Puzzle Fighter and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo in HD
The new Xbox 360 Live Arcade and PS3 versions of Puzzle Fighter and ST (aka Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo) were finally announced today, so I guess it's fair game to say that I've been working on them. I'm doing my best to look after the little details of each game to make sure its what the players really want.
These games will finally be online and they'll look a whole lot better than they ever did, but they'll keep the same good gameplay they always had. Udon is providing most of the art, which absolutely great.
Puzzle Fighter will also have a new rebalanced mode with different drop patterns and damage adjustments that hopefully make the whole cast of characters playable, rather than just Ken and Donovan.
It's too early to discuss any specific features of Street Fighter, but the tech and art are coming along. It probably seems like a simple affair from the outside to update these games, but it takes a lot of people to untangle the ancient secrets of Capcom programming, and make them work on a modern platform, with all the new features those platforms demand, and a lot of people to track down and redraw every little piece of art in the games.
I'll do my best to nudge everyone along the right directions on these projects as long as I'm at Backbone.
--Sirlin
April 14th, 2007 at 8:07 am
First! And HELL YEAH!
April 14th, 2007 at 8:13 am
This is really exciting news, I’m hoping we’ll get more releases like this through xbla in the future. Games like mvc2 can’t survive forever on old tech.
April 14th, 2007 at 8:33 am
But Sirlin, are you actually part of the team developing it?
April 14th, 2007 at 8:33 am
ST forever! Oh. And Capcom announced some other titles or whatever. ;P
April 14th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I was producer on Capcom Classics 1, Remixed, and 2, and now I’m on PF and SSF2T…so yes I’m on the team developing it.
April 14th, 2007 at 9:37 am
polarity: Nope, I have nothing for your fears. There are no new frames, and you get what you get. It’s not even remotely my call whether they would ship or not ship the game over the smoothness of animation. That would probably not even make it onto the radar as a “no ship” situation, and adding frames is beyond the scope of the project. It does seem like higher resolution will make it more of an issue, but I’m not sure if it will really will in practice. Maybe it will just not be that big of a deal though, we’ll see.
–Sirlin
April 14th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Will the current street fighter 2 on Xbox live be taken down or replaced with this new version?
April 14th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Agoaj: WHAAAT?
April 14th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I was really hoping that you’d have something to do with this. It’s great to know so many street fighter fans are on board to make sure that these games are top notch.
Also I can use the new version of puzzle fighter to help bait my girlfriend into letting me upgrade to this generation. Goodtimes :)
April 14th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
polarity: Different answers for Puzzle Fighter and Street Fighter on that one. We have greatly tinkered with the Puzzle Fighter screen layout. The net effect is that it ends up being widescreen, but with nothing stretched-looking, and nothing even really different looking. It’s just magically widescreen and will seem like it was designed that way.
For Street Fighter, there can be no such magic. Stretching the characters to widescreen would be a high crime to me, and changing the game to be widescreen is beyond the scope of the project and would lead to too much complaining about it being a different game anyway. So bottom line, the game will not be stretched at all and it will have some kind of decorative stuff on the sides. Perhaps we will give you an option to stretch the game to widescreen if you want to (but know that I will shed a tear if you do).
Back to Puzzle Fighter. Dealing with the aspect ratios of all the elements throughout the game has been nearly a full-time job in itself, at times. By the way, I have an amazing super power to detect when aspect ratios are wrong. I have quite a long track record of claiming that something is stretched slightly when others don’t think so, and having it turn out that I’m right. It happened just last week when something was 288 pixels wide and it looked wrong to me (but right to others). It turns out it was wrong, and it should have been 298.
Anyway, the aspect ratio issues surrounding Puzzle Fighter are dizzying, but they will all be solved (most are already). The game’s original pixels are wider than a 4:3 ratio (so random screenshots you see of it or other CPS1/2 games are all stretched too wide). But these pixels were somehow projected onto a 4:3 screen so they end up looking correct. This means when we extract assets, we’re dealing with stretched wide assets. But we would like to create normal looking assets rather than work in the “stretched assets space” if you get what I mean. To make matters worse, we took the original game’s pixels (wider than 4:3 but intended to be mashed into 4:3) and stretched them *even more* so that it became 16:9. Then, we replaced these really stretched elements with our new not-stretched art.
You probably didn’t follow that, and it gets even worse still. Remember how I said the original game’s assets are stored in a “stretched” form? Well, after studying the game for quite a while, I’m pretty convinced that there were some mistakes about aspect ratios there too. It’s kind of too much to go into (too late), but the point is that we can’t even uniformly tweak everything because a few things were wrong before we even started.
There’s an associate producer at Backbone who goes by the name MK, and I want you to know that he has gone to amazing lengths to help straighten all this crazy stuff out so that you, the player, won’t realize any of it was ever an issue at all. It will all just look natural.
–Sirlin
April 14th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
“The game’s original pixels are wider than a 4:3 ratio (so random screenshots you see of it or other CPS1/2 games are all stretched too wide). But these pixels were somehow projected onto a 4:3 screen so they end up looking correct.”
This obviously isn’t the norm for CPS-2 art assets…is it? Maybe the stretch was a way of dealing with different block sizes by only using one art asset per color (one large image file per color block, then scale it down in-game…I’m obviously more of an artist than a programmer here)? Then just stretching and shrinking that one red or green gem jpg/targa/gif/whateverformattheyused depending on what each block is doing in game? I’m just taking wild guesses here. Huge headache none the less I’m sure. Upres’ing from low res alone is never pretty. Let alone figuring out someone’s mindset for using wacky image sizes in the first place. =(
April 14th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
This is great news! I can’t wait for this! Although, now I’m hoping for a little more.
SF2 Wish list:
- I don’t care so much about being true to the original SSF2T - so I think an upgrade to that would be awesome. ie SSF2T+
- I’d love it if somehow there are new frames of animation to make the characters look absolutely fluid - better than sf3 (with the option to take them out for purists unlike myself). Or even better - have different animation (with the same timing) depending on what move is being canceled.
- Resampled CD quality music - not CPS2 music. I’m sure you’ll have more than a few volunteers who won’t mind doing a cover - over even remix the original music.
April 14th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
It’s cool that you’re going to be working on this port, sounds like it’s in good hands.
Any chance this will end up on the Wii? I’m guessing probably not, but I figured why not ask.
April 14th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
I am really curious about how all these sprites are going to fit into memory. Having hundreds (thousands?) of frames of animation in system memory/video memory at this resolution, is it even possible?
April 14th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Great thing, but please make it be ALL hand-drawn. Polygonal effects/fireballs/fire would ruin everything.
April 14th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
@David Sirlin
oh why no 15:9 widescreen ratio for SFIITurboHD if you go the high definition way
please port it like it should be done! 1080i/p only can be achieved with a “decorative”
bezel? I dont think so Mortal Kombat II allows you to stretch the ratio and that is acceptable for a game that costs 5us$ and is a simply port from the Arcades.
but Street Fighter II turbo in HD gets all the treatment sprites redesigned, redrawn backgrounds and endings and all that good stuff from a to z and you dont do a correct 16:9 mode full aspect ration WHY?
I will buy that game no matter what you do. If it ends up with ZERO animation redesign like you said before im fine with it. but I would be pissed cause everything is redone accept for the animations of the fighters wich are neccessary to do a superb remake of it-
The job is done when its done and if its not done correct its not done.
I hope this will be a great remake of the original and will lead to a real
next gen Street Fighter IV wich has the class of Street Fighter 3rd Strike
and the HD graphics of the future.
I hope that Capcom games will sell well on the Playstation Network so that we could see more and mainly new stuff extra developed for teh PSN Network maybe its more attractive to release Street Fighter IV for the Playstation Network then provide a physical copy of the in the “offline” stores arround the world.
A big fan of Capcom and the Street Fighter Series.
former
April 14th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Here’s hoping lag issues are smoothed out for ST. SFII Turbo would’ve required a revamping of my whole “style” I suppose in order to deal with the lag that I experienced. Couple that with people disconnecting if I won and it made for a disappointing situation. Finally, please try and make it so that the buttons are customizable. I nabbed a cheap DoA4 stick a year ago but couldn’t use it with UMK3 because the developers didn’t allow for controller customization.
April 14th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
make sure that people who disconnect get +1 on their loss record. If a person has connection problems they shouldn’t be playing online anyways. just make the game save with +1 loss before the match for both players and the winner gets -1 loss +1 win.
April 15th, 2007 at 12:35 am
oriku: Adding new frames would is a major technical undertaking because it means messing with how the code called the graphics. This would lead to unexpected problems which would take time to fix. Plus, it would cost more even more for new art. Capcom decided to stick with a smaller scope, and not mess with the original game.
Nhexima: Why *isn’t* there a Wii version? I don’t make these decisions, so not much good in asking me.
Zinac: This is a major technical problem. Through clever use of compression/decompression, we’re trying to solve this. I predict that this issue will be solved without much trouble though. Supporting different costume colors without palletization is also a major issue. Still working on it.
former: 16:9 is standard widescreen. 1080p is 1920×1080. 15:9 is some bastard thing that computer monitors do. None of that matters anyway to this discussion. You asked why you would be able to stretch the image to fill a widescreen, but I specifically said above that we will probably give you that option (and it would make me cry if you used it because it’s total ass to stretch a game that way, but sure go ahead if you want). Changing the actual game to have a wider playfield is a) a major technical undertaking which would lead to bugs that will take more time to fix, and b) not wanted by lots of players because it would change the gameplay. Running away would be better, getting in on O.Sagat would be harder, and so on and so on. The mandate is to keep the same gameplay.
Ryan: I cannot yet promise you that the online will be awesome because it’s too early. But I think it is pretty safe to promise that it will be a lot better than SF:Hyper Fighting on 360. I keep telling everyone that minimizing input delay is more important than maintaining a contstant game speed. Meanwhile, Mortal Kombat 2 (just shipped by our company, I had zero to do with it) has 6 frames of constant input delay (bad) but should be very good about keeping a constant game speed (good). I would much rather get that input delay down to 1 or 2 or maybe 3 frames at most, and sometimes play the game in slow motion if lag spikes happen. DOA does this to good effect, and though it’s not great, it’s the lesser evil compared to more input delay or more flickering around to re-sync. I just hope my message is heard because I think some people think that only the tiny hardcore market would care about reducing input delay, but that the larger market cares more about constant game speed. I personally disagree, and DOA is a solid example of what works, in my opinion.
fidgheo: Yeah, we have to put a stop to dirty disconnectors. I think we should stick pretty close to the Microsoft / Bungie suggestions on TrueSkill. In that, disconnecting is treated as a loss (if I remember right) and also treated as a “disconnect”. Treating at a loss prevents certain exploits, and treating also as a “disconnect” allows extreme offenders to be locked out of creating matches and eventually banned. I haven’t actually mentioned this stuff to anyone yet, but yeah it’s important to handle disconnecting right, as we saw with the SF:HF 360 debacle.
–Sirlin
April 15th, 2007 at 12:38 am
Great news. I can hardly wait to play ST online (HF never was my cup of tea).
April 15th, 2007 at 1:51 am
@Sirlin
Sorry Sirlin that was a typo I meant 16:9 and not 15:9 ;)
I understand your wish to keep the gameplay in the 90’s
and put the graphics in the next century. Thats Ideology
Im pleased to see another Street Fighter II with updated graphics.
I also bought the Udon Comics which have a superb artstyle!
You said on the techsite its not possible to do a SFII with a framerate
that can keep up to games like Guilty Gear or even Street Fighter III.
So on with a 16:9 mode wich would break the original gameplay of the game.
Personally I would love to see this game to be Super Street Fighter II with updates graphics, updated framerates and updated gameplay. What I want you to do is Super Street Fighter II HD with the gameplay of Street Fighter 3rd Strike. This is my wish and the wish of many others besides a NEW SF IV thats far away and everone who wants to see this game, has to buy Super Street Fighter II HD Remix.
What you are doing is putting Street Fighter in the position of some kind holy grail, with respecting its solid gameplay wich is not perfect but near to perfect but in fact that gameplay was meant to be in the 90s todays videogames are fast and bright.
Games Like Guilty Gear XX and co are fast and have the graphics but in my opinion
dont have the gameplay. But to get straight to the point Street Fighter IIs gameplay is outdated.
In the year 1999 Capcom released Street Fighter III 3rd strike and SNK the game Garou / Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves both have FAST and Solid gameplay. Fast in terms of new block system and parry that allows to perform thrilling matches that are fast and tactical possibilities.
A Turbo option doesnt do anything. The gamespeed has to be tweaked that way that the game itselfs run in a fast way that provides fast and tactical matches.
[WISH]
Whats with the Supers? The specialattacks will they be redrawn and have maybe a comic like effekt like when Kens doing his Kick Superspecial the picture zoomes in and a comicpatch shows up which shows his face and he tell something to his opponment like (die in hell or YATAZEE) dont know that would be neat.
even Superspecial effects could be redown in a comicway
[/WISH]
For gods sake im happy with hearing that another Street Fighter is coming but I want after that game a new and truely redesigned Street Fighter that makes use of 16:9 and Full HD like so many other fans out there. Why dont outsource the animationphasing to Capcom Korea or Arika or so on? Why? Why dont put some more money on this game and price it for 29,99 on Playstation Network / Live Arcade?
Im sure 2D games need to be comeback NOW.
best wishes from germany,
former
April 15th, 2007 at 2:11 am
former: You sound like kind of a jackass to me. I’ll respond anyway. You are attacking my “ideology” when there is no ideology. Capcom asked that we keep the gameplay the same. We are keeping it the same. How does this have anything to do with my ideology? Capcom also would have to pay more money and spend more time to change the playfield width, so maybe they made their decision on those grounds alone. There is a schedule and a budget and a signed contract that all allow for new art assets, but no time or resources for major undertakings like messing with playfield. Even if all the above weren’t true, I’m sure that more room to run away is taking gameplay into the next century. To really make a wider playfield better (rather than *worse*) we should also change the range of moves, distance that moves travel, etc. Way, way beyond the scope of what’s asked for, paid for, and allowed.
Regarding supers, I suggested that we zoom in during them, but Capcom Japan said that this project can’t change the basic feel of the game, and that includes no zoom in during supers.
You seem to vastly misunderstand what this project is about and who decided what. It would be nice if Capcom said “Make any game you want, go.” Instead, they said “Put new art into SSF2T, make it online, and make it conform to 360/PS3 standards.” There is no time, budget, or authorization to do things outside that scope. This is what they asked for, so we’ll do the best job we can at delivering that. You and I can wish for a lot more, but I guess we’ll have to settle for what will merely be the best-selling XBLA game of all time.
–Sirlin
April 15th, 2007 at 2:55 am
excuse me I didnt thought about that you have to stay by the standards of the main game Capcom developed severeal years ago.
Capcoms royalties arent yours. So im sorry but I wouldnt sound anyway like a person that hates what you do or what you forced to do in the future with that budget you get from Capcom USA or Japan?
let me please explain what I want you to do if you had the authorisation / freehand on the gamestyle to do it that way you should do it in my opinion as a fan that want. to see SFII going straight to the future of 2D gaming.
the aspect ratio 16:9 dont have to do anything that affects the gameplay.
for example http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/1802/sfiihdil0.jpg
that little crappy picture I “drawn”.
theirs no need to scroll horicontal. only vertical if Ken or another SF charakters doing a shoryuken or a DP move only vertical scrolling is neccesary. as for the startpoints of Player 1 and 2 they still can stand on the spot they stood ages ago.
the only thing that has to be redrawn from the start are the charakters wich have to belong in 16:9 thats some tough work, collisiontreatment and everything else stays the same, animationphases could be outsourced.
that was my point.
but like you said you dont getting that money to do that hard work wich is neccesary to put the game tottally in nextgen and perform an oustanding developer performence which needs manpower and of course the money, you wont get.
if, when and then that dont counts. I think you will do a great job, im not a developer neither im knowing the priorities Capcom has but they should atleast invest some money in a good remake of Street Fighter II. And once and for all develop a new Street Fighter that compares to the quality of Street Fighter III 3rd Strike.
As for the online treatment there could be two variations. one that runs the games that you describe smooth and fun to play. The other option that should be included is for the hardcores that want to play some serious matches and maybe have the internet conection to perform a match wich could be played as it was an offline 2 player game.
Once more I dont want to sound like a idiot or someone who thinks he could do it better if he actually have the position your in. Thats just my wishes.
Hope you dont misunderstand that reply. :(
once again best wishes,
former
April 15th, 2007 at 3:41 am
I second the requests for (1) configurable controls, (2) counting disconnects as losses and (3) NOT including 3D effects (they’d just ruin the beautiful handdrawn feel).
Keeping the gameplay intact (frames, priorities, playing field size etc.) is not only necessary (i.e. required by Capcom), but highly desirable. If someone wants a fast, ‘modern’ fighting game, there’s plenty of choice (whether 2D or 3D). The key to this project is delivering the mother of all “enhanced” classics on XBLA (and Home or whatever).*
Also kudos for planning to go for low input delay over smooth play.
*Though I’d personally pay full price for this, too.
Rock on!
April 15th, 2007 at 4:10 am
former: I looked at your picture, and that set-up _would_ affect gameplay. This is because characters that can wall-jump (Chun-Li, for instance) will not be able to perform them as easily, because they will need to be near the edge of the arena, not just the edge of the screen. It might also reduce the effect of parallax, which I think looks good (not gameplay-related, obviously).
April 15th, 2007 at 4:12 am
Hal: There will absolutely be configurable controls. The chances of you getting your other two requests is incredibly high.
former: Hal said it well above. I would like to make a new game that doesn’t have any of these restrictions, introduces entirely new features, new control schemes, etc. We’ll see what the future holds.
As for this project, I still don’t understand your 16:9 comment (nice picture though). Even using your idea, the characters could back away from each other and end up farther apart than is possible in the original game. This lets O.Sagat keep you out even more, makes it even harder for Zangief and Honda to get in, etc. Seems like this would skew the balance to a worse state. As I said before, we could fix that by making it a little easier to get close with Zangief and so on, but now that’s changing how the moves work, which is too big of a change to be an “update of a classic.”
I guess *maybe* we could put that mode in anyway and let the balance end up however it does, and have another option that’s 4:3 gameplay. Then you’d need separate leaderboards and rankings for each mode though, which is kind of messy and strange. I’m guessing Capcom would prefer to make a completely new game that’s designed for widescreen, rather than this though.
–Sirlin
April 15th, 2007 at 4:28 am
@lukescp
good point Chun Li and Vega (Balrog in JP) would lose their wall-jump
didnt think of that . ok im not that big Chun Li / Vega player I didnt think
of that possabilitie. the effect of paralex could be down if the arenas
would done larger but that also wont happen cause the game has to stay
in the gameplay parameters Capcom allows.
Capcom Japan sold the Street Fighter rights to Capcom U.S.A.
but they still want Cap usa to stay original in terms of gameplay/style.
I cant understand why. New gameplay tweaks would be great.
Many people want to see a SF II redone with new sprites and new moves
and such stuff and Capcom Japan is simply against this?
Are they actually afraid that the game is selling?
Look I have bought many Street Fighters for different systems SNES/GBA/Saturn/Dreamcast I Have even an Sega Astro City
with the original Street Fighter III 3rd strike CPSIII game.
No demand for a complete redone Street Fighter II?
wich also contains besides new graphics and sprites or animationphases
a tweak in the gamespeed and influences from 3rd Strike or other 2D fighters?
Yes that wouldnt be the original Street Fighter II but arent we tired of getting
everytime the same old SFII but this time with atleast new graphics but
the same 20 year old animationphases.
If thats Capcoms decission its a bad decission. I hope this game sells
more like other Capcom franchises so, they pump more money in new
Street Fighter games and a new 2D fighting series that has the value of a
Street Fighter or a Garou Mark of the Wolves.
April 15th, 2007 at 4:36 am
Are you going to have a way to easily mute your opponent if you have to. Having to listen to a complete jackass ruins a fighting game experience no matter how much fun the game is.
April 15th, 2007 at 4:47 am
Sorry for the double post, but I was wondering if the different platforms are going to be able to play against each other, and if they were all going to have the trueskill matchmaking.
Also, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix? Awesome title.
April 15th, 2007 at 4:57 am
@ Alex just turn of the headset :)
I dont think that this will be possible play 360 versus PS3
that 2 networks are not the same if the games peer2peer maybe?!
hm
I just thought about that mutethingy again you dont
trying to diss me dont you ^_^
April 15th, 2007 at 5:56 am
Hi Sirlin!
Can you confirm that Puzzle Fighter HD will include the extra (XYZ) modes from the Dreamcast version? Some sites are reporting it will but others are entirely silent on the issue.
April 15th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Microsoft requires that you have a way to mute players, so yes.
former: It would be equally crazy to say there is no demand for a redrawn SF with classic gameplay. Of course there is demand for that. If they are going to do new gameplay, they should make a new SF, but that’s a separate issue entirely. I think I can summarize your objections all like this: “Capcom should have spent a whole lot more money on this and offer original mode and another mode with widescreen playfields, numerous balance tweaks, extra animation frames for all moves, re-composed music, and much, much more.” Ok sure, would be nice if that were the case.
eM: X, Y, and Z are in Puzzle Fighter, in addition to a new X mode in PF with balance changes.
–Sirlin
April 15th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Great news!
Sirlin, not to be disrespectful because I’m sure those reasons you stated are valid, but isn’t there an easy way to handle 16:9 without changing gameplay?. You make scenaries a bit wider with some things that block the players (like a wall, a house or something). Also you make that the extra space in the widescreen mode isn’t usable at all. It would feel weird when players are not at the end of the screen but aren’t able to walk backwards, but it would surely be better for 16:9 players.
I don’t really like that decorative art idea.
Anyways, I’m really looking forward for both games, specially SPF2T with the pattern tweaks, which should make the game much more interesting.
April 15th, 2007 at 7:29 am
hey,
i have read what capcom have paid for but does that include sound aswell? if not oh well but if yes how far do you think it can go ie. just stereo? 5.1? or re worked voices and remixed music etc.
i know all that is a long shot but do you think if you gave someone a free cake or something we could get the announcer back from the cps1 games? (even in mono) with the deep voice cause he sounded tough!
April 15th, 2007 at 8:26 am
I’m not color blind but I’ve heard numerous other players comment how the original Puzzle Fighter is unplayable for them because they cannot distinguish all four colors. Will that be fixed (e.g., option to have differently shaped blocks for each color) in this version?
April 15th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Awesome news.
I’ve wanted to get into ST for a while, but nobody plays here. This could be the answer! Now I just need to shell out for a PS3 or X360.
Also, someone asked this before but I didn’t see a response: Will it be possible for PS3 and X360 users to compete together? Being different networks and all.
April 15th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Hi Sirlin, thanks for supporting the community. Everytime I turn around it always seems like your doing something great for us! :)
Anyway, Polarity brought up a valid question in his post just before former’s really long one. Will fullscreen still be available on a 4:3 tv set with no letterboxing?
Also, you probably don’t have the budget available to remaster the audio, so what about using the CD32 port of ST’s arranged soundtrack? It’s of pretty decent quality.
April 15th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I would also like to know if there’s any scope in this project to update the sound in the game. The sound effects and voices are, without any doubt, the weakest part of the original ST’s presentation. SSF2 and ST both took a big step backwards relative to HF in terms of sound.
IMHO it would be a tragedy to go to all this effort to bring the graphics up to HD standard, only to have the game still sounding as lame as it does. The poor/weak samples (e.g. announcer, Guile, impact sounds, etc) definitely need replacing if at all possible, and if you’re going to fix some of them, they should all be redone for consistency.
Did Capcom give any mandate to the project regarding sound, or is it only for the graphics?
April 15th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Ideally widescreen mode would be the same as 4:3 but with more vertical scrolling and a different HUD (if it is deemed necessary). Something along these lines, where |||| is the 16:9 view:
____
|____|
|||||||
|____|
Updated sound would be on the wish list, 5.1 would be nice. Everything else sounds fine, same with Puzzle Fighter. Hope they both turn out well on time. XD
April 15th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Sirlin - any chance of an option to display hitboxes?
Ignore the people yammering on about 16:9 . . . just making ST hi-def without breaking any gameplay is as sufficient challenge, and more than enough to create millions of sales.
April 15th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Jaguarandine: What do you mean by the CD32 port of ST? You’re saying we should use the music from that? Regarding 4:3 tv’s, I don’t know about ST yet, but for PF I think the game will be letterboxed on a 4:3 tv. There are many mods to the game about positioning and how art is handled, probably a lot more details than you would realize, that let us make it look good in widescreen. Supporting 4:3 with all that stuff is definitely not “for free.” Rather than spend development time on that, I think it will be letterboxed in 4:3 and we’ll spend the time on things like implementing voice chat and making sure the online play is good. ;)
codyk: I would love an option to display hitboxes. Right now 100% of the development effort is focused on things like “game runs, art replaced, menus work, online play works” and so on, with 0% focused on things like neat hitbox-visible modes or changing the announcer or whatever. We’ll put in as many neat things like that as there’s time for. It’s entirely possible there will time for none of it though.
–Sirlin
April 15th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Great news- I second codyk’s comments. I have been hoping for displays of hitboxes for a while.
I made a simple program called Wrectangles that let’s you grab frames from a video file (eg a combo video) and draw your own hit boxes. The source code is pretty simple and I imagine it would not be that difficult at all to implement- please push for this. Here is a demo (in 2 parts) of Wrectangles I put on youtube so you can see what it’s about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFSuA970_AI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvfOm9_SqSA
If you want a copy just let me know, I can email it to you.
April 15th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
@David
I hope you get a step in the industry your ideas are great and you should
help the team to exceed the goal of a real good SSFII Turbo remake with
good graphics and animations.
By the way checked out your homepage.
Your are a pretty good Go Player winning against a Go-Pro from japan.
David maybe you want to add me in your PSN friendlist if you have a
PS3 my handle/nick/ID is “former” I would be pleased if you add me
to your friendlist.
April 15th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Please, make option “controller config” change with button presses instead of switch buttons with stick.
Thank you for your effort.
April 15th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Well realistically, I want it to be Capcom’s anwser to King Of Fighters 94 Rebout.
Street Fighter II Turbo Revival is the way to go.
In that. I think these thing would benefit the new game.
*High Res sprites. That’s been sorted already.
*New lifebar and super bars. Keep it classic, just make them snazzier.
*New font type for, First Attack, Reversal Attack, Hit Combo, etc.
*New attract intro.
*New character select screen.
*New continue screen.
*Another arranged soundtrack (not entierly necessary).
*Japanese audio on the moves (quite important now).
Street Fighter II Turbo Revival on the Gamebot Advance was a extremely good idea.
You mentioned Udon providing the art. I suggest you get Edayan to do it, because his work on Turbo Revival merits it.
April 15th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Yeah, I referring to using the music from that version of the game. It’s one of the better ST soundtracks and would probably be a simple cut and paste.
April 15th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
This announcement is great news, and I’m absolutely stoked. Can’t wait to see what the game will look like.
I’m curious about the sound as well. I certainly don’t expect a new soundtrack, but if the 3DO/HSF2 arrange soundtrack ends up being used… well, let’s just say I’ll be hoping for an option to use the original CPS-2 soundtrack as well. New sound effects and voices might be neat, I dunno. I could see it kinda ruin the ST feel of it though.
Also, I realise you’re working under strict conditions (in game development, when aren’t you?), but I would be sorely disappointed if you could not run the game in full screen on a 4:3 TV. If this ends up being an issue, is it guaranteed to be the same in both versions? I dunno if any problems would be on “your” end or with properly conforming to MS’s and Sony’s standards, but in any event I hope I will not have to play the game in a tiny little window on a 4:3 TV. Apart from being an inconvenience, it just seems so backwards when the game doesn’t run as it should on the format it’s designed for…
April 15th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
OH and another thing - will this be based on the US or JP version of ST? Will there be Japanese releases for that matter? Given the option I would much rather get the Japanese version as I prefer the JP character names, not to mention the fact that the US-version AI is a complete nightmare. On a related note, will the text in the game (winquotes, endings, etc) be taken from the US arcade version of ST or the more accurate, up-to-date translation from ST Revival?
Seeing as this could hopefully become the “ultimate” version of ST, it’d be a shame to still have to suffer from mid-nineties COA stupidity.
April 16th, 2007 at 3:35 am
While I’m interested in this and all, what I want to know is, why does SFP get rebalancing while ST remains the same? Do we really need to see O.Sagat, Dhalsim and Boxer dominating in the exact same way in HD as they have for the previous 13 years? What about the old glitches, like the reversal glitch, and the various odd things that the stars turn on/off in the DC (?) version? Are these going to be preserved as well?
It seems like such a waste to me, to go through all this effort, just for it to be same old, same old. Granted, I think classic gameplay + new graphics is the way to go to revive SF, but basically cloning over an older game, even ST, isn’t the way to go about doing it. Especially with sprites. But oh well…
April 16th, 2007 at 4:18 am
Along with the review of my earlier suggestions.
Please look over the the option of using the PC CD ROM versions of the character themes.
April 16th, 2007 at 5:07 am
The endings will be revised to make sense, don’t worry about that.
There is zero chance of there being more than one version of each character’s music. As it stands now, it seems impossible to fit within Microsoft’s 150MB download limit. I don’t know yet how we will solve that. Adding another 17 music tracks on top of the base 17 would make it…double impossible to fit. For the same reason, there is no way to include any tutorial videos within the game itself (for SF or PF).
There have been too many versions of the music mentioned for me to even know what you guys want. PC CD-ROM? That version was good or something? And CD32? Is that different than PC CD-ROM? I don’t even know what those are. Are the tracks on the SF Tribute Album really appropriate? (There could be major legal issues with all those options, btw, but we’ll see.)
I’m sure it’s not surprising by now that there is no budget or manpower for recording all new sound effects and recording new voices for everything. It’s not like I have any say in that. On an upcoming product for another company, we are enhancing the sound effects in the original game by cleaning up the waveforms, adding bass or echo where appropriate and things like that, and it’s turned out pretty good so far.
Oh and the answer to Ultima’s question is hopefully very obvious. Rebalancing Puzzle Fighter takes like 1 day of programming time max. The game already had a drop pattern editor built in, and the only thing to balance is damage and drop pattern. From a tech standpoint, it’s trivial compared with the tangled web of SF inner workings. There about 1000 things in SF that must be implemented before the game even meets shippable standards to MS and Sony. If we can do those things quickly, then we can use the remaining time to figure out as many enhancements as possible. In contrast, Puzzle Fighter is much, much farther along.
Oh btw, the button config for both games will be the kind where you press the button you want to assign it (like in CCC2). I think we’ll be able to have both players set up their buttons at the same time, too (unlike CCC2, which was one player at a time).
–Sirlin
April 16th, 2007 at 5:26 am
Sirlin,
The CD32 & PC versions have the same soundtrack I believe. The CD32 version refers to the Amiga CD32 videogame console released in Europe. Someone in SRK put up a link to the soundtrack a while ago and that’s how I found out about that. The PC version refers to a Windows port of ST that used the CD32 soundtrack. If you like, I can put up a link for the CD32 soundtrack. I believe it’s in .ogg format.
April 16th, 2007 at 6:09 am
I just hope the game makes the fall release…. I just can’t wait!! You’re right about the online playability being very important I would even say the MOST important thing. If ST came out with original art or even bad art and played like a dream my soul would be satisfied. How come UMK3 plays somuch better than HF. I hardly notice lag sometimes. Good luck!!!!~
April 16th, 2007 at 6:32 am
I just listened to the soundtrack to the CD32 version of SF2 ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAkVINHrBFc ) and IMHO, some of the stages sounded very cheezy; maybe it needs to be cleaned up a bit more.
Sorry to hear that there are too many limitations on storage space to even add extras like videos and extra soundtracks. Good luck on the project David, time and restrictions are not on your side but thanks for keeping in touch with the community for suggestions.
-SRH-
April 16th, 2007 at 7:04 am
Hmm, the music in ShinRyuHoshi’s link is the version you guys want? It certainly sounds “new” but yeah it’s kind of cheesy. I’m a little worried about using that instead of the original. Hmm…
April 16th, 2007 at 7:06 am
Heres a link to the PC CD-ROM version of Ken’s theme.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KxBXxq54s
Heres a link to the sountrack in itself.
http://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/super-street-fighter-ii-turbo-gamerip-pc-cd-
April 16th, 2007 at 7:52 am
I’m only asking this because CCC2 was lacking it, but will it be too much of a problem to add mono sound support? It might sound a bit silly to have mono support for a HD game, but I often host tournaments, and most of the TVs are old and only have mono support. SF ain’t too enjoyable to listen to when you can only hear the SFX when on one side of the stage. I already read your reasoning for not having it in CCC2 on SRK, but this would just be a little touch of convenience.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Perhaps I’m alone on this, but I’d rather you guys didn’t ditch the the original arcade music. In this case better would be a subjective term. What I hear out of the PC version sounds mostly like some cheap synthesizer, lacking the charm the Arcade Qsound stuff had going for it.
However that aside, I am really stoked to hear this news. I’ll probably end up buying a 360 once this comes out, can’t wait.
April 16th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Well, I guess you can’t please everyone at the same time. I think it’s good and it would give music from a version that hasn’t really been heard another chance. I think we can all agree it’s better than AE’s. ;)
I didn’t think you’d have to switch out the original ST soundtrack. If you can’t have both, then I would go for the original.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Sirlin, this is the link to where you can check out the entire PC-CD version of the soundtrack.
http://gh.ffshrine.org/soundtracks/4112
It’s actually really, really fucking good. However, I can see how not everyone would like it!
Who is on your sound team? Are you open to a new AST to use for the game? If so, I know of a very, very competitive musician who is in love with Street Fighter and its music, and wouldn’t mind sending in some material for you all to review…
April 16th, 2007 at 11:38 am
That CD music sounds like it’s dying to be redone with real instruments.
Hey Sirlin, you’re talking about the Super Turbo project having a smaller scope, but there’s an interview with someone at Capcom at 1up talking about completely redrawing the sprites and putting Guilty Gear to shame with them.
http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pager.offset=1&cId=3158732
April 16th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Uh, Alex, that’s the same project Sirlin’s talking about.
…
Anyways, even with the synthesized instruments, the PC-CD soundtrack is really well done.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Alex, you sound confused. We are redrawing the sprites. That doesn’t mean we’re re-engineering the game to have a 16:9 playfield or adding new frames or composing new music or many of the other things that have been asked for.
As for a rebalanced mode, it becomes much more likely to happen if Capcom pressures Backbone to do it. Obviously I’m happy to do it, if there is any logistical way to do so while still shipping when Capcom wants to.
–Sirlin
April 16th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I don’t feel like posting on shoryuken.com, so I’ll post it here and someone can quote it. The goal for ST is to replace 100% of the art, or as close as possible. Rumors about only Ryu’s head being replaced are waaaaaaaaaaaaay wrong. All new sprites, new menus, new super meter, new clock, high res font, and so on and so on. Puzzle Fighter currently has new art for almost every single element in the game except the character sprites (in *PF* the characters sprites will only be auto-uprezzed, not redrawn, but everything else is new). There are a few obscure things we might not get to redrawing in PF, but right now (besides the filtered characters) every single element you’d see in the course of a normal match is new art.
–Sirlin
April 16th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
OMG, now I can seriously think about getting a 360….
April 16th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
I worry about the delicate balancing act to cater to both non-hardcore oldschoolers and people that just want shiny new games. I think the most significant thing here is not just that this is a great game (however old or however 2D it may be) but most importantly, that it would be playably good _online_. _That_ is the key, and that is the bottleneck to getting from what we have now (various accurate ports of SF, some online already), to “best gaming experience”. I really don’t relate to people who are interested in things like character endings or music- finding competition conveniently (through sensible online play) would be so much more valuable to players. We’re talking about a franchise that saved arcades for years, was the first to make more money than PacMan, etc. There are hardcore players like myself who went to the trouble to seek outside of my living room(/country) to find competition and actually find out just how good I was, but most people don’t go to the trouble.
Thanks former- but I don’t have a PS3. If you’re on Xbox live add me as XSPR. If you want to play go I have played on KGS as user “dhalsim”.
April 16th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
quick question–
will you have an option to have new hd sprites mode and old og sprites mode but still in HD?
i think having the option of old school sprites in HD would be a definite plus for the purists
April 16th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
i have just one more question,
since they’re re-drawing sprites is there any possibilty for a slight intro animation before the fight like in the alpha games? or have better winning animations like in alpha 1 and 2?
April 16th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I guess introanimations would require altering the code, but exchanging winning animations should be possible.
April 16th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
How about releasing a budget priced title instead of an XBL Arcade title so you can fit more data? Perhaps not for this game, but say for the next re-release. Actually, a release of a more balanced Anniversary Edition with HD graphics and new animation and music would be nice - plus a real on-DVD tutorial (SFEX2-like combo trainer) and actual human like AI would be very sweet. And hey, why stop there. The Alpha series and 3s could do with a nice make-over too. In fact, I’d pay full price for each of these.
Of course, these are just my wet dreams. I’ll still buy ST HD, but with the art and technology there, I can’t help but think about developing something more.
Anyway, about achievements, how about some for huge combos for each character? That would really force a lot of people to use a multitude of characters. If you’ve played EX2 on PS1, there was a really neat combo trainer that even my non competitive SF friends got into. I always wished they had that feature in all other fighting games. For example, if you complete all the combos for a character, you get the achievement.
April 17th, 2007 at 12:25 am
I actually think the only things that need to be addressed are two:
1) What’s being done with the music. The old arcade ST music would be great, but with the game being completely redrawn, it seems to be out of place. Having someone rearrange the music — or just using one of the better existing arranges (PC-CD) instead of the horrible AE version — should be fine.
2) The more important one, in reality. The netcode. UMK3 had awesome netcode, from what I saw. HF had tremendously horrible netcode. Please tell me you can get in some of that awesome UMK3 shit going on in here.
April 17th, 2007 at 12:39 am
About the whole music subject, I agree with nothingxs, I like the original ST music but I feel it may end out of place with the new graphics, I mean, if the objective is giving ST a newer presentation I’m all about for using those PC-CD versions, I really like them (better than the AE remixes), anyways if someone wants the original soundtrack and original graphics we already have a perfect version on CCC2, so that’s why I think you guys should go all new presentation wise. I know the PC soundtrack isn’t technically new but it will sound new for a lot of people.
What about some kind of poll for it? It could probably help Sirlin and his team make a decision, I’m constantly in Shoryuken.com and for what I have read the PC soundtrack seems to be liked there, for example.
April 17th, 2007 at 12:44 am
I was so excited when I heard that there were actually updates being made to this and that Udon was working on it. I’m a huge Street Fighter fan and I always wondered why Capcom didn’t make it high-res. I’m so buying a copy of this game for me and everyone of my friends who were cultured by the series when we were young (Alpha 3 is my fav thus far!). I look forward to seeing more.
-Kaz
April 17th, 2007 at 12:49 am
I assume that the 360 version of SSF2T will have achievements so is there any chance that the PS3 version will support trophies for Home when it comes out?
April 17th, 2007 at 1:07 am
Two thoughts on this.
1) Please do not rebalance Dan in any way. One of the funnest things I have ever played is PVP Dan vs Dan in PF. So completely unpredictable. (Was not sure if you were suggesting that the original balance was still available or not.)
2) I understand that changing the width of the playing field would change gameplay balance. Would it be possible to display the 16:9 field while retaining the original 4:3 usable field? Perhaps a single vertical line of black pixels on either side of the usable area to indicate this is intentional (probably with an option to turn off)? Or would even this change cause significant problem for the game engine? If not possible, then an option to turn off the static “side” images for solid black would be nice.
April 17th, 2007 at 2:21 am
Redoing the art but keeping the hit boxes the same? I think I’ll have to unlearn a lot of my in game cues :)
April 17th, 2007 at 2:21 am
Redoing the art but keeping the hit boxes the same? I think I’ll have to unlearn a lot of my in game cues :)
April 17th, 2007 at 4:14 am
Sirlin, I didn’t see on your list that you were going to be re-drawing the backgrounds as well… hopefully your team will be doing this? Having beautiful HD sprites will look REALLY goofy with old-school super-pixelated backdrops. I’m no stranger to budgets and deadlines so hopefully that can be done.
Okay, I just saw an Udon post which stated the backgrounds are being redone as well. Just making sure. :-P
Add me to the total of people who will buy it regardless if it has gameplay features added or not.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:30 am
I’m very exited about this.
Sure there’s lots of things that one could ask to be improved, like sound effects. I always found the sfx form the regular sf2 to be better than ssf2t.
Some new hit sparks vould also have been nice.
A nice feature from the gba ssf2t revival was the option to have the super meter stay at the same level for the next round instead of reseting. I always found that very handy.
Another thing about ssf2t was the difficulty, man even on the easiest I can only beat three or four guys before things start getting very hard.
But I understand that both time and money is sparse on this project unfortunately so I’m sure it’ll turn on great anyways.
About all this music discusion. Just leave the arcade music alone, instead of risking it by replacing it with something somebody likes and others don’t.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:38 am
Wow, this is awesome news. It’s about time we got a 2-D fighter with high resolution graphics! :) This would be a great way to introduce new players to the series.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:31 am
My only suggestion is to have a switch setting to allow 2 punches or two kicks to activate moves like Blanka leap and Zangief lariat. Getting these moves to come out on a pad is virtually impossible.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Hi Sirlin,
First would like to say, thank you so much for replying and answering the questions that the SF community have. I am VERY excited about this Street Fighter HD remix. I just have a couple questions. When i first saw this Slide display screenshot
http://www.fightersgeneration.com/games/hdspritesqj8.jpg
I noticed that there is a Original Ryu color (White + Red headband) for this HD remix. Are you guys changing the colors of what was originally in Super Turbo? I ask because it annoyed me that the only people on Super Turbo that had their original colors, (correct me if im wrong) was Zangief and Chun Li. It annoyed me when i couldnt get Blanka in green, Guile in green, Ryu in white. So i was very happy to see a redrawn Ryu in “Original” color. I really hope you guys will allow us to pick the Original color for all the characters.
2nd, I had a “Gameplay” question. Ever since the first Street Fighter II. Anytime anyone gets hit by a fireball, it gets laggy/choppy. I always thought of this as a limitation of the hardware of the game. Which is why the game experienced “slowdown” Over the years with all the new SF updates. This still happens. All the characters have been updated with newer flashy “Supers”. Which dont make the game laggy/choppy/slowdown, so im assuming Capcom either purposely made it have “slowdown.” Or after upgrading to new version they could have fixed this “slowdown” put left it purposely. This is a “gameplay” question because in some situations you can purposely take a hit from a fireball to throw off your opponents timing. So, will this “slowdown” be left in the game?
April 17th, 2007 at 11:20 am
WillChan: I’ll save David the trouble of linking, go here: http://lowfierce.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-some-games-feel-better-than-others.html
Great job on scoring STHD, Sirlin. Looking forward to how it turns out. How much development has been done so far? I’m assuming that those 3 pics of Ryu aren’t the only sprites drawn up to this point. I’m actually pretty excited to see how all the other characters are going to look.
Also, you mentioned before about the problem of creating a pallette for such a high resolution character sprite. I did a quick scan in photoshop to see how that would even be possible, and noticed that Ryu was way more than even a 256 pallette could handle. I’m guessing custom color edit won’t be possible then. Maybe you could still use the old 16 color pallet, but have the colors gradient over each other more or something? If I get a chance when I get home, I’ll try to photoshop an example of the idea if you don’t know what I mean.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Are they still swapping the names around for M. Bision/Balrog/Vega? They should cut that shit out. I haven’t played SF in years but I can’t wait for this.
April 17th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
it sounds like a good and ambitious idea to test the water for new and HD sprites….so if this game does well…I can see Capcom getting more into it and wanting an all new Street Fighter 4 with new animation an other features…..I was kind of hoping for a street fighter II remake (that would put any older 2d fighting games to shame)…but i see the scope of the project better now…good luck either way!! I’ll end up buying anything street fighter related anyways.
April 17th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
@WillChan
About the colors in super turbo, neither Chun Li nor Zangief have their original colors, they’re just some very similar ones, you can check this by choosing their Old versions and check the original colors closely.
So is there any chance this ‘remake’ will have new music, I really like the PC version soundtrack as many people here do.
Last question, I read that Puzzle Fighter is also going to come out for PC, why not Street Fighter as well?
April 17th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I’m working on the possibility of doing *something* with the music, after seeing the huge number of people requesting this all over the net. Maybe we could use the PC game’s music. I will at least look into requesting new music from Capcom, but who knows. We’ll see if there’s anything that can be done.
Replacing the sounds with CPS1 sounds is a lot more work than you might think. I like the CPS1 sounds better too, but I’m not sure about the bang for the buck of doing this.
Also due to large positive response all over the net, I will push harder for a rebalanced/tweaked mode. It’s very uncertain how much we would be able to do with our current resources, but I will at least move this way up the priority list.
WillChan: All characters in ST have their original colors by selecting the secret “old version” of that character. No characters including Chun Li or Zangief have original costumes without selecing the “old” versions. Furthermore, the slowdown when you get hit by a fireball is on purpose and was intended as a feature. Random note: ST drops every other frame of your input during this slowdown, making double sonic boom combos for Guile impossible sometimes and possible others. Good thing, because otherwise he would have guaranteed redizzies, but otherwise unfortunate.
A_Rival, I already answered that in post #67.
–Sirlin
In Puzzle Fighter, even rebalanced Dan will be unchanged with an all red drop pattern.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
This project sounds awesome. I’d just like to repeat Geiger’s second request in post #78:
Please allow the 16:9 sidebar decorations to be turned off, leaving black bars. I don’t want to stretch the screen, but I also don’t want any graphics at the sides distracting me from the gameplay.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Word.
So is the bigger issue creating new sound assets, replacing the sound assets, or both of them combined? I was under the impression that just replacing the CPS2 with CPS1 straight across with no sound processing(eq/comp whatever) wouldn’t be too hard. Are you coding this from the ground up or doing a sort of emulation/hybrid/whatever?
April 17th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
The AI in the arcade version of ST is VERY VERY hard. I think it would be a good idea to make the AI in this remixed ST easier. The difficulty of the one player mode in the arcade version kind of spoils the 1-player aspect of the game IMO, and also makes it rather off putting to beginning players.
These projects sound awesome by the way. I certainly look forward to seeing the finished games.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
I’m really looking forward to both of these games. PF is perfect for XBLA and I’m super excited for STHD. With that said, here’s my critiques/suggestions:
DISCLAIMER: I realize that the pics/videos shown so far are labeled “Work in Progress”, so I realize that things will still be tweaked. So, please keep that in mind as you read this ;-)
—————-
Puzzle Fighter
—————-
- The new solid gems look pretty good. I like the look of them, for the most part.
- The numbered(counter?) gems look kind of distracting. I’m guessing they are more rounded to make it more obvious that they’re not the same as the regular gems. So, I can understand the rationale to some degree. However, visually they look too busy to me. Having a number on them, and being rounded, and having that dash pattern around them, and having those things all be colored and then layered over a grayish gem background is simply too much. Personally, I was fine with the old look. But if you want them to stand out more, I’m hoping there’s a happy medium between the old look and what’s there now.
- Some of the the destruction(crash?) gems look OK, but some of them look weird. The green gem looks the closest to what I’d expect to see. It’s kind of like the old version, but high res, which is cool. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the red gem looks a little crazy. I have two critiques here. First, I’m not sure why there’s a need to make each crash gem look different? The only thing I’ve managed to think of is that it might make it easier for color blind people to play. If that’s the reason for doing this, and it helps, than fair enough. Secondly, the red destruction gem goes above and beyond looking different. The particles spewing out of it bleed out into the surrounding gems, which is distracting
- Which brings me to my biggest area of critique - the destruction of gems. Again, I’m not sure why there’s a need to make the look of each color gem different. In addition, the only effect that seems to resemble a gem exploding at all is the blue gem destruction effect. And even with that one, the white-ish bits look slightly out of place. The other effects look odd though. They don’t look like gems exploding. What’s worse is that the other effects, to varying degrees, are not transparent enough. In the original PF, when you blow up a big gem the explosion definitely does shoot out across other gems. However, it’s both partially transparent and is over fairly quickly. The red gem explosion effect in the videos released exhibits the biggest problem here. The fiery effect is just too much. At it’s height the explosion is rather opaque and covers a large area over the surrounding gems. And worse yet, the fiery trails that come out of it cover a large distance and remain visible for a long time and obscure the area around it. So basically, visually I’m not all that crazy about all of the effects and from a gameplay standpoint, it worries me that some effects will actually interfere with me planning my next move while the gem is exploding, since I can’t see anything. My recommendation would be to make the effects so that they seem consistent with the speed and transparency of the original versions.
- I realize all of the above critiques are super picky. Just so you know, I’m not trying to be an ass. I’m a game developer too, so I know how it goes. I just really love these games and am hoping that they’ll be as good as they can be =) On a lighter note…
- The new backgrounds by UDON sound great!
- It’s a shame that the in-game characters won’t be re-drawn. Even if contracting UDON to do brand new art would cost too much, I wonder how feasible it’d be to have someone just re-trace and re-shade the existing artwork at a higher resolution. I realize this would be a pretty decent amount of work, and it’d certainly be tedious. But I wonder if there’s a way to make it happen. I definitely think it’d look better than just doing a post-process on the art in engine. If I get some time, I might try to mock up a frame to see how it’d look.
- Balancing the game so that Ken and Donovan aren’t the only reasonable choices sounds great! It’ll be nice to be able to pick other characters and not get raped ;-)
- Removing the crash gem glitch and leaving Dan’s all-red pattern also sound nice.
- It’d be cool if you made all the hidden characters immediately visible on the character select screen and easily selectable. If they have to be unlockable to fill in achievement type things, I could live with that. But doing cryptic things every time you wanted to select the extra characters always annoyed me in the past.
I was gonna write up some more stuff about online play and a bunch of stuff about SF, but I’ve already written a lot and need to get some sleep. I’ll post a part 2 later. And again, I hope you take my incredibly picky criticisms as constructively as possible =)
April 17th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
I guess having a rebalanced mode for ST would be cool for some people but I really don’t see why. For most SFers in the country that don’t live on the coasts having a arcade perfect version of ST to finally play online and practice against real comp is a dream come true. Don’t ruin this. All the people that want to change the game are probably huge scrubs that don’t even play the game hardcore and will probably stop playing after a awhile. The HARDCORE community wants a arcade perfect online version.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
This is all great news. As opposed to going into all the things I wish would happen and silly stuff like that, I just want to say, thanks for all the work and time you put into this stuff. I really enjoyed all the other Capcom collection stuff and I look forward to seeing all this work for these two awesome games in action.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:48 am
Playstation Network Store NO LIMITS
Please Sirlin dont cut anything out because of sizelimitation XBLA has.
Mortal Kombat II for example takes 250MB of size in the Playstation Network Store.
Tekken 5 DR HD ~ 800MB.
I hope you guys dont cut anything out or go by limitations cause
of the small size Microsoft is offering on XBLA.
If a larger filesize contains better music or else please do it.
As a Playstation 3 owner I would be pleased with a perfect version of
your remakes.
When will the games hit the Playstation Network Store? This Winter or earlier?
April 18th, 2007 at 4:17 am
BTW, just wondering, isn’t lag going to be an inherent problem in ssf2t? I remember years ago on a.g.sf2, someone showing that even with prefect processors, the speed of light would be an issue with lag playing cross country..
April 18th, 2007 at 4:23 am
I just saw these images of the new art:
http://www.gamekult.com/images/ME0000818216/
Beautiful!! I have to admit I’m tempted to buy a 360 just for this. Are those going to be the actual in game characters?
April 18th, 2007 at 4:43 am
Dropped input during the slowdown in ST is intentional? Ouch! When would dropping input ever be good?
April 18th, 2007 at 6:24 am
Re: #99
It takes about 14 milliseconds for light to travel from New York to Los Angeles. 1 frame in ST is around 16.67 milliseconds (assuming the game run at 60 fps), which means it’s not theortically impossible. If you had a really powerful laser, line of sight between two points (which would probably have to be extremely elevated to get around the curvature of the earth problem), and some magical laser-broadband hardware/software-stack which incurred no more than 2.67 ms of latency to transmit and receive packets, you could do online play cross country with 1 frame of latency.
In the real world, you’re looking at more like a 40 ms one way trip for a packet. That’s 3 frames of latency right there, assuming no burstiness or packet loss or anything. In practice over the course of a game you can count it taking at least 6 frames of latency just to transmit a packet from one end of the country to another. The trick to getting good network play is to hide that latency somewhere.
The most common technique used in fighters is to buffer input at the local end while you wait for the packet to come from the remote side. So if you hit Jab at frame 100, the input code will immediately transmit it to your opponent, hold onto it for 6 frames, and only send it to the game engine at frame 106 when hopefully the button your opponent hit on his frame 100 has arrived. As everyone knows, this completely screws up your timing and results in “lag tactics”: tactics which are designed to make the player on the other side of the connection guess which frame they need to input their control to get the desired response. The most hated one (for me) in HF is the Shoto j.RH, l.RH. It’s trivially blocked offline, but online you need to reverse your block from high to low either before, during, or slightly after the j.RH is blocked depending on what the network decided your lag factor was (and therefore how many frames of input its buffering). Even if you can block j.RH, l.RH, it’s countered by j.RH, s.jab (whiff), throw, which is literally uncounterable. By the time you see the s.jab it’s too late to input anything to affect the eventual outcome.
So you really have 3 choices when knocked down:
1) Try to guess the time to reversal DP to counter the j.RH.
2) Block the j.RH and try to counter throw, assuming that your opponent can’t get his timing right either and either attacked too early or too late. Use your turbo button if you’ve got it.
3) Play Papper-Scissors-Rock with j.RH, l.RH vs. j.RH, s.jab, throw. Hope you get the timing right if you choose to block.
#2 was the highest percentage for me, but it was no fun, so I stopped playing. Apparently nearly everyone else did, too:
http://www.360voice.com/game.asp?game=Street%20Fighter%20II’%20HF&type=2
April 18th, 2007 at 6:41 am
As far as the bordering goes, I can think of two solutions that would please the 16×9 players and NOT CHANGE THE GAME.
1) Invisible walls. Hey, like any 3D game, you might encounter an invisible wall now and again. So by having invisible wall, the game is STILL played on a 4:3 playfield, but at least you don’t have to look at a border. Of course, doing it THIS way the stages might have to be drawn a little longer than they used to be. Here’s an example.
The bonus stage where you destroy the car would fill the entire sceen. But you would NOT BE ABLE TO WALK PAST THE BORDERS. You just see a longer stage without VISIBLE borders.
Since this is being redrawn, you can, make it LOOK like you’ve reached the end of the stage. Add more foliage to blanka’s level for example. That way the player can SEE where the stage will end instead of relying on the edge of his TV.
This might also be disorienting and odd for people. At least TRY and see how it would look. Make it an option? The option with borders would MASK the extra stage detail. I mean, night as well do SOMETHING with the edges.
2) Instead of longer (looking) backgrounds, have the borders move independently. In other words, SAME effect as above, but have the borders programmed to scroll when the players move. So it’s sorta like you have two backgrounds moving at the same time.
In other words, ANIMATED BORDERS.
The only changes here are VISUAL. The game won’t change. The max distance between two fighters remains the same as it ever was.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Sirlin, I think that it’s amazing that you’re being so open about all of this and that I hope that this revision of SF2 sells well. It’s amazing that this classic is still being remade to this very day.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:57 am
In ST there is a random component in dizzy and health damage, I think the game would benefit if these were removed.
Is their any chance that rapid button move (e.g. Blanka electricity) inputs be changed to how it is handled in more recent games like CvS2, where the it is 5 inputs of any strength and the resulting strength is the last button pressed? I think this is a much improved user friendly way over how ST and other SFs way of handling these moves (i.e., 5 inputs one button, button pressing rate must be increased for higher strengths).
About sound, I think the sound effects and music shouldn’t come from sources that are too dated. The sounds should be modern enough to complement the “new look” of the game. Maybe voice and effects from the most recent games? Music, it would be terrific if Capcom records new music, but if not, the PC games music is not a bad choice (I use to have the PC game).
April 18th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Hi Sirlin,
Thanks for answering my question about the fireball “slowdown”. Although you did kind of answer my question about the Original colors, it did bring up another question. Now I know that in order to pick original colors, you have to pick the original version of the character, will that remain unchanged in the SF HD Remix? In this New Street Fighter HD Remix are you keeping all the colors the same that were in the original Super Turbo?
Second question. As you know, Akuma is banned from tournament play. (Unbalanced due to his air fireball, and other reasons) Will this be at all regulated on online play? Everyone wants to have a great Win/Loss ratio record online. What i predict is, just everyone that plays online, picking Akuma. And it will just be an Air Fireball Fight. Akuma will very much dominate many of the characters. And this may ruin the experience for everyone. Some people will think, “hey i payed for the game, i should be able to pick whoever i want!”. Some people will think, “Akuma is cheap, he should be banned”. Just wondering if there are any plans to address this. Thanks Sirlin
April 18th, 2007 at 7:59 am
In noticed that another post has already touched on this above. But I thought it might bear repeating and its something I am rather curious about. Above its stated that due to the MS inforced size limits on XBLA games potential “extras” such as multiple soundtracks are not possible. However, as has been pointed out, the PS3 has no such limits for its downloadable content. So, I was wondering has Capcom stated that all versions must be identical or is there a possibility of the PS3 version coming with whatever you care to shove in (even for an increased price)? (Before Im accused of being a “fanboy”, I own both consoles already and have no vested interest in which it comes out on - though I imagine Sony would be quite pleased to have something which would push people towards getting the ps3 version)
April 18th, 2007 at 9:06 am
will this be available on PC, or any other platform besides 360 and PSN?
April 18th, 2007 at 9:43 am
I dont think that this will be possible play 360 versus PS3
that 2 networks are not the same if the games peer2peer maybe?!
hm
I just thought about that mutethingy again you dont
trying to diss me dont you ^_^
April 18th, 2007 at 11:11 am
WillChan, you don’t give me enough credit, ha. There is no way I would allow Akuma to ruin everyone’s online play. The exact solution is not decided, but one way or another, Akuma will be in check.
Everyone: I am not taking any questions on the PS3 version at this time. Sorry.
Utils: That scrolling idea doesn’t really add up. Imagine that the left edge of Blanka’s stage is more foliage that you can’t get to. Now, both players walk to the extreme right edge of the screen. Then, one player moves left. How far left can he move? The screen is scrolled too far right to even see the foliage at the left, so he would hit a strange invisible wall on the left. I really think you guys should give up any hope of a 16:9 playfield on this project.
Ponder, thanks for the networking tips, always appreciated.
–Sirlin
April 18th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Could you somehow bribe UDON to redraw Morrigans sprites?
Also, the 16:9 aspect ratio(or lack there of) seems like the type of thing that would really devalue the HD feel. I really can’t suggest a solution for it, but its something you could use to pester Capcom into allowing a rebalance mode.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Yeah, just replace Cammy’s sprite with a re-drawn Morrigan. Booyah.
Give it up on 16:9 guys. The only approach that makes any sense is to crop the top and bottom of the 4:3 field, and drawing the meters lower than they normally would appear so they don’t get cut off. Unfortunately, the top half of characters would be cut off by the top of the screen when they jump. You could fix that problem by scrolling the view vertically when someone jumps (ST does this a little anyway. Jump straight up with Vega and notice that the screen scrolls a tiny bit), but it would probably be too disorienting and not “feel” like ST.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
The playfield would be the same dimensions and have the same boundaries. The plays always remains the same maximum distance from each other that they ALWAYS have. They playfield is NOT 16×9.
All we’re doing is avoiding distracting borders.
If that’s too complicated, why not an option to have NO borders and leave it black? This way it nicely fits 3:4 TV’s and people that don’t like borders don’t have to look at them?
April 18th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
ALSO, since you’re REDRAWING the backgrounds anyway, you could avoid “strange invisible wall” by drawing borders. Like draw the foliage on BOTH sides of the screen In this day and age players are used to invisible barriers. But you can be creative and not even have them notice the invisible barrier if you do it that way.
Just trying to be CONSTRUCTIVE.
Like for Dhalsim’s stage, have the elephants closer to the middle. Not THAT close but close enough so that players know when they can stop moving to the side. Get it?
I just figured that with online games, etc developers weren’t thinking enough outside the box when it came to bordering. I know there are limits but I figured by throwing in some creative ideas it would help avoid making the whole way borders are issues less of a black & white thing. It seems that they just consider it a matter of fact and don’t really try to do anything creative about them. Like, maybe you could even display information on them?
April 18th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
First of all, having played SF2 since its first arcade outing, played on TV and in all major comps, I am very excited to hear about this UPDATE.
Now for my slight rant at people on this blog.
It’s very clear to me that this game is being updated in a few departments to make it look good on HD sets.
Some people here are talking about entire game changes, changing how the game works, the aspect ratios, lots of others things.
This is the old game, made for XBLA, thus the graphics have been redrawn. Please stop asking for a NEW game.
I work in the 3D animation industry myself, and understand from working with people in similar positions within the game industry how complex it would be to update this game to XBLA, not to mention making a NEW game like some people here continue to shout about.
Please, stop asking for a NEW game, this is SSF2T, in HD. that’s it! End off, how hard can that be to understand.
Sirlin: It sounds like your team is doing a great job, and I fully understand the angle you coming from. I guess many people here don’t work in the industry or have never undertaken a pro project before so the concept of a brief is beyond them.
One area that does interest me but I fear that it would be hard to emulate, due to the 150MB restrictions is the music and sound effects.
Much to everyone’s dismay, the best version of SSF2T was on the 3DO console, I know, I paid around £500 for it… anyhow; it contained a remixed music track, i.e. the orginal scores played with real instruments. The sound effects carried more weight and I believe had a few more channels of sound.
I also know, for a fact, that the BG music was streamed from the CD itself; A, because I scratched the music on Ryus stage, and B. you could play the music files in a CD player.
Which:
C. means the tracks were not compressed using modern media formats such as a simple MP3 of course…
On the subject of borders, in the options menu, can we just have a colour slider to select a border colour? I will just use a simple black one myself.
Personally, if the game played EXACTLY like the orginal did, I will be very happy.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
no man seriously please make capcom make this for PC. please please please.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
bigjohnny - use MAME emulation. and yes u can use a PS2 pad, or any pad joypad you wish.
perfect emulation.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
We want the HD version for PC not emulated roms, been playing that for a while now with good arcade sticks.
But yeah it’d be great if capcom released it for PC as well, even if it’s more than 50 bucks I’d buy it.
April 19th, 2007 at 2:19 am
…yeah. i obviously meant the HD version. i know about MAME. and it’s not perfect emulation.
April 19th, 2007 at 2:27 am
Sirlin,
It seems like the 150MB XBLA limit is going to limit the amount of stuff you can add into SSF2T:HD, which is a shame, because it would have been nice to have extras such as remixed tunes. It’s too bad you can’t request for more space (like 250MB). If for some reason you are going to offer original and remixed tunes, I would suggest listening to both Anniversary Collection and PC-Version’s remixed SF2 tracks and pick the better version for each track (I would probably choose AC’s Guile track over the PC version, and I would definitely pick PC’s Balrog track over the AC version).
I know it’s outside the scope of the project, but is there any possibility you could offer additional content for SSF2T: HD? You might be able to skirt the 150MB limit by offering the remixed tunes and perhaps a beefed-up training mode as separate (but hopefully free) download packs. Speaking of which, is the training mode going to be barebones, or will it have many options like Capcom vs. SNK 2 or Capcom Fighting Evolution?
I have a few suggestions for the online mode. The SNES version of SSF2 had a Tournament mode, and it would be cool to implement a tournament ladder option for up to 16 players (or up to 64 or 128 people if it’s feasible) in HD Remix. Maybe something like a tournament lobby (which could be public or private) and provide options like single-elimination, double-elimination, and even round-robin tournaments to enhance the online competition experience.
My other suggestion is offer a blind selection option (especially for rank matches) so that players won’t know whom their opponent selected until the versus screen. It will prevent players from playing chicken on who picks first (and the other picking a counter-character). Make sure you set a visible time limit on the character selection screen as well.
It looks like re-recording the voices is not an option. However, is there any way to convince you to use the CPS1 voice samples of Guile and Balrog instead of their CPS2 samples? I always thought Guile’s “Sonic Boom” from Street Fighter 2 sounded a lot better than the one from Super Street Fighter 2.
And finally, I’m assuming that you’ll be using the remixed soundtrack for Puzzle Fighter HD, correct? Capcom did a fantastic job arranging those tracks for the home ports, and I would prefer to hear them over the original tracks in Puzzle Fighter HD.
I’m pretty stoked about these projects and I wish you and the rest of the Backbone crew good luck.
April 19th, 2007 at 3:01 am
Ponder: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was afraid of. That’s really unfortunate, as all 3 of your options really change the game play that makes SF such a beautiful game.
I wonder if the problem could be fixed by connecting to local opponents only? If you match opponents by closest networking distance (ie same zip code), you might be able to reduce the lag enough to play?
The link you provided doesn’t work btw.
April 19th, 2007 at 4:03 am
Hey what’s up Sirlin! Nothing much to add only keep up the good work.
I would hope that you could some how manage a music editor for the game just for our own personal use and not online (I have lots of SF soundtracks / remixes in my crib heh heh) but if not that’s cool, nothing’s stopping me from working the remote to my stereo and finding the appropriate tracks lol!
Proud PS3 owner, I know you aren’t saying anything about the PS3 version yet but do you think we will get hooked up with some Street Fighter avatars for the PS3 at some point? I’d settle for a Dante of Devil May Cry 4 avatar since we still don’t have any Capcom avatars yet! My PS3 avatar (Gamertag is SRKSANO) is that of an arcade machine and that’s as close to Street Fighter as I can get lol!
Well anyway keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing the final result. ^_^
Anyway people, stop asking for a new Morrigan sprite. Look around. She has a new sprite in Puzzle Fighter that’s also used in Pocket Fighter, not a new sprite but a whole lot of animations were added into her MVC1 and MVC2 sprite, she has TWO sprites in Namco x Capcom (importing is cool) and she has an entirely new sprite in Gunbird 2 for the Dreamcast and it’s breathtakingly amazing LOL! Anyway, Aulbath/Rikuo needs a new sprite. Sasquatch needs a new sprite. Gallon/Talbain needs a new sprite. Morrigan does not!
LOL! LOL! LOL!
April 19th, 2007 at 8:50 am
[…] To ease the worry about how authentic this remake will feel, David Sirlin has confirmed that he is working on this project. He has worked on ports of Street Fighter 2 before and is an expert at the game himself. […]
April 19th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I posted this on SRK, but since you were talking about it on Alphaism, I’ll stick it here to be doubly sure it got read. But I think this is an awesome idea that wouldn’t compromise the quality of the sprites but would allow for the customization found in CvS2.
“Oh, and I’ve got the best idea ever!
For a color edit mode, why not make it so each character is portioned off so that each part can be auto-edited. For example, if we took Ryu:
Hair
Skin Color
Eye Color
Headband
Gi Top
Gi Bottom
For each of these, there would be a set of colors for each, like for hair, you could pick “blonde, black, brown, red” and the Gi would be “white, red, blue, etc.” And you pick and choose which color you want for each.
If you know what I mean.”
April 19th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Here’s an elaboration (and it was briefly mentioned in the interview, maybe)
“[url]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v654/Raliosion/example.png[/url]
Here’s what I was going for. Pretty much, it’s the idea of frankensteining your own version of a character. That example would take all the red boxed-off parts to make a customized version of Ryu. It’s not an individual, color-by-color edit. It’s taking Ryu’s pants from one version, his gloves from another, his shirt from another, and so on.”
April 19th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
The Akuma solution sounds simple. No Akuma in ranked matches, but people can use him in player matches (or have the host select whether Akuma can be chosen or not). I also love the tournament mode idea and that would be a great addition if it were to be implemented. Also, are quarter matches going to be in this game, too?
April 19th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Thanks for everyone’s comments. Capcom and Backbone appreciate all the feedback, and people’s ideas from here, shoryuken.com, and many other sites will be considered. We’ll do our best to address the concerns and deliver the best product we can. That said, Capcom has asked that I not comment further so that their PR can drive the message.
Thanks again,
–Sirlin
April 20th, 2007 at 6:08 am
@Sirlin
Well I for one think you and your team are doing a great job. Cause of you guys, I will finally be able to play SF online (which I’ve been waiting years for). I can’t wait to see the new sprites in action, and I don’t doubt you guys for a second. You’re keeping SF alive in it’s hardcore fans, and that’s all that matters. After this smashes through the PSN and XBL networks, I hope Capcom considers calling you guys with an order to do a completely new SF game, maybe SF4? (hey, we gotta have hope for the future lol) Either way, you guys are helping a great cause. That is the starving Street Fighter fans lol
Good stuff!
April 20th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Sirlin,
Will some minor issues be changed? I Mean, I would like:
-Wake-up Reversals for everyone, cause it is fair, Ken can´t do, unless with super, why don´t fix this?
-No Randomness - Who Throw Who when two guys press the button at the same time? May an “Both get Rid” animation like 3S would be nice.
-Completely New Menus, charachter selection screen and endings (redrawn). Would add some fresh air to the game.
I suck at programming, so I don´t know what is possible and what is not, what is easy to do and what is hard to do. Excuse me if I asked something impossible.
April 21st, 2007 at 12:27 am
Thank you Sirlin that you answered all the questions.
One more question
How about showing all nicknames of the user that asked you question
about Super Street Fighter II HD Remixin the credits of the game? ^_^
I hope Capcom will pay enough to give you all you need to bring a beatiful remake
that will be appreciated by the fans and of course the new gamers that maybe never played Street Fighter II before.
Heres hoping for a 2D beat’m'up reviva