Fighting Games

[gunswordfist]

But Capcom has changed!....

[Spark Of Spirit]

It took until MvC3 for Haggar to get into a fighting game when Guy and Cody have been in the SF series since Alpha 1 and Alpha 3 respectively. It's fairly strange since he is the main character of the entire series of Final Fight. I would actually like if they added a character or two from FF2 and 3 since those games don't get near the attention they deserve.

Don't worry, GSF. Even if they don't make the initial roster, we have at least three or four re-releases to look forward to which may add them. It wouldn't be a Capcom product, otherwise.

They do have to add in all the missing SFII, SFIV, and SFA characters, of course. Oh, and one or two SFIII ones.

[gunswordfist]

More than 1 or 2.  IV only had 7 SF III characters.

[gunswordfist]

FUCK...YEAH!!

[Spark Of Spirit]

Hah, we were talking about crossover fighting games for shonen compaines before and this one apparently crosses over both Shonen Sunday and Weekly Shonen Magazine. It's a PSP game, but still. It happened.

The full roster. It's actually a pretty good roster. Though there are two characters that should be there more than certain others, in my opinion.

Spoiler

Ginji and Tora, specifically. Those are two of the highest selling series for both companies.

[close]

[gunswordfist]

Amazing find! I am not sure how they can leave out one character ho's in the freaking title of a series though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So Joe Yabuki is featured in a crossover fighting game after all!

Seeing that roster makes me realize that I haven't read a whole lot of WSM. I'm familiar with almost all of the Sunday caracters, but not too much from WSM's line-up. I do recognize the Fairy Tale characters, but haven't actually bothered to touch that series. No Eikichi Onizuka is especially strange to me. With all of the spin-offs he's starred in, the character is one of the most popular and iconic from that entire magazine, and SJG and GTO are among its most beloved properties, so you'd figure him to be an instant pick for a fighting game.

As for te rest of the roster, the fact that we have Ban but no Ginji and Ushio but no Tora absolutely baffles me. Both pairs are main character duos, with equivalent main character status to each other. Not to mention that Ginji's abilities arguably make him even more suited to a traditional style fighting game than Ban. I mean, Ban's a brawler so he fits, but his abilities don't directly apply to physical combat and would be hard to properly implement as a gameplay mechanic into a fighting game.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Onizuka is the weirdest omission. He starred in two tremendously popular manga (and still stars in spin-offs now) and is known as a delinquent brawler.

I'd personally replace a Kenichi and Air Gear character with Ginji and Tora and maybe add a character like Black Ghost/Skull Man simply to fill in two important slots at once with one of shonen's most important mangaka.

For those who just want a quick roster list:

Kaoru Akashi (Zettai Karen Children)
Hayate Ayasaki   (Hayate the Combat Butler)
Natsu Dragneel (Fairy Tail)
Lucy Heartfilia (Fairy Tail)
Yoshimori Sumimura (Kekkaishi)
Tokine Yukimura (Kekkaishi)
Negi Springfield (Negima!)
Itsuki Minami (Air Gear)
Ringo Noyamano (Air Gear)
Kenichi Shirahama (Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple)
Miu Furinji (Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple)
Kosuke Ueki (Law of Ueki)
Ippo Makunouchi (Fighting Spirit/Hajime no Ippo)
Mamoru Takamura (Fighting Spirit/Hajime no Ippo)
Ryo Takatsuki (Project: ARMs)
Shinichi Mechazawa (Chromartie High)
InuYasha (InuYasha)
Ban Midou (GetBackers)
Recca Hanabishi (Flame of Recca)
Demon Eyes Kyo (Demon Eyes Kyo)
Ushio Aotsuki (Ushio & Tora)
Kotaro Shindo (Kotaro Makaritoru!)
Yaiba Kurogane (Yaiba)
Akira Fudo (Devilman)
R. Ichiro Tanaka (Kyukyoku Chojin R)
Naoto Date (Tiger Mask)
Takizawa Noboru (Hono no Tenkosei)
Joe Shimamura (Cyborg 009)
Joe Yabuki (Ashita no Joe/Tomorrow's Joe)

They dug pretty deep with that roster. A couple missing that should have been there, but it was pretty well picked overall.

[VLordGTZ]

Joe Yabuki, Ushio, Takizawa, Devilman, and 009 all in the same game. 

Though, I find it strange that they didn't add a Detective Conan character especially since its Shonen Sunday's best selling series of all time. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Joe Yabuki, Ushio, Takizawa, Devilman, and 009 all in the same game. 

Though, I find it strange that they didn't add a Detective Conan character especially since its Shonen Sunday's best selling series of all time.

Well, the roster seems to be more geared towards combat-oriented characters.

As cool as the idea of this game is, I do have a feeling that it'd be pretty lackluster to play after the novelty of it wears off rather quickly. Much like J-Stars, I feel that you need a top-tier developer to really make a crossover fighting game work from a mechanical and technical standpoint.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Joe Yabuki, Ushio, Takizawa, Devilman, and 009 all in the same game. 

Though, I find it strange that they didn't add a Detective Conan character especially since its Shonen Sunday's best selling series of all time.

Yaiba fits more for this type of game. Though they could have had Conan be the announcer or something, that would have been cool.

But it was a fighter by Konami, so I doubt it was all too great. But it still would have been fun for the novelty alone.

[gunswordfist]

What? That Castlevania fighter was fucking fantastic!

[Rynnec]

As cool as the idea of this game is, I do have a feeling that it'd be pretty lackluster to play after the novelty of it wears off rather quickly. Much like J-Stars, I feel that you need a top-tier developer to really make a crossover fighting game work from a mechanical and technical standpoint.

Not only that, but crossover fighting games tend to do a lot better with the general crowd when they're made for arcades first. It's a whole lot easier for gamers who aren't fans of the franchises in question but want a solid fighter to try it out on an arcade cabinet.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

After playing SFV over the past few days with my older brother, I decided to switch back to SF4 for the sake of comparison. While it's too soon to say how SFV stacks up to SF4 in terms of gameplay mechanics, I can still give you my initial impressions between the strengths and weaknesses of both games.

To put it simply, SFV is a MUCH easier game to get the hang of in terms of learning the basics and pulling off combos. That doesn't mean that it's any easier to master, but I believe that it's actually a more fun game in terms of casual-level play. It's the type of game that I'd recommend to people who typically suck at fighting games and want to play something that isn't quite as daunting to learn (I say this as someone who utterly sucks at fighting games, myself). Yet, it's still very skill-based, so blind button-mashing will do little to nothing for you.

However, SF4, while much harder to learn even the basics of, feels much more rewarding once you start to really understand how an individual character works. It also feels like by trying to simplify the combat in SFV, SF4 has more options and more versatile combat in general. While I like the concept of the V-Skills/Triggers, I much prefer the Ultra combos from SF4, and I miss how there were two to pick from for each character. That to me felt like it added an extra layer of strategy to the fights.

A good example of the differences between SF4 and V is Vega. In the previous game he's a charge-based character with complex directional inputs making him hard to learn. But, after practicing with him for a few hours and starting to get the hang of his combat style, I have gained a newfound appreciation for the character and feel a deep satisfaction whenever I successfully pull off even one of his simpler combos, regardless of whether I'm winning or not. That said, I still largely suck at using him and lose more often than I win, but I feel encouraged to continue practicing with and learning the character to eventually get good at using him. On the flip side, he's now an input character in SFV, and so much simpler to use from the get-go. I can string together combos and even just use special attacks in general with far less effort than his SF4 version. He's a lot of fun, though ultimately it feels like something is missing from the character compared to the previous game. I may be having more fun with him in SFV right now, but I feel as though I'd eventually like him much better in SF4 after a lot more practice.

In short, I really love both games mechanically, but despite SF5 being more accessible, a part of me still prefers SF4 in terms of a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. And of course SF4 utterly dominates SFV in terms of content (so far).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, while I haven't played enough of Street Fighter III: Third Strike, which I'm sure that I'd love, for now, I have played enough of Street Fighter II, IV, and V to know that Ultra Street Fighter IV is my personal favorite of the series, as well as probably being my favorite fighting game ever in terms of the multiplayer component (Soul Calibur II is still the top-dog in terms of single-player content, though).

I really wish that we could get some licensed games with this style of combat, as I particularly love Street Fighter's trademark six-button system layout. It's packed with an insane amount of technical nuances and depth, while simultaneously having basics that are easy enough to grasp for newcomers who just want to have some fun and don't intend to play too seriously. My particular favorite characters to play as are Ryu/Evil Ryu (or pretty much all of the Shotos except for Dan and Oni), Seth, Guy, Chun-Li, and Ibuki. I'm also fairly decent with Vega (who's pretty much the only other charge character besides Chun-Li that I'm not absolutely horrible with), and Juri can be pretty fun to play as, though she also has too many weaknesses in my liking. There are a bunch of other characters that I enjoy playing as despite sucking with playing as them, and a few that I will never understand how to properly play with, but with a massive roster of 44 characters to pick from, there's always plenty of options available to any kind of player.

On another subject, I've enjoyed what I've played of Street Fighter X Tekken, despite its less than stellar reputation within the fighting game community. Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is by far the more preferred game, as can be seen by how many people signed up for those tournaments at past EVOs compared to SFXT. I also quite enjoy UVMC3, but I've never felt compelled to get good at it since it can be a pretty busted game with certain team combinations. Going back to the idea of a licensed crossover game, like Shonen Jump Vs. Capcom, while I'm in the minority in thinking this, I'd actually prefer more elements of SFXT's combat system to UVMC3's, though I'd like the art-style itself to be more like UVMC3 in terms of the kinds of vibrant character models that it uses, which would be more fitting for Shonen Jump characters than the style used in the Street Fighter-centered games (which I do like in its own context, though, just to be clear).