misterBee

No, that is exactly the point. If you ever buy the SF art books and look at all the SF-related art created throughout the past several decades, you will see that every artist draws the characters differently. There is no "default" style that they are all forced to use. Instead, every generation has an artist who puts their own spin on the characters, and the games try to follow new styles all the time. You WANT new interpretations of characters. You WANT fresh takes on things. Even the same artist will draw a character differently after a long period of time, because artists evolve and change their styles constantly. Bengus' SF2 characters don't look ANYTHING like his Alpha-series characters, and it's great. Styles change, things progress. Here are two versions of Ryu: They look like two completely different people, and yet these are both classic pieces of art that few people would have a problem with. Who cares if their face shapes are different? They're both good, and they're both Ryu. Face shape doesn't mean anything if the final product is good and represents the character well -- and this rule applies for 2D and 3D. Those Ryu shots are the in-game models. The SFV shot is literally a screenshot from the beginning of the round. The Smash model they use for renders is the same one actually used in the game. The MvC3 win pose is just a zoomed in version of the ingame model. SF4 portraits are literally the ingame models but traced over. I could find you actual gameplay screenshots and they would look the same as the pictures I showed. All are different portrayals of the same character, and they all work. Whether you like them or not is something else, but they don't need to all have the same face shape. You really over-emphasize facial structure. A lot more goes into a character than the bones of their face. Posture, posing, body size, costume, voice, etc. Interpretations of a character take a lot of different things into account. Art style and direction are not 100% based around a character's face, and even if they were there's no rule that says it has to be the same in EVERY GAME. You're so obsessed with faces and I don't know why. It's like you have an obsession with Chun-Li's chin or something. Are you focused on the characters looking good, or do you care more about whether the same face is used in every game? You are so obsessed with cloning faces in every game that you ignore everything else. Maybe for SF6 they will decide they want to change his face again because they want him to look cooler. It doesn't even need a story reason! As long as it comes out looking good who cares if his jawline is the same one from a previous game? I guess we're just gonna have to agree to disagree because this face obsession really doesn't make any sense to me. You said you liked SFEX, but in that game the faces are basically just squares! Sometimes devs are going to fail when they render a new version of a character, like SFV Ken. It happens. Sometimes ugly games like MvCI get made. It happens. The solution is to keep trying new things and new styles, and eventually get it right. Putting SF4 face models onto every character in every game doesn't solve anything. "Consistency" isn't important. Having a game that looks good is important, and it doesn't matter what style you use to do it. Instead of saying "SFV Ken came out bad. Just use his SF4 face for everything!", why not just aim to do better next time? How do you know that SF6 Ken won't have the best version of his face ever created? TL;DR: Faces are not why games fail visually, and a face-shape style-guide isn't what is going to magically make a game look good. A game's art direction is not 100% based on the jawlines of the characters.

You don't seem to understand what I am saying. They aren't changing characters' faces because they feel like it, or to piss people off. They simply design the characters in a way that match whatever game they are working on. It is 100% dependent on the style of the game. Here are different versions of Ryu from recent games: He has a different face shape in every game, but nobody is confused about who it is. It's clearly Ryu. Changing his face shape did not make him unidentifiable. Giving all of these versions the same jawline would not serve any purpose. Not only does he have a different face shape, but he's rendered using different lighting styles, his muscles are modeled differently, and his clothes have different levels of wear/different textures. In some games they want him to look younger. In some games they want him to look older. In some games they want him to look angrier. All of these are choices made to fit the game that he is being added to. Changing his face to match artistic goals is a good thing. Art direction is making the characters fit the game you are making. It's not about copy-pasting the same face over and over just to be consistent. Giving Ryu the same exact face in every game isn't solving anything. Instead of creating a version of Ryu that best matches the style/mood of the game, you would rather have them make him look the same every time. That isn't helpful at all. Some people do not like Smash Ryu. Some people do not like SF4 Ryu. Some people do not like SF5 Ryu. Giving him the same face in every game will not make these people happy. They are upset because they don't like certain versions of the character, not because it's inconsistent. What if every Ryu had SF4 face? It would be consistent, but people who don't like SF4 art would be unhappy forever. Fans don't want 'consistency'. They're just mad because the Ryu THEY like isn't being used over and over. A super strict style guide will not fix this, because different fans like different versions of the character anyway. SF doesn't need some kind of super-strict face guide. Different games will interpret Ryu differently, and that's ok. People will come up with different versions of the character, and that's cool. Blindly following some arbitrary rule forever isn't going to make the games better visually -- it will just make them incredibly boring. And here are some 2D examples -- Alpha vs SF2: In Alpha he is younger, so they gave him a rounder face. In SF2 they wanted the chars to have more extreme features, so his face is angular and long. This is an example of different face shapes being used to create a different feel for a game. Despite what you say, the principles are the same regardless if you are doing 2D or 3D. 3D doesn't make face shape matter more or less than it did before.

I didn't feel much of anything when I saw the SF2 animated movie as a kid, probably because I had already seen these in elementary school: Chun didn't stand a chance. 🙃

This is simply not true. The fact that all characters start life as 2D renderings/concept art before any 3D models are even created should tell you something. If we're talking about art direction and the creation of a character's look, 2D vs 3D has absolutely nothing to do with it. You can decide on a character's face shape before you start modeling a single polygon. The overall art-style and visual direction of a game is decided upon FIRST, then you draw the characters in a way that matches that overall direction. There shouldn't be a manual of SF faces that every SF character must follow. You have this backwards. Teams decide on a certain look for the game as a whole, and then all characters in that game will be made to match that overall look. For example, if it is decided that the next SF will have a very soft, rounded look, everyone will have soft rounded faces. It doesn't matter what kind of faces they had in past games, because past games aren't using the same overall style. Chun Li's face changes in every game because every game has a different art style. Again, you are thinking of things from the wrong direction. Overall art style FIRST, specifics of each character SECOND. MvCI has an ugly art style and Chun-Li came out ugly. SF3 had quite a nice art style, and Chun-Li came out good. Some people hate SF4's art style, and those are probably the people who will tell you that SF4 Chun is ugly. I'm not one of those people, and I thought she looked fine in that game. The character visuals are made to match the game. The game visuals are not designed to match the characters. You may not like how Capcom renders characters in its modern games, but it's not for the reasons that you think. It's not about having a book of face shapes that has to be closely adhered to. It's about their newer games having art styles that might not appeal to you. It's not about 'new guys wanting to change things'. Fighting game developers try out new art styles and rendering methods all the time, and that's not a bad thing. You're simply not a fan of the choices they've made recently.

There's no difference between an in-game sprite and a character model in terms of use in a fighting game. They are both visual representations of a character. You can change a character's appearance/facial structure regardless of whether you're working in 2D or 3D. MvCI Chun Li's problem was that she was UGLY. She and Dante came out looking like poor cosplayers because they simply weren't modeled well. It wasn't facial structure that was the problem. It was the fact that they were low quality models to begin with. The fact that MvCI had poor art direction certainly didn't help things either. For fighting game characters the costume and outfit is probably way more iconic than something specific like the facial structure of their 3D model. Having Ryu's chin be a little less square next time around isn't going to automatically make people confused about who he is. SFEX Chun Li doesn't look good because they somehow modeled her face in a specific way -- that model has so few polys she almost doesn't have a face at all. The reason she looks good is because the art direction for that game was good (at least for the time). Ugly art direction + poor models = ugly 'cosplay' characters. Good art direction + good models = nice characters. Minute details like facial structure are largely irrelevant, because it's more about the big picture in terms of artistic style and choice. If a game has proper art direction they could make a SF game where everyone's face is a white square and you'd still be able to figure out who is who. Think about fan art -- people draw characters using different styles all the time, oftentimes drawing the faces in wildly different ways. That doesn't stop anyone from identifying them. Rendering characters in 3D doesn't somehow change that.

Crunchyroll probably gonna be your best bet.

KOF is a bit weird because they had to re-use sprites all the time out of necessity. If art/style consistency is what they really wanted then they wouldn't bother coming up with new promo/character/portrait art every time. Shinkiro drew all the art for the early games, but later on it's clear they wanted a more modern pop look and feel to their characters. I don't think it's a big deal if from iteration to iteration characters change in look. In the Alpha series Ryu is super anime, in SF3 he got buff, in SF4 he looks like a gorilla, etc. I don't think he has to be drawn/rendered the same in every game -- it would make things super boring. New series should give chars new looks and proportions to keep things from feeling too similar. Old KOFs were heavily criticized for sprite re-use, and I think KOF XV will get some criticism for looking too similar to XIV, which didn't look great to begin with. I don't buy that the art for a new game should be similar to the art from the older games. I would much rather see new takes and styles every time than re-hashing of what has already been done. There are gonna be hits and misses when you attempt a new art direction, but it's better than playing it safe and worrying about making every character too similar to the way they were before.

SNK changed their art style quite frequently. I would say their portrayals of characters changed more times than Capcom's did over the years. Here's official art of Blue Mary from 2000, 2001, and 2003: Characters' proportions and faces changed all the time due to the use of different styles, and character portraits/win pose art changed a lot from year to year. The only thing that didn't change much every year were the in-game sprites, and that was probably for logistical reasons. You can bet that if they had the time/money to redraw the sprites for every game they probably would have.

As long as it gets there in one piece -- some friends of mine ordered a PS2 on eBay once and it came in a box that was too large for it and wrapped in a single thin sheet of bubble wrap...

1/8/21: Theme color fixes and adjustments

How dare you. Set those themes to light mode and say that shit again. 😤

I personally would not recommend a gaming chair, but people should get what makes them happy. This is from a respected tech Youtube channel -- their videos can be long but they always go pretty in-depth. Worth a look. I generally try to stay away from anything labeled 'gaming'. There are plenty of good office chairs out there. Similarly, I use studio headphones + a good mic rather than any sort of 'gaming' headset for my audio setup. I'm also seeing a bit of politics creep into here again. Please stop. Thanks.

02UM and vanilla 02 are completely different games. The 02UM roster is twice the size, everyone has different moves, and game systems were changed. 98UM is pretty different different from vanilla 98 as well.

Notification/Messenger/User drop-down menus have a white background/black text in both light and dark modes. Unfortunately it's just a limitation of how I built the theme. If something looks incorrect or weird please post a screenshot and I will try to address it.

Please do a hard refresh and/or clear browser cache. Your browsers have cached an old version of the site and it's not displaying properly. @iStu XThe sun/moon icon used to change between light and dark mode should be present on mobile too. Let me know if it does not appear after refreshing and/or clearing cache.

I've rebuilt the site's theme system. Please read about it here:

I have updated the theme system in a major way. Please read about it here:

1/7/21: Site software update Total overhaul of theme switcher I have rebuilt the theme switcher/stage select from scratch. ALL themes have both a light and a dark mode. You can switch between them by clicking the icon under the site logo: Please let me know if you have any issues or don't like the colors I used for any of the themes. If you are experiencing issues try doing a hard refresh in your browser and/or clearing your browser's cache.

lol don't take it too seriously. I was just teasing. I'm skeptical of character deaths too. 🙃

Isn't this bad? Consuming too many comics has made you super jaded and unable to feel things. RIP.

That line is from the original script iirc. It's hilarious because they only changed a few words and left the rest of the lines mostly the same and it works so well.

Git gud scrub.

Pfft I've had my own computer since I was 10. Never had a need to use an inferior console browser. Converting certain vids so you could watch them on your PSP though...

There are many good shmups out there, but there is only one that really matters.

Sorry, I don't think it is possible to change this behavior. It's just how the forum was coded.