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VideoGamer.com: You've done a great job with your updates on Capcom's site detailing your rebalancing job. Did you feel it was necessary to do them because of some of the misinformation that was banded about regarding the game?
DS: Yes, that's exactly right. When I saw that people didn't even know that there are two games in one, that both games feature redrawn art, etc, I really wanted to set things right. Seeing the inaccurate claims of "dumbing down" also spurred me to action. The message that the game is friendlier to beginners really overwhelmed the internet gaming news, maybe because it's hard to imagine that something can be better for beginners AND better for experts. That's why I started to reveal the balanced changes one by one to show that the game is intended for (and tested by) the hardest of the hardcore players in the world, as well as beginners.
AdvertisementVideoGamer.com: With an eye to the rebalancing that is being implemented, in your opinion which character has seen the most improvement in terms of power and which has seen the biggest cut?
DS: The biggest drop in power is obviously Akuma, because he's gone from being a nearly unbeatable boss character to only average power. Besides him, the nerfs have been fairly light. The previously top characters are only very slightly worse (Dhalsim can keep you out as well as ever and Balrog can rush you down as well as ever). There is one character that got several nerfs, but some other enhancements, too, hopefully keeping the power level similar, just fewer blowout matches. I'll keep the details on that to myself until I write a full article about it though.
It's hard to say who between Cammy, Fei Long, and T.Hawk has gone up in power the most, so maybe a tie between them. T.Hawk has been the hardest to balance though and I've had probably eight versions of him over the months.
VideoGamer.com: We understand that almost every character, especially the less popular characters, has been given some new toys. Could you give us some examples?
DS: Well, not *every* character has a new toy, but most do. You already know about Ryu's new fake fireball, T.hawk's dive (now safe!), and Ken's juiced up Dragon Punches and big roundhouse Hurricane Kick. I hate to spoil my own upcoming articles, but I'll give you two more: Cammy's Spinning Backfist can go through fireballs (as it could back in Super Street Fighter 2), and Sagat's Tiger Knee can juggle for three hits.
VideoGamer.com: After the mobile phone video of the game hit the web, Rey Jimenez said "The HUD and fonts are very early. We haven't done anything to jazz it up yet. So I know it looks boring now, but it's something we'll be working on." Could you tell us a bit about how the game will be jazzed up for the final version?
Our current HUD is actually more similar to the original game's, but high res and with some more graphic touches here and there.
DS: Don't read anything into the HUD you saw there, that was an early version. I didn't like the diagonal tips on the health bars in that version because it's too confusing to see how much life is missing in the diagonal areas, so I requested that we do another pass on it. Our current HUD is actually more similar to the original game's, but high res and with some more graphic touches here and there. We're actually still working on the fonts and on some effects for when the super meter is full. Also, we're putting the player's Gamertag just below the character's name under the health bars, so you can see who is actually playing. We're still tweaking that to look nice, but I think it's going to be great to have that feature.
VideoGamer.com: Does the 360 download limit cause any problems?
DS: Yes, it's difficult to store so many 1080p graphics in such a small download size. A lot depends on the specific shading that the final art will have, and how well that shading compresses. It also makes it difficult or impossible to include all the original game's music AND all remixed set of music. We're still doing our best to fit within the limit we've been given.
VideoGamer.com: What can you tell us about how the game will play online? Has there been anything learnt from the XBL Arcade Street Fighter experience?
DS: SF2: Hyper Fighting on XBLA showed us several pitfalls we need to avoid. For example in that game there is no timer on the character select screen, so you can sit there forever, not selecting your character to grief the other player. Also, it's difficult to remember the Gamertags of the two people playing in a four-player room because it's not labelled on-screen during gameplay. So we've tried to improve on the overall experience in areas such as those.
As far as the actual quality of the networking, we knew we had to create a less laggy, less error prone system than SF2: Hyper Fighting on XBLA. Networking is about trade-offs: because sending information back and forth to your opponent inherently takes *some* time, something somewhere has to suffer. The trick is choosing to deal with the lag in the way that players will notice the least.
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