There is no denying that there is a great deal of buzz going around about the upcoming release of Street Fighter IV. Even though some of us long-term fans would have liked the game the feature hand-drawn animations in pure 2D, SF4 looks to maintain much of its heritage in terms of overall style and gameplay.

We have learned a great deal since the games official announcement back in October. Even though I can’t quite keep up the pace of updates that some sites offer, I wanted to post an overview of what we have seen so far via a collection of videos, screenshots, and links.

The Newest Trailer

To get the quickest feel for the game and most of the announced players, take a look at the new AOU 2008 Amusement Expo Trailer (high-def version here):

As you can see, all of the original eight characters from Street Fighter 2 are featured in addition to two new characters, Crimson Viper and Abel. While there hasn’t been an official “announcement” that I have seen so far, both Sagat and Balrog (the Boxer) have also been spotted in the arcade test units and, subsequently, various videos online.

Real Gameplay Video

Considering the use of 3D graphics, I was surprised to see how similar the character animation has been to previous Street Fighter games — primarily Street Fighter 2 and Street Fighter Alpha 3. The trailers show too much zooming in and special angles, but if you look at normal gameplay videos captured by those who have tried the game out, it will look much more familiar to you. Take a look at the video links below to see your favorite characters in action.

• Blanka: Vs Guile, Vs Abel, Vs Dhalsim,
• Chun-Li: Vs. Abel, Vs Ken, Vs Guile
• Dhalsim: Vs Guile, Vs Abel, Vs C Viper
• E. Honda: Vs Guile, Vs Ryu, Vs Zangief
• Guile: Vs Zangief, Vs Blanka, Vs Abel
• Ken: Vs Ryu, Vs C. Viper, Vs Chun-Li
• Ryu: Vs C. Viper, Vs Ken, Vs. Abel
• Zangief: Vs E Honda, Vs Guile, Vs Sagat and Balrog
• Crimson Viper: Vs Ryu, Vs. Blanka, Vs. Ken
• Abel: Vs Guile, Vs Blanka, Vs. Chun Li
• Sagat: Vs. Zangeif
• Balrog: Vs Zangeif

High-Def Screenshots

If you want to see more detail of the graphics, you can take a look at this collection of 720p screenshots of various characters courtesy of GGL Wire on Flickr. (You can also see them in Slideshow Mode)

The Gameplay Engine

We’ve heard a bit about the gameplay engine a bit as well and it will most closely resemble Street Fighter II, but will have Super and Ultra Moves in addition to the new system known as “Saving” or “Revenge”.

As the Wikipedia entry for the game states, “The system features a four-segment “Revenge” gauge that builds up as the character takes damage. A player can use one segment of the gauge in combat by simultaneously pressing both strong punch and strong kick to unleash a special attack that will deal instant damage and render the opponent immobile for a short time. The buttons can also be held down and charged to unleash a devastating unblockable attack at the cost of 3/4s of the full “Revenge” gauge. The gauge can also be used to fuel EX Specials — stronger versions of regular special moves — at the cost of one stock of the gauge. Both the Saving move and EX Specials can be “canceled” by dashing towards the opponent (the move will still be performed and will still do damage however), this dash can again be “canceled” by performing another EX Special or Saving move, this however will require pinpoint timing so that only skilled players may execute this kind of combo.Ono has stated that this system was incorporated in order to shift the emphasis away from combos and toward a more realistic system he has compared to boxing, in which “the skill is in reading your opponent’s move before he starts moving … We haven’t forgotten about combos and linked moves, but saving makes it so that you have to read your opponent.” The system aims to make ground attacks as viable a way of approaching opponents as jumping was in previous games.”

My Impressions So Far

I was rather worried about this game initially due to the original images and videos or Ken and Ryu, but now that I see actual gameplay video without all the zooming and effects, I am much less concerned. The gameplay does seem solid, but I’m still a little disappointed that parries and such are missing, but it will be interesting to see how the Revenge system makes up for it. I like the fact that the overall style and character animation seems like a blend of Street Fighter II and the Alpha series.

What Do You Think?

No, Capcom didn’t ditch its plan to make a fully 3D Bionic Commando game, but instead decided to please its old-school fans with this modern 2D side-scroller that will be available on XBox Live Arcade and Playstation Network.

Just from the trailer alone, it is easy to get excited about the silky-smooth visuals, the fluid swinging animations, and all the gameplay mechanics that we all grew to love in the NES classic.  This new remake will also feature a two-player co-op mode.

The storyline and setting in Rearmed is also a call back to the original according to Ben Judd, producer at Capcom Japan:
“Imperials? Yes. Master D. Ohhh yes. However, now that we don’t have the same memory limitations that the 8-bit game did, we have fleshed out the story quite a bit. Without altering the original story, we have added some new background information that helps tie Bionic Commando Rearmed to its next-gen big brother.” As you can see in our trailer below, the remake also retains some of the more eccentric elements of its forefather – the immortal line “Get the heck out of here you nerd!” is present in all its absurdist glory.”

Since I’m constantly preaching to the choir about how the classic names in gaming like Sega, Capcom, Nintendo, and Konami need to give some of their classic, and sometimes forgotten, franchises a 2D overhaul, you can understand my excitement to see Bionic Commando Rearmed in action.

Last year, I was especially impressed with the 2D Prince of Persia remake on XBox Live Arcade.  It kept everything that made the original Prince of Persia game remarkable, from its stunning aninmation to its sometimes frustrating acrobatics, while giving its the graphical polish that you would expect from Ubisoft’s modern Prince of Persia games.  Prince of Persia Classic wasn’t a runaway hit, but it was nice to see them make and effort.

This idea really seems to have sunk in with Capcom.  Between the HD Remix of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo and this Rearmed remake, I can see a trend starting to catch on.  The hype has already started to build for this game and I hope other publishers and developers take note.  Sonic the Hedgehog 2 HD, anyone?

Street Fighter IV Announcement & Style

In case you missed it, Street Fighter IV was officially announced less than a week ago. (I knew Capcom was smart) We also got a taste off the official Street Fighter IV Teaser Trailer soon after the announcement. If you’ve watched the trailer, you know it looks quite impressive, but it’s hard to tell what the game is actually going to be like based on the promotional footage. Or is it? Check out this new interview video with Capcom’s Christian Svensson for additional insight…

Based on Svensson’s comments we have a slightly better idea of what to expect for Street Fighter IV than we originally thought. When asked the most important question, “2D or 3D?”, his delayed answer was “…I think you’re going to have to wait a little longer to find out… or you’re going to have to look very closely at the trailer and try to figure out what direction we’re heading with it… look carefully at the trailer, very carefully and you will see a lot of the direction we are looking to taking the title in.”I don’t know about you, but that pretty much tells me that Street Fighter IV will be a 2.5D fighter, and possibly cel-shaded. Street Fighter and 2D purists maybe be a bit disappointed by this, but as long as they take their time to make the gameplay live up to the standard of the 2D series, I look forward to seeing how this turns out.

Street Fighter IV Development

In addition to the 2D/3D issue, one of the biggest question was who was acutally going to be developing Street Fighter IV. Capcom USA holds the rights to the Street Fighter franchise, but it turns out that they will indeed be contracting the development work out to one of Capcom’s Japanese development teams.

Street Fighter IV’s producer, however is Yoshinori Ono, who also produced Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams, Shadow of Rome, Capcom Fighting Evolution, and Chaos Legion. If you look at the metacritic scores, you can see that he doesn’t have the greatest track record. Since Street Fighter IV shouldn’t be a mediocre 3D action game or a shovelware mashup fighter, I’ll give Capcom the benefit of the doubt here, but I’m not getting my hopes too high.

In a separate statement from Svensson on the Capcom forums he said, “The game is further along in development than probably most of you think, but as we’ve stated, it’s still quite a ways off.. All of that will be revealed over time… the next bits will be revealed a bit later this year” This is probably why we had been hearing rumors for a while, but are just now hearing things. This also indicates, that this shouldn’t be a rushed project, but instead should allow the development team to carefully craft a technical fighter.

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD in Action

It’s been a long teasing process with Capcom USA and Street Fighter fans as, up to this week, we have only seen character sprites and one background from the high definition remake of Street Fighter 2. This week we finally got to see some glimpses of the remix in action. This cell phone video was the first shot to be released, but you can also catch some brief, but higher-quality clips of the HD remix in the interview video above.

We haven’t seen any videos that were of high enough quality to be able to analyze the the nuances of the character animation, but it seems that Capcom USA and UDON have accomplished their goal of a quality remaster. From the sprites we have seen in the past and this new set of three official work-in-progress screenshots, we know that the characters and individual frames look good, but if you watch the video clips, you can tell that the game looks and runs just like the original. The number of frames (including background animations) looks like the same as the original arcade. This is good for SF2 purists, but may be a disappointment for those that want more eye candy.

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD’s Additional Features

Even though the Svensson interview was mainly for those interested in hearing details about Street Fighter IV, there was still some interesting information shared about SSF2T HD Remix as well. The features that were touched on in this installment include…

• Full widescreen support in gameplay.
• Very detailed statistics of wins, losses, attacks, combos, and more for yourself, others online, and broken down by Street Fighter characters, location, and other interesting information
• A Rebalance Mode that offers gameplay tweaks such as damage levels, new moves and combos (with input from EVO)
• A “fan-driven” remixed soundtrack

It sounds like Capcom is working especially with fans and experts of the series to make this a killer release for die hard Street Fighter enthusiasts.

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD’s Dreamcast Foundation

HD Remix’s producer, Rey Jimenez also had these words to say about the back end of the HD version,

“Brian mentioned that we are basing the game off of the Dreamcast version. That was done because the DC (Japanese version) code is easier to work with, and there was already existing network code within the game to start with because the Japanese version had an online matchmaking service. Now, before you guys start throwing tables in disgust because we are using the DC version and not the arcade version, realize that the DC version was an arcade perfect version. Or at least it was really close. Some “dip switches” were changed for the DC version that gave it some of its interesting quirks. For SFHD, we are simply flipping those “switches” back to their original settings so that the game plays like the arcade version. Also, we are making fine adjustments as needed to make sure it plays exactly like the arcade. So, while it is true we are basing the code off of the DC version, the end result will play arcade perfect.”

So it seems that HD Remixes details are starting to fall into place and it will be exciting to see things as the game gets rounded out.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Platforms: XBox Live Arcade, Playstation 3 Network
Release: Q4 2007 (?)
This High-Definition remix has to be one of the most anticipated XBox Live Arcade titles since, well, the original Street Fighter 2 release and will most likely be the biggest success on the Playstation Network.

All the revised artwork (output in 1080p) is created by the team behind the official Street Fighter graphic novels, UDON Comics. The UDON team is striving to give a modern look to every element of the game while keeping its original style. This includes not only the character sprites, but the backgrounds, character portraits, and title screens.

All that Capcom has shown off thus far is individual pieces of artwork (you can see them all in this slideshow), so we haven’t yet seen this high-definition jewel in motion yet. UDON has said, however, that there will be no additional frames of animation for the character, so you will not see silky smooth movement to rival Street Fighter 3. This primarily done to keep all the established Street Fighter 2 junkies from having to re-learn their timing for killer moves. (Cutting production costs could be another motive)

The optimist in me says that with all the work they are putting into this remake, I don’t think that Capcom and UDON will let Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix be anything less than incredible. As can be expected from a high-end XBLA release, the game will have online play, training mode, voice chat, and online ranking lists and leaderboards.

Castle Crashers

Platform: XBox Live Arcade
Release: Q1 2008
In the past I have professed my love for Alien Hominid, experienced many a laugh from Dad N Me, but I have been eagerly anticipating a new multiplayer game from the indie geniuses at The Behemoth. After nearly two years of waiting, we may actually be able to experience Castle Crashers in a few more months.With Alien Hominid, The Behomoth started with strong influences from Contra and Metal Slug and blended in their own style and polished it with modern gaming gloss in order to resurect a genre that has been forgotten by the gaming masses. Castle Crashers continues in that tradition by utilizing a gameplay technique similar to the Sega Saturn classic, Guardian Heroes and NES cult favorite, River City Ransom.

Like Guardian Heroes, each of the four differently-colored characters has their own fighting style, special attacks, and abilities. In addition to the standard brawler formula, characters can level up throughout the levels in order to build up their abilities. These RPG-like elements are the characteristic that made Guardian Heroes and River City Ransom stand out in a sea of side-scrolling beatemups.

As if the standard adventure mode and game’s slick and humorous style wasn’t enough to get old-school fans excited, we now have a glimpse into the additional multiplayer modes that Castle Crashers will offer. The first competitive multiplayer mode The Behemoth showed off lets you duke it out against your friends while using your character’s specific powers. The look and control is much like the main adventure mode of the game, but the gameplay is more like an arena fighter like Power Stone 2 or Rakugaki Showtime.

After watching the slew of Castle Crashers videos availible, you can’t help but get worked up about this brawler.
Read Joystiq’s Complete Preview

Boss Video

Everyday Shooter

Platforms: PC, Playstation 3 Network
Release Date: Q4 2007
At first glance, you may think that Everyday Shooter is just another Geometry Wars clone. However, once you really look deeper into the game’s goals, you will see that there is a more creative aspect to this independant offering.

Everday Shooter’s creator, Jonathan Mak had two major game inspirations before starting development. The simple chain-reaction-based gameplay of Every Extend set the groundwork for the overall gameplay mechanic, but the dynamic nature of the modern puzzle game, Lumines was also a heavy influence in terms of design and the staging of the shooter.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Mak shared, “The thing I loved about Lumines was how each skin was like a completely different unit of the entire package. Yet each skin was very much related to one another. It’s just like a music album! But, I wanted to follow this album analogy beyond looks and sounds. I wanted to make separate games just like how an album is made of separate songs. It wasn’t hard to think of a common thread that would link each of the games. As I mentioned before, I desperately wanted to simplify, so why not take the most archetypal video game and make a bunch of those? For me, that would be the shoot-em-up.”

While Mak doesn’t mention it as an inspiration, the audio qualities of Everyday Shooter seem like they are essentially a guitar version of Rez’s techno-based audio experience. “In the game, all the sound effects are notes from the song or guitar riffs, and none of it is beat synced. Despite this, the soundscape doesn’t turn out to be some sort of random mess. This is because, much like everyday soundscapes, there is an order to the way sounds are triggered, and the order is directly correlated with the game. If you shoot one type of enemy, it plays one type of riff. If you shoot another type of enemy, it plays another riff. And if you shoot nothing, then no sound will play. So there is a lack of rigidity, which makes the soundscape more organic.”
Still want to see more? Check out these video clips to get your imagination wandering.

Omega Five

Platforms: XBox Live Arcade
Release Date: Q4 2007
Established shmup publisher, Hudson is teaming up with Natsume (the team behind Harvest Moon) to create what may be the freshest and one of the most challenging 2D shooters of recent years.

Like most modern shmups, Omega Five is stricktly 2D in terms of gameplay, but does feature 3D elements. One particular gimmick for this game is that enemies can emerge from the 3D background and not just from the top and bottom of the screen.

Omega Five is also unique in that players can choose from multiple humanoid characters, each with their own unique special attacks and upgradeable weapons, which they can shoot in 360 degrees.

In their informitive preview, IGN discusses the control scheme:”As your player hovers over the screen, like Space Harrier from a different perspective, you can navigate them with the left thumbstick. The right aims in 360 degrees giving the control a similar setup to the familiar Geometry Wars.”

IGN also discussed the power-up system in greater detail: “Orbs of three different colors will occasionally appear on screen. Each color corresponds to a specific power-up. Collect three of the same to fully charge up your weapon and unleash hellfire. Switching to another color will reset your power-up on every weapon type, so choosing which to collect is important. In addition to the gun power-ups, pink chips that explode out of downed enemies can also be collected. With enough of these, you can unleash screen clearing special attacks or hold onto them to make use of small shields they can generate.”

Like most XBLA title, Omega Five is a rather short game, but the deep gameplay mechnics, offline co-op mode, and challenging opponents (which require a heavy dose of memorization) should keep even hardcore shooter fans busy for a while.

Oboro Muramasa Youtouden

Platforms: Wii
Release Date: Unknown
If you like two-dimensional games and you haven’t yet heard of Vanillaware, I’ll fill you in….

There was once this obscure, Japanese import on the Sega Saturn by Altus, by the name of Princess Crown. It was a side-scrolling action RPG that had real-time battles that had mechanics similar to sidescrolling beatemups. It also was one of the most beautiful 2D games on the two-dimensional powerhouse console. Fast-forward about a decade… The team that worked on Princess Crown formed their own development house and eventually named themselves Vanillaware. Recently, Vanillaware has created a following because of their legacy of beautiful 2D games such as Odin Sphere (the spiritual sucessor to Princess Crown) and GrimGrimoire on the PS2.

With two stunning PS2 games under their belt, Vanillaware is moving onto a newer machine to do their two-dimensional bidding. The XBox Live Arcade might have been the most logical choice for a 2D Action RPG, but the fast growth of the Wii install base must have convinced Vanillaware to take a chance with Nintendo’s wonderbox with it’s ninja-based adventure.

For those that are wondering about how the Wii’s controls will work for a 2D action game, the game is said to have two different methods of control. One set of controls will be for casual players that will presumably involve the Wii Remote, and another set will be tailored for hardcore players who’d prefer a more precise method.

Other than all that information above and these magazine-scan screenshots, there isn’t much else we know about Oboro Muramasa Youtouden. So far, it is also a Japanese-only release, but there is definately a chance that it will come to other countries (maybe with a new title) much like its older siblings.

Söldner-X

Platforms: PC, Playstation 3 Network
Release: Q4 2007
Up until XBox Live Arcade came along, the only way you could play a wealth of modern 2D shooters was on the Sega Dreamcast. Now that the XBLA and the Playstation Network offer an easy way to effectively sell and distribute these niche games, we are seeing quite a few shmups being developed for download services.

Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer looks to be an ultra-modern 2D shmup that has a number of fresh innovations such as weather effects, collection quests, tactical elements, and a rich weapon upgrade system. This shmup also includes 2-player co-op gameplay and six difficulty levels to keep shooter fans happy.

Online retailer, Play-Asia, is backing this game financially and will be selling the PC version, so there should be some quality behind Söldner-X’s promises. Time will tell if the game will indeed hold up to the classics like R-Type, Gradius, and Ikaruga or if it will fall into mediocrity like the Neo-Geo’s Last Hope.

Eternity’s Child

Platforms: Wii and Playstation 3 Network
Release Date: Unknown
The platformer genre seems to be one of the optimal game types to take advantage of the benefits of 2D gaming. Running and jumping is always a bit more precise in two-dimensions and the atmosphere lends itself well to hand-drawn artwork. Eternity’s Child looks to make the most of the 2D capabilities of modern consoles by giving live to an imaginative hand-drawn world featuring an orphaned, wingless angel.

This platformer was originally being developed for the XBox Live Arcade, but due to the high-resolution art and the XBLA 150MB size limit, developer Luc Bernard is moving the whole production to the Wii for a retail release. Development will have to be fundamentally restarted on the Wii, but Bernard will be staying with a traditional control scheme, shying away from Wii’s motion controls, instead opting to possibly throw some kind of functionality in here or there, in a smaller capacity.

The game has also been confirmed for the PS3’s download service, but not further details are availible at this point. I would also think that an XBLA version would also be a possibility once the file size limit is raised.

No matter what service it shows up on, the game will feature completely hand-drawn graphics and orchestral soundtrack, as well as two-player co op to give retro fans plenty of fun.

Braid

Platform: XBox Live Arcade, PC
Release Date: Q1/Q2 2008

If you prefer more puzzle-solving in your platformer than standard running and jumping, Braid may be the best fit for you. This quirky game features a little guy in a suit and revolves around manipulating the flow of time. The player journeys through a series of worlds; in each world, time behaves differently. The game takes an unconventional stance about what is fun to play, and what the player should spend his time doing.

As Joystiq stated in their hands-on preview, “the player’s time is more precious than his life. Indeed, any time your portly, suit-clad avatar dies, you can simply rewind the action a la Prince of Persia to go back to a safer portion of the level. Unlike PoP, though, there’s no limit to the length or availability of your rewinds in Braid, meaning the only thing you lose if you make a mistake is a little bit of time spent rewinding… Since there’s no real risk of death, the focus of Braid is on solving puzzles more than reflex-based action. Playing with time is the key to solving most of the brain benders, with each world putting its own unique spin on the flow of time and space. In one world, for instance, some enemies and items are immune to the time-shifting abilities, meaning you can pick up a key from the bottom of a pit and then carry it with you as you rewind back to the cliff above. Other worlds let you create clones that copy your last few moves; slow down time in a small bubble and even control time just by moving left and right.”

These puzzle-solving mechanics remind me of a cross between Viewtiful Joe and Hiro Nakamura from Heroes — two very good things in my book. I can’t wait to see how Braid turns out after futher polishing. You might want to take a look at this developer interview if you would like to learn more about this interesting game.

Schizoid

Platform: XBox Live Arcade
Release Date: Unknown
This first-ever XNA-created game may look like yet another Geometry Wars clone, but it is, in fact, “a co-op action game in which teamwork matters like never before, as gamers and their friend or AI ally protect each other from barrages of glowing enemies.” Essentially, you pick your color that determines what kind of enemy you can kill – and you depend on your partner to destroy the enemies you can’t defeat.

Of course, this mechanic seems a bit like Treasure games, Ikaruga and Silhoette Mirage, but it is interesting nonetheless. There hasn’t been much more information released just yet, but you can get a better feel for the game by watching this gameplay trailer.

Sendoku Basara / Devil Kings X

Platforms: Playstation 2, Wii
Release Date: Unknown

Capcom had our hopes up with the announcement of a fresh 2D fighter. Instead of a new Street Fighter installment, we will be offered a fresh 2D brawler developed by the team behind the Guilty Gear X series. The game will be based off the Sengoku Basara franchise, known in the USA as Devil Kings. The game already has a couple 3D hack-n-slash action titles on the PS2, but Capcom apparently thought the series would do well in this old-school genre as opposed to the crowded action/adventure arena.

So far, it looks as if SBX will include 10 playable characters plus what is known as a “Reinforcement System,” which enable you to call a companion for assistance in battle. Your companion can use reinforcements attacks, counter attack and assist attacks. Those of you familiar with the Marvel vs Capcom games will remember a similar gimmick. Time will tell if this addition will be more usefull than in Capcom’s previous efforts. Supposedly SBX will have different button commands for your ally characters in different situations/effects such as aerial attacks and guarding. The Madman Cafe Forums had a nice post t that touched on this Reinforcement System in greater detail.

To get a better feel for the game as a whole, check out these fresh gameplay videos from an arcade test location.

Other Ones To Watch

• Kiki Kai World – A sequel to the cult classic Kiki KaiKai series, known more commonly as Pocky & Rocky in North America. Kiki Kai World, like its predecessors, is a scrolling shooter and is expected to strongly resemble previous entries in the official series. It has been described as having all the trappings of arcade classic including “fast, finger twitching shooter action”. It retains the traditional hand drawn 2D animation and over the top enemies, gigantic bosses, and special attacks that are a trademark of the series. If I had more info and screens for this, I’d have it in the top 10.
• World of Goo- At this point, I assume this is only slated to be a PC game for now, but it looks so cool, I just can’t help but mention it. Seems a bit like Roco Loco in terms of style, but you need to see it for yourself. [screens and video]
• Mamonoro- Japanese shooter developer G.rev (creators of Senko no Ronde, Border Down and Under Defeat), are co-developing the game with a group called Gulti (which is based off the team behind the Raiden series). So far, it is only confirmed for the NAOMI arcade hardware (big brother of the Dreamcast), but a console port probably will follow.
• Illvelo – Teamed with previous shmup releases Radilgy and Karous, Illvelo will be the third in a series of cell-shaded shooters that have been relatively popular with Dreamcast fans.
• Two New PixelJunk Games – PixelJunk just released an interesting 2D racing games, but has just released teasers for their next projects. Not much is known about these games other than some teaser images and speculation. I’m still interested.
• Exit – This puzzle platformer was one of the few PSP games that caught my attention. After disappointing sales on Sony’s troubled handheld, Exit is making the jump to the XBox Live Arcade where it can stretch out in high definition and get more exposure.

First of all, Gamekult posted a “confidential” slide from the Capcom press conference that actually showed off the new Ryu sprite and how it compared to the original sprite in addition to the previous standard of high-resolution fighters, Guilty Gear X.  (Also see this new Ken sprite)

I took the liberty of cleaning up that slide and adding some fresh comparisons so that it is easier to see the difference. I’ve even added the Ryu sprite from Street Fighter 3 — the largest Ryu sprite until this generation.

When I laid my eyes on this new sprite, I really had to do a double take to make sure that I was reading it correctly. But indeed, the new character sprites for SSF2T HD are so big and detailed, they don’t look like sprites at all. It looks like one of my remake dreams that I thought would never come true is actually becoming a reality.

As good as this single sprite looks, the true test will be seeing it in action. The number of frames in the character animation can make a huge difference. If they could exceed the animation in Street Fighter 3, I suppose that would be excellent.

It is also worth mentioning that the new sprites and artwork featured in this high definition remake is by UDON, the masterminds behind Capcom’s beautiful Street Fighter and Darkstalkers comic books.

When an iconic game like Street Fighter 2 receives such an overhaul, there is bound to be some gamers that are concerned. I thought this was addressed well by this comment made by Velops on the Joystiq post…

“There is also a risk that fans will not like the changes made to the animations. Hardcore fans have honed their skills based upon the the exact number frames for each attack animation. This includes hitbox sizes, reaction, and recovery times. If the change is noticeable, it could completely change the tiers for competitive online play.”

At the same time, I don’t think people should get too worried. Those dedicated to the original version will still have it to enjoy for their tournaments. Plus, there is nothing wrong with learning something new. A true fighting master should be able to learn different battle systems and adapt accordingly.

To ease the worry about how authentic this remake will feel, David Sirlin has confirmed that he is working on this project. He has worked on ports of Street Fighter 2 before and is an expert at the game himself.

Needless to say, I’m more that glad to see this true high-definition remake process turn into a continuing trend. Obviously, it would not be practical for every game, but it would be great to see some of the truly great games get a high-def makover while keeping the original feel intact. (High-res Sonic Trilogy, anyone?)

In case you missed it, we have an ongoing conversation about the Street Fighter remake going on in the forums. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Update: A new Ken sprite has been unveiled

Unfortunately, that has not been the case with the new Playstation 3. As I mentioned before, the PS3 is supporting more games than the XBox 360 did out of the gate, but it still far from 100%.

As if the lack of compatibility isn’t enough of an issue, the quality of the the PS1 and PS2 playback on the Playstation 3 is a step back instead of further progress.

As you can see from the video below, there are some notible differences in quality between PS2 games running on a PS3 and the same games running on the native system.

To be fair, the tester claims that all samples were done on the same TV and that cables of similar quality were used.

Some skeptics claim that it has to do with the physical quality of the cables, but I don’t think that would make that kind of difference (jaggies, in particular).

Either way, I encourage you to take a look at the video and come to your own conclusions. You can also participate in our discussion of this topic in this forum thread.

Thanks to AllHailTheNewFlesh for the heads-up