Pre E3 EXCLUSIVE: the street fighter blog interviews Seth Killian

Hi folks, E3 is only a couple days away, and we had the great opportunity to interview once again none other than our friend Seth Killian about all things Street Fighter.
Sit back and relax as this is a very long and informative read ;)

Thank You Seth for this great opportunity, especially that E3 is almost here you guys are probably very busy.
Let's talk first abt SSF2THD which fans including myself are really eager to have our hands on, the beta was released a week ago, what was the general response you guys are getting from the beta testers?

Everybody seems to love playing the game. The online experience is lightyears beyond our previous effort, and the HD art just pops off the screen.

We’ve had a few problems with connecting in online play, but that’s why we’re running this as a beta test—to catch this kind of thing and fix it so the final product will be truly outstanding. We’ve also had a lot of really great feedback from people telling us about their experiences at beta.capcom.com (which is a redirect to the Capcom-Unity.com forums). As you can see from their responses, the developers, producer, and QA team read the forum constantly, so it’s really having an impact.

- The first day the beta was released people found out abt Ken's mighty mp shoryuken, i know you guys addressed the issue by removing the abilty for the mp shoryuken to juggle but it seems from reading the forums that a lot of people are worried that other characters will have similar issues when the game is released especially that the remaining cast was not included in the beta, what is your response to that?

We’re doing our best to test as much as possible early on, by directly involving a LOT of tournament regulars from EVO, who are truly some of the best players and testers in the world. That said, some of the best things about Street Fighter are the “broken” things you can do. The game would be really boring if everybody had similar weaksauce moves, and it’s frankly just a lot of fun to experiment and find powerful tricks. Regardless, we are still making balance revisions, so have faith!

- The beta was only released for the 360, which made a lot of ps3 street fighter fans quite unhappy, are there any plans to compensate ps3 users with maybe a few street fighter ps3 exclusive surprises down the line?

We’re working on a few things for Sony’s Street Fighter fans. They aren’t meant as a substitute for the Beta, but they’re cool, and PSN users are of course still getting the fully featured SF HD Remix.

- Many people including myself have tried all kinds of button combinations during the select screen to get the original SF2 character colors, especially that the video you guys recently released had Ken in a red gi, are the original colors not included in the beta, and will they be available in the final game? (you have already answered this for me but i just thought the publich might want to hear what you think abt it)

Things are still in progress, but they should be available again in the final product.

- you probably have seen it, how is the ryu shooting hadoken SSF2 intro looking in HD :)

There’s actually a brand-new set of menu screens, which feature an awesome looking Ryu and an even crazier Shinkuu Hadoken J

- Will SSF2THD support both the xbox live achievments and the recently announced PS3 trophies systems?

There are a lot of cool achievements, which were actually chosen by Capcom-Unity.com members themselves! Unfortunately, the PS3 trophies system was announced too late in development to be included.

- E3 is only couple days away what can we expect from capcom during the event in terms of the street fighter franchise?

E3 will have the latest build of SF HD Remix in full effect, plus six Street Fighter IV arcade cabinets, director’s chairs, and the debut appearance of the magical SFIV rug! I will also be handing out one-handed beatings to an unlucky few.

- Talking about Street Fighter 4 how is the home console développement coming along?

It’s looking great. I hope we’ll be showing demos of the console version soon, because I think people will be excited to see how beautiful it will be on their home setups.

- During Captivate 08, you guys have announced anime prologues and epilogues for every street fighter 4 character for the home versions can you elaborate a bit on that?

The classic SF2 endings were basically just still shots or at best very lightly animated. The team liked the style of the anime so much that they decided to use it as a special treat for the endings instead of just sticking to the traditional still images and text. I think it really works well.

- The press was shown a clip of the anime cutscenes that apparently will not be in the game, when will the footage be released (if ever) to the general public ?

People will definitely have a chance to see all of that and more, but no dates to announce right now.

- Sven, over at the capcom unity blogs have previously announced that SF4 will have english voice work, while that is great will we have the ability to choose between the japanese and english voices or we will be restricted to the english one?

That decision may be up to first-party in some ways, but I can tell you that the English voice acting is—and I know nobody will believe this—really great. Even if you hate all English voicing in Japanese games, I think everyone will agree that this is the strongest BY FAR of any Street Fighter title, and was personally overseen by superfan and assistant SFIV producer David Crislip, as well as Ono-san.

- Gamestop is already taking preorders for SF4 and they stated that the game will be released on 02/03/09 any truth to that?

No release dates have been announced, officially or even unofficially.

- Last but by no means least, the upcoming Street Fighter movie, one question: Why?

Whether you loved it or hated it, the first Street Fighter movie was a solid financial success, and also brought together the musical talents of MC Hammer and Deion Sanders. The writer of the new film loves Street Fighter and has some cool ideas about a new direction. I’m hopeful the movie will live up to the potential and certainly has a lot of cool people cast for the parts.

- How will this new movie be different from the 1994 street fighter movie?

I’ve read the script, but I can’t talk directly about that. As you can probably tell from the title (Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li), it goes a lot more in-depth with a particular character rather than trying to make sure everyone in the giant SF universe gets 2 seconds of screen time.

- Any chance of seeing vandamme doing double flash kicks again in a next Street Fighter movie?

Unfortunately not—there was never a part for Van Damme in this one.

- Seth, on behalf of the Street Fighter blog and the Street Fighter blog readers i thank you very much for all your efforts and for your very precious time, thank you

The Street Fighters of the world are a brotherhood (and sisterhood—is there a unisex term for this?). We’ve waited a long time, but this is truly a great time to be a Street Fighter fan, and I’ll be doing my best to help everyone get religion on why this game changes lives.

i hope you guys enjoyed the read, and you might as well get ready for the awesome next week which will have not only E3 and its awesome capcom news and announcement but also the release date of STREET FIGHTER 4 for arcades in Japan.