Street Fighter IV's Ultra-Passive Moves

I might have gone a little astray, because my last post didn't pertain to anything that was conspicuously stupid.

So let's talk about Super Street Fighter IV.

OK OK: I love the game. Every now and then I catch myself thinking that fighting games are somehow the one true videogame. Somehow, a game like Street Fighter, with its mind games, its one-on-one head-to-head mano-a-mano nature, and its harsh requirements of physical execution, encapsulates everything I want a game to be. But when Super Street Fighter IV was released as an update to ["Vanilla"] Street Fighter IV, something was horribly, horribly wrong.

The Super Street Fighter IV update introducted two new characters, Juri and Hakan. Like every character in the game, they can execute an uber-powerful Ultra Move, which can only be used after getting slapped around. It therefore functions as a dramatic come-back move. You input the controller motion for a single attack, but what comes out is an theatrically extended thrashing. You are treated to sit back and watch while your character automatically goes through all the (cartoonishly) violent motions.

It so happens that these new characters Juri and Hakan have the most uniquely passive and uneventful Ultra animations in the game. Their two Ultra Moves go the longest time without actually striking the enemy. Juri climbs onto the enemy, the camera zooms in, and she slowly makes an erotic threat for several seconds before beating down her target. Hakan, a cartoonish Turkish oil wrestler, comically spins the enemy's body around his slippery torso like a blazingly fast hula hoop, before launching him smashingly against the wall like a bullet.

Super Street Fighter IV is all about punching and kicking your opponent, but the two flagship characters who are supposed to compel us to buy the game have the most distinctly non-game-like Ultra Moves. By un-game-like, I mean they are exceedingly long and uneventful. The camera literally dwells on them while they do not attack. At these two moments, the game ceases to become a game, and furthermore the game expects you to love it.

Almost every Ultra move in the game becomes tiring after seeing them enough times, because they bring gameplay to a complete halt and they last for so long. As a comparison, Balrog (aka Boxer), who is an old returning character from earlier games, simply charges like a bull and lets out 5 devestating punches in quick succession. The camera never dwells. The player on the receiving end may literally feel like he has been hit. The victim has just enough time to realize he's going to get massively clobbered. He then gets clobbered, and the action quickly resumes.

The way that Juri's and Hakan's ultra moves are passive and movie-like, rather than game-like, is supposed to appeal to gamers and make them want to buy the game. Capcom was trying their damndest to sell this upgrade, which is part of an infamous history of incremental tweaks that are sold for full price, and for some sick reason the ace up their sleeve was to insert two inappropriate movies into the midst of battle. Fighting games at heart are immediate, direct, and demanding, but the flagship ultras of Super Street Fighter IV are the most passive elements in the game.

I see this as closely connected to the trend of game trailers that focus almost exclusively on cinematic cut-scenes that are disconnected from actual gameplay and player-control. The gamer is supposed to ooh and aah about how cinematic and movie-like these cut-scenes are, and then fork over their $60 for the privilege of watching them.

I don't know how to conclude, but this brilliant quote will do:

"Non-interactive scenes in a game are not reward, they are a punishment." -Adam Barenblat