R1665 2010-07-29 01:01:07

I've just realized that I am probably adding to the confusion by not clarifying the difference between Ryu as a fighter and Ryu as a character. I find both boring, but they are for completely different reasons.

"Fighter Ryu" (as he appears in flash vids and such) is only boring because shoto choreography has been drained dry. At this point, you'd have to be really fucking good to make a shoto fight that can be seen as fresh. God help you if you try to make shoto vs. shoto. Your viewer's computer will probably start to emit the smell of staleness before the preloader even finishes. HOWEVER, this particular type of boring is brought on by overuse and overexposure. That has nothing to do with the character itself.

"FIGHTER RYU" is only boring because he is overused. "CHARACTER RYU" is boring because he is a poorly-written cliche whose utter pointlessness is matched only by the utter senselessness of his motives.

Any "new" character created now with Ryu's "story" would be equally pointless and boring NO MATTER WHAT FIGHTING STYLE THE CHARACTER HAS. I will illustrate:

[RANT MODE] (Ryu fanboys would be well-served to stop reading RIGHT NOW.)

------------------- (I warned you.)

Ryu is a "wandering warrior" who travels around the world punching people so that he can be the best at traveling around the world and punching people. It's fucking redundant. I could understand if there was a cash prize, a book deal, keys to the city, or even a fucking cookie to be won by him doing this. There isn't. Any "reward" he could get, he apparently doesn't want. He just walks around fighting people for absolutely no good reason whatsoever.

At least Ken seemed to turn it into some kind of commercial success. He's got a boat with his name on it and everything. Guile is military and pursuing Shadaloo. Chun-Li is Law Enforcement. M. Bison wants to take over the world. All of these people have at least some legitimate reason to do what they do. Ryu doesn't. He's fucking pointless.

Now, onward to "boring":

Ryu has absolutely no personality whatsoever. Any personality that Capcom could have given him over the years was squandered. It seems that every time they had a flash of inspiration for him, they would simply swap his head and apply that inspiration to a "new" character for fear of losing that utterly soulless "spark" that they thought he had.

Let's make Ryu evil! (Akuma is born)
Let's do the "Young Indiana Jones" thing and make Ryu a scrappy youth! (Sean is born)
Let's make Ryu old and sage-like! (Gouken is born)

To add to the utter pointlessness of his "quest", Capcom gave him the Satsui No Hadou... Fucking great. Okay, so let me see if I got this straight... Ryu has a dark, destructive force in him that he fears unleashing for fear of killing people.

So....

He trains harder and becomes stronger in response so that he can better control it. (What people say.)

He trains harder and becomes stronger in response so that the evil power can do more damage when it finally takes over. (What common sense dictates.)

Wait...what? Somebody's clearly living in a poorly-written character universe.

You know, if I had some dark murderous energy in me that I feared releasing, I wouldn't continue fighting. I'd retire. I'd go home, sit on the couch, gorge myself on pizza and cheetos, and watch the Lifetime network until both my mind and body turned to seven hundred pounds of mush. Then, when my Dark Hadou took over, the damage would be contained to my living room. I COULD go out and blast people with Hadoukens, but somebody would first have to cut a very large hole in my wall and then drive me around on a forklift so I could actually line up a shot.

Basically, Ryu has all the personality of a dead tuna, but is ranked lower than dead tuna because dead tuna may at least be canned and taste good.

/[RANT MODE]

I fully realize that I may piss a few people off with this and I am probably doing myself a disservice by temporarily lowering my attitude of professionalism. Still, this needed to be said.

R1665

R1665 2010-07-29 23:42:02

ill intention? Bah... Just a difference of opinion.

Before I became a flash animator, I spent my evenings arguing politics on discussion boards. I've SEEN ill intention. I hung up my "debate" boots when I took up flash, but it's still fun to slip them on again every once in a while. Old habits die hard.

R1665

R1665 2010-07-31 11:56:09

"I guess in retrospect, the past paragraph is obvious."

Yeah, kinda.

Although quality is indeed part of it, the simple fact is that any new high-quality shoto fight will not be as innovative and interesting as an equally high-quality non-shoto one. In fact, a "lower" quality flash featuring fresh characters and choreography can trump a higher-quality one featuring shotos. ...In my eyes, at least.

Strictly from an animation standpoint, I feel that the use of shotos can do more harm to a new animator than good. Note the word "new". Guys like Proxicide and Trixiaoyu put shotos on lockdown long ago. It would take an animator of GREAT skill to contribute anything to shotos that hasn't already been provided by Prox and Trix. I sure as hell didn't add anything to shotos when I tried it. That said, many animators expend a lot of time and effort now trying to reinvent the shoto wheel. They want to make shotos fresh again. What many of them don't seem to realize is that there is a WHOLE WORLD of fighting game characters out there and the simple act of putting them to use will automatically generate freshness.

As an animator, you will always be influenced by what has come before you. Using characters who don't have much of a precedence will guarantee the freshest possible choreography on your part.

R1665