With that out of the way, I'd like to bring up the topic of the Aspect ratios, and what they mean to today's gamer. In this post, I'll be referencing the 2 main television aspects, 4:3 and 16:9. We all know that up until fairly recently, most televisions have the 4:3 ratio. With the advent of HDTV, widescreen televisions are capable of a 16:9 ratio.
The image above shows an in-action shot of Street Fighter III: Third Stike and it's native aspect ratio. The image also shows you how much extra space you can obtain if you use a 16:9 ratio. In many games such as Quake, Doom, and other FPS games, it gives you an increased Field of View (FOV) so you can see more of the environment, and maybe pick off someone that you may not see in the 4:3 ratio. In games like Madden 06, the 16:9 ratio will allow you to see your entire formation without having to move the camera.
So what does this mean to fighting games?
In games like Dead or Alive 4, the additional space from the 16:9 ratio just allows you to see more, as the game is not limited to a 2D plane and the characters don't have an overexaggerated jumping motion. Let's assume that 3rd Stike would allow for the 16:9 ratio. It can have a profound impact on actual fighting game strategy, as the fighting environment is bound by two endpoints in each fighting stage. Would the one stuck in the corner have the advantage? Or the one thats doing the cornering? Will more turtling occur with the larger area to fight in? That's an argument for the Theory Fighters out there.
But what do you think? Rereleases like many of the Capcom games are bound to the 4:3 ratio. But what about any fighting games bound in the 2D plane? Will they still be at the 4:3 ratio? Or will they go the 16:9 route? And if they do, will they change age-old strategies? And what about arcade releases, rare as they may be? What happens to them?
With the advent of the Xbox 360 and it's HDTV-friendly support, who knows what we'll get when Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting comes out on Xbox Live Arcade... my guess would be either a 4:3 game with borders, or a game that is stretched/compressed to fit the correct aspect ratio.
1 comment:
The PAL version of SF2:HF on SNES had some major borders on top and bottom of the screen. I'm not sure, but I think this was due to it being basically a port of the NTSC version. The NTSC TV system has a lower resolution than PAL, which is probably where the extra black bars came from.
Anyway, these borders didn't really detract too much from the game. It still felt very much like its arcade counter part, even though looking more widescreen-ish. The jumping arcs kind of felt longer, but the characters where fatter too, so it balanced out overall.
Not sure what will happen with HF on XBLA though, but if the 16:9 ratio is just squashed and they give you the option to play in 4:3, then it should be ok.
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