Back In The Day, were you team Mortal Kombat or team Street Fighter?
Personally, I was an MK kid. I loved the gore (maybe a little too much), and I've never been patient enough for the precision required to be even passable at Street Fighter. Lord, to this day I can hardly even do a hadouken. I've been playing a bit of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 lately and the results are embarrassing.
Either way, though, when you think about it, that fighting brand rivalry was nearly as big as Mario-versus-Sonic (I was Sonic Team, in case you're wondering). But the genre in general largely fell off over the years with the decline of arcades, and except for a couple good brands -- Soulcalibur and possibly Virtua Fighter, essentially* -- the arcade-fighter heyday seemed basically over.
Now a few things have happened that stand to change that. Connected consoles mean we no longer need arcades to square off. And now that Warner Bros. has bought up Midway primarily for Mortal Kombat, it's a good bet we could see "Fatality" return to the common lexicon once more.
Of course, Capcom brought it in style with Street Fighter IV last year, and the publisher has up til now faced few, if any obstacles in the way of cornering the traditional fighting game market in the West. I wondered how the company would feel about the return of Mortal Kombat, and so I asked 'em.
Turns out they're more than ready for MK to bring it on. Capcom's Chris Kramer talked to me about the evolution and dynamics of arcade fighting franchises over the years, and he says a return to the rivalries and richness we remember from our arcade-fueled younger days would be a good thing for the genre, the industry and gamers alike. Check out the article!
Not included in the story, but cute: Kramer says that when Capcom developers and staff attend EVO tournament finals, they're often encouraged by fans and attendees to show off their skills at Street Fighter -- having developed it, they ought to know its ins and outs well enough to give the tournament fighters a run for their money, right? Not so.
"You dont generally see Capcom staff playing in public," Kramer told me (he was trying to make me feel better for my admitted barely-remedial SF skillz). "Everyone's like 'where's Seth [Killian]? I don't want to make this game look bad.'"
[*there's always gonna be that guy who leaves a comment about HOW CAN I NEGLECT all the AMAZING LAST-GEN FIGHTERS blah blah. i'd like to tell that guy to cool his jets for today.]
20 comments:
For a moment I thought you were going to announce Mortal Kombat VS Street fighter at the Winter Olympics!
It's weird, I do like both MK & SF, but I'm equally rubbish at both. Mind you, I much prefer the old MKs - not having really played one properly since the awful number 4. Street Fighter 4 I do quite enjoy and have fun, but I too am absoltely rubbish at it.
Mind you, I pull out the excuse that given my primary platform is PC I'm not used to the genre at all. Was a nice touch though to see Capcom release SF4 for us desktop duellers.
Oh, yeah, I have to contact you for the project (yeah, I am Stephan's friend). I'll send you a detailed mail this week end.
(Btw, I'm a Street Fighter diehard. Simple childhood habits, I guess...)
Go ahead -- any friend of Steph's is a friend of mine.
Mr. Clean -- it would sort of be fun to see a crossover thing, don't you think?
I'm playing street fighter IV for PC and loving it, Capcom did a great job porting this game, If MK gets released for PC I'm giving it a try.
I was SF team when younger and even though I liked sonic, down here in Mexico, sega was barely a myth, everyone had an SNES and that console was undisputed king until PS1.
I'm really bad at SFIV, but I enjoy playing after ten years since the last time i frecuented an arcad hall
It would certainly be interesting, although I'd rather see a version of Mortal Kombat as visually impressive as SF4.
Anyway, I suck at SF, and MK. SF-vs-MK would mean I'd double suck!
I preferred Mortal Kombat to Street Fighter. I wasn't really interested in the 'hardcultre' that gravitated around the Street Fighter games and found Sub-Zero's novelty far more seductive than Ryu's repertoire.
That's a 180 to where I last stood with fighters though. I drowned in Virtua Fighter 4's world when it came out and kind of neglected everything else. I still haven't fully jumped on the Soul Calibur train for myself, despite playing them all. My interests are constantly fluctuating when it comes to fighters.
Hell, my favorite fighter to this day still remains Bushido Blade, followed by the first Power Stone. The traditional fighter doesn't really grab me anymore, as I found myself enamored with Dissidia's play upon downloading the demo last week.
I'll be curious to see how MK can reestablish itself because it was built from foundations that are kind of crumbling now. The lurid extravagance that was mentioned in your Gamasutra article kind of intrigues me and worries me at the same time. I wonder if MK really can't cross those boundaries. There's so many strings attached to its legacy, it will be interesting to see how it ends up.
The irony is that MK was the accessible beast to Street Fighter's hardcore nature. Now Street Fighter is able to translate to this generation of consoles by 'simply' translating its own pedigree. Mortal Kombat on the other hand, is going to have a ridiculous and far more convoluted task of reclaiming it's throne because it was made off those tiny nuanced & subjective factors (i.e. the gorefest that the fanchise is known for).
~sLs~
I'd side with Street Fighter over Mortal Kombat, but in all honesty, I spent more time with the Fatal Fury/King of Fighters series. Something about those four game Neo Geo MVS cabinets was too inciting to pass up. I loved that there were only four buttons at the time, easier for a 7 year old to wrap his mind around than the five and six button setups MK and SF utilized. I also loved the fact that these arcade games had these integrated story sequences between fights, no matter how completely incoherent they were. And, if I got bored punching things and nearly tearing the tendon between my forefinger and thumb trying to pull of a super, there was always a good chance 'Nam 1975 or Windjammers was sharing that MVS machine. It was a sweet deal.
Also: only a quarter, most places. MK2 was never a quarter!
I think it was probably Mortal Kombat for me. Although I didn't own either game.
I think it's safe to say this guy preferred Street Fighter:
http://henryjenkins.org/2009/06/communal_growing_pains_fandom.html
Street Fighter
I seem to remember a lot of frustration with MK not reading my inputs.
The only Mortal Kombat game I found to be worth my time was Mortal Kombat II; MK1 seemed too simplistic, and MK3 was too cheap (in other words, I sucked at it). On the other hand, I've spent way too many hours playing Street Fighter II Turbo on my SNES.
Hadoken! Hadoken! Shoryuken!
I hate Mortal Kombat. It feels less like a fighting game and more like a macabre experiment in exploitation.
I'm a Street Fighter kid. I remember getting SF2 as a rental one weekend, and playing it for two days straight until I gave myself a migraine.
First one. Not quite playing until your eyes bleed, but I thought it was stripe worthy.
Lately, I've been really getting into the SNK fighters. I dunno why, other than like you, I was barely a passable at SF, and the SNK games seem to have a nicer learning curve while still allowing me to occasionally figure out how to toss a fireball or chain together a combo.
Course, wouldn't have started playing them if not for the SF series...
I mainly played Sub Zero on MK simply because I enjoyed pulling people's spines out. In MKII, I played as Kitana, mainly because I liked to watch her kiss people into an explosion. I guess I too, was a little obsessed with the gore. I got really good with both characters and even knew how to exploit a few things to get combos, for example, with Kitana you can catch them in your 'sonar' move, jump punch, air fan, jump kick, flying punch, jump kick against the back of the stage, uppercut, then footsweep without giving your opponent a chance to hit the ground.
I was really a Street Fighter kid though. I didn't have a lot of money as a kid and was too young to get a job, so I had to be good if I wanted to stay on the machine. I would scrounge the parking lot of the grocery store looking for loose change, then go to 7-11 and play SFII. If I managed to find 50 cents, I could play an endless stream of neighborhood kids for about 5 or 6 hours before I would either lose, or everyone went home. I had a reputation back then and everyone wanted to topple me. I used to do obnoxious things to annoy my opponents- I would beat them with Dhalsim or Zangief, I would beat them with my hands crossed, I would play using only my knuckles instead of my fingertips, I even beat a few kids with my eyes closed by listening to the sound effects and guessing what I thought they were doing. Those were the golden days of the fighter. I kind of got bored wtih fighters when they turned 3d and never spent much time with any of the 3d fighters with the exception of Virtua Fighter 1 & 2. I've been wanting to get into SFIV though. I'm just waiting for a good deal to break into it.
I was a passionate fan of both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat while growing up. I was never aware of a rivalry, nor did I bother to compare the two when I was a kid. I love 2D fighting games, and those two franchises were my favorites.
A couple of old memories from the series, out of many:
1. There was one time when I was a brat excitedly waiting for my dad to come home with a copy of Mortal Kombat II for the SNES. Every time we saw a copy of the game at the mall, I'd indirectly state just how badly I wanted the game. Every minute felt like an eternity. I was already imagining tearing digitized actors' heads off, and playing through the game with all characters a million times. After several hours, my dad came home from work, and I ran to my dad like he was Santa Claus. I hugged his waist and then looked up at him and asked if he had something for me. He asked what I was talking about, and I merely yelled out, "Papaaa!" He "remembered" and dismissively told me he forgot to buy it, so my spoiled-ass ran back to bed in sadness. Then my baby brother walked into the room a few minutes later and gave me the brand new copy of the game. My dad was just playing with me.
2. After kicking several assess of Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting in arcades in the different cities in Venezuela we were visiting (I lived in the capital city Caracas until I turned 17), my dad was impressed that I was staying in the machines while older guys kept taking turns trying to beat me. After our trip was over, I woke up the next morning to find a copy of Street Fighter II Turbo (SNES) sitting on top of my TV set. I finally got to play at home with the four bosses in the game! The reign of M. Bison began!
Both those moments were some of the happiest of my young life, right up there with having my first kiss with the prettiest girl in the apartment building, and scoring three goals in a football game. I really loved those games, and maybe some of you who frequented arcades while growing up can relate to the excitement of getting to own your favorite arcade game in a home console when you're less than 12 years old (If you had a Neo-Geo home console when you were a kid, I shall forever envy you). Another game that reminds me of such a feeling is TMNT: Turtles in Time... but that's another story.
I've kept track of both series, for the most part. The only games I never played as regularly as the others were Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (didn't get good enough to use parry well), and the last two MKs (Armageddon and Vs. DC Universe). I've been playing Street Fighter IV since it's been out, except for these past few weeks, on the PS3 with the tournament stick.
I'm happy fighting games are getting popular in the West again. Unlike some people, I believe the MK series succeeded when it made the move to 3D with Deadly Alliance (instead of MK4), and now they have a chance to make the game actually competitive to the level of Street Fighter, while still retaining the silliness that makes MK so attractive (That RPG-like mode in Deception was awesome, but only for fans, I expect).
My PSN ID is Cyke. If you see me playing SFIV, I take on any and all challengers, and I don't use a mic while playing as I might offend you otherwise. :)
Leigh: Thanks for this topic. I wasn't expecting an entry from your blog to remind me of my cherished memories of playing arcade fighting games.
I feel I need to link the following article for anyone interested in understanding what makes arcades so awesome, especially for those that grew up without them, even if some of you may dislike the author:
http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/
I was brought up on Street Fighter, even playing the first one in the arcades (not SFII, the original one). I dunno if I was the only one who had this problem but, when I tried to take up Mortal Kombat, I really struggled with the concept of a "block button". I would have seven-bells beaten out of me, walking my character backwards, before I'd remember.
Then with Soul Caliber, I played in the arcade again, on a cabinet that didn't have a Guard button. I didn't know there was one, so I had to complete the game without blocking or throwing. Then when I went round to a friend's house, they started blocking and throwing me in the Dreamcast version! I had to relearn THE ENTIRE GAME!
[sigh] My town's arcades were rubbish.
I agree with Mr Clean, MK vs SF, hahaha that'd be a fantastic match up or maybe combine it with Tekken, one of the best arcade game. The idea of adding it in world of warcraft just like peggle would be a great idea too.
I'll never forget waking up one morning at a friend's house on a Saturday morning and plugging in the original MK, only to witness my very first fatality. It was the infamous Scorpion "pull-off-his-mask-and-roast-you" move. Ironically enough, it was the computer that did it to us... we were FREAKING out afterward about how awesome it was. It was so much so, in fact, that we ran to his Mom to tell her how cool it all was. I know we didn't make much sense in all our beleaguered blathering, but I have to believe the phrase "fire-breathing skull" somehow made it out of our mouths... how that mother let us continue playing that game is beyond me, lol.
Anyway, I always liked MK more. Part of it was that it was the first fighting game I was exposed to, and the other part of it was that I realized as I got older I had nowhere NEAR the chops to succeed at SF.
I missed out on the fighting game heyday as a kid; mom and dad felt both MK and SFII were too violent. Now that I've grown up, I've found that I favor the ideas in SF style games over the gorefest of MK (which always struck me as rather uninspired), but I am unable to input the sequences necessary for the really impressive moves. Learning to play SF4 has been a terribly disheartening experience. My real forte is for Super Smash Brothers, which scarcely qualifies as a fighter as all.
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