Capcom Fighting Jam: What Could had been?

GAP

While it is useless to dwell on the past and what is done is done, I cannot help but think about the many ways this game could had been better. One things that Capcom is known for its 'If ain't broke, don't fix it' policy when it comes to their games and Capcom never messes with the formula of any of their fighting games even if they are redundant. This was going to be their last 2D title before going to 3D completely and you think with something like this they would put all their efforts into making a fantastic game. What fans got instead was pasted up concoction with no real thought on how it was going play out.

For one thing the characters aren't all balanced, some characters can destroy everyone else especially the SF3 characters. Capcom could had added in every character from all their respective beat 'em up franchises including Final Fight and updated their sprites to CPS3 graphics while giving new moves or supers. Could imagine classic heroes like Mike Hagger, Strider Hyu, Guy or evne the entire SF2 cast in CPS3 graphics? They could had updated their movesets to fit the new generation like they did for Ryu, Ken and Chun Li but instead they brought over the sprites form the previous games and some of them look really dated. Even if they were going to use the same sprites form previous games, they could had an option where they could 'regress' some of the new characters like Urien to Alpha style graphics or adapted his moves to the Alpha style. I always how certain characters would fare if they played in SF2 style or how past characters could be adapted to SF3 style and gameplay.

It would also been nice if they had put in some Easter eggs where you could see of the design notes or even some artwork from the previous games. They could have had a training mode that not only shows what you need to do execute some of the characters moves but explain how to them without confusing new players or irritating the veterans. They could have had a comprehesive guide where they explain how certain moves are executed, why they chose such motions for the characters, how the character plays or even how certain mechanics such as the Alpha Counters, Parrying, Taunts etc. work. We already websites for those already but it would had been nice if they put it in there. They could had added the final bosses from every game and beefed them up to provide some challenge for players. They also could had added in some sort of boss rush where you have to fight every boss from every series.

They could had done a lot of things with this game but it felt like they didn't even try to make into a good fighter. I had seen what Capcom could do over the years but Fighting Jam is a real spit in the face for a lot of fans. I really wish Capcom could had made some effort into what was going to be their last 2D fighting game.

Adelheid

In this age of people pointlessly whining about how Skullgirls could've been better, or how UMvC3 is terrible, or how they dropped the ball on SFxT, it's good to see forums member GAP hitting the important issues.

pherai

were you even playing fighting games competitively when this "spit in the face" was released? maybe we can also dredge up more ancient history like the atrocious sf2 genesis ports? IM STILL PISSED!!!

Adelheid

pherai, post: 7938191, member: 4897 wrote:

were you even playing fighting games competitively when this "spit in the face" was released? maybe we can also dredge up more ancient history like the atrocious sf2 genesis ports? IM STILL PISSED!!!

I remember one time I was on vacation in 1996 when I was 8 years old, I was dragged to the the arcade near the hotel by my older brother, and there was this cool new "Street Fighter Alpha 2" that was definitely not there before... And it was great! It had such great graphics! And custom combos! My brother and I took turns trying to beat the CPU, and we kept coming back to it until vacation was over and we all went back home.

Later that year I discovered that Street Fighter Alpha 2 on the SNES is really disappointing.

Nephinel

WHAT CAPCOM FIGHTING JAM COULD HAVE AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN:

Adelheid

Nephinel, post: 7938630, member: 35869 wrote:

WHAT CAPCOM FIGHTING JAM COULD HAVE AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN:

This is actually true.

Lord_Raptor

Can't front, I actually find CFJ pretty fucking fun. Not good but really fun to mess around with, alot of my faves like Anak, Jedah, Guile, Bison, and Leo being buff didn't hurt.

GAP

I wish that a lot more work could had been done. Some on another forums, someone even suggested that they just use Marvel vs Capcom as a base but just take out Marvel characters and just leave in the Capcom characters.

Nando

And they wont port cvs2 to xbla...
was it even backwards compatible?

HuStLeMaN17

Ive always liked CFJ

yes its true that in a lot of ways its broken, but that's what makes it fun imho.

d3v

Was it really that badly balanced? I remember MAJ saying that the game was actually "quite balanced" despite the Darkstalkers characters initially ruling the rankings.

Louiscipher

Nephinel, post: 7938630, member: 35869 wrote:

WHAT CAPCOM FIGHTING JAM COULD HAVE AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN:

Biginning

I didn't realize that it used characters from beyond the SF universe. I didn't even realize it had Alex in it or had a kind of Parry system. It could've been a decent 3D fighter. Probably better than those EX games. It also had fatalities. Let that sink in.

But for whatever number of reasons it was cancelled and Ono was brought on to salvage the project and spend as little money as possible in the process. Hence the entire cast being made up of re-used sprites. Not having selectable supers was pretty baffling and the Warzard characters broke the game. This was released to the arcades, right? I don't think it's on Naomi or Atomiswave. A little surprised Capcom didn't try to release a revision like they normally do, I guess it bombed that badly.

The sad part is that CFJ directly lead to the lay offs of Capcom's Fighting Division and the outsourcing to Dimps and Niitsuma's team.

d3v

Louiscipher, post: 7952723, member: 20911 wrote:

I didn't realize that it used characters from beyond the SF universe. I didn't even realize it had Alex in it or had a kind of Parry system. It could've been a decent 3D fighter. Probably better than those EX games. It also had fatalities. Let that sink in.

From what I hear though, the thing bombed during loketesting.

Louiscipher

d3v, post: 7952808, member: 9887 wrote:

From what I hear though, the thing bombed during loketesting.

If that's true then wouldn't it make more sense on Capcom's part to -I don't know- fix the game? Address the complaints? Makes no sense to completely scrap the project. At the very least it would've done well in the West like the Marvel series.

Louiscipher

Also; I find it hard to believe that public opinion on All Stars was so bad that they scrapped it and yet they released this atrocity:



Also to OP; The word is HAVE not had.

Hecatom

Believe it or not, apparently there were so much troubles and shit around CAS that it was preferable to scrap the game and just release CFE instead.
From what i understand there were broken stuff on the engine and mechanics, plus some of those were not well received during the local tests
It wasn't only all the negative feedback, but also that there were a lot of problems during the developing of the game.

DoctaMario

I got the game as a gift a couple years back and I enjoyed it.

The thing that gets me is that everyone is like "oh, SF3 characters ruled" or "Darkstalkers characters" or "Alpha" but I don't think anyone played the game long enough to find out for sure. While it's unlikely, it's possible that the game could actually be something of a gem. But no one really gave it much of a chance, so I guess we'll never know.

Lemres

If you've ever seen high-level competition matches for this game, I must say, they're pretty hype. Most, if not all, matches kept me on my toes for who was gonna win and the spacing and footsies were amazing. I do think that it wasn't balanced and some characters had a clear advantage over all the others(Anakaris), but it clearly wasn't that bad to the point where it had to be ditched altogether by the community.

scytheavatar

They could have tried to make a MvC without the M, instead they tried to make a CvS without the S which was pretty stupid since the whole idea of CvS was to see a game with both Capcom and SNK elements. In the end they had a game with no hook, no selling point behind it other than a SFA with some guest Capcom characters which was a pretty weak pitch. At least with a MvC without the M you can sell it as a spiritual successor to MvC2 with the Marvel characters replaced by some cool Capcom characters.

d3v

Game would have been fine if we got Grooves based on the games represented in the game.

bkfst_sausage

d3v wrote: »

Game would have been fine if we got Grooves based on the games represented in the game.

I've been said that...

DoctaMario

d3v wrote: »

Game would have been fine if we got Grooves based on the games represented in the game.

You kinda DID, but it was limited to the characters from those games.

In all, I'd say it was basically a way for them to hopefully get free money without having to do much work for it. Much as I enjoyed the game here and there, they put about as much work into as they did for a lot of the VS games.

Louiscipher

They definitely put less work in it. MVC2 has enough foresight to prevent infinites and proper damage scaling. They just didn't think how powerful characters with flight would be and Cable. 

TheMajormel

I remember back then me and my brother bought this game and joked how capcom probably made it just to see a good player from this franchise Vs a good player from that franchise, except what if they kept the original systems and stuff. but yeah, balancing issues killed it

ArugulaZ

I never liked Capcom Fighting Evolution (or as someone on another fighting game forum called it, "Capcom Fighting the Concept of Evolution"). However, I'm looking at footage of this 3D game and I'm underwhelmed. It looks like an even less impressive version of Maximum Impact.