Oh boy. You are something.
Standing out for being overly sexual and violent is not what you want if you want to sell games. You will get attention for that and you surely know the saying “there is no such thing as bad publicity”, but if you followed videogames or even just fighting games for maybe a year, you should also know that this saying does not apply to videogames.
I could give you a million examples why both sexuality and violence are not the best way to sell a game that is already part of a niche market(or sell anything at all really). Unless you want to read them all, let’s just leave it at this: if you want to sell to many people, you want to make your game appeal to many people. Taking the least offending style will broaden your audience.
On top of taking the burden of targeting only immature 15 year olds it also distracts from the game. I want people to look at the trailer(if this game actually happens) and think the game mechanics look cool and that they like the character designs. I don’t want a stylish and fast paced game to be dragged down by unrelated distractions.
The best way to sell a game is to deliver a quality product, not a cry for attention with more breasts and more blood.
Well, unless they give Dimitri’s junk jiggle physics…
Mortal Kombat built a legacy on violence, and other old games cashed in such as Timekillers and blood storm. Tomb Raider and many doujin fighters succeed cause of sexual fan service. Beyond violence/sex in general, looks are very important for a video game’s success…more than ever nowadays. I put gameplay first, but many people value appearance just as much or even more. SFIV had to be graphically 3d to be financially successful, if it were 2d…sales would be much less. Anyone who has played Vampire Savior knows how solid and innovative the mechanics are, but did that ensure monster popularity…at least here in the states? No. It has a small niche following right now. This means for it to wow an audience, and not the mostly hardcore players here…but the casual gamers it needs to grab their attention in some way. Most people didn’t even give the darkstalkers games a chance cause they saw it as Street fighter with monsters. Now unlike back then there are many wild over the top games, from Blazblue and Guilty gear to the MVC3…so how is Darkstalkers which doesn’t have those franchises’s followings going to break into the mainstream and stand out to the casual gamer?
The VS games have featured darkstalkers, and maybe made a few people curious about them, but it hasn’t greatly increased the popularity of the franchise. Giving it a look that stands out will be essential, unless the gameplay system looks so different and revolutionary that at first glance (and without playing the game) viewers are wowed. While I would like the latter, I doubt Capcom would risk alienating existing fans. So I predict the game systems will be similar to Vampire Savior with some new twists. Meaning the appearance will have to grab people for them to be willing to fork over 60 bucks instead of going with one of the many other fighting games on the market.
Surely extreme violence will work for a cartoony franchise. After all it made MK popular [SIZE=3]even though it got popular in the 90s when ultra violence and that graphic style were a novelty…[/SIZE]
Games that base their success on violence are rare and far apart. Also let’s not forget that we are talking about Darkstalkers and not Manhunt.
Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs Street Fighter, plus a bunch other weird fighting games and the beginning of 3D fighters. There were plenty wild games back then too just fyi. Also GG was released shortly before DS3.
Nobody has seen the game, so who knows. But I known it won’t be breaking into the mainstream with an injection of more tits and gore, that’s for sure.
It’s something that will be solved by the marketing department, not by twisting the whole game into Heavy Metal magazine.
I see no problem now that morrigan and lilith are one person the another one helps in some supers (like um marvel vs capcom) but in story mode they share the same route.
Or say that Morrigan let Lilith “stay out” of her sometimes…
…
Mortal Kombat did well because of photo REALISTIC (for the time) violence. Cartoons killing each other could not bring the same impact (and darkstalkers has some blood and characters slashed in half, but not exagerated or in a “really serious” manner). It worked too for Killer Instinct because of the pre rendered graphics…
I think Darkstalkers still could use some blood and violence, but not be THE reason for people to buy it. I think capcom can make something to make the fans who like the characters, animation and comics to play and buy the game. Kinda ironic that vampire savior was not really popular but the franchise has a lot of fans because of other materials.
I think Darkstalkers has enough visual flair unique attacks already. The problem is that people never knew it existed.
I remember finding out that Q. Bee’s human eyes are fake and that the to insect style bulb are are her real eyes. Thought that was creepy… Then I ended up reading more about all the characters and saw a thing about what her bee-people are really like and thought it was kind of disturbing. I planning on trying to figure out how to play Bee now.
That’s what I wanna see. They need a bunch stylish of stylish CG scenes showing off all the characters. With so many characters being from legends and movies it shouldn’t be too hard getting a bunch horror type scenes to work. I think it would be really helpful, especially if a few were released prior to the game. But then again this is coming from someone who made the decision to start learning about the games because he read the Udon crew comic and thought it made Bishamon look awesome.
I honestly care none for ex costumes, HIGH presentation, awesome music or story modes, but if Capcom was gonna finally invest that extra amount of time for that extra dose of presentation for casuals and hardcore fans of the series, Vampire’s the best series for it. I just bought that Vampire Source book a few days ago and some of the info had me pretty intrigued. Like Pyron being 4 times the size of the whole damn Milky Way, in his true form.
1 Morrigan and Lilith are two very different characters if they wanna do sfiv style of putting all oldschool characters both should be in.
And they are the Ryu/Ken from Darkstalkers it would make lots of fans mad if any of them is taken out…
2 Anime as a style not as animation made in Japan, you’re wrong. DS characters use A LOT streching on their animations much more compatible to old American cartoons such as Tom & Jerry or Bugs Bunny.
3. If not we riot.
4. There is already a Marionette controlled by an unknown demonic power. It copies the last character beaten.
5. Want story mode like MK9
Expects SF2 level of story telling
DS don’t appeal to violence as MK that have fatalites just to show more blood. It uses more to set the theme a little darker and sexualization only in some characters that need. We don’t need mvc3 lei-lei with 3 times the boobs she had in DS series.
DS original appeal is a fighting games featuring only not heros. We have donovan a “good” character but he do good in the same ways the bad guys do. Or Rikuo that fights for his people but as in nature he wouldn’t think twice about killing anyone against him. “No Mercy” as they said in pocket fighter fits DS really well.
I would imagine that the “Ken & Ryu” of DS would be Demitri and Morrigan since they are rivals who appear in all three games. And honestly I would prefer it if they Merged Morrigan and Lilith because of the Story.
I would not like this game to be taking any cues from SF4. Except for having a strong marketing effort from Capcom. Lack of promotion is the real reason no one in the west knew about DS or Street Fighter 3.
I agree with Kayame about the game not being really anime inspired. It certainly isn’t like any of the popular anime of today and even if you look at anime of the 90’s there isn’t anything like DS that I can think of. THen there is of course the fact many of the characters come from western legends and films. The series’ looks are not an issue at all
Honestly they can and should drop lillith asap and stay far away from any “sexy children”.
It’s not acceptable anywhere but Japan and heavily influences buying choices for casuals as history had shown.
I have a close friend that I still play “Darkstalkers 3” (lulz) with on a regular basis. Usually… our games end up with a pipe & discussion of “Darkstalkers 4” (again, lulz). THE two things I have preference on: 1.) I really hope they don’t “Marvel-ize” the game. 2.) It’d be BAD the F*CK ass if Capcom used 2D sprites this time around.
Games like KoF 13, Blazblue and Persona 4 Arena show us that 2D sprites are completely viable these days. C’mon, even if you can’t dig the anime stylings of the BB/P4A, you cannot say the game looks UGLY.
All I know is that I have a half-chub thinkin’ about a new Capcom game with sprites.
If there was a Capcom fighter that had good reason to still be made in 2D, it would be Darkstalkers. Traditional animation techniques are one of the cornerstones of its presentation. Producer Noritaka Funamizu once specifically said that hand drawn animation was an important part of Darkstalkers, and that turning it 3D would lose a lot of what was good about it.
“Sexy children” shouldn’t be in any game, you r right it is disturbing. I think it is a Japanese thing, this fetish for underage girls.
Darkstalkers should definitely be 2d, you are correct in staying 2d for darkstalkers is more important than most other franchises. It is kind of like Blazblue, inspired by animation. However wasn’t it said previously that Ono wanted to make Darkstalkers 4 using a modified SFIV engine?
Any addition to the current catalog of fighting games is welcome, in any form.
I’m dreaming of a console/pc port for Under Night In Birth, and the next Darkstalkers if we get one.
As for speculation, I expect many returning features from the series:
chain combos
the “rolling” life bars and loose round system
ex moves all over the place
if its running off the SF4 engine, or SFxT one I should hope some of the mechanics like wall bounce show up.
