<img src="http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1820/ssfiv3dstreamarticleima.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Fighter IV 3D Edition. Sure the 3D effect is superfluous, but when it comes to fluidity, visuals and (for the most part) controls, this handheld version does an impressive job of cramming it all onto one tiny card. We recently had a chance to chat with Yoshi Ono, Capcom's general manager of R&D and all-around father of Street Fighter IV, about this latest version as well as possible plans for the future.
Really long =P
<a href="http://www.gamesradar.com/f/super-street-fighter-iv-3ds-interview-with-yoshi-ono/a-20110204164627895022" target="_blank">Source</a>
Fighter IV 3D Edition. Sure the 3D effect is superfluous, but when it comes to fluidity, visuals and (for the most part) controls, this handheld version does an impressive job of cramming it all onto one tiny card. We recently had a chance to chat with Yoshi Ono, Capcom's general manager of R&D and all-around father of Street Fighter IV, about this latest version as well as possible plans for the future.
<b>GamesRadar: Were you surprised when you first saw Super Street Fighter IV running on the 3DS? Did you think the machine was capable of such a visually accurate conversion?</b>
Ono: The first time I had any kind of contact with the 3DS was shortly before E3 of last year. A couple of weeks before the show I got a call from [Capcom producer] Takeuchi-san, and he said he had something he wanted me to see. So I traveled to Osaka, and he whipped out a 3DS, and it was running a version of Resident Evil 5! And yes I was surprised we could get this kind of power in the palm of your hand, and 3D to boot.
It was almost time for me to go on vacation, part of Japan’s Golden Week series of holidays, but I was inspired to do something new. We started experimenting with the 3DS, threw together a quick build of SSFIV in a couple of weeks and invited Nintendo to come see it. They liked what they saw so much that they wanted to show it at E3 – I wasn’t really feeling that because it wasn’t terribly stable at the time, though I did give them a couple of screens and permission to talk about the game. But yeah, it was very surprising, just how powerful this little machine is.
<b>GamesRadar: You’ve said this version, with its 3D graphics, StreetPass figurine sharing and other WiFi capabilities, is only possible on 3DS. Minus the 3D, is there anything here that couldn’t have been done on PSP?</b>
Ono: I haven’t played a PSP game in a while, so I can’t talk specifics. I’m not terribly familiar with exactly what that machine is capable of. I can say, after speaking to others working in PSP development, the 3DS is eminently easier to develop for, and that’s really uncommon for a brand new machine. In the early stages, usually the tools you get aren’t great, the APIs are half broken etc. This time around, Nintendo’s done a fantastic job with that. We got this looking, essentially, like its big brother versions in a short period of time. In that sense it’s different than any other system, handheld or otherwise.
If you look at the features in SSFIV3D, we’ve pretty much gone through the checklist of what Nintendo wants to say about this new hardware. We’ve ported a game that gives you full console experience. The 3D’s looking really good, there’s WiFi play against other people, you can close it and walk around with it in your pocket to use StreetPass for figurine fighting, there’s a messaging system that updates even while the system is charging… we’ve pretty much covered all the bullet points and done it all in a very short development time. The fact we were able to pull all of that off in such a timeframe definitely speaks to the hardware.
<b>GamesRadar: There’s an over-the-shoulder 3D view in the game, meant to show off the screen’s depth. Were there any other angles or ideas you experimented with before settling on that?</b>
Ono: It actually wasn’t that long of a process to figure that out. Early on we’d narrowed it down to the standard camera angle and this ¾ view, mainly because it is a fighting game and there are only so many angles that would make any sense at all. It made sense to look at it from a casual user’s point of view. We wanted this game to be very inviting to them, and we thought it would show off the 3D effects really nicely if we tilted the camera just a hair. And we knew that lapsed players who’re coming back to the series would most likely choose Ryu or Ken, and that angle really suits them, given their move set. Not a whole lot of people coming back after 15 years are going to pick Zangief on their first try, and that angle doesn’t work so well with him. But we wanted to have something in there to appeal to people who aren’t yet familiar with the game or the hardware, and it gives you a good idea of how the 3D works.
<b>GamesRadar: You said earlier the 3DS allows for console-quality porting, but were there any smaller, maybe imperceptible sacrifices you had to make under the hood to get it running?</b>
Ono: There are a couple of things we did that could be called compromises, or techniques we used to make certain things easier to do. One is the facial expressions of the characters as they perform or get hit by Ultra Combos. On the home systems this is done through animation and the polygon bone structure of the face. On 3DS we quickly substitute out a different model of the face, one with a different expression on it. If you played it on a 60-inch TV you might notice, but not really on the small screen. It also did free us up to simplify the models and make the game move even faster.
<b>GamesRadar: The 3DS version isn’t just the disc version of Super SFIV – it’s also the costumes and tweaks that have come via DLC since the console release. If these changes were included, why weren’t the Arcade Edition additions (like Yun, Yang and Evil Ryu) implemented into this version?</b>
Ono: It was largely down to timing. The development of Arcade Edition and SSFIV3D were simultaneous for large portions, and on top of that we didn’t have a lot of time to mess around with a lot of debugging, so we wanted to find a stable, already proven game to start with for our port. We knew Super was out there performing well, the balance isn’t broken and so on, so we knew that would be safe.
That doesn’t necessarily mean this is the end-all version for the 3DS – if it looks like people are interested, we could look into augmenting the game with Arcade Edition features. But once again, the timing did not allow for us to have AE on the platform at this time.
<b>GamesRadar: If the 3DS infrastructure is set up for such a thing, could the Arcade Edition changes come to 3DS as DLC?</b>
Ono: Right now, since it’s still so early in the 3DS’ cycle, there’s a lot that’s unclear. It’s certainly something we’d be interested in if it looks like that sort of infrastructure is there and people are interested in an upgrade. To be really clear, this kind of decision would be based not only on what Nintendo has in mind for distribution methods, but also what the audience is going to pan out to be.
The good thing about Super is that it’s very well balanced. If you look at the tournaments, you see a lot of different characters participating, which you don’t see in a lot of other fighting games. Arcade Edition is kind of a special case in that it’s kind of deliberately not so well rounded. There are some extreme personalities, some “ultimate evil” style characters – we wanted them to be tuned up a bit and the player to think about “how am I supposed to beat this ultimate character?” It’s a little more geared towards the hardcore, so even if we have the ability to distribute something like AE, we wouldn’t necessarily do it. It would depend on the audience – if it’s all casual players [on 3DS] who aren’t interested in hardcore features, I don’t want to force them into some new version.
<b>GamesRadar: Speaking of the hardcore fans… there’s a history with handheld fighting games, that they’re not very good or can be dismissed by serious or tournament players. We think the 3DS version is pretty amazing, but is there anything you’d want to say to those who might turn their nose up at this version?</b>
Ono: Let’s be clear: this isn’t a game intended for proper tournaments. I don’t expect anyone at EVO to want this to be the main hardware for Super SFIV. Obviously there’s no joystick port so that automatically puts it out of the running with most hardcore players (laughs). At the same time, I would like to see people between matches, maybe they’re killing time waiting to play, whip out a 3DS and play for a little bit. We definitely haven’t forgotten about those guys; there’s a mode in the game called “Pro Mode” that allows you to turn off entirely the shortcut buttons and be matched online with other Pro Mode players.
The whole point to this version is to allow you to… let’s say you’re about to go to bed and want to get a couple of matches in, it’s perfect for that. Will it replace the other versions? Probably not, but it can be a nice companion, like the way we use PCs compared to iPhones. If you want to sit down and write some big long document, you’re probably going to sit at a PC. But if you’re somewhere else and you have your phone, you’re capable of doing the exact same thing, just on a smaller scale.
<b>GamesRadar: I’ve been practicing moves on the 3DS version and am actually able to pull off combos and juggles that I can on the console version – impressive! The only concern is the L and R buttons, my hands are maybe too big to comfortably use them in an intense fight. Now, this is crazy pie in the sky talk, but how impossible would it be to have a weird Saturn-style 6-button attachment for 3DS?</b>
Ono: You can almost kind of simulate that, as you can customize the touch screen to include whichever buttons or moves you want. You could theoretically make Weak Punch and Weak Kick buttons on the screen, and then use the face buttons. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it might simulate the effect. That’s what a lot of the younger guys at the office use, actually. We thought about maybe in Pro Mode having all six buttons on the touch screen, but when we tried, it wasn’t comfortable. Again it’s not perfect – it doesn’t feel that natural (laughs)!
<b>GamesRadar: Obvious question – now that Sony has revealed the NGP, do you see a future for Super SFIV on that platform?</b>
Ono: By the time NGP comes out, will people still want a version of Super Street Fighter IV? That’s kind of an open question. We do plan on doing some cool things, we’re thinking of ways to link the NGP and PS3, but it’s still way too early to announce anything. We’re definitely working on things, whether it’ll be a version of IV or not remains to be seen.
<b>GamesRadar: OK, personal question to send of us off. I’m a big Blanka fan, and I thought maybe you’d have some insight on this, but why hasn’t Blanka been a part of any of the Marvel/Capcom Vs games? He’s always left out and I’m like “are you kidding?”</b>
Ono: Oh you’re right… he hasn’t been in any of them! And he’s not in Marvel vs Capcom 3 either. It’s just his destiny to be left out I guess. He’s actually such a weird character he’d be a perfect fit.
<b>GamesRadar: It hurts because he’s been my main character since 1991… though in Super, I gravitated towards Juri, based on her design and moves.</b>
Ono: (Chuckling) Sadly, Juri hasn’t proven that popular in Korea. I’ve actually received angry mail saying “Koreans don’t have hair like that!” but I’ve never seen a Brazilian guy with green skin, or an Indian who can breathe fire. C’mon, it’s a game!
We went to Russia earlier this year, and learned “Zangief” isn’t even possible in their language. It just doesn’t fit, there’s certain sounds that don’t work in Russian. We didn’t know that. 20 years later we found out!
Ono: The first time I had any kind of contact with the 3DS was shortly before E3 of last year. A couple of weeks before the show I got a call from [Capcom producer] Takeuchi-san, and he said he had something he wanted me to see. So I traveled to Osaka, and he whipped out a 3DS, and it was running a version of Resident Evil 5! And yes I was surprised we could get this kind of power in the palm of your hand, and 3D to boot.
It was almost time for me to go on vacation, part of Japan’s Golden Week series of holidays, but I was inspired to do something new. We started experimenting with the 3DS, threw together a quick build of SSFIV in a couple of weeks and invited Nintendo to come see it. They liked what they saw so much that they wanted to show it at E3 – I wasn’t really feeling that because it wasn’t terribly stable at the time, though I did give them a couple of screens and permission to talk about the game. But yeah, it was very surprising, just how powerful this little machine is.
<b>GamesRadar: You’ve said this version, with its 3D graphics, StreetPass figurine sharing and other WiFi capabilities, is only possible on 3DS. Minus the 3D, is there anything here that couldn’t have been done on PSP?</b>
Ono: I haven’t played a PSP game in a while, so I can’t talk specifics. I’m not terribly familiar with exactly what that machine is capable of. I can say, after speaking to others working in PSP development, the 3DS is eminently easier to develop for, and that’s really uncommon for a brand new machine. In the early stages, usually the tools you get aren’t great, the APIs are half broken etc. This time around, Nintendo’s done a fantastic job with that. We got this looking, essentially, like its big brother versions in a short period of time. In that sense it’s different than any other system, handheld or otherwise.
If you look at the features in SSFIV3D, we’ve pretty much gone through the checklist of what Nintendo wants to say about this new hardware. We’ve ported a game that gives you full console experience. The 3D’s looking really good, there’s WiFi play against other people, you can close it and walk around with it in your pocket to use StreetPass for figurine fighting, there’s a messaging system that updates even while the system is charging… we’ve pretty much covered all the bullet points and done it all in a very short development time. The fact we were able to pull all of that off in such a timeframe definitely speaks to the hardware.
<b>GamesRadar: There’s an over-the-shoulder 3D view in the game, meant to show off the screen’s depth. Were there any other angles or ideas you experimented with before settling on that?</b>
Ono: It actually wasn’t that long of a process to figure that out. Early on we’d narrowed it down to the standard camera angle and this ¾ view, mainly because it is a fighting game and there are only so many angles that would make any sense at all. It made sense to look at it from a casual user’s point of view. We wanted this game to be very inviting to them, and we thought it would show off the 3D effects really nicely if we tilted the camera just a hair. And we knew that lapsed players who’re coming back to the series would most likely choose Ryu or Ken, and that angle really suits them, given their move set. Not a whole lot of people coming back after 15 years are going to pick Zangief on their first try, and that angle doesn’t work so well with him. But we wanted to have something in there to appeal to people who aren’t yet familiar with the game or the hardware, and it gives you a good idea of how the 3D works.
<b>GamesRadar: You said earlier the 3DS allows for console-quality porting, but were there any smaller, maybe imperceptible sacrifices you had to make under the hood to get it running?</b>
Ono: There are a couple of things we did that could be called compromises, or techniques we used to make certain things easier to do. One is the facial expressions of the characters as they perform or get hit by Ultra Combos. On the home systems this is done through animation and the polygon bone structure of the face. On 3DS we quickly substitute out a different model of the face, one with a different expression on it. If you played it on a 60-inch TV you might notice, but not really on the small screen. It also did free us up to simplify the models and make the game move even faster.
<b>GamesRadar: The 3DS version isn’t just the disc version of Super SFIV – it’s also the costumes and tweaks that have come via DLC since the console release. If these changes were included, why weren’t the Arcade Edition additions (like Yun, Yang and Evil Ryu) implemented into this version?</b>
Ono: It was largely down to timing. The development of Arcade Edition and SSFIV3D were simultaneous for large portions, and on top of that we didn’t have a lot of time to mess around with a lot of debugging, so we wanted to find a stable, already proven game to start with for our port. We knew Super was out there performing well, the balance isn’t broken and so on, so we knew that would be safe.
That doesn’t necessarily mean this is the end-all version for the 3DS – if it looks like people are interested, we could look into augmenting the game with Arcade Edition features. But once again, the timing did not allow for us to have AE on the platform at this time.
<b>GamesRadar: If the 3DS infrastructure is set up for such a thing, could the Arcade Edition changes come to 3DS as DLC?</b>
Ono: Right now, since it’s still so early in the 3DS’ cycle, there’s a lot that’s unclear. It’s certainly something we’d be interested in if it looks like that sort of infrastructure is there and people are interested in an upgrade. To be really clear, this kind of decision would be based not only on what Nintendo has in mind for distribution methods, but also what the audience is going to pan out to be.
The good thing about Super is that it’s very well balanced. If you look at the tournaments, you see a lot of different characters participating, which you don’t see in a lot of other fighting games. Arcade Edition is kind of a special case in that it’s kind of deliberately not so well rounded. There are some extreme personalities, some “ultimate evil” style characters – we wanted them to be tuned up a bit and the player to think about “how am I supposed to beat this ultimate character?” It’s a little more geared towards the hardcore, so even if we have the ability to distribute something like AE, we wouldn’t necessarily do it. It would depend on the audience – if it’s all casual players [on 3DS] who aren’t interested in hardcore features, I don’t want to force them into some new version.
<b>GamesRadar: Speaking of the hardcore fans… there’s a history with handheld fighting games, that they’re not very good or can be dismissed by serious or tournament players. We think the 3DS version is pretty amazing, but is there anything you’d want to say to those who might turn their nose up at this version?</b>
Ono: Let’s be clear: this isn’t a game intended for proper tournaments. I don’t expect anyone at EVO to want this to be the main hardware for Super SFIV. Obviously there’s no joystick port so that automatically puts it out of the running with most hardcore players (laughs). At the same time, I would like to see people between matches, maybe they’re killing time waiting to play, whip out a 3DS and play for a little bit. We definitely haven’t forgotten about those guys; there’s a mode in the game called “Pro Mode” that allows you to turn off entirely the shortcut buttons and be matched online with other Pro Mode players.
The whole point to this version is to allow you to… let’s say you’re about to go to bed and want to get a couple of matches in, it’s perfect for that. Will it replace the other versions? Probably not, but it can be a nice companion, like the way we use PCs compared to iPhones. If you want to sit down and write some big long document, you’re probably going to sit at a PC. But if you’re somewhere else and you have your phone, you’re capable of doing the exact same thing, just on a smaller scale.
<b>GamesRadar: I’ve been practicing moves on the 3DS version and am actually able to pull off combos and juggles that I can on the console version – impressive! The only concern is the L and R buttons, my hands are maybe too big to comfortably use them in an intense fight. Now, this is crazy pie in the sky talk, but how impossible would it be to have a weird Saturn-style 6-button attachment for 3DS?</b>
Ono: You can almost kind of simulate that, as you can customize the touch screen to include whichever buttons or moves you want. You could theoretically make Weak Punch and Weak Kick buttons on the screen, and then use the face buttons. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it might simulate the effect. That’s what a lot of the younger guys at the office use, actually. We thought about maybe in Pro Mode having all six buttons on the touch screen, but when we tried, it wasn’t comfortable. Again it’s not perfect – it doesn’t feel that natural (laughs)!
<b>GamesRadar: Obvious question – now that Sony has revealed the NGP, do you see a future for Super SFIV on that platform?</b>
Ono: By the time NGP comes out, will people still want a version of Super Street Fighter IV? That’s kind of an open question. We do plan on doing some cool things, we’re thinking of ways to link the NGP and PS3, but it’s still way too early to announce anything. We’re definitely working on things, whether it’ll be a version of IV or not remains to be seen.
<b>GamesRadar: OK, personal question to send of us off. I’m a big Blanka fan, and I thought maybe you’d have some insight on this, but why hasn’t Blanka been a part of any of the Marvel/Capcom Vs games? He’s always left out and I’m like “are you kidding?”</b>
Ono: Oh you’re right… he hasn’t been in any of them! And he’s not in Marvel vs Capcom 3 either. It’s just his destiny to be left out I guess. He’s actually such a weird character he’d be a perfect fit.
<b>GamesRadar: It hurts because he’s been my main character since 1991… though in Super, I gravitated towards Juri, based on her design and moves.</b>
Ono: (Chuckling) Sadly, Juri hasn’t proven that popular in Korea. I’ve actually received angry mail saying “Koreans don’t have hair like that!” but I’ve never seen a Brazilian guy with green skin, or an Indian who can breathe fire. C’mon, it’s a game!
We went to Russia earlier this year, and learned “Zangief” isn’t even possible in their language. It just doesn’t fit, there’s certain sounds that don’t work in Russian. We didn’t know that. 20 years later we found out!
<a href="http://www.gamesradar.com/f/super-street-fighter-iv-3ds-interview-with-yoshi-ono/a-20110204164627895022" target="_blank">Source</a>
