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A14

Nelson Hum

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At E3, I had the chance to play few rounds on Street Fighter IV. After my exquisite two-fight win streak came to a crashing halt, I had the chance to interview Leo Tan, U.K. PR manager for Capcom. Being a fighting game fanatic, I took the opportunity to pick his brain about the new gameplay mechanics.

Street Fighter IV is finishing up its arcade testing period. No word yet on when it'll be released to consoles.

Game space: Street Fighter IV seemed to play like the old Street Fighter but also seems different. What are some of the new features?

Leo Tan: When you say it played like the old Street Fighter, that's something we really wanted. I think Street Fighter II is the game that changed the world, for me anyway, and for a lot of other kids. Each successive Street Fighter after that became more technical and more complex and each time it dropped away some of the people because not everybody can play at that standard, so you couldn't really challenge anybody in the arcade. So what we really wanted to do is bring people back and say Street Fighter is as it was before.

At the same time though, you can't just offer the same Street Fighter because of the guys who have been playing for 15 years. One of the new things we got is the focus attack.

Initially, it's really easy to use: you just hold the two mid-buttons (medium punch and medium kick). If you do a full charge attack, you get an unblockable. If you time it right, you can just press it and use it as sort of a mini-parry. It's got properties where it can absorb hits and cause staggers which allows you to do combo follow-ups. At a more advance level, you can use focus [attacks] to cancel in and out of special moves. You can use it to keep rush down. It uses up some of your super bar so you can't constantly use it, but there are a lot of subtleties to it. Even we (Capcom) really don't know what kind of implications there will be.

GS: What can you tell me about focus dash?

LT: There are three levels to the focus. At any stage while you're charging, you can dash out of it. I can bait you -- I can start it up, you run in to get me, and I dash out and hit you. That's a simple mind game you can play.

GS: Are you invulnerable during the focus dash?

LT: No, you're just dashing so you can get nailed by stuff. Usually, the thing that tends to happen to me is I get the throw. I dash when I'm in close and you just start spamming the throw if you see [the dash] coming at you.

GS: What about the new characters (Crimson Viper, El Fuerte, Rufus, and Abel)? Any other new characters coming out?

LT: There's a new boss named Seth - he's like a liquid metal type guy who looks like Gill from Street Fighter III. He's sort of a greatest hits character; he's got a couple of moves from different characters. He's a little bit more powerful. He's probably a little bit cheap actually but Street Fighter bosses are always cheap.

GS: I have to say, as fan, Street Fighter bosses have always been cheap.

Like Gill bringing himself back to life.

I don't know if you work with the guy who created Gill but I'd like to punch him in the face.

LT: [laughs] I'm with you.

GS: As far as the new characters, how do they stack up with the older characters?

LT: It's hard to say at the moment. I've seen a lot of different versions - we've had five or six different builds in the office. Each time the characters change. Even small changes - an extra frame on this move or a lower priority on that move has a huge impact on how they stack up against the other characters. One of the things about the old characters is they've been refined since Street Fighter II. For example, in Street Fighter IV, Ken has his chain mid-punch to fierce punch from Street Fighter III and some of his old kicks from his Street Fighter II and Super Turbo days. He's got a lot of different tools at his disposal. It's easy for Street Fighter veterans to know the implications of all of those moves.

For someone like El Fuerte, who has a running special, maybe in a year's time some Japanese kid in an arcade will find a use for it which will blow apart the tiering. It's a hard one to call at this stage because it's not even out yet. For me, I really love El Fuerte -- he's very maneuverable, fun to play, he's got a lot of different options. If I was looking for wins rather than fun, Abel is a very powerful character. He's got a very easy command grab, he's got a lot of movement options like a roll and air command grab. He's got some damaging combo options so he's very powerful.

GS: He sounds similar to Alex from Street Fighter III.

LT: It wouldn't be unfair to compare the two. You can argue there's a bit of Fei Long in there because he's got his punching rushdown and he's got a sort of hopping-in kick that comes from downtown. He's got a lot of different weapons at his disposal.

When I was playing it, it seemed slower and more methodical but still the same Street Fighter.

When I went from Street Fighter Alpha to Street Fighter III, I felt like the pace had changed dramatically. As soon as you introduce parrying to the equation, the level of intensity and thinking was incredible. I think it's the same with this -- the basic jump kick versus dragon punch level is much more manageable now but as soon start to bring in focus cancel and how fast the throw goes and what happens when you're in close between two expert players, it's very intense and very fast.

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