The Mugen Fighters Guild

How is it going lads? Been meaning to make a post like this at the start of the year to discuss past, present and future in terms of character creation. I think I had a good run in 2024 and I hope that 2025 is as good if not even better. With this message my idea is to give you guys a bit of insight regarding the state of every single one my characters, and also talk a little bit about things that might see the light of the day rather soon.

Past few years…
First, let's talk 2023. Late 2023 is the moment I decided I didn't want to leave my characters to rot anymore. As you guys know, there is a huge leap of quality between my old projects and my current ones; that's mostly because back in the day I was not as skilled as I am now, but also because I always pursued new projects instead of polishing the old ones. For years I've teased an Iori updates but always moved on to the next thing, and 2023 was the year I decided I had enough. Iori rework went really well, and adding Claw was a dream came to reality, but the best thing out of it may have been my commitment to keep him updated with every subsequent character release. Ryu also occupied an important place in this shift of mentality, as it served as Template of my characters going forwards that was also systematically updated with every release.
This led to 2024, and what a year 2024 was. Ever since her release in SFV, I wanted Akira so bad to be a thing. Then Rabano came out of nowhere and updated chuchoryu's lackluster set into something that has no right being that good. After that, I pursued the Evil Ryu update and that led me to Gouki, which started as a way for me to test the template for one week, and snowballed into a character with 3 modes. After that, it came down to Ash and Dudley. Both projects were very much present in my mind for years, but always seemed so far away. I think the wait was worth it because otherwise they may have turned into victims of lack of maintenance. Even though both dropped a couple of days ago, Shadow Ryu and Angel were both completed in late 2024. Angel proven me that some of the characters in my vault are capable of being updated without being remade from scratch, which made me very happy. Shadow Ryu on the other hand was another huge step into making the definitive Ryu (2 modes left to go!) I always wanted to make.
This is all coupled with the outstanding support that I've received from the community, which manifested itself in words of support, relentless feedback, countless palettes, multiple custom sprites and animations, and four character of the month awards that I'm very proud of. Because of that, I do need to thank you guys from the bottom of my heart.
With this being said, I'd like to talk the characters that are already out first.

The current line-up

Genjuro

I'm very fond of Genjuro. It's my oldest character and as such he is my most flawed character. It uses boxes from VSP, and its frame data is designed around equivalencies made by comparing Haohmaru from both games. It's the character with the most outdated system as well, which makes him a prime candidate for a rework. However, a CvS Genjuro set is being worked on, which means there's big incentive for me to wait before doing something with this character.

Blanka

The sins of this character come from my inexperience working with the data table. There's so much information that its winged strictly because I didn't knew how to get it at the time. There are issues that come strictly because of ignorance and lack of research as well. This is a character in urgent need of a rework, but I'm also in the fence about jumping to work on him ASAP because I'd like to wait and see if rippers come up with methods of getting official rips from the CPS2 games. ATM all the rips that exist were made with screen capture, and they're perfectly functional, but for a while I wanted to work with the real thing. If this don't change regarding this, I'll make him anyway, but I'd like to wait and see first.

Iori

He is up to date! And there's no minor nor major plans for him besides generic maintenance. The big plan for him was the Claw Mode, and that is done in tandem with a revamped EX Mode that really brings out everything out of the Iori character. I'll do a revision later this year to see if everything is working correctly, but I doubt I'll find anything meaningful.

Rose

Boy oh boy Rose is completely broken. At the point in time I made Rose, I was more comfortable with the tools needed to make her, but I was also very comfortable doing stupid shit that doesn't make any sense. This character has some of the most outrageous balance issues that you'll find across my characters. At the time I wanted to exacerbate every single big strength she had in the original Alpha series. As such she ended up with completely broken: neutral buttons that shut down the midrange, absurdly good projectiles that makes her zoning insane, an incredible alpha counter swings momentum like crazy, a level 3 that makes you play on your toes at certain ranges, and a Custom Combo special mechanic coupled with Drill interactions that would make you want to just walk away. This is before even mentioning bugs.
Rose is just bad. I want to remake her really bad, but I've also talked to FeLo, and he manifested interest on expanding her set with the SFV moves, enabling a secondary EX Mode. If that's on the table I wouldn't mind waiting before jumping into work on her once again.

Terry

Terry is a character that feels good but needs work, which is why I'm currently working on him. At the time I'm writing this I've finished porting all of his normal buttons and throws, and I'm half way there regarding his specials. Once I've finished porting everything from CvS, I'll start adding the extras and fleshing the character out into two modes.
After that, the long awaited Wild Wold will start being worked on. People manifested interest on completing the needed animations to turn him into a reality, but even if they're not available, I'm willing to work on him with placeholders. He'll be heavily edited from regular Terry, but different enough to be considered a new character. Take it like an echo fighter, and my character #19.5

The Twins

The twins are the last characters I made before making one of the biggest discoveries in terms of datamining from CvS (the horizontal scaling discrepancy). As such these characters have a lot of technical faults that came from bad usage of the table. There's other issues present that are tied to my lack of expertise with the characters themselves. A lot of the decisions were made strictly to mimic source, and not to improve the character design or playing experience. Genei Jin, for example, has no personal philosophy attached to it, besides me trying to mimic what 3S did because it resulted in a top tier for 3S. Yang also can't super cancel his rekkas, which is in line with his 3S appearance, but not necessarily fun. All in all, these characters don't feel mine the same way my current characters do. I'd like to revise them heavily with the perspective of someone with 5 years more of experience playing fighters, and there's nothing holding me back from picking them up, so it is entirely possible for me to remake them in 2025.

Haohmaru

Haohmaru is the first one of my old characters that holds up pretty well. The system evolved quite a bit ever since, and I know a lot more regarding data now, but it came at the right time for him to have solid character design behind. Rasetsumaru holds up pretty good as well, and I don't expect to make major changes to their movesets. I'd like to rework him, however, for him to work as a Template for other Samurai Shodown characters that I might make in the future. With this I'm not only thinking on Genjuro's rework, but also Shiki, who is being sprited weekly by FeLo. I don't know if I'm going to be the programmer of that project, but if that's the case, I'd like to work on Haohmaru from the ground up to guarantee the SamSho conversions are on point.

Angel

Angel is currently updated and fine tuned into state that I'm proud of. I reworked her unchain system to accomplish the goals I originally had in mind, while also making some of his tools more consistent. I think she is pretty good now, and is on par with my current releases!

Rugal

Rugal delivers the fantasy I was going for at the time, and not much changed ever since from my vision of what he should be. There's quite a bit of system adjustments to do that piled on over time, but nothing too crazy. Upon updating, Omega Rugal may change the most, because even tho I feel like he delivers on paper (like, I really like the moveset), it still needs adjustments on practice. I might do a complete remake of him solely because it's one of those characters that you just have to get right from the get go.

Q

Q is pretty solid, and its only victim of system rust. I'll probably fine tune him this year, and in the process, I'll try to buff him some more, as I feel he is a bit behind in terms of character strength. Much like in 3S, he does have appealing traits, but falls short often to higher character power. One of the things that I'd like to revise the most is his install, that sucks as much as it does in source atm.

Gouken

Having fine-tuned both Ryu and Gouki now, there's some stuff that needs to be changed for consistency's sake. He is also victim of a bit of system rust. I'd like to add one or two more win poses, but that might be off the table. Whenever I work on him again, I'd like to also work on a Shin Gouken Boss Mode that mirrors Shin Gouki. I might pick him up this year.

Raiden

My first collab with another programmer ended up pretty good! He is victim of a bit of system rust and some pending bug fixes, but nothing major. The biggest goal of Raiden's update will be to implement his CS fixed, which will likely take a lot of time.

Ryu

Ryu is up to date! But there's also stuff for me to do here. I really want to make his pending EX Mode based off SFV and SF6, and I really want his electricity to feel strong. I have a lot of ideas in mind about it, but nothing will come to fruition if he doesn't have Hashogeki sprites. I also want to make a final, ultimate Shin Ryu Mode that serves as a boss version of him, and uses whatever was left on the table from the other modes. I am not optimistic about getting Hashogeki in 2025, but who knows.

Akira

Akira is up to date! And I don't see myself updating her unless Rabano cames back with a huge breakthrough.

Gouki

Gouki is up to date! But there's also room for improvement on him. I really want to make Oni Mode a reality someday, but there's just too many animations missing for him to be a thing. I'd also like to expand his CS to enable a Mech Gouki palette, which could lead into a full-on Mech Gouki Mode.

Ash

Ash is up to date! But I'd like to add his missing Special Intros and Win Poses over time. It's up to FeLo and whenever he wants to revisit Ash.

Dudley

Dudley is up to date! But is in need of a revised sprite set. I'm in no rush, as I think it looks good enough even with resized sprites

Jubei

Jubei is up to date as well! And I just have to post the updates. A Color Separation is being made by MT7, so a sizable update might be on the works for the old man.

Future projects

Character #20
I already decided which character is going to be #20. It is not the wildest pick or anything like that, but it will enable me to collaborate with someone I always wanted to work with. I don't want to spoil things too much, so I'll just say that 1) is a SNK character, and 2) it has two planned modes.

Shen, Leona

These two characters are being sprited by Rabano, and he manifested interest on me being the coder for both. Funnily enough, Shen was meant to be Character #20 with NeoGeo sprites, but got canned once I started seeing what Rabano was cooking. Leona is a dream came thru.

Birdie

Another character that will likely end up with a Rabano's collab, as he frequently manifested interest on working on Birdie. I'd like for Birdie to be the next Street Fighter character I make, and I want to explore both his Alpha moveset and SFV moveset in the process.

K'

K' is a dream of mine that I eventually have to work on. The new dampir spriteset will likely be used.

Tabasa

Been wanting to honor yahya's incredible spritework with this character. It'd be fun to make an oppressive chaotic zoner out of her.

Another 3rd Strike Character

I want to make another character from 3S, but there's a huge skill issue attached to them, as I have to manually work as an animation director and cut frames for them to make sense in the gameplay I'm going for. The characters I consider the most from 3S are Makoto, Alex and Hugo.

Another CvS2 Character

There's still CvS2 characters that I want to work on myself, specifically the ones that haven't been explored that much before, such as Chang, Choi, Todo, Dhalsim, or Zangief. When you compare any of these to Ryu or Gouki in terms of interpretations, it's just not even close.

Experiments

I also want to step aside Capcom and SNK for a bit and work on characters that aren't from those companies. I have all sorts of character in my mind, such as Classic MUGEN OCs, Marvel characters, 3D characters, Anime characters, and even real-life wrestlers. I want to work on these kinds of projects strictly because I want to go thru the experience having to port stuff that is alien to the system to make things work.

Finals words
As you guys can see there's a lot on my plate, and a lot I want to add to my plate. Not all of this will be for 2025, but I think most of it will see the light of the day eventually. Hopefully you guys are pumped about it and are willing to acompany me in this journey.

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