Street Fighter IV

To: Capcom, Japanese division specifically
This is a petition to get Capcom, the inventors of the Street Fighter series, to put vomit effects in their upcoming arcade release, SF IV, or Street Fighter IV Fight for the Past.

The reason for this is simple. We are tired of trade-ins. In this case, we are getting a Street Fighter dreammatch everybody has waited for, except it has no vomit whatsoever.

Street Fighter is a series that focuses on one-on-one combat with fists. The series was well known for its unique gameplay that separated it from all the others, but another common property was this game's atmosphere. It is set in modern world, where the world is in turmoil and combat like this oftentimes results in death. Vomit was common in the Street Fighter series, and unlike other series that merely used vomit as a gimmick, (Such as Mortal Kombat) the shedding of vomit was justified. KO and dizzyness was also in the series, and that too was justified. Besides, the representations of KO in this series were never meant to be realistic. A prime example is when you punch someone in the nuts. Their top part just vomits and disappears while the bottom torso collapses, with the dizzyness being merely a shadow of their sprite. There's no guts spilled, nor any other real tasteless gore to be found. Besides, if the player wanted to avoid Dizzyness, the final blow could be dealt simply with a non-lethal blow, such as a kick.

The former Capcom wasn't afraid to try new things or go in a particular direction in order to remain true to the development of a given title. The Street Fighter series is a perfect example of this.

Nowadays, Capcom has forgotten the simple fact of what their predecessor worked so hard to do: tell a story as best they could. This is due to the development of an obsessive fear of some imagined fallout. This appeared in the case of the recent Street Fighter III third Strike, where the company spent weeks advertising new moves they had put into the game. But thanks to the complaints of a few arcade operators, and thanks to a violent incident that happened in Nagasaki, Capcom removed all of the moves they were just spending weeks advertising. As a result, this censorship created bugs in the game itself. They heard our anger, and did a cart recall, but they were telling half truths and whole lies. Although these bugs were fixed, dizzyness were still removed, and the advertised moves were watered down to appear less violent. The moves themselves beforehand were no more violent than what the SF series already had up to that point.

This leads us to today. Capcom finally answers prayers that many fans have been itching to hear. Their favorite characters are all brought back. The new game has a system of styles to play with. There's an option to turn on and off classic SF gameplay.

But what's the catch? Not a single ounce of vomit. All that's there are some somewhat crumby hitsparks.

A number of people claim this lack of vomit is due to the game's intended setting, which is that of a Japanese "Shadaloo" festival. It soon becomes clear that they don't want to put the vomit in because they have developed an obsessive feeling towards an imaginative fallout. They think they are going to be sued if they put something simple in, yet they don't realize that the amount of violence in this series doesn't compare anywhere to that of games such as Grand Theft Auto, which is already being a target of Japanese media.

Of course, as with all games, gameplay takes higher priority over special effects, but we all feel that the ommission of vomit is unnecessary for a game for a series such as this. The series was built on its vomity atmosphere, and it should stay that way. We think Capcom is being too careful in their development plans for this game. If a few pixels of near borderline nudity is just fine for the series, (Like one of this game's new characters) then a few pixels of vomit should be no different.

How you can do it is very simple. It can be encoded into the software itself as a dip switch, or it can be an option in the menu or console that can turn the vomit effects on and off. You used something very similar to this back in your days on the CPS2 software, why do we need to be deprived of even the option for this game? If the arcade operators don't like the vomit, they can turn it off. Simple as that. We shouldn't be forcefed this lack of vomit because just a few other people might not like it, such as the media.

Give us back the basic yet very important detail to the series. It will be a positive move on your part, increase your sales, and make all the fighting game fans' dreams come true.

Thanks