Prior to the current generation of fighting games I would have said that 2.5D was the only way to make a modern fighting game that didn't break the bank while preserving the look and feel of traditional sprite-based fighters. The format was in fact the future of fighting games. The groundwork laid out by Taito in Battle Fantasia and Sammy with the Rumble Fish had shown how closely polygons, with the use of textures and filters, could create characters that were almost passable for hand-drawn sprites. They had married the two worlds of traditional artistic vision with the programming ease of 3D models. For years I assumed that it was the only way to do fighting games proper in the current climate of cost-effective design.

 

If Street Fighter IV had tried to go down the road of traditional sprites, in high definition, then gamers would be waiting years for the release rather than months. The shareholders at Capcom would not have been happy, nor would the public, if the game did not top everything they had done in SF III. The relatively short development cycle and runaway success of SF IV drew a number of mixed emotions from me. I was glad that Capcom had decided to resurrect the franchise and happy that it was a hit at home and abroad. It showed that audiences still loved the genre and that Capcom could compete with other studios without breaking the bank. I wasn't happy that the development cycle seemed so short, that their new characters seemed pulled from rival games nor that they revised the classic SF II characters and canon in order to appeal to a broader audience. Seeing the game presented in 3D, with graphics that did not try to recreate the look of sprites through some sort of cel-shading or other filter effect, left me a little cold. As if they had just tried to abandon everything that made the previous titles great while rushing a new game to the market. This was pandering and I always thought that Capcom was better than that.

 

I was uncertain that it would ever be possible to return to the roots of the franchise, to make an HD sprite based fighter with more detail than previous titles without breaking the bank. It was 2.5D or nothing... or so I thought. SNK announced that their next King of Fighters title would be sprite-based. Not only that but they would be presented with more colors, details, frames and effects than any other game in franchise history. This was not solely an HD-upscaling project but a complete rebuild of the franchise. I was impressed with the concept and wondered how they were going to accomplish this within an acceptable timeframe and on budget.

How would their iconic characters get a facelift without making too many concessions to a 3D fans? Would Falcoon and the art staff at SNK try to make their new characters appeal to western audiences or would they stay true to their animé-influenced roots? Would these characters still be relevant despite the influence of mixed martial artists on pop culture? That is, would these sprites remain relevant to gamers?

 

SNK played it very close to tradition. They preserved the artistic influence and ended up creating some amazing sprites that were bold enough for modern fighting fans, yet retained respect for the classic titles. I began wondering how SNK would be able to create near 20 characters for the game at this size and with this amount of detail given the unusually high time associated with sprite creation. There was something that SNK was not letting other developers or audiences on to.

In the previous blog I mentioned that sprites require lots of work and pre-planning. The designer not only has to create the general look of the character but also draw them from multiple angles so that animators have enough reference material to recreate the figure performing a number of moves. If they wanted to change the scale of an arm or a leg, or move a fist the slightest bit, then they would have to redraw and repaint dozens of frames. How was SNK going to handle the pressure of making sure each character was in the right scale, and each frame near-perfect, in order to ensure no redraws?

 

More importantly how would they preserve the artistic intent so that each character was presented with a consistent look?

One way to accomplish this was to have the featured artist not only design the characters, but also create the frames of animation and paint them in. This is a tremendous workload with a lot of potential problems that have to be addressed before the first sprite is even rendered. If and when the sprites are ready they end up nothing short of breathtaking, well, breathtaking by late 90's standards. Such was the case for manga legend Range Murata for the characters he created in Psikyo's Dark Tenshi: the Fallen Angels and Atlus' Groove On Fight. The sprites were amazing and showed a level of detail and style that no studio had matched, or probably will ever match. Can you imagine the visual impact SF IV would have had if Ikeno and Akiman had hand painted every sprite?

 

Every designer places their own fingerprint on the universe. If you study the various representations of Ryu you'd begin to see differences of his appearance. Wether is was Capcom, SNK or Udon doing the sprites, each designer left their respective style. Akiman did not draw Ryu like Bengus, Kinu Nishimura or Alvin Lee. This influence, this aesthetic was very difficult to recreate in 3D. Which was why titles like Battle Fantasia and the Rumble Fish had so much visual impact when compared to other 3D games. They preserved the artist's original vision for the characters and universe. Would future Street Fighter games return to these roots, especially to help them stand apart from other 3D titles? Or would Capcom stick with what worked in SF IV and abandon their sprite-based legacy?

 

I'm certain that Capcom would not have abandoned the sprite if only they could have found a way to speed up the process and maintain a high standard.

There were ways to do this but most of them made the games looked sloppy and awkward. I'm referring to motion capture technology. The technology has sped up the process of animation but it ends up making stylized characters move weird, at least weird when compared to traditional animation. The second way of speeding up the animation process was actually a precursor to motion capture. It was called rotoscope and it involved a process by which artists pretty much traced over film of scenes, objects or characters they wanted to recreate in 2D. Rotoscoping was an important part of animation history it helped create the original Lord of the Rings animated feature. When used by an artist, rotoscoping could take concert footage and at only 7 or so frames a second and make that footage truly memorable. However it seemed to share many of the same problems with motion capture. Characters moved like people, rather than cartoons. The art of animation lay in the word art itself. Tracing a live actor seemed cheap, or rather to cheapened the artistic medium. Several studios went overboard on the use of canned animation, like Hanna Barbera and Filmation or relied too heavily on rotoscope, like Disney. Disney even copied their own frames on several of their animated features, further distilling the artistic importance of cartooning.

Animation legend Ralph Bakshi spoke at length about CGI animation, rotoscope and character animation. He said, and I agreed, that animation lies in understanding artform rather than the physical process. Anyone can create animation in either 2D or 3D but only an artist that understands the nuances or cartooning, motion and design, could ever make that animation come to life. Neither motion capture, nor rotoscope could be properly used to create games which were meant for a 2D experience. We've already looked at the lengths studios had to go to in order to make modern fighters work, things like hit boxes and frame skipping just to keep visuals consistent and create balance. How then would SNK be able to create hundreds of frames of new animation, in high definition, for KOF XII without hiring a massive animation team or spending a decade in development? It turned out that there was use for one of the animation shortcuts after all.

 

Rotoscoping might have very been the way that SNK was able to push up the development window. Rotoscoping might be the reason why King of Fighters XII has such amazing models. It was my understanding that SNK learned many things about the strengths and weaknesses of 2D and 3D fighters when they tried moving all of their franchises into one format. Samuari Spirits, Fatal Fury and the King of Fighters did not lend themselves readily to 3D. Problems with low polygon models, hit detection, framerate and animation kept most of these titles from being widely regarded. However this didn't stop SNK from trying to make 3D work while also applying these lessons to their 2D titles.

Development of KOF XII probably began immediately following the KOF Maximum Impact series. The models featured on this title were the closest the studio had ever come to recreating the Falcoon style in 3-dimensions. Their stances, animations and proportions were very well done, even if the game was not well received. Rather than dump the models I contend that they were used as the template for KOF XII. These models were used in a rotoscope capacity to help speed up the animation process in KOF XII. It makes sense when you look at how smooth and proportional the new animated characters were. Either the animators were trained highly in the style of Falcoon, or he created hundreds of character sheets that animators used as reference material. If that were the case then the game would have taken much longer to produce. Instead, I believe that these 3D models were given moves and ranges consistent with 2D presentation, this way artists did not have to imagine how a character looked while flipping, spinning, dashing, or even bouncing on the souls of their feet. They could reference the moves from a fixed perspective and then "trace" over them. They would thusly achieve realistic lines, shapes, highlights and shadows while also adding details like rippling clothing and "speed blurs" which were more stylized.

KOF XII seemed fluid because all of the frame skipping and hit box issues had already been addressed before rotoscoping. Moreover the characters were proportioned very much in the style of the designer, rather than being swollen in a concession to the west. Okay, to be fair some of the characters did get beefed up significantly. Terry Bogard and the Ikari Warriors Ralf and Clark were far thicker than they've ever been, but other characters like Kyo and Ash remained lithe to help make the contrast more significant. The same thing could not be said of SF IV. Models in that game were thicker across the board. By keeping the 3D models handy, animators were able to change proportions or add new moves without fear of losing the consistency between sprites.

 

Creating animations in 3D and then spending time redrawing them in 2D might sound redundant, and expensive for developers, but it made sense for the market. Fighting games had to compete for attention between themselves and against titles in other genres. Not to mention that for many studios the concept of the fighter was dead. Animated sprites were more striking now than in the 90's because 3D had homogenized graphics. It turned out that some fighting games, like SF and KOF have always worked best in 2D. Their visual appeal was in preserving the artistic intent and animating that style, while being mindful of the lessons that Ralph Bakshi had taught animators. The success of the best fighting game control, balance and animation had been in part due to the limitations of 2D technology. It was the imperfections of frame skipping, hand-drawn graphics, and the programming variables of hit boxes as much as the planned details that helped the games succeed. In a similar way the hand-drawn quality was making KOF XII develop into something truly special. But none of it would have been possible without the contributions of 3D technology and rotoscoping to shorten the development cycle.

The day is coming when a team of engineers, artists and animators will create polygon technology that is indistinguishable from the hand-drawn sprite. Until that day comes the best way of preserving the art of fighting games is by going the traditional route and creating sprites by hand. I hope that the teams at Capcom and DIMPS take these things into consideration when they begin working on subsequent fighting games, whether it's Street Fighter, Vampire, the VS series or something else. They have 3D models of many of the world warriors already, perhaps they have begun letting air out of their muscles in order to prepare them for a second life as a rotoscoped figure. Stranger things have happened...

I hope you enjoyed this short series, thanks for reading and commenting. Now please excuse me. I have some end of the semester work to catch up on. Take care!

2D or 3D, which format is the preferred format for a fighting game? Well it all depends on the origin of the title. Games that began their legacy in 2D still play best in that format. Some began in 3D and have always worked best in that format. Games that began in 2D and tried to make the switch with 3D never really caught on with gamers. Things such as animation, control and character models did not make the transition smoothly. Street Fighter was not the first to experiment with the cost-effective switch. We could still learn a lot by studying how these games were put together and what they taught the studios.

Characters from 2D games looked awkward when presented in polygon form. Their polygons were large and blocky, textures dull, animation stiff and effects limited. Part of the reason for this was because studios like SNK and Capcom did not invest heavily in 3D fighting game R&D during the early 90's. By the time they decided to make the transition in the late 90's they had already been passed up by rival studios. Only those that had a strong legacy in 3D technology, like Sega and Namco, really possessed the tools, staff and experience to make memorable characters and retain a visual impact in 3D.

However this was not the end of the 2D fighter, nor did it mean that 2D games could not eventually make the transition. Street Fighter IV was one of the new format, dubbed a "2.5D" fighting game. That was, a game rendered with 3D technology but whose entire control scheme and presentation was meant for a fixed 2D perspective. It preserved the control aspects that were partly the reason for the genre's success. It was not the first in the 2.5D format but certainly did learn heaps from previous efforts. Namely the problems and solutions that other studios experimented with while first trying to move the 2D experience into 3D.

I hold Street Fighter EX in very high regards.However when it first came out I was not impressed with it. It looked so crude compared to Virtua Fighter III, moved sluggish and didn't play nearly as smooth as Street Fighter Alpha 2, which were also in the arcade at the time of its release. Despite its flaws and limited features I grew fond of it. The characters and canon created for the series were fresh and complimented the SF universe. In the long run I had more fun playing EX than IV. So what were its flaws and what were its saving graces?

Part of the reason the new characters worked, especially when presented along with the classics, were because ARIKA had the forethought of making their 2D mechanics work in 3D. They did not want to create another Tekken or Virtua Fighter with the SF cast, but rather make the mechanics as close to 2D while rendering the world in 3 dimensions. They didn't force the entire game to stay on a flat plane but would turn around the z-axis during grabs and other special moves. They did these things sparingly, just enough to show audiences that they were mindful of breaking third dimension but respectful of the best way SF was meant to be played. They also had a number of unique visual cues that, often seem overlooked in most 2.5D games. Characters in sprite form are mirror images whether they are presented on the left or right side of the screen. That is, Ken and Ryu always have their front exposed to audiences in every version of SF, save for the EX series. Instead when they moved to the opposite side of the opponent, the character would turn and show players their backs. The same thing applied to other characters. Although their striking ranges remained consistent regardless of which side they were on, like classic SF games, this detail also showed audiences that the models and game were true 3D.

One of the biggest detractors to the game were the concessions that ARIKA made in order to make the gameplay consistent with sprite-based titles. There is an inherent problem with trying to recreate the classic SF formula while using 3D models. The ranges for strikes, counters and combos were thrown off in 3D. To most players they felt off anyhow. The opposite turned out to be true. 3D hit detection boxes were very accurate and strikes only registered when there was actual contact. In order to make EX feel more like a sprite-based game many moves were modified to create the feeling of 2D. These things included having fists and feet swell to enormous, cartoonish, proportions during dash moves, and other similar silly visuals. They did make the game play more like SF and less like Virtua Fighter, but the cartoonish animations broke the consistency and tone they had worked so hard to establish. ARIKA was locked into a possible solution for the 2D gameplay / 3D graphics dilemma but one which didn't sit well with gamers.

A "better" solution wouldn't present itself until more than a decade had passed. The editors at EGM previewed an early build of Street Fighter IV. They made mention of the buff characters but also noticed that the game did not seem to play quite like SF. The problem of using 3D hit boxes had again become an issue. Yoshinori Ono and the team had also noticed this problem and were looking for a solution, promising to have something in time for the public debut of the game. As it turned out the "fix" was 20-years-old. While indeed the game did feature a powerful graphics engine running the visuals, Capcom and DIMPS decided to use 2D hit boxes in order to recreate the ranges. This solution was nothing short of inspired.

However it was not simply enough to use 2D hit boxes. A number of concessions had to be made to the graphics and animation in order to keep the gameplay consistent. These were things that DJames Goddard had been talking about in his blog. The engine could create frames for every move in real time, running at a full 60 frames per second, however 3D models appeared to move strangely when the game was up at speed. It turned out that the problems in animation reflected 3D hit boxes, they were just too accurate for their own good. All of those extra frames of animation were distracting and didn't flow smoothly. Sort of like watching a high framerate film, anything above television's old standard of 29 frames a second gave audiences a weird sensation. These characters moved quickly yet remained in perfect focus. The animators began skipping frames on purpose in order to make the characters move in a way we had been accustomed to. In order to create a sensation of high speed movement (rather than high frame movement) the developers created blur filters to mask the sharp focus. Similar motion blur techniques had been employed by Sega since Virtua Fighter 2 in 1994.

The question that Capcom has to ask themselves is whether 3D or 2.5D are the future of the franchise. The question for gamers is whether or not they liked the bulky characters and artistic direction overall. Or would they preferred to have seen something more traditional? Would it have been possible to preserve the artistic vision while also moving the franchise forward and making it cost-effective in the current industry? I would say yes, absolutely, but the way of finding that balance had not always been so obvious. In the next blog we'll see how Capcom's perennial rival, SNK, gave the industry an entirely new way of approaching the genre. They found a way to bridge the gap between traditional animation style and 3D while making the development cycle competitive. Find out more in the next blog.

Great fighting games are remembered for many reasons. Their control was dialed-in, their animation was silky smooth and their balance was perfect. The graphics, the visual impact of the fighting game could be the most important thing remembered. The evolution of fighting game graphics and animation is not always the easiest to understand. Being able to see where the graphics have been and where they are going are not obvious. The purpose of this series is to dissect the graphics and animation of fighting games and to make a prediction, or at the very least a plea, for the future of Street Fighter.

In the 23 years that Street Fighter has been around we have seen scores of fighting games come and go. From a visual standpoint just about every artistic and creative medium has been used. Sprites, polygons, CGI and lumps of clay have served as models, to be moved and controlled with joysticks and foam pads to keyboards and mouses. Dynasties have been build with nothing more than petty rivalries and old grudges. The mystique of the characters and their designs adding to the lore of the universe. They went on to inspire everything from fashion and toys to animation and live action movies. These fighting avatars went on to change pop culture. How did we get here and what did we learn along the way? More important, how can these lessons be used to make following Street Fighter games better?

Character design is and always will be the most important place to start. Some fighting games have gotten by on looks alone, Street Fighter is one that managed to create iconic characters out of the most simplistic designs. The question that gamers ask themselves today is the same challenge that faces designers at Capcom. Are the classic designs dated or are they still viable? Is using a Japanese aesthetic appropriate or do concessions have to be made for the global market? That depends on who you ask, when you ask and what market they are aiming for. Thank goodness for evolution in the character design department. If not for changing tastes and aesthetics then characters would still be sporting afro's with sideburns and wearing bellbottoms... then again haven't Japanese studios stuck with this gimmick well into the 90's and beyond?

I've been tough on Ikeno and his designs for Street Fighter IV. They lacked the Japanese style that most were used to seeing in fighting games. I blame part of this change on perceptions of what Western culture thinks is great character design. Ikeno might have created his characters to reflect these perceptions.

The early concept sketches of the Street Fighter IV cast was, for the lack of a better word, swollen. Muscles were ballooned to enormous proportions. Shoulders placed high on the torso while the head and neck seemed to be swallowed up by the frame. They were plainly ugly when compared to the previous SF character art. Why were these revisions applied to the characters? Was it because the team was going 3D and needed to figure out how much depth and weight the characters needed in order to appear in a proper scale? Or was this because they wanted the game to appeal heavily to the west, and in order to do just that had to concede the designs to a more physical aesthetic? But where would Japanese designers get the idea that we enjoy looking at swollen characters?

It turned out that designers didn't have to go very far at all. Super-buff characters have been en vogue for some time in American media. They are in our comic books, animated shows and videogames. We are taught to associate the heroic ideals; strength, courage, valor and bravery, proportionally to muscle mass. Characters that are supposed to be light and fast (and old) like DC's Max Mercury, or quick and agile like Marvel's Daredevil are presented with obscenely large muscles. These characters that have no use, or could never support, massive upper body mass would also find it difficult to be limber and quick if they had that much mass. Still, plenty of characters are given these Mr. Olympia-like muscles in comic books. This isn't true of all the artists working in comics but rather occasionally by the more popular ones.

Japanese artists like Ikeno might turn to media like this to try and anticipate and recreate our aesthetics. His observations and interpretations would be validated by placing his designs side-by-side with heroes from our popular genres.

I believe that the reason the designs of the characters featured grotesque and disproportionate muscles were due to assumptions. Primarily because the Japanese were attempting to capture an American, comic book, ideal figure. Unfortunately the Japanese are not known for illustrating characters with muscle definition in mind. Going all the way back to the early days of anime and manga art, the emphasis was on characters designed with story, style and ability as the selling points. Realism, rather than reality, seemed to be the most important tradition carried over to popular and current manga. The figures featured in these series' did not typically have the large muscles or skin-tight fitting clothes. Asking a Japanese artist to beef up a character model might lead to strange proportions that are unnatural and inflated, rather than based on anatomical possibilities.

The characters in SF IV did not have to turn out so grotesque and disproportionate even if they were designed with 3D in mind. While Capcom and DIMPS were working out the look of the SF IV models, there was another 3D fighting game in development. It too was looking to use a few of the iconic SF characters, licensed from Capcom. The concept art for Korea's Perfect KO showed a completely different approach. One that we were expecting in the new character designs but didn't see. Perhaps because they were uncertain whether we would like the traditional, anime, influence or not. I showed my brothers and friends the concept art and asked them which style they would have preferred, the swollen characters or the more stylized designs? They unanimously agreed that the Perfect K.O. art was what they always envisioned that SF characters should look like, especially in 3D.

It turned out that the 3D models themselves for both games weren't that far removed from the concept art. While SF IV designs got brutish and thick, the Perfect K.O. models seemed far more appropriate. They looked more consistent with the established characters and yet still provided a unique presentation. The Perfect K.O. models did not concede a thing to the west. They stayed true to their roots and I believe would have been embraced by audiences here as well.

The concessions made for SF IV, specifically the overly muscular characters might be deemed odd by Japan. The country has a "unique" take on muscle culture. They equate mass muscle, especially guys in posing shorts, with a certain level of silliness, if not overt homosexuality. They don't have a tradition of muscular heroes in pop culture. The idea of super buff guys showing off their muscles is not seen as narcissistic behavior as much as gay behavior. Muscular guys had been lampooned on popular media but first got exposure in he parody shooter Cho Aniki. How Japan feels about the swollen SF IV characters, especially the massive Gouken, I have no idea.

What if these concessions were made by Ikeno without realizing that he was plagiarizing himself? I've mentioned before that Bengus influenced the evolution of the SF characters as well as artists working at Capcom and even artists working abroad. The exaggerated proportions, huge muscles and and scale used by comic artists like Joe Maduera, Ed McGuinness and Humberto Ramos have their roots with Bengus. If Ikeno was basing his designs on comic book art he might have failed to recognize that our popular art and character design was inspired by Bengus and the Capcom staff. What our artists did was an interpretation of it, lacking the manga influence and history, these artists focused more on the proportions. Ikeno should have stayed true to his own style rather than having guessed the style that American audiences identified with. Like a copy of a copy the new character illustrations were akin to a manga artist drawing western comic book proportions inspired by Japanese videogame design. We lost a lot in translation.

The problem for many developers had been in trying to bring the 2D world into 3D without losing the artistic style that made many of these games memorable. The challenge for the designers was in trying to create characters that have as broad appeal an appeal as possible no matter what format they were presented in. This was an uphill battle because tastes in Japan and the US were so vastly different. Even with the internet making media accessible and influencing artists and designers around the world, there were still many elements that each nation preferred to see. Things that mainstream culture from one country finds cool and inspired another would find laughable. Physically strong characters look great to Americans yet they seem silly to Japanese. Conversely, stylish men, with feathery hair and androgynous features were the epitome of cool in Japan. These aesthetics were a reflection of different cultures.

It was up to designers to determine the look of the characters for a specific game and make them appealing on multiple levels. These artists were responsible for not only coming up with the art and styling, but also trying to invent an "impossible" universal aesthetic. Making things harder was a dip in the appeal of fighting games after the late 90's. 2D technology was becoming dated and the process of creating sprites was deemed inefficient by publishers. Artists had to approach the creation of a new character with many things in mind. How the character looked from multiple angles, how muscular they were. How their clothing fit and flowed, what their color pallet would be. Just about everything that an animation director would provide a team of animators in order to build a sprite that was consistent with the artists' original vision.

These things slowed down the development process. A character had to fit the scale with rivals, work well with the engine and allow room to work around. The tiniest design change meant that dozens, if not hundreds of sprites had to be recreated by hand. Further confounding the issue were questions of a sprite's life-span. Sprites created for one game did not always carry over onto subsequent games. Their lack of frames compared to newer games made the sprites feel dated. Due to the cost associated with sprite development many publishers closed down their sprite-based wings, including Capcom. Only independent studios (seemingly) could still pursue new sprite-based fighting games. 3D was faster, easier and more cost effective to program in so publishers that hadn't already begin making fighting games in that format began making the switch.

Artists that had were highly influential in 2D did not seem to have the same impact with 3D models. All of the nuances that each designer had brought to 2D seemed homogenized in polygon form. But what exactly was it that made some 3D fighters succeed where others failed? Which format was the preferred one for Street Fighter and what did the future hold for the franchise. These questions will be explored in the following blog.

Hello friends, today is a special day. This month we are celebrating Arcadia magazine's 10th Anniversary! Today I will also be celebrating the legacy of my favorite Japanese gaming magazine, Gamest. While this doesn't mean much to the majority of the visitors here, Arcadia represents a very important connection to gaming history. To use a corny phrase, it is one of the few magazines that keeps its fingers on the pulse of videogaming. There are many magazines that can claim to be genuine but Arcadia has a focus on the arcade industry. After 10 years following a supposedly "dead" industry Arcadia has shown that the market has never been more diverse and exciting. Arcadia is the spiritual successor to Gamest magazine, considered to be the best arcade gaming magazine of the 90's. Many of the same writers, artists and editors that contributed to the original Gamest, started up Arcadia when publisher Shinseisha went belly-up in 1999.

 

I cannot say that I have been following Arcadia all 10 years. I only found out about it in 2002, three years after getting my last issue of Gamest. I collected Arcadia on and off for a few years and then finally got around to getting a subscription back in 2004 - 2005. I haven't missed an issue since. So what makes this magazine so special? Why do I have such fond memories of Gamest when many great magazines, like EGM and Next Generation, have also come and gone?

 

To be fair I do have my fair share of other videogame magazines. Like many of you I started on EGM back in the day. Sadly I ended up throwing away the first 150 issues or so because of water damage. I grew up on the insight and wit of people like Ed Semrad, Martin Alessi, Sushi-X and the Quarterman. Throwing away those classics was a heartbreaker, believe me but I was fortunate enough to have discovered Japanese gaming magazines in the early 90's. My friends and brothers learned that the real industry standard was the Weekly Famitsu. We would make treks to Japanese bookstores in Downtown LA. The same stores that we had discovered Dragon Ball Z also taught us to appreciate the nuances in Japanese gaming mags.

 

I was amazed that Famitsu could publish a magazine twice as thick as EGM every week. Writers and editors worked in shifts and created content at a manic pace. Perhaps that is why I write as often as I do, they created an example of how tireless game journalists had to remain. I rarely had money to buy an issue but poured over them every chance I could. I did the same for the dozens of other arcade, PC and console mags that came out in the 90's. A few of these magazines I still have and take good care of. They are all like time capsules. You can learn a lot about the gaming scene, hardware evolution, artistic direction and publishing strategy by going through these magazines.

 

It wasn't until I discovered Gamest that my love for gaming mags really took off. I had gotten my first issue of Gamest in 93. I was of course a fan of fighting games and wanted to see the latest happenings from Japan. My main motivation was to score exclusive art that never seemed to be printed in any western mag. Gamest delivered that and much more. It was a primer on game journalism from a Japanese POV. The magazine was loaded with highly detailed previews and features, on occasion some fantastic posters as well. High scores and tournaments were covered, while fan art and letters got a few pages. All of that was very similar to American magazines. The differences were more intriguing.

 

The writers would review fan manga or doujin inspired by game characters. The idea of an industry that supported fan work was fascinating. Try publishing a comic dedicated to the X-Men without Marvel's permission and see what happens. Advertisers ranged from developers and publishers to arcades and game stores, including those that sold arcade boards and joysticks. Gamest also ran special columns for developers. Yoshiki Okamoto from Capcom had his own section to talk about the happenings at the studio and get readers hyped on upcoming games. Manga serials, like Sakura Ganbare and Ryu Final, would get featured in the magazine, as well as the sister manga titled Gamest Comics. Manga artist Mine Yoshizaki even created a mascot character for Gamest named Minty, her adventures were told over four-panel gag comics. He also contributed art for the magazine for features that lacked official character pieces. Shinseisha was not content publishing printed material. They had a goods section that featured telephone cards (before trading cards became hot), dinnerware, posters and even clothing based on popular games. In the new year all of the studios would send cards to be published bearing wishes to the magazine and readers. Some of the rarest game art turns up in these official pieces. Can you imagine how different the arcade industry would have been in the USA if they had seen the same amount of support from the magazines?

 

Gamest was very good at setting the standard. Unfortunately they were not perfect. A look at their covers through the 90's showed some of their short-sightedness. Almost all of the covers and features from that era were based on fighting games. While they were hot in the 90's they weren't the only viable genre in arcades. Shinseisha had stretched itself too thin and when the publishing industry felt a recession they closed shop. Despite the popularity of their merchandise, mooks (strategy books), magazine and manga's, the publisher could not stay afloat. When they shut down in 1999 it was the end of an era and I was more heartbroken then than when EGM closed its doors.

 

Some of the contributors went on to work at Enterbrain! and Studio Bent Stuff. The core of the Gamest staff founded Arcadia via Enterbrain moments after Gamest closed. Enterbrain was not going to publish a monthly with as much content as the old Gamest. The market couldn't support it. The new magazine was lean and mean. Publishers were responsible for paying for supplements and posters. There were no manga titles published in the middle of the magazine and the goods section was limited to promotional prizes by the publishers plus any new books by Enterbrain. Interviews and features were spread across the board. Fighting games did not dominate the covers. Rhythm-games, racers, sims, robot, SHUMP and card titles all had equal billing.

 

The magazine even went through a few facelifts in the past decade. Originally it was read right-to-left like traditional Japanese magazines, with the front cover on what we consider to be the back. In 96 they changed the format to western and went left to right with the cover where Americans would expect it to be. Unfortunately the cover font was switched to Japanese. In June 2009 the layout changed once more and the English title returned to the cover.

 

Arcadia will probably never recapture the glory days of Gamest but that is not the purpose. It has to survive during these times and show the world that the arcade scene is still alive and well. On occasions we get glimpses of those old days. Arcade legends like Capcom, Namco, Konami and Sega still find the time to send new years cards to the magazine. Covers featuring exclusive art, a detailed booklet, an amazing poster and now even DVD previews. Enterbrain recently printed a tee shirt that read Gamest Generation, in kanji it reads "Find Out For Yourself." The purpose of this blog is to let you know just that. Subscribers of Arcadia know that the legacy is closer to 20 years in history. Even though the overall page count is down from Gamest, the quality of the content has never been higher.

 

While scanning content for this blog I was also helping a young man in my computer lab with his homework. He was a GameStop employee that lived and breathed videogames. He mentioned that he had never played the original Street Fighter II and that SF IV was selling out in his store. He didn't understand why it was so popular, or why it was an important series. He noticed the Japanese magazines I was scanning in and wondered what Gamest was all about. I told him that the magazines were probably older than him. He got a laugh out of that.

 

SF II was 17 years old and those that grew up on it were now adults, they had nothing but fond memories of the series and were eager to rekindle those experiences. I explained that the games and magazines were very closely related in the 90's. EGM in the states and Gamest in Japan helped shape the canon of Street Fighter as much as Capcom had. Because of this relationship between the publishers and magazines fans could read about the characters and universe when they weren't playing the games. These stories were published a decade before Udon had gotten the rights for the Street Fighter comic.

 

He was amazed that I had taken so much care of the magazines and that I was sharing this slice of history with the online crowd. I told him that people in the US should appreciate the contributions of Gamest and Arcadia. Magazines and websites here should strive to create content that lives up to that standard. I know that I will always push to give my work that same level of dedication.

 

Hello friends, I am on a mask kick this time. The whole El Fuerte thing still weighs heavy on my mind. Capcom had a chance to create a memorable character with respect to the lucha libre traditions in Mexico. Instead they decided to come up with a personality gimmick first and then slap a mask on the character without fully understanding the culture of lucha libre. Capcom seemed fascinated with the concept of a fighting chef, rather than the concept of a luchador. The pants, and neckerchief always denoted cook. The early concept mask had a knife and a fork logo on either side of it They might not have known much about lucha libre aside from masks with colorful images but honestly, this was the best enmascarado they could come up with?

It is possible that the designers had no idea that masked warriors have been a part of Mexican identity for centuries, extending far back into the Pre-Columbian world. They might not have known that some villages have a tradition of wrestling in jaguar costumes for centuries. Or that centuries after the Caballeros Aguilas, folklore created the tradition of combatants wearing tiger / jaguar masks. These masked rituals predated the masked wrestling tradition that we now call lucha libre. If only Capcom had invested just a little bit more time and energy finding out about the culture rather than basing a character on assumptions and focusing so heavily on the cooking gimmick then maybe he would have had as much staying power as the original world warriors. At the very least they might have made El Fuerte less like Sega's El Blaze and more akin to King from Tekken.

A masked character can be filled with tremendous potential. Gamers and designers can put their own interpretations on these characters and make them as grand or as silly as they need to be. Capcom does not always have to spell out what makes these characters tick. Things like carrying a frying pan into battle betray the purpose of the character. Capcom used to be much better at realizing that. The mask itself is a great tool for artists and designers in fighting games. It gives us the luxury of playing into the unknown. It allows us to interpret the purpose and origins of the character without Capcom telling us. Who is this character and why do they hide their face? We should always want to find out more.

Capcom used to know what to do with masked characters. They were exceptional at designing them and giving them purpose without resorting to silly gimmicks. From time-to-time other studios were able to do one better than Capcom by placing a mask over a familiar template. Today we will go over some of the best "unknown" characters from Street Fighter history and see how the mask motif was used.

The enigmatic clawed protagonist has been part of SF lore for over 20 years. Geki the ninja predated Balrog (sorry, I use the Japanese names) by a few years. Ninjas are inherently cool characters to begin with. Their true face is rarely known, their techniques and fighting style secretive while their methods of assassination have been romanticized in manga, anime and film. There is little that a designer has to do in order to make a ninja fit into the SF universe. Assassins make for interesting characters and can be perceived as awesome fighters. Balrog took the concepts of the ninja in a radically different direction. The Spanish bullfighter made ripples in the game community as the premier assassin for Shadowlaw. Turning him into one of the elite bosses. He had been wearing a mask in order to protect his face, rather than to protect his identity. The large tattoo, bright clothes and ornate claws made him stand out. This look served to be the opposite of what ninjas were striving for. In the case of Balrog it worked to his favor and made him an example of imaginative masked character design.

Changing the purpose and origins of an ethnic identity with a mask turned out to be a good tool for character design. Sodom was a mish-mash of samurai armor and western clothing. This culture clash design made sense in the game and in canon. Sodom was not a very mentally stable character, his obsession with Japanese culture made him take up the helmet and motif of a modern day warrior. Gamers could tell these things when he first appeared in Final Fight and his reputation was cemented in the Alpha / Zero series. He lacked the skills with Japanese language and traditions thus making him even more obtuse. Yet it was that odd sense that made him unique. Gamers do not know and will probably never know his true face and origin. That air of mystery keeps him interesting.

If Capcom were to play the armor serious then they could still have a memorable character. Garuda was a man possessed by an evil force or something else, it was never fully explained. It never had to be spelled out either in order to make him interesting. His armor was a grotesque version of actual samurai armor. The mask, helmet and shoulder pads oozed personality. In a similar way they had done the same thing with the character Bishamon in Darkstalkers / Vampire. Designers at Capcom and ARIKA were able to turn a character that should have been antiquated into one of the most memorable bosses ever. They did so by playing up the unknown aspect, never revealing his true face or purpose and leaving in enough clues to make gamers think that demons could indeed be walking among the Street Fighters.

The masks featured in SF have not always been used to completely cover a face. When used properly even a half-mask could make a person seem more interesting than a full mask. Such was the case for Doctrine Dark from the EX series. His military stylings and origin were created to parallel the military legends from the SF universe, Rolento and Guile. The differences between the styles of fighting that all three soldiers used were in stark contrast with each other. Although D. Dark used trip wire and explosives like Rolento, neither played exactly the same or at all like Guile. The differences between their fighting styles were comparable to how Ryu and Makoto differed in karate. Giving D. Dark a mask helped him stand out among the military characters as Guile already had wild hair and Rolento had both a scar and red beret to make them memorable.

Q was a mystery overkill. He did not dress or move like a fighter. A suit, trench-coat, mask and hat were the polar opposite of the classic designs that had previously been used in SF. An attempt to make him seem unique and mysterious backfired, leaving many gamers confused as to his origins and purpose. Those that grew up on Japanese TV shows saw similarities between him and heroes like Robot Keiji. Sure the character was great for TV but in a fighting game the robotic mannerisms and grunts simply did not belong. But did this mean that henshin or tokusatsu characters couldn't fit into SF lore?

There was a fine balance between characters inspired by Japanese programming and those that could work in SF. Skullomania was even more outlandish than Q but he worked for several reasons. Players could tell this was a person in a costume with outlandish moves, clearly pretending to be a hero. He did not move or behave like a robot or try to create a false sense of mystery. This was just an oddball that broke up the consistency in the series similarly to Dhalsim or Blanka. However even this formula could be pushed too far. A powerful villain named Shadowgeist pushed the themes explored by Skullomania beyond their limits. The person in the costume was large, strong and wore a cape, akin to Vega (again, the Japanese name) and powered through the levels without rhyme or reason. He was neither a parody nor homage to Japanese programming but trapped in a sort of mix between comic book and tokusatsu ideology. He was unique to play but like Q, he had little staying power.

The hardest type of mask to pull off is done in plain sight. Dan, Ibuki and Cracker Jack are three characters that have been presented in various stages of subtle secrecy. Before Dan's origin and purpose were written into canon Capcom kept his look under wraps. They couldn't decide if he should look more like Robert or Ryo from the Art of Fighting, so they kept his face partly covered in the earliest character art. This lack of detail made him seem mysterious. Gamers couldn't wait to try him out and find out his origin. Ibuki succeeds as a ninja because she at least tries to keep her face covered. She respects part of her ninja tradition, yet as an inexperienced fighter she is also eager to relax once in a while and pull down her mask. These little personality quirks go a lot further than bringing a frying pan into battle.

Cracker Jack has long sideburns and a hat. You would think that gamers know his facial features after three games. However neither ARIKA or Capcom have ever released official art showing his profile. His hat is always pulled low and head is usually turned away, even in the game, so that players can never really get a good look at him. Hiding behind a hat and hair is a very clever way to mask a character. It is a disguise worn in plain sight. It allows gamers to speculate on why he is so secretive and what is his purpose.

I firmly believe that if the designers at Capcom think they are running out of ideas then perhaps they should revisit the use of a mask. For example, in the earliest designs of Dhalsim he was presented as some sort of elephant-masked character. This was quite silly and insulting to the Hindu religion, which venerates an elephant-headed deity known as Ganesha. Not that a stretchy-limbed yoga master was any more sensitive to the culture... They kept the elephant themes throughout the various stages and endings of Dhalsim in SF but not on the man himself. Capcom wisely ditched the mask and ornaments and made a memorable character by simplifying his look. Could the mask have worked if they revised the look and purpose of an Indian fighter?

What if Capcom had taken a more massive character, a wrestler like Darun Mister and then had combined the masked elephant theme to him? Capcom had already incorporated the proud Indian elephant into his championship belt design. A lot would have been lost if the facial features of Darun could not be compared to that of Zangief, yet I cannot deny that if done right a mask could have worked on Darun and have fit into SF continuity. Perhaps he would have looked something like Shouten from the parody shooter Cho Aniki.

Shouten is large and bulky like Darun, carries the classic elephant theme and makes for an interesting wrestling character. Those familiar with fighting games could interpret that this masked wrestler was a play on King from Tekken fame. Sure they had a speedy jaguar in their game but he was nowhere near as regal or intimidating as an elephant. This masked character could have served as a worthy rival to Zangief without being a stereotypical masked wrestler. Thankfully ARIKA modeled their character after the Great Gama. Whose influence, looks and larger-than-life exploits made him a perfect balance for Zangief.

This should not stop Capcom from exploring their options. Great masked characters are out there, some of which would work in SF and can be considered a different way of approaching a specific archetype. Since I am a huge fan of wrestling then some of the comparisons are more obvious than others. T. Hawk and Tizoc are two characters that could have been based on the same template. A slight change in the design approach, a new way of looking at the characters gave SNK somebody more memorable than most of the wrestlers in fighting games.

A mask does not an enmascarado make. Like karate was a fighting culture that embodied traditions and philosophies so too did lucha libre. Had Ikeno and company invested a little more time understanding the history and traditions then perhaps El Fuerte could have been an even more iconic character. Capcom should be mindful of how they use masks for their character designs. A character that lacks a certain spark might be made better if given a mask, or a hint of mystery. It allows players to assume the role of their character more easily. After all, how many of us claim to play a "godly" Ken or a "beastly" Zangief? This is because we play through the characters and the more that they leave open to interpretation the easier it is to relate to them.

 

A character that lacks a lot of details, visual cues and origin myth can be adopted easier into canon and the series than a poorly designed martial artist. There have been several "blank" templates used through the years that incorporate the moves of other characters. 12 from SF III, the Cyborg from the rarely-seen SF II anime movie game and the Cycloids from the EX series. These all predated the creation of Seth. I believe the Cycloids and Cyborg to have fit better into the titles because they borrowed openly from in-game moves. 12 instead moved and behaved like an anime character and could suddenly transform into a character he was facing. This connection was strained and had nothing to do with fighters or the series at all.

Perhaps the next Street Fighter game might make better use of the masked character. Capcom has been making some of the best mystery characters for decades. Many of which have already been featured in the SF series. Of course it wouldn't hurt them to also recognize the contributions from rival studios and learn from them as well. Masks have been part of human history since the dawn of culture. In the martial arts they take on a place of great distinction. Tengu masks, ninja hoods and samurai helmets, they defined the earliest characters and are due to make a return. After all, aren't you curious to see what could have become of those devil-masked ninjas from Hokuto's ending in Street Fighter EX?