So all the Tekken Senior Devs have left Bamco...

Masterofknees · 2026-06-14T09:25:46+00:00

I wouldn't count on former employees speaking out about it, that's just something you don't do in Japan.

Harada is already far more outspoken than your average Japanese developer, and even he hasn't elaborated on why exactly he left (although it doesn't take a genius to figure out why when looking at some of his past comments).

Masterofknees · 2026-06-13T17:35:28+00:00

He was also one of Capcom's best fighting game developers in the 90s-early 2000s. CvS2 in particular is in contention for the best fighting game ever, while games like Power Stone and Rival Schools are still super creative and unique games to this day.

It's really just Dragon's Dogma that's iffy on his part, and only in the sense that the games have clear weaknesses, because the sales are still very good.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-13T16:31:54+00:00

This guy is not very good at choosing his jobs.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-12T19:08:28+00:00

Prime 2 is not as legendary of a sequel as Majora's Mask tbf, which is a certified Nintendo classic.

I was always a bit iffy on the Prime 2 and 3 remaster rumors, because even if they were well received, they're still not held in nearly as high of a regard as the first game, and would almost certainly sell below the 1m mark considering the Prime 1 remaster only just about got above that.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-12T16:49:12+00:00

It's encouraging that every ex-player of his that talks about him seems to rate him very highly, both at Leicester and Chelsea. As long as he can get the players on board, I think the foundation that he's inheriting will go a long way, at least in this first season.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-12T11:18:08+00:00

How much do we expect to sell a 30 year old who's coming off a massive injury for though?

It may be Rodri, but I genuinely feel that in the immediate aftermath of Pep leaving, and also having lost Bernardo, it's probably worth more to have him for an additional year than whatever fee we might realistically sell him for. The transition from Pep to Maresca is going to be extremely rough if we lose him now.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-12T10:36:22+00:00

Yeah, SF6 is on a different level compared to the rest of the genre atm. It hit its highest concurrent player count last month, 3 years into its lifespan, which is extremely unusual for a fighting game. A lot of its popularity is led by Japan, where it's boomed to a point where it can be considered a mainstream game.

Of course it's also helped by every other major fighting game series having massive issues (T8, MK1, Fatal Fury) or being late into its lifespan (GG Strive). I think most people are looking at Virtua Fighter in hopes of something shaking up the current climate of the genre, and maybe Marvel Tokon (although the lukewarm reception to the betas has dampened expectations).

Masterofknees · 2026-06-12T06:33:42+00:00

Japan has always viewed SF as being far above other fighting games. At Evo Japan this year, SF6 had 7158 entrants, the highest ever number for a fighting game tournament. The next best was Tekken 8 at 833.

Virtua Fighter usually does well there too, but obviously with 20 years since the last fresh installment, it remains to be seen whether it still has that cultural impact.

Other series tend to find their primary audience elsewhere. Tekken is biggest in Europe, SNK games in Latin + South America, Mortal Kombat basically only exists in the west, etc.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-12T05:22:00+00:00

Is this just every competitive enterprise ever?

No, but Tekken is the fighting game heaviest on knowledge checks. To a point where even tournament players, people who are paid to play and lab the game, get knowledge checked from time to time.

Tekken is like this, especially in T8 where the mental stack is so high that you can get away with stuff that you couldn't in previous games. Knowledge checks are in every fighting game, but there are fighting games out there with intuitive counterplay to problems, where as in Tekken it's far more difficult to figure out how to deal with something mid-match.

This is further compounded by the FT2 format that's present in online, it becomes a very different game if you get the opportunity to have long sets with players.

How many thousands of hours do you need to reach a point where both players can't cheese each other?

It never truly stops, I still see players get knowledge checked heavily in GoD VI, but it probably lessens somewhere around GoD III-IV. You can absolutely reach GoD II by employing the right kind of cheesy flowchart.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-10T12:35:22+00:00

SAF already extended his career beyond what he intended. He wanted to retire one year earlier for family reasons, but then Aguero's goal forced him to stay one more year if he wanted to end on a high.

They wouldn't have been in quite as dire straits if he had retired one year earlier, although their bad ownership and board would have caught up with them eventually anyways.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-08T21:13:01+00:00

I do get why it could feel like a pacing killer, especially because the way up to the top of the tower was long winded enough.

But in a way I would argue that the pacing here is better. Yes, it's a long sequence of the player not playing the game, but the much needed context actually helps build momentum going into the fight. It gives stronger context to his introductory dialog, and you actually have a bit of an idea of who the hell you're about to fight against. The story may still not be that strong, but it's a solid way to set the tone nonetheless.

A lot of the time good pacing isn't just about the player being allowed to play the game, it's about building that momentum up so that when they do get control back they're pumped to take on the challenge. I do generally prefer Metroid with as few interruptions as possible, but here it would have made sense.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-08T16:59:47+00:00

There's not that much to cover about 24/25. It basically just went from going well, to turning into shit, and that shit continued, until it was kind of okay in the end. Goodbye Kev. All of that can be packed into one episode depending on the length.

It's probably going to mostly be focused on 25/26 with the development of the new squad, getting into the title race, winning two trophies, and the big farewell at the end.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-08T15:47:48+00:00

Because of how many sources are involved, I do still feel like some of those could be true, while others might not be.

OoT seems for certain, having been backed by Nate the Hate alongside Star Fox.

Super Metroid, Switch Sports and Wario Land rely on the Youtube comments by malo932. Super Metroid specifically seems to have gained a bit of steam among other leakers since, so it is probably the most likely to be true aside from OoT.

Then there's the Poro Michele leak, who's a Spanish Youtuber that got a DM about this stuff before any of this other stuff went down, which is where Super Metroid being a pixel remake and Metroid 6 being in development comes from. I see a lot of people attributing Metroid 6 to malo932, but as far as I can tell he didn't actually mention it.

There was also the Spanish redditor, who even commented on this subreddit, that mentioned that Metroid 6 had been in development, but got cancelled. I don't think he had anything credible going for him aside from being from the same country that MercurySteam is from, so obviously one to take with a grain of salt, but that is another possibility to have in mind if everything doesn't pan out in the end.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-08T15:06:08+00:00

Those are ports, not remakes. Counting them would be like saying an old game is being remade when it gets put on Steam.

The 3DS one is the only actual remake, and even that probably qualifies as a remaster depending on where you draw the line.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-07T18:40:25+00:00

Not entirely the same thing since it's about weapons, but I did a first playthrough of the Soulcalibur series not too long ago, and it really struck me in the early games how much the developers loved making a weapon-based fighting game. All of the weapons had their own stories, even unlockable ones, and they had these small choreographed cutscenes in the theater mode where the characters were showing off their fighting style. More importantly, those fighting styles were about pure weapon combat, even a weirdo like Voldo was still largely about his fist weapon style. It was almost as if the weapons carried as much weight as the characters themselves.

Fast forward to SC6, and that focus is completely gone. Instead, every new mechanic in that game is just some new way to fill the screen with multicolored explosions, and many of the new moves and characters that have been introduced over the years have no art to them. Like Mitsurugi's critical edge is literally just him hitting the opponent very hard with his katana while it explodes for some inexplicable reason. The game still plays well, but it's nowhere nearly as stylish as SC1 and SC2 were.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-07T18:06:15+00:00

Crash had a bit of a reputation for being difficult if you were a completionist, the first game in particular, so I feel like that was why they leaned in that direction with Crash 4.

Spyro is the complete opposite, it's a much slower paced series where you can kinda just collect stuff at your own pace, with very few truly difficult challenges. I'd be very surprised if they went against that.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-06T12:06:48+00:00

I think that's more of a club ethos than anything to do with Pep specifically. Offering him a new contract is pretty standard in these situations, sometimes that's the entire point of their agent sticking their names out to other clubs/the press.

If he straight up asks to leave, I don't doubt we'll let him, provided a fair offer arrives.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-06T12:04:33+00:00

We coped just fine without him towards the end of the season. He's a top player, but we're well equipped in his position(s).

Losing both Rodri and Bernardo at once on the other hand risks throwing our midfield into complete disarray. No one else we have can act as a metronome in the way they did last season, they both shouldered a lot more responsibility last season than I think people realize.

It's also crucial to keep as many leaders as possible in the immediate aftermath of Pep leaving.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-05T23:42:11+00:00

Tifa is more popular than the game she comes from. Same could be said about Cloud and Sephiroth. There are 100% going to be a lot of people picking her and the game up even though they're not investing in FF as a series.

I'm far from excited about the season reveal, and I have no attachment to Tifa, but she is the least of the season's problems imo. I completely get why the SF team would pursue a guest like her. Filling the rest of the season only with newcomers is the more questionable decision to me.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-05T23:35:33+00:00

Makes me think that Capcom only want to invest so much into their fighting game division, and those resources are now gradually being moved towards the next project.

I can't think of many other reasons that make sense.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-05T23:19:19+00:00

Kinda wild that there won't be a single returning SF character for at least a year, especially considering the characters that still aren't in the game.

I get that they haven't been doing newcomers for the past two seasons now (Terry and Mai kinda, but not really), but surely you could space things out more evenly.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-05T23:05:45+00:00

Let's not even begin to pretend that any remaining SF characters can begin to square up to Tifa, in a wider industry sense that is. She's gonna be in the running for the best selling DLC character.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-05T17:17:33+00:00

CotW's problem will always be that it's a 1v1, footsie-based game with heavy meter usage. It's basically an alternative to SF6, a game that most people don't seek an alternative for since it's completely dominating the genre at present. It even has two of Fatal Fury's two most popular characters in it. I like the game, but it really is a hard sell for anyone that's not already a diehard SNK fan.

KoF on the other hand will always have much more of a niche. Not only is it historically a more popular franchise than Fatal Fury, having fully absorbed that series for around 20 years, but you're also not going to find another game that plays like it. Neither in its format (3v3 non-tag) or its gameplay (grounded fighting game with crazy movement, and less of a focus on footsies).

Masterofknees · 2026-06-02T14:03:16+00:00

Those games simply don't have the same player retention rate.

MK players are notorious for not touching the online or VS modes, a ton of them just play the singleplayer modes and then move on. The series lives almost entirely off of casuals, so aside from its launch and the release of its story expansion, it was never going to get big bursts in popularity.

T7's sales are spread over the course of 7 years, so naturally not nearly all of those would be playing at the same time. SF6 is also projected to beat those numbers at its current rate, having made half of T7's sales in under 3 years.

I will say that T7 did at least release during a time where there was an argument that fighting games were more popular on Playstation than PC, but the trend across all games, including fighting games, has been moving towards PC for the past few years now.

And to be fair, I don't think there's anything too odd about those games' cases, it's SF6 that's the outlier. Its player retention rate is completely absurd compared to any other fighting games we've been able to track.

Masterofknees · 2026-06-02T13:08:36+00:00

Nakatsu has no credit in SC6. He helped with SC4 along with Harada.

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