SF V Stammtisch

Okay I have a couple of rumors for you GAF. They are probably true.

Ken Bogard is well-known in the french VS fighting community. He's a fighting games commentator and also has a weekly show about VS Fighting on french Web TV "Gaming Live". He apparently has a source at Capcom. All the infos he had in the past turned out to be true and he's not the kind of guy who spread out ridiculous rumors.

So take the following has you want GAF, but I'm 100% trusting that dude.

He has also a weekly "shiny hunting" Pokemon show on that web tv. So on his December 5th Show, while playing, he talked a lot about Street Fighter V. He said he knew stuff and that he'll dropp discretely hint during the show. Here's what he said.

- Street Fighter V won't have "Super" or "Hyper" editions. Just updates. He won't know if these updates will be free or DLC and does not know if they'll be balancing updates or will add characters and stages.
- The number of characters in the starting roster will be between SFIII and SF IV. He knows the number but not the returning cast.
- There'll be 4 new characters and he knows 3 of them.
- Focus Attacks won't return.
- It'll be released in 2016 and that the month is easy to guess. (He said to think about japanese fiscal years).

Then he dropped some interesting clues. He usually nicknames his Pokemon with stupid joke names but not this time.

3 of his pokemons were nicknamed

- Rachid
- Zen
- Laura

We can assume these are the 3 new fighters he knows about. He also kept mentioning 3 places in the world and he said "there was a reason": Brasil, Africa and India. We can assume Rachid is from Africa and (more probably North Africa), Zen will be from India and Laura from Brasil.

He also named another Pokemon "V-Trigger" which is probably the name of the new SFV mechanic.

So, you know everything. I repeat, I think we can 100% trust Ken Bogard but don't forget either: we're still early in development, things can change.

tl;dr: RUMOR (which I believe is true) French VS fighting commentator seems to have info about SFV. Launch date 2016. No new versions, just updates. 4 new characters: Rachid (Africa), Zen (India), Laura (Brasil) and one more. New mechanic called V-trigger.

Exploring the abundance of Street Fighter 5 information attained from E3 stream interviews, we were able to get a pretty good idea of what gear developers at Capcom intend SF5 to be played in.

Taking bits and pieces from both Peter "Combofiend" Rosas and Matt Dahlgren, we've attempted to determine some truths about the general nature of the upcoming Street Fighter.

One of the points Combofiend drove home time and time again was wrapped up pretty well when he stated, "The name of the game is commitment, Street Fighter 5 is not as forgiving as Street Fighter 4." A central goal for developers in the creation of SF5 seems to be to revisit the more treacherous settings found in earlier Street Fighters.

Hit the jump to see what that means exactly.

Honesty

When I first joined the local fighting game scene back in 2010, I'd often hear some of the senior members refer to SF4 as "noob-friendly," and then talk about Third Strike and Super Turbo as more honest games. Though I didn't understand it fully at the time, now I see what they meant.

Another one of Combofiend's more impressing statements in regards to the new game, "It's about if you play the character well enough. It's not given to you anymore, it's not about random damage." Now you're going to have to get your damage through good old fashioned hard work.

'Fiend's quote sounds like an attempt to move away from the option select-laden atmosphere of SF4. There were times during the evolution of SF4 wherein it felt like the only real times of competition were in the neutral game before the first knockdown.

You may recall the Akuma vs Abel match up in Street Fighter 4, wherein Akuma only really needed to knock Abel down. Once he'd done this, Akuma would whip Abel into a vortex of option selects from which he could rarely find a way out of.

Earning Comebacks

One final quote from Combofiend, "You have to earn your comebacks with V-Trigger, you don’t just get to hit your ultra.” While there are Critical Arts in SF5, equivalent to Super combos, there aren't Ultra combos. The comeback mechanic is the V-Trigger, and it's usually a general enhancement as opposed to a single, damage-inducing action.

Not only do you have to gain your V-Trigger, but you have to thoughtfully implement it multiple times to actually make that comeback. This goes hand in hand with the previous section, you're going to have outplay your opponent.

Street Fighter 5 isn't going to have the training wheels that its predecessor sported. While you may have quite a lot of damage potential, you're going to have to earn the opportunities to actually dole it out.

Yesterday, we came out with part one of our "Developmental approach to Street Fighter 5" series. In these articles, we've combed through the E3 streams for Combofiend's hints about the developmental team's intentions for SF5.

Today's focus is on character selection as well as pacing. One of the more blatant tips from Combofiend: "Our goal is to make sure there's a character for everyone's style... We want to shy away from clones."

If you've played virtually any fighting game before, you've probably noticed very similar characters. Ryu is probably the most imitated character in fighting games, seeing similar caricatures within the Street Fighter franchise as well as in completely separate games.

While we can't be sure of what Capcom's specific definition of "clone" is in this instance, we're guessing this means that should two similar characters exist in SF5, like Ryu and Ken, they will play nothing like each other.

Hit the jump for more.

The addition of V-Skills and V-Triggers allow developers another level of depth for each character, which they can manipulate for the sake of diversifying similar fighters. Maybe Ryu and Ken both make it in and have similar moves on the surface, but Ken's V-Trigger makes him incredibly fast and Shoryuken-happy, while Ryu's enhances his fireball game.

Ease in Execution

With its heavy dosage of tight links, Street Fighter 4 has some of the longest, and most difficult combos in franchise history. Developers for SF5 are trying to veer away from longer, more technical combos, and make the game more about outwitting your opponent in the neutral.

During one of the streams Combofiend metnions, "We want everyone to be able to concentrate on being able to play against your opponent. We don't want people to be distracted with things that take you away from that, such as difficult combos involving one frame links."

We've already seen Street Fighter 5's heavy use of target combos, and it's no secret that plinking has been deemed unnecessary by many. The inclusion of the Counter Crush attests to this way of thinking as well.

Counter Crushes are heavy, and therefore slower, moves that are dangerous to simply toss out. To take advantage of this mechanic, you're going to have to observe and calculate your opponent's movements very closely.

This will surely direct players towards a more thoughtful approach. You likely won't see as many random special moves simply thrown out because of their overpowering strength as the cost of conducting oneself in such a way is going to be too high.

Pace

Those that have played Street Fighter 5 already know that this is a faster-paced game. We're not talking about walk speeds, air time from jumps or animation periods, we're talking about average round length and time between action sequences.

"Pace is faster than in SF4. Previously, hard knock downs meant characters would sit on the ground for a long time. Characters get up much faster, the action is more constant." This next part is paraphrased,

"...this also means a deeper sense of set-play. With more defensive options, there will be less blatant set ups where the aggressor can enter a vortex, so more thought is involved."

This also alludes to the idea that the fight is meant to center around footsies more than the wake up game. In SF4, footsies were often simply a means to enter the wake up game, where the real action began.

Compared to earlier iterations, it seems that Ultra Street Fighter 4, with its delayed wake up mechanic, points at the direction developers want to take things for SF5.

We feel it's important to add that these changes from SF4 to SF5 don't necessarily make either game better or worse, but different. It's change of pace like this that have made every iteration of Street Fighter unique.

Each era is defined in a different, yet fun, way. Really, it's hats off to Capcom for repeatedly coming up with brand new, yet still successful, approaches that have all garnered their own followings and developed their own legacies.