Interviews
Das Interview: Street Fighter IV Producer Yoshinori Ono, Part 1
September 25, 2008
When old school gamers think fighting games, they immediately go back to the Street Fighter franchise. Since the original coin-op debuted in 1987, Street Fighter has developed a beyond-hardcore fan base. And Capcom fed their zealots with complex SF titles such as Alpha and Third Strike. Even with power of the brand and a ravenous audience, a lot of core gamers gave up after Street Fighter II. According to Capcom that’s all about to change. Yoshinori Ono (above), producer on Street Fighter IV, believes the latest installment in the series will deliver a rich and deep experience that hardcore Street Fighter fans to chew on. But Ono hopes the accessibility of the game will pull in the casual crowd, everyone from gamers to grandmothers looking to deliver a casual Sunday afternoon beat down. He’s not kidding.
Originally joining the company as a music composer over 15 years ago, Ono-san is no stranger to working on major Capcom franchises including Street Fighter Zero, 2 and 3, as well as Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. I caught up with Ono-san to find out about what took so long to get this sequel to market, the challenge of online play (the answer could lie in the upcoming election) and what he thinks about collaborating with Ed Boon on a Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter game.
Das Gamer: What’s it like transitioning from being a music producer to game producer.
Yoshinori Ono: Music is my background, and I know quite a bit about it. I’m pretty creative. Working on the music has its own limitations, however, being a game producer is really, really hard. It depends on the genre and not only working on the game itself, but I have to think about promotional aspects, and all sorts of things, as well.
Having said that, as a producer, I can get feedback from journalists, users, and that’s quite an interesting part of the job. If the game is not well received, I have to be a firewall to protect my team. It’s very difficult job being a producer of a game.
Did you also handle the music in this game?
Yoshinori Ono: No, I didn’t have time to work on the music by myself, however, I have a sound director who I worked with on Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. Obviously, since I know music inside and out, the sound director doesn’t want to work with me because he’d get criticized.
With the Arcade version, you did some testing at the Evo 2008 tournament. What was the feedback like?
Yoshinori Ono: Prior to Evo we showed the game at Comic-Con in San Diego. We already had feedback from Asian territories where we released the arcade version. A lot of people say that it feels very similar to Street Fighter II. However, the more you play, the more depth you see. It’s been received quite well.
Have you brought in pro players to get their feedback to help tune the game?
Yoshinori Ono: Not only with Street Fighter but games such as Dark Stalkers, we often hire professional level players. They test it out, comment, and we take their feedback for game tuning. However, for SFIV, I often use the analogy to a chess game. I want Street Fighter IV to be entertainment. Chess can be played at different levels. The Russian guys, on live television, championship level – that was Street Fighter III, actually.
First of all, we want the people that played Street Fighter II. The ones that lapsed – we want them to come back and play again. We want to appeal to a wider audience, like chess can be played by a grandfather and his grandkids on a Sunday afternoon. Therefore, we did lots of location tests, and got the opinions from the professional level players. But we didn’t incorporate their feedback 100% because we want to appeal to the novice people as well.
Do you think you’ve appealed to the hardcore even though you’ve gone back to the basics?
Yoshinori Ono: Honestly, Street Fighter IV has enough depth to attract those people. We don’t go out to get those people. If they want to keep on playing Street Fighter III: Third Strike – that’s fine. It’s there too. Stick to whatever you want. In other words, Street Fighter IV is easy to start up with, and if newcomers play it and reach a professional level, those players may be able to move onto Street Fighter III.
3 Responses to “Das Interview: Street Fighter IV Producer Yoshinori Ono, Part 1”
This is crap. Capcom vs anything is a cop out. Just make a Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter game and make it an effing mature title.
McCain, Obama and Raiden debate for president. Raiden wins.
By christopher lambert on Sep 26, 2008
way to go, ono! even though i’m not a big fan of onimusha 4 or this new direction of sf4, let’s have something fresh going for fighting games.
By badmash on Sep 28, 2008
CAPCOM SHOULD REBOOT ORIGINAL STREET FIGHTER GAME.
Capcom should get the original 1987 Street Fighter game and remake it again this time a better animated graphics just like Street Fighter II it would be good if they did it.
Capcom are also working on the new Darkstalkers game and i think Darkstalkers should be more blood and gory like Mortal Kombat and the stages for Darkstalkers it should have some medieval parts in the game.
So Capcom remake the original Street Fighter game will you please.
Thank You.
BRUCE ACOSTA
AUSTRALIA.
By Bruce Darren Acosta on Oct 11, 2008