Street Fighter x Tekken and Pandora’s Power

Once again,
there weren’t many fighting
game reveals for Soulcalibur V
or Ultimate
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 at TGS,
since that’s not where the main audience is for these is anymore. Not to say
that developers don’t have a sizable audience in Japan these days, but it’s
certainly not as big as it was. And Street
Fighter x Tekken‘s presence at TGS was…actually the exception!? How about
that. Capcom had four characters to reveal for their newest crossover game,
though they were all guessed when those teaser videos (which have admittedly
gotten better) were released weeks before TGS.

 

They revealed
some new modes too, a couple of which turned plenty of heads. But first, the
characters.

 

The Street
Fighter side gets Rolento and Zangief. Yoshinori Ono has been trying to work
Rolento into a Capcom fighter for a good while now, and he finally makes it
into this one. He’s teamed up with Ibuki here; and before you ask what
connection the two of them could possibly have (because it’s certainly
abstract), it comes from this
transformation sprite Ibuki had in Super
Gem Fighter Mini Mix. The two of them still have a tenuous connection at
best. Zangief looks similar to his Street
Fighter IV iteration, though he’ll be used differently since SFxT is a
very different game. No word on who his official partner is yet, though it could be Rufus. Seth
Killian provided a good look at both characters for Gamespot.

 

The Tekken
side gets Heihachi and Lili. Heichachi looks pretty good in motion. Too good in
fact, considering his numerous Geese Howard-esque counters and a super that
goes nearly full screen. Also, I’m apparently not the only one who noticed that
his Capcom
iteration bears a striking resemblance to Mega
Man‘s Dr. Wily, since his moustache and eyebrows are very pronounced
here. Lili incorporates many of her techniques from the last few Tekken games,
though some of her movements are very similar to Ingrid’s (a character from a
few other Capcom fighters) — especially her spinning move. Heihachi is Kuma’s
partner, naturally, but Lili’s has yet to be revealed. It’s going to be war if
it’s not Asuka. Killian
also provided a look at these characters.

 

But that
wasn’t all for the characters. Capcom had some special reveals to help liven up
Sony’s
incredibly-boring TGS conference. Sony and Capcom held a poll on Sony
Computer Entertainment of Japan’s Playstation Vita community website asking which
character gamers would like to see in the game. On the poll was Sony’s mascot
Toro the cat, Alisa, and Christie, with Toro
winning by a massive margin. The end result gave us two new guest
characters (joining Infamous’ Cole Philips): Toro and Kuro. Toro plays like
Ryu, while Kuro plays like Kazuya — though they also have some unique attacks.
They’ll be in the Vita and PS3 versions, though there’s no word on whether
they’ll be in the western versions too.

 

The new
gameplay feature revealed at TGS was “Pandora,”
which can be triggered when both characters’ vitality gauges are under 25% by
pressing down twice and both medium attack buttons. In this mode, one character
will have an infinite super combo gauge to use as many EX attacks and Super
Arts if they want. It’s definitely a comeback mechanic, but there’s a steep
penalty for using it. Activating it will require sacrificing your partner,
which will limit your combo potential a little. It also only lasts for ten
seconds, and when it runs out your character will be instantly knocked out.

 

Two new
modes were revealed as well. The first is Scramble Mode, which lets four
players fight simultaneously. It’s kind of similar to a Smash Bros. game, but you’ll still have partners in this mode; and
both of them share the same vitality gauge. The other is the Briefing Room,
which is an online training mode. I can’t believe it took a developer this long
to implement the latter, since fighting game fans have been begging for it for
years. Like Marvel vs. Capcom 3, you
can turn the “Fight Request” option on to receive challenges online while in
training mode.

 

That’s a lot
of modes! In fact, it might be a bit too
much. The next batch of character reveals will come from the New York Comic-Con
in mid-October, and Ono’s promising to pull back the curtain on yet another feature called the “Gem System”
at that event. It’s like their trying to stack this game with everything they
can. Street Fighter x Tekken releases sometime next year, and hopefully it
doesn’t overwhelm players with too much.