Would a new STREET FIGHTER in high-fidelity 2D look cool? Of course! I just can’t see it happening, so I see no point in wasting energy getting upset at not getting it. Not to mention, Capcom had proven themselves perfectly capable of producing artistically and technically compelling 3D art over the past decade. I’m not going to bemoan the transition from pixel art to 3D models for the in-game graphics – as 2D art was falling out of favour in mainstream game art over the course of the late ’90s and 2000s, I think this was inevitable for a marquee title like STREET FIGHTER. In simple terms – 2D was out, and 3D was in.
Although that first teaser ultimately did not end up being all that representative of how the final game looked, it did (deliberately or not) signal a shift in how the STREET FIGHTER brand would be presented and marketed going forward. There was simply a palpable doubt whether Capcom would ever make a new fighting game, so to see STREET FIGHTER return after almost a decade of radio silence was genuinely exciting!īut almost right off the bat – at least for my part – that excitement was tempered by questions about the game’s aesthetics. When STREET FIGHTER IV was first announced with a similarly uninformative teaser trailer back in 2007, there was of course a sense of elation – Capcom had shut down their arcade game development division, and their last handful of arcade fighting games before that had been pretty dire compared to the golden age of the ’90s. My frustrations with the art and visual presentation of the STREET FIGHTER series is nothing new. If you’ll indulge me, allow me to go into more depth and explain why.
To sum up my overall impressions of the reveal, I guess you could say I’m equal parts disappointed, frustrated, and… unsurprised. That said, I still find it interesting to dissect and analyse what Capcom has chosen to present as the world’s introduction to the next chapter of STREET FIGHTER. All we really have to go on is a 40-second teaser which doesn’t really tell us anything concrete, as well as whatever we can extrapolate and predict from the series’ trajectory across the last couple of instalments. Needless to say, we still don’t know much about STREET FIGHTER 6. As a lifelong fan of Capcom and Street Fighter, not to mention as someone with more than their fair share of opinions on the artistic direction of the series over the last decade or two, you can bet I have some thoughts. At the end of this year’s Capcom Pro Tour Finals, after a long period of leaks, rumours and speculation, Capcom finally unveiled STREET FIGHTER 6.
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