New stage and costume for Bison?
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also new interview...
We revisit the recent Famitsu interview with Capcom's Kouichi Sugiyama again tonight to learn briefly about Street Fighter 5's highly-anticipated story.
Famitsu: You announced that the story will be richer this time around. Could you go into more detail on this?
Sugiyama: This time around, we've put some real work into the story. We've placed it firmly in continuity, and really been thinking hard on how to couple relationships between characters in a way that'll make players go "Oh, so that's it!" once they play.
For example, the Street Fighter Alpha series has kind of felt like an alternate continuity before this, so we want to produce some clarity around that.
Though Famitsu asked for more, Sugiyama could not go into further detail on the story, which kind of makes us all the more excited for what's in store.
There's a lot more to the interview, as Sugiyama goes into a lot of depth on the development team's choices to get rid of many traditional charge moves, how SF5 differs from previous Street Fighters and how it will bring in new fans.
Famitsu: There've been new moves added, old moves removed, commands for moves changed to many of the old characters present in SF5. What was your thought process with these changes?
Sugiyama: We didn't want to have characters that felt too similar, characters that we're just "different versions" of eachother. For example, Nash's special moves used to be charge, but we changed them to motion.
We already had plans to add Guile, so we wanted to differentiate them as much as possible, and decided to just make Nash completely into a motion character. Of course, we took it a step further than that as well by giving him teleportation with his V-Trigger.
Famitsu: Even then, I think that a character from Street Fighter 2 like Vega is so heavily linked with being a charge character in most people's minds. Changing something like that required a lot of boldness, don't you think?
Sugiyama: Well, that's certainly true, but one of our major premises with Street Fighter 5 is to have it be something of a reboot.
We wanted old players, Street Fighter veterans, as well as players that are new to the series, with SF5 being their first game, to be on equal footing going into the game, so we decided not to be caught up in the past and changed stuff like that.
For a secondary reason, commands were more difficult back in the Street Fighter 2 era, so charge characters were considered easier, but now it's become the other way around, where charge characters are often considered more difficult.
Famitsu: There is a tendency towards that, yes.
Sugiyama: A character like Vega generally has strong specs as a character, but due to the difficulty of charge-based movement, people tend to avoid him. With him being a motion character this time around, we're hoping that more people will be willing to try him out, and properly bring out the natural potential of Vega as a character.
Famitsu: In Street Fighter 4, okizeme was vital. In Street Fighter 2, fireballs were pivotal to battle, to a point where if you managed to hit an opponent with one, sometimes the match could be considered over.
Street Fighter 3 was very finely footsie-based due to the presence of the parry mechanic. Each entry in the series has developed the fighting system further. What have you planned for SF5's central feature to be?
Sugiyama: For the time being, we want people to be able to just jump right into it when they start playing. I feel like players could never really advance beyond the starting line in SF3 because of parrying or in SF4 because of the heavy reliance on okizeme. If we lower that hurdle, the difference between skilled players becomes finer.
Famitsu: What do you mean by the difference becoming finer?
Sugiyama: It's a very fine line. For example, situational judgment. Your opponent's HP, your own meter, the hitboxes of moves, keeping all of these things in mind while playing will become important in SF5, I think. The difference in the ability to judge these factors is what will decide who's skilled and who isn't, I believe.
What are your hopes for the game's story mode? Do you like agree that characters like Vega will be able to "reach their potential" now that they don't have to rely on charge? Let us know in the comments.
Source:
Famitsu.
