I don’t think the Final Psycho Crusher is dependent on the Psycho Drive. Sure the Psycho Drive, functioning as an external host body, gives Bison a higher capacity for power but the move is fundamentally the same across many games.
Yes, the move appears in several games besides Alpha 3. It was in SvC: Chaos, SF EX 2 and 3, Namco x Capcom, and now it is in SF5. It’s not 100 percent identical but whether it is called Psycho Break Smasher, Final or Ultimate Psycho Crusher, it is essentially the same move. A full or near full screen Psycho Crusher, sometimes initiated from off-screen via teleport.
The SF5 version is actually pretty huge but the cinematic doesn’t do it justice:
It’s obviously not going to be on par with the boss version of the character, but arguably this is due to balance and normalization more than anything.
SF4’s version was just a normal Psycho Crusher that boosts vertically rather than horizontally.
I would pick the Alpha 3 version though like you but only because the VA behind that move in particular, Tomomichi Nishimura, was perfect.
What I think will be really interesting is how Capcom will interpret (assuming they will that is) the Final Bison boss character in 2016. They have more resources at their disposal now, so hopefully they go absolutely insane with him. Especially if this is the curtain call for Shadaloo.
You already listed all the major differences between the two characters, but missed that Final Bison uses his own unique ism in Alpha 3 called Shadaloo-ism. It was a single level energy gauge that filled up faster IIRC.
Final Psycho Crusher is by far the most badass move in the entire series! No other move even comes close to it in terms of how awesome it is, not even Shun Goku Satsu. Period.
I wasn’t talking about “Street Fighter” getting comics and animes in general. I was talking specifically about the separation of in-game details and the canon.
That’s what I’m saying: Bison and Akuma shouldn’t be shown as those superpowered characters.
It should be the other way around: In canon, they should be shown similar to the game.
Bison should be dangerous in combat because he’s a formidable fighter who can jump over the whole area and who has that energy-filled spinning attack (a.k.a. Psycho Crusher). He shouldn’t be dangerous because a punch in the face literally doesn’t faze him.
And in an anime, Akuma should just be the hardcore version of Ryu’s fighting style, being quicker, never stopping, having a sliding teleport and two air fireballs.
Akuma should be shown as an almost impossible opponent in the same way he’s an almost impossible opponent in the game: Because he hits you with two Ha-Do-Kens, then teleports away only to attack you with a Dragon Punch that hits you multiple times in the air, then throws you and stuns you with a red fireball before you can even lay a hand on him.
Instead, in canon, he’s undefeatable because he literally has some superpowers.
That’s all good, but the gap between what is shown in the gameplay shouldn’t depart too much from the actual canon.
Sure, there are things that are purely gameplay-related like the health bars and the 2D plane where you can stuck an opponent in a corner even though it’s an open field. I’m aware that this doesn’t exist in canon and is just game mechanics.
But other things are original inventions. Like the special moves: If Ryu can throw a fireball in the game that is like every other attack, why can’t this be the case for the canon as well? Why does it have to be a weapon of mass destruction in the plot? Why does the Sonic Boom have to be a projectile that moves at the speed of sound instead of what it is in the game?
I disagree. First, there was a desire to create a game. Unlike Marvel, these characters were created with a video game in mind.
Therefore, the logical thinking shouldn’t be: "You can invent whatever you like. We will just tone it down for the games, but the abilities can still be shown in its full form in animes and story books."
Instead, it should go like this: “Please only invent what can be shown in the game, so that the character’s story and his in-game appearance match as well as possible.”
I don’t have anything against the plots, but they shouldn’t go massively against what is shown in the games. Not in a franchise that is primarily a game series.
The story would work just as well if Bison and Akuma couldn’t destroy mountains with their fists. Bison can still be an evil dictator with some powerful and agile attacks. And Akuma can still be the unbeatable martial arts champion. But they can be unbeatable and dangerous in the same way as Bruce Lee and Clubber Lang or maybe Batman, with some fancy projectile and ki attacks. They don’t need to be unbeatable in the way Superman or Son Goku are.
Just have a look at Masaomi Kanzaki’s “Street Fighter II” manga. In it, Bison was still dangerous. But he was a human being. It didn’t require a huge explosion to finish him off. He was knocked out in a fair one-on-one battle by Ryu simply because Ryu used the better techniques, like countering the Psycho Crusher with a Sho-Ryu-Ken. The way the characters’ powers were displayed in that manga approximately matched what you see in the game.
And that’s what I hate. In a franchise that starts as a game, there’s no need to exaggerate the characters in “canon”. You know that your primary product is a game, so you can just as well design the characters in a way that their in-game design is similar to their canon status. No need to create some Marvel-like stuff if your main product cannot show it anyway.
I rarely have much to say about the modern “Street Fighter” games and their story. I still wish that they created a reboot of the series with a proper story mode instead of introducing the first proper story mode in a game that is a random chapter between two other random chapters.
The story mode of SF5 is neither here nor there: Neither is it the origin story, i.e. the ur-story, nor is it the definite end since we know that SF3 comes afterwards. That’s like having only “Empire Strikes Back” as a proper movie while the original and “Return of the Jedi” only exist as notes spread-out through various mediums.
I still have hopes that the individual character plots (with the still images) cover the events of the previous games as well. I finally want to see how the SF2 tournament worked and who fought whom. Oh, yes, and I want to see whether the details from the plot guide about SF1 are true. (Like Ryu giving Sagat his scar after he was already defeated and Sagat wanted to help him up instead of this being a final desperation attack in the heat of battle.)
Random trivia - S-ISM is A-ISM that fills up as fast as X-ISM. Just like A-ISM, you can actually do Lvl 1 and 2 Super Combos, it’s just that Shin M. Bison’s AI chooses not to (he can do Lvl 1 or 2 Knee Press Nightmares). Also, like A-ISM, you have access to all of your Supers. Things you learn when playing around with cheats in emulators
I can definitely see where you’d dislike the disparity and such…BUT…you fell victim to one of the classic (one just slightly less known than “Never get involved in a land war in Asia”)
Street Fighter started with Street Fighter 1 and not Street Fighter II.
The shoryuken is a freaking 1-hit kill in SF1 if you land it properly. THAT is how devastating of a technique it is. The hadoken and hurricane kick are similarly insanely powerful in the game as are things like Sagat’s tiger shot. Of course, you CAN’T make them that powerful in SFII since it’s a Vs. game. Originally though? They were absolutely supposed to be as insanely powerful (or at least close) to what is depicted in the fiction vs. the game.
Beyond that, SF didn’t start as a game it started as an idea…an idea inspired by A LOT of different stuff. Just like how all the fighters have the same (or close enough) amount of life points/endurance/durability, there’s concessions to game-play inherent to translating an idea from concept to video game.
The characters regular specials were originally referred to as “Sure Killing Techniques”. It would make sense that in the first game a well placed hit would mean 1-hit KO
I agree with you @DRW on that the canon should not deviate or exaggerate too much what is presented to us in the game, but the times that it has happened in the SF franchise were more exception than the rule.
I also am not sure about this:
It comes off as unfair. SF4 was a reboot in more ways than it wasn’t. Story modes simply were not the norm when it was conceived which is why it wasn’t in the game. Still, SF4 in one way or another offered players pretty much all they needed to know about the characters, albeit the presentation wasn’t the best it could’ve been. Now Capcom are attempting rectify the situation and that’s all that matters IMO.
I’m well aware of that fact. That’s also the game that, when you win, tells you: “What strength! But don’t forget there are many guys like you all over the world.” Implying that you are not supposed to be some superhuman mutant and that fireballs are a regular attack in that universe.
Sure. But still not at the levels of Akuma. And still in a believable way: Three fireballs and you’re done. Sounds reasonable. But the fireballs still don’t destroy their surroundings.
The one hit kill Sho-Ryu-Ken though is obviously due to poor collision detection and not consciously intended.
According to this logic, everything starts as an idea. But it was an idea directed towards a video game. You didn’t have someone write the lore and then he visited comic, movie and video game companies to sell it. The idea was created with the intention to do a video game out of it.
And what inspiration it took doesn’t matter at all. The idea that many characters share similarities to characters from previous works isn’t a problem as long as you just take inspiration and don’t actually include that licensed character into your own work. After all, you can always adjust power levels. If I created a comic where I have a Son Goku ripoff, I wouldn’t have to include planet destroying aliens because it’s still not the Son Goku.
But since the concept wasn’t done without the knowledge of the game in mind, they could have created the characters in a way that you don’t have to make many adjustments in the first place.
Sure, life points are gameplay properties. But the idea that the Sonic Boom flies at the speed of sound: Why the fuck invent this in the first place if
you know that this cannot be done in the game where your character originates,
you won’t have any anime or such in the next time?
So, your concept of the Sonic Boom exist only as a mere thought.
Your character in the actual product cannot do it. And you don’t have any movie or animation where this is shown.
This detail is nothing but a footnote in some story book. So, why even bother?
Why not let the programmer implement the Sonic Boom as it is and then just say: "That’s Guile’s special move. He throws a sickle-shaped energy projectile that hits the opponent like a solid punch."
Why do they have to say: “Oh, by the way, this thing is like a tornado. Yeah, it can devastate a whole city and moves at the speed of sound. You neither see this in the game, nor everywhere else, but it’s totally supposed to be like that. In canon.” A canon that doesn’t exist in a proper narrative form and is just a bunch of statements spread throughout some game books.
Yes, but it was still a sequel to that rebooted series. You didn’t replay the old story.
No problem. They can still make their reboot now. I’m not saying that SF4 should have been that game.
The problem is just that you still don’t have a story mode for the other games. So, if you want to see the whole plot from start to finish, you don’t have that. The older chapters are still poorly presented.
That’s why I say a reboot would have been good. Start with the battle between Ryu and Sagat, then deal with the SFA2 plot. Then include some of the less ridiculous things from SFA3 and skip the whole Bison exploding. Then do the SF2 tournament and end the game with Bison’s destruction, however this may look like. A clean, unified story line from beginning to the first highlight. The next game can then be about the stuff that happens before SF3.
Yeah, I was kind of hoping they’d sort of reboot the story so we get a much better retelling. Maybe we’ll get a prequel story expansion as dlc in the future
I prefer the faceless and dehumanized nature of these Shadaloo uniforms. Much better than the current Mini-Bison uniforms they came up with, that come off as goofy more than anything.
Whoever is drawing these, really knows their Street Fighter by the way. I am impressed.
Well technically the first Nash was Carlos ‘Charlie’ Blanka from the SF live action movie. The V series Nash and the Alpha series Nash debuted in the same year 1995. Although I think the V series debuted first.
I don’t think that’s what it implies at all. After all, Ryu and Ken ARE exceptions. Everyone in the game is an exception by virtue of being in a tournament to determine the strongest fighter in the entire world. Merely winning the tournament (as Ryu does) implies that, yes indeed, there are FEW like Ryu. Also “many” is entirely relative. I mean…it basically means “more than 3”. In regards to the tournament, there are more guys than JUST YOU that can do what you do. We know this to be true since guys like Sagat exist.
The fireball and shoryuken are still WAY more damaging in SF1 than in any other SF…and it’s by design. They’re supposed to be devastating, overpowered attacks that are abnormal. Regular hits do not RIP OPEN peoples chests. In fact, the SRK is specifically described as destroying flesh AND BONE. That is absurd for a “simple” leaping uppercut. It’s flat-out superhuman.
If an SRK can rip shred bone and meat and a fireball is on par, that means it’s like getting hit with something close to a grenade if people can survive a few SRKs. To be CAPABLE of getting hit with an SRK without dying means the recipient must be superhuman in some regard. Full power Shoryukens could literally cleave people in half and that’s always been the intent in the series.
I think you’re misinterpreting how this design work goes. I went to school for game design and have worked in the industry…believe me when I say that things you see in games are naturally constrained by the nature of the medium and rarely (if ever) fully reflect the vision of the creator/designer. I’m sure they wanted SF to reflect something close to HnK…but lacked the language to do that in a meaningful, enjoyable and achievable way. High level martial arts is innately impossible to do because it would require incredible reflexes and speeds human simply don’t have in a mass-media consumable format…but that the game is ENTIRELY based on superhuman martial arts is a core component of SF. Alas, we are limited by both the medium and the consumer. If you made a game that accurately displayed the speed and ability of world class (or even BEYOND world class) martial artists, you’d have a game that less than 1% of 1% of the world could play. Not very marketable. Is that what SF still fully intends to represent, however? Yes, of course. Concessions are made.
How many punches does it take Ryu to beat someone in SF1? A whole bunch. How many fireballs? 3? We also see in the bonus stages Ryu is able to effortlessly shatter boards and even stacks of tiles. Now multiply that force by the difference in lethality of fireballs vs punches. The hadoken would be ABSURD in its destructive ability and would definitely wreck whatever it hit if it wasn’t protected by the chi of the wielder reinforcing their frame. I guarantee, bare minimum, hadokens were intended to be destructive enough to blow out walls. Their relative strength to Ryu’s punches bares that out. In SF2, however, they were MUCH weaker because of balance reasons, etc.
Inspiration certainly matters when you’re looking at the metaphysics of what is going on. SF is a fairly shameless rip-off of HnK in many many places…and it’s running along the same logic as that world. Chi-based fighters are superhuman. Period. Their attacks do superhuman damage. Anyone can do it, but few are trained to those levels.
Because it accurately reflects the power of the combatants. The sonic boom is literally a sonic boom, creating a vacuum in space just like the attacks of someone like Yuda or Rei. It’s a tearing edge of power. It is given those properties in the canon so that it is on the same tier as the other attacks in the world. These are guys that have, and based on their inspiration, have always been able to dodge people using firearms. What threat would a fireball moving as slowly as in SFI or II EVER be to a martial artist of the caliber of Ryu? It’d be worthless unless the fight was already won. But…game concession.
Speed of sound reaction time is the world the SFers live in. Is the sonic boom particularly fast? Absolutely. Does it require more preparation? Probably. Does it hit as HARD as a hadoken? Almost certainly not…but its strength is the speed of delivery.
Because it’s important to the designer and the designers vision extends beyond the constraints of the video game. Once more…game concessions.
If a sonic boom were as quick as a punch is delivered (even in game) in SF, it would be totally broken. It is IMPOSSIBLE to implement that in a fair way in the architecture of SFII. The fastest punch on record is north of 40 mph. Consider that SF fighters are and always have been superhuman. Let’s CONSERVATIVELY up that to 50mph then (and, again, this is VASTLY underestimating the intent behind the characters of SF). 50mph is 264,000 feet per hour or 73 feet per second. Now let’s say, at maximum, the screen allows you to be 30 feet from your opponent. I’d say this is an exaggeration but…whatever. That means Guile’s sonic booms (even with YOUR description of the move) would hit your opponent at MAXIMUM SCREEN DISTANCE in less than one half of a second. So…literally less than 30 frames. From Guile to the opponent across the screen…in less than 30 FRAMES. You’d barely be able to animate Guile’s sonic boom on screen before it hit.
Game concessions.
The mere fact that you can SEE jabs being thrown by someone like Balrog is bullshit.
Devastate cities?
On another note, I also would not have really been bothered by a reboot because the series has has a very good run and could use narrative cleaning-up. I’d just want the reboot to take the material more seriously.
Let’s say Balrog’s 2-frame jab travels…what? About 2 feet in 1/30th of a second? So that’s 60 feet per second. That’s 40 miles per hour. That’s world record jabbing speed. As shown above, that means Guile’s sonic boom travels MUCH slower in game than a world-record HUMAN jab. A jab is dangerous because of the proximity a fighter has to their opponent. If the sonic boom, a projectile attack, ONLY traveled at the speed of a human jab (and indeed it’s considerably slower in SFII) then it would be TOTALLY worthless in the fictional universe. Hell, it’s only useful in SFII because of the 2d-plane. There’s a reason Jin & Kazuya use LASERS as projectiles in Tekken. Fireballs would be laughably slow if they were kept to SF norms because you could just side-step them and any situation where you’d be close enough to hit them with it a physical attack would be superior.
So basically…if a Sonic boom traveled at the speed of a punch IN GAME, it would be totally broken. Yet still not very fast in-universe. If a sonic boom traveled at the speed in-universe that it’s shown to move IN GAME, then it would be a laughably useless attack. Seriously, how long does it take a sonic boom to cross the screen? A second or two? That means it’s moving at what…about 15 to 20 feet a second or something like that? That’s a JOKE. 20 feet per second is less than 15 mph.
