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Harada has opened a new studio with SNK. VS Studio.

Surprising news but I am quite happy about it.

Would be cool if he revived Buriki One. Or maybe he would like to try a different genre?

Saudi money topic will come up, but from a consumer/fan perspective I really like most recent SNK offerings.

Lots of content updates, no micro transactions/seasons infiltrating the games, they are fun to play and respect the lore/history.

Good luck to him and SNK.
 
Harada working for SNK bankrolled by Saudi money was not on my bingo card. Yoshinori Ono joining him would complete the mindfuck.
 
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Spooky Scary Skeleton said:
Obligatory Ronaldo must be included in all of their games as a stipulation.
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And if it was a western publisher it would have to include Deborah Wilson.

Whatever. His options were pretty limited. SNK is far from the worst outcome. I would've preferred if he just kept making Tekken but who knows what really happened with Bamco.
 
Jinzo Prime said:
So did Harada get pushed out of Bandai Namco? 'cause this doesn't look like a retirement to me!
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Probably wasn't getting the role he wanted. He got promoted if you recall so he likely didn't like what that entailed versus his passion: making games and talking to players.

Whatever he cooks up is a day one for me. He should hire Ono. Shit would be so sick.
 
Arsic said:
Probably wasn't getting the role he wanted. He got promoted if you recall so he likely didn't like what that entailed versus his passion: making games and talking to players.

Whatever he cooks up is a day one for me. He should hire Ono. Shit would be so sick.
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Damn that would be incredible. Wonder what Ono is up to these days. Guy is such a character lmao.
 
The Saudis have learned some good lessons very quickly.

Harada + SNK hype, LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO(N)!!!
Arsic said:
Probably wasn't getting the role he wanted. He got promoted if you recall so he likely didn't like what that entailed versus his passion: making games and talking to players.

Whatever he cooks up is a day one for me. He should hire Ono. Shit would be so sick.
Click to expand...

I'd love to see Ono back in the scene. Miss that type of energy in the FGC.

And SFV doesn't deserve the bad rap it often gets; the game improved quickly and I'd still say it was mainly rushed out in 2016 both because Capcom needed a SFIV replacement ASAP for their championship series, and SIE wanted a fighting game showcase on PS5 ASAP to pull remaining players from Xbox One (which still had Killer Instinct at the time).
 
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Real Madrid Ronaldo GIF
 
Looking forward to seeing what comes out of this.
Imagine if he was working on a new game for the Neo Geo AES+ and SNK starts back making some games for it. They were recently teasing a new Metal Slug too right?
 
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NeverYouMind said:
Square Enix owns those not to mention the game designer for originals is Seiichi Ishii. He also designed Virtua Fighter and Tekken.

P.S. Harada is a producer and promoter, not a game maker. His idea of cool is whack (Idolmaster and KASG).
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He co-directed my favorite Tekken, 3.

If I'm not mistaken, but i might be, after Tekken 2 nobody wanted to take up the mantle to make 3, but Harada stepped up. Someone else can fact check that.
 
Hadoukens said:
He co-directed my favorite Tekken, 3.

If I'm not mistaken, but i might be, after Tekken 2 nobody wanted to take up the mantle to make 3, but Harada stepped up. Someone else can fact check that.
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The only thing he directed for Tekken 3 is where to put arcade cabinets and marketing as he was one hell of a salesman. His first solo flight was Dark Resurrection expansion of 5 (which would be practically impossible to mess up with the vanilla release being legendary) and his second was No Iron Fist Tournament Shitshow 7. The veterans of PS1 port of Tekken 2, Masamichi Abe and Masahiro Kimoto made the big decisions for Tekken 3. Harada's poorly received contributions as head director of Tekken 4 had Kimoto take the reigns back for Tekken 5 even. Every time he took charge a part of Tekken's design went to shit because he did not understand it.
 
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Jinzo Prime said:
So did Harada get pushed out of Bandai Namco? 'cause this doesn't look like a retirement to me!
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Seriously though, he mentioned years ago that he felt he doesn't have that many games left in him. I suspect he is just trying to train the next generation and maybe making one more game. Consider how long it takes to make AAA titles now, expecting him to keep working is unreasonable.
 
NeverYouMind said:
The only thing he directed for Tekken 3 is where to put arcade cabinets and marketing as he was one hell of a salesman. His first solo flight was Dark Resurrection expansion of 5 (which would be practically impossible to mess up with the vanilla release being legendary) and his second was No Iron Fist Tournament Shitshow 7. The veterans of PS1 port of Tekken 2, Masamichi Abe and Masahiro Kimoto made the big decisions for Tekken 3. Harada's poorly received contributions as head director of Tekken 4 had Kimoto take the reigns back for Tekken 5 even. Every time he took charge a part of Tekken's design went to shit because he did not understand it.
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Everywhere I've seen credits him as Co director.

I'd be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt but I'm not seeing your claims anywhere.

I do know Seiichi Ishii went on to make The Bouncer which was far more ass than Tekken 4, which was not my favorite either but did take a few cool risks.
 
Hadoukens said:
Everywhere I've seen credits him as Co director.
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It is an honorary title because he helped them turn a Greatest Hits franchise into a best seller. His only other contribution to Tekken 3 is Forest Law voice samples.

Hadoukens said:
I do know Seiichi Ishii went on to make The Bouncer which was far more ass than Tekken 4, which was not my favorite either but did take a few cool risks.
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He went on to make a lot more than The Bouncer. He was damn unlucky though as his last designed 3D fighter was pulled from shelves due to religious concerns (Kakuto Chojin) and Ehrgeiz and Tobal were discontinued by Square.

*Emulation here is rough.
 
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NeverYouMind said:
It is an honorary title because he helped them turn a Greatest Hits franchise into a best seller. His only other contribution to Tekken 3 is Forest Law voice samples.


He went on to make a lot more than The Bouncer. He was damn unlucky though as his last designed 3D fighter was pulled from shelves due to religious concerns (Kakuto Chojin) and Ehrgeiz and Tobal were discontinued by Square.

*Emulation here is rough.
Click to expand...

I've heard people over the years blame Michael Murray for some of the balance. It's hard to know what to think.

I personally think 3 was the best balance between flash and substance but only when health was turned to max on console so a player could come back from getting hit with a big combo. That's how me and my friends used to play. It's a lot more fun that way as opposed to basically dying from one "mistake".

I put mistake in quotes because the nature of these games is to sneak in 1 good hit/ launcher and after that, with default health, the match often becomes a forgone conclusion.

I wouldn't want to balance Tekken or even iterate on it because either it becomes too flashy or too stale .

I've always loved the characters and music and style though.

The story mode to 8 was a blast and the giant battle at the end where Jin changes movesets and the music gets remixed hit me in the feels.

Of course playing online which is always default health turns into who hits the first big combo and there are so many sweats and no voice chat to just make friends and have fun so I dropped it a few months later.

Hard to bring the magic back when half the fun is playing with similarly skilled friends.

I don't envy fighting game designers; catering to casuals AND pros seems impossible.

My other biggest gripe with both this and Street Fighter 6 is the pricing for actual fans. Extra characters just cost way too much. So either you wait a few years and play a basically dead or even bigger sweat fest game and miss the hype window, or pay out the nose for new characters.

I get that development is more expensive but come on, they'd get a lot more sales at $20 per season, and sorry but I don't buy the bs.

It's like buying a new game every season for 4 characters or something. 'The math isn't mathing'.

I haven't bought new characters in any fighting game ever since average prices per season got like this.

I bought SF4 and USF4 full price and even then USF4 was like $30 at launch for a massive upgrade.
 
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