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Visual Style: Street Fighter III: Third Strike or Garou: Mark of the Wolves?
- Thread starter Jaded Alyx
- Start date
Why would they put Fatal Fury characters in King of Fighters? In any event, select any other Fatal Fury character instead of a KoF character, my bad, I guess.
Forgive me if this was said already, but Garou runs on the MVS hardware released in 1990, and 3rd strike runs on CPS3, which came out in 1996. This is a full console generation worth of time later (and we all know arcade hardware was advancing really fast back then). The fact that we can even have a discussion like this is a testament to the sheer artistic will of the Garou team.
I refuse to vote. These are the two most beautifully animated 2D fighting games of all time imo.
I refuse to vote. These are the two most beautifully animated 2D fighting games of all time imo.
I don't think they're bad in terms of the atmosphere they evoke (usually a slight desolate location that is mostly serene) but I definitely feel they were rushed by the way backgrounds are shared and void mostly of characters (I'm speculating here but the CG used in the previous game is way better integrated e.g. Ken's stage). We can see them leverage a variety of techniques to take a stage to completion, and that would normally pass on a CRT monitor, but with the move to LCDs and everyone pasting emulated/direct feed shots, the opinion has shifted for the worse.
Here's an example of how incongruent the assets look amongst stages. You have three styles going on: pre-rendered CG, hand-drawn and photo texture.
Interestingly enough you can see SNK using CG too but their use of it I feel is better, nothing overreaches here. A single colour for the bell and the structure that holds it fits well with the stylised 'simple' pixel colour scheme of the walls, again, it integrates way better on a CRT
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If you love it so much why don't you make Mark of the Wolves Online Edition?
pls.
While I hold firm to my belief that Makoto is the best animated approve character ever, I like Garou's overall style way better, and also the energy effects on the special moves are second to none.
In fact he is.
Can someone explain just what tangible technical advantages CPS3 hardware has over Neo Geo in the context of these two games? Feels like there's not much that really matters besides marginally higher resolution and color depth. Apparently CPS3 still didn't even support features like transparency which had already been rudimentary on home consoles for years. It's really just a matter of raw asset quality here.
Art of Fighting 3 also released in the same year as Street Fighter 3. Had even larger sprites with fluid animation (gif doesn't really do it justice), albeit stiffer which I guess is likely a result of heavy rotoscoped source material.
Yeah, that's what's impressive about Garou to me, the art, people keep bringing up how old the hardware was at the time but SNK has been making beautiful sprites and working impressively within the limits of the original hardware for years before Garou came out. They've obviously made a choice to keep the character roster more restraint so the artists/animators can prioritise quantity of animations and it excels here even over other SNK fighters including those that came after Garou.
guess we will never know :(
and Ryo has already featured in a few Fatal Fury games, the SNK universes are quite tightly knit so i wouldn´t rule guests out at all :D
I've been suggesting they do an update to 3rd strike for quite awhile. The game is like one revision away from being perfect. It would be totally wild if they went back and did a 4th update to a 20 year old game. Nothing too major, tweak the problematic characters a little, maybe add a couple new characters.
Unfortunately I don't trust current Capcom to not fuck it all up even worse.
The major advantage 3S has really is having larger character sprites, but animation wise they're really neck and neck.
They're both beautiful games, but like Vespa showed 3S's backgrounds are a bit on the wack side.
I see a lot more details in Terry, specially his pants and jacket.
Exactly. I abstain from voting. Both are superior to every other fighting game.
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3rd Strike has this distinctive, cartoony, very stylized exaggerated look, and has a western comic book flavor to them. The sprites are also more detailed, and I believe slightly larger. Many of its very smooth animations adhere to western principles of great animation, including but not limited to lots of overlapping action, secondary action, follow through (for the weighty feel), overshoot (for that elastic look), and strong arcs (smooth motion). There is no lack for frames, it's almost an old looney toons or a disney movie. Overall it feels like the more polished product.
Meanwhile, Garou is strictly in the vein of 90s anime, the era when it was released. The characters are not that exaggerated, have more realistic body proportions, and of course, are very flamboyantly dressed. The animation, while smooth, is of a different style than third strike. It is a bit stiffer, relying more on the cool and sharp pose to pose action with less frames of animation, unevenly spread (hence it's is snappier than third's strike's often elaborate animation), while the secondary action on tertiary visual elements of the character increases the sensation of motion (Third strike emphasizes muscle, and the motion of it; meanwhile like much anime, Garou is much more focused on the movement of hair and clothing). There's also much more, almost obsessive, attention to detail given to the FX of attacks, in typical SNK fashion (and no surprise, heavy fx work is another characteristic of anime). All in all, Garou's anime aesthetic give it more rough and punk look, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Meanwhile, Garou is strictly in the vein of 90s anime, the era when it was released. The characters are not that exaggerated, have more realistic body proportions, and of course, are very flamboyantly dressed. The animation, while smooth, is of a different style than third strike. It is a bit stiffer, relying more on the cool and sharp pose to pose action with less frames of animation, unevenly spread (hence it's is snappier than third's strike's often elaborate animation), while the secondary action on tertiary visual elements of the character increases the sensation of motion (Third strike emphasizes muscle, and the motion of it; meanwhile like much anime, Garou is much more focused on the movement of hair and clothing). There's also much more, almost obsessive, attention to detail given to the FX of attacks, in typical SNK fashion (and no surprise, heavy fx work is another characteristic of anime). All in all, Garou's anime aesthetic give it more rough and punk look, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
3S is the game that got me into competitive 2D fighters, but Garou is much more cohesive and stylish aesthetically.
You dont see anything weird on Ryu's weak/short kick animation posted above? That kick reminds me of Mugen's Kung Fu Man. Are you sure there is more animation on that kick compared to Terry's?
If 3S hadn't had to downgrade the stages and compress the audio more for space it would be an easy win, but the sprites in 3S not being super tiny and then scaled up like MOTW did helps them look a whole lot cleaner, plus they animate better anyway. I love MOTW's visual style, for sure, but it also feels waaaay slower compared to 3S even by series standards.
The gameplay though? 3S all day. MOTW is great but parry is a better mechanic than JD, IMO.
The gameplay though? 3S all day. MOTW is great but parry is a better mechanic than JD, IMO.
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Character art direction I'd go with Garou.
Overall Visual style goes to Third Strike. The presentation was leagues better than Garou. Garou felt a little cheaper in areas.
Overall Visual style goes to Third Strike. The presentation was leagues better than Garou. Garou felt a little cheaper in areas.
Maybe Street Fighter 6 Will actually be the sequel to 3rd Strike.
If they make another prequel, I won't buy it.
I wouldn't describe Garou character designs as flamboyantly dressed. Most of the character designs are very down to earth compared to the Alpha or III series.
I'm surprised we haven't done it before. They accomplish mostly the same thing but with very different risks, rewards and integrations.
Also this, they need to learn from MK and progress the damn story. Get rid of some characters and stand by it.
The insane thing is that Garou runs on the same hardware than all other Neo Geo Games. What SNK managed to achieve on the same hardware as Fatal Fury 1 is insane.
The question itself is very hard though. But I have to go with 3rd Strike. The animations are insane, it has my favorite Ryu design and I just love the game.
The question itself is very hard though. But I have to go with 3rd Strike. The animations are insane, it has my favorite Ryu design and I just love the game.
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It would be explained. And MotW isn't the only game with it.
If they're still unfamiliar, they shouldn't vote.
Yeah they usually call it Perfect Guard or something like that but "block at the last moment for an advantage" is pretty common in action games. The only other games I've seen parrying in the "move towards the attack at the last moment" sense are CvS2 P-groove, various Platinum games, and Lucah: Born of a Dream.
