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| CHAZumaru 315th Post
 
Bronze Customer
 
    
|  "Rock Howard must go" , posted Tue 3 Jan 05:58:
quote:
Yeah, What's so bad about Rock? And what overexposure? You want overexposure, go grab Iori or Kyo who haven't been "heroes" since '98.
Rock is an idiotic realization of an idea that was at the same time seducive and hazardous, but also a bit lazy.
To be honest, I must admit I think Mark of the Wolves as a whole is an idiotic realization of an idea that was at the same time seducive and hazardous, but also a bit lazy. But I must also admit it's a good fighting game.
MMC forums have already had this conversation a few times. MotW is a weird part of SNK's storyline. It messes with its most consistent fighting series in terms of quality. I am a huge fan of the series and of Real Bout 2 - I honestly think RB2 is the best fighting game of the Neo Geo. But I don't mind changes, especially since the Garou series have been good at moving to something else when it was time to:
- Quit being a direct competitor to SF after Garou Spe.
- Keeping the few good ideas of Garou 3 while going in a completely different direction with RB.
- Stopping the RB series at RB2.
So it was the perfect timing for another change and I have an immense respect for the director of the RB series (who also directed SvC MotM and produced the SvC Card Fighters series). But MotW... I think it was a wrong answer to SFIII. Of course, I wish everytime some developer went "wrong", it would end up with such a good result in the end. But from a "Garou" point of view, the negative outweights the positive.
They completely erased every single influence from the older Garou games. No more planes. No more S power (the new one has nothing to do with the original). The return of the old boring light and strong moves, instead of trying to find another innovation after the Real Bout gameplay. I don't mind KOF proceeding with this system, especially since I don't care much about KOF anymore. But I respected SamSpi and Garou for trying something else than "the obvious solution" since the mid-nineties. Then they took out every single peculiar joystick combination from Garou and replaced them by quarter-circle moves that would have even felt dated in a Capcom game. I am the kind of person who already had a small grudge against SNK for simplifying Geese's Raising Storm in RB2. But really, did we need to go all the way to that quarter-circle crap? I mean, Capcom does it better. Basically, every gameplay tweak SNK adds in this game is done better by Capcom somewhere else - except for the TOP system. Just Defence is blatantly ripped off from Street Fighter III, only working less efficiently in the game balance because there is much less risk involved (as seen in CVS2, where both Blocking and Just Defence were implemented). And there is a new, whory, much too whory universe.
Garou isn't supposed to be a whore. It's not KOF, it doesn't desperately try to appeal to cosplay and comicket and saigado audiences. It doesn't have to feature moe, loli, shota and meganekko stereotypes. Mai is a slut in KOF, not in Garou. Even Xiang Fei wouldn't feel right abused by tentacles in a fan-art. Garou's art had its own style, the characters had their own appeal, the universe had its own feeling, rid of any trend or crowd-pleasing consideration. Yet MotW completely messed that up (and I am being very polite, here). Almost all characters try to be cool or moe or both at the same time.
There's a cool ninja kid. There is a Moe girl with stupid orgasms. There is a cool badass afro-elvis black guy. There is a cool deadly kung-fu master with a cool scar and a cool long hairdo and cool poses. There is a cool big bulky guy with a mask, and a cool long-haired boss with a tuxedo. There is a cool emo serial killer with long hair in front of him. There is a cool AND moe Pirate slut. Cool cool cool moe mo moe please love me I am a desperate roster filled with the clichés you love in all these other generic games. It is quite remarkable that, as in SFIII, all characters but one were changed to show it was a completely new approach to the series. And I don't even dislike most of these characters. The guys behind the game are very talented, so of course they are going to make good characters anyway. But what a boring, hardly imaginative, déjà vu cast.
Note that I don't mind these types of characters in KOF and Tekken, because turning into a cosplay fest is essentially what these series have become. I am all "hurra!" for Lili in Tekken 5 DR or one of those new guys in the recent KOF games like... hum... wait... no... well, I am all "hurra!" for Jenet in KOF. Ah yeah, Oswald. I am all hurra for Oswald too. For instance. But please, not in Garou. We didn't need that kind of evolution for the series. Overall, MotW seems almost different from the older games for the sake of being different. But these specificities were what made the Garou series so unique and different and, to Garou fans, better than other fighting games. So in a way, it's like a huge step back.
That's what I mean by "at the same time seducive and hazardous, but also a bit lazy". It's interesting to see SNK giving their take at what Capcom tries to do, and to witness one of its most elitist teams try to go "mainstream". But it's also dangerous because it drives Garou away from its essential qualities, and somehow it shows a lack of new ideas. They didn't try to find something new. They tried to show they would be better than others if they lowered themselves at doing a more generic fighting game.
Which is the essential difference with SFIII, notwithstanding where SFIII fails and succeeds in what it tries to do (because I would then need a rant twice as long and tedious to make my point, which I am pretty sure would go against the Geneva Convention). New Generation meant to say "we are the best", MotW tries to scream "we are better than you".
So what's wrong with Rock in all that. Note that I don't mind any overexposure, I mind the mere existence of the character.
Rock is the symbol of what bothers me with MotW. He's not that bad, he's just terribly wrong. Why oh why fuck mess with Geese Howard? What kind of desperate grasp to the series' canon is that? The idea itself is not that bad ...unless you realize that Geese Howard having a child (and moreover recognizing him as his own, i.e. caring about him) is a completely moronic idea. But why not. Why the hell make it a boring shonen hero that went to the wrong casting and forgot he was supposed to be the next clone and rival and fanfic love interest of Kyo? This kid has a zipper fetish, goddamit! Am I the only one seing something wrong with that!? Shovel hits and fatass yaoi fangirls, that's all his angel face deserves. At least Ash Crimson has some character. He disturbs me, I don't like him per say, but his persona moves me. In a wrong way, but he moves me. Rock is just the bland generic Xerox young hero I desperately hoped would never cross my path in Garou, and to add insult to injury they decided to make him the legacy of Geese Howard!? GAH.
And at least MotW is a game I do not like but have fun with it. This is something I cannot even say about Rock. It's like they took Geese and took out everything that made its character, with safer, milder moves, an a much less extremist gameplay because of Terry's "all around character" influence. When you compare the two Howards, Rock feels like an English village on a rainy Sunday. The aikido sisters in TRF are much more interesting "variations" of Geese in that respect. And what does he bring to the whole thing? What is interesting with Rock? I can't answer that. He's just rehashing old moves.
Had they taken out Rock from the roster, the Garou team would have lost a nice storyline element and an interesting idea, but it would have avoided the worst stereotype in the game as well as a crappy gameplay remake of one of the series' defining characters. Rock is one proof they were not trying for new ideas, but adapting things already done.
This is why I feel I have the right to claim that Rock Howard must go.
NOW IS TIME TO THE 68000 Z80 AND SH-2 HEART ON FIRE !!
[this message was edited by CHAZumaru on Tue 3 Jan 06:31] |
| aderack
214th Post
Frequent Customer
| "Re(2):Rock Howard must go" , posted Tue 3 Jan 09:08:
That's all interesting, and I see both where you're coming from and where you're going. And yet, why does MotW feel more like an "SNK" game than the earlier Fatal Furies did? I can never play them for the same reason I can't play Street Fighter. I enjoy MotW for the same reasons I enjoy KoF, Last Blade, and what-have-you. Even Art of Fighting, if we're talking about the third game.
I mean, sure. They simplified the game. This was the year SNK "sold out", in attempt to get people to notice the company again. They replaced Kyo with K', they sidelined Terry (and it is Terry that Rock is meant to replace; not Geese) with a similar pretty-boy hero. They gave both series a massive stylistic change. A major systematic change. Thing is, in the case of Mark of the Wolves what they wound up with was exactly what they were going for: a more appealing product. And it is very appealing -- both on a casual level, and on the SNK-obsessive storyline/character/whatever level. It's appealing for competitive players, and appealing to people who just like to fiddle around with the game system. And I like it a lot, whereas I can't get past the arbitrary elements of the earlier games.
Of course, what it loses is the identity and distinctiveness of the earlier games. That seems to be what annoys you. And fair enough.
Don't have much response to anything else, except that I was under the impression that Geese didn't have any idea that Rock existed. From what I understand, Rock was raised by his mother and only went to confront Geese around the time that Geese went plunging again at the behest of Mr. Bogard.
Furthermore, Rock isn't supposed to be the legacy of Geese so much as he's supposed to be the potential legacy of Terry Bogard; he just happens to be a little conflicted by his heritage. It's the same idea as Kyo and Iori working together, or the hypothetical team I keep wishing for with both Terry and Billy on it -- except embodied in a single character. It's an old archetype, and it's telling that SNK threw it out at the same time as K'. As of 1999, angst is the new keyword, apparently. Still, you know. Sometimes the oldest ideas are the most interesting.
The main problem is that Rock's character never went anywhere interesting. It's all unresolved potential. They never did anything with him, never dealt with his conflict. So as a result he seems terribly shallow. HIS BLOOD STILL BURNS, because until SNK gets back to his storyline he will be a bundle of directionless angst for all eternity.
That, right there, is why overexposure seems like a potential problem to me. SNK's kind of jumping the gun on him, shoving him into every game they put out. Finish your peas before you eat dessert. Finish school before you pursue your rock career. In contrast, Kyo and Iori are done. Although there's not much point in constantly dragging them out again, the characters don't really have much better to do at this point.
[this message was edited by aderack on Tue 3 Jan 09:20] |
| Spoon 1259th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
  
    
  
| "Re(3):Rock Howard must go" , posted Tue 3 Jan 09:54
quote:
Alternating bouts of reason and unreason
Hating on controller motions is something that I really don't know how to respond to. If we're talking about comparing charge moves to 360s where the difference in motion fundamentally alters how the character is played, then fine. But these are complaints about things like F,HCF versus QCFx2. This is silly. And since we're supposed to be constructively arguing, let's not pull the, "maybe I'm the only fan in the world that cares about these things, but they matter to ME" defense, because then there can be no debate.
Rock is an interesting character to play as. He's a bit of Geese, a bit of Terry, and a bit of his own very interesting command run mixup game. I'd agree with those that'd say that for better or worse, Rock is symbolic of MotW: take some old things and mix them together, take someone else's things and mix that in, and then add a little something novel to it. I see nothing wrong with this approach. Fighting games have been doing this since forever, and we should expect no less.
The character design "debate" is a long road to absolutely nowhere. But since this is mmcafe and fashion reigns supreme, it is a road that will inevitably be travelled. I choose to avoid it entirely.
MotW is designed as an answer to SF3, what with it's own attempt at the Parry system, it's imitation of the SF3s juggling system, UOHs, etc. etc. I say so what. Its execution is marvelous. If it sucked on more fronts, we'd have more to complain about. Streamlining super and special move motions is not necessarily evil. So instead of some HCFs we have some QCFs. Now, if everyone was a fireball-DP character, then I'd agree that this would be an outrageous homogenization. But they aren't. Kevin is not Rock, Rock is not Gato, Gato is not Kain, Kain is not Tizoc. SF3 tried to reinvigorate the franchise with a bold new cast of characters, discarding masses of old favourites or incorporating elements of old ones into new ones. They went with a whole new look that many at the time and even today say is "ugly". Why shouldn't MotW do that? I say violate the storyline and whatever else if it leads you to create new, interesting characters and a new, interesting game. The storylines are inherently silly anyway. I'm not saying that they must or are obliged to ignore or destroy everything previous, but if some old inspires something new, they should go for it no matter the direction it takes.
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| CHAZumaru 315th Post
Bronze Customer
| "Re(3):Rock Howard must go" , posted Tue 3 Jan 10:01
quote:
Don't have much response to anything else, except that I was under the impression that Geese didn't have any idea that Rock existed. From what I understand, Rock was raised by his mother and only went to confront Geese around the time that Geese went plunging again at the behest of Mr. Bogard.
I stand corrected, then. I should have opened SNK Kakutou 1991-2000 again and checked before stating the opposite.
quote:
The main problem is that Rock's character never went anywhere interesting. It's all unresolved potential.
[...]
In contrast, Kyo and Iori are done. Although there's not much point in constantly dragging them out again, the characters don't really have much better to do at this point.
That's a pertinent remark. Then again, it seems from the interview Prof found that there were more things to come with MotW. Most of the main guys behing Garou series left, though, so I hardly see how they could pursue and release the sequel appropriately now.
As I said earlier, I have nothing against changes. There was no need for a Real Bout 3. I'd like one, but it'd be completely useless. My anger with MotW is more along the lines of why wasting so much energy trying to prove things with such a game? I know SNK was in the middle of a creativity crisis as their "best of" fighting game had become their main and almost only fighting game, and they had to keep at least one other series to feed it. And it's obvious (and now proven) that it is far easier to add MotW characters inside the modern KOF universe than older Garou designs. But the RB games were so different and peculiar that I can only feel disappointed that, since they somehow had to turn a new page, they didn't try something bolder.
As for Rock, well, I can't be very objective when it comes to Geese. I am sure I'd take it better if I considered him as a Terry-wannabe instead. Then again, making me realize he's actually here to replace Terry isn't gonna make me feel better either. But holy crap, Rock is just everything I hate about recent fighting games, stuck in a single character. I just can't help it.
On a sidenote, I am interested in hearing more about your "some SNK games feel like SNK games to me and others don't" remark.
NOW IS TIME TO THE 68000 Z80 AND SH-2 HEART ON FIRE !!
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| CHAZumaru 316th Post
Bronze Customer
| "Re(4):Rock Howard must go" , posted Tue 3 Jan 10:40
quote:
Hating on controller motions is something that I really don't know how to respond to. If we're talking about comparing charge moves to 360s where the difference in motion fundamentally alters how the character is played, then fine. But these are complaints about things like F,HCF versus QCFx2. This is silly.
I am not asking for impossible Laurence SDM moves in every move list. I am just asking for different physical experiences depending on the character selected. It adds a lot of identity to a character when you have to learn how to use him, not only by understanding how it moves and what its strong points are, but also by learning how to use him/her on a physical level. It's actually one of the main reasons I got into Street Fighter II and fighting games. They were asking you to consider the same interface differently depending on who you played. And I know from an old SRK topic that I am not the only one missing that more and more. Sorry if it sounds silly to you.
See the Raising Storm. It used to be a defining move. I mean, it was like a signature, you couldn't mistake it for anything else. Although the command looked daunting when you first heard about it, it was far from impossible to do once you got used to it, and somehow it gave the move its own identity and even its own sound. That's why I found kind of sad that they changed the move in RB2 for a more generic command. It's not a question of performance (alhtough it became even easier to use). It just tainted the whole feeling. MotW's 236236 specials are just one of the most impersonal things I've ever seen in a fighting game. They were not even trying to set a new easy-to-learn standard that was coming out of their minds. They were simply doing the exact same thing as that other fighting game next door.
If you consider that I loved Garou's "identity" above anything else, you could understand how that is quite depressing to me. Can't you?
quote:
Fighting games have been doing this since forever, and we should expect no less.
And why is that?
quote:
SF3 tried to reinvigorate the franchise with a bold new cast of characters, discarding masses of old favourites or incorporating elements of old ones into new ones. They went with a whole new look that many at the time and even today say is "ugly". Why shouldn't MotW do that?
Because MotW was not in the same situation as SFIII was. I can't develop now or I'd go to bed at dawn, but I'll come back on that tomorrow.
NOW IS TIME TO THE 68000 Z80 AND SH-2 HEART ON FIRE !!
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| Oroch 874th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(5):Rock Howard must go" , posted Tue 3 Jan 12:32
quote:
Hating on controller motions is something that I really don't know how to respond to. If we're talking about comparing charge moves to 360s where the difference in motion fundamentally alters how the character is played, then fine. But these are complaints about things like F,HCF versus QCFx2. This is silly.
I am not asking for impossible Laurence SDM moves in every move list. I am just asking for different physical experiences depending on the character selected. It adds a lot of identity to a character when you have to learn how to use him, not only by understanding how it moves and what its strong points are, but also by learning how to use him/her on a physical level. It's actually one of the main reasons I got into Street Fighter II and fighting games. They were asking you to consider the same interface differently depending on who you played. And I know from an old SRK topic that I am not the only one missing that more and more. Sorry if it sounds silly to you.
See the Raising Storm. It used to be a defining move. I mean, it was like a signature, you couldn't mistake it for anything else. Although the command looked daunting when you first heard about it, it was far from impossible to do once you got used to it, and somehow it gave the move its own identity and even its own sound. That's why I found kind of sad that they changed the move in RB2 for a more generic command. It's not a question of performance (alhtough it became even easier to use). It just tainted the whole feeling. MotW's 236236 specials are just one of the most impersonal things I've ever seen in a fighting game. They were not even trying to set a new easy-to-learn standard that was coming out of their minds. They were simply doing the exact same thing as that other fighting game next door.
If you consider that I loved Garou's "identity" above anything else, you could understand how that is quite depressing to me. Can't you?
Fighting games have been doing this since forever, and we should expect no less.
And why is that?
SF3 tried to reinvigorate the franchise with a bold new cast of characters, discarding masses of old favourites or incorporating elements of old ones into new ones. They went with a whole new look that many at the time and even today say is "ugly". Why shouldn't MotW do that?
Because MotW was not in the same situation as SFIII was. I can't develop now or I'd go to bed at dawn, but I'll come back on that tomorrow.
ho ho ho! and i thought i was the only one who liked the pretzel shaped raging storm!
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| shin ramberk
221th Post
Frequent Customer
| "Re(7):Rock Howard must go" , posted Thu 5 Jan 06:22
quote:
While MotW does have a "me too" feel to it I do wonder if part of the decision to go in the direction the game engine did was because of FF:Wild Ambition. The FF series has been home to any number of funky ideas that may or may not be good for the game but one of the most consistent innovations has been the multi-plane fighting. Of all the 2D fighters, FF was the one that was most interested in trying to create the feeling of the z-axis. With FF:WA, however, the characters were finally free to move around in 3D. Was MotW designed to be as straight ahead 2D fighting experience as possible while the games on the ill-fated NG64 explored the possibilities of 3D fighting?
Did anyone actually like that goddamn 2-plane system!??!?!? I can totally appreciate SNK for trying new things and experimenting and such but the 2-plane system was a bad idea and I'm glad they eventually dropped it or evolved it into the dodge/evade/roll move.
BTW, what were the specific gimmicks for each SNK series and how did they work?
FF had the 2-plane gimmick. Anything else?
Real Bout had the S power and P power. AFAIK, S power and P power are analogous to level 1 and level 2 supers in the SF Alpha series right? Anything else?
Garou had Just Defense and the T.O.P. system. I never understood what the T.O.P. system was.
AOF had the spirit meter, taunting and chi building. Anything else? Your moveset was also dependent on the length of your spirit meter too.
SamSho was weapons combat with the ikari "angry" meter plus a whole lot of crazy shit that got added afterwards. Suicides, death moves, evades, rolling, etc.
And I'm familiar enough with KOF, although KOF 11 probably has the most meters in a single fighting game. It boggles my mind at the amount of meter watching you have to do in that game.
http://ramberk.blogspot.com
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| CHAZumaru 319th Post
Bronze Customer
| "Re(8):Rock Howard must go" , posted Thu 5 Jan 09:10
Ishmael, I find your hypothesis a bit far fetched but very interesting nonetheless.
quote:
Did anyone actually like that goddamn 2-plane system!??!?!?
Pretty much all Garou fans, obviously. The old two-planes from Garou Special feels a bit dated now, and the three-planes period wast just ridiculous, but the evolution in RB and moreover the latest version of the two planes in RB2 was downright perfect. It permited a wider array of strategies to either attack or defend without allowing evading abuses or breaking the rythm of the game. Every plane swap you make is a double edged sword, and it also allowed SNK to include background context in a fighting game strategies (since some levels didn't allow to shift planes - and I can perfectly understand that some people do not like that context thing) as well as one of the best balanced cases of wall bouncing juggles in any fighting game, 2D or 3D - a comparison with wire attacks introduced in recent KOFs would especially be criminal. I like rolling-type evades, but it feels quite shallow when you come back from RB2.
It's a bit the equivalent to blocking (parrying in the US) in Street Fighter III. Some people cannot get into it and it's perfectly fine that they don't, but when you get into the thing, it actually becomes hard to do without the said feature in other games.
quote:
BTW, what were the specific gimmicks for each SNK series and how did they work?
Are you stricly refering to gameplay gimmicks?
Ryuuko introduced so much things it would take hours to describe them all. From the top of my head, they invented DMs as well as (unavoidable) SDMs, and Chouhatsu - with the particularity that chouhatsu in Ryuuko was actually a very important part of the gameplay. I think Ryuuko was also the first series to include instant recovery and wall jump as a standard gameplay feature for everyone. The biggest gimmick is as you said the power meter with each special having a different "cost" and acting differently depending on the power stocked. And it's also in this game that, for the first time, you could refill a meter at will. And Ryuuko Gaiden also tried a few things like mid-hits in a 2D fighting game engine and an extended role of the danger of falling down on the ground (not necessarily for the better).
The original Garou series' gimmicks were the two planes, as well as the infinite super when your life meter is low and the invention of the backdash, also serving as the first sandard 'evade' move. Garou 2 also introduced the modern concept of super move, whereas Ryuuko's version was a bit peculiar (as you had to learn the move during the progression of the story).
Real Bout introduced a couple things, but the most important are a button almost used exclusively for your character's motion and H/S/P power levels, which are more than mere "levels". H is a kind of equivalent to Capcom's counters, alhtough it is less dangerous to spoil an H than a Zero Counter, from my view. The S/P power levels are not different levels of a same super move. In a nutshell:
- When you have more than 50% of your life left, you only have access to S supers via a power gauge to fill.
- Once you have less than 50% of your life left, you have unlimited access to S supers and also access to P supers via the same power gauge to fill.
The RB series also make the most extensive use of feints as a standard gameplay element (this legacy was later continued in MotW, actually).
The TOP system in Mark is a clever evolution of the evolving competences of a Garou player during a match. In the early days, a player would be slightly better when almost dead, with the costless possibility to launch a super move. It was heavily tweaked in the RB series with the S/H/P Power levels I mentioned, and your character gained some capacities as soon as he had lost at least 50% of his life. The TOP system makes it more subtle by keeping the idea of a period when your character benefits from advantages, however allowing the player to choose when he wants this advantage to happen (during the first, second or last third of his life meter). The advantages when in "TOP" are:
- you will be more powerful
- you will gain access to a new and often quite practical move
- you will get a bit of life back when not getting hit
MotW's other gimmick is obviously Just Defence.
SamSpi is everything you said, although pretty much everything was already there in ShinSamSpi, then they scrapped that down and went for a completely different road for the third and fourth games, then Yuki sort of came back to the ShinSamSpi formula with the Zero games and added a mindboggling number of new elements.
NOW IS TIME TO THE 68000 Z80 AND SH-2 HEART ON FIRE !!
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| Ultima 435th Post
Gold Customer
| "Re(1):Rock Howard must go" , posted Fri 6 Jan 02:44:
From CHAZmaru:
quote:
They completely erased every single influence from the older Garou games.
This is why MOTW is the best Garou.
The previous Garous were, for the most part, gimmicky experimentations (though never as atrocious as the Art of Fighting series) on SF2-variations that never held up in comparison to what else was out there, with the posible exceptions of Fatal Fury Special and maybe RB2, though I didn't like that one all that much personally (the only good stages were the ones that were single plane). To me, MOTW was merely getting SNK finally rid of the shit (the multiple planes, the lame buttom system, the ridiculous motions) and replacing it with good stuff that made the game more fun to play, as well as introducing some nice new systems.
Sure, very little of what was introduced in MOTW was truly "new", but "borrowed + good" >>>> "new and shit". SNK had thrown enough shit at the walls over the years to see what would stick, there was no reason why the Garou series had to suffer any more.
--
Ultima - The Right arm of Scrub Voltron
http://uramble.com/index.html - U's Rambling Page
[this message was edited by Ultima on Fri 6 Jan 02:46] |
| Toxico 4124th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
    
 
|  "Yare yare..." , posted Sat 7 Jan 02:07:
For other 'gimmiks' implemented by SNK games I remember other ones as Autoguard (AoF2 King normal kicks had it) and the first game to have parry / just defence feature was Samurai Spirits 2, it was quite hard to perform and the benefict was having the enemy completely open.
From my point of view the biggest taint of the MotW is Last Blade, the game is mainly created due to the 'success' of Last Blade and to compite with third strike (as stated) wich resulted on a 'improved Super Street Fighter Turbo' + 'Last blade bishonen designs' type of feel that just didn't felt right to me.
I gotta stand with Chaz here, where I actually can show respect and support when a company decides actually not to add the 'pretty guy' stance to their characters; our sad reality it's fair enough to show the sign of the times, remember that popular culture also has some 'influence' on WHAT kind of design a game can offer, the main example I can offer is Kizuna Encounter and Savage Reign, while in that time it would have seen not too positive to introduce a game with strange and freaky designs I'm pretty sure that on todays market that wouldn be accepted at all. If for some reason some company tried to release a brand new game on today's market AND the whole cast didn't looked like pretty young school kids borrowed from gundam seed or bleach BUT looked like yata man villains the game designer would be burned at the stake and labeled with 'herecy'.... It's the sign of the times and it seems that to a producers, 'what sells' actually matters.
In all my feeling with Garou MotW is that it wasn't meant as a game 'to be played permanently', it was a game to be played 'for some time', and it's 'basic' engine details and shallow 'please love me' designs supports that 'like me for a while' feeling.
See??? He is a God...
[this message was edited by Toxico on Sat 7 Jan 02:10] |
| Ishmael 2333th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(8):Rock Howard must go" , posted Sat 7 Jan 04:14
quote:
BTW, what were the specific gimmicks for each SNK series and how did they work?
In addition to all the items listed by CHAZumaru and Toxico there were a lot of strange little things in SNK games that never seemed to catch on. Was FF2 the first game to feature the ability to walk/waddle while crouching or was that in FF1? While that ability obviously had advantages for charge attacks, man, did it ever make your character look ridiculous.
Another AOF thing was I believe it was the first fighter to zoom in on the action so that when you were toe-to-toe the fighting area was quite small. At least when the SS series used this same technique it wasn't quite as obnoxious about it. That, and SS2 was the first game to give you the ability to turn yourself into a doll. Even without all the other great things in the SS series that trick alone would have earned the game a place in history.
One of the things that I find interesting about this thread is that it reminds me that constant innovation is good but doesn't fully work without the proper application. Take AOF for example. While the game was full of a lot of ideas I didn't think many of them were well integrated into a game that already felt clunky to begin with. I can understand why there are some who like AOF since it's so different from anything else that came out but for me it always felt like a showcase for ideas instead of an actual, fun game.
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Now that I think of it, Ryuuko also had a kind of JD/blocking equivalent, only applaiable to enemies' fireballs and also very hard to perform. You had to perform a quick punch right as the fireball would hit you. I don't remember in which Ryuuko it started, but it was in the second and third games for sure.
Hmm, I can't remember if that was in the first one or not but I do remember the CPU in AOF2 far too good at pulling that trick off. There was nothing more annoying than wasting all of your spirit gauge to INITIATE SUPER DEATH MOVE and then having some little monkey man go "eep" and destroy your giantic fireball with a quick jab.
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| Ikari Loona
120th Post
Regular Customer
| "Re(8):Rock Howard must go" , posted Sat 7 Jan 06:55:
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And I'm familiar enough with KOF, although KOF 11 probably has the most meters in a single fighting game. It boggles my mind at the amount of meter watching you have to do in that game.
I was under the impression that the later GG games were "winning" in that department:
http://sirlin.net/Features/feature_GameBalancePart2.htm
At least the new bar in KoF separates active defense from the ability to pull off supers - at least I appreciate it, since the older KoF's I've played didn't exactly encourage me to cancel a block into a roll, demanding the ability to pull off a super as a price... quite inconvenient when you're already low on life and could really use a way to share that particular condition with the opponent.
Since Geese's counters were mentioned as one of SNK's innovations, then I really must mention how Tung was the first character with changing fighting styles during a match with a completely different sprite set while in that mode - it would have been nice if later games featuring the character would allow for a giant mode for a while.
As for SNK's innovations and experiments as a whole, the least that can be said is that at their prime they always tried to find ways to make sure fighting games weren't dominated by projectiles - FF let you escape to other planes, AoF limited their use through the spirit bar and by letting you destroy them with punches, SS let you slash the solid ones,KoF let you dodge and roll...
Unfortunately,SvC ended up not having any such feature, and to me that says a lot about the phase they were going through back then...
"Beat the machine that works in your head!" - Guano Apes "Open Your Eyes"
[this message was edited by Ikari Loona on Sat 7 Jan 10:01] |
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"Re(10):Rock Howard must go" , posted Fri 6 Jan 04:00
