Building a Gaming Empire In 1984

"Huh?"

Sam froze for a moment, not expecting Ethan to approve of the idea so strongly.

"We're making a Street Fighter spin-off?"

"No, we need differentiation, so it'll be a completely different kind of game."

Ethan patted Sam on the shoulder.

Fighting games had never been a genre where every title was the same. Besides Street Fighter, the highly structured cornerstone of competitive fighting games, there had always been many other titles that carved out their own identities.

Guilty Gear Strive, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Samurai Shodown, Granblue Fantasy Versus, and even Super Smash Bros. all had their own unique characteristics.

And the most classic example, naturally, was The King of Fighters, which placed its focus on combos. It completely abandoned the rigorous back and forth exchanges that Street Fighter championed.

The most iconic change was the near doubling of jump speed and high-speed dashing. That level of mobility would have gotten endlessly criticized if it were placed in Street Fighter. If Street Fighter was rock paper scissors, then The King of Fighters was a rhythm game, music game.

Ethan looked at the smooth motion on the screen and nodded.

"We can really start experimenting with faster-paced games now."

"Could it be that I'm a genius too?"

Sam grinned and scratched his head.

"But what exactly did you mean earlier? What do you mean by 'not aggressive enough'?"

After the adjustments, a short hop now took only a little over twenty frames. Compared to the original, that was practically unbelievable and Sam couldn't even imagine what things would look like if they pushed it further.

"I mean the mechanical changes aren't thorough enough."

Ethan raised a finger and tapped Sam on the forehead.

"Street Fighter emphasizes this style of play, so let's take a different approach. Let's make a game that's purely about reaction speed."

Seeing that everyone still looked half-confused, Ethan decided not to waste time explaining. Instead, he sat down directly at the computer.

Creating a demo from scratch would be a hassle. But modifying a few parameters using Street Fighter as a base wouldn't take much time. Soon, the arcade machine was rebooted with a newly modified ROM.

Ethan selected Fei Long.

Sam, as always, chose Guile.

Just as Sam instinctively settled into his familiar corner position, he saw Fei Long rapidly closing the distance like a man possessed. That kind of reckless aggression would have been punished by Flash Kicks all day long in the past.

Sam immediately pulled back to charge and launched a Sonic Boom. But the moment Ethan saw Guile's startup animation, he reacted. The joystick flicked upward and snapped back down.

In the middle of his high-speed advance, Fei Long suddenly performed an extremely low jump, barely skimming over the Sonic Boom.

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Sam's face changed dramatically, he immediately prepared a Flash Kick motion. But Ethan had already gotten right into his face and there was no way he would allow that opportunity.

In the blink of an eye, Ethan performed several rapid short hops, repeatedly canceling them with instant downward light punches to land almost immediately.

Sam had never seen anything like this before. In traditional Street Fighter, jumping was something you avoided whenever possible. The long airborne animation made it extremely vulnerable to anti-air attacks like Guile's Flash Kick.

You'd often lose health for nothing. But now, nearly every move Ethan performed relied on jumping to smooth out his offense. Even crouching light kicks were combined with short hops to close distance rapidly.

Yet Sam couldn't simply throw out a Flash Kick to escape like before, because everything was too fast.

Judging purely by feel, Fei Long's entire jump animation lasted no more than thirty frames. But by around frame twenty, he was already in attack range. In other words, Sam had less than twenty frames to react.

Realizing that continuing to get pressured would inevitably end badly, Sam immediately tried copying Ethan's approach and jumping out of the corner. Only to get punched squarely in the face and sent right back where he started.

Ethan stopped and looked at Sam, who was visibly frustrated.

"Understand now?"

"I think... I get it. Because the moves are so fast, the value of countering and responding is reduced. Instead, you have to fight for initiative and strike first."

Sam reflected on the match. He finally understood what Ethan meant by "not aggressive enough." It wasn't that the game wasn't fast enough, it was that they hadn't fully let go of the old design philosophy.

"But... if we change it like this, won't it stop being fun?"

Sam's original intention had simply been to find an alternative for players who didn't enjoy methodical, turn by turn exchanges. He had never intended to destroy the entire game. Sure, it was faster, but it had also lost much of its enjoyment.

"That's because we're still not extreme enough."

The greatest selling point of The King of Fighters, the thing that truly made it what it was, hadn't appeared yet.

"Come on. Let's play another round."

Confused, Sam selected Guile once again and waited to see what new trick Ethan had prepared. At the start, things looked almost identical to the previous match.

Sam tried futilely to stop the advance and was quickly forced into close range. The difference was that this time, Ethan successfully confirmed his very first light punch, putting Sam into a hit stun.

Then Ethan attacked. A rising kick launched Guile into the air, and before he could fall, another blow connected, then another.

Each hit flowed effortlessly into the next, and no matter how desperately Sam mashed buttons or wiggled the joystick, it was completely useless. All he could do was watch helplessly as his character was beaten all the way to the corner.

Then launched into the air and kept there, for what felt like forever. Only when Ethan had completely exhausted his meter and could no longer continue the loop did Guile finally crash back to the ground with a sliver of health remaining.

"What the hell, man? How is anyone supposed to play this?"

Seriously, his life bar had practically disappeared from a single opening. This thing had absolutely nothing to do with the word "fun."

"No way. I thought it looked awesome."

Vivian suddenly burst out laughing. Carmack, standing nearby, nodded in agreement.

"I think it's pretty good too. At least from Ethan's perspective, it looked really fun."

Sam was speechless. But seeing everyone else's reaction, he realized there was a reason for it.

Putting himself in the other seat, if he had been the one performing that gorgeous combo just now, he would have felt amazing too. Punching someone into the sky and keeping them there indefinitely? Even movies weren't this ridiculous.

"Anyway, that's the general idea. We can design every character and all of the game's mechanics around the concept of combos."

For demonstration purposes, Ethan had crudely increased the speed of all of Fei Long's moves and added a "cancel" mechanic. With some adjustment, it could become the foundation for move chaining, animation canceling, and recovery canceling.

Combos were absolutely one of The King of Fighters' greatest attractions. Ryo Sakazaki's EX infinite combos, the absurd pressure from high-speed characters like Chris, Iori Yagami, and Leona.

Its balance might not always be perfect. But its entertainment value and spectator appeal were undeniably exceptional.

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