Kickstarter, Elemental Labs and Reborn

I already posted about this on Facebook, but I guess since I have this blog, I should post stuff on it here and there as well. Ever get this feeling that there are just too many social media outlets that it becomes too time consuming to keep up with them all?

Text from my Facebook:



I take a look at Kickstarter once in a while to see if there is anything new worth helping out with some funds. Yesterday I came upon Kickstarter page for new game apparently being made by Elemental Labs called "Reborn".

Now, I have not heard of these guys, but then again I do not really bother with everybody's name in video game industry, especially when even if game is called something like "Sid Meier's Civ 5" it has nothing to do with Sid Meier but is designed by some random that just made a mess of things and killed Sid Meier's vision.

I started watching their video, and at 46 seconds in I recognized frame from ending of one of older Street Fighter games. I honestly cant remember exact game, but it was at least 15-20 years old as that was last time I played Arcades.

I chose to inquire for explanation from Elemental Labs on Twitter, expecting them to say that their artist worked on Akuma, and that they are going with perhaps a nod to character Akuma, but no. Instead they chose to deny resemblance and claim inspiration was 17th century Tengu Demon. So I made little melange of images to show resemblance. They are all Akuma from SF except for obvious video frame taken from video on their Kickstarter page which I do not want to link to directly as if this is how they are going about things, I have no desire to support them.

This post is made public so all can post their thoughts.

And here is image in question, that I also posted on FB and Twitter:

And response of Elemental Labs on my Twitter:

Now, I try to be fair to all, even when I am sure I am right, so I took solid 10 minutes on Google images of checking out Tengu. I have to say that I do not see any similarity whatsoever between Tengu and Akuma, nor Tengu and Elemental Labs Reborn character, but I do see HUGE similarity between Akuma and Reborn promo video frame.

Thanks to Vedmak.