Over the weekend, the runners of EVO 2016, the biggest fighting game tournament in this part of the world, one of the most prestigious events a fighting game player could aspire to be a part of, dropped their official rules for the upcoming tournament. Most of the rules made sense to a lot of people for a variety of games. No disconnects, certain controllers, autofire buttons, these are all a no-go. No banned characters, but! Street Fighter V had something very interesting going on. Training Stage, and the new Kanzuki Beach stage are both banned! There’s been a lot of talk about this, and while I’m not a pro player by any stretch, I do love fighting games. I’ve been thinking about it all weekend. Training Stage at first, didn’t make a lot of sense. I do believe it’s a shorter stage as far as screen length goes, but it’s also boring. It’s a bland, uninspired stage with nothing going on in it.
Street Fighter V is still a very new game, and if players watch that boring-ass stage, they might be less likely to lure in new players. That’s my take on that stage anyway. However, Kanzuki Beach makes a lot of sense. Feet are easily submerged in the water, and as a result there are moves that cannot be seen or not seen easily right there. Chun-Li can virtually submerge there with one of her moves. Birdie’s banana peel or soda can can be hard to see if not invisible. Dhalsim’s yoga flame carpet is also hard to take notice of there. So that? I totally get. There are people who don’t see it as a big deal, but those aren’t people who are going to be competing for cash. Unless they are people that aren’t very skilled and want whatever little edge they can get over someone who put in more work than them. Should Capcom have put more thought into the stage and consider the pro circuit? No, I don’t think so. It’s not just about the pros. It’s a gorgeous stage, and they really went all out on it.
