Would KoF be more popular in the states if it was a 1v1 game?

[Violent Ryo]

Just my 2 cents on the topic of SF4, while it is the best 3D game so far at adapting 2D style, and I like the non photorealistic 3D graphics, it just definitely does not play like a true hand drawn 2D pixel art fighter and this is because 3D graphics can't really translate many of the mechanics of real 2D graphic games.

A 2D game has more profound properties than just the visual aspect of being on a 2D plane.

[Nagare_Ryouma]

When did I say it was similar to the old ones?  Also, just because it has a different feel from SF 2 and 3 doesn't make it a 3D fighter.  The only 3D aspect of the game is its graphics.  Your movement is restricted to a flat, linear plane, which is the definition of 2-dimensional.

You didn´t say it, it is just some of the arguments I heard about the game.
I don´t recall anyone saing Street Fighter EX was a 2D fighting game back in the day, but now... wow, SF 4 suddenly is a 2D fighting game, ha ha ha. I even remember SF EX being called a "3D version of SF". I guess depending on the time of release and marketing, a game can be "2D" if it sounds nice.
3D graphics= 3D engine = 3D Game.

quite simply put, no. most of the market consists ofb scrubs, noobs and casuals. the reason for tekken popularuty is that people can button mash and know a few tricks and still be able to play it and have fun with it.

sf was never a big selling in the US after the 2 series. mainly cause people didnt play fighters that often (unless it was tekken). now fighters are making a comeback, sf4 is like the go to game and its gotten pretty noob friendly at the same time. biggest selling point is probably the 3d graphics. i doubt it would have sold half of what it did if it had been real 2d.

now to kof, when tekken is the go to game, sf is like the only other game most people that casually understand fighters will play. they can learn a character and play. having casuals play more fighters is asking for too much. especially a game like kof where you have a team of 3 characters to learn. add the fac that kof never been that known in the US and even most fighting fans never played it, i doubt most people would take the risk and learn a new game and get their asses kicked.

I agree with most of your points.
How about the Fatal Fury series? I always though that they were kind of popular in the States (at least the first 2 or 3 games). Is that true or they were not popular at all?
On the other hand, I remember the snes/sfamicom port of Art of Fighting 2 was released in Japan only...

[Judge Fudge]

You didn´t say it, it is just some of the arguments I heard about the game.
I don´t recall anyone saing Street Fighter EX was a 2D fighting game back in the day, but now... wow, SF 4 suddenly is a 2D fighting game, ha ha ha. I even remember SF EX being called a "3D version of SF". I guess depending on the time of release and marketing, a game can be "2D" if it sounds nice.
3D graphics= 3D engine = 3D Game.

Yeah, good point.  Didn't even think about that.  I'm just so used to thinking of 3D fighters as games like Tekken/DOA/SC where you can sidestep and move freely between planes.  But following that logic, an argument could be made that Fatal Fury is a 3D fighter, so I guess it just becomes a semantics issue. 

[Chowdizzle]

Just my 2 cents on the topic of SF4, while it is the best 3D game so far at adapting 2D style, and I like the non photorealistic 3D graphics, it just definitely does not play like a true hand drawn 2D pixel art fighter and this is because 3D graphics can't really translate many of the mechanics of real 2D graphic games.

A 2D game has more profound properties than just the visual aspect of being on a 2D plane.

It has more than the visual aspect of a 2d plane. When the game was first being made all the hitbox data had 3d properties. They changed this before release and the game's data all runs as if it's a 2d game. Idk that the game doesn't play like a 2d fighter, to me it seems no different from Blazblue/Guilty Gear in that aspect. For now I'm disagreeing with you but I'm not entirely sure I touched on what you meant.

Maybe I haven't payed enough attention but the games detection and 2d aspects never seemed much different from Third Strike. Though definitely far from the KoF games but no Street Fighter is very relate-able  to those.

And on the topic of SFIV being 3d or 2d, I don't think that you can't definitively say either. Really it comes down to what you define as a 2d/3d fighter. To me if you can't side step it's 2d. You couldn't side step in Fatal Fury, you could switch planes. It's not the graphics that determine it for me, it's the gameplay.

[Nagare_Ryouma]

Yeah, good point.  Didn't even think about that.  I'm just so used to thinking of 3D fighters as games like Tekken/DOA/SC where you can sidestep and move freely between planes.  But following that logic, an argument could be made that Fatal Fury is a 3D fighter, so I guess it just becomes a semantics issue. 

Fatal Fury is a 2D because even if the characters play in 2 or 3 planes, it is still a 2D engine of gameplay.
YuYuHakusho for the megadrive was also a fighter in wich you played in 2 different planes and was also a 2D fighter (and one of the best fighting games ever, I might add, AMAZING SYSTEM).
I think ViolentRyo is right, I think SF 4 is the best adaptation of a 2D game so far, but in the end, that is what it is. A very faithfull 3D adaptation of a 2D fighter.
I also think that, just like Musolini said, SF 4 is noob friendly, while KOF is DEFINATELLY not.
Just like he said, it is a game aimed for veteran fighters.
Of course we are talking in general terms, this doesn´t mean that a veteran fighter can´t be a fan of SF 4 or a 15 years old kid could be interested in KOF 13 and become a fan for the first time in his life.
I am still not sure the Team system could be an issue for newer players, I am not really sold on that idea but I guess it could be a reason. The Vs series of Capcom has always been sucessfull but on the other hand, it has Marvel characters wich assure you a very big market.
I always had a feeling the KOF characters were not so appealing to the American public but that is just an assumption, I could be wrong.
I would still like to know if Fatal Fury was indeed popular or not in the states, I always though it was.

[Rakukojin]

How about the Fatal Fury series? I always though that they were kind of popular in the States (at least the first 2 or 3 games). Is that true or they were not popular at all?

I remember that Fatal Fury 2 and Special were pretty popular back in the day, but if I can recall Samurai Shodown overtook it in popularity when it came out.

[Cibernetico]

quite simply put, no. most of the market consists ofb scrubs, noobs and casuals. the reason for tekken popularuty is that people can button mash and know a few tricks and still be able to play it and have fun with it.

add the fac that kof never been that known in the US and even most fighting fans never played it,

1. I think you're nuts if you think you can button mash at a high level Tekken tourney and expect to place high. No offense, but you sound just like everyone during a Tekken 6 stream that swear they can get by the entire game by just button mashing. Then again, those people want everything to be SF4 so it's whatever.

2. I don't know about you, but KOF was pretty damn popular here in the US back in the day. It's only recently that people have been saying that KOF is not as popular which is true. However, when KOF98 was around, I remember a lot of places carrying the game and lots of people playing it. Hell, there were tons of Neo Geo cabs and it was guaranteed to have at least one KOF game.

[Chowdizzle]

1. I think you're nuts if you think you can button mash at a high level Tekken tourney and expect to place high. No offense, but you sound just like everyone during a Tekken 6 stream that swear they can get by the entire game by just button mashing. Then again, those people want everything to be SF4 so it's whatever.

LOL he said "Scrubs" which I'm pretty sure is very different from pros. "people can button mash and know a few tricks and still be able to play it and have fun with it." doesn't mean everyone does it means the casual players who mainly own the market do, and he's right. Tekken takes a lot of skill and as far as mind games go is much harder than Street Fighter considering lows are very ambiguous.

[meiji_99]

one of the thing that i like from this game is you rarely play against the 3 character that opponent use similar with 3 character on your team, even when you meet your opponent using the same character as you, usually the team order select is rarely the same, bad matchup still happen but it can be at least minimal.

[Diavle]

At the recent tourney they asked Justin Wong what he thought of XIII and why he wasn't seriously playing it. He said he thinks its an excellent game (he was surprisingly postive about it) and the only reason he doesn't play it (aside from here and there at AI) is because its not at tourneys.

So yeah, SNK have done what it takes but it remains to be seen if its not too late and they can keep it up. The stage is set for a scene to develop.

[MUSOLINI]

quite simply put, no. most of the market consists ofb scrubs, noobs and casuals. the reason for tekken popularuty is that people can button mash and know a few tricks and still be able to play it and have fun with it.

add the fac that kof never been that known in the US and even most fighting fans never played it,

1. I think you're nuts if you think you can button mash at a high level Tekken tourney and expect to place high. No offense, but you sound just like everyone during a Tekken 6 stream that swear they can get by the entire game by just button mashing. Then again, those people want everything to be SF4 so it's whatever.

2. I don't know about you, but KOF was pretty damn popular here in the US back in the day. It's only recently that people have been saying that KOF is not as popular which is true. However, when KOF98 was around, I remember a lot of places carrying the game and lots of people playing it. Hell, there were tons of Neo Geo cabs and it was guaranteed to have at least one KOF game.

like chow said. i think your reading comprehension needs some work. back on point, tekken on high level is probably a game that takes way more skill than sf (not that high level sf is easy, but still way easier).

also ive been playing fighters since 91, collecting gamemags and all that. from what ive seen in the mags. 91 till almost 93 it was all bout that capcom (sf2 series). 93 to 95 was pretty much snk (ffs, kof and especially ss, in particula ss2, which was probably sf2 level in popularity reaching top 10 spotsamong all games in best of the year during its release). 96 to 99 both had a decent following but i think capcom was slightly more popular (in the US, not asia). after this fighters pretty much got neglected (unless it was the latest tekken). fighters are back now, but most of the new school and casuals still remember sf (as ww was the first real fighter ever) and dont know snkp that well anymore imo.

[phoenix]

You didn´t say it, it is just some of the arguments I heard about the game.
I don´t recall anyone saing Street Fighter EX was a 2D fighting game back in the day, but now... wow, SF 4 suddenly is a 2D fighting game, ha ha ha. I even remember SF EX being called a "3D version of SF". I guess depending on the time of release and marketing, a game can be "2D" if it sounds nice.
3D graphics= 3D engine = 3D Game.

The game system doesn't have a 3d engine. Combat-wise it uses 2d hitboxes, all things like jumps hits, hit detection everything is actually completely 2d. And that's where it's different from SFEX, which _does_ use 3d hitdetection. And that's why, even though sfex is also on a 2d plane, it is still a lot more 3d than sf4 is.

As for the question asked by cibernetico. Whenever someone brings up te '3 character learning sucks' I try to show them that the combo branching structure in kof is a lot more limited than it is in many other games. You don't need to find out what combos start from lows, and what are punish combos in the same was as in say sf4, it's a lot more obvious and universal.

But yeah, just 1v1 isn't going to make kof popular.

[Aenthin]

Give them the AoF Team, tell them they play slightly different from Ryu and Ken and start learning from there. x:

While technically that isn't true, I remember one person who asked how to play Joe and my friend simply told him, he plays like Adon. He kicked ass ever since. Hahaha

[venusandeve]

rshhahahahah... that's a brilliant one XD

but in all fairness, it's actually impressive how little the casts have in common with each other.

[solidshark]

rshhahahahah... that's a brilliant one XD

but in all fairness, it's actually impressive how little the casts have in common with each other.

Wouldn't it/won't it be cool once people realize what each character can do on their own?