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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
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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
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
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CFN: zonepharaoh
| "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
STM: n/a
CFN: n/a
| "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:
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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
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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!)
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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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