Street Fighter the Movie Broke My Heart

anoon

I just saw another post regarding Street Fighter the Movie.

I've been lurking on the Shoryuken forums for a while now. Each time this game comes up, I'm always tempted to post about it... but then I chicken out. I figure maybe now is as good a time as any. It's been over 10 years. Perhaps I should post before I forget too much.

Hopefully, what I am about to write does not qualify me for immediate banishment from the board. I have a confession:

I worked on Street Fighter the Movie. Arcade version.

I'm not going to post here and try to convince anyone that SFTM is any good. Clearly we all know where it ranks amongst the rest of the Street Fighter legacy. I just figured it might be fun for some of you to hear a little bit about the stuff that went on behind the scenes.

Any interest?

UPDATE 12-13-08: Images back online: SFTM Blogpost

Soundatron

I'm really interested on this gabbage game

AMinorThreat

anoon, post: 1421684 wrote:

I just saw another post regarding Street Fighter the Movie.

I've been lurking on the Shoryuken forums for a while now. Each time this game comes up, I'm always tempted to post about it... but then I chicken out. I figure maybe now is as good a time as any. It's been over 10 years. Perhaps I should post before I forget too much.

Hopefully, what I am about to write does not qualify me for immediate banishment from the board. I have a confession:

I worked on Street Fighter the Movie. Arcade version.

I'm not going to post here and try to convince anyone that SFTM is any good. Clearly we all know where it ranks amongst the rest of the Street Fighter legacy. I just figured it might be fun for some of you to hear a little bit about the stuff that went on behind the scenes.

Any interest?

so.... did you guys test the game for 5 or 10 minutes?

Maj

You know what, i typically stay away from these discussions too, but i don't know what the hell these haters are talking about. SFTM was absolutely revolutionary. I had no idea until i tried out the arcade version a couple of months ago. There so many goddamn features in that game that were way way way ahead of their time, and subsequently stolen by just about every fighting game for the decade after the game was released.

Also, i don't understand why they sold out and raped the game for console release. If they had translated the game engine mechanics from the arcade version into the console version, the game would have a completely different legacy. Instead, nobody played the arcade version and everyone bought the Saturn/PS1 version for $10 from the bargain bin. Of course they hated it. It was basically an inferior clone of ST with ugly graphics resembling characters we hate.

So yes, i'm definately interested in hearing some of the behind-the-scenes stories regarding this game's design and development.

Shinto

Im game to hear about the in dept of the game.

YellowS4

Hell of a lot better than KOF.

I do have to echo some of Maj's sentiments though regarding the game.

Unknown

No bans. Tell us more.

Unknown

anoon, post: 1421684 wrote:

I just saw another post regarding Street Fighter the Movie.

I've been lurking on the Shoryuken forums for a while now. Each time this game comes up, I'm always tempted to post about it... but then I chicken out. I figure maybe now is as good a time as any. It's been over 10 years. Perhaps I should post before I forget too much.

Hopefully, what I am about to write does not qualify me for immediate banishment from the board. I have a confession:

I worked on Street Fighter the Movie. Arcade version.

I'm not going to post here and try to convince anyone that SFTM is any good. Clearly we all know where it ranks amongst the rest of the Street Fighter legacy. I just figured it might be fun for some of you to hear a little bit about the stuff that went on behind the scenes.

Any interest?

Why was the home version, which was an entirely different game cooked up for the console, WORSE?

Why didn't they just port the arcade?

Also just HOW MUCH of a hand did you have in the Arcade game?

thedude.com

:p

CarpeNoctumXIII

Damn, just when I was able to block it out of my mind, you've brought it back! NO!

AlterGenesis

That was some seriously gay shit and I didn't need to see it again. HURRICANE! DRAGON! Fuck, that's messed up. Stop linking to that video please, I've seen it enough. =P

Kyokuji

I like how the guy doing Ryu managed to pronounce everything wrong.
Jumps were wayyy too fast in that game.

anoon

Ok, so I started writing things down in a seperate doc, and ended up filling 3 pages with the background history. I'll spare you all that for the moment, as it is late, and just answer the questions already posted.

so.... did you guys test the game for 5 or 10 minutes?

Ok, that was honestly pretty funny. believe it or not, we tested it like crazy. As far as I know, it is bug/crash free. if you are referring to the gameplay... well that's another matter, which I will eventually get around to.

SFTM was absolutely revolutionary... ...There so many goddamn features in that game that were way way way ahead of their time

Well, I think you are probably being overly generous there, but while I wouldn't say anything was "stolen" from SFTM, I do like to think that we did have a few good ideas here and there. There are some pretty interesting similarities between some of the things we did, (as well as a number of things we proposed but didn't get in the game,) versus features that showed up in later SF games in particular. Again, I'm not taking credit for these ideas; just coincidences worth mentioning.

Why was the home version, which was an entirely different game cooked up for the console, WORSE?

Well, either version being better than the other is largely subjective, but thanks anyway. :) In my mind, both had their own unique strengths and weaknesses compared to the other. For example, while we did share the same raw digitized footage, each group processed it in a different manner. Maybe I'm biased, but I personally feel that our character art ended up looking better, while I feel that their game played better as it is truer to the Street Fighter game play. (Funny enough, at the start of the project, I was adamant that the right way to execute the project would be to request the art from the original games so we could have the actors match each pose exactly during digitizing. Ultimately this did not come to pass and each character had an entirely new moveset for coin op. it appears as if the console team did more manual editing of the capture data to create many of the signature Street Fighter poses. I wish we would have done that too.)

Why didn't they just port the arcade?

As far as to why another group (Capcom out of CA office,) did the home port, I don't know the details of the arrangement, but I'd wager that it was largely due to the fact that we were a coin op company that did not have the expertise or experience with the new 3D consoles to do the port.

Also just HOW MUCH of a hand did you have in the Arcade game?

Quite a large hand, honestly. I am credited as Co-Designer, Artist, and Actor. I can go into further detail later.

HURRICANE! DRAGON! Fuck, that's messed up

LOL. It seemed like such a good idea at the time! Seriously though, it was impossible to get the hollywood actors to say the real japanese wording. IMPOSSIBLE. believe me, I tried. We had an actual SSF2 on the set to demo it. We played recordings. We had the Japanese Capcom guys there coaching. We wrote it out phonetically. I believe we even had sound sessions with Japanese speaking voice actors, but in the end, you have to understand that there was a movement to Americanize the game somehow, so the English stuck. Again, I can go into that further later.

Ok, so there's a little info. If people want more, perhaps what I'll do is post a paragraph or two from the doc I started writing every so often.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to Shoryuken for the opportunity to come clean!

FragMasterGen

more! tell us more!

Rioting Soul

anoon, post: 1421696 wrote:

LOL. It seemed like such a good idea at the time! Seriously though, it was impossible to get the hollywood actors to say the real japanese wording. IMPOSSIBLE. believe me, I tried. We had an actual SSF2 on the set to demo it. We played recordings. We had the Japanese Capcom guys there coaching. We wrote it out phonetically. I believe we even had sound sessions with Japanese speaking voice actors, but in the end, you have to understand that there was a movement to Americanize the game somehow, so the English stuck. Again, I can go into that further later.

I can understand that. But why doesn't Jean-Claude say "Sonic Boom"?

Maj

thedude.com, post: 1421692 wrote:

:p

Seriously, whoever is playing during that video is a total scrub. I mean, he's got no idea whatsoever what you can do in that game. Imagine some random 3S player trying to play MvC2 for the first time. That's what you're seeing in that video, no joke.

anoon, post: 1421696 wrote:

Ok, so I started writing things down in a seperate doc, and ended up filling 3 pages with the background history. I'll spare you all that for the moment, as it is late, and just answer the questions already posted.

Well, I think you are probably being overly generous there, but while I wouldn't say anything was "stolen" from SFTM, I do like to think that we did have a few good ideas here and there. There are some pretty interesting similarities between some of the things we did, (as well as a number of things we proposed but didn't get in the game,) versus features that showed up in later SF games in particular. Again, I'm not taking credit for these ideas; just coincidences worth mentioning.

Dude just post the the doc file. Don't be shy, haha. And no, i'm not being overly generous. Personally i think the console versions are pretty weak because they try to go in the same direction as ST and fail miserably. On the other hand, i think the arcade version goes in a completely new and bold direction, and accomplishes some interesting things. Don't get me wrong - i don't think there's any way whatsoever to play that game in a tournament setting cuz there are 100% combos and infinites all over the place. But at the same time, it's a really interesting experiment and there aren't too many games that you can say that about. I'm not a fan of the SFTM games, but i do think that the arcade version is vastly, majorly underrated.

fistoftheryustar

this is quite a cool thread.

can you tell us more about akuma in that game. i dont think he was in the movie.

also if you could tell, how hard is it to take someone's movements and put it in a 2-d game (as opposed to the ping pong ball suits used nowdays)?

Spooty Whiteboy

Majestros, post: 1421699 wrote:

I'm not a fan of the SFTM games, but i do think that the arcade version is vastly, majorly underrated.

I agree with you 100%. I actually really enjoy playing this "crap" game. So much shit that you can do; and some of it is very stupid...which makes it great. It can't be taken seriously, but it is one of the best "fun" games ever.

Shinto

Please tell more.

Why Sawada? Why Blade ? Why Akuma ? were they there for fillers?

No Dhalsim, No Blanka?

FallingEdge

Post up that doc file. I am interested in reading it as well.

As for my question, did you guys seriously believe that the game was good? I mean, I'm not expecting that you guys thought it was the greatest of all time but as you were coding/developing/playing it, what was going through your mind?

AlterGenesis

Doesn't that question come into into mind when shitty games get released? We only wonder what the hell quality check team was on when they decided to release such a game. I for one, would like to get an opinion of how people saw a shitty game once and for all before they released it.

Unknown

Kyokuji, post: 1421695 wrote:

I like how the guy doing Ryu managed to pronounce everything wrong.
Jumps were wayyy too fast in that game.

TaSemenMonkeyMadPoo = TatsuMakiSenpuuKyaku

AlterGenesis

Shoroooken = Shoryuken =/

Unreallystic

I can't complain about the arcade release - serious tourny fighter? No. fun way to kill time? YES. I had a ball playing it a few evenings ago. It was broken, and MvC2 is a sign that broken games are just fun. I kinda want to go home and play it now actually.
-

Lantis

fistoftheryustar, post: 1421700 wrote:

can you tell us more about akuma in that game. i dont think he was in the movie.

Akuma was portrayed by Ernie Reyes Sr, dad of Ernie Reyes Jr, TEH SURF NINJAAAAAAAA!

Therefore, he is full of win. Obviously he was meant to be the most broken character in the game.

On a side note: Wow, comedy threads in FGD? There's a first....

Unknown

Majestros, post: 1421699 wrote:

Don't get me wrong - i don't think there's any way whatsoever to play that game in a tournament setting cuz there are 100% combos and infinites all over the place.

What about MVC2?

Sano

Thanks for sharing Anoon. Hearing about the process of making the game is very interesting.

I have a question for later once I have the info in front of me.

Shotokan Symphony

Posting in legendary thread.

Semi-serious question: Why were Strata so bad at making music? Rather, what kind of sound system were they using? It sounded like something that belongs on some modded-out bootleg Genesis soundcard.

fistoftheryustar

Lantis, post: 1421708 wrote:

Akuma was portrayed by Ernie Reyes Sr, dad of Ernie Reyes Jr, TEH SURF NINJAAAAAAAA!

Therefore, he is full of win. Obviously he was meant to be the most broken character in the game.

On a side note: Wow, comedy threads in FGD? There's a first....

Haha is that true? Im a big fan of his demo team (West Coast Action Team) or now, Loopkicks. Ever since like 99.' They're my trick idols

thedude.com

is taaats! maaak! senpuuu ! KYAAAAKK!

anoon

Ok, back again. thanks for the positive responses to the thread itself, even if the game doesn't deserve much (any!?!) praise on its own!

So I have about 5 or 6 pages going at the moment, and I'm starting to think maybe I should get some of this cleared with my former employer, Incredible Technologies. I'm pretty sure I've not included anything questionable from a legal stand point, but I'm still on good terms with those guys, so I'd like to give them a heads up on what I'm about to post. Who knows, maybe they will give me access to some of the goodies they still have so I can share them with you.

I'll answer a few more questions while I'm on my lunch break...

I can understand that. But why doesn't Jean-Claude say "Sonic Boom"?

Honestly, I cannot remember why. He really doesn't say it? It's been so long since I've played the game. I do know that Jean Claude was, ummm... "interesting" to work with. As part of our deal, we stipulated that we'd have each actor available to us for digitizing and sound recording for at least 8 hours. Being the star he is, Jean Claude could only afford us 4 hours, unfortunately. It is very possible we never did a sound session with him. I do not remember doing one with him. Maybe I was focused on other stuff at the time.

So I see there are a lot of questions related to characters. Rightfully so. They probably each deserve a dedicated section each, so I won't say too much here about why one over the other may or may not have been included. I'll add those to my doc for posting later. Please hang tight! There are probably going to be some unexpected surprises to be found. I just finished 2 whole pages on one character in particular that I'm sure will be of interest to Street Fighter fans. I'm cracking up about it now as I finish the section.

I for one, would like to get an opinion of how people saw a shitty game once and for all before they released it.

Game dev is a long and complicated process. You can have the best license, the best engine or hardware, or maybe the best ideas ever, but it only takes one or two weak links in the chain to doom the whole thing. You try to do your best to make something special, but often time it just doesn't come together. As a life long devotee to video games, I can assure you that it is absolutely soul crushing to put so much of yourself into something, only to know that it isn't going to be all that you had hoped. Given unlimited time and resources, every game could be polished into something good, but the reality is that there are very real monetary concerns or time constraints. At some point, the game just needs to be done.

Why were Strata so bad at making music? Rather, what kind of sound system were they using? It sounded like something that belongs on some modded-out bootleg Genesis soundcard

Funny, after watching the Youtube link below, I was struck by how bad the sound was too! I'm afraid sound wasn't my thing, so I can't really comment on the hardware itself. I remember being impressed with the talents of the sound guys that were at I.T./Strata while I was there, so I'm not sure what the deal was.

Shotokan Symphony

Well, the general SFX weren't bad honestly(for the time...), but the music is downright terrible. Kinda par for the course considering Strata's game history.

Unknown

whats the deal with sawada?

felineki

So Ken says "Hurricane!" and "Dragon!"... but yet he still says "Hadouken!", too. Huh?

Interesting to hear about what went on behind the scenes with this game. Thanks for sharing with us!

complexz

this thread is great, i too think sf the movie is great fun, and the graphics are really neat(health bars exploding after super finish and such!) . sure its broken but arnet like MOST fighters from that era broken?

its no super turbo but its definatly compairable to mortal kombat 1,2 or 3 IMO and graphically superior to all 3...also IMO

Maj

Speaking of the sound, is there any way to turn background music off while still keeping sound effects on? I know there are some codes that can be used to access "classic" soundtracks, but it would be nice if there was a way to turn it off entirely for combo video editing purposes.

LingPanda., post: 1421709 wrote:

What about MVC2?

MvC2 design is a stroke of genius combined with about 50 lightning strikes of pure luck. Somehow that game magically ended up with number of very complicated checks and balances that still give the most advanced tournament players enough of a guessing game / mindgame / rock paper scissors game to be satisfying. I mean, the true test of a good tournament game is whether the person winning the matches comes off as the person with the most skill. If it always looks like it could have gone either way, always looks like winning is a matter of luck, then it's not a good tournament game. MvC2 gameplay has some elements of luck but most of the time you can tell that there are mindgames going on and that somebody just plain got outsmarted.

On the other hand, SFTM has a lot of restrictions on the combo engine but also a lot of very easy ways to get around them. Once you figure out some practical corner infinites, finding midscreen infinites is easy and then you have instant death combos from almost any situation. There's no assists to cover your attacks, there's no second or third character to come in should you make a mistake, and matches can be over at the 5-second mark.

Of course, as everyone knows, there's no end to the fun you can have playing around with the combo engine of a "broken" game. Especially if it has Street Fighter characters in it.

Sano

Thanks for the response Anoon! Yeah, my question was regarding one of the characters. I'll post it up and maybe you can pass it along or put something in your Doc regarding it.

Hyuga

OMFG, were you the actor for the character Blade???

Spooty Whiteboy

Hyuga, post: 1421721 wrote:

OMFG, were you the actor for the character Blade???

The guy who acted for Blade (Arkane, Khyber, F7) was Alan Noon. And since this guy is "anoon" then....I'd say that's a safe bet.

Also, the guy who played Sawada was really named Sawada. Lack of imagination?

True Grave

Hyuga, post: 1421721 wrote:

OMFG, were you the actor for the character Blade???

Yes i believe he said earlier that, among other things, he was also credited as an actor in the game.

I too would also like to know what character he did if thats true:looney:

felineki

Spooty Whiteboy, post: 1421722 wrote:

Also, the guy who played Sawada was really named Sawada. Lack of imagination?

Off-topic, but Makoto's voice actor in 3rd Strike is named Makoto. Seriously.

anoon

Ok, I'm going to post up parts of my doc in digestable pieces. The first part may be a bit dull, but it quickly explains explains how I got into games and leads into the some of the circumstances that came about which led to Incredible Technologies/Strata devloping SFTM.

(Oh, and Yes, I played the Bison Trooper characters Blade, Arkane, Khyber, and F7)

anoon

Street Fighter the Movie Broke My Heart.
Alan Noon
01.23.07

Its true. I am certainly not proud of this fact, but I am one of the people responsible for one of the most loathed games in fighting game history. I apologize.

It was the project of my dreams. A one in a million, golden opportunity. I was in the right place, at the right time. I was going to be part of something sensational. I was going to help design and create the next Street Fighter! But what should have been a career defining moment turned into a nightmare; a nightmare that haunts me to this day.

A lot of time has passed. I have forgotten much of the experience. Many more parts are probably buried subconsciously; a protection by my inner psyche, for surely I would go mad if I confronted with the horror of what happened.

Ok, ok melodrama aside, what Im trying to say is that I cant remember everything that went down, and certainly not in chronological order. Ill just relate the bits and pieces I do remember that might be interesting to fighting game fans. Ill also be happy to field questions, if I have a halfway decent explanation.

BACKGROUND
How did I end up working on what was supposed to be the next big thing? I have always been a video game fanatic. I remember the first video game I ever saw and where I saw it. It was Pong. It was at a local restaurant. I was 5 years old, and I was mesmerized. Since that day, I have been obsessed with video gaming.

A STEP CLOSER
Flash forward and I am in college and I am still gaming. The school had a Street Fighter in the lounge, and I was completely hooked. (SF:CE, if you must know.) Soon after the Hyper Fighting showed up, I was ditching most of my classes to play. I should mention that Mortal Kombat arrived in the lounge around that same time, and I started playing a lot of that too. Truth be told though, in my mind Street Fighter was the king of the fighting games.

I had always been into art, had always been into videos games, and had always been interested in computers. I had known since I was seven years old when I made Pitfall Harry grab his first bar of gold that I wanted to make games. Now I saw the first step I had to take to make it happen. That semester I enrolled in the schools first computer art class offering. Towards the end of the course, the instructor informed us that a local video game company was looking for help. I was doing really well in the class, so I took the number and called them. Long story short, I got the job of my dreams. I quit school immediately. I was going to be making video games.

anoon

THE FOOT IN THE DOOR
The company that hired me was Incredible Technologies, manufacturers of a number of successful coin op arcade games. (They were also known by another name too, Strata. I dont recall the specifics of the division between I.T. and Strata were. Maybe I never knew.) I worked on a few other projects before Street Fighter the Movie came around. Being a fighting game nut, I was originally hired to work on New Fighter, which was the follow up product to a rather successful hit I.T. had in a coin op game known as Time Killers. (This is worth mentioning as Time Killers apparently played something of a role in the SFTM saga. More on that later.) What ended up happening to me however was that it was decided that New Fighter was going to run with a skeleton crew for while as I was put on to the football game which needed extra hands. My first day on the job, and I was cleaning up (poorly,) digitized football players for Hard Yardage, I.T.s NBA Jam style football game. I loved every minute of it.

THE NEXT TITLE
After a while, Hard Yardage eventually shipped, though perhaps not in the quantities we had hoped. One factor may have been that I.T. insisted on selling Hard Yardage as a dedicated machine only; no conversion kits. Coin Op distributors were not wild about that idea as there was a lot of wood in the market at the time, as Ive heard it said. (Meaning: there were tons of arcade cabinets out there in circulation already. Arcade Operators would much rather just buy a conversion kit to retrofit an old, lesser earning game instead of buying a whole new, expensive cabinet.) A large number of Hard Yardages either came back, or never left. We ourselves now had a lot of wood on our hands.

Time Killers, while perhaps not too fondly remembered by gamers, actually did exceptionally well for I.T. Fighting games were super hot, with no signs of slowing down. Operators and the Distributors wanted more fighting game product to sell. Full attention was put back on New Fighter.

New Fighter was pretty darn cool for a prototype. It featured eight or so bald headed, spandex wearing place holder characters that all looked exactly the same, save for palette swaps and special move sets to differentiate them. They all had a nature or element based theme, so we had the fire guy, the ice guy, the rock guy, and so on, as well as my personal favorite: the plant guy. Plant Guy had a sweet, Scorpion-esque move in which a vine grew from his arm and snared the enemy and pulled him in close for a free shot. Sadly, Plant Guy never made it to the final product, which you may or may not now know as Bloodstorm. (Fun fact: We needed to get rid of those dedicated Hard Yardages that were costing us rent. I am proud to say that it was my idea to create giant vinyl BloodStorm cabinet graphics we could stick over the sides of the Hard Yardages. We converted the boards, stuck on the stickers, and off they went. Problem solved!)

True Grave

Interesting...please go on, anoon.

Shinto

yes please do.

Kyokuji

You must've gotten a kick out of the Simpson's "Bonestorm" parody.

Strider2k2

Great post...i look forward to hearing more about your experience at I.T.

Boel

I <3 this game. Tons. Directional fireballs are hardcore, TRY JUMPING THAT SHIT. And directoinal Shinkuu iS FIREWALL

JackTenrac!

... I don't. Bastards like you and Michael Jackson ruined my childhood.

*runs off in a floating pirate ship*

...that went well.

anoon

You must've gotten a kick out of the Simpson's "Bonestorm" parody.

Yes, Absolutely! That was too funny.

Ok, more stuff on the way. I take a quick detour into Bloodstorm and then describe some of the circumstances in the industry at the time.