I was going to write a review of Fez. You know, traditional review structure, explain the story, go over the gameplay mechanics, describe the graphics… But in the end, I decided that would be a waste of everyone’s time. Instead, I am going to gush about the place the game is set, and how it is the most complete imaginary world I have ever encountered. even though I know next to nothing about it for sure. The evolution of it’s inhabitants should be first port of call.
This actually blew my mind when I realised it: Gomez’s ancestors, the ones with the tall heads and only one eye – their village was in two dimensions and their rooms couldn’t be rotated. Did they live in two dimensions simply because they only had one eye? If perception is the key to understanding the world, then maybe. It’s like trying to explain the colour red to someone who cannot see! I digress. They eventually evolved into more Gomez-looking creatures but with large, square heads, and most importantly: two eyes. When you go to their village and it is inhabited, it is clearly in three dimensions, with no rooms being neglected like in the tall-head village, or in Gomez’s home village. Now, this is the bit that felt like a penny dropping into place: The space-squids have three eyes, and can travel through folds in space, quite possibly known as the fourth dimension.
A correlation between number of eyes and number of dimensions perceived.
Dave suggested people play this on the 16th of February. Despite already owning the game, I never got around to playing it until July. Appropriately enough, July was blazing hot (this game is set in a wrecked Dubai, after a cataclysmic sand-storm), and it really added to the atmosphere of the game.
And I am only just writing about it now.
Standard.
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I recently posted a little review type thing on another Street Fighter art book, Street Fighter: The Complete History, and it featured a very broad range of Capcom’s internal artists. This, on the other hand, is mostly the work of one man. Ikeno.
It was those gorgeous character select screen portraits by Ikeno that made me look more carefully at the art of Street Fighter IV. Those subtle, overlapping brush-strokes, the vibrant and diverse colours which interweave to give the images warmth and life. The masterful way that faces and leading hands are super-detailed, but everything that is not a natural focal point recede into concept art-like quality. Compared to the dodgy character select screen portraits in the original Street Fighter II – it’s not only indicative of the power increase in consoles nowadays, but also the care and attention to detail that is required in AAA videogame titles. An interesting bit of trivia: the aforementioned portraits were created with the in-game 3D models. Sadly, these models lacked the requisite amount of detail, so Ikeno painted over them. You may think this is cheating, but the 3D models are based on Ikeno’s original sketches and designs, and very closely resemble them, so it comes full circle.
Hi. David got me this book a while back now, and I have been wanting to write about it for ages. While the main focus is art from Street Fighter II, the book starts with Street Fighter and before it ends up at Street Fighter IV it covers Street Fighter Alpha, Final Fight, the X-Men/Marvel vs. Street Fighter/Capcom series, the Capcom vs. SNK games and even goes into the professional EVO fighting tournaments and Chun-Li cosplay. But as I said, it’s main focus is art from Street Fighter II, and that is where this book excels. It surely includes the promo art for every character in every iteration of SFII, tonnes of concept and design pieces, and every single group shot I can ever recall seeing.
It takes in every style: The dorky and awkward original portraits before the fighters personalities had been properly defined. The boldly-lined block colour pictures where all the characters are “attacking” the canvas from Street Fighter II Turbo (you can tell it’s Turbo because everyone is in their alternate colour by default). The younger and wilder anime-style illustrations from the Alpha series. The grittier, more angular style from Street Fighter III. It also very briefly features some of the captivating sumi-e art from Street Fighter IV, with ink flying everywhere. The book also includes a lot of fan-art and art by non-Capcom artists, a neat way of showing the vast ocean of people who love and are inspired by the imaginative characters of the series.
My only problem with the book is that it is a little bit scattershot. I would’ve preferred the artworks to be more organised – via game, artist or character, for example. But to be honest, it is such a small, meaningless complaint, as by browsing through the book, you are encountering art you would not necessarily expect, or be seeking.
Now, enough of the book itself. It finally put names to the artists who drew these amazing pictures of the characters I have loved for twenty years, so it’s time for me to gush like a silly little fanboy and praise them to bits. Here are three of my favourite Street Fighter artists, with a brief description of their art-style.
