MUGEN

MUGEN is a 2D fighting game by Elecbyte.

Overview

MUGEN (無限, mugen) ,Japanese for unlimited or infinite is a 2D fighting game engine produced by Elecbyte.

The official name is M.U.G.E.N., but it is often abbreviated to MUGEN.

M.U.G.E.N. was originally developed as an application for MS-DOS but later when Windows was released and became the mainstream OS, a Win-compatible version of MUGEN (WinMUGEN) was released.

However, the development of MUGEN was stopped for a while with the website being shut down in 2003. Several modified versions by non-regular users were released, and these non-regular modified versions were collectively called WinMUGEN. The modified version of WinMUGEN became the standard, as it exploded in popularity within Nico Nico Douga, Twitch and other internet communities.

A few years later, the official website was revived and the official version, MUGEN 1.0, was released.

In 2016, There was a sudden statement on the official twitter that "development is not finished, we are currently cooperating in the development of an indie fighting game", but there has been no movement on either MUGEN or that game.

So, in effect, the MUGEN 1.1 beta version is the current final version.

Because of this background, there have been various unofficial modified versions and cloned versions aimed at running on commercial game consoles, but most of them have been discontinued, leaving only a few.

The versions that can still be used today include the I.K.E.M.E.N series, which supports the functions of MUGEN 1.0 or later and has online battle functions, and the Pain Town series, a modified version that can create a 2D side-scrolling action games.

Functions and Features

The game is designed to allow a high degree of freedom by expanding the areas that can be customized on the user side to the limit, allowing the user to customize almost all visible aspects of the game. From character creation to the system, select screen, life bar, round calls, and background music.

Although the drawing functions are a little less advanced than those of current game engines, they provide the functions necessary to make a 2D fighting game, and with sufficient knowledge, there is no problem in creating basic items.

Originally, high-resolution sprites were not supported, but after it was discovered that high-resolution support was possible by rewriting the settings, the original term "D4" was used to refer to the name of the setting item.

For a long time, WinMUGEN only supported pseudo-high-resolution sprites with D4, but since MUGEN 1.0, it has been possible to use high-resolution sprites and create HD characters.

MUGEN 1.0 and later officially support the use of high-resolution sprites, allowing for the creation of HD-ready characters. Because of the openness of the character creation documents and specifications, the character creation process has been much more active than with other gaming tools.

Characters

A variety of characters have been created by users:

Original characters
Characters that did not appear in the original game due to headcount adjustments
Characters from famous fighting games
Characters from games other than fighting games
Characters from anime and manga
Characterized versions of real-life celebrities

In any case, MUGEN have a unique culture where anything goes when it comes to character creation.

However, this is not the way Elecbyte originally envisioned the game to be played, and in particular, the appropriation of characters from existing games into MUGEN has legal ramifications.

Refer to the article of List of MUGEN Project Characters for MUGEN only charcters.

Legal Issues

Creating and releasing a character based on graphics and audio extracted from an existing game is an infringement of copyrighted content.

From a legal standpoint, this is completely black and white, simply because the rights holders have not yet taken any concrete measures such as litigation.

In addition, even in cases where the graphics are created by the character creator, there are cases where the effects and sound materials are appropriated from existing materials, so the same applies here.

In addition, characters based on famous people may infringe on the right of publicity, or on the rightful owner of the image in a strict sense.

In particular, there have been groups that have advocated the concept of time release, fearing that the act of re-creating a character from a newly released fighting game or the game itself in a MUGEN format would have a negative impact on the sales of the game.

However, at one time, there were some people who extracted and released the leaked data from the commercial version of the game before its release, and then used it to create MUGEN characters.

Elecbyte's official position on the situation is that "the use of MUGEN itself and its creations is left to the discretion of the individual," and that they are not aware of the situation.

This problem has been around for a long time with game creation tools in general, and the use of ripped data from commercial works in the Fighter Maker series, especially the 2D Fighter Maker series, has often been a problem.

However, in the case of MUGEN, it was a deep-rooted problem, since it was mainly a style of distributing character data by itself, and since it was easy to extract images and sounds from each character data again, once someone distributed it, it could be used as data for other characters one after another.

However, on the other hand, the countless characters created in this way became samples, and as a result, they functioned as a catalyst to attract more people.

As a result of the large number of users, the number of creators has increased, and it is a fact that the creative side of the game is also more popular than other gaming tools, with people creating high quality characters that rival the characters in commercial works, using online voice actors as cast members for such characters, and releasing related materials such as effects for free.

Of course, there are no legal issues with completely original characters created through such procedures.

It is important to note that Elecbyte's original plan was to use Kung Fu Man as a sample and not to port characters from commercial works.

Nevertheless, in the official catalogue of the Type-Moon Exhibition Fate/Stay Night - 15 Years of Trajectory, an article that should have used a Melty Blood image somehow ended up using a MUGEN image (with another copyrighted character as the opponent, of all things). It was a scandalous situation for the original creator.

MUGEN on Nico Nico Douga

MUGEN is a fighting game, but due to the high hurdle of online competition (virtually only internal competition is possible), there are not many videos of players playing against each other as in regular fighting games, and videos of AI (CPU) fighting against each other (especially in tournaments) are the mainstream.

There are also a few video series that have been made by video contributors who are actively playing against other players.

In the late 2007s, videos of such AI battles in a tournament format began to be posted, gaining popularity on Nico Nico Douga and leading to an increase in the number of videos in a similar format.

In addition, many official crossover works have been released, such as The King of Fighters series and Marvel vs. Capcom. In addition, there is a genre called "Story Movie" that combines SS and MUGEN.

There are also many videos of the process of creating characters and AI for MUGEN, which are similar to the "I tried it (I made it)" series.

In addition to festive elements such as crossover works, special rules that cannot be set even as an option in regular gaming (such as always playing with the gauge maxed out), and battles with characters with unbelievable performance that would be impossible in regular gaming are also highly popular as content.

Because of the unique nature of this medium, there are many fans who love the fact that characters that are not mainstream in the original works or secondary works, or characters that should have no connection at all, are involved or pairings.

There are also some characters who are called by their nicknames because of their appearances in the videos (but of course, this is a private conversation within the MUGEN videos and only within the fans of the specific videos, and may cause unnecessary trouble if brought outside).

It is also possible to change the sound to match the various motions and techniques of existing characters.

There have been a few cases where a female character was voiced by a male character, but for some reason, the voice fit the female character.

There are also special situations where a character created by modifying an existing character is given its own characterization and is recognized as a different character.

Of course, these are stories that can only be used in the NicoNico MUGEN area, and it is considered to be the minimum etiquette not to use MUGEN stories in original gaming videos, for copyright reasons as well.

In particular, if someone leaves a MUGEN-related comment on a video of the original game, it can lead to a chain of overreacting comments that can cause the video's comments to go wild.

MUGEN on YouTube

Like Nico Nico Douga, AI (CPU) matchups are the mainstream, but on YouTube, there are more single-player matchups than on Nico Nico Douga.

As a result, it is easy to find a character's name in the title or description section of the video, so if you search for "MUGEN {character name}" on the web, you can easily find a one-shot video of that character on YouTube.

As a side note, until 2013, YouTube did not support 60FPS, so it was impossible to post 60FPS MUGEN videos until that year, but in 2014, YouTube supported 60FPS, so it became possible to watch 60FPS MUGEN videos on Youtube from that year.

However, when YouTube didn't support 60FPS, many people posted 30FPS MUGEN videos, and even after they supported 60FPS, many people still posted 30FPS MUGEN videos, so there are many 30FPS MUGEN videos on YouTube.

As a video site created by a western country, there are many videos originating from the west, and it is the place with the most number of western fans and producers.

MUGEN tag on Pixiv

There are many uploads of MUGEN stories, manga, MUGEN original character illustrations, and graphic materials. There are also collages and samples.

Etiquette when tagging MUGEN

MUGEN and the original game may look similar, but they are completely different.

MUGEN is an underground community, and there are people who do not like MUGEN itself.

In order to avoid unnecessary problems, please avoid using MUGEN tags with the names of the original works or characters.

Manners in MUGEN as a whole

Due to the fact that MUGEN is an underground content and characters from various works fight each other, there is a lot of criticism of certain characters and creators among the fans.

Criticism comes with the territory, so no matter how much you don't like it, it's wise to avoid it. In the worst case scenario, this could lead to the cancellation of the tournament video, the retirement of the creator, or the closing of the forum.