Yoshinori Ono reveals details about Super Street Fighter IV 3DS
When the Nintendo 3DS was revealed at E3, we also got a glimpse at many of the studios that would provide third-party support. One of those was Capcom and later on, many sites revealed p
ossible games that we could see at either the launch day of the 3DS or soon afterward. Again Capcom appeared with only a couple but one name was particularly worth noticing; Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition.
While the name isn’t final, for now it’s stuck. And while we’ve seen a few of the screenshots, not much else has been revealed about it. But now thanks to the people at Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, we know a little bit more.
Turns out Capcom had thought about bringing SSFIV to the DS and PSP, but felt each portable system wouldn’t be able to handle a satisfactory version of the game. Then the Nintendo 3DS was announced: “we decided that we could produce Street Fighter on that system well enough that everything fun about the series would shine through. There was also the fact that we could use all of its network abilities to help gamers communicate with each other.”
Ono sees the 3DS Super Street Fighter IV port has having no corners cut, with all 35 characters to be included! And of course the 3D will be implemented but apparently it won’t change the gameplay at all and instead Capcom seem to be concentrating on using the 3D in ways that it will affect the visuals: “We’re in the midst of a trial-and-error process, throwing ideas around the development team for things that’d be neat to work with in 3D. The system itself is still purely SSFIV — we’re thinking about ways 3D can be used in the visuals instead.”
And for the hardcore that are worrying their beloved SSFIV will be dumbed down? “We don’t have any intention of pandering to children here. We’d rather make a game that a kid wants to strive to become better at. Of course, we’d like to make it a little more accessible since it’s not on a home console, but we’re not thinking about kids so much as people who stopped playing SF after the Super NES version…We have no intention of rebalancing the strength of the moves.” So there you go, Ryu, Sagat and Rufus will still be top tier while Dan and Sakura will still be the worst of the worst.
With that said however, Ono is looking at ways to incorporate all the features the Nintendo 3DS offers to somehow be of use in SSFIV 3DS: “We are conducting trials, though, to see how we can use the bottom screen and Slide Pad. Maybe we could use the screen to simulate multiple button presses and the pad for special moves, or the like.”
Now the question that Street Fighter fans want to know the most; when will it be released? Well with the Nintendo 3DS itself not having a release date as of this writing, that means SSFIV 3DS release date is unknown. However, Ono hopes that Capcom will have timing on their side: “We don’t know exactly when yet, but I would like to see it out while the original version is still popular in arcades,” he said. “Releasing a simple upgrade to arcades would whittle down our audience, but getting the game out on lots of different platforms will hopefully help expand it instead.”
It’s quite interesting to hear how the Capcom felt the PSP wouldn’t be able to do a portable SSFIV justice, considering how powerful the machine is. This means the 3DS must be one hell of a nifty powerful handheld. But one will think that if the PSP 2 is ever announced if Capcom will port one of their fighting games – regardless if it’s SSFIV or not – onto the handheld system.