It was a few years ago, that I decided to create a month solely dedicated to the women that make our fighting games great. While the celebrations have not been as expansive as I'd hope, they HAD yielded some interesting results.
For example, my write up on Super Strip Fighter IV is one of my most succesful posts, and I can't really figure out why. I mean, I guess nobody else ever went in-depth with the game and maybe that's the reason? I know I reviewed it in part because of that. If I'd ran into at least 10 people who had written about the game, about the mechanics of it and such, it'd have been one thing. But I couldn't even get a move list, and it was already years old by that point.
And now, a few months ago, a new version of the game saw release. Ultra Strip Fighter IV Omeco Edition is a game that exists.
Boasting an expanded cast that includes cameos from other StudioS(STILL UNGOOGLABLE, DUDES!) products, and expanded upon bad touch options, this might just be the best Strip Fighter game yet. Or uh...the worst, if you take fictional rape really seriously. I don't know. I'm not telling you what to like.
Or it might suck. The fact is, I'm not using MY computer nowadays, and the person who does own it may not be cool to run into a game with THIS kind of bullshit in it. I'll let it to your imagination whether such a person is a hot girlfriend, or my grammy.
Point is, I'm not making any promises, but if things pick up, or if I dare try, come next July we'll see if all our Yuki Ice Dick dreams are about to come true. I will also try to give you a review of the OVA for Variable Geo, the cutey pattootie fighting game that ocassionally also ends with rape.
If you haven´t seen my video, here´s the short version: I can't wait 10 more years for Capcom and Marvel to get together and make a new 3 on 3 player super hero tag team, especially since it's possible Capcom goes under and Marvel is being a jerk about licencing.
So I'm trying to put together a crew of like-minded individuals who want to make a super hero tag team game . We're gonna need composers, drawing artists, people who know about the technical aspects of the game. We're gonna need people who know EF 12, MUGEN, Yoyo Gamemaker, or just plain code.
Now here´s the long written version.
I don´t believe in choosing one´s favorite things without really thinking it. For something to truly be one´s favorite, it must prove itself time and time again. It's the only way to distinguish the passing fads and temporary caprices from what truly hits one's core.
But I think in a sense Marvel vs Capcom 2 has proven itself to be many people´s favorite. It was never a perfect game. The cast came from disparately different games and it showed. The stages weren't anything to write home, and while the 2d sprites that weren't from Darkstalkers looked good, the backgrounds where generic and aged terribly. The music choices are still baffling.
But for a game that basically was a last hurrah for the series collecting all the characters that had been on it, and rounding it with basically random stragglers(2 Wolverines and Anakaris? Amingo? Where's Anita, U.S. Agent and Shadow Lady? Where the hell is Cyber Akuma? No Warzard characters?) proved itself to have huge legs. For 10 years it was a mainstay of arcades, and the tourney years. 10 years. Halo is over 10 years. Do people still feverishly play Halo's multiplayer?
The known, colorful characters where certainly a plus. The game certainly held a lot of appeal with the promise of making a team with Street Fighter's Bison teaming up with Spider-Man. That's certainly part of it. But it wasn't the only fighting game with Marvel characters.
The success of that game is, at it's core, a design success. The gameplay is fast and accessible, but with 56 characters to add to a 3 character team, that means that there was bound to be 168 possible teams, which, every character having 3 assist types, raises the possible combinations to 504. Even the update to the sequel couldn't touch it.
Speaking of that, UMVC3 is nearing it's fourth year birthday. Fans of the series where pretty disappointing with Capcom's handling overall of UMVC3 afterwards. The DLC was certainly disappointing/on disk. Capcom seems to have given up on this huge seller pretty quickly. Can't even play it online no more.
The Marvel series is showing all the signs to be headed into an even longer slumber than the decade between MVC2 and MVC3. Capcom is not doing so hot, lately. Don't be surprised if in a couple of years Capcom goes under, or gets bought up or sold.
Meanwhile, Marvel is doing so good, it's decided it to treat it's games division as another subsidiary of the films, focusing on producing games aligned with the movies it's making more than anything. Which is why Activision isn't making X-Men and Spider-Man games anymore.
So, until Marvel's games model goes kaput and Capcom pulls itself out of the muck, the odds of MVC4 are low to nil. And this is where the story used to end, back in the early 2000's.
But it's not the early 2000's anymore. Now, when Microsoft won't release a new Banjo Kazooie game, former Rare staff make a kickstarter for Yooka Laylee. When Konami won't make a traditional Castlevania, it's original creator puts out a Kickstarter for Bloodstained. When Capcom won't make a new Megaman game, it's original creator makes Mighty No.9.
So where's our spiritual sequel to Marvel vs Capcom? I mean, fighting games have some of the more intense fan content generating scenes I've seen, and that's just MUGEN alone! We made Pokken before Pokken was cool. And that's what I'm here to pitch. An idea for us to get together and make a new MVC styled game.
Now, MVC had a pretty deep well of well known and obscure characters from which to draw. And all those guys are gonna be under copyright for the forseeable future.
But not all superheroes are under copyright. Over the years, hundreds of this heroes have lost their copyright due to their parents companies going under and other such fates.
While you wouldn't mistake any of these guys for anything other than 1940's superheroes in their original state, it's certainly possible to reinvent them as something more modern. Say, analogues to popular current comic book and videogame characters.
For some, you wouldn't even need to go too far. I mean, look at Comet and Spider-Queen.
You're making a fighting game and you're gonna make a moveset for "shoots eyebeams" and "Can shoot web from her wrist." Hello? Streamline the designs a little, and you have some cool chars for a game!
Alas, there's other characters that don't really have that much going for them in terms of powers. A lot of them just have what I call "The Basic Superman". Really strong, Can Fly. A lot of them just have a costume and a gimmick with no actual powers.
But WE'RE calling the shots. We can make this characters do whatever we want! For an example, here's Red Rube.
Also, apparently "Red Rube" is a sexual thing that I don't want to be image googling.
Red Rube is a Captain Marvel(Whom, by the way, can also be on the game) knockoff with no actual powers other than being superstrong and supernaked. Like Captain Marvel, he's an orphan who transforms when he yells out a magic word. But when he transforms he does a thing with a tornado instead of a thing with lightening.
So why not extrapolate that power set to "he can shoot tornados!" If you wanted him to be an analogue, there's at least two MVC characters with whirlwind powers.
There's all sorts of things that can be done. You can make a legacy character so as to mold the character into whatever age or race or gender you want to. You can pretend the character had a lenghty history to say "hey, that's what the character looked like in the 90's!" or "eventually he got powers" or "He's actually a character from an old videogame, brought to life." We could totally work in those snubbed characters that definitively should have been on there, but whern't.
And that's all before even discussing making an original character. It's certainly a possibility. Jussayin' is all. It's not like we can't make a whole new character or anything.
As for gameplay, may I suggest starting off with a base MVC2 engine, and then improving on that?
For example, add a combo breaker or somesuch system. Batzarro's personally not a huge fan of infinites. Or how was that thing in Tatsunoko called? Megacrash?
Another thing I'd like is the ability to choose assist types on the fly. It would add unpredictability to fights to not be expecting something in specific everytime you see the assist character arrive.
It'd be pretty cool if all characters could buff up their stats, similar to Juggernaut's Power Up move, with the caveat that it'd drain their meter. You can continually buff on top of the buffs, but it'd keep draining more and more meter. Once you're out of meter, the buffs are gone. We could call this option "Retcon".
Inversely, you could maybe debuff yourself temporarilly in exchange for more meter. Would you be willing to be a bit more frail or slower in exchange for that necessary bit of hyperbar?
There's also non-fighting things that I'd like to improve on the Marvel Games. For example, the story. I'd like to think we can come up with something a little better than a slideshow for each character(or in MVC2's case, no even that). I mean, it doesn't have to be Mortal Kombat 9's or anything, but even Touki Densho had somewhat more of a story than a game with characters that have decades of story to them. That's right, Touki Densho. You haven't even heard about that one.
How about endings that acknoweledge that the characters where a team, instead of just giving an ending to the guy who last punched? I know at least MVC1 toyed with that for a bit, but there's certainly more that can be done.
I was making a fighting game story mode once, and while I couldn't ever finish it, It basically amounted to generic dialogue that could be replaced with character specific versions. You know, you say, for example "What would Ryu say HERE to start a fight? Something like 'I want to test my strength against you' right? But what would Wolverine say? 'Get out of my way, Bub!' probably!" Much like certain parts of Star Wars Kotor, different dialogues basically taking the story in a same direction.
How about Co-Op? The Marvel games completely missed the idea of Co-op, but this isn't 1999 anymore! There's no reason why multiple players can't control each characters. Hell, can you imagine 3 on 3 gameplay? That would be boss.
In short,I don't think we've done enough with the idea of a super hero tag team game and with fighting games in general. 10 more years? Let's NOT wait 10 more years. Let's get together and do it.
Your name will be inscribed in the pages of fighting's nudie mag.
..
Of all the franchises that could have come back to cash in on the return of Street Fighter a few years back, Strip Fighter is probably the least likely. An obscure PC Engine fighter from the olden days that featured an all girl cast with dignity baring special attacks, it's certainly less popular than Variable Geo and less recent than Battle Raper (oh, yes, that's a real thing.). But now 2010's Super Strip Fighter 4 joins those two in how far it is willing to take the whole "Porn fighter" thing.
Despite the title, Super Strip Fighter 4 is the second in a series. There's not even a vanilla Strip Fighter 4. I guess if your game has female penile tentacled succubus as a final boss, you don't worry if people think you're trying to ride Capcom's coattails. The game actually is quite a bit above the prequel in terms of both graphics and design, as you'd expect. Every character from the old game has been revamped, redesigned, or reworked. Notably, eagle hat enthusiast Bella has gone from this...
A woman in her Twilight years...
...to this...
"D"? She deserves at least a B in terms of "Offense".
And Clown Afro sporting Prowrestler Amanda's change was pretty big too.
The only fat woman in a fighting game ever and it ends up being porn...
...Breasts, breasts, breasts, FIELD, Breasts...
The changes a decade or two can have, huh? The graphics, while featuring bland backgrounds and flashly looking sprites, are not bad at all to look at. And for a 2d game that has the capacity to strip fighters of their clothing, the animation is fluid enough.
The cast is pretty big too. Highlights include "Snakes count as clothing, right?"-minded Medusa, civil clothed Ninja Sayaka and two male characters. For the ladies, I guess.
Most of the new characters seem way better designed than the old returning characters. I don't know, I think they went overboard trying to make the old cast sexier by making their breasts big. That's just part of it, guys.
What the...this isn't Takein or King of Fuckers, guys. It's not even Cockcom vs SNGay. It's Strip Fighter.
The fighting concerns 3 buttons: light, medium and strong. You can fill up a hyper-bar and launch a super attack. You can also fill up the letters to strip by getting knocked down or letting yourself open with a specific move. This is the only way to activate the Strip Hyper. This move, when it finishes off the opponent, leads to her clothes (if there where any in the first place.) to break apart and fall, and lets the girl at your mercy. That's when you can ravage her.
Yes, there is rape in Strip Fighter 4.
Tonight: A very special surprise guest appearance by penis.
By activating a particular combo or grab during your opponent's clothesless misery, you can just get in there and have your way with them against their will. In the case of the final boss Succubus, fat Japanese fanboy Jin, musclebound MMAer S and token hermaphrodite Ai it's some kind of obvious penetration thing that lasts as long as you want to watch it. Other characters like SnM blond Nina, onion themed waitress Iku and super oily, supernaked Rana have dry humping hypers, specials and grabs that could be also construed as sexual harassment when used against females but when used against males become graphic(yet obnoxiously censored) sex And most of the old cast hangs on to their nudifying special moves albeit in hyper form. One character's Strip Hyper seems to be having sex with the camera.
Yet, there are characters that have yet to show evidence of being able to initiate graphic scenes with either sex. I for one, believe this is total bullshit. All the males and phalus enabled women can rape women, and some of the women can rape men. Why not the others? Why not make them some of them rape the girls? That makes half the cast just rape victims, Not enough Lesbian Rape, man. What are you waiting for, the tournament edition?
I mean, I don't want to throw a bitch fit over this, but it's like having Mortal Kombat, and having half of the characters not have Fatalities. Why should I bother with Mari or Ran if they don't have the goods? What are they even here for? What, couldn't you come up anything a girl can do to another girl? No scissoring? No ice dick for Yuki? No fingering? No prehensile hair penetration by Medusa? I accuse this porn game of being sexist!
You know, this mask isn't helping your dandruff problem at all.
Since even if you wanted to, you can't play with anyone most of the time (on account of awful slowdown you get sometimes. Also, it's a porn game), story mode is pretty much the only choice. Now, I don't know Japanese, so I guess the story is about how the evil Succubus has organized a tournament between girls so she can rape them. You have a an intro textwall for each character.You fight a handful of people, then face your rival. Succubus rapes your rival in a cutscene, and then you fight her. Text ending and credits. All Japanese. Here, let me help.
My Japanese is a little spotty, though. Or as they say in Japan: "Kawasaki Ninja, Hey! El Mundo conquistaras!"
Except it's not over. You get to fight everyone else on a harder difficulty, until you tire or beat them all. Or beat it. I mean, no one wants to be defeated...
Besides Story you have VS mode and practice. They're pretty much the same, except training starts P1 at lower health. You don't even have options ingame. It's a pretty barebones experience.
Nope. Still not the Sailor Moon fighting game.
And I don't want to bandy around terms like "lazy", but the reusage of animation gets pretty bad. It's one thing that Hypers are often just flashier versions of special moves but even the warning animations for hypers? Here's a note, geniuses: characters in fighting games do special poses before hypers specifically so people know what is about to happen.
So what can I say? This game makes you work for the smut, but the engine is nice enough that it's not too much of a chore. Sure, if you really must watch Japanese stereotypes rape each other, you don't need a videogame for it. And there's way better fighting to be found elsewhere. But If your curious and a pervert and a fighter fan, it's probably worth your time.
I know this is overly late, but this being Fighting Female July, I want to write about the controversy regarding weirdo fighter Skullgirls.
See, apparently, someone accused the maker of the female centric head-to-head fighting game of making a sexist game. What, on account of all the cleavage, and pantyshots, and how none of the alumni look like Jaime Lee Curtis at all. And his attempts at sort of defending his design aesthetic, which include that a woman designed them and that no women have shown disapproval, have earned him no amount of credit.
My first thought is that I guess it's true that the rope always breaks through the thinnest part. Think of all the fighting game series that have any importance today. Are they equally sexist, more sexist, or less sexist? Is any of them free of thongs, bikinis, panty shots, bouncy mammary globes, etc? I think if any (popular, mainstream) series today can block against the accusation of exploiting the female form it's maybe Virtua Fighter.
I mean, it's easy to come in now, after the millions of pages dedicated to naked Cammy we've made, millions of Ryona Seung Mina videos, after we've made the Dead or Alive series thrive on mostly sex appeal to the point where they made a game that was just girls lounging on the beach, now that fighting games are building on other fighting games that are built on other fighitng games, to try and decide that women in fighting games should be fully dressed and tactful just for this one new game/potential franchise. What! Panty-shots? The (out)RAGE!
Compare these two characters' popularity as relative to the importance of the games they where in.
But I guess nobody wants to show up to Project Soul and be the guy who says maybe Ivy and Taki's breasts should stop growing at some point. Nobody wants to go to Ono-San and say that they are bothered by a nymphomaniac fighter. Nobody wants to say that a woman taking off her top after a fight is pandering. Suddenly, when it's an independent title whose creator speaks English, we care. Will somebody think of the children?
Thing is, nobody fucking cares. Nobody gives any props to Virtual Fighter for not having panty-shots, bouncing breasts and exaggerated cleavage or things like that. Nobody cared when Mortal Kombat or Soul Calibur added fully clothed women after many years of skimpiness(and in SCs case, after 3 lolis. 3!). When someone finally steps in and asks if one game is sexist, we all jump in and try to decide if that game is sexist, and we don't stop to think if we've let the whole industry become sexist. We become bothered by what we have been supporting.
Though the Soul series gets no props for having a naked man in all of it's games, either.
And yes, that is "we" as in "us". The games-buying crowd "us".
If you get asked if making a product with scantily clad women is sexist, I guess there isn't a right answer. If you say that nobody's complained, they say you should have thought about it. If you say women worked on it, they get even more offended. If you say you just want to make some money, they say you are exploiting women for profit. What do you fuckers want to hear? "Oh, I'm sorry that my game could be perceived as sexist. I'll cancel it right away, good sir!"
The truth is, creative design doesn't happen in a vacuum and Skullgirl's influences are as obvious as anything. Skullgirls could be that game where old angry lesbians and morbidly obese working women fight. And while that wouldn't be bad for the industry, that wouldn't negate that someone made another game in which sexy caricatures of women fight each other. Some of us do enjoy the female form. Maybe if I call it a sexual preference, you have to tolerate it, huh?
Make it look like this.
You aren't gonna get a fighting game that's not sexist by berating games that are sexist. You are gonna have to make it. That's just the truth. Not to prove anything, though. If you can even get it halfway done , you're already better than me. If you can get it to sell in today's crowded market, you're some kind of deity. Get the funding and get it made. Then come back here so I can tell you that it's racist. Ha.
I know this is overly late, but this being Fighting Female July, I want to write about the controversy regarding weirdo fighter Skullgirls.
See, apparently, someone accused the maker of the female centric head-to-head fighting game of making a sexist game. What, on account of all the cleavage, and pantyshots, and how none of the alumni look like Jaime Lee Curtis at all. And his attempts at sort of defending his design aesthetic, which include that a woman designed them and that no women have shown disapproval, have earned him no amount of credit.
My first thought is that I guess it's true that the rope always breaks through the thinnest part. Think of all the fighting game series that have any importance today. Are they equally sexist, more sexist, or less sexist? Is any of them free of thongs, bikinis, panty shots, bouncy mammary globes, etc? I think if any (popular, mainstream) series today can block against the accusation of exploiting the female form it's maybe Virtua Fighter.
I mean, it's easy to come in now, after the millions of pages dedicated to naked Cammy we've made, millions of Ryona Seung Mina videos, after we've made the Dead or Alive series thrive on mostly sex appeal to the point where they made a game that was just girls lounging on the beach, now that fighting games are building on other fighting games that are built on other fighitng games, to try and decide that women in fighting games should be fully dressed and tactful just for this one new game/potential franchise. What! Panty-shots? The (out)RAGE!
Compare these two characters' popularity as relative to the importance of the games they where in.
July is the month I was born into, and as a birthday to me, I've arranged this event regarding two of my favorite topics into it!
So in July most, majorly most if not all my posts will be dedicated to those warrior women we all love so much. Let no one say I did not plan this better than the dissapointing Team Rocket Awareness Month!
Fair warning: Some of the stuff I will discuss is in extremely poor taste, but part of the subject nonetheless.
July is the month I was born into, and as a birthday to me, I've arranged this event regarding two of my favorite topics into it!
So in July most, majorly most if not all my posts will be dedicated to those warrior women we all love so much. Let no one say I did not plan this better than the dissapointing Team Rocket Awareness Month!
Fair warning: Some of the stuff I will discuss is in extremely poor taste, but part of the subject nonetheless.
Folks, women are to me like fighting games. I'm no good at either, but that doesn't stop me from loving them all the same. So, while playing an awful doujin game the other day, I sort of got to thinking about women only fighiting games, about how maybe there wern't enough good ones. And about women in fighiting game in general. So I decided to look further, and in order to condense my findings, I have decided to dedicate a full month to women, and the fighting games they fight at.
So this July look for Reviews of female only fighting games, character love letters, and drawings all featuring the best, worst, and most obscure of what women have been like in fighting games. This July is Fighitng Female July.
I wanted it to be Fighting Female February, but that did not pan out, and and I don't love the alliteration enough to delay the whole thing a year. See you in July, girls!
Folks, women are to me like fighting games. I'm no good at either, but that doesn't stop me from loving them all the same. So, while playing an awful doujin game the other day, I sort of got to thinking about women only fighiting games, about how maybe there wern't enough good ones. And about women in fighiting game in general. So I decided to look further, and in order to condense my findings, I have decided to dedicate a full month to women, and the fighting games they fight at.
So this July look for Reviews of female only fighting games, character love letters, and drawings all featuring the best, worst, and most obscure of what women have been like in fighting games. This July is Fighitng Female July.
I wanted it to be Fighting Female February, but that did not pan out, and and I don't love the alliteration enough to delay the whole thing a year. See you in July, girls!
I wanted to find out how different fighting games reacted to players not fighting and letting time run out. Turns out there IS more than one way to deal with it.
I wanted to find out how different fighting games reacted to players not fighting and letting time run out. Turns out there IS more than one way to deal with it.
