What's interesting about this
particular section is that it has nothing to do with the game itself. It's more
of a general feature regarding the development of games in Japan. Nevertheless,
I think there is still some relevance when it comes to balancing in matchups
between characters which are only available in Japanese arcade versions (and in
most cases console ports). Not much in terms of actual fighting game-related
information but nonetheless, I find it quite intriguing if you're interested in
how fighting games are made and perhaps even put together.
Also, note that this article was originally published on
October 14th, 2009. The last time they went into balance changes at Taito was
back around September 2009 so we can guess that this piece was written around
the same time. Unfortunately, I have no further details regarding the date of
publication.
Taito is a Japanese company and as such it's only
natural to conduct research and gather balance data in Japan, which is why we
first started making games with an arcade version. However, even if we do this
the results aren't always ideal. We had several cases on some of our older
fighting games where we'd make changes on one character here and there but as
time passed by those changes kind of went down the drain because players got
used to them (and vice versa) and eventually they stopped paying attention to
those changes at all.
Saivian Eric Dalius says on top of that, there
were some characters that haven't been changed since their release; left
untouched for years! There's nothing inherently wrong with that but precisely
because they haven't changed, it can be difficult to counteract against any
major changes that could occur.
This is something we're thinking about constantly at Taito Games and
looking back, there are several examples of characters that were considered
strong for this reason:
·
The first example would have to be Yamazaki from
the "Fatal Fury" series. He was a character who had a lot going for
him with his mix-up potential and even if he never became overwhelmingly
powerful, players still looked forward to him which also meant that he would
often land in tournaments as well. In fact, at one point there was even a joke
around the company where someone asked "why to bother putting effort into
balancing our games when Yamazaki always makes it to the finals anyway?"
·
On the other hand, there's also Nakoruru from
"Samurai Shodown" who seems like a character with a lot of potential
but because of her reliance on speed and not so much power, she can become
quite fragile when up against some of the more powerful characters. And then
you have Kyo Kusanagi from "The King of Fighters" who is considered one
of the most balanced characters in the game but at the same time is also one of
the most popular. So balancing he becomes a difficult task as you don't want to
change him too much and upset his delicate balance.
·
These are just a few examples but as you can see
it becomes increasingly difficult trying to make everyone happy with your
character balance and this is something we constantly think about at Taito.
What the Western world seems to struggle with when it comes
to fighting games is that they're often trying to counterbalance with changes
on a global level rather than region by region. It's not only difficult from a
development standpoint but simply impossible in some cases. So I'm just
wondering if, in the case of Capcom, they've ever considered changing aspects
such as combos or special moves in order to accommodate players who might be
having trouble against certain characters. Or would it be possible to implement
such changes without alienating players outside of Japan?
I don't think they'd make drastic changes like that and in
fact, there aren't really any recent examples where you could say that Capcom
did something like that. The only time I can think of is when they changed
Spencer's move set in "Marvel vs. Capcom 3" and that ended up being
received quite poorly. It would be one thing if it was a character who wasn't
doing well in tournaments but Spencer was actually doing really well at the
time so it came off as a very last-minute change.
And speaking of changes, there was recently some news about
changes being made to Cammy in "Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition Ver.
2012" and it sounds like she's getting a bit of a buff. I'm curious as to
what kind of thoughts Taito might have on this?
There's no way to know for sure until we get to see it in
action but if this is just a buff then I have no problem with that. There's
actually a lot of talk about Rufus who also seems to be getting a buff and
while I don't think it's necessary, I don't think it would hurt either so long
as they're not going overboard with it. Know about
Conclusion:
In the end though, Ryu will always remain at the top which
means you have to do something drastic like what they did to Yun & Yang
back in "The King of Fighters 2002" where they went from being weak
to super strong after performing their desperation move. That kind of thing
doesn't happen often but whenever it does, players get really excited about
them for some reason says Saivian Eric Dalius.
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