Yesterday I told you of a repot from an interview between Famitsu Magazine and Capcom Kouichi Sugiyama. This time the conversation talks about story and charge characters become more command.
Lets talk abut story as Sugiyama puts It the story is cannon and it is meant to clear up some things. He says this as Sugiyama has seen fans see Street Fighter Alpha story as an alternative history. As far as where it falls it is unclear as he says nothing about it. This something that bugs fans as they try to come up with a time line with the games.
Character wise I used the term charge characters changing to command because we are seeing characters who used have to hold back a few seconds to prepare an attack on the offensive. Sugiyama states that this is because the charge had little appeal. I cannot speak for the fans of these characters but it did hold me back when I played Guile or Nash back in the day due to charge up.
The entire conversation when like this.
“Famitsu: There’ve been new moves added, old moves removed, commands for moves changed to many of the old characters present in SF5. What was your thought process with these changes?
Sugiyama: We didn’t want to have characters that felt too similar, characters that we’re just “different versions” of eachother. For example, Nash’s special moves used to be charge, but we changed them to motion.
We already had plans to add Guile, so we wanted to differentiate them as much as possible, and decided to just make Nash completely into a motion character. Of course, we took it a step further than that as well by giving him teleportation with his V-Trigger.
Famitsu: Even then, I think that a character from Street Fighter 2 like Vega is so heavily linked with being a charge character in most people’s minds. Changing something like that required a lot of boldness, don’t you think?
Sugiyama: Well, that’s certainly true, but one of our major premises with Street Fighter 5 is to have it be something of a reboot.
We wanted old players, Street Fighter veterans, as well as players that are new to the series, with SF5 being their first game, to be on equal footing going into the game, so we decided not to be caught up in the past and changed stuff like that.
For a secondary reason, commands were more difficult back in the Street Fighter 2 era, so charge characters were considered easier, but now it’s become the other way around, where charge characters are often considered more difficult.
Famitsu: There is a tendency towards that, yes.
Sugiyama: A character like Vega generally has strong specs as a character, but due to the difficulty of charge-based movement, people tend to avoid him. With him being a motion character this time around, we’re hoping that more people will be willing to try him out, and properly bring out the natural potential of Vega as a character.
Famitsu: In Street Fighter 4, okizeme was vital. In Street Fighter 2, fireballs were pivotal to battle, to a point where if you managed to hit an opponent with one, sometimes the match could be considered over.
Street Fighter 3 was very finely footsie-based due to the presence of the parry mechanic. Each entry in the series has developed the fighting system further. What have you planned for SF5’s central feature to be?
Sugiyama: For the time being, we want people to be able to just jump right into it when they start playing. I feel like players could never really advance beyond the starting line in SF3 because of parrying or in SF4 because of the heavy reliance on okizeme. If we lower that hurdle, the difference between skilled players becomes finer.
Famitsu: What do you mean by the difference becoming finer?
Sugiyama: It’s a very fine line. For example, situational judgment. Your opponent’s HP, your own meter, the hitboxes of moves, keeping all of these things in mind while playing will become important in SF5, I think. The difference in the ability to judge these factors is what will decide who’s skilled and who isn’t, I believe. ”
As always thank you for reading.
