The New Renaissance

Fighting games had lost their imagination.

This is what I thought after playing SF4 for a year. I wasn't even close to the fighting caliber that I am today, when I was half my age, but even I knew we were living in a golden age of fighters during the reign of the Playstation and Playstation 2.

We had the Marvel vs. games, the SNK vs. games, familiar characters were tweaked in small and large ways (from Ryu's knife kick in SF3 to Akuma's demon flip in CvS2 [credible?]), and many new franchises waiting to happen. We had Rival Schools, Vampire Savior, Darkstalkers, Guilty Gear and many others. These games received their chance during this renaissance. But what happened was what normally happens, a status quo is established and trends set in.

So for the past decade we've been stuck with the "Safe" releases. More versions of the same Guilty Gear XX, more incarnations of Tekken (which ended up "Breaking" in the most recent version) and a long drought of any kind of Street Fighter.

Enter Street Fighter 4. Street Fighter 4 explodes and brings competitive fighting to the casual player. Anybody can become "an expert" of the game if he wants to learn. While Arcsys was innovating with HD sprites in their new venture, "Blazblue", the complexity often mistaken for "button mashing" nearly dammed the river that was soon to burst forth in a torrent.

Thankfully it didn't stop with SF4, and the current version, Super is born and thriving. With such a vibrant cast it is much the better game in so many regards (though some skeptics remain). Capcom is buzzing with activity, with rumors of a TVC port, MVC3 coming out with crispy 2.5 D action, and more fighting news around the corner. Arcsys has news too, and with Continuum Shift, Blazblue's "fixed" newest version, one can only hope it will be Guilty Gear's big jump to the current generation of consoles.

Imaginations running wild, it is once again looking like it did a decade ago. Who will be added in the arcade version of SSF4? A trial mode for Blazblue to teach people the nuances of this complicated fighting game, with their own DLC characters. One thing I leave with you, dear readers. If your characters are not in MVC3, so what? If Rolento gets snubbed in the SSF4 arcade version, so what? Look beyond "what is safe". Even if MVC3 is full of movie tie-ins that feel shoe-horned, it's new content to be explored and enjoyed. Don't boycott a game because your team isn't in it, you should support it because it's new and different and you don't want the same ol' same ol' every time. (cough) dynasty warriors (cough)_