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Added by Jeff Gerstmann on Jan. 13, 2009

BlazBlue, the company's latest.
BlazBlue, the company's latest.
Some pretty good midday reading for you if you're at all interested in what goes into fighting game development. Christian Nutt of Gamasutra has a five-pager with a handful of developers from Arc System Works. They cover the state of the fighting game genre, the team's own personal philosophy on building fighting games, the challenges of taking fighting games online, and even a bit about some of the other big fighting games out there.

Just to sensationalize this thing a bit, here's the part where the creator of Guilty Gear, Daisuke Ishiwatari, gets a little raw:
DI: We don't really have a sense of how popular fighting games are in the states, so it's tough to know how much demand there would be for accurate online fighting. We know the FPS is king there, and also that Soulcalibur, which I personally think is junk, has a big following.
Word. Be sure to check out the full interview.


19 Comments

Shinryu
on Jan. 13, 2009
Interesting, Guilty Gear is the win

TekZero
on Jan. 13, 2009
Wow Soulcalibur is junk huh?  Couldn't agree with you more.  Give me Virtua Fighter 5 any day of the week.  (If I didn't suck so horribly at it)

hide
on Jan. 13, 2009
BlazBlue is amazing. :3

Farmer
on Jan. 13, 2009
Blaz-flipping-Blue!
I just wish the machine in London would start working :(

Steve_C
on Jan. 13, 2009
Ohhhh, he just called out Namco.

MrKlorox
on Jan. 13, 2009
SC is popular in the same way Halo or CoD has become popular. These series appeal most to the lowest common denominators. It's the Rock Paper Scissors aspect.

TheGTAvaccine
on Jan. 13, 2009
Ooooh shit, treatin these fighting games like its a mothafuckin RAP BEEF

Linkyshinks
on Jan. 13, 2009
That should make for a interesting read. 

We don't really have a sense of how popular fighting games are in the states

It's this which pisses me off, not the latter. I hate how all these Japanese developers seem not to give a fuck about what's happening elsewhere.\\

I still don't know what to make of BlazBlue, it does not look current gen enough for my liking. KoF12 looks much better.






Coldbrand
on Jan. 13, 2009
I agree, Soul Calibur is junk. But they really just need to make an XBLA/PSN Guilty Gear.

StaticFalconar is online
on Jan. 13, 2009
Soul cal is junk; can't wait for the next actual squeal to Guilty Gear.

SoulTaker
on Jan. 13, 2009
Thanks for the interesting read.

OmegaPirate
on Jan. 13, 2009
Whats with the two ident-avatars above me?

Usagi
on Jan. 13, 2009
I couldn't agree more with him.  I used to love Soul Blade and Soul Calibur, but since then it has been all downhill.

MocPac
on Jan. 13, 2009
I completely agree that every SoulCalibur game after the one on Dreamcast have been lacking.

As far as fighting games in America are concerned, Street Fighter 2 HD Remix has shown that there is still demand for this type of game and set the bar for online.  After playing BlazBlue at an arcade, I'm a bit worried about how latency will affect that game when/ if they take it online.  I never got to play GGX2#reload or Battle Fantasia's online so I don't know how good Arc System Works is in that field.

@Coldbrand
GGX2#reload is on the Xbox Originals download list if you want to go for that.

@Linkyshinks
BlazBlue looks good in pictures, but it looks amazing in motion.  Those backgrounds are 3D by the way, which makes the perspective change realistically when the camera scrolls.

Sekoku
on Jan. 13, 2009
DI just needs to go back to Guilty Gear. I have no interest in Blaz-Blue and #Reloaded's X-box netcode is HORRIBLE (like most fighting games online codes are).
Still, give me a 2D fighter anyday over a 3D fighter and you've got yourself a sale.

ferrarimanf355
on Jan. 13, 2009
I agree with DI over Soulcalibur being junk, at least with regards to SCIV. If Project Soul cared about the gameplay as much as they cared about Ivy's ass jiggle, it would have been better.

Media_Master
on Jan. 13, 2009
wordy

Light_Bahamut
on Jan. 13, 2009
Slamming Soul Calibur is so popular, but it's actually a very technical, yet accesible fighting game. At least, Soul Calibur II was. I haven't played the latest. 

RipTheVeins
on Jan. 14, 2009
I think that SC is good for stupid fun, or people who are not great at fighting games but think that pretty graphics are cool...but as a serious fighter, well only Mai can get away with having boobs surpassing DD.


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