Alright, after many months and with the great help of Thamanator who corrected and polished the language of the text since I’m not an English native speaker, I finally finished my novelization of “Street Fighter II - The World Warrior”:
This is fan fiction. (If anybody knows how I can get Capcom to declare this an officially licensed product, please tell me. I would still not take money for it, it would just be for the satisfaction to be able to legally write “Licensed by Capcom” at the top of the text.) But it’s not just a random story about some arbitrary situations that I thought up. This is actually a novelization of the story of the game. It’s my take on the “Street Fighter II” tournament storyline.
So, if you’re interested, you can read it (it’s about 18 pages long) and give me your feedback. Positive or negative feedback, both is welcome. (Negative one might even be more interesting.)
“Guile held back as long as he could before unleashing his sonic boom. Over and over and over again, he boomed that sonofabitch bisons’s azz so HARD that the next bison wannabe felt it.”
You know I like your approach of going back to the source, because many things were added for worse in the SF story later. It’s an interesting move to have only the 12 original SF2ers as well. There are some things that caught my eye, though.
There are a couple of explanations missing. If you want to include the car bonus you should say who the car belongs to and/or why they are breaking it, because being in the way does not seem enough of a reason. Then near the end, when Guile spares Bison’s life it seems that Bison is forgotten and left there while Chun Li goes asking about Ryu.
Not sure why so many time jumps in Chun Vs Dhalsim and Guile Vs Blanka.
The dialogues in Chun Vs Honda and Guile Vs Zangief are quite childish in my opinion; you may want to tweak them because the characters kinda act like kids discovering the world. What I mean is, if a grown up woman with Chun Li’s background lightens up or not, it will not be just because some dude tells her to do so. Likewise, Guile and Zangief may perfectly have an added sense of rivalry because of their opposing countries, but if they have an adult-level understanding of people and politics they should not be surprised that there are good and honest people all around the world.
“I even teamed up with Bison, but it was of no use.”. Are you implying that Sagat trained with Bison? The sentence seems weird with no further explanation.
PS: A side thing. Technically speaking, I don’t know if novelization is used for adaptations into narrative writings shorter than a novel.
Thanks very much for your feedback. I will answer it, but, and that counts for everybody: Don’t think that with my objections I want to discourage criticism. As I already said, I find negative points even more interesting. They give me a challenge to think them through and to learn from them for the next time, but also to see if I can rebut certain arguments. That what makes a discussion interesting. Just saying “Thanks for your feedback. Next one please” would be quite boring.
So, here is what I have to say about your feedback:
Not just the 12 characters only. But everything else is old-school too. For example, in Sagat’s stage, a palm tree is mentioned. It was only there in the arcade version of the original “Street Fighter II”. Not even “Champion Edition” or the Super Nintendo version had it anymore. Or Ryu in his ending: In my story, he is described as having a content facial expression. Now, compare the scene from the original game (left) with the one from “Champion Edition” to “Super Turbo” (right):
And you can easily see that I based my story exclusively on the original game. Not even Mazaomi Kanzaki did that because in his story, Chun Li can execute the Ki-Ko-Ken fireball from “Street Fighter II Turbo”.
My intention was not that they break it because it’s in the way. Ryu and Ken would be big assholes if they did that. My intention was that it’s in the way because they want to break it. Actually, before they start breaking it, Ken asks: “O.k., ready?” Which shows that they didn’t stumble upon it and spontaneously decided to destroy it, but that they came to the harbor specifically for that purpose. Why they do it? Ask the game designers. They are the ones who put it in the game without an overall context. But seriously, I guess we can assume that it was a training session. Ken probably paid someone to drive an old car to the harbor (Ken is quite rich, so it shouldn’t be such a big deal) so that they can train on it. Or maybe it was donated by the tournament organizers or whatever.
Chun Li wanted to bring Bison to justice. Now, that he’s at Guile’s hands and Guile is talking with his family, there’s nothing to do for her in the moment. Guile’s personal problems with his wife and daughter are none of Chun Li’s business, so it’s logical that she goes away some steps to let him alone with his family. Bison will still be there when Guile has finished talking with Jane and Amy. Then, she can arrest Bison or whatever she is going to do. But in the moment, when Bison’s neck is grabbed by Guile and Guile has to clear up some problems with his family, it wouldn’t be polite of Chun Li to just stand there and gawk and eavesdrop at their personal family matters. That’s why she can pause for a moment to look for Ryu.
And about Bison being forgotten and left there: Put the blame on the game designers. Because that’s exactly what happens in the game. In both endings, you don’t see what happens with Bison. Is he arrested? Do they just let him go, assuming that he won’t hurt anybody anymore? Does Chun Li kill him off-screen? We don’t know. Therefore, I remain as vague as the game.
That has practical reasons: At first, I didn’t want to dedicate a whole chapter to each of the two fights since they are basically just filler battles without much weight on the storyline. So, why didn’t I just claim that they happen simultaneously, like I did with the Honda and Zangief battle, and switch between them? Simple: Because of the time zones. Chun Li’s battle takes place in China. Guile’s battle takes place in Brazil. Both stages in the game are set at daytime. But Brazil and China are 11 hours apart from each other. And that would have been quite a problem. That’s why I had them happen at two consecutive days and switched between the days.
No matter if people are right with their criticism, but that will not happen. There is a reason why I didn’t just publish it when it was still proofread: I only wanted to publish the final, definite version of my story. So, while I welcome critical words, don’t expect me to actually edit and improve the text anymore. Unless you find a typo or an overlooked expression that simply and objectively isn’t right in the English language, I’m not going to change any bit of my story. That’s the story as it was written. And that’s how it will remain. I still want to know people’s hones opinion about it though.
If Honda had lightened up Guile, I would agree with you. But when Chun Li wins in the game, there’s a 50 % chance that she jumps in the air and laughs. So, she’s not a bitter woman who is never happy. She can laugh. That’s why, in my opinion, it’s not too far-fetched when Honda tells her to relax a bit and Chun Li agrees with it. He didn’t change her whole character, he just reminded her of the fact that there’s no reason to be so serious yet, and since she isn’t a rage-filled person, she agreed to take it easy this time because Honda really isn’t part of her mission.
Don’t be too sure about that. Back then, the USA and the USSR were the class enemy of each other. My mother grew up in East Germany, in the GDR. And one of her teachers in school actually told them that the people from West Germany are bad etc. And that was just the relationship between East Germany and West Germany. Now, imagine what the ordinary American or Russian citizen might have thought about the people from Russia and America respectively. You have seen “Rocky IV”, have you? Where those two boxers hate each other and fight just for the honor? And in the end, Rocky gives that speech? My version isn’t even nearly as extreme as that. In fact, my version is even less, less dramatic than Guile and Zangief’s encounter in the Mazaomi Kanzaki manga where they say things like: “Your country is dead and buried and so are you”, “This is war!” or “Capitalist pig”. In my version, Guile is merely a bit arrogant towards the Soviet Union, calling coming there a sacrifice and calling Zangief “that…guy”. And Zangief underestimates Guile and American opponents in general (while still acknowledging that there are some real fighters in the States, like Mike Haggar). But there is never any real hatred between the two, just some distance, so I don’t think that their reactions after the fight are too far-fetched. Something like that exists everywhere in the world. Germans don’t like the French and people of Cologne don’t like the people of Düsseldorf. And I’m sure that many people realize every day that the other ones don’t necessarily have to be bad when they meet one in person.
It’s a reference to the fact that, at the time of “Street Fighter II”, Sagat was working for Bison. If I hadn’t had this in my story, people might have wondered if I even intended Sagat to be part of Shadoloo. The manual doesn’t explicitly mention it, but it heavily alludes to it:
"At heart an honorable man, Sagat is tortured by his loss to Ryu and will side with anyone who will give him the chance or experience needed to regain the title."
So, I wanted to acknowledge that, yes, Sagat indeed is part of Bison’s henchmen now, which also shows how deep he has fallen. Further explanation isn’t necessary because on-screen, he never actually does anything for Bison. And since it’s just a side node in the manual, it’s just a side node in my story as well.
I actually thought about it for a long time, but I went with “novelization” because it describes the format the best. Sure, it’s more a short story and not a novel. But “short story” would only describe its length. Just like “novel” describes that it’s a real book. But “novelization” emphasizes the fact that it’s not just some random story that uses “Street Fighter” characters, but that it’s actually a retelling of the “Street Fighter II” game. The association that it’s a conversion from another medium was more important for me than being correct about the length. So, I wrote “novelization”, even tough it’s technically not a novel. So, if you have a better name, if you can tell me what the value x is in this equation:
"Novel relates to novelization as short story relates to x"
then just tell me and I might change it.
O.k., so those are the things that I wanted to say about your comments. Of course, if you want to comment my comment on your comment, go ahead. It’s always refreshing to discuss about those kinds of things.
Do you have any more things that you noticed? Anything that isn’t clear or that you didn’t like or that you particularly liked? And how would you honestly rate the overall story? You can go chapter by chapter if you like.
This is a short story more than an actual novelisation. If you want to see a true Street Fighter novel, go to www.dreamneverends.com which is actually under discussion by Capcom for publication consideration. This website was launched just last month.
If your story is that great, then why are you in need of going to a thread of a random fan fiction to advertise your own fan fiction? I mean, do you see me going to a thread of yours, saying: “Meh, your story is just a random plot that happens to have the characters from “Street Fighter” in it. If you want to read a story actually based on the game, go to my website”?
I would still not take money for it, it would just be for the satisfaction to be able to legally write “Licensed by Capcom” at the top of the text.) But it’s not just a random story about some arbitrary situations that I thought up. This is actually a novelization of the story of the game. It’s my take on the “Street Fighter II” tournament storyline.
