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|  "Re(4):Weekly classic fighting game thread II" , posted Thu 4 May 21:11  
Having a low self steem is pretty terrible, I have to endure with that myself, so I can understand his pain.
It seems like kuroda had a terrible childhood, his father was missing and his mother treated him terrible.
Also, I could see why dedicating some of his best years to play videogames competitivly could be demoralizing on your later years, specially when those games don't have big monetary rewards like other e-sports games, also, if you lack some social skills, it is really an uphill battle
I hope that at least the internet support could help him a bit, and that his closer friends could support him through this hard times
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| | "Toxico would probably like this one..." , posted Wed 14 Jun 00:01
Well, let's discuss more classic fighting games, shall we?
I still plan to bring the Power Stone series here someday, but it was just after Toxico passing away that it occurred to me that the World Heroes games were never discussed in the first thread, was it? So, why not discussing it now?
When I was a kid, these games felt like a Street Fighter wannabe, but now I can appreciate them more for several reasons:
- The historical figures: sure, I knew Janne and Rasputin were inspired in Jeanne d'Arc and Grigori Rasputin, but only over a decade later I learned that pretty much ALL of the characters are inspired in either historical figures (even Brocken apparently was supposed to be a cybernetic version of Hitler, before ADK felt it would be too risky), remarkable athletes or heroes from tales;
- The wrestling references: from Muscle Power being a Hulk Hogan lookalike from the bell sounds whenever a character was knocked out, it's cool to see how many wrestling references were in these games. The Death Match mode in WH and WH2, now I know, took a page from some Japanese wrestling matches, which would really involve gimmicks like a ring surrounded by barbed wire or (allegedly) electrified cables, or the loser having his hair shaved off. Sure, some traps in this mode would probably never be allowed in a real-life match, but it's still a cool reference. Also notable is the Tournament mode in WH2 Jet;
- The improvements from one game to the other: I'm not sure if any of the WH games was ever advanced in regards to its Capcom and SNK competitors, but it's nice to see how much it evolved. From a first game with a small roster and remarkable only due to the Death Match mode, it got a huge increase in the number of characters in WH2, then Jet (whose name makes it seem like a simple upgrade of WH2) adds several gameplay mechanics, three new bosses (unfortunately at the cost of the two from the previous game, one of whom sadly didn't even get to return in the final installment - then again, Geegus wasn't that remarkable, was he?) and a completely revamped Arcade mode, and finally Perfect adding Super Combos (and "Super Super Combos") and Gokuu - a great addition for anyone familiar with the Monkey King tale or with the Dragon Ball series.
That's what I could remember now, but I'm sure you guys have a lot more to contribute to it. It's sad that the person who could contribute the most to this discussion isn't here anymore, but I'm sure he'll enjoy it and perform the obscene voodoo teleport dance from above.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(1):Toxico would probably like this one..." , posted Wed 14 Jun 16:14:
In memory of Toxico.
To this day, I still wonder if he wandered into this site thinking that it's the Mudman's Cafe.
When it comes to the World Heroes series, World Heroes 2 is the must-talk title in the series. It was actually the third fighting game that I played in my life following Street Fighter 2 and Fatal Fury 2, and it was probably a good thing because its nuttyness might've traumatized me for life had it been my first experience.
The characters for the most part were total oddballs-- a mostly naked Shaman with a huge flat head, an eerie magician with Cossack kicks and a huge magical finger flick for an antiair, an American Footballer who keeps shouting "ALMOND SHOT!" for his projectiles.. very memorable even to this day. Al Capone was one of the characters considered for the series. Not sure why he wasn't thrown in, but then again the developers seemed to have their own sense of standards. And of course, let's not forget about Brocken. I'm still surprised he wasn't censored in the American release, considering that even M.U.S.C.L.E. for the NES had its Brocken (different character) swapped with another skin.
WH2's game systems were quite groundbreaking for its time compared to SF or FF, which unquestionably explains how the game was able to dethrone those titles in the income rankings in Japan. Throw reversals and projectile reversals really made the game exciting where SF sort of felt bland, especially since those were back in the days when throwing from a jump-in was considered "cheap" by some people. You rarely hear that sort of house rule nowadays, but back in the yesteryears we were still kids. And throw reversals were a great way to say "hey, you're just not skilled enough!" (Although we now know that the player who started the throw would eventually win after 6 reversals!)
Projectile reversals were a cool idea too, maybe even going a bit overboard. It almost looked like a glitch when you'd block Captain Kid's shark and it'd fly straight down underneath the ground. But that's what made the game so fun.
And who in their right mind came up for the stages in this game? The normal stages are fine, but the death matches are just crazy-- fighting outside a faulty power plant with electric shocks zapping all over the place, fighting in a ring with spikey walls and oiled floor, and of course the skinhead death matches! Those were the days when game developers actually took the time to draw different lose poses for special losses. Those days will be missed.
So with all of that, I was extremely excited when World Heroes 1 was released for the SNES and it was a day-1 buy for me. Needless to say my disappointment couldn't be made to words when I played and discovered that the prequel to 2 had none of that interesting stuff and played like a Street Fighter clone.
World Heroes 2 was fun, but in today's standards it certainly wasn't a balanced game, just that people didn't play so hardcore back in those days and there was no internet to spread around gameplay videos. The sequels were more balanced, but it unfortunately also meant that they were nowhere as fun. After all, World Heroes 2 was a game where the developers left some stuff just because they "looked cool", like Shura's Muai-tai kick where he'd jump out of the screen and come falling down after a few seconds-- it was a actually a parameter glitch.
I don't have much recollection of Jet except that it didn't last too long in the arcades. Perfect was a game I played a bit and although it didn't have anything innovative the way that 2 did, its additional graphics did the game justice, and by lord, Zeus must've been one of the most broken characters in fighting game history if only the CPU wasn't so braindead (when used by a human, he's a monster). One of the last stages in the game is Shibuya, and it's kind of funny how the real location still looks similar to the stage even after two decades!
...Come to think, the death matches must've been inspired by the Pro-wrestling scene in Japan back then where they had the really bloody death matches. It sort of makes sense since it's around the time when the Tokyo Dome was built in the middle of the city and its popularity helped as a multiplier effect to Japanese pro-wresting. That was around the time when Japan had some of the craziest wrestlers like Atusuhi Onita and Tiger Jeet Singh.
[this message was edited by Professor on Wed 14 Jun 16:58] |
New Customer  | "Re(2):Toxico would probably like this one..." , posted Sat 17 Jun 01:28:
quote:
In memory of Toxico.
To this day, I still wonder if he wandered into this site thinking that it's the Mudman's Cafe.
xD
I would like to clarify a detail as to Toxico ... his favorite saga of SNK / Neo-Geo was Samurai Shodown, in fact, I remember that he had a love / hate relationship after playing quite a long time in the IV game, with only Seeing the arcade machine from afar he shouted 'United State, damn Sogetsu!', Which at the time seemed funny and strange at the same time. Of course he ended up preferring the following sequels to be more balanced or less broken.
In a moment of nostalgia and because most of us remembered them with affection, we had a reunion with several sagas, among them World Heroes, in particular the 2. And thus began the relationship between Toxico and the charismatic evil Hukashaka, and all that analysis Exhaustive (although he liked to play with Rasputin). During the fighting game boom most of us lacked mental maturity and we did not have a retro culture, we all used to compete in the popular arcade of the moment. Toxico certainly did not give the attention that deserved to the saga of World Heroes for lacking of competitive scene, and spent the years in its eagerness to find a balanced game had to be fascinated with the version Jet / Perfect.
I doubt that you can recognize his voice but I leave you a video recorded in 2008, long before we had a game capture.
Https://youtu.be/Wcn6Si7dxnI
By the way, I do not know what the subject is about but I had to clarify that point and say that you need a topic about relevant similarities or interesting references... you know, serious fun.
[this message was edited by Sousa on Sat 17 Jun 02:32] |
| | "Re(3):Toxico would probably like this one..." , posted Tue 20 Jun 09:01
quote:
I would like to clarify a detail as to Toxico ... his favorite saga of SNK / Neo-Geo was Samurai Shodown, in fact, I remember that he had a love / hate relationship after playing quite a long time in the IV game, with only Seeing the arcade machine from afar he shouted 'United State, damn Sogetsu!', Which at the time seemed funny and strange at the same time. Of course he ended up preferring the following sequels to be more balanced or less broken.
Samurai Shodown!? Well that's interesting, thanks for the clarification. I used to play SS1 a lot with friends, starting the games off with a clash and just going fist to fist for the fun of things. Only 20 years later did we learn that mashing buttons during the clash had no meaning because the winner was totally randomized.
Btw Sousa, regarding that World Heroes video on your channel-- Karatsu actually contacted me last month about Toxico passing away. Toxico was previously referring to him as his Tekken Waifu, lol.
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| | "From Double Dragon to Wonderland IN ONE GAME!" , posted Wed 19 Jul 02:42
Well, it seems the discussions about World Heroes are over, so moving on...
The recent reveal of Abigail for SFV reminded me this week of Evoga's Rage of the Dragons, which looks like an interesting classic game to discuss. It's interesting to notice it was released long after most of the games we consider classic - but, on the other hand, it was released nearly fifteen years ago, so I'd say it can already be considered a classic game, somehow.
I guess you guys already know this game was supposed to be part of the Double Dragon franchise until the producers failed to obtain the right to use its license - thus, the Lee brothers became the Lewis brothers, and Abobo became Abubo. Knowing this before getting to play it for the first time, I expected ROTD to be full of DD references, but it actually does feel like a completely original game - and the good thing is, it works!
While ROTD is far from being the best fighting game in the world, it's still quite good. I love how instead of making the roster look like Double Dragon mooks or bosses, the developers made each of the fighters very unique, ranging from normal people to not-so-normal people (including dragon hosts, dragon hunters and a couple that is implied to be avatars of an angel and a demon), to a British girl in a blue dress named Alice Carroll... yeah, very subtle.
Anyway, I don't know if maybe it's the way how the arcade cabinet I used to play was programmed, but ROTD was really HARD. I'm not a good player myself, but pretty much everyone who tried to play it would get a Game Over screen by the third or fourth battle. Sadly, this made most people dislike it, despite the interesting tag-team gameplay system, nice sprites and catchy soundtrack (Pepe & Pupa's and Billy & Lynn's are my favorite tracks).
It's even sadder, however, that it has next to no chance of ever getting a sequel. To me, it was - and still is - quite fun. A small project, with some flaws (like the many gramatical errors in text, the amateurish Radel & Annie stage, uninspired designs for Radel and Oni, or the annoying voices given to Pupa, Annie, Alice and Mr. Jones), but with many more qualities and a good potential to generate an even better sequel. Oh well...
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(1):From Double Dragon to Wonderland IN ONE" , posted Wed 19 Jul 03:38
quote:
Well, it seems the discussions about World Heroes are over, so moving on...
The recent reveal of Abigail for SFV reminded me this week of Evoga's Rage of the Dragons, which looks like an interesting classic game to discuss. It's interesting to notice it was released long after most of the games we consider classic - but, on the other hand, it was released nearly fifteen years ago, so I'd say it can already be considered a classic game, somehow.
I guess you guys already know this game was supposed to be part of the Double Dragon franchise until the producers failed to obtain the right to use its license - thus, the Lee brothers became the Lewis brothers, and Abobo became Abubo. Knowing this before getting to play it for the first time, I expected ROTD to be full of DD references, but it actually does feel like a completely original game - and the good thing is, it works!
While ROTD is far from being the best fighting game in the world, it's still quite good. I love how instead of making the roster look like Double Dragon mooks or bosses, the developers made each of the fighters very unique, ranging from normal people to not-so-normal people (including dragon hosts, dragon hunters and a couple that is implied to be avatars of an angel and a demon), to a British girl in a blue dress named Alice Carroll... yeah, very subtle.
Anyway, I don't know if maybe it's the way how the arcade cabinet I used to play was programmed, but ROTD was really HARD. I'm not a good player
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
Kinda sad it has to be this way. Well, Evoga went bankrupt in 2004, while Noise Factory shut down last March. Nobody knows who currently owns the rights of ROTD until now.
I remember Yasuyuki Oda has intentions to revive ROTD. However, being a "homage" to Double Dragon might ring alarm to the current rights holder of Double Dragon... Arc System Works.
I do not know if SNK and/or Arc System Works brought this up when their reps are in EVO.
I see scenarios if ROTD rights was brought up.
a) SNK gets the rights, but loses Billy, Jimmy and Abubo to ArcSys. SNK will reboot the series, but SNK will retcon them out and promote Lynn as the de facto protagonist, or give Billy, Jimmy and Abubo the Nameless treatment.
b) Arc System Works gets the rights, no legal problems.
c) SNK and ArcSys makes a deal, SNK gets the rights, loses the Lewis Brothers and Abubo, but allows to bring the Lee Brothers and Abobo as guest characters as compensation with ArcSys' blessing.
"Lasciate ogne speranza"
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| | "Re(1):From Double Dragon to Wonderland IN ONE" , posted Wed 19 Jul 03:45
quote:
Well, it seems the discussions about World Heroes are over, so moving on...
The recent reveal of Abigail for SFV reminded me this week of Evoga's Rage of the Dragons, which looks like an interesting classic game to discuss.
I consider ROTD a great game from a graphical point of view, not on the level of GarouMOTW, but it had really big sprites, interesting character design (the priest! and the possessed girl!!) but it seems that after some point during development they decided to pad the roster with too much head swaps (at least from superficial point of view, gameplay-wise I not remember much, but I think they had at least movesets different enough).
I'm talking about the two guys in spandex and if IIRC there were also 2 girls that shared the same base sprite. And not counting the two brothers!
For the difficulty, yes, I remember it very difficult, and I never beat the final boss.
The same happened with Matrimelee, it was developed by the same people, right? (It had some ROTD characters as secret). That boss was really the worst in absolute.
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| | "Re(2):From Double Dragon to Wonderland IN ONE" , posted Wed 19 Jul 04:12
quote:
I see scenarios if ROTD rights was brought up.
a) SNK gets the rights, but loses Billy, Jimmy and Abubo to ArcSys. SNK will reboot the series, but SNK will retcon them out and promote Lynn as the de facto protagonist, or give Billy, Jimmy and Abubo the Nameless treatment.
b) Arc System Works gets the rights, no legal problems.
c) SNK and ArcSys makes a deal, SNK gets the rights, loses the Lewis Brothers and Abubo, but allows to bring the Lee Brothers and Abobo as guest characters as compensation with ArcSys' blessing.
I'd LOVE any of these scenarios! Although I wonder if ArcSys would have the time for a new project (or if SNK would have budget and interest for a project not associated with KOF)...
But it would be great to see ROTD back, maybe with some more dragon hosts, more supernatural characters, maybe even some fighters looking like "Alice in Wonderland" characters to give ROTD's Alice some backstory development. And I wouldn't complain if the tag team system borrowed some features from Atlus' Groove on Fight (with the partners in the background following wherever the main characters go, defeated fighters staying on the ground, maybe even the ability to throw the unconscious people on the enemy).
quote:
I consider ROTD a great game from a graphical point of view, not on the level of GarouMOTW, but it had really big sprites, interesting character design (the priest! and the possessed girl!!) but it seems that after some point during development they decided to pad the roster with too much head swaps (at least from superficial point of view, gameplay-wise I not remember much, but I think they had at least movesets different enough).
I'm talking about the two guys in spandex and if IIRC there were also 2 girls that shared the same base sprite. And not counting the two brothers!
I guess you're talking about Radel and Oni (the two uninspired designs I mentioned), Annie and Alice (they're the only two girls I can remember that have similar height), and obviously Jimmy and Billy.
To be fair, though, each of them has different animations, different clothing (even if Radel and Oni are both wearing spandex, they're wearing DIFFERENT kinds of spandex) and different movesets, so I'm not sure if any of them could be considered a case of head swap. I don't understand much of base sprites and animations, but they look quite different from each other to me.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(4):From Double Dragon to Wonderland IN ONE" , posted Wed 19 Jul 06:47
I guess that is possible, yes. After reading your comment, I searched for some videos of ROTD, and Annie's and Alice's neutral fighting stances do look quite similar to each other (except for Annie having her arms and head raised).
Then again, Evoga did make this game with very few resources, didn't it? I don't blame the developers if they recycled some animations here and there, especially because as a whole, no two characters in ROTD look or play the same as each other. Plus, it's not like if companies like Capcom, SNK and ArcSys didn't do the same thing before (and let's not even mention Mortal Kombat's ninjas...).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(5):From Double Dragon to Wonderland IN ONE" , posted Mon 31 Jul 23:10:
Well, it seems the interest in talking about ROTD is over. Nevertheless, before the subject is changed, I'd only like to make one last comment about it.
One thing I find frustrating is that ROTD not only never got a sequel, but that it never got ported to other platforms, either. I wonder how popular it would have been if it hadn't been restricted to the Neo Geo... okay, since it was made by a small company, probably most people wouldn't have paid attention to it anyway (unless Evoga pushed Sonia and Cassandra on the game covers for blatant fanservice - it works for Dead or Alive, after all), but who knows... maybe someone would be interested in a fighting game with alternate versions of Double Dragon's Billy, Jimmy and Abobo, although there were already two DD fighting games. On the other hand, I don't remember any other fighting game with an alternate version of Alice in Wonderland's Alice (if only she had long, blonde hair...)...
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Mon 31 Jul 23:12] |
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| "Re(6):From Double Dragon to Wonderland IN ONE" , posted Tue 1 Aug 22:33
quote:
Well, it seems the interest in talking about ROTD is over. Nevertheless, before the subject is changed, I'd only like to make one last comment about it.
One thing I find frustrating is that ROTD not only never got a sequel, but that it never got ported to other platforms, either. I wonder how popular it would have been if it hadn't been restricted to the Neo Geo... okay, since it was made by a small company, probably most people wouldn't have paid attention to it anyway (unless Evoga pushed Sonia and Cassandra on the game covers for blatant fanservice - it works for Dead or Alive, after all), but who knows... maybe someone would be interested in a fighting game with alternate versions of Double Dragon's Billy, Jimmy and Abobo, although there were already two DD fighting games. On the other hand, I don't remember any other fighting game with an alternate version of Alice in Wonderland's Alice (if only she had long, blonde hair...)...
When this game was released, which was also the same time as Metal Slug 4 and Sengoku 3, I was really trying my best to find this game. I even told one of the arcade owners to order the game for his four slot MVS cabinet that already had KOF 98, 99, and some other games. But I had to go the PC route.
My first impression was quite decent. I was trying to learn the mechanics it offered and to my surprise, the game didn't felt rushed or simple where it got boring fast. So I was entertained even though not passing the 4th stage with one credit and not continuing. The VS setting was pretty cool since you get to choose what stage you want, or was that training mode? Did it have training mode for AES? So I was able to see the boss stage and the boss I think. Maybe it was a debug setting I do not remember.
Anyways, the fact that the game was hard to find and it did not use a PC program that allow you to play players online like other PC programs (cough) (cough), The game didn't get the love and attention it deserved. It all boiled down to the lack of exposure really because it would have had a good size cult following. same could be said about Sengoku 3. Shit, it was like my new version of SOR!
ROTD kept me entertain for quite some time. I picked it up here and there every other day to play one credit. It was hard not being able to play with anyone though to see how challenging it could be. I think I will try to look for it again and play it.
Long Live I AM!
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| | "Mutants, fighters and ninjas with funny masks" , posted Tue 5 Sep 03:43:
Well, it's over a month since the last comment about ROTD in this thread, so I guess it's time to move to the next subject.
Since ROTD is a tag team game, I considered choosing another tag team game. For some days, I've been considering whether the new subject should be SNK's Kizuna Encounter or Capcom's X-Men vs. Street Fighter... then it occurred to me: why not talk about both??
After all, both KE and XMvSF were released the same year, which is quite a coincidence. Back then, a videogame magazine speculated if one company tried to copy the other's gimmick; today, it doesn't seem likely, since apparently the interval between their releases was quite small to give a team time enough to plagiarize the other's work. Plus, as we know, the tag mechanics is very different between these two games.
---
As for the games themselves, Kizuna Encounter's tag limitation to a specific area of the stage probably didn't do the game many favors (at least considering most tag-team fighting games that came afterwards adopted XMvSF's partner arrival from anywhere), but I must admit I loved to see the partners cheering in the background and showing their status depending on their health bars (from anxious to battle, to slightly tired, to nearly collapsing). Plus, I must admit I really like Gozu and Mezu!
I guess its weakest point was that it was really short, due to its small roster (sure, Savage Reign's Carol and Nicola weren't the coolest fighters ever, but what's the point of removing them for a game with few characters, where FOUR fighters enter the match at the same time?) and the decision to have the match ending if one fighter was knocked out, instead of continuing it until both partners were defeated (okay, TTT also does this, but at least each match had 2 to 3 rounds).
Nevertheless, it's a shame that a third Fu'un game polishing Kizuna Encounter's flaws never materialized. It was a fun game.
---
Now, for XMvSF, back in 1996 I was sure someone was lying when the first news about this game surfaced. Two huge franchises colliding in the same game? Special moves even flashier than the ones in X-Men:COTA? Tag battles with the possibility of having BOTH partners doing their Super Combos simultaneously?
It sounded too good to be true... and while nowadays it's far from impressing, I'd say all expectations back then were met. The arcade cabinet I used to play in a mall was always crowded, either with people challenging each other or beating the CPU until they were crushed by Apocalypse (at least before everyone figured out his weak points). And while the roster wasn't huge, it was nicely selected, from Gambit, Rogue and Sabretooth's debut to Cammy's return. The first defeated character repeatedly bouncing on the floor until leaving the stage was kinda stupid, though (fortunately, MSHvSF removed that).
*sigh* I really wish MvC:I can bring the same level of excitement as XMvSF did. I'm not betting on it, though.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Tue 5 Sep 03:44] |
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| "Re(1):Mutants, fighters and ninjas with funny" , posted Wed 6 Sep 04:30
XMvSF was, for me, the game that heralded the start of the tag fad. For awhile there it seemed every game was built using old resources but were released as a "new" game because you could control a team of two or more characters. It was like a musical style that people hate but listen to anyway because it's everywhere; tag games are the auto-tune of fighters. Eventually the sub-genre mutated into it's own thing to such an extent that games like UMvC3 share about as much common ancestry with SF4 as a hippopotamus does with a humpback whale. Still, for awhile there it felt as if every game was the same old thing but with "Tag" appended to the title.
But even for the dark days it heralded XMvSF wasn't a bad game. To be more accurate, it was good because it was sort of terrible. Even when it first came out people realized the game had issues but it was popular because it was weird, energetic, and doing something different. Sometimes being first is better than being flawless. Out of all the vs games it's the one I look back on with the most fondness because it was out there before the rules had been established.
I first played Kizuna Encounter years after the fact on a grey-market multicab so I have no old recollections of the game. I did, however, want to mention Rosa. She's one of the better designs in the game even though she's every 1996 anime cliché aggregated together Voltron style. How would the designs of Menat and Abigail have been received if they had been released in 1996? How would the Savage Reign cast be received if they came out today?
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| | "Re(2):Mutants, fighters and ninjas with funny" , posted Wed 6 Sep 06:31
quote:
XMvSF was, for me, the game that heralded the start of the tag fad. For awhile there it seemed every game was built using old resources but were released as a "new" game because you could control a team of two or more characters. It was like a musical style that people hate but listen to anyway because it's everywhere; tag games are the auto-tune of fighters. Eventually the sub-genre mutated into it's own thing to such an extent that games like UMvC3 share about as much common ancestry with SF4 as a hippopotamus does with a humpback whale. Still, for awhile there it felt as if every game was the same old thing but with "Tag" appended to the title.
But even for the dark days it heralded XMvSF wasn't a bad game. To be more accurate, it was good because it was sort of terrible. Even when it first came out people realized the game had issues but it was popular because it was weird, energetic, and doing something different. Sometimes being first is better than being flawless. Out of all the vs games it's the one I look back on with the most fondness because it was out there before the rules had been established.
I first played Kizuna Encounter years after the fact on a grey-market multicab so I have no old recollections of the game. I did, however, want to mention Rosa. She's one of the better designs in the game even though she's every 1996 anime cliché aggregated together Voltron style. How would the designs of Menat and Abigail have been received if they had b
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
I really liked XvSF when it was new! CotA was the most gorgeous Marvel game I had ever seen, and XvSF now had an awesomely cool realization of Gambit! Rogue and Sabertooth were there, too, and that they all sounded exactly like the cartoon versions blew my mind at the time!
I was in no way good enough at fighting games to be able to say that a fighting game was a "good fighting game" by any of the standards of gameplay or balance that I would judge them by today, but the game was a bigger CotA with Street Fighter characters that now had awesomely huge special moves (Ryu's fireballs! Ryu's beam!) and could shoot into the air like in CotA, and it looked AWESOME. This meant that the game was AWESOME.
I definitely perceived CotA-style game as being a somewhat different beast to traditional SF, but since fireballs and beams are awesome, I thought it was way cooler than traditional SF. I couldn't even do launcher combos ("aerial raves") consistently, but it looked way cooler and the huge vertical stages, huge special moves, and gorgeous graphics made them way cooler to me.
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| | "Re(2):Mutants, fighters and ninjas with funny" , posted Wed 6 Sep 07:00
quote:
UMvC3 share about as much common ancestry with SF4 as a hippopotamus does with a humpback whale.
This is the kind of post that gives this place its elegantly rusty flavour.
Even in the case of tag fighters with recycled asset like XvsSF, any new asset can give them value. I didn't know any of the X-men at the time so they were new (and uninteresting) to me, but that game also had the first return of Cammy since SSF2X, with a much better sprite to boot.
MvC1 and 2 also had a lot of original sprites to balance the recycling (most of them on the Capcom side, which I liked much more).
CvS was quite the deception for the Capcom side (only new sprites were boring characters who could have been recycled from Zero), but CvS2 went quite creative for the Capcom side instead of simply adding Rose and Alex. You could even trace SFxT's 4 characters not in SF4 to this honourable lineage. Of course, all SNK and Tekken characters were new, a huge endeavour in both cases.
The odd one is MSHxSF, which on top of being ugly, recycled all its content, and picked the most boring characters from Zero2 to add insult to injury.
Let's say MvC:I is on the lower end of that spectrum, with a shallow new-to-old-ratio, but not the lowest.
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| "Re(3):Mutants, fighters and ninjas with funny" , posted Wed 6 Sep 14:58
quote:
UMvC3 share about as much common ancestry with SF4 as a hippopotamus does with a humpback whale. This is the kind of post that gives this place its elegantly rusty flavour.
Truly! Ishmael's incidental jokes amdist longer commentary make the Cafe the only place worth talking about games on the internet.
This is a good topic! While X-Men vs. Street Fighter may indeed have been "pretty stupid" and the start of devilish Morrigan's sad and ironic descent into (sprite) hell, there's no denying the excitement I felt after seeing these beautiful, high visual impact games. It's probably Edayan's art if I remember correctly, but it's all so bright and rounded but clearly drawn. I never played many of these---I've played more Tekken Tag, of all the damn things---but this is the first of a line of games that deeply symbolized the temporarily reviving mystique of the arcade: not many people had Saturns and the RAM cart, meaning that there just wasn't anything at home capable of running these insane, nutty character parties. Sure, this was already evident with the awful PS1 port of Zero 2 we were stuck with, but X-Men vs. Street Fighter is the first one I can recall (am I missing one?) where literally a core game element, the tag team switch-out, could not happen at home. This resulted in the very palpable feeling of me wanting arcade machines in my house, as if there were any place to put them.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| | "Re(1):Short comment about Tobal 2" , posted Thu 19 Apr 06:28
quote:
Not really reviving this thread, but I just wanted to comment that I got the chance to play Tobal 2 few days ago, and... well, I understand now why so many people here love it. It still looks and plays great, and the Quest mode is addictive!
Such a shame that Square never brought this game to the rest of the world and just abandoned this series after the second entry. This could have become one of the top fighting game franchises with proper management.
I always found it sadly funny that while you can play your character from Quest mode in Versus, Dream Factory didn't bother to accommodate larger than normal stats. Instead, damage values wrapped around after overflowing, meaning your leveled up character could quickly end up doing less damage than the default version.
As for bringing the game to the rest of the world, Square dropped the series because it wasn't popular enough. Mind, they expected Tobal No. 1 to rival Tekken in sales. I think Ehrgeiz was pretty much their last ditch effort to create a popular fighting game franchise, and it quickly became known as "that Final Fantasy fighting game". For me Dream Factory went downhill after Tobal 2 anyway; Ehrgeiz was a pretty big let down and then things just seemed to fall apart.
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
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| "Re(1):Short comment about Tobal 2" , posted Thu 19 Apr 08:17
quote:
Not really reviving this thread, but I just wanted to comment that I got the chance to play Tobal 2 few days ago, and... well, I understand now why so many people here love it. It still looks and plays great, and the Quest mode is addictive!
Good man! Tobal 2 is so wonderful. I still say "con-tinue" out loud to this day, just like the announcer does. It's such a beautiful, cheerful, unique game. Its visual style accomplishes the remarkable feat of being probably the oldest 3D fighting game that still looks good today (edging out Soul Calibur 1). Remarkable feat on a PS1. I still remember how it feels to use that R1 (?) life-meter-eating energy attack, or how tactile and real the grapples and blocks feel. I know I've talked about it before, but in most fighting games, your blocked attacks go "through" your opponent, with them just taking no damage, whereas in Tobal your motion is actually cut short, like in real life. Plus, there's Emperor Udan!
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| PSN: IkariLoona
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
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| "Re(2):Short comment about Tobal 2" , posted Thu 19 Apr 09:01
Speaking of disappointment from wasted potential in square-related fighting games, they're selling weapon packs for Dissidia NT consisting of the 4th weapons for each character apparently already available in the arcade version.
This would be less messed up if the exception wasn't Lightning, which 4th weapon can already be regularly unlocked in the home version... it was already kinda messed up that FF4 gets 3 characters right off the bath while multiple mainline games still only get one rep, but this is really starting to look like they're not planning this very well, or letting favorites of the staff skewer development priorities and the business model for this thing.
I'm probably still gonna get the Shantotto weapon because there aren't many ways to tell SE in the financial language they're supposed to understand that there's interest in XI-related stuff, and maybe Bartz' weapon(s), since that works as a reference to the general superior experience of the PSP Dissidias (and with the superior outfit that's his alternate instead of his Amano-based main one).
Seriously, I'm getting a better FF crossover experience out of the free mobile Opera Omnia, where you get stuff like reference to Cloud in drag in the Faris recruitment chapter (although they missed out on the possibility of having Setzer in there as a bit of a development history nod, but the game's timed event structure may be to blame there).
Apparently Dissidia NT will be adding story bits with Vayne in them thogh, so at least there's that.
...!!
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| | "Re(2):Short comment about Tobal 2" , posted Thu 19 Apr 09:38
quote:
Good man! Tobal 2 is so wonderful. I still say "con-tinue" out loud to this day, just like the announcer does. It's such a beautiful, cheerful, unique game. Its visual style accomplishes the remarkable feat of being probably the oldest 3D fighting game that still looks good today (edging out Soul Calibur 1). Remarkable feat on a PS1. I still remember how it feels to use that R1 (?) life-meter-eating energy attack, or how tactile and real the grapples and blocks feel. I know I've talked about it before, but in most fighting games, your blocked attacks go "through" your opponent, with them just taking no damage, whereas in Tobal your motion is actually cut short, like in real life. Plus, there's Emperor Udan!
Ah, Udan, that unfairly agile bastard... He, Mufu, Nork and Mark should haverá gotten their own endings in Tournament mode.
Speaking of Mark, it's nice to see him doing his own devious schemes in Quest mode while most of the other fighters are busy in the tournament. The way the two modes intertwine kinda increases the immersion in the game world(...s).
That's a nice idea, which the developers apparently tried to replicate and expand in Ehrgeiz, with Masuda and Clair busy in a dungeon while everyone else was in the tournament. Sadly, its Quest mode is an awfully generic dungeon-crawling game (I mean, they don't even use their fighting skills!), that feels almost completely detached from Tournament mode (not to mention its frustrating short text endings on a black screen as the only reward for an extremely long and hard playthrough)...
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(3):Short comment about Tobal 2" , posted Thu 19 Apr 12:03:
quote:
Sadly, its Quest mode is an awfully generic dungeon-crawling game (I mean, they don't even use their fighting skills!), that feels almost completely detached from Tournament mode
Tobal No 1's Quest Mode was interesting. Tobal 2's Quest Mode took the concept and turned it into what could almost have been sold as its own game.
I went into Ehrgeiz with high expectations. How much more would the devs polish the formula? Would environments become more important thanks to Ehrgeiz's combat design? Would Ehrgeiz set a new standard for action Rogue-likes?
Then I played Ehrgeiz's quest mode. At first I was confused, and then I just didn't want to admit it. It wasn't "Ehrgeiz - The Rogue-like Adventure". It was an unrelated game that had been stuck on the Ehrgeiz disc in order to fill the "Quest Mode" checkbox on the feature list.
I'd say that it wasn't even a particularly fun game, but I honestly never gave it a fair shake, never touching the quest mode again after my first play. Though it honestly didn't particularly interesting or engaging in that single play, even putting the crushed expectations.
Mind, I was still a bit of a sucker for the idea of DreamFactory attempting a Rogue-like, as I would later buy Crimson Tears because it was "Action Game the Rogue-likelite". Okay, I ended up buying it out of a discount bin, because I was still gun shy. But I certainly got more than my discount bin purchase price out of it, even if I'd have been more upset at its shortcomings if I'd paid full retail.
I know that attitude didn't actually help DreamFactory's bottom line, but while they were a company that tried ideas that I wanted to see tried, they always fell a bit too far short in obvious ways after Tobal 2. Ehrgeiz traded traditional fighting game complexity for mobility and stage interaction that PS1 hardware wasn't capable of achieving; a success that wouldn't really be achieved until the next hardware generation with Power Stone. Ehrgeiz Quest Mode was a random budget release game stuck on the Ehrgeiz disc. The Bouncer had a lot of hype, which only helped it crash and burn. Kakuto Choujin did nothing to make the DreamFactory fighting engine mechanically look as good as Tobal 2, and the title being pulled from shelves was pretty much a mercy killing. Crimson Tears was fun, but it had some pretty basic design oversights and issues. From looking at a YouTube video, Appleseed EX is just Crimson Tears reskinned to be a much less interesting product?
[this message was edited by Baines on Thu 19 Apr 12:06] |
| | "Discovering PI Legends in 2018" , posted Sat 19 May 06:45:
Once again reviving this thread... and once again to comment a game that was already discussed here. Sorry about that.
But I just got surprised this week when I found an arcade cabinet in a bar with Power Instinct Legends (well, Gogetsuji Legends - I have no idea why Atlus localized this game yet didn't bother to adapt its title the same way the previous games were titled). I think the only game from this franchise I ever saw in a cabinet before was the first one. So, I decided to play it a little.
And a little it was, as my team never went past the third team. Man, this is a hard game! Sure, I was always quite bad at fighting games (despite loving them), but the difficulty level seems bigger in this one.
Nevertheless, it was a fun experience. It looks quite beautiful for a 1995 game - in fact, there was a KOF'95 cabinet next to it and I think Legends looks much better -, and the cast is unique even with the occasional inspirations (Reiji in relation to Ryu, Keith in relation to Terry Bogard and Annie is kinda similar to Yuri, I think). Reiji ended up being my favorite character to play, although in terms of design I love Kurara's magical girl gimmick and Sahad as a rare (possibly only) fighter from Lebanon - my great-grandfather was Lebanese, and while I'm sure their fighting styles don't involve throwing scimitars, summoning genies or morphing into parrots, he's nevertheless a cool character.
Unfortunately the arcade coins weren't really cheap to buy, so I guess I won't be visiting this bar in the near future. But it was great to experience this game, and I do intend to play it again whenever I have more money (it may take a while until it happens, though).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Sat 19 May 08:18] |
| | "When a Spanish ninja could fight a bear" , posted Thu 27 Jun 02:17
I'm not sure if Street Fighter X Tekken is old enough (or accepted enough) to be considered a classic fighting game, but I just felt like telling that yesterday I got to play it for the first time, in my sister's boyfriend's apartment. Before, I only knew it from YouTube videos and from the backlash it got back in the day, so I wasn't sure if playing it was a good idea... but ended up being pleasantly surprised.
Sure, the gem system is a mess (and not in a good way), but other than that, it was quite a fun experience. I was particularly shocked that, despite SF and Tekken having quite different styles (one having special moves, super combos and all that flash, the other being more down-to-earth and relying more on combos), the Tekken characters I played still felt like Tekken characters (except with some quarter-circle commands and stuff). Granted, it's well known that they lost several moves on the transition to SFxT and that's a problem for talented players - but since I always relied only on very basic moves and short combos, those changes weren't a problem to me at all. Both sides from the roster feel very different from each other, and that turned out to be very interesting.
The tag system was nice, and the Scramble Mode is a mess - but a glorious, fun mess. In the end, it's a pity that it took me so long to play it. Maybe it isn't one of the best fighting games ever released, but it's much better than I thought it would be. It's a pity that it'll probably never get a sequel... well, there's the TxSF project, but I'm not sure Harada even remembers it exists.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(1):TxSF" , posted Thu 27 Jun 21:43
quote:
well, there's the TxSF project, but I'm not sure Harada even remembers it exists.
Harada hasn't forgotten it. He would talk about the project every year or two, saying how he still wanted to make the game.
In 2013, Namco was shifting focus to the next generation of consoles.
In 2016, he said TxSF was put on hold due to the releases of Tekken 7 and Street Fighter V. TxSF would be in competition with those titles.
In 2018, Tekken 7 and Street Fighter V were still alive. Namco and Capcom had the same attitude about TxSF distracting from the core games.
In May 2019, Harada said that Tekken 7 with its continued success and its DLC has become a service game, which still makes it harder to justify releasing TxSF.
In other words, it isn't getting released anytime soon, considering both Tekken 7 and SFV are still getting additional content and updates...
Well, it still has a bigger chance of coming out than Capcom making a SFxT sequel, I guess (considering their financial situation and all the backlash SFxT got).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(3):TxSF" , posted Fri 28 Jun 01:52:
quote:
SFxT was an odd game. There was a lot of individual pieces that were a lot of fun, such as how the Tekken characters were translated into a totally different game engine. Trouble is, the game is a mess. The gem system was rejected by players but it's baked into the game so it's impossible to fully get away from.
SFxT was a very mishandled game.
Gems were viewed as a pay-to-win mechanic. Capcom's defense was that the DLC gems wouldn't be stronger than the default gems, which ignored that being able to buy a wider variety of options in a competitive game is itself a pay-to-win mechanic. Regardless, I want to recall that at least one of the store-specific pre-order gems (later sold as paid DLC) was legitimately a better version of one of the default gems?
Then there was the console exclusive characters issue. The business excuse was simple; Capcom offered exclusive character deals to both Sony and Microsoft, but only Sony was willing to pay what Capcom wanted. From a gamer standpoint, the Playstation versions received five more characters that the Microsoft and PC versions didn't. Adding insult to injury is that Megaman and Pac-Man weren't even tied to Sony licenses.
Then there was the on-disc DLC character issue. The backlash here was its own kind of special mess, but that diverges into a different debate. Modders quickly enabled the DLC characters, while "legit" players were stuck waiting months for the chance to buy said characters. It was taken as an extra insult when it was announced that the Vita port, to be released a few months later, would include all the paid DLC characters for free.
Then there was the removal of mixed local+online tag matches from the Xbox version. Normally this would have been a minor issue, but in the context of everything else it was another major blow. There was the favored system argument. Sony was willing to pay extra and netted five exclusive characters (and the Vita netted all DLC chars for free); Microsoft didn't pay and saw one of its promised gameplay modes removed. There was the on-disc DLC argument. Capcom didn't have the time or resources to complete an advertised mode for the Xbox version, but had the time and resources to make all those DLC characters were ready well in advance. There was Capcom's general silence about negative issues. Knowing well in advance that they'd decided to drop the mode from the Xbox release, Capcom wouldn't openly confirm the removal until after the game's release. It was even still listed in the game's manual, causing additional confusion as people tried to figure out how to access the missing feature. Capcom wrapped up this whole avoidable disaster by confirming that they would not patch the missing feature into the Xbox version at a later date.
And those are just the highlights. There were various other planning and PR missteps, such as dataminers finding apparent evidence that Capcom planned to sell additional custom combo slots.
All of that is before you even get to how the game itself played.
Which was... kind of okay? Honestly, I think the Tekken characters detracted from the game. I don't know that the Tekken characters transitioned to SFxT's pseudo-SF inputs particularly well. Playing them didn't feel like playing a Tekken character, but it didn't feel like playing an SF character either. And once converted to SFxT, they were all so similar. A handful of Tekken characters might have been okay, but this was half the roster.
As for the highly controversial gems, for a feature that was allegedly integral to the design and balance of the game, they felt like a thrown-together excuse to sell more DLC. The individual gems didn't feel balanced or even particularly well thought out. (Fighting EX Layer IMO did a much better job of the idea.) It is more a morbid curiosity that makes me wonder what the competitive scene (and the game itself) would have looked like a year after release if gems had been openly embraced.
[this message was edited by Baines on Fri 28 Jun 01:58] |
| | "Re(5):TxSF" , posted Fri 28 Jun 20:35
I really liked several of the Tekken character's versions in this game. Some of them were really creative, I liked them much more than the SF4 characters and I would have liked to see them in a good game. I'm still surprised SF5 didn't just borrow more out of them to make new characters (there has been some loans, like Abigail and Ed, but many of the more interesting movesets are still missing, like Jin, Christie, Bob or Lei).
The 2013 patch and rebalance made the game a lot better, however it turned the game into a battle of the lamest of the lame. Most of the high-level matches ended up in time up or close to it. IT was impossible to watch.
Also, like MvCI, no patch in the world could have salvaged this horrifying art style. It seemed impossible to make a game uglier than SF4, but Capcom really overdid themselves. And that was even before the dumb neon colors and the glow of the gems when they were active. Just horrible all around.
It's still a game I don't mind turning on from time to time to spend some time with the Tekken characters in training or against the CPU, just to imagine what could have been.
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| | "Re(6):TxSF" , posted Fri 28 Jun 22:31
quote:
I really liked several of the Tekken character's versions in this game. Some of them were really creative, I liked them much more than the SF4 characters and I would have liked to see them in a good game. I'm still surprised SF5 didn't just borrow more out of them to make new characters (there has been some loans, like Abigail and Ed, but many of the more interesting movesets are still missing, like Jin, Christie, Bob or Lei).
The 2013 patch and rebalance made the game a lot better, however it turned the game into a battle of the lamest of the lame. Most of the high-level matches ended up in time up or close to it. IT was impossible to watch.
Also, like MvCI, no patch in the world could have salvaged this horrifying art style. It seemed impossible to make a game uglier than SF4, but Capcom really overdid themselves. And that was even before the dumb neon colors and the glow of the gems when they were active. Just horrible all around.
It's still a game I don't mind turning on from time to time to spend some time with the Tekken characters in training or against the CPU, just to imagine what could have been.
Really?! Wow, I think both SFIV and SFxT look pretty good, actually.
Maybe that's a subjective matter, I guess. I know many KOF players love XIII's sprites (to the point where many of them complained about XIV abandoning them and moving on to 3D graphics), for instance, and I think they look horrible.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(8):TxSF" , posted Sun 30 Jun 02:24
I'm about to pour one out after thinking "ah, I wish TOXICO were here for us to ask about how he'd translate Tekken characters into a 2D fighting game!"
I really do think one of the things that Tekken does really well is that in spite of the enormous and occasionally nonsensical movelists that characters have, which often allow you to play characters in a big variety of very different ways, each character in Tekken still has a distinct gameplay identity. Feng has every tool except for EWGF, and yet Feng is distinct from other jack-of-all-trades characters like Leo and Jin. I think that some SF characters attempted to have that well-rounded style; as Polly often said, "Karin feels like an SNK character". In SFA3, Karin had one of the most enormous sets of tools of any character in the game, with counters, rekkas, flying overheads, anti-air supers, a command grab, a ground overhead, rekkas that could transition into frametrap/high-low/counter, etc. And yet in spite of a character who could "do it all" moreso than like 90% of the cast, she was still distinctly "Karin".
An inverted look at the question is also illuminating: rather than asking how do characters with such wide-ranging sets of moves manage to be distinct, instead we ask how is it that such an enormous variety of highly purposeful moves that every character has not entirely homogenize the cast? For instance, every character in Tekken 7 has a "command throw" in addition to the "regular" throw, every character has a basic standing launcher, every character has at least one counter-hit combo starter, every character has screw moves, every character has tracking moves, every character has a 10F jab, every character has a mid that gives frame advantage, every character has at least one move that doesn't knock down on normal hit but will wallsplat on normal hit, etc. All of these sound really quite specific, and every character has them, so how do these characters manage to maintain their unique gameplay identities given that they all have some version of these highly specific moves? It'd be like how does Zangief be unique if everybody in the game had a 360 grab and a spinning lariat? On top of that, everybody in the game needs to be able to fight at point-blank or near-point-blank range (until Noctis, I guess), and fights often stay at those two ranges for extended periods of time. With that additional differentiator removed, it seems like it should be even harder for them to seem at all distinct; it feels like the game would be Melty Blood (sorry!)
---
I actually think the TxSF characters are all well-executed in their animation and appearance even if you don't like the SF4 art style. I don't HATE the SF4 art style, but I don't love it. I like how caricaturishly expressive the characters all are, which is something they often don't get to be in Tekken outside of the console endings.
I think one of the things I dislike about TxSF is that the whole "plink at them with safe moves but any hit converts into combo damage because of chain combos and tag-in and how like everything is cancellable" combined with "every character deals the same amount of damage with their normals" leads to a gameplay style that is homogeneous and that loses its taste fast. Even though later patch versions solved the problem of things not dealing enough damage (recent matches of TxSF which yes i too am amazed that people still seriously play this game) show a gameplay with big damage combos, but since there are neither interesting defensive systems nor general movement options that allow for interesting maneuvering, the game doesn't manage to be so interesting.
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| | "SNK's attempt at realistic fighting" , posted Mon 11 Nov 23:05
It may be weird to open the discussions for a game I never played, but recently I ran into a video of a Buriki One tournament and it got me more interested than I thought I'd be...
From what I know, this game was far from successful; and to be honest, I disliked it when it was announced for a series of reasons: it was presented in videogame magazines as an AOF sequel but Ryo was the only returning fighter, the game controls sounded very confusing (moving with buttons and attacking with the joystick??), the playable roster didn't have a single woman, and so on.
While the controls still seem weird to me, I sorta can see now why some of the other decisions were made. SNK was going for a more realistic fighting game, and judging from the videos I found of Buriki One, they apparently succeeded in that: even with a small roster, they managed to represent a good variety of martial arts (even tai chi, which despite being incredibly popular worldwide - though more as a relaxation sport than a martial art -, has very little representation in fighting games), and most of them seem to be quite accurate. Ironically, Ryo's karate is probably the weak link; the idea of keeping some of his AOF special moves makes him look weird fighting the other (more grounded) characters... and as a former karate practitioner, I'm a little disappointed with it.
The more realistic setting is nevertheless interesting, with rules looking closer to real-life matches and an acceptable height for the ring-outs. And it also makes sense that there are no female fighters, as intergender matches are quite uncommon in real-life tournaments - still, it would be very nice if Buriki One could have a bonus mode with a smaller, female-only division (I wouldn't even mind if they recycled the same martial arts from the male fighters), like in the WWE games (or in that obscure Yu Yu Hakusho GBC game with a comical bonus mode featuring Keiko, Botan and the fox-youkai referee).
Anyway, Buriki One's lack of popularity seems to put it on the end of the line for SNK's franchises waiting for a revival, and it probably will remain forgotten. Still, for a company better known for flashy, animesque fighting games, it looks like a surprisingly refreshing change.
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Now, has anyone here played it? If so, please share your experiences!
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| PSN: Ishmael26b
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Wii: n/a
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CFN: Ishmael26b
| "Re(3):SNK's attempt at realistic fighting" , posted Thu 14 Nov 02:38
quote:
While not specific products, Pole Position (1982) used real company names and logos for its billboards. These included such companies and Marlboro, Pepsi, Canon, Marchal, and Martini.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFs1Xc82Q0U
It feels like 1983 was the year of games themselves as ads. The original arcade Tapper presumably saw you serving Budweiser beer; the game was sponsored by Anheuser-Busch and featured the Budweiser logo both in-game and in the cabinet design. Kool-Aid Man received two games, one for Intellivision and another for Atari 2600. Purina sponsored Chase the Chuck Wagon for Atari 2600. Meanwhile, Coca Cola sponsored Pepsi Invaders, which was given to sales convention attendees.
It's impressive and a little scary that people had figured out that the popularity of videogames could be used for advertising as early as 1983.
I forgot all about the real-life billboards in Pole Position. The most detailed things in that game are the player's car, the explosion and the free advertising on those indestructible billboards. Smoke 'em if you got 'em kids because you're probably going to die in a fireball the moment you get behind the wheel of an extremely fragile care anyway.
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| | "Re(4):SNK's attempt at realistic fighting" , posted Wed 20 Nov 23:02
One other thing I forgot to comment is that, judging from the videos on YouTube, fighting styles based on grabs and throws (judo, aikido, wrestling) do seem to put a great emphasis on these kinds of moves in Buriki One, even more than in Tekken, DOA and VF. It seems that the fighters with these styles can't really do much before getting close to their opponents (while in the other games mentioned, you can always punch and kick regardless of your martial art), but once they're close they become much more powerful.
It's also nice how it features both a pro-wrestler (kinda common in fighting games) and a Greco-Roman one (much more unusual, despite being the one shown at Olympic games), and their moves and techniques are visibly very different from each other. Not to mention Gai using MMA before UFC even became a worldwide phenomenon.
You know, if SNK ever manages to put Buriki One for sale digitally or as part of a collection, I'd be very tempted to buy it. But as it's very unlikely this will ever happen, I just hope eventually its other fighters can follow Gai's and Silber's footsteps and find their way into the KoF series (which is also very unlikely).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "GBF Versus DLC char announcements" , posted Mon 16 Dec 11:25:
While SFV had its tournament this past weekend, Granblue Fantasy also had its three-day event at Makuhari Messe and my LINE was ringing since the morning from friends to meet up albeit I couldn't make it due to schedules. Definitely next year...! 
So aside from all the missed fun there, they also had the most recent near-complete build of Granblue Fantasy Versus together with new trailers. The surprise announcement was that Belial and Beelzebub (aka 'Bub') from the mainspring RPG will be playable in season 2 and 1 respectively; Bub in particular is a bit of a surprise since he never really showed out of his cloak in the original storyline and wasn't much but a rag doll boss. On the other hand, Belial was quite a fruitcake from the getgo as a lust-lover that stopped at no bounds to seek pleasure and he quickly became a fan favorite regardless of player gender; no surprise to see him in this game.
Season 1 will also bring the fan favorites Narmaya, Soriz, Djeeta and one more unrevealed char from March to April, which is a pretty short span that brings about the question of "then when's season 2?"
Trailers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIDPE5QsR0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJfHQML2VHQ
Footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsWjt4ZqH34
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu-4wKUaE3jvVkJkilka2wycZUz8sSMDU
From seeing the new footage, hard knockdowns have been taken out for the most part while running speed has been improved, so the overall game momentum (which was the issue from beta) should be faster than before for sure. I'm very unsure of who to main with since they all look pretty good.
On a side note, one of the new characters unveiled for the mainspring RPG during the event has been coined by players as "Babuu" since she's very clearly a female take on "Bub" but with a baby pacifier ,,, wait what?
[this message was edited by Professor on Mon 16 Dec 19:30] |
| | "Re(6):GBF Versus DLC char announcements" , posted Tue 17 Dec 06:39:
quote:
By rough calculation the standard edition of GBVS comes with at least 25,600JPY worth of free stuff for players
Wow, that is a large number!
How was that arrived at? Surely it isn't just 25,600 yen worth of crystals or whatever....
- As a purchase bonus the game gives you either a Gold Brick, Sunlight Stone, or Sephira Evolite. The cheapest way to get a gold brick coupon until now was by picking up Vol1&2 of マナリアフレンズ on Bluray which totals to around 15,840 JPY. But with Granblue Versus everyone will be picking the Sephira Evolite instead because it's relatively new and never been offered as a purchase bonus. By quick calculation on how many in-game items you need for it compared to a Gold brick, its value comes to around 17,600 JPY.
- Beating the game, you get 5000 Gems + bonus skin(or 3000 Gems), so that's a total of 8,000 Gems = 8,000 JPY.
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1/ On a side note, in GBF you use 3000 Gems to do a set of 10 rolls. As a safety net, doing 300 rolls will let you get a character you want, so the max that you'll be spending would be 3000x300 = 90,000 JPY.
2/ Every few months there's a special ticket that lets you get a character you want for 3,000JPY, excluding some limited broken ones. For the less-insane, this is where they spend their money. Or to put it another way, rolling the gasha is mainly for getting the limited broken characters.
2/ You get about 600 free rolls worth of Gems per year and there's also various campaigns that gives you probably around 400 free rolls, so the game doesn't actually eat that much money unless you're gasha-happy.
[this message was edited by Professor on Tue 17 Dec 13:03] |
| | "Re(8):GBF Versus DLC char announcements" , posted Wed 18 Dec 06:57:
quote:
As a safety net, doing 300 rolls will let you get a character you want, so the max that you'll be spending would be 3000x300 = 90,000 JPY. Is that... generous...?
*faints*
Also, is it possible to get several of those by buying several copies of the game? Like the AKB 48 scam that had people buy tons of CDs for the tickets and then dump them all away?
Generally speaking, a 90,000 yen ceiling would be considered standard or generous for SNS gasha games. FGO for example doesn't have a ceiling and either does Puzzle and Dragons from what I understand.
Still though, leave aside hardcore players that have money to burn or life problems to escape, I don't really hear of players that roll that crazily. Yet they do exist, and they're the core income that feed the devs. (Meanwhile, more casual fans will just pick up the 3000yen character tickets and spend more of their money into merchandising)
The bonuses for GBF can only be redeemed once per account. Same with any other coupons that come with books, Mcdonalds meals, beef bowls, etc.
[this message was edited by Professor on Wed 18 Dec 07:31] |
| | "Re(9):GBF Versus DLC char announcements" , posted Wed 18 Dec 08:58
quote:
As a safety net, doing 300 rolls will let you get a character you want, so the max that you'll be spending would be 3000x300 = 90,000 JPY. Is that... generous...?
*faints*
Also, is it possible to get several of those by buying several copies of the game? Like the AKB 48 scam that had people buy tons of CDs for the tickets and then dump them all away?
Generally speaking, a 90,000 yen ceiling would be considered standard or generous for SNS gasha games. FGO for example doesn't have a ceiling and either does Puzzle and Dragons from what I understand.
Still though, leave aside hardcore players that have money to burn or life problems to escape, I don't really hear of players that roll that crazily. Yet they do exist, and they're the core income that feed the devs. (Meanwhile, more casual fans will just pick up the 3000yen character tickets and spend more of their money into merchandising)
The bonuses for GBF can only be redeemed once per account. Same with any other coupons that come with books, Mcdonalds meals, beef bowls, etc.
One of my friends who over his entire time with the Fire Emblem gacha game spent like 600 dollars effectively spent as much money on that one game as he would have if he had bought every FE title that had been released in North America at that point in time.
Even if you aren't a megawhale, if you spend 20 dollars on whatever in the mobile game every other month, you will still have spent more than you would have on purchasing the average packaged AAA title.
As a business model, gacha so stupendously outperforms regular packaged software if you manage to acquire a decent spending userbase that it's pretty amazing. However, it's also entirely possible that you fail to acquire that regular spending userbase as countless titles have, and you wind up with a dead game. It's also arguable that this is not really that different from making a packaged game that just didn't sell, though I don't know if anybody has ever deeply studied relatively unsuccessful titles for a comparison.
Subscription software that also involves a packaged purchase (e.g. MMORPGs) have the best of both worlds in this regard, in that they recoup costs from the purchase and again get money from subscription fees. Gacha has no real ceiling on spending provided you have enough things for people to gacha on, so it allows people to give you a lot MORE money if they are inclined to. "Free to pay".
I feel like psychologically, "voluntary" spending is something that people can get into much more easily than "mandatory" spending. People for literal decades have complained about how they "can't play this game without being FORCED to spend X dollars each month on subscription!!!" whereas voluntary spending is "Because I WANT TO I will spend X dollars on this monthly ticket".
FGO having no "sparking" mechanic (i.e. spend X amount on the current banner and then you will get 1 selection from it of your choice) in addition to have a rapacious rate for the super super rares (like 0.1%) is something that will always amuse me that its players don't demand change with, especially given how every other game has concessions to players for it. I guess players are just so invested in it now that they would actually be angry if newcomers got it easy, because it would devalue what they have!
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| | "Re(2):Re(10):GBF Versus DLC char announcement" , posted Thu 19 Dec 08:59:
quote:
I feel left behind with GBF. Others are willing to spend money and eat beef bowls regularly to supplement their time with the game. However, when I played the GBF I found I couldn't spend another second listening to that flying lizard thing squawk at me. Maybe when you get to the latter portions of the game that "adorable" pet quits yammering through every cut scene.
Haha, similarly to that dolpin in MSWord, the flying lizard will be stitched to you throughout your whole journey in GBF, not only in the main storyline but with collaboration campaigns etc. Not as much as in the first few chapters since more characters start appearing and taking up more of the conversation, but still.
It's quite amuzing how in-game gasha is so accepted albeit everyone knows how broken the money-eating system is, but it comes so naturally for Japan since the traditional (not broken) physical machines are so common in daily life. Once you step out, you'll be walking past a dozen or two without even realizing it.  And yes on average they're also 300yen per roll
Come to think, there might be a relationship between region and gasha expenditure since traditionally there's less entertainment available in the countryside than the city, and for that reason Pachi and rental shops were more popular in rural areas back in the less digital days.
[this message was edited by Professor on Thu 19 Dec 10:45] |
| | "Like VF2, but... bouncy" , posted Thu 20 Feb 21:03
This month, I got the chance to play the first Dead or Alive game on the Saturn for the first time. Having always loved the DOA games for the possibility of exploring the stages with multiple areas (accessed by knocking your opponent into them) and the anime-style cutscenes between fights revealing more of each fighter's motivation, I had no idea if the game that came before these things were implemented would be any fun.
Turns out, it was! I always read that DOA was originally inspired in the Virtua Fighter franchise, but DOA1 literally resembles VF2 - actually, if Sega and Tecmo decided back then to make a Fighters Megamix-style crossover between them, they would fit with each other even better than VF2 did with Fighting Vipers. The graphics, the gameplay, everything is so similar.
And yet, DOA1 does have its own identity. While both are relatively realistic martial arts games, DOA1 is much flashier in its moves (Jann-Lee and Kasumi being the main offenders, the former with his shrieks and flying kicks, the latter with some quite "suggestive" attacks), the Hold button adds a lot to the strategy (while admittedly making it much easier to reverse attacks), and the Danger Zones are both useful for strategy and for the flashy style (to the point I don't even know why it also has ring-outs; most fights move to the Danger Zones but very few of them reach the ring edges before one fighter gets their health bar completely depleted).
Then, of course, there are the infamous bouncy breasts... which are much more perceptible here than in the later games (probably because the graphics aren't so detailed). Back then, this was probably very arousing... nowadays, it's so hilarious that we decided to keep this option on just for fun!
My only complaint is that I really missed Ayane and Bass (I forgot they were only added on the PS1 version, one year later). Despite neither of them being among my favorite DOA characters, they would make the roster feel more "complete" than having just 8 fighters. I read somewhere that the Training Dummy girl in Training Mode is actually supposed to be Ayane (as she has this costume in some later games), but it's not the same thing.
Oh well, it's a minor complaint. In the end, it was quite an enjoyable experience, simple but very fun! Have any of you guys also played this game? If so, what did you think of it?
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(2):Like VF2, but... bouncy" , posted Fri 21 Feb 10:42
quote:
Lucky you, it's always fun to come across an old game! DoA1 is an interesting game. Even though it is VF2 with a bit of paint on top the identity of the DoA games was already on display. The characters still have their signature moves and most of them even sound the same. The danger zone thing is more silly than anything else but it suggests that even then the series was interested in more dynamic stages.
Aren't there at least four versions (arcade, Saturn, PS1, XBOX) of DoA1? People claim that DoA goes overboard with costumes but it's variant releases of the same game is where the series really goes nuts.
Yes, from what I read, there are five versions:
- DOA1 - Arcade (the game that introduced the world to lady fighters with bouncy breasts)
- DOA1 - Saturn (a little downgraded from the Arcade version, but with some extra modes, lots of additional costumes for the girls and one or two extra costumes for the guys)
- DOA1 - PlayStation (basically a remake with different graphics, different stages, slightly different gameplay, Bass on the default roster, Ayane as an unlockable character, no more ring-outs and more additional costumes though some from the Saturn version are missing)
- DOA ++ - Arcade (based on the PS1 game, but with better graphics, Ayane available from the start, no more load time and only four costumes per character, some of which were brand new)
- DOA Ultimate - Xbox (basically the Saturn version - yes, even with the same graphics and no Ayane and Bass -, only with better definition)
The PS1 version seems to be when the series started to deviate from its VF-inspired origins; by the time DOA2 came out, despite being made on the same board as VF3, the two games are very different from each other.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
|
| PSN: ShikyohMukuro
XBL: IAMDC1
Wii: n/a
STM: N/A
CFN: n/a
|  "Re(3):Like VF2, but... bouncy" , posted Fri 21 Feb 13:44
quote:
Lucky you, it's always fun to come across an old game! DoA1 is an interesting game. Even though it is VF2 with a bit of paint on top the identity of the DoA games was already on display. The characters still have their signature moves and most of them even sound the same. The danger zone thing is more silly than anything else but it suggests that even then the series was interested in more dynamic stages.
Aren't there at least four versions (arcade, Saturn, PS1, XBOX) of DoA1? People claim that DoA goes overboard with costumes but it's variant releases of the same game is where the series really goes nuts.
Yes, from what I read, there are five versions:
- DOA1 - Arcade (the game that introduced the world to lady fighters with bouncy breasts)
- DOA1 - Saturn (a little downgraded from the Arcade version, but with some extra modes, lots of additional costumes for the girls and one or two extra costumes for the guys)
- DOA1 - PlayStation (basically a remake with different graphics, different stages, slightly different gameplay, Bass on the default roster, Ayane as an unlockable character, no more ring-outs and more additional costumes though some from the Saturn version are missing)
- DOA ++ - Arcade (based on the PS1 game, but with better graphics, Ayane available from the start, no more load time and only four costumes per character, some of which were brand new)
- DOA Ultimate - Xbox (basically the Saturn version - yes, even with the same graphi
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
ohhh. I didnt know DOA ultimate was based on Saturn version. Long time I played and didnt remember much. It was quick and fast for me.
Long Live I AM!
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| | "Re(3):Like VF2, but... bouncy" , posted Sat 22 Feb 21:10:
quote:
I spent many hours "studying" their models.
Oh dear...
Just as an additional observation, I guess the similarities between DOA1 and VF2 became more evident to me because we played VF2 earlier on the same day, back-to-back. But I must admit it is a much deeper game which I don't dominate (my friends easily destroyed me in VF2; in DOA1 at least I managed to win two or three matches), which is why I decided to focus just on DOA. I think VF2 would benefit more in this topic from the analysis from someone who is more familiar with it.
EDIT: one more thing worthy to note in DOA1 was Tecmo's idea of using Ryu Hayabusa as part of the roster. From what I read, the male ninja was originally meant to be an original character named Kamui, but he was later changed into Hayabusa.
The ironic thing is that Tecmo probably did it as a way to attract the attention of people who knew the Ninja Gaiden series... except Hayabusa ended up pretty much ignored next to the bouncy girls. But DOA's popularity would later lead to the very successful revival of the Ninja Gaiden series - which, in turn, helped to boost the popularity of the DOA series. In the end, the original goal paid off - just not in the intended videogame generation.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Sun 23 Feb 05:37] |
| |  "Back to the Millennium Fight days" , posted Thu 2 Apr 22:26:
I must confess I intended to make a fake story for April 1st about Capcom and SNK announcing a crossover game... which wouldn't be CvS3, but a SFvsKOF, riding on the popularity of both Street Fighter V and King of Fighters XIV. Then I realized: we already had a SFvsKOF game, the often forgotten Capcom vs SNK: Millennium Fight 2000.
Of all crossovers between these two companies, CvS1 was always the one I paid least attention. SvC:MotM, for the NGPC, always amazes me with how fantastic it was for a handheld game (I mean, it's actually better than many arcade games). CvS2 pretty much marked a generation of fighting game fans, with its huge roster and plenty of Groove options. SVC Chaos is... well... a bad game with great ideas. But for a long time, CvS1 felt quite forgettable to me, like a lazy work which was then used as a draft for the actual great crossover it should have been.
It was only a couple of months before that I got to play it again and appreciate it for what it was. Thus, this post is intended to reflect on CvS1's right and wrong ideas. Get ready, folks, it's going to be a long text (and most of my opinions may be rubbish, so please forgive me in advance)...
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The roster
One of the things that disappointed me back in 2000 was how conservative the roster was. Despite being titled "Capcom vs SNK", it was basically "Street Fighter vs The King of Fighters, featuring Raiden, Nakoruru and Morrigan" - and considering that many years later both Raiden and Nakoruru became official KoF characters, Morrigan is really the only character not affiliated to either series (that is, unless Capcom adds her in a future season of SFV, which wouldn't really surprise me at all).
Not only that, but at least on Capcom's side, there wasn't even a selection of street fighters from different games, it was basically SFII + Sakura, Cammy and Akuma. I mean, I'm not sure most players were actually eager for Blanka, Honda or Dhalsim... I know I wasn't. SNK's side, at least, had some curve balls (King, Vice, Benimaru and the aforementioned Raiden) and characters from different years in KoF - if I'm not mistaken, that was actually the first time Geese and Rugal were playable in the same game - although it also had some notable omissions (Athena, Leona and Billy Kane being the ones that come to mind).
With all of that said, I recently warmed up a lot to this roster. Back then, I missed seeing people like MegaMan, Strider-Hiryu, the Metal Slug mercenaries and so on... but now I feel that these characters just wouldn't work: MvC may feel great due to all of its craziness, but CvS's appeal was exactly pitting the greatest martial artists from both companies. In that sense, I like that all characters feel like they belong in this game. Well, except Morrigan. Plus, the unlockable EX versions of most of them made things more interesting in terms of match-ups.
But yeah, there still could have been some more variety, which fortunately came in CvS2 while still keeping the roster consistent (something I think SNK failed to do in SvC Chaos).
The sprites
I also had a problem with the sprites back then. It wasn't just the disappointment with the laziness in reusing the sprites from the majority of the Capcom side, it's the fact that while the SNK sprites were made in the SF Alpha style, they still looked different. This was particularly odd considering how MvC2 had SF sprites, DS sprites, Marvel sprites, original sprites and everyone still looked like they belonged to the same game.
Strangely though, when I replayed CvS1 this year, this impression was much lessened. There are still some moments when it seems like they used sprites from two different games, but most of the time, I felt they fit together nicely.
Again, except for Morrigan's, of course. I love the DS sprites, but hers still feels very out of place in CvS. Oh well.
The gameplay
Now THAT's something I loved then and still love now. Many people may disagree (and that's fine), but to me, the KoF roster feels exactly like they did in their original games, and that's quite an achievement. A huge expectation for CvS1 was the possibility of pitting the SF fighters against the KoF ones to find out how they would fare against each other, and this game did make it possible.
Then again, I was never a pro player in either the SF games or the KoF ones. But as an eternal noob, I do think Kyo plays like Kyo, Ryu plays like Ryu and so on. That's something I missed in SvC Chaos, where the Capcom fighters I played with were all different.
And then there were the Grooves, bringing most of the classic mechanics from the SFA games and KoF'94-96. Here, I gotta admit I prefer CvS1's simplicity with one Groove for each company, both easy to learn, than CvS2's six-to-eight Grooves, each with very different rules and properties. But that's just a matter of personal taste.
As for the Ratio System, it wasn't my favorite, to be honest. In theory it was interesting how players could assemble teams with different numbers of characters and had to decide whether they preferred a bigger team of weaker fighters or a smaller team with more resistant ones. But it also made the characters feel uneven in terms of their individual chances against each other. In that sense, I prefer the alternative mode where ALL characters were in Ratio 2 and the matches were between pairs.
The art
Nishimura AND Shinkiro providing art to the same game? AMAZING!!
And as hypocritical as this may sound after my earlier complaint about the differences in characters' sprites, for some reason I LOVE the CvS1 flyer where it looks like each character was drawn by a different artist. Then again, that's a piece of art, not a game.
In terms of game art, the stages look great, and their little introductions are quite cool (my favorite is the one that starts as an 8-bit racing game).
Overall
In the end of the day, CvS2 may be vastly superior than its predecessor, but sometimes I do prefer CvS1's simplicity. Not the most remarkable fighting game ever, but it is fun enough to revisit every once in a while.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Mon 18 May 22:11] |
| PSN: ShikyohMukuro
XBL: IAMDC1
Wii: n/a
STM: N/A
CFN: n/a
| "Re(1):Back to the Millennium Fight days" , posted Fri 3 Apr 03:27
quote:
I must confess I intended to make a fake story for April 1st about Capcom and SNK announcing a crossover game... which wouldn't be CvS3, but a SFvsKOF, riding on the popularity of both Street Fighter V and King of Fighters XIV. Then I realized: we already had a SFvsKOF game, the often forgotten Capcom vs SNK: Millennium Fight 2000.
Of all crossovers between these two companies, CvS1 was always the one I paid least attention. SvC:MotM, for the NGPC, always amazes me with how fantastic it was for a handheld game (I mean, it's actually better than many arcade games). CvS2 pretty much marked a generation of fighting game fans, with its huge roster and plenty of Groove options. SVC Chaos is... well... a bad game with great ideas. But for a long time, CvS1 felt quite forgettable to me, like a lazy work which was then used as a draft for the actual great crossover it should have been.
It was only a couple of months before that I got to play it again and appreciate it for what it was. Thus, this post is intended to reflect on CvS1's right and wrong ideas. Get ready, folks, it's going to be a long text (and most of my opinions may be rubbish, so please forgive me in advance)...
---
The roster
One of the things that disappointed me back in 2000 was how conservative the roster was. Despite being titled "Capcom vs SNK", it was basically "Street Fighter vs The King of Fighters, featuring Raiden, Nakoruru and Morrigan" - and considering that many years later both Raiden
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
I agree. I prefer CvS1. They put in a lot of work on the music, stages, and user interface layout. Indeed the sprites and fighting system did take a hit. But, that was all fixed on the PRO version. This is where I wish CvS2 was rushed and should have not been released at least for another year. PRO made the game much stable with extras. It was the perfect product.
This is why I said CvS2 was rushed, mainly to fix the fighting system balance and add more characters and Grooves. Lets be real, CvS2 music and stages were not great compared to CvS1 in my opinion. Sprites were all over the place also.
CvS1 should have had more life in the scene to become a classic title then a major hit. That is what it was aimed for initially. I believe it would have had a small fighting game scene afterwards like other games. But it got put in the back burner quickly. The PRO version could have have it a longer life and people would have played it.
I miss playing it and love the game. Still play music from the game from time to time. I think if anything, there should have been a small story or dialogue like Svc chaos. I was expecting some close interaction with the characters. Try the PRO version on Dreamcast if you haven't. Joe and Dan is there for comedy.
Long Live I AM!
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| | "Re(3):Back to the Millennium Fight days" , posted Fri 3 Apr 12:14
I'm on the flip side of thinking that the locked Ratio idea was really cool on paper, and the idea that you'd get a gang of runts to try to take on boss characters who were so powerful that they felt like bosses but had the constraint of needing to do it with little backup seems cool.
Let's not forget that this was near the tail end of an era where Capcom and SNK had been locked in a decade-plus war of adding new gimmicks every game for fear of the game not standing out from the crowd. The game development zeitgeist is almost the opposite of what we have today with a lot of the games-as-a-service, where incremental additions are the order of the day rather than "this game has tagging! Oh yeah, this game has flying robots!" etc. I think in that atmosphere, if it merely had KOF's "pick three characters", the game would've been derided as lazy and unimaginative.
I think the backgrounds of CvS1 are really outstanding, and to me made the game feel like it was indeed from a new generation of technology. I really liked all the Capcom sprites of the SNK characters from the get-go, though.
I also cannot overstate how much I love FINEST KO.
Getting a special KO flash for that is so fantastic and I can't believe they didn't keep something like that around for more games. Yeah sure at a competitive level a KO is a KO and some counterhit super KOs are anticlimactic ("Wow, that character never stood a chance. What a surprise..." kinda thing), but at a casual level FINEST KO is HYPE AF
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| | "Re(5):Back to the Millennium Fight days" , posted Sun 5 Apr 00:26
quote:
The idea of the ratio system was okay enough on paper. It was just that Capcom had zero chance of properly balancing it.
Locking characters to specific ratios was also an idea that was okay on paper. Its execution however limits player freedom and expression. The point limit renders many team combinations impossible, due to the desired characters costing too much. On the flip side, if you only want to focus on a single character, then you'd better hope that character is one of the three Ratio 4 options. If you happen to favor a Ratio 3 character, then you are stuck picking some Ratio 1 character as filler. It is arguably even worse if your favorite is a Ratio 1 character. Add to this that Capcom wasn't going to be able to properly balance the characters and you've suddenly got a bunch of characters being underpowered (or overpowered) just because of the ratio they were designed to be in.
Exactly. In that sense, CvS2 was a huge improvement, allowing you to either play as a single character, or to assemble a three-characters team without ratios, or even to keep the ratio system but choose which ratio to assign to each character (although it no longer had the option of a four-characters team with all of them as Ratio 1, if I remember correctly).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
|
| PSN: ShikyohMukuro
XBL: IAMDC1
Wii: n/a
STM: N/A
CFN: n/a
| "Re(6):Back to the Millennium Fight days" , posted Fri 17 Apr 12:00
quote:
The idea of the ratio system was okay enough on paper. It was just that Capcom had zero chance of properly balancing it.
Locking characters to specific ratios was also an idea that was okay on paper. Its execution however limits player freedom and expression. The point limit renders many team combinations impossible, due to the desired characters costing too much. On the flip side, if you only want to focus on a single character, then you'd better hope that character is one of the three Ratio 4 options. If you happen to favor a Ratio 3 character, then you are stuck picking some Ratio 1 character as filler. It is arguably even worse if your favorite is a Ratio 1 character. Add to this that Capcom wasn't going to be able to properly balance the characters and you've suddenly got a bunch of characters being underpowered (or overpowered) just because of the ratio they were designed to be in.
Exactly. In that sense, CvS2 was a huge improvement, allowing you to either play as a single character, or to assemble a three-characters team without ratios, or even to keep the ratio system but choose which ratio to assign to each character (although it no longer had the option of a four-characters team with all of them as Ratio 1, if I remember correctly).
All good points from everyone. I think the ratio system was odd at the time because it was different and fresh compared to other fighters. Something that could have kicked off well. It didn't bother me much. I thought it was neat from what I remember. Not sure if Pro version had a mode with no ratoo implemented like im CvS 2.
It did have good special introduction for some characters. Guile and Rugal gave you that brutal feeling before the fight. Stages were very detailed and wonderful I can't stress it enough. I would have love if we had more Art of Fighting stages where there is interaction within area. Where the fighting causes the in process construction of the dojo to collapse. It just felt so proper and exciting at the time.
The plaza may also be my favorite but Nakoruru stage just had something that made you want to stare with no fighting going on for a bit. One thing I also like was you can play the original songs of the character/stages. That is where me and my friends truly discovered the original Pao Pao Cafe song from fatal fury. I only played fatal fury 2 untill that time. That Pao Pao Cafe song had us Rollo all over we couldn't get enough of it.
Speaking of which, not sure if I asked before here on Cafe but what language is the singer singing in this theme? Some say possibly Brazilian Portuguese.
Long Live I AM!
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| | "Marking (and customizing) the Millennium" , posted Thu 18 Mar 22:39
As many of you probably know, SNK is releasing a collection of their Neo Geo Pocket Color games. One of them is the fantastic SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium, which we have already discussed about here.
We also discussed the first CvS/SvC crossover game from Capcom's side, which was titled Capcom vs. SNK but was more like a Street Fighter vs. The King of Fighters. Far from a bad game, as it was pointed out, but maybe too simple for what fighting game fans were expecting.
Then came Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001...
It's amazing how, despite CvS2 being a sequel and reusing several assets from CvS1, it still managed to be a completely different experience. Whereas CvS1 was very conservative with its roster, CvS2 was anything but: who would honestly expect choices like Maki, Eagle, Hibiki or Todo, each bringing a different playstyle from what the old roster could offer? Some would even bring assists to the battle, like Yun summoning Yang for Super Moves, Kyosuke summoning Batsu and Hinata, and Chang having Choi following him around throughout the fight like a mascot, and this all made the game feel much crazier and more intense than its predecessor (though I wonder why they didn't use the opportunity to add Mature as an assist to Vice - to me, these two should always, always be used together).
Also, not only all the new SNK fighters and most of the new Capcom ones got new sprites, but Chun-Li was also redrawn to fit with her iconic 3rd Strike version. That makes me wonder, though, why Capcom didn't use this opportunity to also redraw Morrigan? I mean, the SFA3 sprites kinda didn't look out of place with the new ones, but Morrigan's DS sprite was already feeling dated in CvS1, and in CvS2 it looks just very bad.
More than the new characters, though, what really made CvS2 stand out the most was its selection of six Grooves - basically all the ISMs from SFA3 (only with A-Groove being the V-ISM but allowing Super Combos, and P-Groove being the X-ISM with SFIII's Parries), plus the two Modes from KoF'97/98 and the Samurai Shodown system (with Garou's Just Defends) in a single game. And while the Capcom Groove and SNK Groove in CvS1 had specific differences, here the player would need to pay attention to which mechanics each Groove offered, from Dashing to Running to Ground Rolling to Dodging to Air Guarding...
On the one hand, this made CvS2 feel much more complicated than CvS1 to me - sure, you could decide to use only one Groove every time you play it, but specific characters would work much better with specific Grooves, so this choice mattered much more than it could seem at first. On the other hand, I assume this was true paradise for people who like to explore and experiment with mechanics to find out the ones that better suited their needs. And then the consoles brought the possibility for players to build their own Grooves, further encouraging players to find out their ideal combination... All of that made CvS2 a very customizable experience - for good or for bad.
The soundtrack replacing the remixes for classic Capcom and SNK music with fully original tracks was also a bold move, as well as the use of 3D stages; I missed the hand-drawn stages, but the several cameos in some CvS2 stages were pretty cool (plus the way they "evolved" throughout the match, like the ship arriving and the little flags appearing in the Russia stage). And then there was the announcer, sounding like the one in SFA3...
My previous analysis of CvS1 could make it look like I prefer it over CvS2; actually, my intention back then was to show that I appreciated its simplicity. But I do love CvS2's craziness and huge display of options and possibilities. Hopefully with SNK bringing their SvC crossover back, this could encourage Capcom to do the same with this game (and maybe CvS1 as well, in a collection with CvS2 or something).
So, does anyone else here want to comment on it?
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| PSN: ShikyohMukuro
XBL: IAMDC1
Wii: n/a
STM: N/A
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| "Re(1):Marking (and customizing) the Millenniu" , posted Fri 19 Mar 01:29
quote:
As many of you probably know, SNK is releasing a collection of their Neo Geo Pocket Color games. One of them is the fantastic SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium, which we have already discussed about here.
We also discussed the first CvS/SvC crossover game from Capcom's side, which was titled Capcom vs. SNK but was more like a Street Fighter vs. The King of Fighters. Far from a bad game, as it was pointed out, but maybe too simple for what fighting game fans were expecting.
Then came Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001...
It's amazing how, despite CvS2 being a sequel and reusing several assets from CvS1, it still managed to be a completely different experience. Whereas CvS1 was very conservative with its roster, CvS2 was anything but: who would honestly expect choices like Maki, Eagle, Hibiki or Todo, each bringing a different playstyle from what the old roster could offer? Some would even bring assists to the battle, like Yun summoning Yang for Super Moves, Kyosuke summoning Batsu and Hinata, and Chang having Choi following him around throughout the fight like a mascot, and this all made the game feel much crazier and more intense than its predecessor (though I wonder why they didn't use the opportunity to add Mature as an assist to Vice - to me, these two should always, always be used together).
Also, not only all the new SNK fighters and most of the new Capcom ones got new sprites, bu
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Has any other fighting game offered a variety of fighting systems to choose from similar to the grooves in CVS2? As you mentioned, this made it a true fighting experience. This is something that should be experimented in a fighting game.
Long Live I AM!
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
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CFN: zonepharaoh
| "Re(3):Marking (and customizing) the Millenniu" , posted Fri 19 Mar 07:24:
quote:
While not treated as an official fighting system selection, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo had the ability to select the "Old" version of its characters. This didn't just change character moves, it also effectively affected game systems (no super, no tech throw).
Which reminds me that SF Zero 3's ISMs are the direct precursor to Grooves in terms of retooling the actual gameplay as opposed to getting you a new move, particularly X-ism, which bumped everyone back to SSFIIX level damage, throws, single Super Combos, and in Chun Li's case, her superior classic outfit, too!
I never played CvS2 for some dumb reason, but I always admired its beautiful art, and it's interesting that Capcom added new frames even for re-used Zero series art, some of which they liked so much that they specifically used in SFIV and maybe V (Sakura's new exhibitionistic jumping roundhouse, for instance).
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Fri 19 Mar 07:27] |
| | "Re(3):Marking (and customizing) the Millenniu" , posted Fri 19 Mar 07:28
quote:
Has any other fighting game offered a variety of fighting systems to choose from similar to the grooves in CVS2? As you mentioned, this made it a true fighting experience. This is something that should be experimented in a fighting game.
While not treated as an official fighting system selection, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo had the ability to select the "Old" version of its characters. This didn't just change character moves, it also effectively affected game systems (no super, no tech throw).
EDIT: If you just want different systems, and not necessarily systems that reflect different games, then you also have stuff like The Last Blade's choice between Power and Speed.
I think a more interesting framing of the question is how many games since then have featured that as a major part of the game. While KOF since 98 and SFA3 had it very prominently, SF3/SF4/SFV, the Vs. series, only have selection of a particular move rather than an entire set of game systems.
A lot of the games with that I think have been "anime" games:
- Arcana Heart's arcana selection would modify basic game systems like your dash in addition to giving you particular special moves
- The Gundam Versus series (as opposed to the Capcom vs. series) has this, what with Power/Speed/Defense modes available that affect what bonuses/systems you get when you active the power up mode
- The Touhou fighting games made by Tasofro range from letting you pick a partner character and super to picking an entire set of special moves/supers and access to various universal mechanics
- Samurai Shodown Tenka had like one groove for each numbered entry in the series, from the super barebones SS1 groove all the way up to the chain combo enabled Samsho 4 groove or the timeslow super Samsho V groove
- Phantom Breaker (which will somehow receive a new version sometime soonish) had this
- Glove on Fight (made by French Bread, the makers of Melty Blood and UNI) has this
- Melty Blood
etc.!
I think a lot of "bigger" titles have decided to stay away from it because choosing to focus on one set of universal systems does have its benefits, especially for casual viewership. Needing to balance the characters along with their interactions with these systems is also very challenging, and needing to make a large number of special-case exceptions to deal with that is not a particularly great answer for anyone.
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| | "Re(4):Marking (and customizing) the Millenniu" , posted Fri 19 Mar 07:34:
quote:
Which reminds me that SF Zero 3's ISMs are the direct precursor to Grooves in terms of retooling the actual gameplay as opposed to getting you a new move, particularly X-ism, which bumped everyone back to SSFIIX level damage, throws, single Super Combos, and in Chun Li's case, her superior classic outfit, too!
Plus Sodom wielding katanas instead of sais.
...Now that I'm thinking, since I never chose Sodom, I have no idea if the katanas actually changed anything in terms of gameplay (bigger reach, maybe?) or if it was just an aesthetic change.
X-ISM Chun-Li, on the other hand, was an almost completely different character from Z/V-ISM Chun-Li (a much better one, in fact).
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quote:
I think a lot of "bigger" titles have decided to stay away from it because choosing to focus on one set of universal systems does have its benefits, especially for casual viewership. Needing to balance the characters along with their interactions with these systems is also very challenging, and needing to make a large number of special-case exceptions to deal with that is not a particularly great answer for anyone.
This.
And now, with the fighting game community being obsessed with balance and all, it's unlikely we'll ever see this again in a big title. While many professional players say they love CvS2, well, CvS2 is very unbalanced (in good part thanks to the Grooves and how certain characters can become overpowered in combination with certain Grooves), so I doubt they'd really welcome another game like that.
Which is a shame.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Fri 19 Mar 07:40] |
| | "Re(5):Marking (and customizing) the Millenniu" , posted Fri 19 Mar 07:53
quote:
And now, with the fighting game community being obsessed with balance and all, it's unlikely we'll ever see this again in a big title. While many professional players say they love CvS2, well, CvS2 is very unbalanced
Yeah, being TOO unbalanced isn't fun, especially when none of the options are meant to be silly dumb jokes.
In the end CvS2 does have multiple good groove+character combinations, but it's also the case that some are just head and shoulders above the rest. Blanka is monstrous in any groove, but A-Blanka is ESPECIALLY monstrous. Geese is strong in P-groove, but Geese in K-groove has the ability to suddenly end a round with damage that is high even compared to the strongest custom combos! S-groove is fun, but how it winds up playing is kinda stupid and it's overall pretty weak.
Haohmaru is one of the custom combo special cases in that his standing HP does significantly less base damage once he flips on custom combo! If only it had its normal base damage! That's the kind of thing I would expect from one of these old games, though.....
... like in SFA2, activating custom combo SEVERELY scales the damage on normal attacks, but much less so on special attacks, so pretty much all custom combos are some form of doing some special furiously. The one exception to all his is Rolento: he does HUGE damage from what seem to be normal jumping attacks, but the reason why is that when he does them from the pogo jump, the game considers them special attacks!
In other games, I think the system is complex enough already that adding additional layers to it would be overkill. Groove selection in Guilty Gear XX or Xrd series would probably not be that good of an experience. Strive I think is pared down enough that it could actually work there, though.
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| | "Re(4):Marking (and customizing) the Millenniu" , posted Fri 19 Mar 08:55
quote:
I think a more interesting framing of the question is how many games since then have featured that as a major part of the game. While KOF since 98 and SFA3 had it very prominently, SF3/SF4/SFV, the Vs. series, only have selection of a particular move rather than an entire set of game systems.
There are also the build-a-system games, such as SFxT (Gems) and Fighting EX Layer (Gougi).
quote:
In the end CvS2 does have multiple good groove+character combinations, but it's also the case that some are just head and shoulders above the rest.
That's the issue I ultimately have with such systems. While they theoretically offer the player many choices, the actual execution ends up more like a handicap system. If you don't play one of the "best" systems, then you are just making the game harder for yourself. It particularly hurts when the system you like happens to be one of the weakest options, or the "good" systems are all ones that you aren't fond of.
At that point, why even bother? The devs might make six or more systems to choose from, but one is going to be bad for everyone, two will probably be mediocre for everyone, one will be good/great for everyone, half the roster won't have any option that makes them better than "good" while the other half of the roster will have one or two options that range from "great" to "downright broken".
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| | "Re(5):Marking (and customizing) the Millenniu" , posted Fri 19 Mar 10:23
quote:
I think a more interesting framing of the question is how many games since then have featured that as a major part of the game. While KOF since 98 and SFA3 had it very prominently, SF3/SF4/SFV, the Vs. series, only have selection of a particular move rather than an entire set of game systems.
There are also the build-a-system games, such as SFxT (Gems) and Fighting EX Layer (Gougi).
In the end CvS2 does have multiple good groove+character combinations, but it's also the case that some are just head and shoulders above the rest.
That's the issue I ultimately have with such systems. While they theoretically offer the player many choices, the actual execution ends up more like a handicap system. If you don't play one of the "best" systems, then you are just making the game harder for yourself. It particularly hurts when the system you like happens to be one of the weakest options, or the "good" systems are all ones that you aren't fond of.
At that point, why even bother? The devs might make six or more systems to choose from, but one is going to be bad for everyone, two will probably be mediocre for everyone, one will be good/great for everyone, half the roster won't have any option that makes them better than "good" while the other half of the roster will have one or two options that range from "great" to "downright broken".
The sad/funny thing is that for a number of the already-strong characters, there's definitely a range of grooves which are good. Blanka is very strong in C,A,K grooves! Sagat is great in C,P,K,S! Iori can be put into literally any groove and be good to great! Eagle is good in C,A,K and probably others!
etc.!
Meanwhile Kyosuke is just not very good in any groove, unless you want to do infinites in S-groove I guess.
I definitely like when there are surprises with combinations. Like a thing people probably wouldn't have guessed is just how good Yamazaki is in A groove. Even back in the day people could tell it wasn't bad at all, but I don't think people would've guessed that it's good to the point that d44bas would replace claw vega on his team with it!
I do like that if you want to play from the point of view of "groove first", you will often have many choices. K-Blanka isn't A-Blanka, but Blanka is so great that he's still a solid pick. K-dictator sure can't paint the fence, but his combination of excellent walk speed, high health, and excellent normals means he is still a solid pick for any K-groove team. I feel like being able to make teams from that point of view is a unique and good quality that definitely brought us a lot of fun back when we played the game a lot.
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| | "Pokémon formula in fighting games?" , posted Wed 1 Dec 09:39
I'm not sure if 2016 fighting games can already be considered classic (probably not), but anyway, I ran into a video showing that at some point, the 3DS got a Dragon Ball Z fighting game. Nothing unusual about that. Then the same team developed a One Piece fighting game for the 3DS. Again, nothing unexpected.
Then, they did this.
I suppose some people may dislike this idea of a crossover being split into two separate games and the player having to find someone else who has the other game so that they can have a proper match between both rosters... but honestly, I found this idea quite brilliant, and wonder whether it could work for other eventual crossovers (like, say, Marvel and DC, or Capcom and SNK).
The Pokémon games have followed this formula for decades, and there's barely any differences between their twin games other than a handful of exclusive Pokémons... in this case, at least the two games are really different.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(1):Pokémon formula in fighting games?" , posted Wed 1 Dec 11:28
quote:
I suppose some people may dislike this idea of a crossover being split into two separate games and the player having to find someone else who has the other game so that they can have a proper match between both rosters... but honestly, I found this idea quite brilliant, and wonder whether it could work for other eventual crossovers (like, say, Marvel and DC, or Capcom and SNK).
The Pokémon games have followed this formula for decades, and there's barely any differences between their twin games other than a handful of exclusive Pokémons... in this case, at least the two games are really different.
It seems like a terrible idea to me, and I'm glad that no other publishers jumped onto it.
It isn't just having to buy two games, it is the inconveniences of even accessing the true full roster. At best it is just overpriced DLC with more hoop jumping. At worst, you'd be locked to a single game's roster and would have to switch games to access the other half. (Imagine Capcom vs SNK where you couldn't form a team from both Capcom and SNK characters. Or where if you simply wanted to switch from Ryu to Ryo you had to switch games.)
While you say the two games are really different, I'd guess that the gameplay is probably identical and it is just the rosters that are different. Again, it would be more convenient to users to just sell the other set of characters as DLC.
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| | "Re(2):Pokémon formula in fighting games?" , posted Thu 2 Dec 03:26
quote:
I suppose some people may dislike this idea of a crossover being split into two separate games and the player having to find someone else who has the other game so that they can have a proper match between both rosters... but honestly, I found this idea quite brilliant, and wonder whether it could work for other eventual crossovers (like, say, Marvel and DC, or Capcom and SNK).
The Pokémon games have followed this formula for decades, and there's barely any differences between their twin games other than a handful of exclusive Pokémons... in this case, at least the two games are really different.
It seems like a terrible idea to me, and I'm glad that no other publishers jumped onto it.
It isn't just having to buy two games, it is the inconveniences of even accessing the true full roster. At best it is just overpriced DLC with more hoop jumping. At worst, you'd be locked to a single game's roster and would have to switch games to access the other half. (Imagine Capcom vs SNK where you couldn't form a team from both Capcom and SNK characters. Or where if you simply wanted to switch from Ryu to Ryo you had to switch games.)
While you say the two games are really different, I'd guess that the gameplay is probably identical and it is just the rosters that are different. Again, it would be more convenient to users to just sell the other set of characters as DLC.
Good points.
Maybe using Capcom and SNK as an idea for this formula wasn't a good idea. Still, I guess this could work in instances where part of the players may want the crossover... and there's another part that doesn't. These two games themselves could be considered an example: while there are many people who love both Dragon Ball Z and One Piece and would go nuts over the possibility of having a crossover, other people may like only one of the series and would prefer a game focused solely on the franchise they like. In the West, this could apply to superhero fighting games: a Marvel/DC crossover would be huge among many fans, but there is also a good share of people who only enjoy one of the companies and loathe the other (even though the two of them aren't that different), so they would likely prefer to never connect the two parts when they play.
I do agree that giving the option to access the roster of the other game as DLC would be a wise choice (even though in ArcSys's DBZ and OP games, it seems each of them already has a lot of characters individually). Oh well, it's probably an idea that won't be used again, anyway.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(4):Pokémon formula in fighting games?" , posted Thu 2 Dec 13:41
quote:
A neat idea, seems like a convenient inclusion for a developer that holds the development license for the IP's on a single platform; but development time or licensing limitations impose constraints.
You'd have to have "friendly" IPs. Some won't be willing to cross over with perceived competition, some won't be willing to cross over with what they view as objectionable content, some might not be willing to cross over with "lesser" properties without serious additional financial incentives, etc. You could also be opening the door for twice as much interference by the IP owners.
IF you did have access to two IP that were individually big enough to float their own separate fighting game, then you end up back at whether it would be more profitable to just put them into a single "X vs Y" game or grab some more licenses for a "Smash Bros" style crossover, instead of attempting the Pokemon route.
Dragonball and One Piece can do such a crossover because they are kind of under the same umbrella. At the same time, they arguably benefit from the Pokemon-style separate games because they are such different properties. Its hard to think of other properties that fit that situation.
One possible advantage in selling the Pokemon idea to the rights-holding companies is that you could potentially separate profits by game. A hypothetical DC/Marvel crossover could see DC getting the profits only from the DC game while Marvel gets the profits only from the Marvel game. Though I don't know if larger companies would actually like that idea, as they'd probably seek a share of profits from the other game just for allowing the crossover functionality.
You could potentially create a core engine and then license "game packs" of characters... So you have a "free" core engine, but you could buy "Fighting Game - DC" for a full DC fighting game and "Fighting Game - Marvel" for a full Marvel fighting game and "Fighting Game - Adventure Time", etc, where all the modules are sold as full price stand-alone fighting games but all modules can cross over into a massive roster singular experience... But I don't see that idea getting off the ground with bigger properties. You might could get people/companies that own smaller properties onboard, but then you run into the issue of whether it is even worth the expense of making games for those properties.
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| | "Re(6):Pokémon formula in fighting games?" , posted Fri 3 Dec 00:03
quote:
Mugen with officially licensed characters?
Kind of, but not open to people making their own material.
Like Pinball FX3. The core engine is "free", but only because almost all of the content is sold as DLC. (You get one table in the "free" game.) If you want to play Bally Williams pinball tables, then you have to buy the various Williams Pinball DLCs. If you want Marvel pinball tables, then you buy some of the Marvel Pinball DLCs.
Or like some card and board games that use the same core "engine" for multiple expansions and sometimes even standalone products or multiple different "starter" sets. Sometimes the expansions will add new rules to the base game. Sometimes expansions might even be other properties.
The best example might actually come from card games. Cryptozoic Entertainment created the "Cerberus Engine" when they made the "DC Comics Deck-Building Game". The game was designed (and advertised) as being compatible with all future "Cerberus Engine: Heroes" games. Since then they've not only done several more DC licensed products, they've released Cerberus Engine-based games Street Fighter, Lord of the Rings, Naruto, Adventure Time, Rick & Morty, and (what I guess is their own property?) Epic Spell Wars.
I'd forgotten HeroClix. It did similar with a miniatures game. Marvel, DC, and numerous other licensed properties were eventually drawn under the HeroClix mostly kind of compatible umbrella.
Now, the warning that should apply to all such generic engine games is that... well... some would argue the final products are at best kind of average, and that you'd be better off spending your money and time on better, more focused games.
The constant additions also cause balance issues, confusing interactions, and sometimes divisive changes. (More so when you are trying to remain compatible to years-old content.) I played HeroClix in its early Marvel days, and even then its rules were a cobbled-together mess.
While that might not be an issue for a well-planned crossover project, you still have the balance issues and possible different mechanics that get introduced with a large roster fighting game. Except if you are selling the different groups as separate games, then you can't just handwave away complaints that the "Capcom" roster is underpowered compared to the "Marvel" roster, or that a character in the "DC" game has some mechanic that destroys the "SNK" roster.
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| | "Re(7):Pokémon formula in fighting games?" , posted Sun 5 Dec 17:29
quote:
Mugen with officially licensed characters?
Kind of, but not open to people making their own material.
Like Pinball FX3. The core engine is "free", but only because almost all of the content is sold as DLC. (You get one table in the "free" game.) If you want to play Bally Williams pinball tables, then you have to buy the various Williams Pinball DLCs. If you want Marvel pinball tables, then you buy some of the Marvel Pinball DLCs.
Or like some card and board games that use the same core "engine" for multiple expansions and sometimes even standalone products or multiple different "starter" sets. Sometimes the expansions will add new rules to the base game. Sometimes expansions might even be other properties.
The best example might actually come from card games. Cryptozoic Entertainment created the "Cerberus Engine" when they made the "DC Comics Deck-Building Game". The game was designed (and advertised) as being compatible with all future "Cerberus Engine: Heroes" games. Since then they've not only done several more DC licensed products, they've released Cerberus Engine-based games Street Fighter, Lord of the Rings, Naruto, Adventure Time, Rick & Morty, and (what I guess is their own property?) Epic Spell Wars.
I'd forgotten HeroClix. It did similar with a miniatures game. Marvel, DC, and numerous other licensed properties were eventually drawn under the HeroClix mostly kind of compatible umbrella.
Now, the warning that should apply to all such
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
There's that multiple-IP card game called Weiss which in my cursory experience of it very much has the feeling of "everything is very similar" but it has official licensing of many IPs.
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| | "Embracing the fan community - BlazBlue!" , posted Wed 8 Dec 00:12
Rollback is being added to BlazBlue! This will be nice, although everybody I knew that played the game has long since fallen off. Honestly, they were gone before Central Fiction released. Now my Iron Tager can give wins out for free with better online play!
It's nice to see developers acknowledging fan patches and support, instead of gaslighting the community as has been done in the past.
VF x Yakuza Adding old VF game extras to the game is nice, but I really hope Sega is looking into a new entry in the franchise. This is feeling like a "more robust" Darkstalkers Collection to me at this point, teasing old fans with the prospect of a new game - but not promising.
Although in the case of Darkstalkers I was not on board with Capcom resurrecting that series under the former leadership, or with developers they farm their IP's out to.
Baiken announced for Strive. Having a low attachment to the series, I don't have a wishlist for returning characters. Dizzy, Kum, and Answer returning would be nice. Robo May from their online videos would be a funny and easy addition. Perhaps not that easy as they'd most likely give her a bunch of unique new animations, so it wouldn't simply be cutting and pasting a robot head on the existing May model...
More trailers for Dungeon Fighter Duel. Overall, I'm digging what I'm seeing. It feels like Eighting is focusing more on really giving each character a very unique visual language and expressiveness, and not so much focus on doing anything extravagant with the visuals (game visuals seem more like a cleaned up Xrd than what we see in Strive or GBFV).
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Re(1):Embracing the fan community - BlazBlue!" , posted Wed 8 Dec 00:48
quote:
More trailers for Dungeon Fighter Duel. Overall, I'm digging what I'm seeing. It feels like Eighting is focusing more on really giving each character a very unique visual language and expressiveness, and not so much focus on doing anything extravagant with the visuals
I'm not sure how I feel about Duel.
I like the idea, but they seem to be picking the character choices that I don't like.
Female Grappler was my main character in DFO, while Female Striker always seemed a bit dull. But Duel has to follow standard fighting game design tropes, so Grappler is the male incarnation while they pick Striker as the female fighter.
While it would be a nightmare for balancing, and more work in general to produce, I kind of wish they'd follow DFO a little more directly and let you pick whether you want the male or female version of a class.
I also wonder about extra modes... DFO would obviously fit the RPG mode of Granblue Versus, but I don't see ArcSys repeating that, particularly after Granblue's less than stellar performance.
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
STM: n/a
CFN: zonepharaoh
| "classic gaming: Virtua vs. Tekken" , posted Wed 8 Dec 12:47:
quote:
playing Virtua Fighter just felt like solving logarithmic equations.
Hahaha, I've always felt slightly guilty for not liking Virtua in the same way I feel guilty for really disliking SFIII, but at least with the latter I have a well-thought-out list of contrarian reasons, whereas the former is just because "I got bored." I do respect it, at least, but in the end, Tekken is where all the (dumb) fun is. Here's some solace for aggrieved Virtua fans: a portion of Namco-playing philistines still feel your pain, as the vastly superior Soul Calibur has been treated poorly compared to Tekken. The awful Soul Calibur 3 may have been the beginning of the end for Soul Calibur 1+2's early high, but its crimes were no greater than Tekken 4's, and look how that series was still rewarded!
...I'm also glad for this chance to have extracted current fighting game talk (that's another thread) from this classic fighting game thread (which is something I actually know a little bit about)!
Now, when do we get Tobal 3??
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Wed 8 Dec 12:49] |
| | "Re(3):classic gaming: Virtua vs. Tekken" , posted Thu 9 Dec 04:21:
quote:
I'm watching DFO like I would any fighter even though I know nothing about the game of origin. In other cases when I don't know a property I can get a bit of a handle on what I should know just from the characters. But for DFO, all the characters are listed as classes instead of by name or anything else I could latch on to. "Punchy Girl" and "Grab Boy" are even more generic than the bland cast of VF, if such a thing is possible. Speaking of which...
That generic-ness might be an issue for the fate of the game. On the other hand, DFO is at least a somewhat known property outside of its country of origin. It is around 15+ years old, and was eventually released worldwide. Heck, it was shut down once nearly a decade ago, only to be brought back again a few years later under different owners. That I'd argue gives it a boost over something like Granblue.
The generic classes come from the source. DFO is an oldschool action MMO. It isn't a story focused on a handful of named unique characters. There was a story, I guess, but I think most people played for the action and largely ignored the lore.
Something potentially both good and bad for Duel is that DFO wasn't just an action MMO, it was a side scrolling beat'em-up action MMO RPG, and arguably the best action beat'em-up MMO of its era. On one hand, a lot of the design work has already been done for Duel's devs. On the other hand, people are going to have expectations for Duel. DFO was popular among beat'em-up and fighting game fans. People used to make combo videos for DFO (which also allowed PvP duels in addition to beating up monsters.)
I'm also a bit worried about how the whole "RPG" aspect will translate. If you are a DFO fan, then you'll be used to your personal incarnation of a class, while Duel will instead offer the devs' interpreted incarnation, picking and choosing a limited selection of the total available moves and abilities.
This is even worse for people who don't see their particular Class/Specialty chosen by the devs. While some of the gender-alternates are fairly similar, DFO has around 16 classes, and most classes have 4-5 specialized sub-classes. My DFO main, Female Grappler, is all but certain to see no representation in Duel, as they've already announced Male Grappler and Female Striker. (My only hope is that they include DFO style moveset customization, which I see as highly unlikely.)
EDIT: Though I edited it out before initially posting, my initial writing sent me off in a weird direction... Why has Sega never made a Phantasy Star fighting game? It seems like a lost opportunity. Capcom made all sorts of fighting games. Square experimented with Final Fantasy fighting games (turning Ehrgeiz into "the Final Fantasy fighter" and then creating Dissidia). Sega appeared to see marketing potential with the Phantasy Star IP, so why no Phantasy Star fighter?
[this message was edited by Baines on Thu 9 Dec 04:25] |
| | "Re(5):classic gaming: Virtua vs. Tekken" , posted Thu 9 Dec 13:57
quote:
The decline of VF and fighting games in general in the early to mid-00s might have played a part. PSO2 was successful enough so the higher ups didn't feel the need to take the risk. Plus at that point the legacy characters would have been too obscure to attract more than the core classic PS fanbase.
Probably more the decline of fighting games than a lack of desire to take a risk. After all, Sega decided the direct follow-up to Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1 & 2 should be a card game. Sega also once decided that what Virtua Fighter really needed was a kid-themed "virtual reality" action game, Virtua Quest.
But even when you look at the better days of fighting games, when Sega was at least a bit experimental, they still ignored Phantasy Star. When Sega decided it was a good idea to release an SD version of Virtua Fighter, Virtua Fighter Kids. When Sega decided Sonic the Hedgehog needed a fighting game, Sonic the Fighters. When Sega put Rent-A-Hero, Janet from Virtua Cop, the car from Daytona, and AM2's palm tree logo as hidden fighters in Fighters Megamix.
Though there is a key in that list... As weird as some of those things sound, Sega was pretty limited in its fighting games.
Capcom tried everything in the 2D days, and tried different things in 3D. SNK tried everything until their years of financial issues left them barely able to afford KOF. Namco had Tekken and Soul Edge, and didn't really need anything else. Even Square tried different things.
Sega had Virtua Fighter. Then Sega made Fighting Vipers, which was Virtua Fighter 2 with sillier designs and an armor system. Then they did SD Virtua Fighter 2 (Virtua Fighter Kids). Sonic the Fighters followed suit. And that period ended with Fighters Megamix, which mostly just mashed together Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers, with guests from Kids and Sonic, and other guests from other 3D Sega games.
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| | "Re(4):Embracing the fan community - BlazBlue!" , posted Fri 10 Dec 03:20
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Mmmmmmmmm however we come down on Virtua vs. Tekken, Tekken 3 set the standard on what to expect in a home release ever since with all the goofy bonus modes. Unlike Capcom with SFV, Namco correctly intuited that having lots of fun things to do would make the game more appealing to more people, and that not everyone had a friend to play against all the time (especially in a pre-networked era). Tekken Force and Tekken Ball were gloriously dumb and I'm so glad they exist.
For me, it's like building a house on flood plains, if the foundation won't hold; then I'm not going to bother. The core of Tekken has been antithetical to me for the better part of a decade.
The mishandling of Street Fighter 5 is one for the video game record books. Yes, arcade mode is not "valid" if arcades do not exist; but here's the trick - it's a quick training mode for players. It gets players accustomed to what their characters and the other characters can do. Not everybody is a psychopath that will "lab it up" outside of the cruel arena of online play. Even with nearly 30 years experience, and love for the genre, I find online play culture grating with randos. Caveat to Virtua Fighter 5 on PS3, my online play experience with that title was the polar opposite of every SF4/BB match I had.
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Even if classy but boring Virtua will always feel like eating my broccoli compared with Tekken's less (ful)filling potato chips, I can't really resent Namco for killing off Tekken's more artful rival. They were also on the right tech. I recall very well what a catastrophe it was for both Virtua and the Saturn when Sega just couldn't get a port of Virtua Fighter 3 to work, back when it was the graphical pinnacle of fighting games. After that, it was too late for both.
That's a tough topic to approach at my age. I grew up in the era of 1. arcades existing to present a high watermark for graphics, 2. home ports generally not being anywhere near as good as the arcade original. See also, the entirety of the NES era helped along by Nintendo's anti-competitive / market strong arming practices.
The Playstation took the Neo*Geo concept, arcade games at home; but did so at a reasonable price point unlike the Neo*Geo system and games. Even as a Saturn fan, I did not reasonably expect Virtua Fighter 3 to be ported without a negative impact. It's been ages, but I seem to recall Fighter's Megamix incorporating some of the VF3 DNA into the game design. However, I may be misremembering.
Consoles being on par with arcade hardware, and eventually surpassing it is a new concept in the long term view.
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In other cases when I don't know a property I can get a bit of a handle on what I should know just from the characters. But for DFO, all the characters are listed as classes instead of by name or anything else I could latch on to. "Punchy Girl" and "Grab Boy" are even more generic than the bland cast of VF, if such a thing is possible. Speaking of which...
I have to disagree, I am only superficially familiar with DFO as an online sprite based Beat'em Up for Windows PCs. That said - just looking at the trailers, the art style and presentation is far from the, I'll grudgingly concede here, flat presentation of Virtua Fighter. DFD looks snazzy as hell, even if Grappler doesn't have a name - he already looks cooler than say, Abel from Ill-Fated New Cast Fighter 4.
This is a loaded discussion that tends to boil down to familiarity and affinity with source material. When King of Fighters 12 was releasing I had to defend SNK from the philistines taking jabs at "lame characters" like Terry, Joe, Robert, and Ralf. It's not that these characters are bad, it's that they're unfamiliar to the uninitiated. This may be the strongest argument for presentation in fighting games.
The difficulty is fighting games as a genre are in a tough spot. You can invest massive time in crafting a narrative; but at the end of the day - that's not why FGC players return to these games. It may lure in casuals and help them justify their purchase, but nobody is speed running the story modes of fighting games.
As a narrative device fighting games have to nail these aspects to survive:
- Good character design
- A move set that informs players about the character's inner world.
- A cool stage that informs players about the character. Character specific stages are a lost art, damn it!
Street Fighter 2 is the pinnacle of this. The otherwise generic cast (put down the pitchforks and torches) was never aided by the threadbare "story". The story was mostly invented by the players projecting upon these massive characters and their cool moves. Ryu is just the generic stoic karate-man shonen manga protagonist, Ken the hot blooded shonen manga sidekick, Chun-Li the attractive Kung Fu lady, etc. I know it's difficult to be objective about the characters we love, but looking at Street Fighter 2 as it existed - it was the fun we had playing, the giant (for the time) expressive characters, the cool moves, and the neat stages they inhabited that stuck with us.
This is difficult for me as a fighting game fan, because like any other fan, I want other people to enjoy the thing I enjoy too. Yet that thing is the playing against other people, and getting better at the game. Not the story mode, or side games (especially in cases where I find the core game odious, e.g. Tekken, Boon-product), if I don't fundamentally enjoy the core game play I will not partake of the extra features. That's like giving Uwe Boll's House of the Dead the Criterion treatment - yeah, great extra features and presentation, but it's still Uwe Boll's House of the Dead.
Another issue for fighting games is evolving beyond arcades. While I feel arcade culture should be preserved like an endangered species, the bald faced cash extraction model of the genre is a bit moot at this point. See also, every company's efforts to monetize their games, while balancing the value of playing. Street Fighter 5 is a great example of a trash model with how Capcom invalidated the play experience and insulted players with constant revision of the fight money distribution.
I am not averse to paying for content in this modern gaming hellscape, but it has to be content I value; and fighting games are schizophrenic. There is no market leader, although quietly I would argue that leader is the horny model people are afraid to acknowledge - Koei-Tecmo and Dead or Alive 5. We can laugh at the amount of DLC in the game until the cows come home, but it kept the game afloat (perhaps not respected) for years; now look at which characters in Street Fighter 5 have the most DLC costumes... It's no coincidence.
Additional characters are nice, but honestly - how many characters do you, or the people you know tend to use? Now, take that thought and extrapolate how to monetize the model. Is there any crime in just letting Ryu players purchase additional content for their Ryu?
Further muddying the waters - where do we draw the line? What is content players have to purchase, versus what is content players can unlock? Again, look at the schizophrenic models we have today - paying for characters, paying for costumes, paying for stages, paying for music, paying for COLORS. It's not only schizophrenic, it tends to skew toward anti-consumer.
Fighting game developers need to check themselves. If the dumpster fire launch and failure of a game like Fortnite can be redeemed by going free to play battle royale, I feel there's a lesson to be learned here; for crying out loud they've farmed Shinkiro, Ryu, and Chun Li out to that dumpster fire of a game. Clearly Capcom knows it exists.
Fighting games need to become more equitable to the fanbase, and less extortion afflicted. I like the genre, but damn it - I do not like paying for colors, stages, characters, and costumes. Draw a line somewhere. I would go so far as to argue that items that do not alter the player character should just be given away in updates, e.g. stages and music. There's no damned amount of nostalgia that would fool me into paying for a fighting game stage, or in-game music. That should be in the regular, or seasonal, game updates. Perhaps useless items and colors could be unlocked through playing the game, instead of demanding payment from fans. Then, substantial customization items that require teams of modelers and artists to create, those could be items we purchase.
Taking that further, I would suggest even new characters are just available in the update; and the money could be made back by providing custom items for the players to purchase to personalize them.
As it stands now, as much as I love them, the monetization of fighting games is indefensible; and I say this as someone willing to buy DLC characters.
I hear Tekken 7 has an okay customization model, and in game earning method; but that would require me playing Tekken 7. As much of a doll as Master Raven is, I just lament she's in a game I find odious.
This is why I'm very intrigued by the League of Legends fighting game. I am curious to see how that game exists and a product and fighting game business model. If it's fun to play, that's a bonus. Right now, it's a curiosity and chance for fighting game oldheads (those magnificent Canon Bros.) to represent the genre they love.
This autopsy of Granblue Fantasy Versus just popped up on Youtube:
The Fighting Game That Never Got A Chance - Granblue Fantasy Versus
Cygames - spend the money to add rollback play! Do it.
Sadly, I feel Virtua Fighter is doomed without it's father and guardian Yu Suzuki to champion it. I hope to be proven wrong, but Virtua Fighter 6 could be a proper challenge for Sega. Take the masterful depictions of various fighting styles in the games, and now exert the effort to make the characters stand out. As posters here have mentioned, to my chagrin, the VF cast is somewhat bland (especially if you never played Virtua Fighter Kids which has the best story cut scenes of any fighting game). Virtua Fighter 4 started to acknowledge that by adding more Tekken friendly characters like Goh, who despite his Hot Topic shopping lizard-man visage, is a competent martial artist. I could understand Wolf being so bland if say, he were a proper Greco Roman wrestler; but to his core his is puroresu through and through, visual presentation, and move set.
Perhaps this highlights the weakness of fighting games as Yu Suzuki clearly thought, "I want this fighting style in my game", and gave even less thought to presentation than even Capcom gives to the SF "story". Perhaps he expended all his effort in making Jacky Bryant the consummate fighting game douche chill, with Lion coming in a close second. For a franchise with room temperature personalities, those two characters embody levels of smug that would try the patience of the Dalai Lama.
Related to fatherless games, while I would like to see a Tobal 1&2 collection released; I don't trust developers that aren't Dream Factory to attempt a sequel. Hell, from what memory serves, Dream Factory members split off from the company to go work at Namco which resulted in the contentious Tekken 4. Which despite my contrarian nature, appealed to me because it addressed my largest complaint about the smooth brained culture of Tekken - it added arenas to the 3D fighter. Why make a 3D fighter sans the need for spatial awareness, other than to cater to the smooth brains who could not cope with ring out mechanics?
I hope everybody takes my Tekken digs as jovial trash talking, and not an indictment of their character. The success of Tekken speaks to a fundamental flaw in the fighting game market, there are players who do not enjoy proper 3D fighting games. Games in which spatial awareness and ring outs are an issue. On top of that, I've had discussions with friends who also dislike fighting games which require a block button (a problem for VF, but one that has yet to be adequately addressed ((Dream Factory and Ehrgeiz tried their best to come up with something)) in a game where full movement is performed). While Tekken has evolved to include interesting stages that aren't infinite scrolling planes, and the culture has found an extremely convoluted movement scheme (Korean backdash, talk about mechanics that need to be simplified for accessibility), it's the foundation that I recall and colors my opinion. The Tekken cast tends to skew toward being humanoid avatars of energy drinks. It "helps" that both Tekken characters and energy drink cans are encrusted with tribal tattoos that went out of fashion in the early 00's.
The shoe, it fits!
Fortunately this delightful animation validates the existence of Tekken.
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EDIT: Though I edited it out before initially posting, my initial writing sent me off in a weird direction... Why has Sega never made a Phantasy Star fighting game? It seems like a lost opportunity. Capcom made all sorts of fighting games. Square experimented with Final Fantasy fighting games (turning Ehrgeiz into "the Final Fantasy fighter" and then creating Dissidia). Sega appeared to see marketing potential with the Phantasy Star IP, so why no Phantasy Star fighter?
I mean, without looking at a wiki - could you name three Phantasy Star characters? Phantasy Star is beloved by it's fans, but that fan base is also fractured. There are the old school PS fans who are extremely neglected not having received a proper Phantasy Star JRPG in decades. Then there are the PSO fans who are currently in purgatory / gacha Hell, and I say this as someone who is currently enjoying every rough angle and clunky aspect of New Genesis. It may be an abusive relationship, but damn it - I've tried (beta tested the first PS2 game when it was the poor man's PSO), tried (this one on the PSP is good we swear), and tried (no really Monster Hunter World is soooo much better than the past games) to find love for Monster Hunter and it ain't happening.
The most sane option would be for Sega to do the right thing, copying SNK, and making Fighters Megamix an annual series and include Alis, Nei, and Rolf as playable characters. Alternately, adding it as a PVP arena into New Genesis would be neat. Although, that might require a lot of work - I'd hate to fight myself essentially doing bullet capoeira, like that movie Equilibrium with cocaine!
Never forget, Ehrgeiz was the original bridge between the Tekken and Final Fantasy universes before the FF7 characters were time unlocked in arcades. If memory serves, the cabinet was pulled from my local arcade long before they unlocked. While Tekken smooth brains were shocked at the addition of Final Fantasy characters to Tekken 7, Ehrgeiz fans knew all along. :b
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
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| "Re(5):classic gaming: Virtua vs. Tekken" , posted Fri 10 Dec 09:46:
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Why has Sega never made a Phantasy Star fighting game?
The decline of VF and fighting games in general
PSO2 was successful enough so the higher ups didn't feel the need to take the risk.
the legacy characters would have been too obscure
All good points. A lot of people abroad may also forget that Mega Drive was mostly irrelevant in Japan, so a (wonderful) small RPG series whose story was fully complete with the fourth game in 1993 had zero currency or relevance even for an experimental Sega several years later into the post-SFII fighting game boom. They might as well have proposed Penguin Land: the Fighters (note: I wish they had!). They at least had to try a Sonic fighter since he was still technically their mascot into the AM2/3 era (recall: Sonic 2 sold 160,000 copies in Japan to the US’ 4.5 million!). By contrast, Sega has long been one of the most important arcade operators in Japan, and their references to other Sega arcade games in Megamix were actually familiar to people.
Freeter’s totally right on PSO2 being more successful as itself than a fighting game. As we’ve been discussing, genre-hopping isn’t really a guarantee for success. Fast forward to another frequent entry in the Weekly Classic Fighting thread here: Ehrgeiz. Advertising it as the Final Fantasy fighting game couldn’t save it, even at the peak popularity of FFVII, a game that was exponentially more famous in Japan than Phantasy Star. Ironically, it only sold half of Bushido Blade, a game that was confident enough to be itself!
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Fri 10 Dec 09:53] |
| | "Re(6):classic gaming: Virtua vs. Tekken" , posted Fri 10 Dec 10:43
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genre-hopping isn’t really a guarantee for success.
Phantasy Star has had some genre hopping. It was an oldschool JRPG, which saw both an oldschool first-person view RPG spin-off and a set of text adventure spin-offs.
Phantasy Star Online rebooted the series into Gauntlet 3D in space, setting the direction of future success.
Episode III tried to turn PSO into a card game. At this point Sega either had faith in Phantasy Star (or more specifically PSO) as a brand or they were chasing every possible path to success.
If you have reason to have faith in your brand, then genre hopping can pay off. Genre hopping can be the extended life of mascots. Genre hopping gave us the flood of kart racers, Smash Bros, Mario party, etc.
The alternative was that Sega saw that Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic, and other card games were hot properties, and they looked for whatever available property had some assets they could cheaply recycle into a quick cash-in attempt.
As for Ehrgeiz, I'd say it failed for a few reasons. First, it wasn't that great a base game. It's hardware was about a generation too early for the free run arena action it sought, and it wasn't Tobal 3. Even the quest mode felt like it had lost its way compared to how Tobal integrated the fighting system into the RPG quest mode. Second, despite fans calling it "that Final Fantasy fighting game", it wasn't primarily a Final Fantasy 7 fighting game. It was just some other fighting game that had random Final Fantasy characters bolted on in an attempt to boost sales. IF it had been built from the ground up as a Final Fantasy 7 fighting game, it might have fared better. I still don't think it would have done well or been that good, but it at least should have been better.
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
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| "Re(7):classic gaming: Virtua vs. Tekken" , posted Fri 10 Dec 12:17:
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Phantasy Star has had some genre hopping. It was an oldschool JRPG, which saw both an oldschool first-person view RPG spin-off and a set of text adventure spin-offs.
That's true, but these are all basically minor variations on the the PC and tabletop RPGs from whence it came. What I'm getting at is that Phantasy Star sadly didn't have remotely the cultural cachet needed to become a fighter, with only one entry on a minor system having been released after Street Fighter II. Our Mega Drivers' 68000 hearts may have burned for it, but as you said, you need faith in the series brand for a genre jump, and they sure didn't have it at the time.
PSO came out seven years later but with no meaningful connection to the original series, which the vast majority of users never knew, so I don't think PSO's success really suggests that there was enough interest in the original during AM2's mid-1990s glory days--Sega just took an intriguing space-fantasy setting from a dead series and started over. I guess at the end of the millennium (ha!), they could have done something with whoever passes for a main character in PSO? Anyway, I definitely agree that after the fact, a KOF or Smash Bros. type of thing would have been just the place to finally give poor overlooked Alisa, Eusis, Nei, and friends the spotlight they deserved!
And yeah, Ehrgeiz's grayish aesthetic was way too boring compared to Toriyama's shiny Tobal world, even with Cloud and friends, and while a yoyo cop is great, there is nothing that can touch Tobal 2's nutty designs like glorious Emperor Udan and perfectly named fighters like Gren Cuts!
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Fri 10 Dec 12:49] |
| | "Re(8):classic gaming: Virtua vs. Tekken" , posted Fri 10 Dec 15:40
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And yeah, Ehrgeiz's grayish aesthetic was way too boring compared to Toriyama's shiny Tobal world, even with Cloud and friends, and while a yoyo cop is great, there is nothing that can touch Tobal 2's nutty designs like glorious Emperor Udan and perfectly named fighters like Gren Cuts!
Maaaan, you're putting me in the undesirable position of showing my Ehrgeiz fandom. Despite the Nomura character designs, I rather enjoyed quite a few members of the cast, and I absolutely adore the character art (I have long since forgotten the name of that master). Ignore the Nomura doodles, and focus on the initial arcade character roster. Those illustrations have the majesty of peak Bengus work, I have to wonder if it was a contemporary.
Ehrgeiz was a product of the glorious days of fighting game glut, and risk taking. When mad scientists were experimenting with full 3D movement, environmental interaction, and fighting games that involved more than direct combat. Pretty much in every Dream Factory game from that era (Tobal 1/2, Ehrgeiz) the more skilled player would always have the upper hand.
I know this as I was the lesser skilled player and my friend at that time had mastered the flash combos of Tobal 2 timing, and proper reversals of Ehrgeiz. There was none of the random kludge of say - Power Stone. This was surgical precision, and if you weren't up to snuff you got filtered.
Sadly, these games were also very experimental and involved the troublesome full 3D movement that many 2D fighting game fans could not adapt to.
I miss those days. This, again, is why I'm such a fan of Arc System Works in their present state. Unlike other publishers, they're the remaining solvent developer that shepherds the fighting game genre toward a better tomorrow; while the ojisan publishers focus on the lone profitable intellectual properties.
Maybe it will bite them in the rear end down the road, like Capcom competing with itself and every other fighting game developer did in the 90's; but I fear the genre has shrunken to such a small corner that may not come to pass.
And I'm thankful they're cognizant of market demand for accessibility and quality online play, so as to prevent the genre from falling into the abyss of hardcore wizardry like the shmup genre - where it's bullet hell or nothing.
The less said about Western fighting games of old, the better - but back when I was ringing register at Software Etc. when I made it to "key holder" status, firing up the Saturn and the window displays to listen to the fragment of Jaggy Love in the attract mode of Last Bronx used to set the tone for my day.
Sega really needs to do Model 2 and Model 3 game collections for modern consoles, with bare minimum - functional online play. My persistent gripe with Sega is how they always dust off the same crusty Sega Genesis / Megadrive ports every generation; and ignore the brilliance of their coin-op heyday. If I see that blasphemous Genesis/Megadrive port of Virtua Fighter one more time. . .
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Re(9):classic gaming: Virtua vs. Tekken" , posted Fri 10 Dec 21:44
Pencilero brings some good points. Ehrgeiz was flawed, for sure, but I liked how each character actually felt very different from each other (...well, except Yuffie, Vincent and Zack) - in this regard, it did better than Tobal, where the differences aren't as prominent. The idea of a game with full 3D movement was also nice, even if not done right - fortunately Capcom would succeed on that with the Power Stone duology.
But it's a shame that its Quest Mode was nothing like Tobal 2's; it made no sense to have Koji and Clair not use their fighting skills, it lacked the open-world feel of Tobal 2's Quest Mode, and it barely integrated itself into the game's story (again, unlike Tobal 2's, where it's even used to introduce Mark as the true bad guy of the story). The quest ending was also lazy (but then again, so was Tobal 2's).
Still, it wasn't a bad game.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(10):classic gaming: Virtua vs. Tekken" , posted Sat 11 Dec 01:22
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But it's a shame that its Quest Mode was nothing like Tobal 2's; it made no sense to have Koji and Clair not use their fighting skills, it lacked the open-world feel of Tobal 2's Quest Mode, and it barely integrated itself into the game's story (again, unlike Tobal 2's, where it's even used to introduce Mark as the true bad guy of the story). The quest ending was also lazy (but then again, so was Tobal 2's).
I suspect that is due to the nature of the product.
Tobal 1/2 were console games, seemingly funded well enough by Square at the time. So Dream Factory had the luxury of crafting something not arcade focused, and possibly encouraged by Square to add a robust quest mode that rang true to their RPG/ARPG publishing heritage.
Ehrgeiz was an arcade title first and foremost. While it does bear some of the hallmarks of common asset and mode recycling of employable developers; a robust Tobal quest mode may not be something to extract coin from arcade player pockets. So Ehrgeiz received the after thought quest mode.
Following Dream Factory to their conclusion, to my recollection, Crimson Tears was their final Tobal era game for Playstation 2 and that was when they gave up on the full 3D movement PvP fighting game and focused exclusively on the quest mode and narrative single player game aspect of their development. Pity a team so steeped in fighting game DNA could not find their breakout title. It sounds like they would have been at home working on a Yakuza title, or similar game with robust fighting game style combat in a larger game world.
I'll paraphrase an expression I read once, "A pioneer is the traveller you see on the road ahead of you. Dead, face down in the sand with arrows in their back." Dream Factory was one such pioneer, and their bold influence created a handful of beloved by fans games; and when talent left to form Anchor (IIRC), or work for Namco - they pushed the titles they worked on in directions they previously did not dare, e.g. Tekken 4.
Godspeed Dream Factory!
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Re(2):Re(10):classic gaming: Virtua vs. Tekke" , posted Sat 11 Dec 04:05
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Ehrgeiz was an arcade title first and foremost. While it does bear some of the hallmarks of common asset and mode recycling of employable developers; a robust Tobal quest mode may not be something to extract coin from arcade player pockets. So Ehrgeiz received the after thought quest mode.
Following Dream Factory to their conclusion, to my recollection, Crimson Tears was their final Tobal era game for Playstation 2 and that was when they gave up on the full 3D movement PvP fighting game and focused exclusively on the quest mode and narrative single player game aspect of their development. Pity a team so steeped in fighting game DNA could not find their breakout title. It sounds like they would have been at home working on a Yakuza title, or similar game with robust fighting game style combat in a larger game world.
I'd think creating such a detached quest mode would be more work than creating something closer to Tobal 2's quest mode. Particularly since they already had that Tobal 2 experience, and all the work done creating Ehrgeiz's fighting system. They still created new enemies (and Tobal 2 recycled a lot of move sets for enemies). They even created weapons. Unless maybe they had the skeleton of a 3D action roguelike already sitting around.
I kind of wonder if Dream Factory even wanted to make fighting games, at least after Tobal No 1. Tobal 2's quest mode was heavily inspired by oldschool Roguelikes, and the final dungeon encapsulated that experience. Ehrgeiz's quest mode was effectively the prototype for some other 3D action Roguelike that happened to be bolted onto a fighting game. And then they made Crimson Tears, which arguably took that "prototype" and built it into its own game.
But they did go on to make the licensed Fighting Beauty Wulong game, and Kakuto Choujin, and that Wii Toshinden game that no one played... So I guess they still wanted to make fighting games as well.
The big tragedy with Dream Factory is that most of their games were just kind of meh... I can't really say what they were missing, whether it was better leadership, better design, better coders, or what. It would be easy to say that they needed better budgets, but I honestly don't see their games making back that extra investment. They just couldn't make successful games, and even the games I liked seemed to be missing something.
Crimson Tears at least felt like its own game. From the little bit I saw of Appleseed EX, it didn't really look like an Appleseed game, but rather DreamFactory's action game with the Appleseed license slapped on it. It just looks weird seeing Briareos using fight animations that were likely copy-pasted from a previous DreamFactory game. I can't even remember how Fighting Beauty Wulong played, I think I might have messed with it once, and only want to remember it as licensed meh.
By the time of Kakuto Choujin, Dream Factory felt like a one-hit wonder that was trying to blindly recreate its original success(es). Then Kakuto Choujin was pulled from shelves, and pretty much no one felt anything of value was lost in the process. I don't even know anyone that played the Wii Toshinden game.
It's kind of funny, my original version of this was about how DreamFactory should have teamed up with Chunsoft and made action Roguelikes. If they could have made it to the Roguelite revival that hit around a decade after Crimson Tears, they might have seen new success. I'd forgotten how much mediocrity they'd gone on to make, and how everything was just absent of the factors that could actually make a successful game.
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The backgrounds
The epilepsy inducing select and win screens
The weird Ikeno art with fishface Guile and coked-up Evil Ryu
The complaints that Capcom was lazy with recycling when the initial game has 17 new character sprites
