I'm still the guy sitting here happy it doesn't look Grimdark. Watching some of the Cyberpunk Gameplay in snippets yesterday, where every character seems to have a 35 second timer between spewing vulgarity and obscenities is such a trite, tired hallmark of modern gaming. Not to mention the overdone love of automated weaponry felt even less interesting after the horrible events in Florida just a day prior.
So, I don't think the current palette looks "Too Bright", either; For now, I'm just happy it has such a strong, focused art direction. That's something you get less and less of now-a-days, with the HUGE groups that are needed to work on modern projects. This really feels like it has one art director, and they get to follow their style to the tee. Not just in colors and drawing, but also in animation timing, smear / tween frame style, and line weight.
I'd like additional shades / highlight colors, but honestly? I'm glad their first pass doesn't have loads of them. Look at how Indivisible or SSF2THDR had to cut out much of that, to actually become COMPLETE GAMES. Overdoing such things early on is the mark of an artist that's used to doing stills, but not used to animation. Alternatively, overdoing the animation before taking coloring and responsivness of gameplay into account, is the mark of an animator that's never made anything playable before.
Maintaining consistency of complex details is one of the most time-consuming pitfalls of animation, and a good reason why many animators "cheat" with computer-assisted secondary tools.
I often feel like modern Brawlers don't get much love from developers, because the dev teams realize that they're not just make a game with one main character, a few special bosses, and paletteswap underlings. If you want the game to approach the top of it's genre, every mook needs to almost be as well realized as a main character in other games. They need to have their own attack patterns, distinctive styles, strengths, and variations that can be iterated on throughout the game.
Speaking of distinctive enemies, it's pretty cool that we're starting off with the SoR 1 Elecktra's here, with the M.Bison lookin' hat. Hope we see a good amount of series variations through the game.
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I started playing US SOR3 again last night, and... I really hate how long the basic attack strings stay queued in that game. Hold button attacks are way too easy to launch (a longer buffer would help), the game will always feel slidey and loose compared to 2 for me, as well. I like running only because it leads to dash attacks and more momentum control in jumps. The fact it turns up giving such loose, short hitstun and slippery controls in order to accommodate it, is a trade I'd rather not have made.
But, giving an attack string that leads to a double-over crumple / stun, so you could regain the hitstun of 2 in some way, would have gone a long way for me. It'd be a nice way to add depth, while still keeping the classic systems intact.
I wouldn't mind the return of the police strikers. Even having an optional choice between SOR2 and 3 character special moves of SOR1 striker focus, would be nice.
Can't wait for the reveal that hitting R2 changes it to pixel graphics like WB3.
And if it doesn't, I'm fine - cause it looks good already.
I'm definitely not expecting this. In Wonderboy III, the only new sprite they needed to make was Wondergirl basically, right? Otherwise, the game was running on remade original code to such a degree, that old passwords even work from other versions. All their animations fit in the old games logic and timing, even if they look smoother, because they take the same amount of time to start and end.
I can see THAT much being true here (it already looks like it with the specials shown in the trailer), but making original spritework for all the new designs they have going here? Character and Stage wise? It's probably much less likely. It'd be AWESOME, truly (it'd be 2 new games in one), but it'd be a massive undertaking. It'd probably be better to just update some old features to their new style, in this case.
Have they confirmed more playable characters or no? Adam and Skate?
I think the closest thing we have to a confirm of more characters, is the fact that the main image is cropped in a way that seems welcome for more. Blaze and Axel are the only 2 characters that make all 3 main SOR games. And Skate made 2. Preferably, they'd have 4 characters to start, and a few awesome bosses that are able to be playable characters too. (Like Najd's cousin from the trailer!).
In my dream version, each boss would be playable after beating the game, and you'd get a modified what-if story for each P1 lead. If we're going really nuts, even certain P1 P2 pairings would shift the tale. Mr. X would fight to take down a bionic clone of himself (like found in SOR3), Some bosses would be committing a mutiny to go through the whole tale, others would fight up to their own boss stages to explain why they ARE the boss of the stage they were on, and so on.
It'd be a fun way to give re-playability and alternate paths.
The beard on axel feels forced and unnecessary :v
Why? Beards are cool.
I could see them having a classic Axel playable too, though. Much like animating things like weapons and complex holds with 2D BEU characters, as long as one considers the fact that something is a "part" before animating the base model, it's not impossible to make even classic hand drawn animations with modifiable pieces. Think about how Megaman X can do all of his animations with various complete and lacking pieces of his armor. Or hoe Miss Fortune's animations can all work with or without her head on.
That's where I could see Lizardcube going the extra mile. Instead of remaking the game in 2D pixels, making the characters in a way where you could get classic and new looks out of the same basic frames + thoughtful modifications would be great. Blaze could have her SOR 2 and 3 looks with the removal of a belt and Jacket, and the coloring of her outfit to grey, for instance. Axel's got 3 additions to his look that basically make him look different from the Jeans / T shirt combo he's always had.
