SFV Wishlist

Whew, hopefully I'll be back more often for awhile from my RL little mini-hiatus. 

On a side note, I'll be at DigiExpo here in Helsinki this weekend(probably after four on Friday for about three hours, but most of the day Saturday and a fair bit Sunday) playing some Tekken 7 on PS4! I'm very much looking forward to it. I don't think I'll be able to enter the tournament as I'm not going to be able to be on the premises for the entire time on Saturday; but we'll see. I'd like to try even if it'll be my first anything in like fifteen years! 

Okay so this blog is going to have a non-Tekken bent for the rest of it!

I'll go over what my overall wishlist for Season 2 of SFV is.

Disclaimer: It's no lie that SFV has disappointed me as a product somewhat. I think it's a good figthing game wrapped up in a lot of missteps, and I feel they really need to regain some goodwill with the audience in Season 2. I'm not big on the story mode(weird, disjointed, nonsensical, screws up potential good storylines for comedy, and that's just the tip of the iceberg), Survival mode was a pain, the DLC is starting to creep into DOA prices, and yeah. So this wishlist will be more than characters. 

Also: I'm more casual when it comes to SF these days. Thing is I just don't have a ton of time as many here know; between Tekken, Guilty Gear(hell, I need to squeeze a lot more time out for Guilty Gear as it is!) and other games that I like I simply don't have time to devote to too many fighting games as more than casual; anything beyond these two-like King of Fighters-are like just to sorta be like party games for me and stuff to branch myself out more with. So I don't have a massive horse in the race, but being a fighting game fan I DO like to see well tuned and well put together games. 

I also want to touch on how it's apparently moved less than 100k copies since it's last report. It's come in under it's 2m target. While the CPT has been a success and it's doing great in terms of the competitive game, it really, really hurt itself with its launch. I sort of feel their intent to launch with the more 'Killer Instinct-ish' type of model(perhaps?) wasn't a bad idea, but they went around it wrong. It sort of feels...chaotic or something, like they aren't exactly sure what direction they wanted to go. 

In any case, here are some things I'd like to see!

Game Wishlists:

-At this point I'm going to say 'I don't mind that the story has comedy, as characters like Zangief and Mika are made for it, but could we maybe try to get some stuff on some rails somewhere?' I can't even get into specifics so much weirdness and wtf happened with it. Just...get it on some rails maybe. I don't expect fighting game stories to be miracles(in fact, I tend to expect retcons and weirdness all the way down with most of them the longer they go on), but...this one was really weak, IMO. Rashid was probably one of the crowning achievements as he actually balanced funny with serious fairly well. 

-More modes. Better tutorial. Make sure you give casual players something. 

-A balance pass. I agree with a tweet I saw of Ultradavid; rather than do a lot of nerfing, give some small nerfs to the tip-top, but do more to bring the bottom up. I've mentioned a few times I'm a fan of this sort of balance; it makes everyone feel more awesome than bringing the top down. Granted this only works when the top isn't too inflated over the bottom(in which case, you need to bring the top down more-as I mentioned in my tier thread the top shouldn't be TOO crazy)-and to give SFV credit, it IS pretty good there; the top 3-commonly seen as Ryu/Chun/Insert Nash, Necalli or Ken here last I checked, are not head and shoulders above the rest, they just have a load of favorable matchups. But it's still noticeable that the top 8's and 16's have a lot of similar characters in them. 

-Some sort of cohesive marketing idea. Keep to a decent DLC schedule. Maybe sell the base game for a little less. Maybe cut down the prices of some of the DLC(some of it is getting a little high, IMO. No, I'm not anti DLC-but I do feel it's getting a little out of hand.) Maybe have a concrete way to market this thing to the masses. 

Character Wishlist:

I'm going to pick a few. And...since they actually have updated artwork of Arika characters? I'm going to add them to the list too. I mean, if they're going to tease me with them, I'm going to hope for them!

Doctrine Dark: D. Dark is one of my all-time favorite SF characters. I mean crazy military guy and all. I was one of those EX fans back in the day, and it would be REALLY grand if they add this guy to the mix. It would be awesome to see how they build on his old moveset and tweak him. He's probably my top pick for entering. (If he's in, this SF will literally have like every favorite of mine.)

Skullomania: Yes, another EX character. Why not? This guy's amazing. So over the top and goofy. He's like part Sentai part dude in pajamas. He'd be a ton of fun I think  in SFV's system too! He's a well-liked character who I think would be quite appreciated coming in. He'd get along with Rashid too.

Cody: I always loved Cody and man, I'd love to get our badass prison dude back up in here. They should totally make his V-Trigger something where he breaks his shackles and goes off, too. He'd fit into SFV well I think and be a welcome overall addition. Dude is popular as hell too, so he'd be one of those guys I think would go over real well!

Sodom: Sodom is a big dork and he TOTALLY needs to be in another Street Fighter game. Oh please let him be in another Street Fighter game. I remember when Sodom was rumored at one point I got all happy, but then it never came to be and I had a sad. I think he'd slot in pretty easily and be some comic relief(since they seem to be going that route anyway with SFV so might as well pick a legitimately goofy character.) 

Rose: Rose remains my favorite SF gal, and I think she'd be in a game with Bison since she's still sort of trying to go after him(or would still be at this point.) With SFV's thin amount of zoners, she'd fit in very nicely, and again, I'm biased toward her anyway. Plus her and Guy are pretty adorable. She'd be pretty cool in this system I think! 

Necro: While I personally might wait a season, I DO like Necro and feel he'd add some fun to the cast. He's not a Sim clone despite being stretchy(I think this patch would end up doubling the amount of actual zoners in the game), but I feel they could build him as being a bit more aggressive while still reachy and with his lightning fun. 


All of this being said, I would have Guy and Poison slated for backup; however, given I want two EX characters in this bunch, I think maybe Season 3 would be awesome to bring in Guy, Poison, Hugo and maybe Haggar to complete the Final Fight gang. (I'd probably put in Blanka and Sakura as the SF picks for S3; If S2 ended up with eight picks, we could put in Blanka and Sakura here.) 

Feels about right to me anyway! Guess we'll find out what they think. 

So yeah, just wanted to give a blurb here. I want to like this game more, and again think it's a good game, but damn, as a product the thing needs help. Here's hoping they see what they need to do and fix it up. I'd like to see more fighting games doing better, not less!