Should Akira be the main charater of VF?

Or having special cutscenes or winposes when rivals are against each other

 

In vf2 there was a special stage when sarah and jacky were the 2 fighters. Something like that could be cool.
About the topic, i'm really traditional, leaving akira as posterboy it's something i won't see.
To sell better sega should pay to make another vf's anime. The previous one wasn't really good (animation and story) but was something that pushed people to try the game (like me). Another anime would really help in selling vf5fs and with the new tecniques in graphics a new anime will be much better to see.

 

Should be Sarah, Pai, and Eileen, sexed out on the cover. You know, to sell the game to those hard up, uber geeks. Hey it works for DOA!

j/k.

 

All of this nonsense applies to Ryu too.... And since when did Ryu being the poster boy hurt SF's sales or brand awareness?

 

Ryu has easy, and flashy specials, supers and ultras... He has a rival (Ken), and he was redone from SF1 to SF2, and at that point, his outfit was cool enough so that nothing really mattered at that point. And now Ryu has an alternate outfit you can wear in SF4 and more in SSF4...

Only flashy move Akira's got (in VF5) is DLC, and he has a few more in FS...

 

I think you're fighting a losing battle Jinx. What about any VF character is really that flashy looking when compared to the sparkles of Ryu?

I love VF but nothing makes you go OH SHIT! (Except for the bodycheck, shit they even put it in the racing game) Todays SF is built on those oh shit moments.

 

Every SF fan I know who doesn't play VF, likes Akira. I'd say he's fine as the 'poster boy.'

 

[/quote] All of this nonsense applies to Ryu too.... And since when did Ryu being the poster boy hurt SF's sales or brand awareness? [/quote]

thank you for making my point. I'm saying that Akira makes Virtua Fighter seem like it is trying to be another Street Fighter when it is anything but. What they need to do is change Akira up to give Virtua Fighter it's own personality. Either that or they need to pick a different character to distinguish it from other fighters. We are the hardcore so we see it already. But if Virtua Fighter is going to be a success then they need to attract more people. Using a character that looks so much like Ryu yet has a super steep learning curve is the wrong way to do it.

 

Needs moar TATSUMAKI SENPUUKYAKU.

But no, I agree.
Akira is kinda boring and too serious for casual gamers.
I agree, they need to spice it up, give him some personality, hell, make the guy smile more!

Or just use someone more appealing like Jean or Kage.
Badass Karate guys and Ninja's go down well right?

 

I can't lose (shakes fist Hulk Hogan style)... j/k

But yeah that Steel Mountain Shoulder is dope - now that it does old school VF damage... Ok ok it was aight before that, too... I wasn't really sweating him being the posterboy, per sé... I was just saying that it would be good to have Jean as one, or if they decide to continue to keep Akira, redo his gear...

But they still don't play the game...

 

Right, and none of the other characters will cause them to all of a sudden either.

VF characters ARE plain, but it's how you play them and customize that gives them life. Their movesets are who they are, that's what's so dope about them imo.

 

Yeah but no, his SF2 outfit is practically the same as Akira's apart from Ryu has a different colour headband. He also didn't get the supers till a good few games later, none of those hurt SF2 in anyway.

EDIT: The main character of VF should be V.

 

...for Vendetta???

 

Remember, Remember, the fifth of November...

 

yep,
except that means you will only like them after playing the game a shitton, basically the characters aren't a HOOK to play the game, they are practically a negative hook.
Any new player will be turned away unless they play for a good amount of time, then they will convert the blank slates that are the VF characters into there own fantasy.
Don't get me wrong, I love the VF cast (and hate some of them) but a newbie isn't going to and thats probably a reason for the game not selling or being very popular.

 

And if people thought Akira was an easy character to learn, it would be different... Think of all those Lei-Fei mashers (both old and new) and just wonder with me if he were the main character...

I've seen mashers do combos of all sorts. Yes it sounds like an oxymoron, and those combos weren't at all maximum damage, but they obviously feel he's "easier" to learn... I mean you can google it, and there are tons of people saying how hard VF is in general, and steep learning curve, blah blah blah...

The thing with posterboy/main characters is that most people will just pick him either as an "entry-level" character to learn the game, or just because he's the main guy and the story might evolve around him (Alex, Ryu, Siegfried, Kazuya, Shiki Tohno, etc). It would be good if that particular character was at least easy to learn ~ hard to master. Just looking at many peoples responses over the past few years, Akira is not that person... Personally, I can play with Akira. There's a huge skill gap difference between him and my Jeffry, but I can still play with him.

Average Joe-schmoe might learn Akira's moves, but won't be able to really do anything with him in a match... Granted, some cats simply play to have fun, but they wanna feel like they're doing something. All Joe-schmoe needs to do in SF is pull off a hadoken, and maybe a shoryuken or 2 and they feel accomplished- like they're doing something. I've seen people mash out in Tekken like that, and they were excited and felt like they've accomplished something once they did a string, or a portion of a 10-hit string, or even a move that had a flash effect.

I'm not trying to sound like Aris, 'cause honestly I don't mind Akira being the "main guy". I don't really care who the main guy is, 'cause I play for the fighting system, and the character's style in that system, not story or whatever (he's my warm up character sometimes when I wanna beef my inputs). I just think that if he were to stay in that position, something should be done so that from a marketing stand point, Joe Schmoe can see Akira and say "oh I wanna learn him", pick the game up and play with Akira, and feel accomplished, even if its to a small degree of accomplishment. I'm not saying dumb Akira down that he's retarded. Keep some level of difficulty to him, just make him more accessible...

 

What about not having a character on the box?

 

That works too!!! I'm pretty sure if it was flashy enough, it might work... But think about it, most fighting games from Tobal No. 1 all the way to SSF4 have at least 1 main character on the box. SC4 had Siegfried or Nightmare and some other characters depending on which console you bought it for. Street Fighter 2 had Blanka doing the roll on Chun Li, and some other characters in later editions. Tekken 2 had all of their characters on the box (it almost reminded me of the tier listing in T2)... So having a character on there is a good marketing tactic. The question is, who, and how many...

I mean VF4 had all the characters and Akira's head blown up... VF4Evo had Akira with a burning fist (that might work Sega) and the then 2 new characters in the background (Brad and Goh). VF5 had all the characters in the background so small that you couldn't really see them, and the 2 new characters in the foreground fighting (still at a small size). Half of Akira's head is in the back ground, and its blown up, overshadowing everyone else there... Personally, if they do decide to release the game and have some sort of box art, (be it physical or digital) it should have Akira and Jean fighting with a bunch of effects in there to show the intensity of the bout... It would attract the old heads and newcomers, and they see Jean who seems like an easier character to learn, and looks more badass than Akira. Another imagined sold copy of VF5FS...

 

Build rivalries it's really the easiest thing to do. Character interaction would be badass. Hell people here Jizz whenever they see they're favorite characters emoting or something (see win poses) VF characters need more personality. Say imagine Goh looking at Akira and doing the throat slit motion then a thumbs down and Akira standing there with poise or yelling HOrra Horra Hora! Before they fight or something. Or Lau turning his back to Pai when she's talking to him or something.

Remember the hype on R and Jean when we first saw him? It was the interactive preview with the red shit and all that did it.
MORE INTERACTION! Do want.

 

It does build hype... I remember the Blaze/Wolf vids way back that showed them fighting, and there was some hype there... Chun Li having a female rival, let alone someone other than Vega was pretty dope, too... Same with Guile and Abel... Aoi/Brad and Lau/LeiFei are good somewhat new rivalries that brought some attention to VF... There are just some aspects of a fighting game that can't really be open-ended in relation to marketing. There's gotta be some sort of correlation between the characters in the series. Without that, they do seem somewhat bland. Yes we do bring life in the characters, but for some there has to be something there that will make the player want to "connect" with the character(s)... Just knowing half of something about a character isn't enough...