Super SFIV Blog Talks Bonus Rounds

Cars and barrels are back with Super Street Fighter IV. Wondering how the revival came about? Then turn to the latest installment of the SSFIV official blog which has a discussion about the game's bonus rounds.

Here are a few points of note from the blog post.

Director Takashi Tsukamoto shared how the stages came to be included in Super SFIV instead of its predecessor. There was originally some talk about including the stages in the arcade version Street Fighter IV. However, it was unclear how much demand there would be for this, both amongst players and arcade operators. In the end, thinking that they'd rather use the development time for game balance, they skipped out on the idea.

The development staff also considered putting the bonus stages in the original home release of SFIV, but "various circumstances" kept it out.

Producer Yoshinori Ono gave the go sign for Super.

Super's car and barrel stages are new versions of older bonus stages. But there was initially a plan to include completely new stages, including some odd ones that have nothing to do with Street Fighter -- even something resembling a rhythm game. Taisaku Okada (Battle Director) recalled one idea which had Guile jumping between fighter planes in mid air!

They ended up going with the car and barrel stages after surveying the development staff. When asked about Street Fighter bonus stages, 10 out of 10 staffers surveyed mentioned the car destruction stage. This was the first stage decided for inclusion.

One stage wasn't enough, though. For a second stage, there were a number of opinions for such things as barrels and drum cans. Since they were making a second stage anyway, they decided that it should be something different from the car stage, leaving still objects, like drum cans, out.

Speaking specifically about the car stage, Okada revealed that the car itself actually has quite a bit of reality to it. There was also a lot of consideration given to the make of the car. SFII's car was a sedan, SFIII's car was an RV Car. For Super SFIV, there was an idea of having a giant yellow truck like you'd see in a construction area, and even the idea of having a tank. However, because one of the game's themes was "returning to the basics," they decided to go with a sedan.

The difficulty of the car stage is at the level of Street Fighter II, said Okuda. It's harder than SFIII's stage. In SFIII, you could destroy the car by simply punching away at one side. Super mimics SFII, right down to having an order for destroying the car.

Moving on to the barrel stage, Masahiro Taguchi (technical director) said that it's possible to simply duck and use punches to clear the stage. However, you'll end up with a low score. Getting a high score will require that you use special moves and combos.

For those who have trouble with the bonus stages, here's who the staff recommends: Blanka. This, Okada said, is reminiscent of SFII.