@Eternal so I took a bit of time to pull some of the text from the time line box provided in the AASFZ3 and while I’m not gonna translate the whole thing I did find it interesting that it mentions SFEX specifically as being a gaiden “side spin off” of SF2, meaning it acts like an alternate story. I was always under the assumption that the whole EX series took place in an alternate story after SF2, but its technically after Alpha series but a retelling of SF2. Which makes sense because the final stage of EX and EX2 was a 3D revamp of the SF2 Thailand stages.
Also something that piqued my interest while translating Ryu’s AAC SFEX profile it mentions that he wasn’t supposed to be the main character, Kairi was. I’ll post those at another time but it was pretty interesting how they were attempting to phase Ryu out of being the main character in SF3 and EX series.
Come to think of it since SF2 technically doesn’t have a plot, SFEX could essentially fill in the gap for all intents purposes. Adding a side story to what’s essentially a void in plot is like adding a 1 + 0, but in this case it’s (1) + 0. We know more about what happened in “non canon” SF2 than what we know definitively in “main canon” SF2.
Alright. So, we still have no prove that Ryu attacked Sagat when Sagat wanted to help him up.
What I’d really like to know: Why do you believe that SFA3 was an update/replacement/reimagination of SF2?
To me, it seems pretty clear that this is supposed to be a prequel and not a retelling of SF2. SFA3 was created with the thought in mind that the next story in the series will be Bison’s return and the SF2 tournament.
But you seem to believe that SFA3 was always supposed to overwrite SF2. Why?
Because most of the stories are basically identical sans the tournament setting. In the circumstances that there is a difference between the two, the SFA3 story usually retcons SF2 (Fei Long make s a movie based on the events of SFA3, but in SF2 he quits acting - Guess which plot his SF4 story follows).
Chun-Li is trying to find and stop Shadaloo/Bison in both games.
Guile is trying to find Charlie in both games.
Cammy seeks Bison for answers in both games.
Hawk wants to save his village/villagers in both games.
Akuma performs the raging demon on Bison and tells him he is a fool for not relying on fist in both games.
Sagat leaving Shadaloo in SFA3 then coming back again in SF2 makes ZERO sense.
And so on and so forth.
All the SF2 characters and many of the SF2 stages reprise their roles in SFA3, some nearly identical. Bison and Shadaloo are also located in Thailand once again (which makes the whole trying to find and stop him the second time crazy considering he is in the same exact place). The statue in Sagat’s stage magically returning to its place in SF2 also makes zero sense.
There is zero indication in SF2 that Bison held a tournament to get revenge on the fighters for SFA3. This was pure conjecture made at the time to make sense of everything.
The similarities are too blatant for SFA3 not to be an attempted reimagining of SF2 in the anime style and story of the time (the SF2 animated movie and series, keyword being SF2). They just didn’t outright call it this.
A better question you could ask me is why I DON’T think SF2 and SFA3 are the same event.
Delta Red Cammy. This can be explained away by accepting that the events of SFA3 take course over months to a year or more. This allows Cammy to break free of Shadaloo long enough for her to join Delta Red and the heroes to fight Bison (as we saw in the Aftermath trailer).
Ken’s Marriage to Eliza takes place in SF2. While this doesn’t necessarily contradict SFA3, it shows that they are not necessarily the same point in time. Ken’s SF2 ending to me is the sequel to his SFA3 ending.
Chun-Li vows to keep fighting after SFA3, but retires after SF2. Her Aftermath OVA continues from her SF2 ending.
Blanka meets his mom in SF2 not in SFA3. Not really a contradiction, but like Ken’s ending they both need to take place for Blanka’s SF4 plot to make complete sense.
Like I said earlier, the ‘tournament’ setting was and still is canon for SF2.
Even before SF4 happened, SF2 being a sequel to SFA3 was shady at best. It relied on too many assumptions strung together by the community to make sense instead of any actual statement from Capcom explain how SF2 came to be.
bak, I know you’re in the middle of translating other stuff, but could you take a look at a few pages to see if they tell us anything interesting? It seems to be talking about the games in order, but I have no idea if it’s about gameplay stuff or story:
I mean in terms of… well a side story. Concepts like SH-11 and M.Bison II offer nice filler to an otherwise non existent plot. If SF2 were an anime then EX would be the non canon filler that subsequently fills the entire saga. SFA3 didn’t become relevant to the SF2 story until the advent of SF4, and even then it only ties the SFA3 endings to a sort of epilogue event to SF2’s story, but EX is a retold plot of the nonexistent story.
I always liked the idea of a Bison II being a plot element of SFII and that he would arise after being SGS’d by Akuma in a sort of M Night Shyamalan double twist scenario that would make someone like Fang take a number two on himself. Bison would then suspend his own tournament in favor of all out chaos and the “shortly after SFII” scenarios would begin, of course this is all my head canon.
@“Doctrine Dark” for sure I was actually waiting on the Goken stuff, and the Shadaloo script I think is from the main series game this time because right off the bat I see it mentioning about Vega and the 4 Kings. I’ll have Guile’s stuff coming next.
Edit: @“Doctrine Dark” I don’t mean to be picky but because the Zero/ Zero2 Gouken pic is cutting off the last sentence, if you could capture the whole text with the last line in a better shot I’d appreciate it.
It’s been stated by other sources (i.e. not Vasili) that SFZ3 was a prequel to SF2. It was not originally intended to overwrite SF2 despite the numerous similarities. I originally thought it replaced SF2 as well, but Saiki and the various sources spelled it out quite clearly.
Frankly, I’d chalk up the similarities to Capcom having little imagination.
But because of those similarities, plus the general uncertainty over what happened during SF2, it seems that SFA3 and Sf2 have merged now? But this is definitely a recent (i.e. as of SFIV) thing.
It’s really funny imagining Guile taking Bison to court. I can just see Bison showing up to court in a darker version of his uniform with a big ass smile on his face. Just think about it:
Judge Judy: "Sir, I’d advise you to remove your hat. This is a courtroom, not a circus."
Bison: "Nonsense. Lord Bison does what he wants. The hat stays on."
Judge: "I’m the boss, applesauce. I don’t care about this Shadowlaw or whatever it is you control! In my courtroom, it comes off."
Bison: "It’s Shadaloo. You seem quite arrogant for someone in your position. You must not know how far my power reaches."
Judge: "Bailiff, remove this ridiculous piece of gar…uhaaaaa…"
Guile: “What’s going on?!”
Bison’s eyes glow and Judge Judy quickly goes from an aggressive expression to one of a dreamy woman
Judge Judy: "Oh, Lord Bison. You’re so handsome. So dreamy. I wouldn’t want the hat to come off. You’re an exception to the rule."
Bison: "All the women say that. Hahahahahahahaha…
Guile: "Bastard. This must be that Psycho Power. It’s not only powerful, but it has mind control effects as well."
Judge Judy: "Well, cauliflower top guy, you’re here because you believe this lovely gentleman killed your friend?"
Guile: "Yes. That bastard is the reason why my friend disappeared. He was going after Shadaloo and Bison."
Judge Judy: "That’s all your proof?"
Guile: "No, I…uh."
Judge Judy: "Case dismissed!!"
Bison: “That was easy. Time to get back to Shadaloo HQ!! It’s been fun, Guile.”
*Bison was escorted out by his bodyguards. Meanwhile, Guile threw a Sonic Boom out of frustration in a nearby restroom, destroying all the toilets"
Guile: “I’m gonna wipe that bastard off the face of the earth when I get a chance! Just you watch. His time is up!”
First of all, please don’t misunderstand me: Yes, as of SF4, the plot of SFA3 and SF2 is pretty much one and the same event. Or rather: It’s a whole new story that takes bits and pieces from both games and remixes them.
But I was talking about the pre-SF4 canon. So, when you reference Fei Long making a movie in SF4 and Cammy being in her SF2 outfit in the aftermath trailer: That’s not what I was talking about. I was talking about the question: Was SFA3 supposed to be a replacement of SF2 when it came out or was it a separate chapter that was supposed to be set between SFA2 and SF2?
Not really a problem. In the times of SFA3, he made a movie and started his career. Then at the time of SF2, he quit acting and ended his career.
Which is basically what she has been done since the beginning and is still doing, so this doesn’t really prove anything.
Nope.
SFA3 has Charlie’s big death scene. And in SF2, Guile is out for revenge because of Charlie’s death.
That’s also the biggest argument for SFA3 being a separate chapter: If it was supposed to be the new version of SF2, why did they remove Guile’s original motivation? SFA2 already had a death scene of Charlie, so if SFA3 was supposed to be the new SF2, why didn’t they have him dead in this game and Guile looking for revenge?
The fact that Charlie is alive in SFA3 and then dies in the end while Guile is out for revenge because of Charlie’s death in SF2 is a pretty clear indication that SFA3 is the prequel to SF2.
Again: Nope.
In the end of SFA3, Cammy is just getting out of her brainwashing. In SF2, she has joined Delta Red and is looking for answers about her past and her lost memory.
Clear story progression.
In SFA3, I only see him saving Julia. In SF2, it’s about confronting Bison because he destroyed his homeland.
Also, since T. Hawk obviously didn’t canonically destroy Bison in SFA3, his mission in SF2 is still justified. If he was out for revenge in SFA3, he never got it since he wasn’t the one who killed Bison.
Since Akuma’s SFA3 ending is not canon, this is not a problem: If Akuma had encountered Bison in SFA3, he would have attacked him like that. Since he didn’t encounter him in SFA3, the story can be repeated in SF2 without there being a redundancy.
Yeah, o.k., this one was a bit stupid. But to be fair: It is possible to imagine SF2 in a way that Sagat is not part of Shadoloo. Apart from the gameplay fact that he’s the sub boss, which doesn’t have to mean anything in the storyline, there’s no indication anymore that he works for M. Bison during the time of SF2.
Do you know of any SFA3 ending that is repeated in SF2 and therefore cannot be two separate events?
I mean, apart from missions that the fighters are on anyway (Ryu trying to become better, Chun Li trying to track down Shadoloo etc.).
And apart from things that are only repeated in SF2 because they didn’t canonically happen in SFA3 (like Akuma killing Bison).
For example, if Blanka met his mother in SFA3 and in SF2, this would be an indication that it’s the same story.
But so far, none of these endings are set up in a way that the SF2 ending wouldn’t occur anymore if SFA3 was a prequel.
You don’t have Honda proving the strength of sumo to the world in SFA3 or Ken marrying Eliza. Therefore, none of the endings between SFA3 and SF2 really exclude each other. Each SFA3 ending (minus this fighter killing M. Bison) can be an even in this person’s life separate from his SF2 ending.
So, if one fighter wants to be the best or arrest that evil overlord and then in the next game he has the same motivation, this means it’s the same storyline? According to that, “Mortal Kombat 3” is not a sequel, but a remake of “Mortal Kombat II” as well.
You are aware that Thailand is a whole country, are you? Unless SF2 shows the same base as in SFA3, being in the same 513 km² is hardly “in the same exact place”.
That’s a Buddha statue. Do you know how many of them exist in Thailand alone?
Google Images: reclining buddha
It’s pretty clear that
the huge stone statue in SFA2
the medium-sized half-stone/half-gold statue with the gay mustache in SFA3 that’s partly underwater
the tiny gold statue of SF2
are not supposed to be the same object, nor are these stages supposed to be the same place.
Right. But this doesn’t prove anything in one direction or the other, does it?
Realistically, the tournament plot is pretty silly even with SF2 alone:
So, Bison hosting a tournament after being resurrected to take over the world instead of just hosting a tournament to take over the world without dying first is really not stupid enough to be an indicator that SFA3 and SF2 cannot be separate events.
I don’t see any real similarities apart from stuff that’s similar in every game anyway.
For example, none of the endings tries to recreate iconic scenes from SF2, like Zangief dancing with Gorbachev. Everybody either does the stuff that he would always do anyway (Ryu walking into the sunset, looking for new opponents) or he does completely new stuff (Honda training the dolls).
Therefore, these two games look more like two parts in a storyline than SFA3 trying to recreate SF2.
Cammy’s ending even states that Bison will be back. If SFA3 was supposed to be the new SF2, then you wouldn’t have Delta Red Cammy at all. Her story would be open-ended. It’s SF2 that resolves her plot.
And without SF2 as a separate event, Guile’s story would have been a major retcon, changing from the bitter man who left his family to get revenge to…just some guy doing his job.
With SFA3 and SF2 as two separate stories, his SFA3 plot is simply the stuff that leads to his later revenge mission.
