The chances are, if you are the kind of gamer that would take a fierce punch into shoryuken over a melee into shotgun, you have found yourself drawn into nonsensical “what if” cross-over beat ’em up debates. What if Shin Gouki could compare fireballs and haircuts with Goku in Street Fighter Vs Dragon Ball? Who would triumph in a tooth and nail tussle between the Blanka and Macho Man Randy Savage in Street Fighter Vs WWE? What if Sagat could exchange uppercuts with Tony the Tiger in Capcom Vs Kelloggs: A New Age of Breakfast?
No matter how unruly the suggestions got, the prospect of Capcom’s world warriors squaring off against Namco’s Kings of the Iron Fist never warranted serious (or even humorous) consideration – that is of course until Comic-Con 2010. Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono and Tekken 6 producer Katsuhiro Harada joined forces to bring us the games that we had all not been waiting for – a 2D Capcom-developed Street Fighter X Tekken and a (presumably) 3D Namco-developed Tekken X Street Fighter. So who asked for this?
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On paper it’s a simple enough equation: they are the two most commercially successful fighting games in the world, with Street Fighter creating the competitive fighting game and dominating the 2D scene for the past two decades and Tekken succeeding in translating arcade success to home console domination in the third dimension. From a commercial perspective, it’s Namco’s and Capcom’s shareholders that asked for it, with the two communities converging, they are bound to share each others’ player bases, boosting sales for both camps, right?
What about the players? When SNK birthed the concept of marrying two existing fighting game franchises by pairing Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury to form The King of Fighters, there wasn’t a shred of doubt that the fans were hyped. Having whetted appetites by including Art of Fighting front man Ryo Sakazaki as a secret boss in Fatal Fury Special, the demand for convergence was clear and when proof of concept appeared in The King of Fighters ’94, fans responded by turning the KoF series into SNK’s flagship fighting game, effortlessly eclipsing the source material.
Capcom were of course the first company to look outside of their own development studios for fresh faces for the Street Fighter cast to bruise, and following their success with X-Men and Marvel Super Heroes, any true believer could have envisaged the two similarly constructed fighting games sharing the same screen. With Capcom opening the door to such possibilities, fan demand for a Capcom Vs SNK title reached fever pitch – not purely because fans were anxious to throw Hadoukens into Ko ou Kens, but because of the greater rivalry that existed between Capcom and SNK. Hardcore fans were eager to choose their side and fight for their team. Are Capcom and Namco fans similarly at each other’s throats? Not in the least. You could argue that the clash between 2D and 3D fighting is a rivalry yet to be explored, though many view such a mish-mash as cause for concern rather than celebration.
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Before Marvel vs Capcom came out, who asked for it? I didn’t and there wasn’t really any “wow, I want Capcom vs Superheros”, but see how great that turned out to be? Snk was different, because that was another great fighting franchise making company that went good against Capcom, and these to games are the ones I’m really looking forward too, more into Tekken vs. Street Fighter, but I’ll probably get both, even though I feel they should be on one disc, and put as different play modes. And in the end, a lot of people asked for this, look at all the fans that were excited for it, and the numerous amount of people who made videos and mash-ups on youtube for this concept. Yeah, I didn’t ask for it, but then again, I didn’t have too, cause I can’t wait for these games.
Agreed.
The two franchises don’t jive well. Very different in all aspects…
I know for sure I would have been much more interested in a Capcom vs SNK game.
Im so excited my gf and i have a bash at a few rounds of either tekken/soulcalibur/marvelvscapcom or SSF4 most nights so we couldnt have asked for anything more or be more excited esp as were also getting marvelvscapcom3 next year as well.
The one thing that can be said about Capcom is that they know how to balance a game. I don’t see them having any issue on that department here. Additionally, some Namco characters Like Devil Kazuya have projectile attacks. They need only to enhance them. For others added range and flair will plenty. I think its a good match,
On the Namco side, the SF4 cast has on the most part characters that if you take away their projectiles are in line with many of hte Na mco guys and gals. Zangief can play like Jake. Sagat is similar but stronger than Bruce, etc.
The reason for 2 disc is probably because these are different engines and besides the same concept worked in the SNK v Capcom series, so why not.
A recent chat I had with a certain Capcom dude suggested this will all work out OK… he said he had all the same concerns that have been voiced but that he’d also seen new stuff that isn’t public yet that changed his mind.
who the FUCK cares who asked!! All we know is that its coming out!! who gives a fuck!
I didn’t ask for it, and I’m not that interested. I think it’s a bit foolish to create two separate games (regardless of whatever other publishers did that) for two separate engines, and I think fundamentally there may be a lot of issues.
Start with the 2D vs 3D thing. In Tekken a large part of fighting especially for characters like Lee is smashing them against walls, that doesn’t exist with Street Fighter. Tekken gives you the ability to sidesteps. Tekken also has all of these complexities that make it difficult for the two to mesh, like stance changing.
The most important problem is the fighting system for both, Street Fighter has charge moves, DP’s and quarter circle movements plus punches/kicks, Tekken has directional button plus limb, and the important thing with Tekken is that potential combos are strictly defined. How are Street Fighter characters supposed to fight like Tekken characters, and vice versa?
See, I too thought that this was some ridiculous pipe dream request, and now that it’s official, so far I’ve given it an honest chance and I’m not in the slightest bit interested. I will keep posted but my expectations are low.
This certainly came as a surprise to everyone, since the fighting style is so different.
x-men vs street figther was easier to adapt to since it was a capcom game, sf fighters just needed to power up and the first x-men game had akuma in it so it wasnt surprising they made a vs game in the end.
People saying that it is stupid that they are making 2 different games, but think about it from the developers point of view also there was 2 Capcom vs SNK game and one SNK vs Capcom game, (well there was alot more if you include the games for portable devices).
To answer the question, I didn’t nor wouldn’t dare to ask SF x Tekken, but I do admit that I’ve once dreamed of a SF game in 3D that played more like DoA, VF, and Tekken, in the sense that characters have moves lists that can go as high as 50-100.
So while I ain’t too excited about SF x Tekken, due to the reasons mentioned on the article, I am intrigued about how Tekken x SF [sic] will turn out.
Ps: SF is my fave series of all time.