This is just a stream of consciousness concerning the three big bugbears I have right now: Guarding, the Fifth Button and Rage Ultras.
- Do I have a Guard Bar in? It would discourage the usual turtle behaviour that comes with MvC-style mechanics, and I can have Guard Crush and an Alpha Counter run off of it, since not every character will have sprites for Advancing Guard. On the other hand, it might be better to just have an Alpha Counter that uses Meter instead.
- The Fifth Button will be used for Hero Skills, which are basically V-Skills. I'm also thinking about having Hero Powers, which would work akin to the Infinity Storms from MvCI/V-Triggers from SFV. But if I do that, do I have all that run off a seperate meter? Do I make the Alpha Counter part of the Hero Skill system or have the Guard Bar as well? Or is that too much visual/mechanical clutter and should I just have Hero Skills on their own?
- Should Rage Ultras even be a thing? I've always toyed with the idea of something like it, but are they really neccesary when I'm going to be having Lvl 3 Supers and potentially Hero Powers as well? Is it too much to throw into the system already?
So for the roster, my initial starting point is the roster for the unreleased
Capcom Fighting All-Stars, of which this is technically a remake. That roster, going from interviews and so on, ran as thus:
- Ryu (Street Fighter)
- Chun-Li (Street Fighter II)
- Akuma (Street Fighter II Turbo - Hidden)
- Alex (Street Fighter III)
- Charlie/Nash (Street Fighter Alpha)
- Mike Haggar (Final Fight)
- Poison (Final Fight)
- Batsu Ichimonji (Rival Schools)
- Akira Kazama (Rival Schools)
- Strider Hiryu (Strider)
- Demitri Maximoff (Darkstalkers - Hidden)
- D.D. (Original)
- Rook (Original)
- Ingrid (Original)
- Kyo Kusanagi (The King of Fighters - Hidden Guest)
- Avel/Death (Original - Final Boss)
Going from this starting point, I'm considering the following changes:
- D.D. and Rook have no way to exist as of now, so they're out. Therefore, Ingrid is also out, since there's no point having here there if the other Code Holders aren't in. Also, I'm pretty sure everyone hates Ingrid
- I don't like Akuma, so he's going out. Ryu is going to get extra tools, akin to SFV, to make up for it.
- Demitri doesn't have contemporary English voice acting I can use. He's going to be replaced, either with Morrigan (using Li-Kun's sprites), Felicia or Jedah.
- Akira has no decent sprites, and I'm not prepared to wait for someone to rip her SFV voice when she comes out, as that's so far in the future for me. She'll either be replaced with Tiffany or dropped for, say, Jill Valentine.
- Rouge (Power Stone) will remain in from Capcom Heroines, as I promised. She'll take Ingrid's spot on the roster.
- Poison might get replaced with Rolento or Maki, since the sprites out there at the moment aren't very good. I might wait for Lady Poison by Ethan Lives to come out so I can base her on that version, but I don't know how long it'll be until that version of the character comes out.
- I'm not a big fan of Alex or Charlie, so I'm thinking of swapping them out. My options are (for SFA) R. Mika or Karin, and (for SFIII) Dudley, Ibuki or Gill. The trouble here is that Gill might overlap with Jedah in terms of "villainous saviour" character.
- The guest character will change, most likely being Terry, Geese, Jin Kazama or Sub-Zero. I'm not worrying about the final boss until later in development.
- As for who will fill the remaining slots. I'm torn as hell. Keeping in mind the "contemporary English voice" which is the only real limit I've put on myself, I want to try and get a good variety of characters, but not have to stretch probability for the character to be in the shared "World of Capcom" I'm trying to create. So as much as I want to put a Mega Man or Red Earth character in, that might be hard to justify given how specific their settings are.