When Ultra Street Fighter 4 releases this June, the five additional characters won't be the only new things. Developer Capcom has also been polishing and refining the rest of the roster as per the request of thousands upon thousands of gamers here and abroad.
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A number of videos have already been released detailing the specific changes for each character, but Capcom USA's Fighting Game Community Specialist, Peter "ComboFiend" Rossas, explained via the PlayStation Blog exactly how and why the team decided to make changes.
"The entire reason USFIV was made was due to ever-mounting requests from fans," writes Rossas. "They let us know that although a lot of characters had a possibility of winning in Super Street Fighter IV AE ver.2012, the gap between the highest and lowest ranked characters was a tad noticeable...Since it was the fans who requested the game to be balanced further, we figured 'who better would know what Ryu or Ken needs to win than those who are grinding with them every day online?' And with that, we began the great feedback collection process of 2013, which lasted from late March to late April / early May."
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The team received more than 30,000 comments in all. From there, it was a matter of sorting through every last one to see what feature was requested the most, and make adjustments from there. Rossas gave the following two examples:
"Chun-Li players asked for Chun-Li’s life to be boosted to 950, as her defensive attacks have been rather lacking since Super Street Fighter IV. After reviewing the defensive attacks in question and the case presented by Chun-Li players, we agreed that this change was warranted and put it in the game. Another change came from Makoto players, who requested that her Hayate punch have little to no recovery on block as they were tired of being punished. As Makoto is primarily an offensive character, allowing her yet another way to be almost unpunishable was a recipe for mayhem. After reviewing this change, we had to pass on it for the greater good of the game."
As tends to happen, not every change was...well...logical. Describes Rossas, "some of them came out of left field, so we had to see if they made sense, as they would change the way a character has been historically designed to play. In other words, if a character was primarily defensive, they would receive offensive tools and if they were primarily offensive, they would receive defensive tools. This way, a majority of the cast would feel well rounded and therefore overall fun."
Once the changes were all implemented, Capcom kicked off the testing process to see how they were received. More trial and error followed, changes were made to the changes based on player feedback, and after six months, "we’ve finally ended up with characters that we think players will be very happy with."
In addition to character specific balances, the biggest change coming with Ultra will be the addition of five additional characters. Four are Capcom favorites who've appeared in quite a few games before -- Hugo, Rolento, and the gender bending Poison all made their debut in the arcade classic beat 'em up Final Fight. Rolento would cross over into the Street Fighter world alongside fellow Final Fight alumni Sodom, Cody, and Guy in the Alpha series, and Hugo and Elena would appear in Street Fighter III. In Ultra, they'll all be joined by newcomer Decapre, a Shadowloo Doll along the lines of Cammy, and Juni and Juli from Street Fighter Alpha 3. More info on each fighter at their respective links.
You can check out the game's english trailer and opening cinematic below.
