Well, it’s perhaps a little hypocritical to me to define myself as a “KOF fan” bored that “Street Fighter has sticked to the same formula since SF3”.
When KOF is doing it so much more.
IDK, it’s a little boring that since 2000 KOF has sticked to the formula of “long combos thing”. KOF XII was a chance to renew the spirit, but it bombed, then XIII and XIV were more of the same, that is basically 2002 games redux (2003 and XI were very welcome shifts).
Since Samurai Shodown shown simplified games could work, do you think a full 3D remake of KOF '98UM, with great graphics, great netcode and perhaps a few tweaks and new characters (who knows, maybe even adding DLC characters until it becomes an “everyone is here” game), could be a success?
Well I’m not a fan of street fighter being head swap on ancient greek statue? why? because it feel out place. Yet I understand the gimmick behind it, since this is not something brand new.
Compare that something like this
They can be also in the future be canon stages that can be revisited with just a very bit of alteration like replacing Capcom Logo or SFV with sponsor like logo for example Ring of Pride and Ring of Destiny to be sponsored by Kanzuki, Master or etc etc
Ring of Justice can Mad Gear or something around.
So far this is the best because it had sense and reference to another sf material
Capcom is brilliant in designing Ring of Power. I hope more of this stage would be designed with that thoughts in mind in future.
And The Ring of Power with the Ring of Justice are those stages that I personally like and would want to return and revisited someday, because they can work with the proper canon not having a major explanation.
Injustice had a privileged to had some kind to do statue stage of because it’s part of the actual justice league narrative that they can easily incorporate whatever they do and like.
While, So far KOF is the most popular since it is the most talked about and also reference from not so recent game like CVS2. Yet it’s not something that can revisited and it’s not even a stage, but rather part of an iconic introduction. They could do a workaround on it like for someone who find the black noah and kept it the remains of it.
Yet MK did it perfectly in a fighting game, they pioneered the idea. That It doesn’t also just feel random because the backstory support it, like with what with Rugal introduction
That this stage It’s even reference to various and multiple MK titles and this stage also had tons of parody in various indie FGS and mugen fighting games stages, because it’s one of the best.
So far the new Ring Stage is kinda mix of that and with a bit of this
Yet the new Ring felf like it falls to the parody of the other statue stages. than being it’s own and have strong relative to the sf narrative.
People can say just bring back the original head of the greek statue or just replace them with proper street fighter character statue, So that explain why it isn’t good and even the possible fix suggest doesn’t fixed it. Yet the least better was to keep it with the original head.
Replacing them with Gill statue could also work but It might had been better if the statue was meant to represent Gill’s grandiose vision for humanity like accordance to Alex being modified to be like him.
If it would be like that It would be more of the representation of the Secret Society agenda. I don’t see a sense of the secret society on Guile’s head being swap to Greek is it an honorary, specially with Bison head? since he is something that should be eliminated. Okay it’s non-canon that’s why it cannot par up with the other Ring Stage because it doesn’t tries to a proper secret society organized arena.
Going back to statue stage
As for a street fighter very own statue stage, this is not it and It’s doesn’t make sense to put statue of them built by the secret society especially the head swap, putting a canon story around it would only make it an excuse not something reasonable and natural to be there.
What made Rugal statues work because it wasn’t meant to represent character existing in the game KOF 94, So it wasn’t tied to anything that was reference, It only made sense because it’s tied to Rugal.
What made statue in MK work is because the whole narrative of MK revolves also into a tournament and it’s participants. which isn’t something that SF is in strongly. The stage in Mk made sense because it’s tied on the strong hold of an important event that is canonically referenced most of the time.
In SF we can’t put just a few statue with few characters because we need reason why they where there and what the purpose of them being represented. The chosen characters as statue needs also to stay there whatever game in the future if it’s meant to represent a history. Yet in SF it’s more about popularity so probably it doesn’t stays, that even the past that was claimed as tournaments is already now very doubtful and questionable, WHy?
Because most of them is not a tournament anymore that even most of the original SF/SF1 where Ryu beat Sagat, that had most of that game characters mentioned anymore as if they where never the best of best in world that it cause to make SF1 supposed to be tournament loss entirely it’s the credibility of being something important other than SF1 Ryu’s defeat to Sagat as the only thing worth salvaging in the narrative. SF2? as if it’s timeline was even canon or deleted as whole and just stay as a what if event. While the problem with SF1’s tournament is the same problem with SF3 tournament, which is also about the participants.
lol, The stage really is more an advertising promo and a parody
Agree It should stay that way. It’s better.
Not really because Shadaloo related characters are there too.
Found this on eventhubs (click for max size), it seem Zangief is beating up Alex or Urien… there’s a shadow that may be Alex hair bangs or not, in latter case Urien seem more likely
the yellow circle being Gill’s head
Below the yellow circle the red band overlapping over the blue one mimic Gill’s crossed arms at begin of the animation where his red forearm overlap and cover the blue one
I don’t think there’s any conclusive answer to that (I assume we’re talking about the SFIV ones, right?).
My assumption is that the cinematics can generally be considered canon, but the fights themselves are unlikely to be conclusive and are left open-ended.
Rugal’s status didn’t and did represent characters existing in the world of KOF 94. They weren’t random decorations. They were a statement of Rugal’s power, as well as his personality. They were the fighters that Rugal had beaten, their bodies turned into statues for Rugal’s personal collection. Heck, that was the big plot of KOF’94, Rugal’s goal was to defeat the winning team to add them to his collection.
Obviously characters like Guile and Akuma being present was SNK fooling around, and not SNK officially saying that SNK’s Rugal officially fought and officially killed Capcom’s Guile and Akuma. But you can argue that it is SNK with a nudge and a wink saying that Rugal would have beaten them. And story-wise, just by being statues present, in the KOF universe Rugal has beaten people that look a lot like Guile and Akuma.
Gief’s incredible strength made arcade-goers afraid to take him on, and naturally, this meant that Capcom had to continue to tweak him until he was at a regulated point.
Because reminded me A LOT Zangief’s Slam Masters lore, where he was banned from wrestling ring being too dangerous
knowing the irony of Capcom i will not be surprised if the SM thing was some sort of joke on SF2 Zangief’s development lol
Well, or we can take Capcom’s retcon
and take it as Rugal’s statue was just fake
Not that Rugal can’t do it (Guile for sure), but still adding them to his private collection he essentially bragged about something (beat->turn into statue chars from SF) he did’nt actually achieved
it’s just a separate universe that things are non-canon and thing went differently that the Rugal in CVS2 isn’t the same Rugal in KOF94.
And Street Fighter characters didn’t exist in KOF94 not even in both AOF and FF. So it doesn’t mean that those statue were fake.
They were just look like street fighter but they weren’t them in the first place. This is just a common thing in fighting games and specially street fighters are usually parodied in other media. Don’t take it seriously.
Those statues weren’t even named. That’s just another army dude with that hair similar to Guile and it’s not Guile because Guile never exist in KOF, AOF and FF back then.
Certainly that guy back there looks like Zangief but it ain’t Zangief.
