Bonus characters from the Shenmue series ?

Storm = another bad exemple. Ryo doesn't have the same recognition, and to alot of people he his a new character. Ryo isn't Solid Snake, is face alone won't make VF5 a bloclbuster hit.

 

Sega already tried not being fun, the game was called VF3, that's why it didn't sell so well. Of course the hardcore VF fans bought it but everybody else bought Tekken 3, SC, DOA 2 and Powerstone. Was it because it was a bad game no certainly not. The amount of skill you had to have was sick and that's what attracted me to it but unfortunately most of the time I was playing it by myself.

VF3 to me didn't have a more un-fun flavor than any of the other games, so I dunno what you're meaning with 'they tried not being fun'. I guess it doesn't have as many hits to the testicles as VF4, but otherwise it's the same idea. As for how well it sold, you're looking at stuff from a console POV. VF3 was enormously popular in japanese arcades, and had a long lifespan. Evo has sold relatively poorly over there (relative to the unholy popularity of the games in the arcade). Sega isn't concerned with evo making only 1% of the cash the arcade machines are making in japan. They (unfortunately) are not concerned with your lack of competition also... assuming you're an american/canadian/european. They made oodles of profit off both VF3 and VF4, even if VF3 was a more technical game than 4 (and that's a very arguable point).

Look, I understand what you're saying, I don't want the game to go too commercial but I don't want it to stay too underground either.

This isn't a bad point, if you're coming from the perspective of a US gamer who wishes the game could pick up in his country. From the perspective of a japanese player though, ... VF isn't anywhere near underground. Akira is Britney Spears to a million japanese males.
So what this boils down to is: It ain't broke, don't fix it. VF's popularity and character design is fine. Doing it the same way is guaranteed to reward fans with the same high quality they've always expected.

Is VF4 selling out with the addition of kumite items ? It's a fighting game RIGHT what do we care about playing dress up ? I didn't hear anybody complain about that though. But Is it a bad addition ? HELL NO !

This is a fine point, and the rest of the paragraph is similar. Items are peripheral to the actual gameplay and yet add to the game. That's fine. Part of the fun of the items though? Their originality ... the designers were given free reign and someone came up with a blindfold for lei and a big freaking throwing star for kage and a hockey mask for vanessa etc etc. Seeing Ryo Hazuki in the game will never make anyone say "how original" and grin with surprise and pleasure (which is the reaction I got to some of the items). They might be amused to see how an old character was adapted to a new game, but that wears off after five minutes.

I guess it boils down to - why gamble on something that could actually cause a DECREASE in quality of gameplay and character design... when the potential reward for your gamble is so small? An hour of nostalgia for shenmue maybe... a nod of recognition at seeing the leather jacket and scrolls and punch combinations... this isn't worth scrapping sega's successful formula of "give jimbo some time and a pay him well and let's see what he comes up with".

 

To quickly jump in (just too damned antsy at work) on something off topic:

"Fun" is such a subjective quality. Of course developers want to make games as "fun" as possible. How that carries over to other people is something else. To me, VF3 was enormously FUN--more so than VF2 actually. But that's my preference.

Onistompa, you refer to VF4 on the console and arcade interchangeably, but I will respond assuming arcade:

"Is VF4 selling out with the addition of kumite items ? It's a fighting game RIGHT what do we care about playing dress up ? I didn't hear anybody complain about that though. But Is it a bad addition ? HELL NO ! "

I am probably preaching to the choir here, but I see "Kumite is not an innovation," "VF.net does not add to VF much" and "VF4 did not innovate as much as previous VFs did" a lot.

While it may not be an innovation in that it does not directly influence gameplay, what most non-Japanese gamers miss out on is by how much VF.net adds to the experience--and isn't that what we are aiming for in the end?

It's really hard to understand this without having played in Japan and participating directly...but Singapore is already going bonkers now that we have the card system. No VF.net connection, sadly.

Each installment of VF pioneered something: for VF1, it was the 3D fighting genre; for VF2 it was evolving the system to an unprecedented level of sophistication and graphic achievement; for VF3 it was the integration of the 3D plane into fighting.

In terms of gameplay, one can argue that VF4 is but a small step change from VF3, but it does bring something new, innovative, impactful, and industry-changing; and that is VF.net.

I can't wait to see what AM2 will do with VF5!

 

I agree with you two on many levels, and I understand exactly what you're trying to tell me. (Lets not mess with tradition) But I still can't figure out how the addition of Ryo would kill the game. Bottom line is we all love the game but just don't have the same vision when it comes to its future. Only Sega knows and only time will tell, I'll play it regardless of what they do Shenmue or not, I just can't imagine Yu Suzuki making a crappy game though.

P.S. I loved VF3, it's just that MOST people thought that VF2 was more fun that's why they changed the stages back to the old ones. I would welcome the VF3 type stages mixed with the VF4 stages with open arms. No doubt ! /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

Ok, I will try to respond to both your essays:

First thing, its been proven from other games that you can take characters from one and put them in another, and make them original. Yoshi in SC1 and 2 is different from his Tekken incarnations. You want to keep going with this storm thing? Fine. How do you NOT know sega couldn't give her 3 stances and 300 moves? Your just making a bland assumption.
What really gets me is this "if its not broke don't fix it" attitude. That type of complete lack of balls is what I believe is the general achilles heel of the industry. You have to take some sort of risk. Any game runs the risk of becoming stale and nondescript if the company does not have the willpower, insight, and intelligence to update their series. What was the most popular of the series - VF3 - that was also the most innovative of ALL the VF series. Conincidence? I think not.
The affect that a cross-over character has is dependant on the company. If they really flesh that character out, giving him or her unique animations, gameplay aspects, etc, then the affect stays. Hell, I can name off the top of my head more than a few people who still get a kick out of playing the VS games just so they can be thanatos, wolverine, and whatnot and kick the crap out of other marvel characters. Like EA sports says - its in the game /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif_

 

Oh yeah, I would LOVE to see Dural replaced with Lan-Di from Shenmue...he shits heads and tales over EVERY aspect of dural.

 

[ QUOTE ]
Shadowdean said:
What really gets me is this "if its not broke don't fix it" attitude. That type of complete lack of balls is what I believe is the general achilles heel of the industry. You have to take some sort of risk. Any game runs the risk of becoming stale and nondescript if the company does not have the willpower, insight, and intelligence to update their series. What was the most popular of the series - VF3 - that was also the most innovative of ALL the VF series. Conincidence? I think not.


[/ QUOTE ]

Lack of balls...whoa whoa there with insults /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif. At least agree to disagree. You don't have to agree with us, but respect out opinion like we respect yours.

And the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't. There have been improvements in each installment of each series, but you're wrong in one thing. VF3 wasn't the most popular VF game (at least here stateside). VF2 was by far way more popular. If you ask anyone which of the first 3 games they like better, chances are they will say the second one.

Sega tried something new. It was successful, but too many changes. Improvements don't have to be drastic changes. Tweaking the existing is what keeps a hot series hot. This goes so for games, businesses, engineering, most areas where change is good. Too much change can be good, but when you've got 100,000 people who are already happy with the formula, you may piss them off when you change that formula too much.

Prime examples are VF3 and Tekken4. VF3 I think, was successful, but it was met with more than a few gripes. And Namco claimed to have redesigned the tekken engine from the ground up to keep things "fresh and new". Now Tekken fans are split right down the middle; the half who love this change, and the half who go back and play TTT. Change generally is good, but you have to be real careful with how much change there is.

 

What other video game remained at the TOP of the arcades for 6+ years? If VF2 was so much more popular, then why didn't people revert back?
Oh yeah...Lack of Balls was not an insult, but rather a statment like "not trying to do something new is a lack of balls" it was not saying "X has no balls"

 

There was only a 1 year gap between VF2 and VF3. 6 years between VF3 and VF4. It's TIMING more than anything. If VF3 had spent 4 years in development I'm sure VF2 would have stuck around for a long time.

 

[ QUOTE ]
Shadowdean said:

Oh yeah, I would LOVE to see Dural replaced with Lan-Di from Shenmue...he shits heads and tales over EVERY aspect of dural.

[/ QUOTE ]

I totally agree with that. Not that I don't like Dural but she's WAY passed her due date. She's a nonplayable character in the arcade and useless in the home version, now if that's not a waste of time then I don't know what is. I'm pretty sure alot of people would rather see Lan di a real bad guy(not as a boss just an addition). I would definitely play with him or Ryo for that matter. But I'm pretty sure someone's going to find an argument to counter that too. Oh let me guess... TRADITION !

 

What really gets me is this "if its not broke don't fix it" attitude. That type of complete lack of balls is what I believe is the general achilles heel of the industry. You have to take some sort of risk. Any game runs the risk of becoming stale and nondescript if the company does not have the willpower, insight, and intelligence to update their series. What was the most popular of the series - VF3 - that was also the most innovative of ALL the VF series. Conincidence? I think not.

heheh, I thought you were gonna attempt to tackle my essays /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I'm not arguing that we stop innovating in VF (way to twist it, wtf). I agree that the field lacks balls. I also feel that sega does not, and that they've done a fine job with innovating things. As to which game was most innovative.. .that's up for debate (I'd say VF1 being the first true 3D game puts it right up there). Did VF1 have the highest sales figures? No. For that matter, I'm not sure that VF3 was either. VF2 was awfully popular - the national tournament had 500,000 people in it, VF3 never approached that. Jesus, I got one guy telling me VF3 was a flop and another saying VF3 was the top seller. I need a url =)

What I'm saying is this - do we spend time and money innovating in INTERESTING ways that are ORIGINAL and actually MATTER? Do we innovate in the field of GAMEPLAY? Or do we make a marginal, useless change to the character design? You can't do both because there is limited time and money. If you try to do both, both aspects (gameplay and character design) will suffer.

VF.net was a huge gamble... the connections, the cards, the readers, the servers... and it paid off. It worked because it was useful, it never got old (they kept adding new items, ranks, etc), and nobody else had done it.

Are crossovers new? No.
Are they original, do they make a positive impact on gameplay? No.
Do they stay fresh and interesting over time and have depth to them? No.
Are they worth investing time and money? No.

I'm not saying "don't fix it" in the sense that we shouldn't alter VF's gameplay or character design. What I'm saying we shouldn't fix is the excellent people responsible for the way VF has been handled . Clearly they're doing a killer job and making sega piles of money.

Lemme rephrase it in shadowdean mode:

What, so you think we should just fire Jimbo the designer, who has a proven track record of doing a great job, and replace him with some new guy who wants to put in flying monkeys and justin timberlake and Vegeta?

 

[ QUOTE ]
ONISTOMPA said:
But I'm pretty sure someone's going to find an argument to counter that too. Oh let me guess... TRADITION !

[/ QUOTE ]

Dang ya'll. Why are you taking this so seriously. You act like nobody's ever disagreed with you before.

 

One minor disagreement, dural's not useless at home. In vs mode she's a blast to play, and pretty hard to beat even in scrubby hands /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I agree she's grown to become a pretty bland boss. A cool idea for the first game or two, but now they need to move on.

 

yeah, I'll second that.. sheesh. Dude asked for people's opinions then gets all offended when they give them. He should have just posted what he meant:

"I think this would be a good idea and I can I get a "hallelujah" from my thugs in the audience!".

The whole argument is starting to go like:

"I think it would be a bad idea for this, this, this, and this reason"
"no it's not. It's not going to happen like that." (>")>

The best and pretty much only good examples I've seen so far is yoshimitsu and guy.

 

[ QUOTE ]
afroconnexion said:

[ QUOTE ]
ONISTOMPA said:
But I'm pretty sure someone's going to find an argument to counter that too. Oh let me guess... TRADITION !

[/ QUOTE ]

Dang ya'll. Why are you taking this so seriously. You act like nobody's ever disagreed with you before.

[/ QUOTE ]

Whoa ! Man you guys are sensitive. I didn't mean to offend. If you would've heard me say it, I'm pretty sure the reaction would of been different. But unfortunately I have to write and at the same time show how I feel. I was being sarcastic but in a joking way. What icon can I use to show that ? /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

</sarcasm>
j/k

 

[ QUOTE ]
CreeD said:


The best and pretty much only good examples I've seen so far is yoshimitsu and guy.



[/ QUOTE ]
And you don't think that Ryo and Lan di, (who are less popular so it can't be for the money) can fit into the VF universe ? I almost consider them as VF characters. Yes, they have some of the VF characters moves but just like Jacky and Sarah, that doesn't automatically mean that they have to play the same.

 

heheh you have a point about them not being too outrageous and recognizable and weird, but I still feel I'd rather see an interesting new design over a well done crossover.

I hate to do 'final word' posts but the bottom line for me is:

-it's all about the gameplay and crossover guys won't improve the gameplay.
-it might or might not lower the quality of the game overall, because time and effort must go into make the character authentic, and that's time and money that could be spent on making someone new and different. Or the time and money could have been spent on gameplay innovation and balancing.
-Even if the quality was perfect and the game wasn't badly affected by the crossover characters... it still reeks of commercialism and selling out to me and wounds my sense of ... I dunno, aesthetics?

I'll still cheerfully play VF5 if ryo and lan di ended up in it, just because I trust sega.

 

[ QUOTE ]
CreeD said:
just because I trust sega.


[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you ! /versus/images/graemlins/laugh.gif I have nothing else to say.

 

Lan Di seems an AWFUL lot similar to Lau.... don't you think?

/versus/images/graemlins/laugh.gif