Sick of Unlocking Characters

Earlier today, Katsuhiro Harada, director of the Tekken games, commented that the process of unlocking characters in games may no longer be necessary.

In an interview with Videogamer.com, Harada spoke of how in the past, they were used to extend the life of the arcade units, as well as the life of the game in general.

“That’s kind of outdated now though, especially with online play. If we were to have locked characters it would irritate a lot of people, to be playing against others online and to not have all the characters available. So I think it’s no longer useful.”

Perhaps he's onto something. These days, many fighting game fans have online access ready to go the moment they pop the game into the system, but games such as Street Fighter or Soul Calibur have often required players to go through the 1-player mode first to unlock the full roster.

Perhaps this is a new shift in the way we view our fighting games? I remember playing the first Soul Calibur on Sega Dreamcast, and the insane addiction that came with it, trying to unlock the remaining characters, and doing the same in Soul Calibur 2 years later. To me, what kept the game fresh was the long campaign mode, which took you through a series of story based challenges that couldn't be done in just a single setting.

Some games, like Marvel vs. Capcom 2, had you earn experience points as you played through, and overtime you'd purchase characters and color pallets. Sure, it extended the life of the game for me, it also burned me out of it completely to the point where I simply stopped caring. To this day, I've still yet to purchase several different color variations of the incredible hulk, and I wonder if the re-release of this game will take me through it again.

These days, I play Soul Calibur and Street Fighter IV online, and it's all about skill and bragging rights. Getting all the characters in Street Fighter IV was a royal pain in the ass, and not worth the effort when it was done, considering characters such as Seth amount to nothing more than giant blue coffins when going up against Ken in championship mode.

Still, in my opinion, a sequel to a fighting game has to have something substantial enough to separate it from other games in the series, otherwise I'm just paying $60 bucks for a graphical upgrade.

If anyone knows how to make a game worth it's weight, it's Namco. The Soul Calibur and Tekken series have always featured a plethora of unlockable content, mini-games, and customizable features, especially when it comes to Soul Calibur's character creation mode.

What I'd like to see, is more of this. Instead of making gamers struggle through the single player campaigns for a crappy two-minute movie that struggles to convince us there is a story to a fighting tournament that happens every year...

(*COUGHdeadoralivestreetfightermortalkombatCOUGHCOUGH*)

Whew..excuse me...anyway,

Why not GIVE us those extras characters, and give us ways to have fun with them. Throw in a character creator, or a weapon maker, or give us the ability to edit and modify costumes. Don't charge us for extra content unless it will have some significant impact on the game
(*Hack!COUGH!CAPCOMCOUGHCOUGH*). Take the Criterion Burnout example, where they give you a lot of free updates in the beginning, to build up the fan-base and let them know the game they buy is an investment that will last, then roll out the big changes such as new characters or new stages.

If I'm going to purchase a fighting game, it's got to be a game I think is going to last for a while, otherwise I'm going to keep waiting for some super ultra mega edition with everything in it. (*COUGHCOUGHFALLOUT3COUGH*)
Sorry..must be coming down with something..

">