen dignitaries and other guests for the tournament. A harpsichord was situated ringside to provide entertainment between matches. A terrace for the host complete with a throne overlooked the entire ring. This was certainly the most regal arena ever created for a match. Players fought Clemence Kleiber, the king of old-school catch-as-catch-can wrestling here. Clemence actually had an extra special attack that he could only use while in this ring. The character could use the turnbuckles to superplex his opponents off of. Players learned quickly to stay away from the ropes or run the risk of being brutally punished.

 

If a player managed to defeat an animal boss and a sub boss then they would finally get a chance to take on the host of the tournament. The highest point on the island was a tower in the castle named the Dragons Room. The room had open wall panels that offered a glimpse to the mossy stones that made up the exterior of the tower. The level promised a drop of a few hundred meters if players could not stay on the platform. Actually much to the chagrin of many gamers there was an invisible wall that prevented players or opponents from falling off any platform in the game. The dragon motif that symbolized the Fighting Layer tournament decorated the walls and floor of the Dragons Room. Vold Ignitio used the open area to demonstrate his full power. He could climb the walls and plunge down onto opponents like some sort of vampire bat. He could also pounce onto opponents and drag them around by the neck like a jungle cat. Despite his outward noble appearance Vold was a vicious animal, much more dangerous than any creature he kept hidden in his castle.

There were actually multiple endings for each character depending on how well they had done in the tournament and whether or not they had lost a single match. Players that beat Ignitio but lost a match along the way got the basic ending. After defeating the boss the castle and island began collapsing. During the credits an animation would show their character running through a tunnel that was falling apart around them. They would then get the Game Over screen.

Players that met the right criteria however would go onto a final challenge. They would be thrown into the abyss of Zausu Island where the True Knight was waiting for them. They literally went from the highest point to the lowest point of the island in one stage. The Underground 2 was similar to the original Underground stage, only now the Knight had a red lance and was much more difficult to defeat. If players beat him then they had a more complete ending. During the credits they would see their player run through the collapsing tunnel and actually end up on a raft floating in the Sea of Japan. The character would be looking at Zausu Island burn from a distance. Whatever dark secrets the island hid and whatever evil forces had created Vold would remain a mystery.

Fighting Layer was not the hit that ARIKA had anticipated. The genre had lost steam through the mid to late '90s because the market had become completely saturated with fighting games. A revised version of the Street Fighter II myth was lost to most gamers. The lessons provided by the studio within the game were still valid for designers though. The next and final blog in this series will close this chapter on fighting game history. 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!

Fighting layer, return of the dragon, part 5...

Many of the early designs for Street Fighter II characters were based on what the Japanese found exotic, which was often Western characters and themes. I don't mean cowboys and indians however, I mean gangs, tattoos and thugs that were different than the Yakuza or Japanese criminals. Some of the other things that the developers found interesting were European culture, architecture, design and mythology. To this day many in Japan have a fondness for Victorian-era England and late 19th century / early 20th century Belle Époque France. Aristocratic characters in manga and animé are dressed right out of the Guilded Age and often lived in opulent mansions. They are waited on by butlers and maids even in high school and at work in many of the titles. The boxer Dudley in Street Fighter III and Lili de Rochefort from Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection are two of the more famous aristocratic fighters. They view themselves as superior to their counterparts in every way, but especially in fighting and etiquette. The original boss designs for Street Fighter II were far more different than the playable characters audiences saw. The majority of the cast had a martial arts style that could easily be identified by players. Karate, kung-fu and boxing masters could easily be made out by gamers after all. The final bosses had to stand out and not necessarily reflect any actual technique. Shadowlaw started off as an island before it became a landlocked country in Southeast Asia. In the planning stages the architecture and infrastructure on the island was Western. It was a blend of modern with the city and port, but also classic with the countryside. As the peak of the island there was a temple where fighters met the final boss. It was not always an Asian temple and the final villain was not always Asian.

Before the assassin became a mask-wearing Spaniard he looked more like a Templar Knight. This character completely broke the visual consistency of the rest of the cast. The armor, sword and tunic were from another era. Capcom might have made the character work but that would have meant revising the locations and themes they were already working on. It would be easier to redesign one character than change an entire game to make that character work. The boss went back to the drawing board and the designers tried to figure out what made him interesting. He needed to have a weapon but a sword would be hard to work around. The claws did increase the reach of the character but were less than half the length of a sword. The helmet was too cumbersome for a fighter so it was switched out for a mask. They mystery element remained but the character became more believable. The costume and tattoo were very reminiscent of the pirate San-Po from the Jackie Chan film Project A.

An alternate to the knight was also in the planning stages. This character was a mix of contrasting elements. He too wore a mask but not a suit of armor. Instead he had an armored vest and shoulder pads. The character appeared more like she sort of European ninja. The early designs for Balrog and Vega, and even the medieval theme for Shadowlaw could have been inspired by the 1979 film the Castle of Cagliostro. The film featured assassins that were dressed like armored ninjas and also sported claws. It was considered one of the best animé films ever produced and one of the most memorable adventure films of all time. There was no doubt that the Capcom designers were familiar with the film and the fantastic world that director Hayao Miyazaki had created. But again, if Street Fighter II were to use villains inspired by the film then the entire game and levels would have to be re-themed in order to make them work with the cast.

Fighting Layer was different however. Akira Nishitani was revisiting the plans for Street Fighter II. This time he took a different path than producer Yoshiki Okamoto did with SF II. Nishitani wanted to have more fantasy in the game and allow his cast of fighters adapt to the weird and supernatural. Great fighting game characters were not far removed from the heroes in manga and comic books. At least not in the mind of Nishitani. Audiences didn't need to have everything explained to them in order to suspend their disbelief. The word "magic" was often more than enough for them to get the idea. In Fighting Layer players were dropped into a pit where an animated suit of armor appeared out of thin air. It was taller than the the other characters and moved very slowly. Punches and kicks did not knock the character down, only special and super attacks could manage that. The Knight swung a heavy lance, much longer than the sword that was originally planned for Balrog. The balance to giving an opponent a long weapon was found by making the character use it very slowly. This gave players time to dodge the strike and work on counter attacks. If players managed to defeat the Knight then he would fall apart in a cloud of smoke and flames. They would then be able to continue through the game. If time ran out then the suit of armor would simply turn and walk away, breaking into tiny pieces and fade into nothing as it took each step. It was an eerie sight for gamers.

There were actually two distinct Knights in the game. The original Knight in the second stage and the "True" Knight at the end of the game, after the host of the tournament was defeated. The True Knight was slightly stronger and could take 80% of an opponents energy before the match even started by throwing his lance at players as they fell into the underground stage. It was obvious that there was much more to this world than had been seen in other Capcom fighting games.

ARIKA had actually infused their fighting games with supernatural elements much earlier. In Street Fighter EX the character of Kairi was under the influence of evil spirits. They were in fact the source of his powers. His sisters were trying to bring Kairi back from the brink of madness in the plot of the game. One of the boss characters created for the series was an animated suit of samurai armor. The villain named Gardua had no true face. He was the first completely supernatural character introduced into the series. Because he could have also been interpreted as a madman in armor and not some sort of ghost then he was entirely plausible within the world of Street Fighter.

There were plenty of clues that the supernatural was a part of the Fighting Layer world and even a part of the competitors. The eerie glow of the eyes on ninja Sessyu Tsukikage mirrored the eerie glow that inhabited the armor of the Knight. Sessyu's ability to disappear and reappear in a puff of smoke seemed even more incredible than the ninja myths. Perhaps he too used some sort of magic to give him an edge in combat.

 

Every gamer that had read a comic book or watched a cartoon knew that spirits and giant animals would have to be under the control of some powerful villain. Whether the tournament was set in the real world or some sort of Twilight Zone there was still a host pulling the strings. This person may have been a drug lord, dictator or even sorcerer based on previous games. The truth would only be revealed to the fighter that made it through the final battle. The next entry in the series will look at the organizer of the Fighting Layer tournament and try to find his roots. 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!

Fighting Layer, return of the dragon, part 2...

A Chinese girl and a stylish American had been invited to the Fighting Layer tournament as well. They seemed like friendly rivals to Tesuo Kato and were both approximately the same age. Where or where have we seen these archetypes before? There was much more to Lan-Yinghua and Allen Snider than simply being revisionist versions of Chun-Li or Ken from Street Fighter. They actually had origins with the developers that went back a generation.

 

Karate and Kung-Fu were cornerstones of the Asian martial arts. Each style of fighting had countless schools within. What Capcom, ARIKA and the other developers did was create archetypes that symbolized the best fighters in each discipline. Ryu and Ken had come to symbolize karate for the Street Fighter series and Chun-Li was the embodiment of kung-fu. However in the planning stages of Street Fighter II it wasn't a given that Ryu or Ken would even be returning to the series. The studio knew that they had to have a karate representative in the game but the original design was very traditional and lacked the visual cues given to Ryu. The studio had been criticized for moving too far from the Street Fighter formula when they introduced Final Fight to arcade owners. In response they pulled back and tried to reinvent the fighting game by going very traditional with the early designs.

The downside to the prototypical Ryu and Chun-Li were that they were very generic designs. Both lacked a creative spark. The karate character was a 25-year-old stone faced fighter. Who would ever find him interesting? Ryu had the torn sleeves, red gloves and red headband that broke up the consistency of the all-white costume. Just a few changes gave him more visual flair. Tetsuo Kato was similar, with taped-up hands and a wood-block-print of blue ocean waves on his gi he could never be mistaken for a traditionalist. The original plans for Chun-Li were not much better. Her design was very dated and lackluster.

Akira "Akiman" Yasuda went back to the drawing board. Instead of going with a token girl fighter, as would be the problem for the majority of fighting games following SFII, he instead turned Chun-Li into a woman. To give her more presence she was imagined as an undercover cop. The costume she wore was a disguise for the Street Fighter tournament. The spiked weights, dark tights and wrestling boots broke up the visual consistency for the character like the red garnishes did for Ryu. There were many reasons why Chun-Li worked from a design standpoint as well as within the game. I wrote more about the importance of the character in the Female Equation blog from a few years back. The karate and kung-fu characters were revised countless times until they set the new standard.

Lan-Yinghua was a nod to the original concept for Chun-Li. She was young but also a seasoned fighter. Her costume was also pseudo-traditional. The nunchaku tied into her braids could testify to the designers having fun with the character. The Fighting Layer designs are not far removed from the Street Fighter II ones. Looking at the FL cast is like playing "what if?" with Street Fighter. The characters put into the Capcom series could have turned out like the ARIKA designs depending on what the producer was looking for. Akira Nishitani and his team had a specific vision for their new franchise. The new Chinese female lead would remind players of Chun-Li just as the new American would reflect Ken Masters.

Allen Snider had been introduced as a sort of friendly rival and understudy of Ken during Street Fighter EX. Ken was supposed to represent the best martial artist from the USA. His long blonde hair and bright red gi made him stand out from the crowd. His design cues said something about Western culture. The Japanese considered themselves more reserved by comparison so Ryu was slightly more traditional in appearance. Snider was created to be as flamboyant as Ken but without copying the same costumes worn by either he or Ryu. Snider was also an amalgamation of real life fighters that had influenced the Street Fighter developers. Enter the Dragon had influenced the creation of Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat and even Fighting Layer. The real martial artists and actors found within also influenced the games themselves. Allen Snider was inspired by Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee. His hair and facial features were very similar, as was his desire to become a movie star. Lee and Norris battled in the 1972 film Way of the Dragon. That film came out a year before Enter the Dragon. The fight was memorable for many reasons but one of which was because the backdrop was the Roman Colosseum. That location would be recreated in Street Fighter Zero / Alpha many years later.

ARIKA demonstrated that they still had a fondness for the characters they had introduced in Street Fighter EX. Those characters met many of the same conventions as the original World Warriors and some had the same staying power as well. The inclusion of Allen Snider in the series meant to many SF fans that there was a chance that this game, and these characters, might fall within Street Fighter canon as well. A crossover was certainly not impossible. Of course there would be a lot of legal wrangling between ARIKA, Namco and Capcom if that day were ever to happen. What the game was lacking however was a strong female lead. Lan-Yinghua was not quite a Chun-Li tier character and the game needed someone more powerful. ARIKA reached back to their Street Fighter EX catalog and brought in Blair Dame. She, like Allen, was designed to balance out the SFII icons.

 Blair was the first mixed martial arts character in SF continuity. Her costume was revealing, as she was meant to represent the more sexual designs for female leads from the West. Her selection of strikes and grapples was pandering to male audiences but in a different way. Chun-Li had grace and style behind her attacks. Blair was a hard hitter by comparison, capable of throwing spinning backhands, knee strikes and drop kicks in rapid succession. She also had arm bars, ankle locks and take-downs which would make most MMA champions proud. Blair was created to balance out Chun-Li in Street Fighter EX, as such she had to be a woman and not a girl. Lan-Yinghua was a great character but she was more like Cammy than Chun-Li in scale and purpose.

 

When ARIKA designed Fighting Layer they included all of the control options that modern fighting game audiences had expected in the second or third revision of a game. They also included a robust cast that might have been included in an upgrade as well. Fighting Layer was not only an attempt at redoing the original plans for Street Fighter II but also for Super Street Fighter II. The parallels between Chun-Li and Blair, as well as Cammy and Lan were there but so were the other characters introduced in the game. The title was going to feature different traditional fighting styles but not make the practitioners appear strictly formal.

The three mid-sized fighters were pulled from other nations. The "cool" American guy, George Jensent had kickboxing type moves. He was an undercover officer trying to dig up information on the sponsor of the tournament. He was not far removed from the character that Bruce Lee played in Enter the Dragon. The roots of George's designs were based on C. Jack, the baseball bat-wielding supercop in Street Fighter EX. Both C. Jack and Jensent were designed to balance out Guile, the token US soldier in SFII. Hong Gillson was a prideful Korean and Taekwondo practitioner. He was looking to destroy Tetsuo in the tournament. Hong was the first TKD character in ARIKA and SF mythos, predating Juri Han by more than a decade. He could be likened to a striker like Dee Jay but without the obnoxious racial pandering of the character.

 

The third character, Shang Fenhuan, was a dangerous kung-fu master. He was taught the martial arts by a very secretive family that also ran the criminal underworld. He was trying to seek his path and was advised by a sage kung-fu elder that it would be found in the Sea of Japan, during the Fighting Layer tournament. Shang was lighting quick and had a very unconventional design. He could be likened to Fei Long, the Bruce Lee clone introduced in Super Street Fighter II. Shang could never be mistaken for yet another Lee wannabe.

Of course what would a fighting game lineup be without dedicated wrestlers? ARIKA did their homework and introduced three distinct characters into canon that represented different grappling arts. Jigjid Bartol represented the ancient Mongolian / Tuvan wrestling form known as Bökh. The form and rules of that school of grappling were said to have been the forefather of Japanese sumo wrestling. Jigjid was not a mountain of a man, like Zangief, but his lack of mass did not mean he lacked muscle. He was still fairly strong and his powerful attacks could shake the Earth. Jigjid entered the FL tournament to help lift an ancient curse. There were many strange occurrences plaguing the villagers in rural areas of Asia and both Jigjid and Lan-Yinghua were sent by their elders to investigate the cause of it. A secretive tournament on a private island in the Sea of Japan seemed to be the destination for all of these martial artists. A different type of wrestler, non-traditional and very flamboyant was also called to the competition. The gold spandex wearing Exodus represented the pageantry and spectacle of modern pro wrestling. Exodus wrestled in only the loosest concept of the word. He was an exceptionally dirty fighter. He could stab opponents with a fork he kept in his belt. He could also set opponents on fire and hit them with chairs or drop them through tables as well. He had come to represent what many had considered the worst aspects of modern pro wrestling.

There was a wrestler in the game however that subscribed to the classic catch-as-catch can school of wrestling. Clemence Kleiber was considered the greatest pro wrestler in the modern era. When he ran out of opponents he simply disappeared. Exodus declared himself the de facto champion. Critics would not accept his claim until he had proven himself by beating Kleiber in the ring. Exodus had to seek out the champ at his last known destination. The secretive Fighting Layer tournament. Kleiber was actually one of three sub-boss characters in the game and not initially a playable character. The bosses would be released by the game over the weeks that it had been played. Only after all of the sub bosses had been unlocked would the final boss become playable.

During the planning stages of Street Fighter II the developers wanted to include a pro wrestler in the lineup. Two different characters were sketched out. One looked very much like the popular Japanese wrestler Tiger Mask while the other had a more generic star mask. This character was dubbed "Maskuman" or Masked Man. These characters were in the lineup well before Zangief was ever finalized. They were meant to capture part of the showmanship of the wrestlers had during the formative years of the Capcom developers. The inclusion of Exodus and Clemence could have been a chance to revisit the original pro wrestler ideas from the company.

 

There were many other playable and hidden characters in the game. We shall look at them in the next blog. 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!