Comic-Con: Street Fighter IV's Ono On Continuing The '2D Series'

Author: by Brandon Sheffield, Staff

As part of a special San Diego Comic-Con presentation attended by Gamasutra, Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono has been discussing the upcoming Capcom franchise rebirth, suggesting: "Street Fighter is not a 3D game. It's a 2D series, and we're keeping with that tradition." The title, which recently debuted an E3 trailer has a 2008 Japanese arcade release before moving to home platforms, is now officially confirmed to appear on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. As part of a largely video-based presentation to Comic-Con crowds, Ono started out by apologizing for the length of time between true sequels of the classic Capcom fighter, somewhat sheepishly saying: "Sorry to keep you waiting so long for Street Fighter IV, everybody." He then explained: "Street Fighter IV is less a sequel to [the somewhat more complex] Street Fighter III and more an evolution of Street Fighter II. So it'll play more how you remember." As for the ethos behind the game, which is a key franchise rebirth opportunity for Capcom, and comes alongside an upcoming, grittier Street Fighter movie, Ono noted: "Street Fighter is not a 3D game [franchise]. It's a 2D series, and we're keeping with that tradition... we didn't use traditional 2D dot graphics, but rather used a 3D paintbrush and take the traditional painterly look of Street Fighter into 3D." Discussing further the choice to focus on the much-loved SF II as a starting point, Ono noted: "Please don't get me wrong, of course we love Street Fighter III, but if there's any problem with that game, it's that we changed too much of the rulebook of Street Fighter II, so that's why we went back to the older rules for Street Fighter IV." Of course, the discussion of which characters might appear turned up, since the confirmed list of arcade game characters lacks some fan favorites, and this was - after all - a fan convention. Apparently, the winner an official poll for the most wanted new character in the console version was Cammy - and in addition, Ono referenced a shadowy character from the promotional game trailer by saying: "You may remember a character from a previous April Fool's joke – so maybe you'll see something about that [in the console version]." Could this be the semi-mythical Sheng Long? Whether the EGM joke based on an arcade game mistranslation makes it into the game as a playable character or not, the willingness to add such esoteric game lore into the series shows the fan-service that Capcom is willing to go to, in order to successfully reboot Street Fighter.