Rejected Street Fighters, the worst stages and just how terrible is Metro City? - Fighterpedia returns from the year 2011 with a full HD remaster
Everybody rumored. Nobody believed
Fighterpedia originally released as a 13-part series in 2011 as a celebration of fighting games and the absolute absurdity of them, but they became impossible to watch legitimately in recent times after Machinima began removing videos before their complete closure earlier this year.
Woolie and Matt McMuscles, the original creators of the Fighterpedia and formerly of Super Best Friends Play, began the task in 2018 to remaster and remake the show that introduced the world to Zubaz plus a bunch of references and memorable quotes which are still uttered around the community today.
The first three episodes of Fighterpedia HD are now live with re-recorded audio and visuals with editing duties falling to another community member in Daisy Del Carmen, but they didn't stop with a simple remaster. New visuals and dialogue / jokes have also been added to the videos to update them for the seven years that have passed since the original while keeping the spirit of 2011's FGC.
"In terms of changes, the main goal is to free it from the old pre-widescreen, 560 x 340 format of 2011, and re-render the assets in a more future-proof way," said Woolie. "While we're at it, however, we figured that we might as well take the opportunity to save ourselves from any jokes that make us cringe watching it now, or add extra parts in some episodes to make EX meter burn versions of the original bit now that we know the future."
Rejected Street Fighters is perhaps the most well-known of the series as its first episode and the video that gave the internet the unused bullfighter character with the name 'Zubaz' on his shirt, who has since gone on to appear in a number of video games like Divekick, Pocket Rumble and Shovel Knight. It also showed off art of prototype fighters for Street Fighter 2 with the evolution of Vega from a ninja to a Templar knight before reaching his final design while Zangief was named 'Vodka Gorbalsky.'
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The second remaster released was for the seven best and worst fighting game stages circa 2011 including the likes of Street Fighter Alpha 2's iconic Stormy Fields, Akuma randomly roaming the halls of the Shadaloo base in Street Fighter: The Movie The Game and King of Fighters 2002's strange giant clogs and sheep. May we never speak of Pokefloats again.
Most recently, Woolie and Matt dove back into the biggest debate for Capcom and SNK fans... is South Town or Metro City the worst place to live in a fighting game universe featuring "accurate" timelines for Geese Howard and the Mad Gear Gang's various crimes and atrocities.
The group plans to remaster the remaining 10 episodes of Fighterpedia throughout the year including the classics 'Ode to Grapplers,' 'The History of Fatalities,' and of course 'Is Smash Bros. a fighting game?'
You can find the first three episodes of Fighterpedia HD below for anyone wanting a blast for the past or those who wish to catch a glimpse of how things were in fighting games long before titles like Street Fighter 5 and Dragon Ball FighterZ were a thought in their creators' head — though be warned there is strong NSFW language throughout each video. If you're wondering if we might see new Fighterpedia episodes after the remaster, that is undecided at this point according to Woolie though he does have some ideas in mind for new content.
