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The History of Street Fighter and Capcom
It goes without question that Street Fighter II completely revolutionized the fighting game genre, radically changing how we approached the 1v1 beat-em-up. But do you know how we got there?
Machinima has put together a fantastic web series that explores exactly that. It starts with the original Street Fighter where you could only play as Ken or Ryu, progressing to Street Fighter II and all its various iterations. Did you know that Final Fight was originally billed as Street Fighter ’89? Makes you wonder if that’s where SNK got the idea of naming its King of Fighters franchise based on different years… though Final Fight is hardly a “fighting” game.
Yes, the genre has grown to Super Street Fighter IV, Street Fighter X Tekken, and more, but you should always know about your roots. Selectable characters? Special moves? An actual backstory (ish)? Yeah, Capcom did that.
Street Fighter X Tekken Stage Easter Eggs
Capcom has always had a fun time with us when it comes to Easter Eggs and secrets. Even without getting into that whole Sheng Long business, you see little bits of fan service in the artwork that goes in the background. You’ve probably noticed Hugo in the background of SFIV’s construction stage.
Not surprisingly, they’re taking the same kind of fan service fun into Street Fighter X Tekken. There are plenty of things happening in the background of those stages with more than a few characters and gimmicks that you might recognize. Mecha-Zangief! Peep this video from Gamespot AU that highlights some of these cool Street Fighter X Tekken
PAX 2011 Impressions – Street Fighter X Tekken
So, while I was over in Seattle for PAX Prime 2011 last weekend, I had the opportunity to play some Street Fighter X Tekken at both the Mad Catz booth and at the Capcom booth. We’ve seen trailers and screenshots, but it’s another thing altogether to actually play the game.
True enough, the core gameplay feels pretty similar to what you’d expect from a normal Street Fighter game, but with some definite inspiration from the Tekken Tag sub-series of games. The EX and supers are in there, but the tag-in elements can get pretty creative with linking combos. Also like Tekken, you can do a lot of “air juggling” for the combos. Pacing isn’t quite as frantic as a “versus” game like MvC3, to be sure. I couldn’t remember how to do all the crossover moves, but those will be pretty easy to pick up after a few more matches.
I did find it odd that, like Tekken Tag Tournament, a round ends when just one partner dies; this is quite different from other Capcom “versus” games where all team members must lose all their health for the team to lose.
The graphics style isn’t like Street Fighter IV, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, or anything like that. The edging is “sharper,” if that makes any sense, with much harsher lines than the comparatively softer finish you get with SSFIV. The contrast is dialed up to 11 and there are plenty of exaggerated animations.
We suspect the character selection screen isn’t done yet and more characters will get introduced in the coming weeks. During my time at PAX, I played as Ibuki, Ryu (twice), Hugo, Raven, and Hworang. By far, Hugo was the most fun to play: almost Zangief-like complete with a SPD-like move.
As far as the special SFxT arcade tournament fight stick from Mad Catz, it felt not unlike the tournament edition stick that we already see with SFIV branding on it. The bold red finish on the plastic housing looks kinda cheap, if you ask me.
In any case, we’re expecting a March 2012 release date on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as well as the PlayStation Vita presumably in some slightly different form.
