Street Fighter HD Remix Design Overview

August 18, 2014

Design Overview

Street Fighter HD Remix Features

August 18, 2014

I really pushed for Street Fighter HD Remix to be as complete and thorough as possible. Lets go over all the goodies. (You can get the game here.)

1) Two games in one.

You get the gameplay of the classic Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, just like the arcade, and the brand new sequel to that game, Street Fighter HD Remix, both in one package. (They are called Classic and Remixed in the menus.) That means you get the nostalgia of the old, awesome gameplay AND you get a new, rebalanced game guided by the wisdom that tournament pros have accumulated over the last 14 years.

The classic mode has identical gameplay to arcade ST. Note that there was lots of misinformation about this. The code we used was based on the Dreamcast version, but it also had software dipswitches to set all gameplay to exactly like the classic arcade version. Special thanks to tournament player NKI for meticulously listing every single difference so that we could perfectly match the arcade version.

That said, the Remixed version has many improvements.

2) HD graphics

Every single piece of art in the game is redrawn in 1080p HD. That includes backgrounds, characters, endings, menus, and—well—everything. Udon Comics drew most of it.

3) Remixed music

All the music in the entire game is new. Every stage, every ending, and the menus. It’s from the OCRemix community, so the fans really contributed here.

4) Widescreen mode

On an HDTV, you can play the game in its original 4:3 aspect ratio, or switch to widescreen mode to fill your screen during gameplay. Widescreen mode zooms in and has slightly different camera behavior, but has no affect whatsoever on gameplay.

5) Every combination of the features above

Whether you’re playing the Remixed or the Classic game, you can turn HD sprites on or off. If you turn them off, you’ll get the original game’s sprites scaled up in all their blocky glory. This has no impact on gameplay, it’s just visual. Regardless of whether you play in Classic/Remix and HD sprites on/off, you can also turn remixed music on/off. If you prefer the original game’s tunes, go for it, it’s up to to you. Finally, no matter which of any of those modes you’re in, you can play in widescreen mode or 4:3 mode. All of this stuff is independent so you can customize these options however you want.

Also note that when you play online, your opponent won’t even know what your choices are regarding HD sprites on/off, remixed music on/off or widescreen mode on/off. All three of those affect your experience only, and your opponent might have different settings for those options on his end.

6) Advanced networking

The art delays in this project gave us a chance to experiment with several different networking techniques and we chose the best. We went with a predictive/rollback system that has the advantage of reducing input delay. I know that sounds pretty jargon-filled, so in plain English, it makes the game feel responsive and usually look smooth even during lag. We were able to refine this from the feedback on our open beta test, and also from a few experimental things we tried in the patch to the open beta.

The final version of the game has another feature called “smoothing” that lets you turn the input delay up or down. We found that best results were generally when there’s a very small input delay of 2 frames, as that leads to smooth network play that it is still so responsive that it feels instant to most people. You can set this to suit your own tastes, but try the default setting (2 frames) first.

Note that the networking uses Tony Cannon's ggpo technique, and he consulted to ensure it was done correctly.

7) Double-blind character selection online

When you’re playing online, don’t you hate it when your opponent refuses to pick a character until the last possible moment because he’s trying to make you pick first? He wants to see who you pick so he can pick the best character to beat yours. In HD Remix, all online play has double-blind character selection. That means that you cannot see who your opponent picked or even where his character selection box is until both of you finish picking your characters. Now there’s no reason to stall on this screen, you might as well just pick your character right away.

8) 8-player tournaments

As you saw from the open beta test, you can create your own 8-player, single elimination tournaments. The results go in the leaderboards. Those results don’t contribute to any kind of actual rank (you get to choose who enters your tournaments so we can’t really make them ranked) but after the tournament is over, anyone can see the bracket to verify who won.

9) A new announcer

We got overwhelming feedback that people did NOT like the voice of the high-pitched announcer in the original game. He’s usually referred to as “Big Bird.” We replaced him with a more gruff sounding voice. While we were at it, I replaced Guile’s girly sounding “Sonic Boom” with the more manly version from Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting. Give this one some time, and you’ll realize that almost anything is better than Big Bird.

10) Revised endings

Udon revised and rewrote the story and text of the endings to make them consistent with the current canon. And of course they redrew the endings, too.

11) Original costume colors

The original game has 8 costume colors for each character, but these costumes do NOT include the original iconic colors from the first Street Fighter 2. So if you want to play Ryu wearing white or Ken wearing red, your only choice was to play the “old” versions of those characters by using a code. The old versions had slightly different (usually worse) gameplay. First of all, you no longer need a code to select the old characters in Classic mode, you choose between two different game logos: Super Turbo and Super SF2.

The cooler news here about the costume colors in the Remixed game though. You can’t play the old characters at all in that game, but of course you want to be able to pick those iconic colors. You can. Select your character with the jab button to get that character’s old-school costume. If you want the color that used to be on jab, hold any punch button for 2 seconds. That means in the Remixed game, you have access to 9 different costume colors in total.

12) The CPU difficulty

In the original game, the difficulty of the computer AI is ridiculously hard. It’s harder than in any other Street Fighter game ever. Beating the first opponent is hard and beating the third one is usually beyond hard. Well, it’s just as hard as ever if you pick Classic mode, but in Remixed mode, I fixed up the difficulty so that easy is actually easy, medium is actually medium, and so on. Try playing the HD Remix arcade mode (where you fight all the CPU opponents), then if you want to risk breaking your controller in frustration, switch to Classic arcade mode.

13) Hitbox display

In training mode, you can turn on a display of the game’s hitboxes to see what’s really going on under the hood. Blue boxes are where your character can be hit and red boxes are where you can hit the opponent. This is my gift to the hardcore community, so they can refine their strategies more than ever.

14) Game speed

The game speeds match the arcade version of the game, but this is confusing so bear with me. In SF HD Remix, speed 3 is the default and is intended for tournament play and online play. It’s the same speed as Japanese arcade speed 3, which is also known as US arcade speed 2. You don’t really have to understand what’s going on with all that, just play at the default speed 3 and be happy that it matches the arcade.

Furthermore, there is a speed 0 in there for the hardcore players. On all speeds except 0, the game uses its own system of dropping frames in order to increase speed (we didn’t touch this, the arcade version did it too). This does affect whether some combos are possible/impossible. Speed 0 is slow, but it will let combo masters and makers of combo videos take frame-dropping out of the equation when they are trying to figure out which crazy combos are possible.

15) Dipswitches

The Dreamcast version has several secret dipswitches for turning bug fixes on and off. We took the dipswitches that actually affect gameplay and put them in a menu for you to adjust, if you want. These only affect offline matches, so you can’t use them online. For example, they let you turn on or off the ability for Chun Li to “store” her super. Note that the default setting for many of these is for a given bug to be fixed in Remixed mode but still unfixed in Classic mode (have to stay true to the original!).

Here's a list of the dipswitches you can toggle:

Ability to throw an opponent who was dizzied by a throw
Ability to store Honda's super
Ability to store Honda's command throw
Ability to store Chun Li's super
When Bison does a headstomp that hits a rising opponent only a few pixels above ground level, he briefly pauses
Old Characters in Classic Mode can cancel the same normal moves into special moves as...Super/Super Turbo characters
Slowdown during hit-stun
Percentage chance that the first frame of Old Ryu's air hurricane kick is unblockable
Percentage chance that the first frame of Old Ken's air hurricane kick is unblockable
Percentage chance that the first frame of Akuma's air hurricane kick is unblockable
Percentage chance that the first frame of Blanka's horizontal ball is unblockable
Percentage chance that the first frame of Blanka's vertical ball is unblockable
Vega's super drains the meter when he...touches wall/grabs opponent
Ability for Sagat to perform a reversal Super
Can do Sagat’s super using a kick button during a 1 frame window
Dhalsim’s reversal super
Ken’s reversal super
Some moves, such as Chun Li’s throw, which normally require a forward/back input can be done with an up input.

16) The dipswitch “hat”

I didn’t want to have to worry about tournament situations where someone changes the dipswitches to their advantage without anyone realizing it. In SF HD Remix, if you change even one dipswitch, a blue dot with a chrome enclosure will appear at the top middle of the screen, above the KO box. It looks kind of like a hat for the KO icon. Anyway, if you see that, you immediately know that someone has changed the dipswitches. Dipswitches don't affect online play, so you don't have to worry about any tricks there.

17) Button config

You get the best button config screen we could think of. Both players can set their buttons at the same time. It’s NOT that horrible kind of button config where it lists the buttons, then you have to scroll through various functions for that button. That kind is bad because when it says Y Button, or whatever, you might not even know which button that is if you have an arcade joystick. Even if you know, it takes a moment to think about it and figure out what is what.

Our button config works like this. You don’t have to know what any buttons are called and you don’t have to care about the layout on your controller or joystick. You simply press the buttons on your controller in this order: jab, strong, fierce, short, forward, roundhouse. That’s it. You don’t even have to tap down in between: we do that for you automatically. Furthermore, after you press those 6 buttons, you’ll end up on something called “unassigned.” If you press the remaining two buttons on your controller, we’ll unassign those for you so they don’t do anything if you accidentally hit them. If you unassign those (so you did 8 presses total) then we’ll move the menu highlight to ACCEPT for you automatically. Also note that we even support mapping more than one button to a function if you want. If you want two fierce buttons, then go for it!

18) Competition. Street Fighter HD Remix is built on the solid foundation of a known-good competitive game and then made many balance improvements on top of that. The worst characters are better and the best characters are slightly worse. Many lopsided matchups are closer now. All of this was guided by and tested by top tournament players, including John Choi, Graham Wolfe, Jason Cole, and Tokido. It's more accessible to new players than what came before it, and it's also better tuned for experts.

Find some competitors to learn with and dive in.

Street Fighter HD Remix Complete Change List

August 18, 2014

Ryu

New move: fake fireball. qcf+short.

Ken

Main Changes

Strong dragon punch is invulnerable on the way up, exactly like Old Ken's, and also always knocks down. It's now a 1-hit move, not 2-hit.
Fierce dp has bigger arc, always knocks down, juggles against jump-ins, but no additional invulnerability.
"Crazy kicks" have simplified joystick motions. Was: 1) f,df,d+ any kick, 2) qcf+ any kick and 3) hcf+ any kick. New motions: 1) qcf+short, 2) qcf+forward, 3) qcf+roundhouse.
Super can be used as a reversal.

Small Changes

Short helicopter has shorter duration.
Medium helicopter kick goes slightly farther.
Roundhouse helicopter kick goes farther and faster.
Roundhouse helicopter kick does less dizzy (about half as much).
Air roundhouse helicopter goes slightly farther.

Knee Bash Nerfs

Damage lowered on first hit of knee bash hold.
Range of knee bash hold reduced by a small amount.

Guile

Roundhouse flash kick now travels forward rather than straight up and hitbox altered so that it whiffs against ducking opponents at long range.
Super has easier motion: charge db, d, df, f, uf+ kick. (Old motion still works.)
Super does less damage but juggles better, so it ends up doing a little more damage versus jumping opponents and less versus standing opponents.
Upside down kick is an overhead
Upside down kick slowed down slightly (20 frames of startup; for comparison Ryu's overhead is 16 frames, Fei Long's is 22 frames.)
Upside down kick can be performed at any range, not just closer range, by holding towards+roundhouse.
Upside down kick has much lower priority because it can be used as a poke at any range now.

Honda

Better vs. Fireball Characters

Jump short has higher priority, can hit sweeps.
Floating fierce move (jump straight up + fierce) can be steered farther left/right.
Jab torpedo can destroy fireballs!
Super now knocks down and juggles.

Worse vs. Non Fireball Characters

Strong and fierce versions of hundred hands have much lower priority and all versions do a little less damage.
Ochio throw now bounces off the other way, preventing Honda from repeating it in the corner
Ochio throw now deals the same dizzy points as other throws rather than twice as much.

Misc

Hundred hands easier to execute (now requires 3 presses of a given punch button rather than 4 presses).
Jab torpedo travels shorter distance (so it can't hit Sagat's hands after a tiger shot from full screen.)
Super travels 10% slower before first hit, but travels faster after first hit.
Super can no longer be "stored."
Super input window is larger and is a fixed size, rather than random size.

Blanka

Horizontal ball has safer recovery.
Horizontal ball with jab and strong have same sound effect and same spinning speed as fierce version.
Horizontal ball with jab and strong travel slightly shorter distance so whiffed roll into bite is a little more effective.
"Rainbow roll" has faster startup and safer recovery.
Hop move has new command: hold stick left or right then jab+short OR strong+forward OR fierce+rh. (Old motion of KKK still works).
Hop back builds much less super meter.
Forward version of hop has 9 frames of foot-invulnerably at startup (but seems to hardly help).
Electricity easier to execute (now requires 3 presses of a given punch button rather than 5 presses).
Super move has faster startup, faster recovery (safe on block), and always knocks down if it hits.
Super input window is larger and is a fixed size, rather than random size.

Zangief

Control Motion Changes

Green hand command changed to qcf+p (used to be f,df,d+p)
SPD command easier: hcb,f+p OR hcf,b+p. (Original 360 command still works)
Super command easier, hcb,hcb,f+p OR hcf,hcf+p.
Running Grab (and double suplex) command is now hcb+k OR hcf+k.
Kick lariat can now be done with jab+short as well as original KKK command.
Punch lariat can now be done with strong+forward or fierce+roundhouse as well as original PPP command.

Buffs

Green hand has 4 frames better recovery.
Running Grab runs faster.
Kick lariat has invulnerable feet during Zangief's first rotation, but vulnerable feet after that.
Punch lariat's initial hitframe now extends down to the floor so it can hit Dhalsim's low fierce or sometimes Guile's low forward. As before, this hitbox is only active for 6 frames out of the entire lariat.
Hop move can only be done with towards + fierce. No longer possible with back+fierce, back+strong, or towards+strong.
Hop travels farther forward, higher, and has much better recovery.
Jumping (forward/away) strong has hitbox that reaches slightly farther forward. (This was mainly to hit air Vega air-to-air, but hardly helps).
Low fierce has slightly higher hit box, mainly to hit Vega's off-the-wall attacks.

Nerfs

Kick lariat has a different sound effect on startup than punch lariat to help opponents distinguish the two.

Chun Li

Control Motion Changes

Super input window is larger and is a fixed size, rather than random size.
Aerial spinning bird kick can be done with charge down, up+kick, so that you can do it after a pogo, like in SF2:Hyper Fighting

Buffs

Removed df+medium kick move (it only ever got in the way, so removing it helps her).
Ground spinning bird kick has a new parabolic arc. It can also air-juggle and deals a fair amount of dizzy.
Aerial spinning bird kick travels more straight now, then falls in an arc at the end
Lighting legs easier to execute (now requires 3 presses of a given kick button rather than 5 presses)

Nerfs

df+roundhouse (the "neckbreaker") no longer crosses up, removing the loop of repeated knockdowns against some characters.
Lighting legs do less damage and have barely worse priority in Chun Li's stomach area.
Chun Li's super can still be stored, but deals much less damage, and follow up with upkicks can get only one extra hit on some characters and usually misses against others.

Dhalsim

Control Motion Changes

Teleport command requires only 2 punch buttons or 2 kick buttons rather than 3.
Yoga flame changed to qcb+p so it doesn't overlap fireball command.
Upward yoga flame changed to qcb+k to match other yoga flame.
Super changed to hcb,hcb+p to match yoga flame command.
Super input window is larger and is a fixed size, rather than random size.

Buffs

Upward yoga flame now travels way up the screen with roundhouse version to hit pesky off-the-wall Vegas.
Super can now be done as a reversal.

Nerfs

Teleport recovery is not longer, but the last 9 frames are vulnerable, rather than the last 3.
Super does less damage, around 50% rather than 60%.
Super is now more vulnerable around Dhalsim's head and throwable from behind.
Noogie hold has shorter range.
Ducking ranged punches no longer cleanly go under Guile's Sonic Booms.

Balrog

Turn punch and headbutt award less super meter.
Small and medium headbutts travel slightly farther and are barely less safe.
Throw range decreased slightly.
First hit of throw does less damage.
Turn Punch can be performed by holding 2 punches or 2 kicks, rather than all 3
Super does a little less damage (around 50% rather than 60%).
Super input window is larger and is a fixed size, rather than random size.

Vega

Defensive backflip command changed to jab+short for small version; strong+forward OR fierce+roundhouse for double flip version (old commands of KKK and PPP still work)
Offensive flipkick can no longer be charged straight back (must be charged down/back).
Off-the-wall attack no longer knocks down
New Wall Dive Fake: After going off the wall (charge down, then up+k), you can press kick again to drop without attacking.

Sagat

Note: in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, there are two versions of Sagat called Old and New. Old was more powerful but had no super move. HD Remix Sagat is based on New Sagat, meaning he does have a super, he can tech throws, and he does have New Sagat's very good cross-up with jumping medium kick.

Control Motion Changes

Tiger knee is now f,d,df+k (dragon punch motion).

Balance Changes

Fireball recovery is better than New Sagat but worse than Old Sagat. Here are the startup and recovery times for the short, forward, and roundhouse fireballs:

Version Startup   Recovery (Short/Forward/Roundhouse)

ST Old Sagat
11
38/38/38

ST New Sagat
13
46/48/50

AE Sagat
11
46/46/46

HD Sagat
13
41/42/43

Tiger knee always knocks down and it juggles (but NOT into a super, except in combo videos)
Tiger knee damage and dizzy reduced because of new juggle property
Super has more range and always knocks down if it hits.
Super can be done as a reversal.
Stand strong can cancelled into special moves still, but second hit of stand short and second hit of stand forward cannot be cancelled into special moves.

Bison

Devil's reverse (charge down, up+punch) has 2 frames of invulnerability at startup, and several more frames where feet and midsection are invulnerable, allowing it to pass through fireballs.
Stand jab has better priority, can stop Honda's torpedo and Blanka's roll but is not any better as an anti-air attack.
New move: df+roundhouse is a fake slide that travels short distance and recovers faster than the real slide.
Jump straight up + strong now juggles the same as jump toward/away + strong.
Super input window is larger and is a fixed size, rather than random size.

Cammy

Control Motion Changes

Hooligan throw motion changed to qcf+p (remember to hold a direction, then press kick while close and in-air to get the actual throw).
Spinning backfist motion changed to qcb+p so it doesn't overlap hooligan throw motion.

Buffs

Spinning backfist is invulnerable to fireballs and sweeps during startup. Cammy's head is vulnerable through out this move though.
Spinning backfist's hitbox on 2nd hit is bigger so that it doesn't fail to get 2nd hit if the 1st hit connects.
Cannon drills have much better recovery.

Nerfs

Cannon spike is usually not safe on block anymore.
Short cannon drill has worse priority in front because it can be used repeatedly now that it has better recovery.
Jump toward/away strong punch has barely worse priority so that Dhalsim's slide can beat it. Jump straight up strong unchanged.

Fei Long

Control Motion Changes

Flying Kick motion changed to qcf+k.
Rekka punch motion is a little more forgiving, so it's not as hard to get all 3 in the series.

Buffs

Short version of flying kicks have additional frames of partial invulnerability, allowing them to go through fireballs at the start.
Medium and roundhouse flame kicks always knock down and can juggle. Because of this, flying kicks (juggle) -> flame kick (juggle) is a new standard combo. The total juggle limit shared by flying kicks / flame kicks is 4 hits. After 4 juggle hits, it's still possible to juggle with a super.
Rekka Punches travel a little farther.
Super travels farther.

Nerfs

Flying kicks have lower priority on first hit, allowing them to be countered air-to-air a little more easily.
Flying kicks have 5 additional frames of recovery to prevent them from comboing into stand fierce, rekka x 3. Usually leaves Fei Long about neutral on block (time to flame kick!)
Short flame kick is no longer safe on block from point-blank range.
Fei Long's head is vulnerable during 4th and 5th hits of the super (and can't go through fireballs during that, but still can during first 3 hits).
Super meter gains slightly reduced on flame kick and flying kicks.

Misc

After the last hit of the super, it is not possible to juggle further. (You couldn't anyway in ST due to startup time on flying kicks, but new juggle properties on flame kicks would have allowed this.)

Dee Jay

Machine Gun Punch, much easier to get all the hits (charge down, up+punch, mash punches)
Machine Gun Punch destroys fireballs.
Machine Gun Punch does less dizzy and less damage than before.
Medium and Roundhouse Dread Kicks, 2nd hit sped up so that it almost always hits if the first hit connects.
Medium and Roundhouse Dread Kicks have a few frames of foot-invulnerability at startup (can hit sweeps).
Medium and Roundhouse Dread Kicks have reduced damage because of improved ability to combo.
Super input window is larger and is a fixed size, rather than random size.

T.Hawk

Control Motion Changes

Hawk dive command changed to jab+short OR strong+forward OR fierce+roundhouse while in air (old command PPP still works)
Special throw command easier: hcb,f+p OR hcf,b+p, and you can actually start in down/back or down/forward. (Original 360 command also still works.)
Super command easier: hcb,hcb,f+p OR hcf,hcf+p.

Buffs

Hawk dive's bounce changed so it ends with T.Hawk close to enemy and safe on block or hit.
Several of T.Hawk's normal moves are from Old T.Hawk, such as stand roundhouse, stand strong, and low roundhouse. All of these moves are better than New T.Hawk's versions (stand strong and stand roundhouse have better hitboxes, low roundhouse comes out much faster).
Fixed a bug where a stray hitbox on low strong could be hit from very far away.

Nerfs

Hawk dive does not knock down.
Special throw now has a whiff animation if you miss to prevent an inescapable throw loop.
Super throw bounces T.Hawk slightly farther away, but special throw still has same bounce as ST.

Akuma

Control Motion Changes

Super meter added and new super move: Raging Demon. Command is jab, jab, towards, short, fierce.
Red fireball command is now qcb+p rather than hcf+p.
Teleport command requires only 2 punch or 2 kick rather than 3.

Buffs

Air fireball can now be done lower to the ground, allowing instant air fireball using "tiger knee" motion.

Nerfs

Akuma takes slightly more damage than other characters.
Akuma can now be dizzied.
Akuma's leg is no longer invulnerable during his ducking kicks.
Red fireballs have more startup.
Blue fireballs have more startup and recovery. Now same startup as Ryu's fireball and slightly better recovery than Ryu's. Akuma's jab/strong/fierce blue fireball recovery times are 40,40,40 compared to Ryu's 41,42,43, frames.
Fierce blue fireball only has the huge knockback effect from very close range.
Helicopter kick has much less invulnerability.
Air fireball has new downward angle and causes Akuma to hang in the air slightly when thrown.
Super travels slower and farther than the secret version of Akuma in Dreamcast. Also, it has additional startup frames and cannot grab opponents during their "pre-jump" frames.