Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Street Fighter x Tekken: Seth Killian talks gems and competitive aspects


In just over a month, Street Fighter x Tekken (SFxT) will make its way to North America.

Despite the hype and explanations, fans are still concerned about the Gem system. Capcom community manager Seth Killian has had his hands full with SFxT. From clearing up confusion regarding the Gem system to claiming he'd cut Pandora mode if it wasn't up to par.

See what Killian had to say to Kotaku regarding the Gem system and the competitive aspects of fighting games below:

“Yeah the competitive community is quite worried about the gems. I’m in that competitive camp so I understand. Any time you make changes, it’s like SACRILEGE! UNACCEPTABLE! I get that, because I had the same reaction myself internally. I was excited about the idea of customisable characters on paper, but then I started playing and seeing how the whole thing was evolving and I was thinking, ‘this is going to be a hot mess, I better go find another job pretty quick! But then I actually went hands on with the prototypes and it started pushing my nerd buttons."

“I started trying out the ones I thought would be cheap — I was using for an autoblock gem and a meter builder, choosing Zangief and just running in and piledriving everyone! That build didn’t work out for me, so we had to balance and evolve over time. But once you start playing with the gems, you move from trepidation and fear to thinking of all the possibilities. Now I wake up from dreams going EUREKA! No-one has ever thought of this!"