The most unique things about the Darkstalkers animation style are the extensive use of exaggerated and cartoony squash and stretch animation or the designs that are stylized and lighthearted depictions of horror, both of which are clearly prominent in Skullgirls. Neither of them is really present to a large degree in other fighters that I’ve seen.
The main thing that’s different between the two art styles is that Skullgirls uses thick lines a lot and has gratuitous fanservice on almost all the cast instead of just almost half. However, I’d say it still resembles Vampire more than it does any other fighting game that I’ve seen.
Maybe Ahad’s style is actually more unique then, because they’re really nothing alike… and again them being different isn’t that bad. The dude definitely has a style all his own, its a positive that its’ not derivative.
Proportions, the way they draw faces, the fact that Darkstalkers (I actually tried to look up who the concept artist was, coudln’t find it) really likes to use bright colors and SkG likes to but that dark/dirty filter over everything… They’re really just very little alike except for the theming (with a few exceptions, the BB Hood evil face for instance would fit right in, but the rest of the character really does not).
But lets look at the art, these are the two most similar characters I could find between the 2 games (the comparison is obvious, Feli picture is as far as I know one of the early concept sketches).
There are some weirdly specific similarities between the two (like the arm and legs marking are likely pretty directly inspired), but the felicia has much longer legs and body has, a smaller head, and is always done in just much brighter colors.
In general having just spent time looking at a TON of art, MF, Parasoul, and Valentine are the ones that look like darkstalkers at all (leaving the lack of bright colors out of it) and Jedah is the Darkstalkers character that would fit well in with Skullgirls (except his proportions are still kind of off. Midnight bliss’d Jedah is EXTREMELY Skullgirls’y)
Edit: Maybe I put too much effort into this stuff lol, I just realized that I spent 30 minutes researching fighting game concept and sprite art.
Edit again: Now I can’t unsee it, Ahad likes really really short torsos
As for DLC characters in SG, my guess is they will include their own story mode with them. I really don’t see them doing the characters alone and nothing else. Even though Mike Z said that $5 was way too much, the pricing is not up to him. I can see a character going for $5 if it’s some sort of package, like character + story mode + new stage or something.
Theme is a part of art style. Period. It influences clothing types, color choices, character types, animation (For example, contrast the animation in Darkstalkers and Third Strike, which has a lot less exaggeration in movements), everything. If Skullgirls has a similar theme to Darkstalkers, that is at least one meaningful similarity between the two are styles.
As for similarities outside of theme, I mentioned the crazy animations. Very few fighting game distort their sprites in the same way Darkstalker does, and Skullgirls is the only one that I’ve seen doing it near as consistently (Although still very inconsistently in comparison; Parasoul has barely any). Then again, I play Painwheel, who has a ton of this sort of stuff. Other characters with a lot of this are Double, Peacock, Ms. Fortune, and Fillia. Hell, even Valentine has at least a couple (The ones that use her tools).
Parasoul would fit well in Darkstalkers? How? Her design wouldn’t fit in Darkstalkers at all; her costume’s too plain, for starters, being just a black dress, a necklace, and an umbrella. She also has probably the least amount of physical warping in her attacks out of any of the cast. It’d be like putting Ryu in Darkstalkers.
Do you see anything in my previous post that said it was “bad” or “derivative”?
I say things like that because if I don’t say them people, often people not involved in the direct discussion think I"m dissing osmething they love and it becomes a thing. It’s less directed at you than general self-protection
Parasoul, Ms Fortune, and Valentine have proportions closer to those of the Darkstalkers characters, the other characters in SkG tend to be really short, especially in the torso. That was the meaning of that comment.
Interestingly SF3 uses distortion in animations the same way Darkstalkers does, at least as far as the animation technique goes. It’s a pretty basic (western) animation technique, there have actually been books written about it. That’s the way you do animation right (a few years back there was information posted, I think on SRK, that specifically talked about that and why those 2 games in particular look so good, even compared to more modern games with higher resolution and framerate).
You’re right that theme is a part of style, but the theme we’re talking about isn’t exactly an uncommon one. There’s a huge market for that kind of thing (especially cute and dark), that’s front and center to where Hot Topic and (especially) Torrid make their money. Star Wars and Star Trek have some similarities in theme, but they couldn’t be more different in actual style.
We'll just keep going back and forth forever on this though, my argument is pretty basic. The characters look nothing alike, and would be totally jarring if directly transferred from game to game. The shapes and colors of the characters are just totally wrong.
more pictures
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http://cdn.wikimg.net/strategywiki/images/7/7b/Darkstalkers_BBHood.png
http://cdn.wikimg.net/strategywiki/images/7/79/Darkstalkers_Rikuo.png
http://cdn.wikimg.net/strategywiki/images/e/ee/Darkstalkers_Morrigan.png
http://www.pixeljoint.com/files/icons/full/skullgirls_sprites_peacock_filia.png
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/4035/umbsprite01collar2.png
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Actually looking at all this stuff, and bizarre as it sounds, skullgirls is actually *way* more cartoonish than Darkstalkers is.
Edit: also damn, Rikuo's breasts are as big as Morrigans!
Edit again, and morrigan's basic color fits okay, too. She's pretty muted
Skullgirls DLC characters may include more than just a character.
I’d be ecstatic if it was like KoF DLC which was Character + Stage + 2 Songs (for SGirls 1 song because songs are tied to stage, not character/team like in KoF).
Hm, why is this stickied? Hopefully this game sends a message to bigger companies.
Listen man, nobody is saying Skullgirls’ art is derivative of Darkstalkers’. What we are saying is that Darkstalkers was one of many major influences on Ahad’s style. As far as the art itself I’d attribute it more to Scott Pilgrim but thematically Skullgirls is very Darkstalkers.
If it’s ok for you to tell people it’s not ok…it’s probably ok for people to tell people it is ok. Nobody is taking training mode options for granted because they are goign to be in the game eventually any way. You act as if someone who’s created mad combo videos and won or placed highly at several important tournaments would not eventually put that in. Do you not think Mike Z is worried about it too? He basically made the game to make the fighting game he wanted to play. If something is omitted that he knows is standard, he will most likely get it in soon.
Nobody is going to die especially over a 15 dollar game. Breaks will and have been cut as apparent by most of the consensus in comments from youtube and articles etc.
Really Devil, it isn’t all that unreasonable to decide to wait until the patch actually happens to buy the game if the lack of training mode options bothers you. We all understand WHY it wasn’t in the initial release but it is one of the few really glaring flaws in this game and if it’s a deal breaker then it’s fine to want to wait and see if the updates actually occur rather than investing time and money in a game that could potentially never receives those patches.
You really need to chill the fuck out whenever someone isn’t worshipping this game and has a different opinion from you. Nowhere in my post did I imply Mike Z didn’t want these features in his game, but it doesn’t change the fact they aren’t in the game at this moment. I don’t see how you can cite budget limitations as a reason for them not making the release date then somehow have a guarantee there will be a budget to have all these features in the game down the road. Does that change the fact Mike WANTS them in, of course not does that change expectation vs. reality? Of course not. Just go back to ignoring me because my purchase and opinion of the game being good, but not for me wasn’t what you wanted to hear. K thanks.
I appreciate that. I will be honest though. That video is a huge exaggeration of how I feel on the subject. The point is still the same that you shouldn’t judge books by their cover is all.
If people want to read a more intelligent version of the video then read this: http://t.co/ayT11Bck
real games cost like 50-60$. For 15$, this game is definitely a bargain. You get a fairly ridiculous game, its very fun for being so cheap and you get the best fighter online I’ve ever played. For only 15$, there has to be a hit somewhere and I guess it was training mode options judging by what people are saying on here. I haven’t messed with the whole game yet.
If someone was going to build a game and charge 15$ for it, I would of done exactly what Mike Z did. Make sure the game was good enough to stand alone, ridiculous net code after that, then some training mode options. The hit boxes are a nice touch, Capcom makes you pay for that shit by buying another whole system for marvel lol!!
Mike was obviously on a budget so I’m REALLY glad he choose to make the game
et code god like as priorities rather than what Capcom does. Which is release heroes and heralds mode, shadow pack thingy and leave the net code garbage because it was never a priority.
I don’t know how balanced this game is with the 1v3 and 2v3 thing etc… but from the few games I got in 1v1 against my friend, it was actually pretty fun. I talked 2 of my friends into buying from my area so there is 30$ Mike. since they were borderline about the game guess what made them get off the fence? the god like net code was the last factor. The simple shit I’ve been saying for years is actually making people buy your game Mike. @ least your smart enough to listen to the community where as the dumbfucks @ capcom are STILL struggling with net code\good games
On the first page of this thread, I said Mike was under the same pressure Ono was and Mike delivered on a better quality game than sfxt and also gave it better net code. I prefer this shit over sfxt by a LARGE margin and it cheaper? pssh, Mike out did himself
IMO, this is a home run. The game is fucking fun, no scrubby ass comeback mechanics AND the net code is so good, my friend forgot he was playing online. The only thing that is holding this game back is a tournament community and perhaps a bigger roster.
FINALLY FOR ONCE, we can have regional tournaments online!!!
I’m presuming that the 2280 is the number of people that rated it.
It’s hilarious to me that Castle Crashers is still the 7th highest seller today… almost 4 years after release ><
Edit: It also answers the ‘indie’ question!!! Microsoft anyways does not count SkG as an indie game, not that I have any idea what the criteria is. On the other hand they also apparently don’t count MvC2 as a fighting game, so…
