So I got Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and predictably, I destroyed my arm with it. Again. For the third time in 18 months.
"You overpaid for my shoto ass!"
I couldn't be happier. ...well, aside from how it took me 54 continues to finish the game with C.Viper on Hardest, but that's another story of another dark, dark day.
But lo! I got the disc version of the game for posterity, in case my PS3 ever dies years after PSN is no longer available. Apparently I was supposed to get extra costumes for the four "new" characters as a bonus. I got nothing of the sort.
I saw Legend of Chun-Li in theaters. Capcom owes me. So two weeks ago, I sent them a nifty little email:
Dear Capcom,
I purchased a brand new, disc-based version of Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition for PS3 on Saturday, Aug. 27, and I did not receive the alternate costumes for Yang, Yun, Oni and Evil Ryu. According to information culled from the Playstation Store, "it is not necessary to download this content" if I have the disc. I have purchased most of the other downloadable costumes for this series and am familiar with the process of getting them to work; said costumes simply do not appear as an option on the character select screen.
Were the costumes supposed to be available when I first turned on the game? Or did they come as a download code that simply didn't find its way into my new copy? Either way, would it be possible to rectify this issue, perhaps with a download code?
I have been a loyal Capcom customer since the late '80s and I own all three revisions of Street Fighter IV (and basically any game with the Street Fighter logo). I even saw both Street Fighter the Movie and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li in a theater, so for a guy like me, not having a full compliment of alternate costumes has me bummed out.
Please forgive me if this e-mail has been sent to the wrong address, and if possible, please forward it to where it needs to go.
Boy, would I have loved to have one of these over the holiday season... if the APR weren't astronomically high.
Personally, Street Fighter IV is my favorite... in case you haven't guessed by now. If I had known, I'd have one of these sexy credit cards!
I'm about two years too late for this anyway - the Capcom website is no longer offering these killer cards. Oh well... at least I can dream about hadokening the poor sales clerk who's selling me my useless stuff until Marvel vs. Capcom 3 comes out next year.
I can't believe I missed this! Now all we need are Sega CD credit carts and I'm sold at ANY interest rate!
Since the days of Ducktails, Megaman and Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers, I've been enamoured with all things Capcom. In 1992, the SNES version of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior came along and exploded that passion into a near obsession, and by the time I was entering the fifth grade, Chun-Li, Ryu, Guile and the Red Cyclone himself, Zangief, had become my eternal heroes.
The other kids in my class were starting to gain an appreciation for rolemodels like Anne Frank, Ben Franklin and probably some other people who's names escape me right now, but may or may not have "Frank" in their name; I like those historic heroes too, but it would be a massive lie to say that their attitudes and values affected my development as a human being more than Street Fighter's perky pugilists. Before you close out the window and never visit this blog again, consider this: While they're not exactly three dimensional characters on their own, the core values of Street Fighter's good guys are actually an excellent guide for living one's life in a moral, fulfilling way. Ryu represents discipline, power and persistence without overindulgence; Dhalsim is full of love for his family; Guile proves that revenge is all-consuming and letting go of hate will settle your soul; and Zangief loves vodka. Also, I'd like to see Ben Franklin wrestle a grizzly bear, shoot fireballs or flip upside down and show everyone his underwear. He can't. Therefore the Street Fighters are better.
It's a dream match of mine.
I think I went temporarily insane when I noticed that my Capcom heroes had started appearing on television one Saturday morning at 7:30 when the oversized feet of none other than Megaman went jogging across my screen - WITHOUT the NES powered up! I say "I think" I went crazy because other than the show itself, I remember nothing of the next seven hours. I woke up in my neighbor's tree house with only Megaman 1, 3 and 6 covering my wet, naked body.
Here's the show's into, ripped from the Megaman DVDs I bought years later. And in case you didn't know, here's a quick description of the plot: Built by Dr. Light, Rock and his sister Roll are soon recruited into the war against the evil Dr. Wily. Rock is transformed into a super fighting robot known as Megaman! Roll... was given a vacuum attachment! Fight! Mega Man! For everlasting peace!
Truth be told, the Megaman TV show isn't exactly Shakespeare meets Terminator like I would have hoped for, but it was a decent way to spend a Saturday morning while chowing down on last night's leftover pizza. There are only a few glaring continuity errors, like Protoman being evil and Gustman and Cutman having a starring role; everyone knows those two sucked horribly at life, even in the game. If Dr. Wily had taken the time to build new henchmen instead of just reconstructing the old ones when they inevitably got their cans kicked by the Blue Bomber, he just might have been able to take down Dr. Light's lapdog and rule the world.
Oh well. C'est la vie.
The Capcom cartoons didn't end with Megaman; soon, Street Fighter received its own animated makeover, ignoring far more things in the game's established cannon than the Megaman show ever did.
Based on the Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia film of the same name, Street Fighter is the action-packed tale of Lt. William Guile's battle to take down the evil Shadowloo/Shadowlaw terrorists lead by the dastardly M. Bison. If you're an astute gamer, you know what's wrong with that last statement: It's based on the 1994 Street Fighter movie. That means that Guile is the main character instead of Ryu and all the good guys work together like some sort of fireballing, face-punching basketball team. Still, the Street Fighter cartoon was an okay waste of a half hour and I got to see my heroes battle it out in full animated glory.
Now the Darkstalkers cartoon... that's where things started going very, very wrong.
Darkstalkers is the messed up tale of a little boy who hangs out with a super hot catwoman named Felicia. Boy and cat battle the evil alien Pyron for control of the planet Earth, with the aid of "good guys" like wolfman Jon Talbot and huge, stupid Frankenstein monster Victor, all while Felicia is so hot that steam pours off of her all the time.
Darkstalkers was a relatively unknown Capcom property at the time it took the cartoon plunge, so I'm not really sure what the reasoning was behind the move. The Darkstalkers show is a re-imagining of the arcade original, toning down the mature themes and sexualized atmosphere that made the game so appealing in the first place. Felicia is the focus of this mess, but she's also picked up some little boy along the way who has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the established Darkstalker mythos. Also Felicia is wearing more clothing than in the game, which wasn't too hard to pull off but was still very annoying to me when I was 12. Felicia and the stupid kid run around trying to stop the "bad" Darkstalkers, which is basically everyone else. Honestly, I wouldn't have watched this cartoon if it didn't have "Darkstalkers" stamped on it, but at least it was entertaining to see peppy animated versions of my favorite Night Warriors.
Overall, the CapToons provided a decent, if occasionally mentally challenged supplement to my daily gaming, despite their reckless abandonment of sacred cannon and disregard for, uh, actual quality.
I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me: One minute, I’m sitting in a movie theater with a girl, and the next, she’s getting sucked into the screen and I have to go in to save her. That’s why I was so excited to play Capcom’s Viewtiful Joe for the GameCube, because this is exactly what happens to the game’s main character. I feel your pain, Joe. I feel your pain.
Though it’s excellent all around, where Viewtiful Joe really excels is gameplay. Joe’s world is in vibrant 2D, something old-school gamers (like me) welcome with open arms. The player jumps right into the fray without 67 hours of examining the surroundings, like in many 3D action games.
Viewtiful Joe plays like Streets of Rage or Final Fight on crack. Hoards of enemies fly out of nowhere and it’s up to Joe to beat them into submission with his feet and fists. As the game progresses, Joe gains extra powers that allow him to manipulate time. He can slow it down, allowing him to dodge bullets like in the first “Matrix” movie, speed it up to attack so fast that his arms and legs burst into flames, or zoom in on the enemy to do super powerful attacks. This ain’t not gimmick – it’s truly the crux of the gameplay, because Joe’s mastery of time is essential to defeating the game. Really, beating people senseless in slow-mo never gets old.
Viewtiful Joe’s stylish graphics are a treat for those of use who long for the good ol’ days of simple 2D righteousness. The game looks and feels like a cross between a comic book and an old monster flick, with vibrant colors and cheesy-yet-endearing character designs. While our hero begins the game as just another schmoe, he’s soon transformed into Viewtiful Joe, a red-clad, power ranger-like superhero. Anytime Viewtiful Joe reverts back to just an average Joe, the game returns to a grainy, old film stock look. This, in addition to excellent character animations and scrolling backgrounds, make the game a joy to watch.
Capcom did the best possible job assigning a button layout to Viewtiful Joe as they could, but the weird design of the ‘Cube-troller sometimes gets in the way. For example, the punch and kick buttons are too close to each other and there are separate buttons for jumping and dodging, so for the first half hour or so of play, it’s easy to confuse the two. But after a little time, you’ll get used to it and be busting heads like there’s no tomorrow.
Viewtiful Joe is a great effort from Capcom. The later stages are tough as nails and as frustrating as being the only liberal in Texas, but anyone with a GameCube who appreciates good old fashioned action should give Viewtiful Joe a gogo.
(It should be noted that this game was also released for the PlayStation 2, but I haven’t played that version and therefore can’t speak to its quality. But I’m guessing the controls are a wee bit better.)
