The Fighting Game topic

All genres and publishers welcome.

You know, it bothers me that Darkstalkers never did get a proper (arcade perfect) compilation release... THAT WAS OVERSEAS.

Also, watching two players juggle each other to death is boring. Discuss.

Trying to break the habit of jumping in.

Need to teach myself to stop doing that.

I'm wondering if D-Pad/arcade stick gymnastics really needs to be a core part of the genre. Something's wrong when I'm fighting the controls more than the other guy, especially on those damn charge moves that also force you to hit diagonals exactly. (Fuck you very much, Somersault Strike!)

I want to devise a fighting game that specifically averts that crap, but something tells me the "Stop Having Fun" Guys at places like SRK and the like won't have any of it on principle.

In the meantime, I'm waiting on a Mayflash Classic Controller USB adapter so I can use my TvC sticks on my P Cs. That ought to help tons with all the fighting games I could emulate on them. (Better yet, I should mod them to work with my Sega Saturn...)

Soul Caliber 2 had a fairly simple control scheme compared to Tekken. It also has fairly straightforward mechanics, as compared to Tekken. Mascot Fighter games, like Dragon Ball Z Budokai 2 and 3 have pretty deep combo systems that are pretty simple to input as compared to Street Fighter's. No quarter circle, just hit two buttons. No charge moves, just hold it down. Budokai Techanchi axes the whole combo system in favor of greater movement.

I used to be into heavy dexterous fighting games like Street Fighter and Tekken simply because that's all I knew. Nowadays, I stick with Super Smash Bros, even when the stop having fun guys demand you play the game like a more traditional fighter, almost all the inputs are as simple as dirt, so you can focus on how to use the moves, not how to do them.

All that said, I still have a soft spot for Dark Stalkers, even if I haven't played it in God knows when.

So, nothing to say regarding juggling?

Most games nowadays impose some sort of limit on juggling (making you fall faster after each hit or something). As long as its not an infinite combo I don't see the problem.

Air combos that the opponent can do nothing about once caught in? They can be sort of amusing if its like four hits, maybe even up to seven hits, if its a special move. When 10+ hit juggles happen all the time, like in Tekken, though, I get bored watching and frustrated playing.

I prefer body shots, stung legs and smacks on the head; stuff that happens in real fights. At least in Smash bros you can air dodges and jump in air and you fly farther after hits, so its easy to get away from a combo if you see it coming.

Re: Execution

This is a sensitive subject, depending on which school of competition you're from. On the one side, you have people who believe that extremely difficult execution (Smash Melee, SFIV, Marvel) separates the people who really want to win versus those who don't. After all, if only a handful of people can pull off the moves and play strategically as well, then they deserve to be the best, right? Why make a competitive game at all if you're not going to force people to want to put in work to be good at it?

But the other side of the argument argues that there's a key learning curve that you want to aim for. After all, making a game too difficult to become good at means there will be less competition and the less competition, the more a game stagnates. By making a game where execution is a deciding factor in even top-level play, you're introducing an element of risk/reward gambling rather pure calculation. If I know for a fact that when I press this button, the move I want will come out, then I will always use that move. But if I believe that there's a reasonable chance, even if less than likely, that I will screw it up, I'm essentially rolling a set of dice when I try to do it. Some people like this and say it adds depth. Others say it makes the game less cerebral and more twitchy.

I love fighting games of all sorts.

I just got Tekken 6 and I'm trying to get good at Marshall Law, although I have a lot more experience with 2D fighters. I'm signing up for a couple of tournaments at a local con, though I don't expect to win.

I'm not a big fan of traditional fighters unless they have a fustercluck of awesome characters in them. So I usually like Marvel Vs Whatever.

The less traditional it is, the more I'll like it.

I think my favorite fighting game character of all time would be Iori Yagami. Favorite female would probably be Morrigan Aesland. As far as protagonists go, Ragna the Bloodedge. For villain? A toss up between Rugal and Hazama.

Re: complicated inputs

QC-whatevers, HC-whatevers, FC-whatevers and even double QC/HC/FC are actually relatively painless on arcade sticks, which are what most fighting games tend to be optimized for.

It's timing that I have a problem with. Even a simple > + HP eludes me if the timing window is weird.

My problem isn't so much with circle or DP/Shoryuken motions most of the time. Those aren't so bad to execute even on D-Pads most of the time, though I have this habit of accidentally hitting the upper diagonals and jumping when I don't want to.

But you do have a point on the timing windows...couldn't even execute a mid-air QCF move in Blaz Blue: Continuum Shift on the PS 3 reliably for some reason.

Also, games like Super Smash Bros that don't necessarily have complicated move inputs end up with unintended things like wavedashing in SSBM, which requires a very quick, precise input to do it without appearing to jump. Something like 1/60th of a second, basically in a single frame. If that's not Some Dexterity Required, I don't know what is.

And speaking of restrictive timing, I've heard that it's what Virtua Fighter is built on, and also part of the reason why it's so Hard Core, even for a generally hardcore genre. One person I've talked to about it said something along the lines of "It's not a fighting game, but a fighting simulator." Confirm or deny?

You know what I really hate? Diagonal charges and 720s. That's why I rarely play charge characters and grapplers. The only exception I make is Hugo in Street Fighter III.

I hate diagonal down -> diagonal up -> diagonal down + ____ more.

Why must fighting game combos be so ridiculously complicated, anyway? Probably the main thing that keeps me from getting into the genre.

Edit: Oh. Didn't realize that'd already been mentioned.

edited 6th Feb '11 10:09:43 PM by Electivirus

I find Virtua Fighter on the whole to be less demanding than Street Fighter. Oh, the execution factor is definitely there, and there's some major depth to the game that can take years of competition to master. But at the same time, you will feel steady progress as you get better. In Street Fighter, so many times you feel like you've just hit a brick wall because there's so many things you have to master just to get the basics right. If you don't know how to punish a dragon punch with crouching lp > crouching mp > dragon punch > FADC > Ultra, then you are severely limiting yourself. And that's not even counting all of the overlapping commands. Seth gets the worst of this, with a QCF Punch, Double QCF Punch move, Dragon Punch, Ultra, and 360 all in the same set. If you aren't absolutely perfect, you can do one wrong move that Seth's health is NOT equipped to deal with.

Virtua Fighter doesn't have that many overlapping commands, you don't need to be completely tight to do simple bread-and-butter combos, you don't need to worry about reacting to a three-frame attack, you don't need to worry about fireballs, you don't need to worry about a FADC, and you don't need to worry about invincibility frames. You need to worry about frame data, ETEG (evading throw escape), move priority, and that's about it.

edited 6th Feb '11 10:12:24 PM by KingZeal

The funny thing is, a lot of people think Seth is easy to play because he's a boss character.

He's not.

Yeah, but his only two balancers are health and execution.

Personally, I find those to be the laziest two ways to balance a character.

All the fighting games I've played a decent amount, in order:

• Mortal Kombat (The original; PC): I don't remember if I ever beat it, but I do remember my older brother beating it a few times. I'm certain I was able to get up to Goro the last time I played it though. No comment on the attack system due to me being only six or so at the time - I don't remember much.
• Mortal Kombat 2 (GB): Horrid controls and visuals, but I suppose that's just par for the course when it comes to such games on the original Gameboy.
• Tekken 3 (PS): Most of the time of me playing this was a demo in which the only usuable characters were Eddy and Ling Xiaoyu, and the only stages were theirs. All I really remember other than that was that I became decent (for a ~ten-year-old) at using Xiaoyu.
• Super Smash Bros (N64): And Now For Something Completely Different. Much more my style of game, I liked not having to worry (as much) about how much health I had. I started by using Link, but moved on to Kirby later (eventually figuring out the Final Cutter's cheapness)
• Super Smash Bros Melee (GC): Kirby got nerfed to high hell, and thus I moved on to my current staple of fighting games - instead of focusing on just one character, I'd become decent at using several. In Melee this was mainly the Ice Climbers, the two Links, Sheik & Roy. I had a few sides as well.
• Soul Calibur 2 (GC): It took me a while to get used to a more "standard" fighting game again. Something about the controls just made this game very accessible. I mained Link, Mitsurugi, Ivy, Kilik & Maxi (although admittedly I was only good with Maxi against my brother, who always used Yoshimitsu).
• Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii): Don't remember which characters I mained for this, but considered it almost entirely an improvement over Melee. My only gripes were trivial things, such as tripping.
• Soul Calibur 3 (PS 2): If they had a long-ranged weapon, then that was who I used. I was kinda annoyed at the new "story mode" game though. The one where you had to take over various towers, I mean.
• Tekken 5 (PS 2): Ow. My fingers hurt just thinking about it. While I haven't tried with all of the characters yet, I've only beaten the game with three. On Easy.

edited 6th Feb '11 11:17:17 PM by Sabbo

I question why no-one ever counts boxing, wrestling and MMA games as fighting games, when they are clearly based around fighting. People only accept the ludicrous as examples of the genre and discount the realistic.

Because they're also technically Sports games. And almost all of them aren't even close to being what a fighter is about. Unique characters with a variety of moves that are based around special abilities that your typical regular human can't do. Fighting games are essentially based on being unrealistic. MMA, Wrestling, and Boxing are based off of realism.

Also, the lack of mention of Killer Instinct makes me a sad Fulgore. Also, Darkstalkers was freakin' awesome.

Like I said, no thats the ludicrous examples. You're exhibiting the behaviour I described, but justifying it with circular logic.

The boxing/wrestling/etc. games ARE fighting games. It's just that they are also sports games.

It's just a linguistic artifact. Just as most RP Gs have only a passing resemblance to their tabletop forebears, "fighting game" refers to a specific genre that has only a passing resemblance to fighting. There's no special meaning to this, it's just an accident of history.