*sigh*
You know what, though? I feel like I’ve got no one to blame but
myself.
So it looks like Street Fighter V’s newest character is Abigail, a long-absent
returnee from Final Fight rejiggered
for a modern release. He’s a member of
the Mad Gear gang -- and SF’s first
Canadian fighter -- known for his monstrous size and strength (and he’s still
growing, apparently). Reportedly, his
story mode will have him on a search for his perfect monster truck;
gameplay-wise, he’s…uh…a grappler who…uh…uh…uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
All right, look.
I’m
on record of saying -- and I quote -- “grapplers are hype incarnate”. I stand by
that. Logically, I should be on-board
with Abigail. And to be clear, it’s not
as if I’ve completely written him off; I had a pretty pained reaction upon
seeing his reveal for the first time, but now I’ve made peace with his presence
and can say “Hey, maybe he won’t be so bad.”
But should I really have to
qualify a new character like that if the developers are firing on all
cylinders? Probably not. And there’s still the fact that I had that
initial, negative reaction -- one in which the only nice thing I could say
about him in a conversation was “I like his theme song, at least.” Except the song in the reveal trailer
actually wasn’t his theme song (which I partly suspected/feared). His actual theme song is…a theme song.
There’s so much about Abigail that ranges from
“yeah, okay, I guess” to “this is dire”
that I won’t fault anyone for feeling indifferent, disappointed, or outright
disgusted by this new entry. Maybe
things will go better once people actually have a chance to play as him, but
first impressions are important. I’m a
fan of grapplers and/or big-bodied heavy hitters (and I’m no stranger to
disproportionate ones like Potemkin), but for me what slaughtered my hype and
interest in the character was his intro.
Pretending to drive a car and acting like a pea-brained brute was, and
still is, too much for me to bear.
Potemkin, at least, has class.
Abigail does not. Hell, even
Birdie’s looking downright distinguished compared to him.
I wanted to believe, though. In fact, I actually had a secret hope in mind
-- one that gave Capcom WAY too much credit.
It was known well before the fact that Abigail would be the next
character in line thanks to tireless probing of Capcom’s assets (or is it
simply because Capcom doesn’t have good enough security to keep a secret? The mind boggles). Even so, no one actually knew what he looked
like; most assumed that it’d just be something along the lines of his
semi-recent concept art, but a part of me believed it was all a work on
Capcom’s part. They intentionally leaked
Abigail’s presence, but not his appearance -- which made me wonder if he would
be a she. Maybe the devs would take a bold step and
introduce a big-bodied female grappler, since I’d imagine the genre is sorely
lacking in them.
Also, Abigail IS from the same franchise that
baffled the world with Poison. What
better time than now to flip the script?
Okay, sure, I wanted a big female grappler to
burst onto the scene, but I could live with anything else. I expected anything else, including -- and
especially -- the safe, obvious choice.
Now we’ve all seen what Capcom had planned, and now it’s a safe bet that
they’re suffering for it. Abigail has
his fans, to be sure -- and they’re not wrong for it -- and again, I’d think
that things will get better once people actually start playing as him in real
matches. That does make me wonder how
he’ll do performance- or tier-wise once the meta absorbs him; Hugo didn’t do so
hot in USF4, Zangief had some serious
issues in Season 1 of SFV, and nobody
is chomping at the bit to play Birdie (except me, I guess). Even now, I can see how Abigail might be a
monster in theory, but a pile of mincemeat in practice.
But there’s no sense in playing armchair
strategist right now. The real issue is
much more pressing -- and pressing down on Capcom with enough force to break
bones. It’s a matter of timing, you
see. The original assumption was that
we’d be getting a Season 2 DLC character every couple of months -- well, as
long as you don’t question Capcom’s punctuality given how they delayed Ibuki’s
release without so much as a peep until basically the end of her target month
(and didn’t even put out an Alex trailer until way late in his month, to the point where a fan made one out of
stitched-together gameplay). In any
case, I’ve heard that the idea was to delay Abigail’s announcement until EVO to
generate as much hype as possible, and breathe new life into a controversial
entry in the SF franchise. Makes sense.
Then EVO 2017 happened. And now I feel really bad for Capcom.
Okay. So
let me walk you through my thought process after learning about BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle. I originally heard the news by checking out
the announcement via Twitter on my phone.
No trailer, no screenshots, nothing -- just an image featuring Ragna,
Yu, Hyde, and Ruby as featured in the teaser.
At first I thought, “Wait, what? Huh?”
And then ten seconds later I thought, “Huh. Okay, that’s pretty cool.” And then I started driving home.
Then after five minutes I started thinking, “Wait,
hold on. A new crossover game? With the Persona
crew? And the Under-Night crew? And
characters from BlazBlue and RWBY?
Man, that’s nuts.” Minutes after
that, I started getting a huge smile on my face. “Oh, wait, hold on. That means I can play as best girl Blake
Belladonna. That’s awesome. That’s rad.
That’s super-rad!” And then “No,
wait! This might mean we’ll have Mitsuru
and Orie in the same game!” “Oh crap --
a two-man team with Azrael and Hakumen?!”
“Jesus! It’s a crossover between
four different universes -- and one of
them is RWBY!”
It’s a wonder I didn’t crash and burn what with
all the blinding hype I felt.
And yet, somehow, that wasn’t all the hype to be
had that day. EVO is supposed to be
about the fighting game fans -- from the battle-tested pros to the cheering
onlookers -- coming together for the big brawls on the main stage. Even so, fighting game companies have taken
to using it as a way to promote their latest and greatest wares. So Arc System Works? They were definitely doing work this year
with their new crossover title, on top of finally
pushing out Jubei for BlazBlue,
on top of the reveal of Future Trunks for Dragonball
FighterZ. (And then a couple of days
later, they confirmed -- as obvious as it was -- that Krillin
and the most correct choice Piccolo
would join the fight.) Meanwhile,
Bandai Namco comes out swinging with the reveal of Fatal Fury’s/King of Fighters’ Geese Howard as a playable guest
character for Tekken 7 -- and to say
he looks glorious would be an understatement the size of one of the gas
giants. Hell, even Arika is getting back
in the action with their own fighting game, featuring Skullomania after years
of hanging on the sidelines. Everybody
in attendance was swinging for the fences.
Except, of course, for Capcom. Sure, new stages were announced, which
is…okay. And they’re finally delivering
on some of the nostalgic costumes they promised a while back, which is…fine, I
guess. Jedah and Gamora were shown off
in-game for Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite,
and…yeah, that’s all right (which only helps confirm the credibility -- and
ominousness -- of that disappointing leak list). And of course there was the crowner, Abigail.
I feel really, really
bad for Capcom. I might be the only one, though.
I want to say “How did we get here?” But you know what? That question doesn’t really feel appropriate
-- because the more I think about it, the more I realize that we’ve been here
for a while. Capcom has only been
focusing on a handful of properties recently -- SF, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Dead Rising -- even if it means eschewing all of their beloved
properties save for the occasional HD remaster.
By extension, the house that Mega Man built is one of the most infamous
when it comes to fighting games. SF put them on the map, but they’ve had
plenty of others. And they will have others in the future, given
that Marvel Infinite is on the
way. Even so, I don’t think anyone will
fight me when I say that they’ve had their problems.
Support for Street
Fighter X Tekken withered into oblivion despite a 2013 overhaul, unable to
shake the stigma of in-disc DLC and a disdain-inducing gem system among other
gameplay issues. Marvel 3 came out in 2011 to the delight of many, only to have an
updated rerelease a mere nine months later.
Iteration after iteration of SFIV crawled
out from the depths, and the PS4 version -- which was supposed to be the
definitive edition -- brought with it a cornucopia of bugs. SFV has
taken, and continues to take, heat to this very moment, even without the royal
graces of Abigail. The less said about Marvel Infinite until release day, the
better -- though to be sure, I’m chomping my fingers down to the bone in fear
of the issues that might bring.
It’s not as if people have suddenly jumped on the
Capcom hate train. The grievances have
piled up for weeks, and months, and years;
EVO 2017 (and to a lesser extent E3 2017) just so happened to bathe that train
in light from engine to caboose.
Abigail’s due out in less than a week, but his punches in the trailer don’t even properly connect with Ed’s
body. Meanwhile, Dragonball FighterZ is somewhere around
the 20% mark for completion, but -- barring the occasional beta build glitch
and player inexperience -- it looks ready for the main stage at EVO 2018. The difference in ability and quality is
getting pretty stark.
I’d think that Arc System Works has never been a
popular or well-known company (even though Guilty
Gear Xrd has been out for a few years, I ran into a guy not too long ago
who didn’t even know what Guilty Gear was). But setting aside their less-than-ideal
practices -- high-priced DLC characters and constant SFII-level rereleases -- they do honest work and put out strong
fighters. Now that they’re waving the
torch of the DBZ brand, they’ve garnered tons of attention. Now people are likely starting to notice that
there are more fighting game options besides SF. Same goes for KoF fans, I bet; they’re probably still
sitting pretty with KoFXIV, but the
diehards might start eyeing Tekken for
the chance to fire off a Reppuken in full 3D environments. How many RWBY
fans have taken a sudden interest in fighting games now that they’ll likely
have a chance to unload brutal combos with Yang Xiao Long or Weiss Schnee?
The long and short of it: Capcom might rule the
fighting game roost, but that’s partly because of the legacy and branding. If it keeps stumbling -- and by all accounts,
it will -- then it’s primed to get laughed and booed off the throne. If it hasn’t already.
The transition won’t happen immediately, of
course; it’s not as if the next EVO will dump SFV from the competition lineup wholesale. But there’s an air of resentment swirling
around Capcom that’s getting harder and harder to mask into oblivion with
gallons of perfume. It’s been scribbled
all over the internet by gamers up and down the ladder, from casual fans to
intrepid journalists -- not to mention the pros with a huge stake in those
properties. There’s no telling how many
people have been hurt or frustrated by subpar offerings, but have stayed silent
on the matter. And yes, everyone is
allowed to have their opinions -- positive or negative, based on evidence or on
emotion -- but the fact that we even have
those bitter opinions tells me that something is wrong here.
To be clear: I like SFV. I always have, and I
still do. I think that a lot of the
music is top-notch, the gameplay is solid, and the art style, on average, is
good. I can think of a number of things
I’d like to change about it, of course (irrespective of missing characters),
but I’m at peace with it as-is. Yet even
though I enjoy it, I can’t say that I’m actively supporting it right now. I haven’t even played it in months. The most I’ve done is try and learn how to
play as Chun-Li, but gave up that endeavor when I kept getting thrown into
lag-laden matches with players in Mexico.
The real warning sign, for me, is that my brother
is in much the same position. He’s an
absolute fighting game maniac, having bought every version of SFIV, sometimes across multiple consoles
and on PC. There have been knights where
I’d get woken up at 3 in the morning because he ate a Raging Demon and lost the
match. But these days? I haven’t seen him touch SFV in months, nor have I heard him play it at any time of
day. I haven’t seen him mess around with
it on PC (even though he has that version), and most damningly, he hasn’t asked
to go a few rounds (read: several hours at a time) with me. For him, it’s all about Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2, or Tekken
7, or even Injustice 2.
We both saw the Marvel Infinite trailer for E3, and we both had the same reaction
upon seeing Chun-Li’s face (and to a lesser extent Gamora’s). I got to try the story demo first; I wasn’t
very impressed by that snippet of the story [citation needed], but I thought
that the gameplay would be king. Not
being the expert on fighters between the two of us, I told him to give the demo
a try and see if he could offer up some conclusive thoughts. But he didn’t try it. I asked him again, and again, and again if he
tried it, but every time he said no -- and at one point admitted that he didn’t
want to try it because he thought it would be disappointing.
To this day, I haven’t asked him if he tried
it. All I know is that the demo
mysteriously vanished from the PS4 -- for what reason, I fear I already know.
This whole situation sucks. I don’t want to feel bad for Capcom. I don’t want the company to be a laughing
stock or a hate sink. I don’t want their
games to suffer and leave themselves ready -- and begging -- for ridicule. I
want them to succeed by making good games.
Not because of branding, and not because “they were here first”; I want
them to prove that they have the chops to earn fan trust and praise, and the
same cheers that made EVO moment 37 into a legend. But so far -- for years now -- they
haven’t. It’s been a cascade of failure,
with the waves rising higher and higher.
We’ve had to deal with messy visuals and sketchy rosters; unfinished
features and peddled DLC; cringe-inducing communication and missing communication; the list goes on,
and on, and on.
It shouldn’t be this way. Capcom shouldn’t be able to coast based on
brand recognition, or the fact that gamers -- especially the pros -- have to buy in or else they’re missing
out on the competitive edge. But some
days, that’s what it seems like they’re doing.
On days like today, following the scorched-earth bombing by seemingly
every other fighting game company out there, that seems like the most viable
explanation for their current MO.
Weather the storm and plug up the holes in the ship with stopgap
measures. It’s a strategy, I’ll grant
them, but it’s not a good strategy.
I hope it doesn’t last. It probably won’t last because Capcom will
figure out what they need to do. But
just in case? Capcom, if you’re
listening? I have some words of advice
for you.
Come back. Please.
Also, add in Shin Dee Jay.
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