SSF2T HD Remix, Part 10: The Story So Far
This article is reprinted with permission from Capcom Unity.
A lot of time has passed since I wrote the first parts of this series about the balance changes in Street Fighter: HD Remix (remember, I wrote them many weeks before they were posted). Some things have changed since then, so here are the updates.
Ryu
No change. He still just has the fake fireball, and it’s great. It tricks people like Honda into jumping at the wrong times and Zangief into doing lariat at the wrong times. He can also use it to pressure with stuff like low roundhouse, cancel into fake fireball, walk up throw.
Ken
I have a “watch list” of things that might be too good. (hit the jump to read more!)
Things are usually on this list because I think they might have some use I’m just not aware of yet, so I want to keep an eye how players use them. Ken’s new long-distance roundhouse Hurricane Kick was one of these things. Despite the worries of many players, this move was actually fine in all the usual uses of trying to hit someone who’s kind of far away. The problem is that after Ken’s knee bash mixup, he can threaten to do low medium kick (from either side of you!) into the new roundhouse Hurricane Kick. The Hurricane Kick starts with a hit on the way up that connects versus ducking opponents (unlike Ryu’s). In the SF2 series, if you get hit by a special move, you automatically stand up, so that means the rest of the Hurricane Kick will hit you too. Because the move travels farther and faster now, it’s better able to get all the hits in that situation and very, very often ends up dizzying the opponent. It’s too much reward for something you can do reliably after a knee bash mixup.
Roundhouse version of Hurricane Kick dizzy power is now cut in half.
Also, Ken’s knee bash throw now has just slightly less range. It makes no difference when Ken goes for his something like jump jab into knee bash, but it does give him some reason to attempt other throws when the opponent is at the edge of his throw range.
Balrog
I said that if I woke up one more night in cold sweats over the damage on Balrog’s super, then I’d change it. I did and I did. It now only does about 50% of your life, instead of even more, as it used to. It’s still incredibly good. I sleep better now.
Cammy
No change since the last update. Although one famous Cammy player thinks her Cannon Spike recovery shouldn’t have been made worse, most players are asking why it’s not being nerfed even more than it already is. In her current state, she can Cannon Drill (safe on block), then as long as she did the spacing right, Cannon Spike (also safe on block). It’s very strong. The Cannon Spike is only unsafe when done from close. The jury is still out on whether to keep this, considering the new Cannon Drill gives her a lot of power to apply pressure.
Sagat
No change since last update. He seems about right, and a lot more fun.
Blanka
Since the last update, I made his jab and strong horizontal rolls travel slightly shorter. Also, they now have the same sound effects and rotation (meaning the visual effect) that the fierce roll has. This makes whiffed roll into bite a little better of a tactic.
Some readers have complained that maybe Blanka is too weak, but in practice we have the opposite problem. In the original ST, he was good against Vega, Zangief, T.Hawk, and Cammy. He still is. He used to have big, big trouble vs Ryu and Sagat, but now he can roll without getting hit back by a fireball. Also, Sagat’s arms stick out farther after fireballs (same as ST New Sagat’s arms), so jumping over them and kicking Sagat is more realistic now. Basically, Blanka’s bad matches aren’t as bad anymore and his good matches are still good. His good matches are also more relevant now, because it actually matters if you can beat T.Hawk, Zangief, and Cammy now (they are much more viable characters).
If possible, we will try to make him take more damage than usual if he gets hit out of his horizontal roll (though not as extreme as in SF2: World Warrior). This would be a fair trade for his roll being safer on block. I know it sounds strange to tone Blanka down in any way because you’re used to him being so bad, but consider how few bad matches he has anymore. Blanka’s a new man now.
T.Hawk
Oh, T.Hawk. There’s too much to say here, so I’ll have to write a whole separate article on him. He’s been tough to get right.
–Sirlin
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:40 am
Thanks Sirlin, always a good read!
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Hi Sirlin,
I’d love to know more aout how you feel about the way Blanka is playing. He’s always been my character since 1991, and with every passing version I’ve hoped for them to improve a couple of things.
I’m hoping his rainbow roll is actually a changed move and one that’s viable in serious play. It should be quick enough to jump over a close-ish fireball.
I’d love to have seen his vertical roll replaced with something closer to his Turbo version roll, albeit without having to hold directly down to charge (as opposed to down/back). Is the vertical roll useful now? You don’t seem to mention it much.
As for the bite, I hope you keep the range and damage at least as good as this is his most important move for me.
I hope you don’t feel you have to nerf his regular cannonball any more - his main disadvantage in earlier versions was the double damage he received for a failed roll.
Anyway it’s great he has some good matches now, but I’d like to know how you think he fares against the big boys (Ryu, Dhalsim, Bison etc).
I want him to be a contender!
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I love the idea and what you have done to the characters but can i ask you will evil ryu and shin gouki/akuma will be in the game beceuase i think most fans will love if i did
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:21 am
Hi Sirlin,
I’d love to know if you are adding characters that are not in the “Super Street Fighter II turbo” game. For example characters from the “Street Fighter Alpha Series” like Guy. I am not saying add all of them but they are some characters in the street fighter video games which you do not have in the upcoming “Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix ” and I am sure some fans will be disappointed when they hear the video game will not have some of the characters that they love.I still love your ideas and how you are rebalancing the game its looking good so keep up the good work.
thanks
p.s: It is quite hard to remember the name of the game your producing:)
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:26 am
Good day sirlin
Could i just ask will the game demo be out on the Playstation netowrk store or would you have to buy bionic commando and also will the game be selling in shop’s because i have been hearing rumor’s saying it will only be on Xbox live and Playstation network store.
Thanks,
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:34 am
hi,Sirlin
Not in a negative way but I do agrre that the game does not have enough characters. The characters you have got are great and i play with all of them but a street fighter game is not street fighter game without “Guy” and “Sakura” and im sure another 3-4 charcters
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:36 am
There are no characters that were not in the original ST, but akuma will supposedly no longer be banned in tournaments.
You guys should really go read all the original articles before you post, since basically every question so far has already been answered.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:06 am
Akuma is being adjusted to compete fairly with the other characters, and he will be selectable directly from the character lineup (no secret code needed).
The objective of HD Remix is to take the Super Turbo that has, despite some flaws, held up in tournaments for over 10 years and remove as many of said flaws as possible (and try not to introduce new flaws in the process, heh). It’s a project to improve upon the original recipe, not create a whole new mess by adding alien ingredients (new characters).
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:47 am
Its great to hear that the changes we have read in the articles arent necessarily the final versions.
All of the new changes seems nice, I do however still feel that ryus air hurricane kick gives him meter to fast :/
Does Blankas new jab-ball wiff when done right after a throw? Wiffed jab-ball into bite mixed up with meaty fierce ball sounds like a nice mixup after a throw, atleast as long as fierce ball os safe. Blanka also needs a second throwbutton, -ALL- the other kids have it! ;) Even the ones with only one throw (bison, vega, balrog, chun).
Im not really sure what to think of your idea of making him take more damage when hit out of a ball. At first i liked it, since it would stop him from spaming balls the entire round, then I thought of how other characters rushing moves work. Both Honda and boxer are compleatly safe on block, they both have way better priority and they both get knock down on hit. The only advantage Blankas have is that it is very fast, but boxers is possably even faster. Blankas ball also hit on the first frame, but that will not really make any differens in situations where he can be hit out of it, which seems to be the ones your conserned about.
To me it seems like blankas ball, (compared to rushpunshes and headbutt) isnt too strong, atleast not when made from a distance where its possible he would been hit out of it. It also seems kind of hard on blanka in the matchup against boxer or dhalsim, who now will have two chanses at punishing him.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:53 am
The visual/sound changes for the Blanka Ball actually sound quite scary. Whiff ball -> throw is viable enough, but that little extra aesthetic change for a better fake out seems like a tool that’ll make an existing tactic just a little more effective for high level play. Meanwhile, it probably won’t affect beginners because they’ll mash buttons no matter what they see. Looks like a win/win scenario from a designing perspective to me.
Sweep into fake fireball into throw also sounds scary… on paper. From your observation, did this work only after convincing an opponent to block more, or is it also hard to react to?
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:36 am
Just wanted to ask if in the Blanka section when you said he had a good match up against Vega did you mean dictator or claw? I had always thought that claw was a really tough match for blanka, other than up ball I don’t think he has many options.
Also wanted to suggest a change to his electricity move to make it more fun to use. I think it would be interesting to have electricity eliminate fire balls kinda like Zangiefs green hand while at the same time the fire ball would cancel electricity giving the move more recovery. Some of the uses for this could be meter building against someone like Sagat at a resonable distance and a drawback could be using it upclose where someone like Guile can use the added recovery that electricity gets.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Game looks great so far, keep up the good work. I would like to suggest the announcer voice be changed to the original sf2 world warrior one however.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Great job. I knew t. hawk would have some problems. Hawk dive into instant hawk dive should counter guile’s c. mk which i don’t think was your intention. On the topic of guile, the srk peeps are clamoring for some buffs for the buzz cut hero and I can’t help but agree with them. I just know you’ll do him justice though, just like you did with fei long. He needs to be better than ST guile, but not as good as magic hand cuffs, four jab dizzy WW guile.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
How many button presses will be required to activate Hundred Hands and similar specials? Would 4 required presses be best(if easy execution for pad players is your priority)? With only 4 required presses, a console player could slide their thumb over the two punch or kick buttons on the face of the controller twice to activate the special(LP~MP~LP~MP). Sorry if this has already been covered. I couldn’t find anything referring to it.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I might get a PS3 for this game after seeing how SSBB fared.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Hey Sirlin,
Great stuff so far and I am counting the days till the beta on xbox live. One question or option that would be a nice fan service if possible is to create a stage for Akuma. You do not even have to add it into the game though that would be nice but the option to select it in training and VS mode would be sweet!! I watched a interview video on gametrailers where you said you would like to do expansion packs with new characters and tutorial videos and all. I hope that comes to life but for now just waiting for info on Vega,Gief,Bison, and Guile.
Regards,
April 24th, 2008 at 7:19 am
This is the game that will make me buy a 360 five years from now when they are $20 at the local Salvation Army (I try to stay behind the curve by a generation or two… ’cause I’m cheap). Until then, thanks for keeping us updated. It would be cool to see a lo-res version make its way to Wiiware in a couple years, but I guess the VC is probably already oversaturated with the 3 SNES ports.
I second the call for downloadable expansion packs with new characters. That seems to be the logical direction for fighters to head toward (that, and/or a balanced character editor). This Guilty Gear XX #Reload Slash Accent Core Plus stuff is getting kinda old. I’m also happy you lobbied for the option to play the rebalanced game with the old sprites and backgrounds. Never been a fan of the classic American comic style of Udon’s art. Everyone looks all veiny and homogenous and Schwarzeneggery. Bleaugh!
April 25th, 2008 at 1:03 am
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April 25th, 2008 at 1:34 am
put this game on Steam and you’ll be a national hero
April 25th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Agreed. :)
I’m pretty excited about Blanka. His changes are small but he’s never been lacking in anything major. It was a brilliant move to make all his rolls look and sound the same.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Yes, as others have already said, is it possible to put this on steam? Not everyone has a 360/PS3. We aren’t all rich. I’m one of them. lol… I’m on such a strict budget, I have a hard time getting candy out of the vending machine much less spending hundreds of $ on a 360/PS3. hehe. A steam version would be excellent for non-console owners as well capcom can get something out of this to!
April 25th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Or he could make the rom free and we could play it on ggpo!
Maybe in a perfect world…
April 25th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I dont think Sirlin has any power over whether to put thiss on steam or not.
Have you by the way found a solution to Balrogs 2-button turn around punsh?
April 26th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Not rich? It takes alot more money to maintain a PC that comes close to running minimum specs on games over the course of X years than to simply buy a console and be set for 5-7.
April 26th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
SF is a mostly 2D game though (the ground uses a 3D polygon, everything else is drawn as straight 2D), so it should run on virtually any Windows PC.
April 26th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Oh, I’m sure that HDR would run on pretty much any semi-decent PC…but it’s still undeniable that console gaming is cheaper than PC gaming.
April 27th, 2008 at 12:39 am
I can assure you that you get what you pay for. ;) But yeah, console gaming is way cheaper, unless you buy an HDTV and the cabling for it, which will run you much closer to PC gaming than you’d think.
April 27th, 2008 at 4:43 am
I think a lot of people have access to a family PC that can also be used for lo-tech gaming like SSF2THDR (what an acronymn). For them, downloading a game is cheaper than buying a 360. For rich (or dedicated) foolios that actually buy and constantly upgrade gaming rig PCs just so they can play the flavor of the month FPS, then yeah, console gaming is cheaper.
On another topic, I guess Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus Append for the PS2 is pretty much a new character patch. The only thing left to do is drop the price to a third of what it is and make it downloadable and we’d finally be past the point of buying four $50 baby-step sequels for every fighting game.
But fighting gamers are suckers, so the sequelitis is probably here to stay for a while.
What do you think about the possiblity of downloadable characters/ engine tweaks Sirlin (down the line, if not for HDR)? Is it inherently much more difficult to design a compelling fighting game when different players might eventually decide to purchase completely different sets of characters/game mechanics, or even edit their own?
Or do you think the current routine of “add four characters, tweak balance, and rerelease at full price” is just fine for the fighting gamer niche? I don’t see how this status quo formula could possibly expand the shrinking market for these games.
April 27th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Considering how shooters typically get free content and patches after release, I’d say that’s a complete ripoff.
April 27th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
It’s the result of the arcade market. Each re-release is guilty gear is a perfect port of what happened to exist in the arcade at some given point in time. The arcade machines themselves get updated, but consoles had no download structure until recently, so they’ve traditionally just re-released the game when a significant enough change occurs.
It’s not a rip-off… it’s exactly what consumers asked them to do, given the choice between practicing the game at an arcade, at a dollar a credit or w/e, vs. having a version to play at home. For most of those consumers, a perfect arcade port is far more important than additions like downloadable updates, and price isn’t a barrier (since a home version is inevitably cheaper than playing in an arcade once you’ve invested enough time).
April 28th, 2008 at 1:28 am
I know we’ll find out eventually, but I’m curious as to how Akuma has been tweaked to be a fair competitor. Chiefly concerning his air fireball. On one side, it’s an ‘alien’ move in ST (meaning alien to the base design) that few characters have an answer for, and thus probably shouldn’t be in the game at all. But on the other side, the air fireball has since gone on to be a signature move for Akuma’s later incarnations (so much so that it’s now one of the things that makes Akuma, well, Akuma!), so it would feel awkward to play a version of him without one.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:53 am
I’d think that to make the air fireball not dominate in ST, the other player should be able to neutralize it with any attack. Maybe that would make it too weak, I dunno.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:02 am
As an arcade gamer, understand why the games are repeatedly rereleased, but as a consumer, I don’t see any reason why those $50 rereleases couldn’t become $5-10 patches. I long for a fighting game to find a happy middle ground between arcade-perfect portiness and nutty MUGEN unregulated chaos. There’s no reason why an arcade-perfect option couldn’t be preserved alongside a more open version of the game; this already happens to a small extent in many ports.
Don’t get me wrong, the high-level competitive scene is important, but if those are the only people interested in buying and playing your games, your marketshare is going to shrink… unless high-level matches in your game become a popular spectator sport… and you live in South Korea… and the name of your game ends in “-craft.”
I know Sirlin believes that the gameplay of HDR is compelling enough as it is, but in the end, it’s not a game that is going to expand the market much. There’s a ton of potential in this genre, but until companies start taking some risks and not focusing ALL their attention on servicing the needs of “arcade gamers,” these games will continue to appeal only to a narrow cross section of people.
I happen to be in that segment, so I’m overjoyed that HDR is being made, but watching all that potential being squandered for over a decade is really painful.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:38 am
Fighting games are kind of tricky in that they don’t seem to lend well to single player modes (the best effort was Brawl’s Subspace Emissary, which was repetitive and boring). Shooters and RTS’s have story-based single player modes and free-for-all/team multiplayer modes, while fighting games typically just have 1v1, which is a little too hardcore for many new players.
Good single player modes and casual multiplayer modes tend to draw lots of players to a game, and in turn many of them get into the hardcore competitive modes. It’s hard to keep a genre afloat when all it offers is hardcore play, since the mass market is generally too intimidated to jump right into the deep end.
April 29th, 2008 at 3:46 am
I’ve always said they should make a Street Fighter with RPG elements… play your way to the “bosses”, which are the normal street fighter fights. Obviously, you’d want a normal mode that is only fighting for regular old timers… but some ppl may get a kick out of having two games in one.
April 29th, 2008 at 3:58 am
That’s what they do in soul calibur… the single-player game is often against handicapped enemies with less health or something… and then you can equip items that give you powerups like increased knockback or damage, or other things. Though, it’s still repetitive and boring, and all that stuff is, understandably, banned from the multiplayer modes.
amanohyo: I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. The companies releasing these games are largely based around the arcade market. They don’t competitively price console releases, because they honestly don’t care about expanding that market. It’s just a way to please some hardcore fans, and earn them a little extra cash. There aren’t enough consumers there to make it worthwhile for those companies to go hardcore marketing/price cutting in order to get every last person to buy their game.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:42 am
I would think that Akuma’s air fireball would be changed to something like Alpha 3 Akuma’s air fireball, where he has a pretty good chargeup before he actually throws the fireball. And the angles of the air hados are probably going to be changed so he can’t just lock you down.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
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