The Street Writer Blogcast, Episode 3

Every time I release a new Podcast I will release the text version for my hearing-impaired friends. I don't want them to miss anything that I cover. Also you are welcome to leave comments and questions for this podcast as well as future podcasts on this blog.


We are still looking at the great rivalries in fighting games. Up until now most of the rivals were strangers. Terry Bogard knew that Geese Howard had killed his father but that was about all he knew about the man. Ryu knew even less about Sagat before the two fought. Was it possible to create a rivalry out of two people that knew each other, or more important, two people that were related? How would that be presented and would it make a fighting game series interesting? Many games featured "friendly" rivalries. Ken and Ryu were best friends and fought from time to time in canon. Ryu did not always come out on top which lent credibility to Ken being the greatest fighter in the Street Fighter universe. Other games also featured friendly rivals and some even had siblings that fought with and against each other. The most dramatic of all rivalries however was between father and son. This was the basis for the Tekken series by Namco. There was actually an inter-generational rivalry happening in the franchise. The founder of the Mishima Zaibatsu, a powerful multinational private army and weapons supplier, was Jinpachi Mishima. He had a son named Heihachi whom he despised almost immediately. The feeling was mutual and when Heihachi came of age he took over the family company and had his father imprisoned. Well imprisoned is a kind way of saying he chained Jinpachi to a rock and buried him alive. Heihachi had a son named Kazuya. When Kazuya became powerful enough he dethroned his father. Well dethroned is a kind way of saying he threw his old man off of a cliff. Kazuya had a son named Jin, care to guess what happened when Jin came of age? The heart of the rivalries really began with Heihachi and Kazuya. The two debuted in Tekken, released by Namco in 1994, and had appeared in every sequel.

Kazuya was the star of the original game and Heihachi was the original boss. As was tradition the boss had started a tournament to find the greatest fighters. This tournament was called Tekken: the King of the Iron Fist. At first audiences did not know that Kazuya and Heihachi were related. They also did not know that Kazuya was just as bad as the boss. Up until that point every fighting game had been about good versus evil. This was the first series that broke from tradition. The main character and boss were both evil. I'm not talking about anti-heroes versus villains either, I mean both of these men were really the bad guys. Series producer Katsuhiro Harada had a very different approach to his fighting game. Tekken was one of the early titles to be completely in 3D. The graphics immediately grabbed the attention of players. Once hooked Mr. Harada wanted to hold their attention. He challenged convention at every turn. He placed robots, cyborgs, assassins and monsters in the lineup against the human characters. The plot involving a father and son rivalry was icing on the cake. Mr. Harada showed audiences how extremely dysfunctional one family was. This game was as far from Street Fighter and Fatal Fury as could be.

The rivalry between Kazuya and Heihachi started at a young age. Jinpachi warned Heihachi that having a son would make him weak. Heihachi wanted to prove his father wrong. When Kazuya was five years old he threw him off of a cliff. He said if he was the true heir to the Mishima Zaibatsu then he would climb out and return a powerful man. Kazuya survived the fall and did return many years later during the events of the first Tekken tournament. Kazuya was covered in scars, built from a lifetime of fighting man and beast. At the end of the tournament he returned the favor and took his father to the edge of the same cliff and threw him over. Audiences were not prepared for this. They thought that he was going to take his father to get help, or at the very least give him a proper burial. Instead he dropped him and turned to the camera and smiled. It was one of the more shocking moments in game history. Proving ever resourceful, and taking a page from the Fatal Fury playbook, Heihachi survived the fall.

By the time of Tekken 2 Kazuya had taken over the family business and Heihachi had to enter the tournament to try an extract his revenge. As with all great rivalries the two were evenly matched. Unlike Sagat and Ryu where they had two different martial arts forms, or with Geese Howard and Terry Bogard where they had clashing styles, the techniques used by Heihachi and Kazuya were almost mirror images. Each fighter focused on different strikes in order to gain an advantage in battle. What it all boiled down to was technique and experience. Heihachi was able to gain the upper hand and went back to where it all started in his ending scene. This time he dropped Kazuya in the heart of an active volcano and flew away on a helicopter. The ending movie was beat-for-beat the same as Kazuya's original ending. Mr. Harada knew that a little dark comedy went a long way in the series. Audiences were eating up this bitter rivalry.

What many failed to realize was that the rivalry was an homage to a classic manga. Osamu Tezuka was considered the godfather of manga and anime. He was a pioneering artist from Japan that created hundreds of original characters and some of the most beloved stories of all time. One of his heroes was a doctor named Kuro Hazama aka Black Jack. The comic debuted in 1973 and the original run went on for a decade. During this time Mr. Harada and the Tekken team were growing up and were more than likely influenced by many of Tezuka's stories. Kuro was caught in a land mine explosion as a kid, it killed his mother and left him barely alive. He had required reconstructive surgery and skin grafts. When the doctor working on him asked the parents of his classmates if their children would be willing to donate skin they all turned him down, all except his friend Takashi, who was half-black half-Japanese. The skin was applied to Kuro's arms, shoulders and face. This left Kuro with contrasting patches that gave him a unique look. People were often put off by his appearance because he looked monstrous to them. This discoloration was actually featured on the fighting game characters Preston Ajax and Charlie Nash. Kuro dedicated his life to becoming a doctor and honoring the memory of his friend. He practiced outside of the system because he saw there was terrible corruption in the medical field, where only the richest could afford treatment. He had a private practice far away from any town. He would treat mobsters and regular people alike for the right price. He didn't have many friends but made contacts along the way of people that he trusted. One of these contacts had reached out to him because he was afraid of his father. This was where the seeds of Tekken were planted.

In an issue of Black Jack titled "Amidst Fire and Ashes" the doctor was introduced to a cruel tycoon. The issue opened with a volcano, Mt. Roar, that was erupting near a research center. There was a man in a suit looking down into the volcano but quickly walked away as people got closer. A park ranger spotted a charred body in the crater and lowered himself down to rescue the man. The body was badly burned but the person was still alive. The body was taken to a visitor's center. The man in the suit sprung forward and announced himself as the father of Ryohei, the burn victim. He seemed distressed that his son was dying. Black Jack offered his services but for some ungodly high rates. He knew full well that the man was the CEO of Nippachi Trading and could easily afford the ¥20 million bill to save his son. The man reluctantly agreed but only after Black Jack produced a note from the son, saying that he was going to have a meeting with his father and something may happen to him. He wanted the brilliant surgeon there just in case. Ryohei had a suspicion that his father may do something drastic and his hunch was right. Despite the lack of witnesses placing the father and son together at the time of the accident the CEO felt the pressure to save Ryohei. He agreed to Black Jack's demands and let him operate.

Mt. Roar continued erupting and the visitors were evacuated. Unfortunately Ryohei was in no condition to travel and only Black Jack and the CEO were left behind. The CEO actually tried to leave with the crowd until he was called out by the doctor. After operating on Ryohei the father was still eager to kill his son. He tried wheeling out the body on a stretcher towards the volcano. The doctor punched him out and said he would never allow any harm to the man he had just saved. It didn't take too much prodding from Black Jack to get a confession. It turned out that Ryohei did not want to inherit the company. It had dealings that he found unsavory. His first action would have been to dissolve the corporation. His father would not let that happen to the company that he had built himself. He wanted his son to be strong, in the business world people had to be as cutthroat as he was. His son didn't have a mean bone in his body. The name Ryohei could be translated to "good boy," despite his father's actions he still loved and forgave him. This made the betrayal sting harder for readers. Eventually the CEO came to terms with this and was willing to stay with his son and make sure that he recovered.

The volcano had become too dangerous and Black Jack was ordered to evacuate. The CEO swore that he would stay with his son. The two died on the mountain when it exploded. When rescuers found the bodies they said their hands were clasped tightly together. It was a heartbreaking ending. Then again most of the Black Jack stories were melancholy. The seeds for the evil corporate archetype had been planted in that adventure. The CEO was without a doubt the basis for Heihachi Mishima. In addition to being extremely wealthy and enjoying throwing his kid into a volcano the physical traits were more obvious. Nobody else had the same haircut and mustache. The template would return in manga form years later. Daikenjuro Kanzuki, the father of Karin Kanzuki from the Street Fighter Zero / Alpha series, was another dead-ringer for the CEO. He was not in the game series but instead the manga based on the game. He shared the same physical appearance of the Nippachi Trading CEO. Daikenjuro was similar to Heihachi in that the two had amassed a fortune that could only exist in a fictional world. I'm talking about Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth. They both had private armies at their command, corporate offices in every corner of the globe, residences that stretched over several hundred acres of prime real estate and politicians in their back pocket. They both seemed untouchable. Of course both also had family members who were eager to dethrone them. This made for an interesting dynamic in the game and manga titles.

A volcano would appear in the backdrop of other fighting games but few stages were actually set inside of a volcano. This location certainly meant something in the Tekken series. Mr. Harada had meant for it to be the final resting place for both Heihachi and Kazuya. He had talked about finishing the Mishima Saga in Tekken 7. This was why he framed key scenes in the story mode and actual stages inside the cauldron. Unlike the reconciliation in Black Jack this father and son duo were willing to drag each other into hell. It was a bitter rivalry to say the least. You would be hard pressed to find two characters in any series that hated each other more. Yet even with their extreme distrust of each other they had been known to team up, especially during the Tekken Tag Tournaments. Of course each person had their own reason for entering and would betray their partner as soon as they reached the end. Not every legacy character was filled with as much hate even when there was just cause to hold a grudge. Some of the rivals could not bring themselves to hate. This was the case between Takuma Sakazaki and his son Ryo. Ryo did not know that Mr. Karate was his father until the end of the original Art of Fighting. Yuri Sakazaki had been kidnapped and once she was rescued she begged her brother to stop fighting. She revealed that Takuma was behind the mask. It was one of the best twist endings in a fighting game.

Takuma would keep the mask around for when other fighters needed to be taught a lesson. He eventually retired the name and his son took over. At the peak of his abilities Ryo entered tournaments under the name Mr. Karate II. This version of the character ditched the bright orange gi that he wore in the Art of Fighting and King of Fighters series. He went with a solid black one in honor of his father. This version of the character debuted in the Buriki-One tournament. But I digress... Tekken was a series filled with many memorable rivalries. None were as intense as the ones between the Mishima family members. Writers and artists putting together their own stories would do well to remember that family could create the most passionate feuds.

One of the greatest rivalries in fighting game history was also one of the shortest-lived ones. The next part in this series will travel across time and space to resurrect an often overlooked title. Until then please leave a comment or tell me what one of your most favorite rivalries was. 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...

The Street Writer Blogcast, Episode 2

Every time I release a new Podcast I will release the text version for my hearing-impaired friends. I don't want them to miss anything that I cover. Also you are welcome to leave comments and questions for this podcast as well as future podcasts on this blog.



Takashi Nishiyama was the designer on the original Street Fighter and had left Capcom to work on a new fighting game for the crosstown rivals at SNK. His title was called Garō Densetsu Shukumei no Tatakai aka Legend of the Hungry Wolf: The Battle of Destiny, which was changed to Fatal Fury: King of Fighters in the west. The game from 1991 was the first entry in the King of Fighters franchise and appeared months after the release of Street Fighter II. In the Fatal Fury series there have been countless rivalries, the most outstanding of which was between Geese Howard and the Bogard family. Mr. Nishiyama had created a classic rivalry in Street Fighter by basing traditional martial arts masters against each other. For his follow-up game he wanted to modernize the concept. The ones that dressed like traditional practitioners became supporting characters. He wanted audiences to recognize that a person dressed in regular street clothes could be the modern martial arts master. The three main characters in his game knew each other, two were brothers Terry and Andy Bogard and their best friend Joe Higashi. Andy studied a form of ninjitsu and Joe was a muay thai champ. Their costumes were riffs on classic outfits. Terry stood out most of all, his blue jeans, white shirt and red leather jacket screamed Western hero. He was inferred to be the true star of the game. Geese on the other hand was dressed in a traditional costume, reminiscent of samurai clothing. It was actually an aikidogi and hakama or akido pants. Geese had studied many different martial arts, including secretive ones. He had walked away as a master of ancient techniques whether the teachers wanted to reveal these secrets to him or not was a moot point.

Geese and Terry, like many of the main characters in SNK fighting games had moves based on fictional styles and supernatural abilities. They could direct energy waves from their bodies to their hands and feet. They could even send energy waves through the ground and bowl over opponents. While Geese had studied traditionally under different masters Terry was more of a "Lone Wolf." He learned how to fight in the street and picked up various techniques along the way. His unorthodox style was very different from Geese's. Terry had moves that were more aggressive, the Burn Knuckle punch that allowed him to fly across the screen and the Crack Shoot kick that spun through the air and caught opponents off guard. He fought unlike anybody else out there including characters from other studios. He bobbed on the toes of his feet and kept his fists up like a boxer yet threw diving strikes like a football player going after a tackle. This loose style was a stark contrast to Geese's more reserved power attacks. Geese stood calm with his hands relaxed and open. He waited for the perfect moment to strike. Like a true samurai warrior he did not waste any effort and tried to make every move a lethal hit. The contrast of styles helped define the two. The rivalry between the two was much different than the one between Ryu and Sagat. Geese did not have any moves in common with Terry or Andy Bogard. Geese still had a tighter defense, a greater range, could stuff any physical attack and counter all the special attacks of the brothers. Yet he had not always been powerful.

 

Geese grew up in Southtown, a fictional USA city connected via a few roads to the mainland. It was not unlike New Jersey sitting just outside of New York. But for a more accurate comparison Southtown was to the USA what Taiwan was to China. It was a powerful modern city that pretty much had its own economy, trade and industrial portions and didn't need to be a part of any other country in order to thrive. Geese was abandoned by his father leaving him and his mother poor while growing up. Geese struggled to provide for the household but his mother died poor and hungry. He wanted to track down his father and kill him for abandoning him. Along the way he ran into his half-brother Wolfgang Krauser. He learned his father was Rudolph Krauser Von Stronheim, a terrorist and a powerful man in his own right. If he wanted revenge he would have to become more powerful and more dangerous than his father ever was. Geese set out to do this by studying the most dangerous fighting arts. He picked techniques up from Toji Sakata, a character that later appeared in Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition, as well as the grandfather of Mary Ryan aka Blue Mary, a detective from Fatal Fury 3. Geese's most influential teacher was an elderly Chinese master named Tung Fu Rue. He was learning Hakkyokuseiken: the Eight Extremities Holy Fist technique alongside another gifted martial artist named Jeff Bogard.

 

Jeff had adopted two orphans from the streets of Southtown, young brothers Terry and Andy. He gave them a last name, cleaned them up, put them through school and took care of them the best he could. He even began teaching the two how to fight. Jeff did pretty much the opposite of what Geese's father had done. It was just one thorn in the side of Geese. The other was that the final techniques of Tung Fu Rue would only be taught to his best pupil. Rue could tell that Geese would only use the techniques to hurt people and attain power. When Tung Fu Rue named the senior Bogard the new master of the dojo it sent Geese into a frenzy. He killed Jeff in front of Terry. Terry was barely 10 at the time and could do nothing to stop the murder. From that point on the two brothers swore that they would become great fighters and take their revenge. Geese disappeared shortly after and set about completing his goal. He would take over Southtown from the inside, starting with the gangs and mobs and work his way up to taking control of the corporations.

 

To outsiders Geese was a self-made tycoon, respected in business and political circles. To everyone on the street Geese was to be feared. Even before he murdered Bogard he had already started his own criminal empire. His first henchmen were Ripper and Hopper, two guys in suits and sunglasses, one bald and one with long black hair. They were often seen in stage backgrounds and official art. They were ruthless enforcers that helped infiltrate rival organizations. The previous crime lord of Southtown was a tall man named Mr. Big. Like all villains in video games he was also a martial arts master. Mr. Big wore fine suits, fur coats and fought with two sticks. He was eventually dethroned by Geese and rather than being executed he was turned into a right hand man. Geese believed in the old saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Geese also recruited a master of stick fighting from Great Britain known as Billy Kane to act as a bodyguard. Those that Geese couldn't buyout or intimidate he often killed. Yet there were some people that he saw as threats but kept around to fulfill a purpose.

Takuma Sakazaki was possibly the most dangerous fighter in all of Southtown. He was the founder of Kyokugenryu Karate, the Extreme Utmost Limit Way of the open hand. Takuma was somebody that Geese could not beat in a fight. Mr. Big was aware of this and also respected and feared the fighter. When Mr. Big was trying to muscle out more territory in Southtown he decided to kidnap Takuma's daughter Yuri and blackmail him into becoming an enforcer. Takuma did as he was ordered but he wore an ancient tengu mask and called himself Mr. Karate. He wanted to hide his identity and distance himself from what he was being forced to do. The Mr. Karate personae of Sakazaki was completely ruthless. He wanted people to fear the character more than any crime boss. He was eventually stopped by his son Ryo Sakazaki and their family friend Robert Garcia.

Now the reason that I bring all of this backstory up is because Mr. Nishiyama and his team were creating a narrative that would bridge several games together. The story of Geese Howard and Terry Bogard would be explored in the Art of Fighting. The story between Mr. Big and Mr. Karate would be revealed in the Art of Fighting, an SNK game released in 1992. The events of both franchises laid the foundation for the King of Fighters series which debuted in 1994. Having an understanding of where the characters came from, where they were going and how they fit into the world took a tremendous amount of planning. The team at SNK didn't want to move from game to game and have nothing supporting the characters. They wanted every fighting game to be interconnected. They didn't want to have throw away characters or bosses that simply faded away either. By thinking three moves ahead the games were consistently good. Audiences were hooked with the series because of memorable good guys and bad guys. Mr. Nishiyama had done something similar, albeit to a lesser extent while with Capcom.

Many of the original Street Fighter characters were inspired by the martial arts but none had much depth to them, at least not much in the sense of a purpose. The more interesting ones would return and the studio began exploring their back story. Think about where Sagat came from, it wasn't really explained in the first game. He was simply the champion when Ryu met him. Later on the studio invented the character that took his eye, someone named Gou Hibiki that just so happened to like Mr. Karate. Capcom and SNK had been trading jabs with each other because they were early competitors in the market. It didn't hurt that the team members at the studios knew each other as well. Capcom began designing more fighting game characters with histories. If you look at Guile and Chun-Li they were much better developed than the original Street Fighter cast and became bigger hits with the community than the first characters. SNK demonstrated that fighting game characters with planning and a back story tended to be more memorable than those with just cool looks. This level of detail did not just apply to the characters but also to the world that they inhabited.

Geese was a very powerful man and a very arrogant man. He surrounded himself with treasures from Asia, various statues and temple guardians were on display. In his fancy robes Geese looked like the opposite of Terry, whose torn jeans and sneakers showed that he was poor. The penthouse on Geese Tower looked like a temple, this would be the setting of the final battle in Fatal Fury. It told a story and framed the battle between Terry and Geese. Players could see Southtown from high above the city. It was one of the most memorable stages in early fighting games. Not only that but from round to round the time of day changed. This was to illustrate that the fight had taken a long time to finish. Neither man could get the upper hand so the battle raged on. The team at SNK wanted to show that stages evolved in their fighting games. Perhaps it would rain between rounds, you would notice the audience clear out, or perhaps the stage would transition from day to night. They were doing things for the genre that other studios didn't even consider. Evolving levels were rarely done even in modern fighting games. The climax of the final battle came with Terry kicking Geese right off the rooftop. The setup and execution of the final stage meant a little bit more than the fight between Ryu and Sagat. Audiences could tell that the stakes were high. Every rival defeated in the original King of Fighters tournament had some sort of secret agenda but none was more important than the revenge of the Bogard brothers. Players felt a sense of relief that the evil villain fell to his death.

In the ending screen it said that Geese died October 10, 1913. This was mistranslated, the studio meant to say 19:13 hours, or 7:13 pm in the hospital. He fell from the building at dusk and died 3 hours later. So why was his death important? It helped give audiences a sense of closure. This fighting game came with a story, it had a beginning, middle and end. The King of Fighters tournament had nothing to do with winning a belt or trophy. Geese simply wanted to meet and beat the best, what he didn't expect to see where two brothers that wanted him dead. The game was a tale of revenge, like many of the great martial arts films. Stop and think about how important a story was to Street Fighter II. The tournament was a front for a much bigger plot involving Shadowlaw and a rogue Dictator. There was a connection between Ryu and Sagat that made that battle much more memorable. For the supporting cast there was a reason why they were fighting as well. For some it was fame, for others it was a national duty, still for others it was a shot at redemption.

If Mr. Nishiyama was such a good director then why would he kill the main villain in his very first appearance? Why would he develop such a rich back story if the character was a throw away figure? Well it turned out to be a false death. Geese survived the fall thanks to an outside influence. He would actually continue pulling strings from the shadows while he recovered. Audiences didn't know this until years later. The series would continue and players would get to fight as the Bogard brothers, Joe Higashi as well as knew friends and enemies. These new faces would have to fight Geese's half-brother Wolfgang Krauser and his brother-in-law Kain R. Heinlein in the various sequels. The rivalry between Geese and Terry had just started. It would be a cornerstone of the franchise for almost a decade. Rather than focus only on the hero the two were featured in SNK promotional material. A hero was only as popular as his rival after all. The two were also used to highlight the changes in technology. When the studio looked at leaving sprite graphics behind and developing the next generation of fighting games in 3D they made sure to show off the new models for Geese and Terry right away.

 

Identity was very important to the characters in the King of Fighters (KOF) universe. Every figure was treated like a franchise fighter. Each character had the potential of being a breakout star. They could be featured in their own game if the fan reaction was strong enough. Some KOF fighters were already stars from a different genre. All of the heroes and all of the villains were building an identity and helping strengthen the SNK brand. The development teams wanted the audience to know that the universe of KOF was constantly changing. The main characters were not set in stone. Other studios, namely Capcom, tried to keep their fighting stars locked into one look or one style. Ryu could only wear the white gi for example and Chun-Li could only wear a blue dress. While this rule has been relaxed a little thanks to the costume pack updates from Capcom most fans still expect to see the iconic characters in familiar costumes. The studio assumed that anything else might be a disservice to the series and turn off fans. SNK on the other hand didn't have a problem revising their main characters between games. They wanted audiences to see that the world was constantly evolving. Not only that but they could create sequels and prequels to show how the characters appeared at any point in time. At a future point in the universe Terry had changed his look completely. His red, white and blue costume gave way to a brown bomber jacket and jeans. He ditched his cap and let his long hair fall loose. The design for Geese Howard was different when he first started taking over Southtown. In his younger days he wore a business suit and had long hair. This was an aesthetic decision from the team at SNK. It was okay to play with the costumes of the characters as long as they retained their moves, purpose and personality. The two were still as dangerous as they had ever been and audiences more or less accepted the change in their appearance.

 

SNK did not want to have audiences think that Geese was indestructible. Players saw him get dropped from the top of a building in the first game. So how did he survive the fall? It turned out that all of the treasures he had been surrounding himself with had a purpose. In his travels he discovered a scroll of ancient techniques. It was called the Phoenix Scroll and allowed its owner to recover from mortal wounds. It took a long time but sure enough he came back with a renewed purpose. Geese learned that there were two more scrolls, known as the Jin Scrolls, these scrolls were part of the Qin Book of Secrets. Legend said that the person that had all three would obtain the secret to immortality. This became a plot point in the Fatal Fury sequels. The Bogard brothers had been robbed of their revenge. They tracked down Geese several years after the first encounter during the events of Fatal Fury Real Bout. Terry once again found himself at the top of Geese Tower. He knocked Geese through a railing but this time he did not mean to kill him. Terry reached out and grabbed Geese at the last moment. Refusing the gesture, or confident that he had indeed become immortal, Geese shrugged off the help and fell once more. He laughed the entire way down. It was a shocking ending. I don't remember the last time a villain had committed suicide on screen. Since Geese had been unable to secure all three Jin scrolls it was assumed that he died for real this time. Time would prove otherwise...

When Terry first knocked Geese from the tower he did so out of rage. As time went on he realized that he had made a mistake, of course not getting caught by the police for the murder of Southtown's biggest crime boss was a blessing in disguise. Killing Geese would not bring his father back. If anything Terry dishonored his own family name by fighting for the wrong reasons. Terry tried to make amends the next time they battled but Geese refused the gesture. The death weighed heavily on his conscience. It was not every day that you could say that a great rivalry ended with the hero feeling guilty. Just like you could say that it was not every day that a rivalry started with the hero killing the villain. This story did not end there however. Terry discovered that Geese had a son named Rock Howard. Geese had abandoned his son just as he himself had been abandoned. Terry became the surrogate father for Rock, guided him and taught him some of his own fighting techniques. What made Rock unique was that he had a mix of both Geese and Terry's moves but thankfully none of his biological father's evil tendencies. His uncle Kain R Heinlein did try to get Rock to side with him and throw Southtown into chaos and create what would be known as Second Southtown. Rock refused and battled his uncle during the events of the King of Fighters Maximum Mayhem tournament.

One of the great all-time fighting game rivalries was a clash of ideals. Terry Bogard and Geese Howard each came from broken homes, both had lost their parents at a young age. Each made it to adulthood and each became a powerful fighter in the process. The decisions they made along the way defined one as good and one as evil. The two were very similar otherwise, and I don't mean just on a physical level. At the core they had strong wills a were fiercely determined to overcome all obstacles and achieve their goal. This was something that Sagat and Ryu did not necessarily have in common. They were rivals but did not share many traits. Both fought to become the strongest Street Fighter and defend that title. SNK had a completely different approach to the genre and it was refreshing. The pre-planning by Mr. Nishiyama and his team paid off in Fatal Fury and the various sequels. Terry, Geese and the rest of the King of Fighters cast would enjoy an incredible fan following.

The success of the series demonstrated that there was more than one way to frame a rivalry. Planning had a lot to do with it. Think about successful books and movies, the creators had to know their world and how it worked backwards and forwards before sharing their story. J.K. Rowling had to know the history of her magical world, who came before and how everyone was related. She then sprinkled those details all throughout the Harry Potter books. George Lucas had to know how the Force worked and the history between the Sith and Jedi as he told the Star Wars trilogy. Mr. Nishiyama had a clear picture of Southtown and the origins of the King of Fighters tournament. He was very familiar with the most dangerous men in that universe before he told the story of Fatal Fury. These were important lessons for budding creators to remember. You must always know where your story comes from before you can tell people where it is going. Revenge was a powerful motivator but what about the other great rivalries in fighting games? What else caused a rivalry to start? We'll take a look at one of the most important ones in the next broadcast. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 is better than nothing..

The Street Writer Blogcast: Episode 1

Every time I release a new Podcast I will release the text version for my hearing-impaired friends. I don't want them to miss anything that I cover. Also you are welcome to leave comments and questions for this podcast as well as future podcasts on this blog.



Thank you for tuning in to the first episode of the Street Writer Podcast. I am your host Noe, on my personal and Capcom-Unity blogs I'm also known as BigMex. Today I'm going to look at one of the elements of great fighting games; specifically rivals. Not just any rivals but the best ones in the genre. Rivals are something you've seen many times and possibly one of the things you might enjoy most about fighting games. Great games know how to build a rival. Whether it's a friendly rival or a sworn enemy the best games knew how to build the tension in the story and through the gameplay. They knew how to make you root for a hero or jeer the bad guy. Even some forgotten titles knew how to create great rivalries. Think about how the developers made some characters heroes and others villains. What techniques did they use? Just because there were both good guys and bad guys in a game did it automatically create a rivalry? Not always, some of the best ones were planned while others developed by accident. When it came to great rivals who was on your list? Was it Ken versus Ryu? Kazuya versus Jin? Daigo versus Justin? What did you think made them great rivals? Which rivals were the best in the genre and why? Over the next few episodes I'm going to point out some of which I feel were the best. I'll begin with Street Fighter, it's pretty much the reason why I'm still writing and now doing podcasts. The template for a great rivalry started in the very first game.

 

Sagat and Ryu were the oldest and longest standing rivals in the history of fighting games. They had been going toe-to-toe for almost 30 years. There were a lot of things that made them work as opponents as well as really popular individual characters. They represented a clash of styles, a clash of nationalities and at the heart a clash of purpose. Why did they fight? The designers at Capcom had to give them a reason to fight, the way they did this gave each character a personality. You could see it in the way each character was animated. You could see it in the official character art, in the game endings and through the story of the series. One fighter was the established champion. Sagat absolutely destroyed opponents and was feared by many. He knew what it took to get to the top, and it was much more than natural ability. Sagat was unusually tall and strong, making him a standout fighter at a young age. Before he became a champion he lost an eye in a fight. That event changed his life, he became cold-blooded fighter after that. He was willing to put his life on the line, and more important he was willing to put his opponent's life on the line in each fight. The other warrior, the man who would be king was new to the world of combat. Ryu was insanely talented, had a strong desire to win and was trusted with secret martial arts techniques. He was looking for a purpose in his fights, a sort of guidance that could only be found by fighting the best. Ryu was trying to find meaning whereas Sagat was trying to prove no one could beat him. In temperament they were night and day, destined to be opposites in every regard. The animosity between the two slowly faded over the years and was replaced with an intense respect. It was a level of respect that few characters in any genre would be written about. But it wasn't a friendly rivalry when they first met. That was something that the developers at Capcom managed to get through to audiences way back in 1987.

Imagine if you were a kid going to the arcade in the '80s. There were no cell phones, no really powerful home consoles. The best games could only be found in the arcade. If you were lucky maybe your parents gave you a dollar to play some games. You could spend four quarters on one game or play four different games. Every cabinet was fighting for your attention. Every company wanted your money. The fighting game was still finding its voice in the mid '80s. Other genres like space shooters and maze games were more popular. Studios were experimenting with different formats, different types of control setups to win players over. Capcom took some very big chances during this era. The first Street Fighter machine really stood out from other machines. The first cabinet had two enormous foam buttons, they were the size of overturned cereal bowls and much harder than the foam used in Nerf toys. The buttons were red and blue and you had to punch each one in order to get the character to punch or kick. As a kid I learned that I had to hammer down on the buttons with the edge of my hand instead of trying to punch them straight on. Tapping the buttons translated to a jab whereas the hardest hammer punch was a fierce strike. If you were lucky or knew how to perform the fireball, dragon punch or hurricane kick then you probably kept it a secret. Those were super attacks that could beat any opponent. You could use them to beat other players in a two-player match and feel like a real champ. Imagine what was going through our minds. Imagine being a kid and Street Fighter was your first introduction to the genre. You could punch the buttons as hard as you wanted and sometimes your character would perform these super moves. It was a high-energy concept that paid off for Capcom. Okay, so maybe it didn't pay off as well as they wanted. A few months after the game debuted the studio had to create a new controller for arcade operators, one with the more familiar six-button layout because people were having problems using the foam buttons. Some kids ended up breaking the controls because they were playing too rough, while others were injuring themselves for the same reason. I can still remember the machine in the local arcade when it came out. I can still remember seeing the foam buttons torn on one side because somebody was trying to rip it off the cabinet.

 

Ken and Ryu were amazing characters. All of the sprites in the game were big and colorful. They were much more animated than any other martial arts game. Ken and Ryu stood out because they weren't boring like the red and white characters in Karate Champ. They fought to a single hit while Ken and Ryu flew all over the screen like the characters in kung-fu films. One by one all of the rivals fell. It didn't matter what form they studied, whether they used a weapon or even if they could even teleport around the screen. A player that learned timing and how to perform the secret moves could actually go through the game on one quarter. That was a rare for most arcade games. Operators and companies made their money by creating titles that were challenging and often required a few credits to complete. Finding a game that had a good challenge yet you could beat with one credit was rare. Even in the early days the team at Capcom knew that they had to make each and every battle difficult but not cheap. If the game was too hard then a player had no incentive to continue. But if the game kept the action even and rewarded the player for having a superior technique or sense of timing then they were likely to pay a few extra credits to continue. Street Fighter did a good job of capturing the unpredictability of a fight. A player could dominate one round and then be taken out the next. A lucky punch might be the difference between becoming the champ and losing everything. It happened in the real world and was expected to happen in a game too. Thanks to this level of balance people were more than willing to put in an extra credit and continue from where they left off. Balance also made every opponent unique. Fights gradually got harder the further a player went into the game. No two opponents fought the same so it kept things fresh from match to match. If a player made it to the nation of Thailand then they felt confident that they would be able to beat the final opponents. Adon was a difficult fighter with his unique flipping "Jaguar" kicks. It was his master than was on a different level.

 

As colorful as the cast was there wasn't really an equal to the main characters. I mean everyone was roughly the same size but nobody looked or fought like Ken and Ryu, especially not the final boss. Yet this boss stood out because he was visually so different. The final match in Street Fighter had to be unlike the other battles. It couldn't be easy but again Capcom didn't want it to feel cheap. To help make the fight memorable they wanted to shake the confidence of players. There was a bald, dark skinned eyepatch-wearing character staring at the player in the stage intro. The guy was ugly, about two hundred pounds heavier than Ken or Ryu and easily a head and a half taller. He was biggest character in the game. Up until that point we thought that Birdie was largest and strongest brawler. We had no idea who we were dealing with. What made Sagat much more dangerous than any other opponent was that he had technique and not just mass on his side. Karate was seen as a sort of ultimate empty-handed fighting style. It was the style of fighting used by the heroes in movies and tv shows. What Sagat used was Muay Thai, an older and more brutal fighting art. Players learned to fear the man right away. He could stuff just about any attack and was surprisingly fast despite his size.

 

Capcom made sure to level the playing field by giving Sagat his own special attacks. Everything that made Ryu or Ken unique was stripped away on the final stage. The developers knew that the last opponent in the game had to be everything the main characters were and more. He needed his own ranged attack. Something that was not a throwing star or dagger. A bolt of fire that erupted from his hands, the Tiger Shot was something no other opponent could perform and equal to the fireball from the main characters. He also had a leaping knee strike, this would become known as the Tiger Knee. If cut down the distance on the stage and was a counter for the hurricane kick. More than that Capcom knew that he needed to be able to beat the players move for move. His range had to be greater, his kicks longer, his strikes faster and his defense tighter. Players that underestimated the giant were beaten very quickly. Capcom even gave Sagat a personality trait. He was cruel in his victory animation. He would cross his arms, face the audience and laugh. It was an early example of a taunt in a fighting game. He laughed as if the player was not even remotely good enough to take on the champ.

 

Gamers had to use all of the secret techniques and use them fast if they wanted to make it through two rounds. The original Street Fighter could be tough, special moves took way more energy than in any sequel. Just a few hits from Sagat was enough to knock you out. The dragon punch was the great equalizer, it was the one move that Sagat didn't have a counter for. It would become the punch used in story to defeat Sagat. The final battle was supposed to be a fight to the death. Sagat didn't care what happened to his opponents once they dropped. If someone were powerful enough to beat him then he accepted he would die in the process. Many people didn't notice this but if he was beaten he laid there with his eyepatch torn from his face. It was the insult to injury. At that very moment the rivalry was born. What made the character unique was that players and even Capcom did not know Sagat would become an important piece of the story until years later. He was just another boss guy in another arcade game. In hindsight the original Street Fighter was a fun game but it was not extraordinary. There was nothing that really kept people coming back. I remember playing it a few more times once the local arcade replaced the big foam buttons. But each time I visited the arcade there were always new games that seemed more interesting.

 

Part of the reason why some people didn't really remember the first Street Fighter was because the climb to the top happened very fast. It happened so fast that the story didn't really have a chance to sink in. Who were these fighters? Why should we care about them? Aside from some really neat moves what else did they have going for them? For that matter why should we care about the main characters? This kid named Ryu, did he really become the world champ because of his heart, his skills or because of a lucky punch? Every battle in the original game ended with the opponent saying "What strength!! But don't forget there are many guys like you all over the world." Ryu did indeed travel around the world, putting on breaking demonstrations to pay for his journey. He beat all of those guys until he earned his title. It was something that real life martial artists did more than a half century ago, before mixed martial arts matches were broadcast on TV. If a fighter wanted to prove they were the best then they actually had to go out there and show it. They would put on breaking demonstrations, Mas Oyama would even fight bulls in public exhibitions and kill them with a punch to the head. Perhaps a newspaper might cover those martial arts pioneers but often it was word of mouth that created the legends.

   

Ryu did become the best in the world when he beat Sagat. This was something that many people seemed to miss in the story of Street Fighter. In every sequel Ryu was the best and he was defending his title against new opponents. Ryu's first championship however did not come with a belt or trophy. Ryu won the war by attrition. Sagat even said it himself "You've outlasted the best. You are now the strongest street fighter in the world!" Note he didn't say best street fighter or even greatest street fighter, but rather strongest. Ryu outlasted them all thanks to his incredible conditioning, superior techniques and physical gifts. Because of his age there would only be room for improvement, this was something that the developers at Capcom could use to their advantage. Sagat on the other hand was the tired champion with no where else to go but down. For that character the challenge was internalized. If he wanted to reclaim the title, if he wanted to beat Ryu then he had to become stronger. So how does a seven-foot, one eyed former world champ become stronger? There was room for improvement but we wouldn't see it for years. The team that created the original Street Fighter would be broken up and be put on different projects. Some left Capcom to join other studios. The rivalry would have to be put on the back burner while Capcom figured out where else they could take the genre.

Arcade operators wanted Capcom to do a follow up fighting game. The studio saw that Technos / Taito's Double Dragon was a bigger hit in 1987 and decided that they should create a brawler instead of a fighting game as the sequel to Street Fighter. When they showed arcade operators the game called Street Fighter '89 featuring the characters Guy, Cody and Mike Haggar they go push back. It had nothing in common with the original game. So Capcom called the game Final Fight and released it anyway. They went back to the drawing board and began putting together all sorts of ideas for Street Fighter II. There were some influences from Hokuto No Ken aka Fist of the North Star. There were influences from real world pro fighters and wrestlers as well. There were also some really ugly characters that were stereotypes if not racist caricatures from other countries. A new karate fighter was planned as the star but Ryu and Ken were the ones that would return. The original plan did not include Sagat. The new boss character and sub boss were some sort of knight and ninja in armor. They eventually became Vega and Balrog, the Claw and Dictator for international fans. The decision to bring back Sagat was done after the studio came up with the concept of multiple boss characters. His re-introduction was supposed to mean something to audiences. Capcom had created a terrorist organization, the main character a Dictator named Vega surrounded himself with bodyguards / hit men that were the most dangerous men ever. A heavyweight boxing champ, a Spanish assassin and the former strongest fighter in the world became generals in this organization. Each fighter was more dangerous than the last.

   

In Street Fighter II, after players beat the main roster and went through the first two generals they were surprised to discover the boss from the original game was waiting for them. Okay, not everyone remembered that Sagat was the original boss, the early generation of Street Fighter fans were young kids when the first game came out and didn't pay attention to the cast. Anyhow Sagt was back and he was as big and as ugly as he had always been. There was something profoundly different about him though. He had a massive scar across his chest. Who gave him this scar? Why did he return? What else was different about him? These were things that people who remembered the original game wondered out loud. Capcom would later on explain that it was Ryu that scarred him, it would create an incredible narrative. The main hero of the series had actually tried to kill the villain in the first game. Granted he was possessed by the Dark Hadou, a sort of evil energy living inside Ryu. So he wasn't quite himself at the time but nonetheless there was blood on his hands. If Sagat was smaller or weaker he would have been dead. Think about it for a moment. What other game had a main character that was like this? Sagat did not forget the fight and became an even more dangerous opponent because of it.

 

Sagat seemed a little bit leaner the next time he fought Ryu. He was indeed a little bit faster than before. Audiences saw that his library of moves had grown as well. He still possessed the Tiger Shot, the counter to the Hadoken or fireball. Yet he could now launch his attack while crouching or standing, which was something that neither Ken or Ryu could do. He still had the Tiger Knee, a leaping kick attack that was a counter to the Tatsumaki senpuu kyaku or Hurricane kick. Lastly he had developed his own punch. The Tiger Uppercut was the answer to the Shoryuken or rising dragon punch. Sagat's version started lower and rose higher than either Ken or Ryu's. These three special moves pretty much cemented his status as the ultimate rival. There was nothing that Ryu could do that Sagat could not do better. Combined with his strength and range he was a very formidable boss. The team at Capcom wanted audiences to understand that the time spent recovering from the first Street Fighter tournament had turned him into a much more dangerous opponent. The generals all reinforced that idea that there was more at stake in this tournament than a trophy. The most important part was having the previous boss return with a vendetta. It made for a much stronger narrative. The audience was hooked from that point on.

   

Fighting games could have depth and character growth, things that were usually reserved for role-playing games or adventure titles. Fighters were not throw-away characters after all. They would develop a strong following and influence characters in other games as well as in animated projects and comic books. Sagat and Ryu would do battle a few more times in canon. They would also fight a number of the other main characters in the stories but none of those battles had the intensity of the original rivalry. Sagat and Ryu crossed paths in the various sequels and VS titles from the studio. Each time they met the legend grew. Every encounter came with a certain level of intensity. It was palpable. Fans knew that the two had a history. After 20 years it had grown to mythical proportion. Fans were eating it up. When the artists at Capcom drew the pair, which actually wasn't that often, they made sure to capture the menace of Sagat and the defiance of Ryu.

   

When it came to rivalries I couldn't think of any one that stood out more than the one between the Capcom legends. Was it the only great rivalry in fighting games? Oh no, not by a long shot. We're going to dig a little bit deeper and in the next episode and see what Capcom's rivals were working on, I hope to see you back for that. If you have any questions, comments or want to share a story please let me know. If you enjoyed this broadcast and would like to see more then leave a comment and consider sponsoring the Street Writer on Patreon.