It became clear early on that just moving Tekken over ”wouldn’t work,” but it’s a 3D game that ”operates a lot like a 2D one,” which meant the controls would ”translate pretty well.”
Strategy in Tekken though is ”pretty different” from Street Fighter, but Capcom wanted to ”retain the two control feels” so both camps of fans could ”feel at home” and not get lost.
”That was the direction we started with,” said Yoshinori Ono in an interview. That goal isn’t without obstacles: ”One issue with that, though, is that motions in Tekken are 2D in style, in that they can’t be stopped midway – they always go through the entirety of it.” Street Fighter doesn’t behave this way.
”Meanwhile, Street Fighter has this unique tradition of cancel moves, so even in 3D, characters can very suddenly switch from one motion to a very different one. That’s part of the game’s inherent feel and fun, but if you brought that to Tekken, the response from gamers would be “Huh, I think that was the right input but that wasn’t the result I was expecting.”
”Of course, this is Street Fighter x Tekken, so a bit of Street Fighter is naturally going to rub off on the Tekken side of things, and vice versa,” continued Ono-san. ”I think Street Fighter fans are going to feel something different from this, too, like “Huh, this is kind of a new direction.” It’s a trial-and-error process to ensure that everyone can join the party here, so to speak, no matter where they’re from, and it’s really our goal too.”
”Not that I know if this is going to happen, but assuming there’s a Street Fighter V or VI in the future, what you see here is not necessarily what you’ll see in those hypothetical games. V will probably return to the feel cultivated in III and IV, more of a return to the Street Fighter-y origins. So I don’t think this is where all of Capcom is necessarily going in the future.”
Check out the full interview between Yoshinori Ono and Gamasutra. Street Fighter x Tekken releases on Xbox 360 and PS3 March 6th in the US, 9th in Europe. Are you looking forward to this mash up of brawler universes?
