4Gamer Street Fighter V interview

The story behind the creation of the poison-using F.A.N.G., the latest member of the Four Heavenly Kings, and the six additional characters

4Gamer: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule today. 16 characters are planned for the launch of Street Fighter V (below, SFV), and at PSX the 16th one F.A.N.G was finally announced. As the final launch character, I imagine that he has an especially important role in the game.

Koichi Sugiyama (below, Sugiyama): That’s right. F.A.N.G is newest member of the Four Heavenly Kings and the self-proclaimed #2 of Shadaloo. He’s also the most deeply involved character in an important event in the story of SFV.

Takayuki Nakayama (below, Nakayama): If you watch the trailer closely, in the background of the stage are massive reliefs of the Four Kings, and F.A.N.G’s face is at the far right. To put it in words, he’s one of the bosses in the game.

4Gamer: That leaves me wondering about the whereabouts of Sagat, who’s now out of the Four Kings… But wait a second. That means that SFV has a story mode?

Nakayama: You bring up an excellent point! But we can’t get into the details of that yet. We think it’s very fitting for Street Fighter, in that “Where is the champion, where is Ryu!?” sort of way (laughs).

(All laugh)

4Gamer: In any case, F.A.N.G seems like more of an oddball than the conventional bad guy.

Nakayama: Right. He loves the number “2” so much that it’s listed in his profile. He’s a very a strange one.

4Gamer: His moves in-game seem quite annoying. Can you tell me about his battle concept?

Ryuichi Shigeno (below, Woshige): I’ll tell you his battle design. A late introduction, but I’m the battle planner for SFV, Ryuichi… well, I’m Woshige. Thanks to Evolution 2015, before I was known as a part of the SFV team, the whole world saw me embarrass myself on stage (strained laugh).

(All laugh)

4Gamer: You were wearing an SFV T-shirt then (laughs). To jump in quickly, how does F.A.N.G fight?

Woshige: F.A.N.G fights using poison, a type of character that’s new to Street Fighter. When the opponent comes into contact with his V-Skill the unblockable projectile Nishodoku, or is hit by his special moves, they become poisoned.

4Gamer: What happens when they become poisoned, do they slowly lose life?

Woshige: Yes, that’s right. However, the moment F.A.N.G himself takes damage, the poison state is removed. Because of that, his primary way of fighting is to keep the opponent poisoned while buying time using his long reach.

4Gamer: He seems like a quite unique long-range character, different from standard projectile characters and even Dhalsim. But when I saw his monk clothing, I thought that he might use hidden weapons like Hsien-Ko…

Nakayama: Hsien-Ko isn’t that ugly!

(All laugh)

4Gamer: Well his sleeves are extremely wide.

Sugiyama: Actually, during the design stage, a hidden weapon style was one of the ideas we considered. However in Street Fighter, there’s already Vega who uses a claw.

Nakayama: To tell the story of how he became a poison user, we heard from an senior member in the company that during the development of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (below, 3rd Strike), that there was debate between including Remy or a different, poison-using character.

4Gamer: Ah.

Nakayama: As you know, Remy was chosen for 3rd Strike, but in SFV we wanted to take on the challenge, so that’s how we decided on poison. He has a play feel that’s new to the Street Fighter series, so we hope that players who like oddball characters look forward to him.

4Gamer: Now, let me ask about the six characters who will be added within the first year after launch: Alex, Guile, Balrog, Ibuki, Juri, and Urien.

Sugiyama: For the default 16 characters, we decided from the very beginning that eight would be from Street Fighter II, four from Street Fighter Alpha and four completely new characters. From there we narrowed down the characters based on thinks like battle concepts and country of origin to arrive at the current line-up. For the additional characters however, we didn’t use those restrictions.

4Gamer: In other words, the additional characters were selected on popularity, fighting style, and the like.

Sugiyama: Yes. Take Alex for example. In Japan he might be thought of as a “maniac” character (Editor’s note: This essentially means he’s more popular with enthusiasts than casual fans), but in North America he’s very popular.

4Gamer: He’s a character that frequently ranks high in popularity polls overseas.

Nakayama: From there, we wanted to include a character who made their first appearance in the Street Fighter IV series. There we selected Juri. There’s never was a female character with as intense a personality as her (laughs).

4Gamer: What about Guile? This is the first time in the series since Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper that Nash and Guile have appeared in the same game.

Nakayama: From the beginning of the SFV project we decided to have both Nash and Guile appear. That said, both characters use Sonic Boom and Flash Kick, so there’s no point if their battle concepts overlap. So we took the previously dead Nash and give him life again as a character with a new battle concept.

Sugiyama: While it’s not necessarily a link between story and battle concept, we wanted to send the message that this isn’t the Nash from before, in multiple ways.

Nakayama: We also changed his name. In Street Fighter V he goes by Charlie Nash.

4Gamer: In the overseas versions, he was already known as Charlie. Anyway, going by the conversation up until now, does that mean that Guile is the same Guile as before?

Sugiyama: To speak plainly, the six additional characters are still in the planning stages. The goal of the “World’s Best Creators” recruitment campaign we announced at the Capcom Cup 2015 Finals is to find creators who want to develop them with us (laughs).

Woshige: However, we’re considering a variety of things. Balrog for example we think that we can make into a character that has a different type of fun from his previous versions. Look forward to the new characters.

Battle planner Woshige answers: What is the “depth” of SFV?

4Gamer: Since we have both Nakayama and Woshige here, let me ask a bit more about SFV’s battle design. In the game there’s been an overall trend of significantly reducing the number of charge moves, like with Nash whom we discussed before. Generally charge moves are the easiest to perform… or rather they’re thought to be aimed at beginners. Why have you gone with the direction of removing them.

Sugiyama: Certainly in the past charge moves were said to be simpler. However, input precision has risen with the users of today, and with the improvements to game pads diagonal inputs are easier to perform. Because of that there’s been an increase in the opinion that command moves are easier to execute.

Nakayama: From the battle design perspective, since characters can’t consecutively use special moves, you give those characters powerful moves. On the other hand, there’s the design problem of not being able to actively attack themselves.

4Gamer: Daigo Umehara said something similar to that before.

Nakayama: Take SFIV Vega for example, a charge character with almost no invincible moves. Because of that, his movements become stiff and he can’t help but revolve around being defensive. But Vega was originally was a more speedy character.

4Gamer: He is the Spanish ninja after all.

Nakayama: By changing his special moves to motion commands, SFV Vega can move in more of an original Vega-esque way. In order to bring out the personality of the characters we did a reset for the characters, including their play feel, which is why we reduced the number of charge moves.

4Gamer: I’m looking forward to what Guile will become. Another point, when I interviewed ComboFiend of Capcom USA, he said SFV was aimed at being “easy to play, difficult to master.” For example, combos in SFV have become very simple.

Woshige: Right. SFV has a longer buffered input reception window, so if you remember the parts of your combo and practice a little, anyone can do them.

4Gamer: But because of that the existing core players have said that they want combos that better allow them to display their own skill. Until now, that’s been part of “difficult to master”– part of the so-called depth. What’s your thoughts on that?

Woshige: Anyone can do the combos themselves, but in turn, always choosing the most optimal combo is necessary in SFV. Depending on the situation the optimal recipe changes. Researching that and implementing it is what creates a gap between the other players.

Sugiyama: In similar discussions, a lot of users thought that in the previous beta test that invincible moves were too strong. But in SFV, invincible moves like Shoryuken are now treated as having counter-hit recovery. In other words, if you make the right read and block the move, you can land a damaging Crush Counter combo.

Woshige: On top of that there are factors like the EX Gauge, V-Gauge, and Stun Gauge, so to always pick the most optimal combo, you’ll have to play quite a bit.

4Gamer: One’s ability to judge the situation is connected to the player’s personality?

Woshige: Right. You can say the same about anti-airing. Even with the jump attacks that look strong at a glance, before the attack becomes active the hurtbox expands. If you take into account the distance and timing appropriately, you can knock any character out of the air. We’re intricately creating the game down to things like that you can’t see.

4Gamer: When I was playing in the beta test, I was having trouble stopping the opponent’s jumps… I guess that means “play more!” (laughs)

Woshige: To be able to feel the “depth” you have to play quite a bit, so I can understand users who feel uneasy about that. But we also think that it’s important that spectators can watch high-level play and feel, “I think I can do that too!” That becomes a gateway for spectators to become players themselves.

Nakayama: That’s what SFIV’s so-called “FADC Ultra” was. General players can have a match by mashing on the joystick, expert players being able to express themselves through their play. In SFV we want to have both coexist.

4Gamer: I see. Going back in the conversation a bit, over what span will the six additional characters mentioned before be released?

Sugiyama: Right now, we’re planning to space them out at one character every one or two months.

4Gamer: One thing I’m curious about is the Capcom Pro Tour 2016, which has been announced to use SFV. The later the tour gets into the schedule, the more the number of playable characters will have increased. For the players, you can think that learning character matchups will be tough.

Sugiyama: That’s right. When we added Decapre to Street Fighter IV, that kind of confusion did happen. We apologize for that. However, this is a difficult issue. Of course, for the players, being insured to have enough time to practice is important, and we acknowledge that. For the general players, however, there’s a natural demand to be able to quickly get their hands on the new characters.

Nakayama: The top players who have driven the scene are important, but to bring fighting games to an even higher level, it’s important that the general players and new players enjoy themselves as well.

4Gamer: Exactly.

Sugiyama: Therefore, to satisfy all of the players, we’re considering proposing a compromise. It’s still in the concept stages, but for example with the big premium tournaments, deciding early in the regulations which characters will be allowed. It takes the cooperation of the organizing staff and the participants, but we hope you understand.

4Gamer: This is from the perspective of the competitive scene, but all of SFV’s updates are free. With that in mind, at what timings do you plan to adjust the game balance?

Nakayama: At the very earliest, until the end of next year’s Capcom Cup Finals 2016, we don’t plan to make any major changes. Throughout one year large tournaments are continuously held, so if you frequently change the characters’ strength, you’re just bringing worry to the players.

Woshige: Even if we do update, it will be primarily for fixing bugs.

4Gamer: So the game will be at a level of balance you’re confident to ship?

Nakayama: We’re already there. We played all day yesterday with the Capcom USA members, but plotting each character’s win rate on a diagram, the results were quite even. Of course there will still be characters that you might be able to say are strong (laughs).

Woshige: It’s a fighting game, so making it completely even is incredibly difficult, but we’ve tuned the game to a level where any character can fight when utilizing their strengths. So please, rest assured.

4Gamer: Understood. Do you have a message to the Japanese fans eagerly awaiting the release?

Woshige: We’ve poured our heart into making SFV a game that let’s you understand the fun of fighting games. So we not only want the users who’ve been playing the Street Fighter series up until now, but also the users who’ve never touched a fighting game to play.

Nakayama: We want the enjoyment of SFV to not end with the release date, but to keep growing, like with the announcement of the additional characters. We’ve including a variety of content to satisfy both the core audience aiming for tournaments as well as the casual audience playing the game alone at home. We hope you play for years to come.

4Gamer: Speaking of years to come, 2017 is the 30th anniversary of the Street Fighter series. It makes me anticipate there will be some sort of event…

Sugiyama & Nakayama: You bring up a good point! There might be something (laugh)!

4Gamer: I see, l’ll look forward to it (laughs). Finally Sugiyama, your closing words.

Sugiyama: I want to to convey to the Street Fighter II generation, “It’s okay to come home now.” I went to the “Japan’s Manga, Anime, Games” exhibit at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art the other day, and there I saw a parent and child playing SFII. That father was a part of the SFII generation, in about his late 30s… He was a total turtle Guile (laughs).

(All laugh)

Sugiyama: The daughter was using Blanka and asked, “Dad, teach me this game!” Those words left a strong impression on me. If Dad can be the hero, then Street Fight can become the communication tool between parent and child.

SFV is something that the SFII generation who practiced landing Fierce into Dragon Punch back in the day can play. We hope that turtle Guile dad who said, “I can’t move my hands anymore,” will play. We hope that everyone sees that Street Fighter is still alive and well.

4Gamer: Thank you for today!