disappointing sequels
Street Fighter Zero
Long before the 5th version of Street Fighter 2, people were antsy for Street Fighter 3. Fatal Fury had a 3, Mortal Kombat already had a 3.
Instead, Capcom announces Street Fighter... Zero. Was this designed to build up the frenzy for Street Fighter 3 even more? To subtley
annoy millions of fans because they STILL couldn't point at Capcom's detractors and say "Ah Ha! There! Three!"? Maybe it really did take
6 years of R&D to perfect Parrying? Who knows.
However, at that point SFZ still didn't qualify as a disappointment. The magazine screen shots looked colorful and flashy (if cartoony) and some of the SF1 cast was back. At that point, all we had to do was just sort ignore all the fancy moves the characters had gained in this prequel that they would somehow lose by the time Street Fighter 2 came about, storywise. Bison must have used his Psycho Power, yeah, that's it. When it finally arrived on the scene, the reaction was more like "Oh... huh. It looks like Street Fighter 2 but sort of different" instead of "OMG!". In fact, it looked... uglier. The animation was just bleh. But, we had had X-Men, which looked great! And Darkstalkers! WTF happend to SFZ?! And why was Bison fat? 
The gameplay was kinda wrong in a floaty, insubstantial way. And what were the innovations? 3-tiered super bar? OK, not bad. Zero counters? Well, not really, we had Guard Reversals in Darkstalkers. Chain Combos? Well, not really, we had seen much more flashy versions in X-Men and Darkstalkers. Revamping characters from earlier games? Well, not really, KOF had done this in '94. I liked Sodom. He was fun. I had not played a character like that before. Birdy was interesting as sort of a Balrog/Zangief synthesis. So all was not lost. Aspects of the Zero series would be improved in its sequels, eventually giving the games a stronger identity. Probably its main failing was that it simply did not provide the kind of bang I expected from the follow up to Street Figther 2. My hunger was left unsaited. This may seem unfair, but it is incontrovertible. |