[SFZ Home Page] Miscalenous features
Miscalenous features and personnal opinion
Again an attempt to lessen the fireball traps terror. When you are knocked down, quickly perform
a "B DB D" or a "F DF D" motion, and you will not get up as normal; at the moment you should
just stand up, you will roll in the direction you began the joystick motion (enventually
going through your opponent) and then get up.
And again, this is should not be used all the time, because you are not invulerable during the
roll. So if the gyu in front of you gets used to it, you'll be swept all the time... Make it a
part of your strategy.
- The autoblock option (left)
A problem has occured to capcom: SF being such a strategical and technical game, newbies are
now totally crushed if they meet an expert. To overcome this problem, they have included in
their latest games the autoblock option. Most advanced players will tell you it's useless, but
it's not.
Indeed, if the autoblock is on, your character will automaticaly block all the strikes he
possibly can. (but it won't affect the ones you cannot block, as when you're caught off guard
trying to punch or kick!). This will aloud you to concentrate on special moves, or even just
hitting the other gyu on the screen! ^-^
Besides, in SFZ, it also enables the "simple super combo" thing: just press one punch and one
kick of equal strength at the same time, and BOOM! it's out... However, it is limited to level 1
super combos. Can't have averything.
NB: this simple SC stuff can be used even by experienced players, as it erases the charge time
and the complex stick motions. This can change strategies a LOT!
- The speed selector (right)
Very simple: as in DS2 or X-men, you have 2 different selectable speeds; normal and turbo.
The winner chooses which one will be used in the next round.
Street Fighter Zero has been given a very good "athmosphere", with a lot of small elements
that make the difference between just a good fighting game and simply a
great game.
Here are a few elements to give you an idea of what the spirit of the game is.
- The grafix
Grafics look, as in DS and X-men, much more cartoony than before. I'm not gonna go in the
better/badder than before war, I'll just say it looks different, and that IHMO it looks quite
nice and fits the game well.
- The sound
Sounds have come back to the hardeness of SF2 Hyper Fighting. They are vicious ^-^. Both
sound effects and voices are good, and alomost every special move (all of them?) has a special
sound that accompanies it, most oftenly a name (ShouRyuReppa!!).
All in all, I can assure you that a level 2 Shinkuu TatsuMakiSenpuuKyaku (super whirlwind kick)
from Ryu will look very painfull if it connects. Even seing it is scary! ;-)
- The taunts
As in a lot of fighting games from SNK, SFZ alouds you to insult your opponent (or at least
gloryfy yourself) by making your character somehow laugh at the opponent's one. But where taunts
were just a gadget in the previous games, it becomes really tricky in SFZ.
Indeed, it is done by pressing start (sometimes uneasy to reach), it cannot be interupted,
and you are totally vulnerable during it.
So you have to be very carefull when you use one; to complete it, you should combo it, sacrifice
a dizzy, or get very lucky! Or maybe just be a much much better player than your opponent
is... This should really make him mad! ^-^
NB: You can taunt only once per round, exept for Dan, who can taunt as
much as he wants.
- The bosses
In order to give more personality to each character, capcom made the VS computer game follow
some kind of plot, which is different for each one of them. In fact, the difference is that each
one will meet a specific boss as his last fight (Sagat for Ryu and Adon, Ryu for Ken and Sagat,
etc). Also, before the last bout, there will be a small dialogue between both fighters, which
will more or less explain the player's motivations in entering the fight...
You may like the game or not, but one thing is undeniable: Capcom did work a LOT on it
to add new ways of playing to the system they had already established. Indeed, in
every game that came out after SF2, each character could be compared to a character
in SF2; there was always the Ryu, the Guile, the Zangief... They were played the same way,
if not total copies.
There are of course such characters in SFZ (Ryu, Ken, Charlie...), but there are also
totaly new types that can not be compared to any ancient one. Rose
or Adon are such examples, Guy being the
most inovative one.
So in my opinion, SFZ is a very inovative 2D fighter, while staying really true to the
SF athmosphere. I was afraid that Capcom was taking a "we throw every special FX we can
in your eyes" option when I saw DS and X-men, when they where just adapting the look
and feel of these games to the athmosphere they wanted to create (mystical and strange
for DS, and comic-SF delirium for X-men).
In one word: Capcom became lazy with the SF series sucess, but I think now they really
did wake up, and came back to the top.
SFZ is great work and Capcom a great company.
Go to Part 1: The different ways of blocking.
Go to Part 2: The different ways of comboing.
Back to the technical description summary page.
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