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| PSN: zonepharaoh
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|  "Fighting Game Thread 2021" , posted Thu 14 Jan 12:13:  
The all-purpose fighting game thread---always in a precarious relationship with the SNK thread and the SFV thread---needs a new look for 2021! What better way to start than a new oral history article of the Cafe's early sort-of-mascot-game Capcom vs. SNK? It segues into the sad tale of the collapse of Capcom fighting games for seven years, but at least things are better now!
These Polygon articles for some reason keep focusing on the unimportant first series entries (SFIII: NG, SFZero1, CvS1), but there's fun stuff in here:
-Making the game thawed relationships between Capcom and SNK. Beyond drinking parties, they had Capcom vs. SNK Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments.
-MMCafe's Favorite (??) Handheld System, the Neo Geo Pocket Color, might have provided some basis for early talks as SNK was looking for other companies to develop for it.
-The programmer had never played an SNK game (that's even more extreme than me!), so he had to do a lot of research on the feel.
-When Aruze screwed over SNK after it bought it, about 20 SNK staff moved to Capcom and were this mystery team who needed to prove themselves...with Capcom Fighting All-Stars. Oops.
-CvS2 director Itsuno wasn't particularly sad as the fighting game scene was collapsing...he was pretty done with it, and was busy making Dragon's Dogma. Interesting but unsurprising when creators of our favorite things aren't that sentimental about the past.
-Capcom Fighting Jam was just as crappy and irrelevant as you remember saying it was here on the Cafe about twenty years ago.
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 15 Jan 05:28] |
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| | "Re(3):Fighting Game Thread 2021" , posted Sat 16 Jan 03:54
quote:
-Capcom Fighting Jam was just as crappy and irrelevant as you remember saying it was here on the Cafe about twenty years ago.
Crappy with a capital C.
I still was a sucker for the game, since at that point in time Capcom hadn't put out a new fighting game since CvS2, and I was desperate to play something. This game made MUGEN look like gold.
True. The idea was interesting, having each represented game in the crossover keeping their own mechanics, but they could at least give everyone new sprites that didn't clash visually with each other; having a SFIII character next to a DarkStalkers one without new sprites made the game look horrible. And the "team" system was weird, too; if you can use the same character in both rounds even if they lost the first one, the only incentive to pick a second character is for people who care about specific match-ups, and I don't think most of the fighting game players at the time cared a lot about that.
The artwork in the portraits and endings looked good, I'll give CFJ that. Just that.
Yes, agreed. The sprites were just archaic at that point. I wonder if Capcom could've afforded to redraw and reanimate them all. At least they gave new sprites to Demitri's Midnight Bliss transformations.
Shinkiro did an excellent job with the illustrations. I'd like to see what he can do with a whole Darkstalkers art.
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| | "Re(3):Fighting Game Thread 2021" , posted Sat 16 Jan 04:48
quote:
the "team" system was weird, too; if you can use the same character in both rounds even if they lost the first one, the only incentive to pick a second character is for people who care about specific match-ups, and I don't think most of the fighting game players at the time cared a lot about that.
That was the dumbest thing of the whole game. The idea was that if you had hyper-polarizing matchup like Guile/Zangief, you'd have a backup. But anyone thinking more than 5 minutes about it would see how bad the idea was: if you have Gief and someone else that's good against Guile, and you see the other one has Guile and someone that's good against your 2nd character, each round is basically a round of "rock-paper-scissor" with only two options, and whoever comes out on top with the character matchup wins the round. And on the other hand, if you have two average-rounded characters, there is never any reason to change characters.
That was the moment, so many years before SF4 and SFxT, that I knew Ono was a hack.
I remember being disappointed the game didn't have double the amount of characters (if you're going to do a hack job at copy and pasting characters without any regard for esthetics or balance, at least be generous with the selection!), but after a few matches, it was obvious the game was so bad that even a Mugen cast wouldn't save it. Copying the super simple KOF rule, making the game CvS2 without the S, or even plugging all that into MvC2 without the Marvel characters for totaly silliness would have been so much better.
To think that this failure of a game is the reason Capcom (well, Ono) never greenlit another Capcom vs Capcom game "because people don't want that" drives me mad. People don't want bad games regardless of the characters in it. The latest SQEX GAAS Avengers is the proof of that.
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| | "Re(4):Fighting Game Thread 2021" , posted Sat 16 Jan 07:54:
quote:
That was the dumbest thing of the whole game. The idea was that if you had hyper-polarizing matchup like Guile/Zangief, you'd have a backup. But anyone thinking more than 5 minutes about it would see how bad the idea was: if you have Gief and someone else that's good against Guile, and you see the other one has Guile and someone that's good against your 2nd character, each round is basically a round of "rock-paper-scissor" with only two options, and whoever comes out on top with the character matchup wins the round. And on the other hand, if you have two average-rounded characters, there is never any reason to change characters.
That was the moment, so many years before SF4 and SFxT, that I knew Ono was a hack.
I remember being disappointed the game didn't have double the amount of characters (if you're going to do a hack job at copy and pasting characters without any regard for esthetics or balance, at least be generous with the selection!), but after a few matches, it was obvious the game was so bad that even a Mugen cast wouldn't save it. Copying the super simple KOF rule, making the game CvS2 without the S, or even plugging all that into MvC2 without the Marvel characters for totaly silliness would have been so much better.
To think that this failure of a game is the reason Capcom (well, Ono) never greenlit another Capcom vs Capcom game "because people don't want that" drives me mad. People don't want bad games regardless of the characters in it. The latest SQEX GAAS Avengers is the proof of that.
Capcom definitely should make a MvC2-style game without the "M", just a "Capcom vs Capcom" game with the MvCI gameplay (without the Infinity Gems) or the UMVC3 gameplay. I mean, it's not like Marvel and Disney did a lot for them in the last crossover, and at least Capcom wouldn't have to deal with Disney forbidding any character (*cough*X-Men*cough*).
Come on, even SNK already had their own MvC game with Neo Geo Battle Coliseum (granted, it wasn't great, but then again, it was made during a tough period for SNK). Capcom has all the tools to make a CvC game - I mean, a GOOD CvC game, not another CFE...
(and yes, if the CFE developers were going to be that lazy, at least they could have added more characters - I'd have liked to see Mei-Ling and Tessa, for example, plus CFAS' D.D., Rook and Death as the CFAS planned newcomers alongside Ingrid. And it's shocking that even some fan-favorites like Ken and Morrigan were left out of it)
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Sat 16 Jan 07:57] |
| | "Re(1):Street Fighter V-11" , posted Fri 12 Feb 04:17
quote:
Moving on from SFII to SFV, Capcom unveiled Eleven today. Yup, like 3rd Strike's Twelve, but not quite. Apparently it may work as some sort of random roulette rather than an actual character.
This could be a disappointing choice, but I guess we learned to lower our expectations after Decapre (plus, I think SFV's roster is already good enough as it is). However, the end of the video shows that Eleven surprisingly isn't the fifth fighter from Season 5, but a bonus DLC - which means the identity of the final SFV newcomer is still unknown (and that Season 5 actually has six characters rather than five).
---
EDIT: oh, there are also gameplay videos for Dan and Rose.
When I read earlier this morning the leak about Eleven I was already thinking about the Decapre disappointment, but at least being a bonus DLC no one should complain.
But that Rose 3D model looks too plastic even for SFV standards.
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P - THE FOOL  | "Re(2):Street Fighter V-11" , posted Fri 12 Feb 04:36
I thought Eleven would be Shadow or Marionette, but actually he's Mokujin. Oh, well. He's free and they really weren't obliged to do anything, so, thanks I guess? Unfortunately, while his VS and VT will be randomized, he will be using the default costume of the characters and thus will be a terrible fashion faux-pas on the MMC stage.
As for Dan, he shouts "使わざるを得ねぇ" during his VT1, which is the biggest Kyokugenryû meme, so I guess that absolves his existence? Rose looks a bit more like her Zero2 self than her SF4 self. I've never been a fan of the character, but less SF4 is always a plus. Also her stage looks nice!
I'm very intrigued by the backdash. That's quite the hefty change, and I wonder if the price of 1 VT gauge will be enough for get-out-of-jail card. On the other hand, if they rebalance the most powerful VT to cost 3 gauges, maybe the trade-off will make sense? Characters that weren't so much dependent on their VT will have a big boost for sure (Claw?). Not sure I'd ever consider this against an Aegis Reflector, on the other hand.
Generally pretty satisfied!
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
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| "Re(7):Street Fighter V-11" , posted Sun 14 Feb 15:17
quote:
I saw someone call the update Street Fighter striVe.
Amazing. While I’d prefer the Guiltyification of SF to mean using its magnificent visuals rather than its incomprehensible battle systems, I’m sure someone here can explain to me what the new SFV system is, right? ...right? A better Zero Counter? SFIII’s finicky blocking/parrying?
While it’s nice to get minor updates for free or very little rather than paying full price like the old days, it’s kind of a drag that the older versions of SFV are basically obliterated whether you like the increasing bloat or not. What if season (fill in the blank) was the best, but we can never see it again?! I enjoy SFV a lot, but that sure is a lot to explain to a newcomer when you try to get them into the game!
One thing’s for sure: quote:
Such an improvement aesthetically from SFIV in every way
Whether this is about Rose or even the weakest parts of SFV, it’s still true! Except Necalli. But then, he’s a good counter argument to what I wrote above, and we can be happy that five seasons in, it’s like he never existed.
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: Ishmael26b
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| "Re(8):Street Fighter V-11" , posted Mon 15 Feb 03:21
quote:
I saw someone call the update Street Fighter striVe. Amazing. While I’d prefer the Guiltyification of SF to mean using its magnificent visuals rather than its incomprehensible battle systems, I’m sure someone here can explain to me what the new SFV system is, right? ...right? A better Zero Counter? SFIII’s finicky blocking/parrying?
This video did a good job of breaking down what limited information we have of the system. It looks strong at the moment but since Capcom is trying to sell us a used car they are going to make V-Shift look as cool as possible and not show us how it could be countered or what drawbacks it might have. For example, how does V-Shift handle cross-ups? There will be much to explore in the next MMCafe Danfest.
quote:
While it’s nice to get minor updates for free or very little rather than paying full price like the old days, it’s kind of a drag that the older versions of SFV are basically obliterated whether you like the increasing bloat or not. What if season (fill in the blank) was the best, but we can never see it again?! I enjoy SFV a lot, but that sure is a lot to explain to a newcomer when you try to get them into the game!
I do find it frustrating that current fighting games rarely have the ability to rewind the dial. If I don't like V-Shift I'm going to be out of luck when it comes to SF5 next month. Doesn't everyone want the opportunity to go back to the version of SF4 where Yun was stupidly overpowered or the version of Tekken 7 where Leroy was stupidly overpowered or the version of DBFZ where Bardock was stupidly overpowered or...
Er, I lost my train of thought. Anyway, it would be nice to have a wayback machine built into constantly updated games just for the sake of historical research.
quote:
One thing’s for sure: Such an improvement aesthetically from SFIV in every way Whether this is about Rose or even the weakest parts of SFV, it’s still true! Except Necalli. But then, he’s a good counter argument to what I wrote above, and we can be happy that five seasons in, it’s like he never existed.
If SF was a television show or other type of serialized story Necalli would have been written out ages ago. Instead, both the players and producers have agreed to shun Necalli, leaving him to loiter aimlessly on the select screen until SF6 gives him the boot. Perhaps he could be redeemed in a future game? Here's an idea: Blanka could understand his plight and help bring him into civilization. Instead of muttering about eating warriors, Necalli could become fixated on VTubers or some other niche of modern life. On second thought, they should just bring back Rufus; his win quotes were terrific.
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
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| "Re(9):Street Fighter V-11" , posted Mon 15 Feb 11:42
Thanks! Rather than the dreary, technical SFIII Blocking/Parrying, it sounds a bit more like Soul Calibur's Guard Impact, or even that moment of slow-motion invincibility you get in the SF Zero series when you start an Original Combo/Custom Combo. Whatever it is, as someone who's successfully used the V-Reversal approximately once in his life, I'm interested in another defense move!
I am looking forward to Danfest and can probably host in early March.
ALSO, is that a Mr. Karate outfit I see for him in the season pass advertisements?! Dan lost his way in the years where SNK was in too pathetic a situation to make fun of it, but now that they seem (??) to be doing slightly better, maybe it's time for Dan to go all-in.
quote:
Blanka could understand his plight and help bring him into civilization.
they should just bring back Rufus; his win quotes were terrific.
Remarkably, Blanka manages to become an expressive, thoughtful character in comparison to Necalli.
Rufus is the final Season 5 character we all deserve, but even he would be more interesting than another SFIII character like Twelve, or Eleven I guess.
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(2):Gimme Rose!" , posted Wed 17 Feb 10:15
quote:
I really don't like some of the things with Rose right now, but I presume it's still early and will be improved.
Her idle pose is bizarrely stiff, and doesn't express either her sense of elegant dignity or the supple power she expressed in SFA. The animation of the shawl returning to her makes the shawl appear tiny in a way that looks ugly. Her drill attack has a really weak pose to it that again doesn't express a sense of terrific power or poise.
What bugs me about Rose's shawl is that it so very obviously has no physical volume. You'd normally have to go back to the PS2 or even the PS1 era to find something so unapologetically blatant about just being a completely 2D rectangle.
As for Rose's own animations, I blame the motion capture. Capcom included footage from the mo-cap session. I'm sure the mo-cap actress was skilled. I don't know if she was told to perform the moves slowly to aid in the capture process or if the devs just intended for the kick to be a slow move, but the result is that her Soul Piede looked slow, awkward, and weak. It probably didn't help that the person holding the target mitt had to support her weight and even helped push her back for the recovery.
After seeing that mo-cap footage, the rest of the in-game footage looked similar. Nothing had "punch". There is no oversell or snap. Angles and animation speed don't look like they were chosen for what looks best, but rather what the mo-cap crew felt they could deliver. Rose's in-game animation honestly made me think of early Mortal Kombat (though obviously more fluid), where the actors had to move slowly and hold poses.
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| | "Re(3):Gimme Rose!" , posted Wed 17 Feb 21:05
I agree with most of the criticisms on Rose (especially her horrible hair, urgh), but then again, not only is it still WIP (the gap between some overanimated moves and the underanimated ones is huge) but also I've always found her one of the worst characters of Zero in that aspect. Yes, I know the Lisalisa reference, but I've never found the shawl particularly well done, and half of her moves didn't seem convincing to me. There's only so much you can do on such a canvas... Maybe they could have tried to redesign her toolset and design, but I guess that's what Menat did already...
Oh, well. I'm mostly intrigued to see what they'll do to Oro, who seems to have the most interesting premise (on top of being a much better designed character initially).
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| | "Re(4):Gimme Rose!" , posted Fri 19 Feb 08:56
quote:
After seeing that mo-cap footage, the rest of the in-game footage looked similar. Nothing had "punch". There is no oversell or snap. Angles and animation speed don't look like they were chosen for what looks best, but rather what the mo-cap crew felt they could deliver. Rose's
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Yup, I saw the footage and I immediately knew why I always felt weirded out by the animation on the modern SF games. I assumed the mo-cap was to guide animators who would manually end up animating the characters but I doubt that's the case since full mo-cap to game engine is usually cheaper than having staff manually animating something.
See, one team of animators I knew (among which one of whom is a martial arts master, one of whom was a competitive boxer) would take the approach of doing mocap to get all the motions done quickly, but with the understanding that they would all require cleanup and retiming: this ranges from the simple cleanup of removing little bits of undesired movements/jittering, to adjusting the gross duration for the game, and for adjusting the timing of the parts of the motion so that the right parts are emphasized.
This is really important because certain moments representing things like the area where it will actually hit things you want emphasized, while the little motions in and out of that you don't want emphasized. If the little motions that don't seem like they should deal damage or effects do, players always feel that "the game is janky", even if the durations are ok. On top of that, a lot of the snappy look of attacks in video games and animations are not the way people move in real life, and this has further style implications if your game is like a more than 2 player multiplayer game that doesn't have a lot of hitstop going on.
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| | "Re(7):Strive to Log In" , posted Sat 20 Feb 17:18:
quote:
I'm still downloading but I'm impatient for impressions. Anyone have any thought on what they have played? Is it any good? How does it compare to other GG games?
The general consensus which I'd agree on is that it feels like Granblue Fantasy Versus with an air-dash and roman cancel system (if you don't know Granblue Fantasy, just think of it as a SFZ2 where everyone bonks each other with a medival weapon). It feels very friendly to Street Fighter players since much of the fat that gave Guilty Gear its yummy taste has been trimmed off. There's very little vertical screen movement. I recall how Maou couldn't comprehend Guilty Gear Xrd since everything was so different, but that shouldn't be as much a problem now.
1/Aerial combos are almost non-existant and there's no aerial recovery system. You don't really see characters flying all over the screen and flashing like in previous iterations.
2/Wakeup games are at a bare minimal since it's very hard to knock down the opponent. In previous games, players new to Guilty Gear would get utterly pulverized once they got knocked down because offense is extremely strong in the Guilty Gear series. With the walls also becoming breakable, now it's mostly about the neutral game. The developers reportedly wanted to get rid of 50/50 mixups.
3/Roman Cancels are certainly in the game but I think it's too early to tell how useful they are. They universally cost the same amount of meter as a super now (50%). Given that supers are pretty good in this game, players might end up with different feelings on how good they are depending on their character. Generally speaking though, it seems a lot easier to gain meter in Strive compared to older titles.
4/Crossups seem to be weak in general. The jump attacks don't have much hitbox on their back, and even if they hit/blocked, the opponent gets 'knocked away' (rather than knocked towards) and there's enough distance that you can't land a close-up combo.
5/Attacks do a lot of damage; you simply do not want to get hit in this game. A meterless combo can do 50% damage. Normal throws do a lot of damage too.
6/The graphics and other details are just awesome. There's many things in this game that are probably going to be missed out by hardcore fighting game players that aren't appreciating the smaller details placed in by the development staff. For example, Millia's normal/weak kick alone has probably about 10 frames of animation, which is quite something when considering most games have 3-5 frames. About half of the frames are used in pullback motion, which can be canceled with any motion (including blocking). As usual for Guilty Gear the characters have multiple taunts; some of them include very long conversations or monologues, which also comes in various patterns. I think the developers just stepped into a new league of character creation after coming up with Answer (the businessman ninja) in Rev2.
--
Now, about this beta test overall--- thus far, it hasn't been a great experience. I played very little, maybe an hour max. I haven't had time to commit playing it, but within what I could, it felt like a LOG-IN GAME from the good ol' mmorpg days. Apparently the server overload was beyond what Arc System Works had expected since it's a free beta that anyone can play without even paying for PSPlus. Past midnight, the servers just died and didn't kick back until noon.
I tried playing a little again during late lunch break but the servers still continue to go on and off. The awful thing is that the game keeps surveillance even during offline modes and kicks back to the title screen if there's no connection. This is probably just for the beta client as it's apparently how Arc System Works is making sure it's not playable outside of the testing period.
[this message was edited by Professor on Sat 20 Feb 17:32] |
New Customer  | "Re(8):Strive to Log In" , posted Sat 20 Feb 22:26
quote:
1/Aerial combos are almost non-existant and there's no aerial recovery system. You don't really see characters flying all over the screen and flashing like in previous iterations.
2/Wakeup games are at a bare minimal since it's very hard to knock down the opponent. In previous games, players new to Guilty Gear would get utterly pulverized once they got knocked down because offense is extremely strong in the Guilty Gear series. With the walls also becoming breakable, now it's mostly about the neutral game. The developers reportedly wanted to get rid of 50/50 mixups.
3/Roman Cancels are certainly in the game but I think it's too early to tell how useful they are. They universally cost the same amount of meter as a super now (50%). Given that s
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Those seem like contradicting experiences compared to what I have seen Prof. I may have watched around 20 or more hours from all kind of players (Jiyuna, JustinW, Max, Valle, Sonic, Go1, Sajam, T5M7, etc) and their gameplay shown isn't quite as that.
There are aerial combos, Chipp specially have some pretty flashy ones. They aren't as long as before (as they should be because of the damage) but they are around. I expect seeing spectacular stuff coming from characters with double/triple jump and dash. They mostly have been replaced by wall combos though. Man, those Chipp combos are so sweet, even if they aren't optimal.
There are going to be a lot of mix ups and okizeme, that's the way fighting games are. Sure they got rid of several situations where it was tough, but players will break the game sooner or later. It's just a matter of time.
Practically every single player I see burn all their meter only on roman cancels, Justin may play 20 matches and just use a super once. Literally. It's so useful to guarantee damage (on such a damaging game) and bait bursts. On top, it just feels so GOOD to use them. And the slowdown purple defensive variation it's so cool to master. The meter filling so fast gives people so much freedom. Even if people aren't using many supers at high level, the option is always there.
The crossup game I saw of Gio and Leo was looking nice. Millia was made to abuse them; though, I wish more people were playing her. People are still discovering stuff.
Poor Chipp is the posterboy of 100% combo videos going around. He even dies on a single super on counter hit (Ram with 2 swords.)
I saw SonicFox playing Go1 on crappy Wi-fi (intentionally) and they said it felt really good. What a holy blessing netcode is. It'll cement a precedent for the future of all fighting games. I'm dying to play with people all over the world. Not being a console peasant have never hurt me as much. Take a look at these really fun matches played by T5M7 and Sajam; both are delighted by the experience of being able to play from so far away (you can hunt T5M7 POV on his channel.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kdWknykuBk
One thing I have seen thrown around is that the build players are testing is an old one from months ago. How much can they polish this game if this is true? What a beautiful videogame.
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| | "Re(9):Strive to Log In" , posted Sun 21 Feb 01:51:
quote:
Those seem like contradicting experiences compared to what I have seen Prof. I may have watched around 20 or more hours from all kind of players (Jiyuna, JustinW, Max, Valle, Sonic, Go1, Sajam, T5M7, etc) and their gameplay shown isn't quite as that.
There are aerial combos, Chipp specially have some pretty flashy ones. They aren't as long as before (as they should be because of the damage) but they are around. I expect seeing spectacular stuff coming from characters with double/triple jump and dash. They mostly have been replaced by wall combos though. Man, those Chipp combos are so sweet, even if they aren't optimal.
Thanks for the input Sasha!
On a related note, I need to fix myself about crossups! They're extremely dependent on the opponent character's hurtbox.
1/ I've over-emphasized by saying aerial combos are non-existant, thank you for correcting me. I also realized that I should've said aerial rave style of aerial combos; as you said, the game has a lot of aerial combos, just that they're relatively short compared to before.
2/ At the current time, okis seem a lot less prevelant compared to previous iterations of Guilty Gear. Yes this can change through the course of the game's lifespan as players find more and more ways to break the game. But that's beyond gameplay impressions that I can make from the current open beta period. On a semi-related note, the input window for wakeup reversals feel extremely lenient compared to Xrd.
Oh instant kills... they may not be missed, but at least if the game had certain moves that transitioned to their flashy a cutscenes if done as a finisher.
[this message was edited by Professor on Sun 21 Feb 04:21] |
| | "Re(1):MK codes" , posted Tue 13 Apr 06:11:
quote:
An interesting anecdote from John Tobias about how roster choices were made on the early Mortal Kombat games. The idea that they were going to the local pizza parlors and typing in secret codes in order to decide the future of the franchise is a reminder of how indie garage band the whole arcade scene of the early 1990's was.
So they intentionally left Scorpion, Reptile and Kitana out of MK3 not because they didn't have time to add them to it, but because they already intended to release UMK3 some months later, before vanilla MK3 was even released?
That's... well, in short term, this is kinda clever, as they could sell the same game twice (not so different from Capcom's (in)famous SFII upgrades). In long term, however, this hurt considerably MK3's reputation, with most of the fanbase considering vanilla MK3 as a very underwhelming sequel and UMK3 as a sequel that actually brought several problems that the original version didn't have, like removing the ending illustrations or forcing the players to revisit twice the four/five new stages before all the other stages even begin to appear (meaning you would likely not get to see some of the coolest stages like The Soul Chamber, The Temple and The Bell Tower, while having to visit the boring Waterfront twice).
Not cool.
EDIT: As for Tobias's explanation for roster changes, it makes sense. There was a lot of speculation ever since the 1990s that Johnny Cage was killed off before MK3 because Daniel Pesina quit, but when we think about it, this doesn't make sense; at least four characters present in vanilla MK3 (Liu Kang, Sub-Zero, Shang Tsung and Sonya) were also played by different actors in the first two games, yet these characters were all brought back to MK3, while Baraka (who was played by Richard Divizio, who is in MK3 as the digital actor for Kano and Kabal) was left out.
It also makes us wonder: had they checked the arcade machines in different locations than the ones they checked, MKII and MK3 could have had quite different rosters... Sonya and Kano could have been playable in MKII while Johnny Cage would be the one chained in Shao Kahn's arena, or Baraka and Cage (with a different actor) could have been in MK3 while Kung Lao's name would have been in the grave in the Graveyard stage rather than Cage's name.
I guess only MK11's Kronika would know these possibilities.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Tue 20 Apr 00:01] |
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| "SVC Chaos Appreciation Month - As ever?" , posted Tue 18 May 09:25
With the NGPC game Snk vs Capcom MOTM, I still can't help but wonder why I love SVC Chaos based on what it gave us outside of your usual fighting game.
Yes we can all agree it was broken, didn't have enough groove systems, one on one, missing fan favorites, the graphics, etc. A time where presentation mattered and a next generation fighting systems.
I just want to point out that the pre battle dialogues, after watching nearly every single one, is a beautiful ride to behold as to the interaction of each player in this unknown storyline, timeline, and background that we didn't get much detail of.
There was no story line whatsoever provided by SNK. Street Fighter wiki quotes,
quote:
The backgrounds that are in the game seem to suggest that the setting takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth, with most stages appearing to be abandoned, decrepit, and mostly devoid of life. The background material to explain the events of this game seem to point to it, but is not made clear through any character dialogue. Oddly, some of the endings (such as Chun-Li's and Kim's) show normal, undamaged cities full of people, and Zero's ending has him sent back to his universe, where Ciel contacts him almost immediately after Zero contemplates all the other characters he met.
Was doing so much digging into the story, I saw one site list that they all are dead or so, and sent over to this dimensional to figure a way out. Which would make the endings mentioned in the quote make sense that once they beat Athena/Red Arremer, they go back to there original dimensions. Which was made clear with the samurai spirit characters.
So enough of the story, no we know what the deal. The pre battle dialogues are nostalgic, a trip down memory lane, funny, and make one hell of a highlight reel or even a movie in itself. My favorites interaction are ones with Demtri, Tessa, Dhalsim, and Geonitz. Most comedic, falls under Dan as every character some how roast him for a joke of the fighter he is. Tessa want to examine every character scientifically in the name of sorcerology(if that is even a word), Dhalsim enlighten his opponents by persuading a positive path, and Demtri , well, everyone seems to be shocked in seeing a vampire who are then asked to become his servent.
My only gripe is why Zero was not as talkative. I would love to see some more interaction from him.
In any case, I still love the character selection to this day. Regardless of what anyone says this is the greatest character selection. I wish they would patch this band boy up and give it a nice little update. It could be more.
If you want to see all pre battle dialogues check this VIDEO
Let it run at half speed because they talk real fast.
Long Live I AM!
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| | "Re(1):SVC Chaos Appreciation Month - As ever?" , posted Tue 18 May 21:57:
SVC Chaos did have its merits. Some character choices were pretty cool, like Hugo instead of Zangief as Capcom's big guy, Tessa, Shiki and Earthquake. Plus Demitri, with special Midnight Bliss transformations for each opponent. Then again, I must confess I don't think Red Arremer and Mars People fit in this game at all - they'd be great in a hyperactive fighting game like the Marvel vs Capcom series, but not in a standard fighting game like SVC Chaos - meanwhile, the roster has some notable omissions, like Haohmaru, Nakoruru, Morrigan and Cammy. And Mr. Karate as Gouki's counterpart was also a weird choice (and as much as I love Kasumi, choosing her over Yuri was quite odd as well, although at least she brings a different playstyle).
The dialogues were cool, and often pretty funny, like the "conversation" between Iori and Genjuro. It's also nice that there were proper endings (MOTM had generic conversations and CvS2's endings were only text with no illustrations). Oh, and SNK did a pretty good job with the sprites for Capcom's characters (Capcom also did a great job with SNK's in CvS1&2, but it was noticeable there how they had a different quality from the sprites taken from SFA3, while in Chaos everyone looks like they really belong in the same game).
That said, it just feels too uninspired to me in terms of gameplay, system, stages and soundtrack. It would already feel uninspired if it was a new fighting game with a completely original roster, but when it's meant as a crossover between characters from two of the biggest fighting game companies, I can't help but feel the developers failed big time. It's not a bad game, but it's definitely not the epic game it should have been.
...Well, now that SNK managed to make a huge comeback with KOF XIV and SS (and the upcoming KOF XV) and Capcom managed to turn SFV's initial disaster into the amazing successful game it should have been from the beginning, maybe both companies could start discussing the possibility of a new crossover (or two, in case each decides to release their own CvS/SvC game)? It probably won't happen, but we're allowed to dream, are we not?
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Tue 18 May 22:01] |
New Customer | "Re(5):Re(10):Strive to Log In" , posted Tue 25 May 14:36
quote:
Counter hit into double post!
To round out my time with the Strive beta I tried out the online. Holy incomprehensibility Batman! I had heard the complaints about the way Strive handles setting up matches but it didn't prepare me for the absurdity of the actual experience. This must have been a pet idea of someone at the top because I can't imagine a group of people all agreed that this was a good idea. The matches were actually quite good the few times I managed to make my little pixel man find an opponent.
Sorry, not a direct reply.
Just a spring board into thoughts on the last Strive beta, and larger thoughts about the accessibility of fighting games as a genre I have loved since 1992.
I dropped the ball and missed my feedback window for the last beta. Day job and maintaining pandemic protocols still taking a toll.
Playing the last beta, and the last decade's crop of fighting games, I got to thinking - for all of the effort to make fighting games more accessible to newcomers.
What really chapped my behind playing against Anji, Sol, and to a lesser extent Giovanna is even with more defense options available. Offense is relentless.
Are fighting game developers overlooking the obvious? And I admit to looking to Fire Pro Wrestling for this "fix", but a stamina / aggression meter for offense?
The greatest deterrent to fighting games since Capcom dropped the Versus kusoge series in arcades, were infinites or plain abusive combos. This is fine if you're an execution machine, but when you're on the receiving end - it's no fun.
Am I crazy for thinking this up, or is it time for fighting game developers to serious consider offense stamina meters as an option. Not for every game, obviously; but when focusing on developing mechanics to make a title more new player friendly - would it really hurt?
This is why I still enjoy my old SF2 matches and a solid game of Virtua Fighter. These games were well paced, and "felt honest". Rather than the lopsided mauling one could receive in a BlazBlue match.
Just throwing it out there.
Hello all, I've been lurking here off and on since the old days of checking Teh Kao Yang's Sega Saturn page and other fan sites. Finally decided to register since I prefer old school BBS/Forums to modern options.
I'll add steam profile once I get this new PC up and running. A lot has changed since the olden days, the big one for me is now many of the games I enjoyed in arcades and on consoles are now available on the PC, rather than simulators and FPS games. Neat stuff, but I'm sure there's some old part of me that will miss the clunky Metal & Lace (Megatech Software) era of niche PC gaming.
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| PSN: ShikyohMukuro
XBL: IAMDC1
Wii: n/a
STM: N/A
CFN: n/a
| "Re(7):Re(10):Strive to Log In" , posted Tue 25 May 23:33
quote:
Hello all, I've been lurking here off and on since the old days of checking Teh Kao Yang's Sega Saturn page and other fan sites. Finally decided to register since I prefer old school BBS/Forums to modern options.
I'll add steam profile once I get this new PC up and running. A lot has changed since the olden days, the big one for me is now many of the games I enjoyed in arcades and on consoles are now available on the PC, rather than simulators and FPS games. Neat stuff, but I'm sure there's some old part of me that will miss the clunky Metal & Lace (Megatech Software) era of niche PC gaming.
Welcome!
And wow, you brought some very good questions! I look forward to the answers from the other people in this board. I'm afraid I'm not well-versed in balance issues to answer them myself, so I'll just say that yes, SFII and VF2 have both aged surprisingly well (even if SFII also had balance issues; thus the many upgrades it got over the years - but it's still surprisingly good to play).
I always thought of other things similar to a stamina meter. Like the effectiveness of parts of the body after hitting and getting hit on those parts. If the left arm gets hit the most(if hit box detection were ever so sweet), then that player would loose the ability to use that arm. Or something similar.
If a player utilizes the legs the most, should have higher hit rate but less if using arms or vice versa.
It may be a technical disaster if implemented lol.
Long Live I AM!
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| | "Re(8):Re(10):Strive to Log In" , posted Wed 26 May 00:48
quote:
Hello all, I've been lurking here off and on since the old days of checking Teh Kao Yang's Sega Saturn page and other fan sites. Finally decided to register since I prefer old school BBS/Forums to modern options.
I'll add steam profile once I get this new PC up and running. A lot has changed since the olden days, the big one for me is now many of the games I enjoyed in arcades and on consoles are now available on the PC, rather than simulators and FPS games. Neat stuff, but I'm sure there's some old part of me that will miss the clunky Metal & Lace (Megatech Software) era of niche PC gaming.
Welcome!
And wow, you brought some very good questions! I look forward to the answers from the other people in this board. I'm afraid I'm not well-versed in balance issues to answer them myself, so I'll just say that yes, SFII and VF2 have both aged surprisingly well (even if SFII also had balance issues; thus the many upgrades it got over the years - but it's still surprisingly good to play).
I always thought of other things similar to a stamina meter. Like the effectiveness of parts of the body after hitting and getting hit on those parts. If the left arm gets hit the most(if hit box detection were ever so sweet), then that player would loose the ability to use that arm. Or something similar.
If a player utilizes the legs the most, should have higher hit rate but less if using arms or vice versa.
It may be a technical disaster if implemented lol.
Didn't Tao Feng (that game John Tobias did for the Xbox in the early 2000s) use a system like that?
Then again, the Xbox fighting games are barely remembered... I never got to play Tao Feng, but Kakuto Chojin, despite the controversy that killed the game, was quite good (not great, but good).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(10):Re(10):Strive to Log In" , posted Wed 26 May 02:15
quote:
Didn't SamSho V had a stamina bar or something like that?
If you mash the attack buttons you get low damage, you get higher damage with full bar.
Yeah, I was going to say: SSS and SS0 are probably the best answer to this conundrum on top of being excellent games.
I still haven't played the latest game, but from the look of it, it seems to allow different play-styles, with fast combo-oriented characters and other traditional characters that can take half a bar with one button press, so it should work?
Another problem is obviously the terrible online. Lag won't make you drop your combo if there's no combo, but also even a small lag spike can lead to 75% of the bar vanishing, so, eh.
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New Customer | "Re(2):Re(10):Re(10):Strive to Log In" , posted Wed 26 May 02:58
Thanks! I suspected some games have experimented with the concept, but as with most experimentation - if it's not a massive commercial success, it's not prone to imitation/adoption by other developers. I'll have to fire up SS5 in the near future and experiment, I admit I was initially put off by the changes made to SS5 buttons.
My primary concern is that fighting games become one sided, and I want to be cautious here in that I'm not arguing against player skill; rather the more skilled players currently always dominate - and matches feel less like attempting to out think your opponent in a back and forth exchange, and more find opening > load combo.exe, until opponent health reaches 0.
While it's not fun getting pureed by Anji/Sol in the Strive Beta - I appreciate that the matches are fast, damage is high, and the suffering - not eternal. :b
Rather than leaving my opponent to perform their combo kata and going to make a sandwich, or pour another beverage while I'm immobilized.
Proper implementation of stamina, rather than damage scaling during combos would force a reset to the players mindset. I'm certainly no SF5 expert, I still play it, it seems the ability in that game for pokes to negate aggressive play frustrated players that want to fall into the execution groove, and not worry about out thinking the opponent.
I had this over the weekend with an aggressive G that continued to walk forward on me to mog me, or use G's dashing low to catch me off guard when blocking high. They won that set.
Then randomly we met in another casual match. Knowing the routine this time, I made sure to poke early and often to interrupt the approach > run combo.exe > dominate flowchart.
My opponent was committed to their execution / combo set ups, and wasn't prepared to deal with effective normals used on the fly. This is why those old fighting games are still the standard bearer for the genre, and the ones players remember fondly. The pacing and exchanges during the matches.
This comes from a place of love, because fighting games are possibly my favorite genre ever, and I want to see it continue to thrive. Try as I may to experiment with Battle Royal games, for me it's like taking a vegan to an all you can eat steak house. Just not interested.
Oh, and I suspect Gundam Maxiboost Vs, the one that released last summer, had some similar offense defense meters as I'm thinking of; but it's been nearly a year since I played in the beta.
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Re(3):Re(10):Re(10):Strive to Log In" , posted Wed 26 May 15:01:
quote:
What really chapped my behind playing against Anji, Sol, and to a lesser extent Giovanna is even with more defense options available. Offense is relentless.
Are fighting game developers overlooking the obvious? And I admit to looking to Fire Pro Wrestling for this "fix", but a stamina / aggression meter for offense?
The greatest deterrent to fighting games since Capcom dropped the Versus kusoge series in arcades, were infinites or plain abusive combos. This is fine if you're an execution machine, but when you're on the receiving end - it's no fun.
Am I crazy for thinking this up, or is it time for fighting game developers to serious consider offense stamina meters as an option. Not for every game, obviously; but when focusing on developing mechanics to make a title more new player friendly - would it really hurt?
This is why I still enjoy my old SF2 matches and a solid game of Virtua Fighter. These games were well paced, and "felt honest". Rather than the lopsided mauling one could receive in a BlazBlue match.
I think there's rather a few pieces to think about in this:
1 - why are ArcSys games the way they are?
2 - what is the kind of game that you desire?
3 - what is the nature of "honesty" that most players think of?
4 - what are the challenges players face at different levels of play?
1 and 4 are intimately tied together, and come about kind of as a response to the defense-heavy SF games and high-flying Capcom Marvel games. Overall one of the desires was for OFFENSE to be easier, and for it to be the primary means to winning. You'll note that across the history of the Capcom Versus games, in spite of how often runaway tactics have been very strong, none of them have Guilty Gear's "Negative Penalty". Guilty Gear's tension pulse and the fact that in older games you'd get meter just for moving towards the opponent are all there to make a game where even beginners can run at their opponent and bang out a chain combo by just tapping buttons. It specifically wants to NOT be the staid game of walking forward and poking that SF2/SFA/AOF/etc. were.
3 and 4 are remarkably different at different levels of play. The hadoken/DP trap can seem cheap and dishonest at one level of play, and incredibly honest if not outright weak at another level of play. The French Bread game designers have remarked in the past that the historically great player GO1 poses problems to game design because his ability to block things on reaction that are intended to require guesses to block means that if they make a game that is ok for like 75% of the players then it becomes a mockery when he plays, but if they make a game that is ok for him then it can feel overwhelming and dishonest for the other 75%.
Generally speaking, some of the things that come across as "dishonest" are:
- extended pressure that cannot be escaped without great difficulty or at least some specific usage of the game systems
- strong okizeme
- very high combo damage
- combo starters that are difficult to block
- copius projectiles
- things that are hard to react to
And it's worth seeing what the impact of these have. If you made a much slower-moving game where players have a realistic chance of making a conscious reaction to every opponent action, the game generally becomes very slow and very turtle-y: it becomes incredibly difficult to deal with somebody who decides to just sit there because you don't have a means of establishing an advantage on them. Having very weak okizeme means that when you do score a knockdown, it can feel unrewarding because your opponent "gets away for free". Having very weak combo damage makes comebacks feel impossible: consider how even with the very high damage DBFZ had from the outset, only until system changes in recent versions did comebacks feel like something that could regularly occur!
Some of these general notions of "honesty" also start constricting the game design, because certain types of characters can no longer be made, for better or for worse. Urien's Aegis Reflector in 3S is a perfect combination of dishonest and honest: it's frankly CHEAP AS HELL at times, but he doesn't get it quickly and it requires tremendous skill to bring it to the level at which it starts feeling "unfair"... and at that level of play, Urien is far from the most unfair character!
I don't think these ideals are at all unrealistic, though, and I think plenty of games people really love to feature them. The Dark Souls games are all about fighting things that possess deadly but reactable attacks. The Gundam Vs. games have extremely weak okizeme compared to 2D fighting games because blocking is something only a few characters can do. The game features copius projectiles (literally 4 players might be shooting at any given time!), too!
Some projectile-heavy games actually have stamina systems: the extremely forward-thinking Touhou fighting games made by tasofro have a multitude of defensive options and having a stamina system that is also tied to defense is central to the games.
A recent major tournament of one of these games
Battle K-Road was one very early approach the idea of minimizing okizeme, with knockdowns always resulting in the two players being reset to starting positions.
If you wind all the way to some of the games which embody ideals of limited offensive pressure/extension, no okizeme, limited damage, you wind up at.... fencing and kendo! Unlike boxing where KOs are ever-present and trump points, or judo where point judging is BS and ippon is match-ending, fencing is a low damage game (each touch is worth one point) and each successful touch results in a reset to neutral. Being cornered is still bad, and defensive options are myriad. However, if any sport features unreactable offense... it's fencing! The tip of the fencing foil or the epee whips about at a speed faster than the eye can follow, and there are many things that require a read of your opponent rather than a reaction. In kendo, lightweight fiberglass swords allow successive strikes at incredible speed, and damage is "high" because matches are often played only to a low single digit number of points!
Most interestingly, though, is that in the Japanese fighting game community, a lot of the theory of the neutral game is built off of kendo terminology. Specifically, these are: oki-waza, ate-waza and sashi-kaeshi.
(1) Oki-waza means that you pre-emptively make a move,
(2) Ate-waza means doing a move that will hit waiting opponents,
(3) Sashi-kaeshi means waiting for the opponent to make a move and reacting to it
Oki-waza is pressing d.HP with Dee Jay from the other side of the screen where it won't hit anybody, but so that Dhalsim will be hit when he tries to do a slide or do a long d.MP.
Ate-waza is Dhalsim pressing a long d.MP the moment he sees he is in range for it to connect, because it is too fast for a standing opponent to react to.
Sashi-kaeshi is Dhalsim waiting for you to jump so that he can press standing roundhouse and kick you.
When everything is reactable, sashi-kaeshi dominates the game, and the game becomes very turtle-heavy. When offense is overwhelming, sashi-kaeshi may well be impossible and oki-waza or ate-waza dominate the game via furious rushdown. All of these lead to experiences that don't feel good in the neutral part of the game, and it feels like there is no thoughtful exchange between the opponents.
However, just what is right for a given game can vary HUGELY!
Tekken is a literally a game of unreactable combo starters in which characters seldom separate much when attacks are blocked, but all three of the above principles are still at work, and an unheralded player from Pakistan can conquer all that Asia, Europe, and North America has to throw at him.
All that said:
KOF should stay away from custom combos because custom combos have never done anything to bring more people into playing KOF.
quote:
I always thought of other things similar to a stamina meter. Like the effectiveness of parts of the body after hitting and getting hit on those parts. If the left arm gets hit the most(if hit box detection were ever so sweet), then that player would loose the ability to use that arm. Or something similar.
If a player utilizes the legs the most, should have higher hit rate but less if using arms or vice versa.
It may be a technical disaster if implemented lol.
It's kinda worth pointing out how much attacks tend to not actually hit where you think they do, because the earliest point of contact is in fact at a much different spot that what it would seem. This applies to both 3D and 2D games, too! In one game I was working on that has shut down, the characters were realistically proportioned and did attacks that had their foundation animation done via motion capture. When you are playing the game and duelling with your opponent, many of your strikes that would seem to connect with your opponent's head or upper body... actually first connect with their wrist or knee, depending on their animation. The practical significance of this is that we had to make the hit effects emerge from different locations on the body than precisely the spot that connected, because otherwise you'd have a lot of blood coming out from below the waist and it's visually confusing.
THAT SAID, it is not impossible to make a game which fully embraces this idea, but it often winds up playing rather differently.
One recent example is CYBORG by Goshow
[this message was edited by Spoon on Wed 26 May 15:05] |
New Customer | "Re(4):Re(10):Re(10):Strive to Log In" , posted Fri 28 May 16:05
My apologies for the following post, I attempted to keep it on target; but my thoughts tend to derail like the train in Unbreakable. . .
Well, in full disclosure; from what little I know of the Ishiwatari / Mori school of ASW fighting games "mischief" seems to be their consistent design philosophy. With perhaps Guilty Gear skewing a bit more toward "aggressive mischief". Thus the emphasis on design mechanics motivating players to move forward and throw caution to the wind. If I'm speaking out of turn, feel free to correct me. I only played pre-Xrd Guilty Gear games casually because of friends who were into them; but I tended to play them more like Street Fighter - so I was "doing it wrong" (not grasping the depth of mechanics and said friends were not capable of expressing or explaining the mechanics as a fan should), but still having some fun in the process.
With that in mind, I don't find Strive to be particularly disagreeable. I wasn't an expert, but do somewhat miss the chain mechanic in past games; which I liken to the. . . what was the zig-zag input called that Capcom created for Darkstalkers/Vampire combos? It was an obvious and useful tool for a low skill player like myself. If you're in trouble, just fall back on a gatling to re-calibrate.
I also do not want to look only at the top of the mountain (GO1, Fuudo, Infiltration, Daigo, etc.) and remove tools these players enjoy. To quote esteemed Western philosopher Randall Mario Poffo - "Nothing means nothing! Nothing, means nothing. I'm talking about all the way to the top. Yeah~ unjustifiably in a position that I'd rather not be in; but the cream rise to the top. Oh yea~!" Top level players will always exist, and this is where analytics and careful design come into play for matchmaking online. Even something as simple as displaying an MS Office style Clippy for fighting games when you log-in, e.g. "Greetings warrior! Just an FYI - players of your rank are more abundant at (insert metrics for time of day in local time zone) - would you like to seek a match against a higher rank player? Y/N"
When not playing random matches, then good lobby systems come into play - options to filter connection settings (I decried the foolishness of abandoning ping times in favor of common cell phone bar visualization back in 2008 when online fighting games on consoles became common), rank filtering for public rooms, auto-kick options to boot idle players when the lobby admin isn't paying attention, etc. Noobs, neophytes, novices, and other low rank players should not find themselves thrust into the Ninja Blender of combat against higher ranking players in casual lobbies.
I run into this in SF5 as a casual player. I hate that more experienced players will see my profile, and immediately "counter pick" the character displayed in my profile to "show me how to use them". Thanks, but my game ranking tells it all; all your unsportsmanlike conduct is showing me is that you're an insufferable ass looking to discourage lower ranking players. Just kick me out of the lobby, thank you very much. That's my hypothetical online opponent, nobody here - sorry for any confusion. This is also why I'd like any game that makes you select a "main" character in a profile to allow players to choose the most powerful fighting game character of all - Random Select.
Sorry, I wandered off topic. :p
Having stated that - this is where incorporating a stamina meter / mechanic for offense would be useful. Top tier players will not regulate offense when the game does not require it, however baking it into the game would require the players to adopt new methods of maintaining their advantage in matches. While moving both players to a neutral state. The most odious aspect to fighting games is unregulated pressure, and I admit this as someone who years ago forced another player in our group out of playing Dead or Alive 2 through vicious reads. Granted, my opponent could have stopped performing the same action resulting in the same result; but I don't know why I was so merciless, and that lack of mercy put them off of playing the game ever again and the community was worse for having less players as a result of my lack of mercy.
This was someone I knew for years, and I did this to them and feel terrible over it to this day. I don't believe this level of introspection is something online players and lab monsters engage in, or consider when playing online against opponents at lower skill levels. Again, this is where the game developer needs to design intelligent matchmaking tools and encourage players of all skill levels to find their like-skilled player pool.
This could also be addressed by developers acknowledging and rewarding "good play", in this example "good play" would be measured by points (ranking, in game currency, etc.) that are commensurate with the players depth of tactical application of the game mechanics. This harebrained concept would work something like this:
- Match victory with normal is worth 25 points
- Match victory with EX move is worth 50 points
- Match victory with Super Move is worth 75 points
- Match victory with Critical Art / V-Skill / Intant Kill 100 points
- Using X colored Roman Cancel / Focus Attack during a match is worth Y points
- Throw X Reverals / Cancels during a match is worth Y points
- Winning a ranked match against a higher ranking player earns a bonus of Y points
So on, and so forth, this would not only fuel a sense of accomplishment - it would encourage players to learn and utilize advanced mechanics in the game. It boggles my mind that in a decade of fighting game creation, no developer (to my knowledge) has implemented such a system. It's exacerbated by the absolute disaster of Fight Money in Street Fighter V, where you're just disrespected in your effort to survive with the pittance of Fight Money regardless of how well you fared in a game.
That's not a hard system, just a rough sketch of something I believe could be implemented to the benefit of both genre and community. Goodness knows, I spitefully fire up Duty Fighter 5 to do my Fight Money homework to earn the paltry pittance of virtual currency to subsidize my roster expansion. Which will probably not be complete before Street Fighter 6 appears, due mainly to my apathy toward the game. It's not terrible, but it's not my favorite entry in the franchise; and I'd much rather be playing Strive or VF5:US.
I may be an odd bird as well, because my enjoyment of fighting games is not derived purely from winning. If I enjoy the aesthetics of a game, I will continue to play; and this is why I'm such a massive fan of Arc Sytems Works fighters. When 2D sprite based games lay bleeding, and in danger of falling to killing blow, they defiantly arose with BlazBlue. Sure that era of sprite based fighters made sensible use of rotoscoping from polygon based models (similar to how those few heroes at SNK crafted the dot pixel art of KoF12/13 in a glorious dying gesture), but the end results were glorious new sprite based games for this nostalgia addled geezer who wanted to see the pixel art of my era carry on into the future and evolve.
Then the mad bastards at Arc System Works did me one better. I was a BlazBlue fan, relatively indifferent to the Guilty Gear franchise; but I will never forget the day in 2013 when I watched that Guilty Gear Xrd trailer for the first time. I thought to myself, "Oh, here's Guilty Gear using the updated sprite technology they used to make BlazBlue - neat..."
Then I get to one minute and two seconds into the trailer - Sol and Ky's swords clash.
The camera freezes.
AND IT ROTATES AROUND THE CHARACTERS!
I had to stop the trailer and start it over again to confirm I was not seeing things. I then proceeded to watch that trailer on repeat for I don't recall how long that afternoon. I emailed my friends. I could barely contain my enthusiasm.
Some how. Some way. Arc System Works and Team Red managed to create a polygon based fighting game with the aesthetics and visual integrity of a sprite based fighting game, but incorporating dynamic camera moves and stunning visuals. I was throttled. I had no expectation of Arc System Works accomplishing anything of this sort, not when more prestigious companies like Capcom, Sega, and Namco were unable to, or incapable of doing such a thing! These scrappy little bastards went from Underdog to Alpha Dog in my book. Years before I had dreamed of a Street Fighter game that used a stunning visual style to replicate the gorgeous artwork of the Legendary Capcom artists of the 90's - and that dream is still unrealized. Could you imagine if we ever got a Street Fighter game using polygons that replicated the legendary artwork of Bengus for Street Fighter Alpha, the iconic character sketches Kinu Nishimura provided for Street Fighter 3, or the lush paintings Akiman provided for Street Fighter 2?!
It is a shame we'll never see that Street Fighter game. The fighting game genre is poorer for that lack of ambition. I would like to believe it could happen if Capcom would throw money at the talent to make it happen. Take the risk. Rise to legendary status. Make me love Street Fighter in the way I loved it back until 2008. This is why the present state of Capcom fighters turns me off. The games could be fun to play, but I outright hate to look at them. They are visual abominations not befitting a standard bearer of the genre; but I also speculate this is due in large part to the IP being handed over to Capcom USA years ago and all of the brilliant artists who made me fall in love with the game's visuals leaving the company.
Oh sure, they call Gouda Cheese (Bengus) for a good time these days; but clearly he's just cashing paychecks for nostalgic twits. I get that artists change and evolve over time, but his work on Street Fighter 5 really just speaks to a lack of interest, or care, for the series. Who can blame him - what he produces no longer has any bearing on the finished product. Everything is assembled piece meal by various hands. There is no visual cohesion in SF5.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I'm having difficulty replying because I generally agree with the response, and want to add that I feel it is important for fighting games to remain true to their origin. The ethos of the franchise should remain consistent.
Samurai Shodown 2019 is a great example of this. The game feels so much like what I remember playing back in the arcades in the 90's, with a lot of the fat from SamSho 3 onward trimmed, or more elegantly incorporated. Although I do wish SNK attempted a sumi-e art style, like early Samurai Spirits concept art, and Samurai Shodown 64 made use of. That could be stunning.
An overarching theme here is were I not a lowly laborer, my dream job would be art directing / creating a visual masterpiece of a fighting game to inspire a new generation, the way the games I grew up with inspired me.
Strive is a fun title so far, and I suspect the conflict most people feel is due to the team actively changing mechanics to appeal to a wider audience; but it's also being done with the cooperation of the man who created the franchise. This is an amazing process to behold as Guilty Gear is unlike other fighting games which have become orphaned IP's, long since removed from their original creators; and subject to volatile decisions (e.g. the Ono era of Street Fighter). I also appreciate that you can look at the history of the series and watch character age and change. This is incredibly unique to Guilty Gear, even if Fatal Fury and Street Fighter experimented with showing us aged characters in Mark of the Wolves and Street Fighter 3 - the commercial failure of Street Fighter 3 seems to have doomed Street Fighter to exist in the amber of Street Fighter 2 memory. Ryu will always be the eternal karate hobo.
This speaks to a larger issue I have with how fighting games justify their existence through rather atrocious stories. Stories in fighting games have never been worth the trouble of cutting characters that players like. A perfect fighting game would be like an NFL or NBA game, this is a sport. These are the players. Combat is what these characters do - and here is this years edition with the characters you enjoyed from the previous game, and a new line-up of combatants entering the fray. Every character is somebody's favorite character, so it's an act of respect to honor them and keep them around, rather than cast them off in favor of some atrocious narrative - and possibly replace them with another character with the same move set, but no affection from the player.
This is also another case where Guilty Gear is somewhat unique in that Arc System Works has reached an amazing height of visual fidelity and production that they can utilize their game engine to also create their own animated films using the game assets. Sure the Guilty Gear story is utterly preposterous and wildly convoluted; but looking back on it's evolution - it's pretty funny to behold. This is also better than farming out production of story and animation to a third party, e.g. many a fighting game anime of the 90's.
quote:
Generally speaking, some of the things that come across as "dishonest" are:
- extended pressure that cannot be escaped without great difficulty or at least some specific usage of the game systems
This is why I would like to see a developer attempt to reign in the unchained aggression of top tier players with a stamina meter. I do not believe it would render a game unplayable, or hated by players, if incorporated sensibly.
quote:
- strong okizeme
This is a fine line. I am still of the archaic mind that the player on defense should have some mercy conferred to them by design. The Tekken franchise is the worst offender in my opinion, not helped by the first three entries being essentially 2D games using polygons and eliminating the beauty of Virtua Fighter - being a polygon based "3D" fighter that took place in an arena, which required a new degree of spatial awareness. In general, I find both Tekken and Soul Calibur still tend to coddle the players. A 3D fighter ought to be a 3D fighter which spatial awareness and intuitive 3D movement being core game mechanics.
quote:
- very high combo damage
I do not mind high damage, however I abhor low damage time consuming high count combos. This is why I argue for an attack stamina meter. Forcing the aggressor to be deliberate in attack, and forcing a reset to a neutral leaning state for attacker and defender. Too much of one, you end up with Gracie Jiu Jitsu turning combat sport into a snooze fest for spectators; too much of the other and you end up with complaints that Mayweather runs from hits every round.
quote:
- combo starters that are difficult to block
Speaking to your discussion of ambiguous hit/hurt boxes I strongly feel that fighting game developers ought to make heights obvious. Even as a player that has been with the genre since 1992 - ambiguous hit boxes are just a baffling choice for no reason, it's not being clever - it's simply annoying.
quote:
- copius projectiles
This generally isn't an issue in well designed fighters. Yes the classic fireball trap can be annoying; but the classic remedy was patience and resolve. Since then we've had a variety of mechanics introduced to counter this, although with the schizophrenic nature of franchises, this can vary wildly between entries in a single franchise which is unfortunate.
quote:
- things that are hard to react to
Could you please provide an example? I'm unclear.
I'd also like to close with there may also be some cultural factors we could be overlooking, a big one I can recall from classic American arcade days was the cries of "cheap" when normal throws were used in Street Fighter 2 matches. It's not cheap. If you're sitting still crouching like a potato, then I'm going to throw you. :b
Please don't take that as a point by point rebuttal; I just wanted to attempt to coax out more discussion if you're willing. Once more, I appreciate the thoughtful response and opportunity to ramble on.
Thanks for the conversation.
Finally, glad to see VF5US is going to be free on PSN+. I had planned to purchase it, but if I can obtain it while my subscription lasts - all the better!
"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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| "Spoon's Dojo" , posted Sat 29 May 04:59:
Let me second Rugal in saying Spoon's post is one for the ages, like Toxico's Art of Fighting or Nobi's Vampire post!
quote:
fine if you're an execution machine, but when you're on the receiving end - it's no fun.
I prefer old school BBS/Forums to modern options.
A man of wealth and taste! Welcome!
You'll find no argument from me that Street Fighter would benefit from Guilty Gear's visual design and consistency, though I'll still take SFV's weird hodgepodge over SFIV's consistent ugliness, I suppose.
As someone who's mediocre at fighting games but loves them, I can't add much to everyone's advanced analysis but can get back to Pencilero's basic proposition: lots of figthing games are no fun when you're getting pounded by high-level technical players, making them unappealing to novices...but this isn't always the case. Why? I think button vs. motion inputs mean everything, and this ties into 2D vs. 3D. I've managed to teach a number of friends and housemates over the years to play Soul Calibur 1-2 and/or Street Fighter, and the ability to do cool things in 3D (button inputs) even when you don't know every input lowers the barrier to entry so much.
Just punching the air or failing to produce a single special move in 2D just isn't any fun at all for people, whereas button input games seem to offer some ability to stumble along and occasionally do something even when getting beat up. I'm not even talking about button-mashing in a poorly designed 3D game, just the thrill of moving about in three dimensions, perhaps, the sense of action. The only other solutions I've seen to make fighting games truly approachable to the uninitiated are things like Justice Gakuen's simplified inputs option (tying specials to buttons, making super combos come out with standard special attacks). None of this really speaks to how to make it more fun to lose to advanced, aggressive players, of course, but that's probably true in any sport.
Edit: oh, except Soul Calibur’s guard impact. No fiddly irritating frame-specific Parry/Blocking from SFIII, no meter-eating Zero Counters or V-reversals from SFZero or SFV, just a simple button to repel the over-aggressive, which can later be taken to higher levels with the guard impacts of guard impacts of guard impacts we used to chain together
in the halcyon days of Soul Calibur II. Even if you lose the guessing/reflex game, it’s still more fun than getting pounded by infinite combos.
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 Sat 29 May 08:02] |
| | "Re(1):Spoon's Dojo" , posted Sat 29 May 11:56:
quote:
- things that are hard to react to
Could you please provide an example? I'm unclear.
There's a lot of things like this in a variety of different ways!
As I started writing, I just turned it into a "things that are hard to block"!
But things where the "reaction" part is specifically challenged:
- things which are hard to block because they demand a quick reaction
(e.g. in the Guilty Gear Xrd games, all the Dust attacks have a common bright spark in their startup, but all of the Dust attacks must be blocked high and some of them are very fast)
- things which are hard to block because their sheer speed makes them hard to react to
(e.g. Millia's 6K overhead is notoriously hard to block at 17F startup since you are also busy thinking about whether or not she will throw you. Sol just running at pressing S at you is incredibly quick even though you can block it high OR low!)
- things which are hard to block because they are hard to visually distinguish
(e.g. Jam's 5D is famous for its subtle animation, so even though in terms of raw frame count it should be blockable, it is much much harder to block than its speed suggests. Bryan's Hatchet Kick has a lot of startup which just looks like a forward dash, which makes it hard to see and switch to low block)
And things which are hard in some different ways, as well as similar ways:
- things that are hard to block even if you have committed to blocking and know which height to block
(e.g. a crossup jump-in where you can see that the guy is in the air doing a jump attack that you want to block high, but it's hard to tell whether you should be blocking left or right)
- things which are hard to block even when you know the sequence of what is coming
(e.g. when a character is jumping with a light normal and then landing into a low normal, such that the jumping attack might intentionally whiff and so you must switch between high and low blocking very quickly in order to be able to block the low)
- things which are hard to block because you can only block them with specific timing and mechanics
(e.g. it is OBVIOUS that Ryu is charging up a Denjin Hadoken and you might know that you have to parry it to stop it, but the Denjin travels with great speed, flickers weirdly flying at you, and can be released with a variety of timings)
There's plenty more, but these are some of the prevalent ones!
Samurai Shodown is kinda cool in how it realizes those kendo-inspired neutral ideas: jumps are huge and easy to see coming, so outside of okizeme it's hard to jump at someone in a way that's hard to block; there's few overheads of any kind that are fast so basically everything can be blocked low; almost everything is minus on block; the defender can guard cancel into specials moves almost universally. So just sitting there in crouch is actually quite strong, since you'll block almost everything automatically and anything slow you can guard cancel and hit. This makes dashing in and throwing a key guard breaking options, and run speeds in the game are generally quite fast. This incentivizes you to flick out pokes to check opponents who are attempting to just dash in on you, but since it's unusual for an attack to be positive on block in the game, if they just walk in and block, now they are at a slight advantage and can try to press in a bit further.
The all-girls fighting game Koihime Musou is similar to Samurai Shodown in that almost everything is minus on block, but it goes even further in some ways in that combos are relatively weak UNLESS you score a counter hit. In Samurai Shodown, landing a combo can be huge regardless of counter hit, and landing a counter hit heavy slash is HUUUUUUUGE all on its own. In Koihime Musou, each character has a number of moves that on successful counter hit will put the opponent into a special combo state where the attack gains juggling and canceling powers they don't normally have, and this enables combos.
----
Stamina Gauges!
I think some games do a GREAT job with stamina gauges, and what role the stamina gauge plays is quite different in some of these games. In SSV, lower stamina doesn't prevent you from doing attacks, but your attacks do much less damage. In Dark Souls, you literally cannot dodge or attack without stamina.
One of the first and best 3D games to make use of 3D gauges and emphasize the "3D-ness" is... Virtual On!
In Virtual On, there's a big variety of moves and playstyles across the cast, and all of the different attacks each have their own cool down! So the cooldowns inherently limit how much each character can attack, and these cooldowns are different across the different moves. It's honestly amazing how much they executed so well in such an early competitive 3D game!
The Gundam Vs. games have a combination of ammo which only reloads when fully emptied, energy gauges which gradually refill even when partially emptied, etc. An opponent's ability to continuously rush at you is limited, their ability to continually attack is limited, etc.
Smash Bros. decided that they were happy with the frequency at which people attacked, but they devised a mechanic to encourage more variety in the attacks: there's a queue of the last several moves you've used, and the more often one move occurs in that list, the weaker it gets in terms of both its damage value and in terms of its blasting-people-out-of-the-ring power.
If we want to be more stereotypically-Cafe, we've also got the Art of Fighting games which had a gauge limiting the use of special moves, specifically to prevent extended fireball battles/traps.
I think there are many possible approaches to this question, many of which are simple, but many of which diverge quite radically in what their effect is. The super meter is a sort of stamina gauge, and it particularly is in Guilty Gear because the freeform Roman Cancel mechanic enables arbitrary continuation in offense. Once the gauge empties, suddenly their options radically diminish and they might even have to back off.
---
Balancing Across the Levels of Players
This is probably one of the hardest problems any fighting game has after "making the game look appealing" and "making the game interesting".
A pretty humorous complaint in fighting-adjacent games like DOTA or League of Legends is that there are some characters which absolutely devour lower skilled players but struggle to make an impact at higher level play, and some characters which are ubiquitous presences in higher level play but struggle to be at all useful in lower level play. Once some characters which had the "strong with weak players" problem modified to be relevant at higher level play... they became obnoxious at BOTH levels of play!
Sakurai who heads the Smash Bros. game has it right when he says "casual players cannot be ignored" because casual players represent the overwhelming majority of the people who will buy/play your game. Even for games which are ancient and only kept alive by the power of modern internet and Discord, there's a gradation of how "serious" and "competitive" the players are.
---
Special Move Motions Stop People from Having Fun
Smash has special moves universally done by holding a direction and pressing a single button, and it was deeply amusing to me when Sakurai had to explain the different command motions for Terry and Ryu. One of their great ideas is that the moves can be done either way, but you get a slightly faster/more powerful version if you do the motion. I think that's great!
You know another game which does that and is also a game with cooldown mechanics and highly realized 3D gameplay?
Virtual On.
The absolute brilliance of Virtual On was most certainly underappreciated decades ago.
---
Tekken Sucks at Teaching Players Anything
Tekken is absolutely horrible at teaching players anything and only recently became remotely good at it with the most recent patch to Tekken 7 which added cool new training mode features. HOWEVER, the single most important thing Tekken continuously fails to teach new players well is "how to get up from knockdowns".
None of the benefits/drawbacks of the different methods of getting up are explained well, and some of them barely make sense anyway. How do you get up quickly, with a direction, or a punch, or a kick? How do you get up quickly in another direction, given that the buttons are named "Left Punch" and "Left Kick"?
The cost of not getting up are incredibly severe, and it absolutely leads to beginning players having a bad experience because this critical element of the game is poorly surfaced and unintuitive. It has tremendous depth once you know what the options are and how they work, but when you don't it's just a source of frustration.
TEKKEN WOULD BE A BETTER GAME FOR EVERYONE IF IT LITERALLY FLASHED "PRESS <button> TO LANDING ROLL!!!" WHENEVER SOMEONE GETS LAUNCHED!
Seriously the quick landing tech is the only way to not get soccer kicked to death once you are knocked down. HOLDING BACKWARDS WILL NOT SAVE YOU FROM THIS EVEN THOUGH IT IS THE DIRECTION YOU ARE TAUGHT TO BLOCK WITH!!!!!
ARGH!!!!!
[this message was edited by Spoon on Sat 29 May 12:32] |
New Customer | "Re(3):Spoon's Dojo" , posted Sun 6 Jun 10:07
Sorry, been busy working. Will reply in time, but relaxing and trying to play some fighting games with a full two day weekend to myself (the biggest thing for me during the height of the pandemic is time allowed for my skin to rest from the constant hand washing during the work week, general dry skin and during the winter dry skin and my finger prints splitting open - rather painful). . .
I missed Virtua Fighter; but honestly - I'm not feeling this remake. Inability to skip replays during matches = bore city. I could swear that was possible on the PS3 version. Am I misremembering?
Input lag on the match screen even. . .
Training mode is still inferior to VF4e, how?
Japanese developers continue to throw baby and bath water out. Shameful. This constant reinvention of the wheel is a waste of everybody's time.
And don't let this goon do interviews:
“Nothing has been decided yet regarding Virtua Fighter 6, so I cannot make any statement. But if you ask me whether I want to create it or not, I do want to create it.”
Yes, perhaps there is some subtext or nuance in that response as in - "Come back Yu Suzuki!" But at face value, it's lazy and I just read it as insulting to the fanbase.
I admit I'm also a bit irked by higher skill players entering low rank rooms. It's already 85∘ F in my house, and these jerks are elevating my blood pressure - raising the temperature higher with their shenanigans. PICK ON SOMEBODY YOUR OWN RANK!
Well, time to fold some laundry.
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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New Customer | "Re(5):Spoon's Dojo" , posted Mon 14 Jun 14:52
quote:
After spending a little time with the latest version of VF5 I'm inclined to agree. The core game is still fun to play, but I already knew that VF5 was pretty good when it first came out. When it comes to this port, however, I get the feeling that the decision to distribute it via PS Plus was the motivation for its release and the game was budgeted accordingly.
Majin Obama recently posted a pretty good summary of the reasoning behind the release, and the "rushed" launch. It's a bummer that fighting games suffer from these events, e.g. Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, then six months later Ultimate MvC3 because we now have time to finish what the tsunami interrupted.
Perhaps fighting game developers need to pay closer attention to the Shigeru Miyamoto quote, "a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
First impressions matter, and the margin for error with fighting games is extremely low. While I don't want to disparage casual players, I also realize casual players aren't going to stick around for what is essentially video game homework if you don't include content (SF5 at launch) for them to explore and learn the ropes. As pointless as an "arcade" mode in a home release may seem to genre veterans, for a casual player it is an interactive learning tool. It's probing and exploration, not "labbing" which is a chore, and I say this as someone that loves the genre despite my limited free time as a working adult.
Japanese developers really ought to look at classic choose your own adventure fiction as the basis for a fighting game story mode in the current game development context. Pass/Fail is an antiquated game design mechanic. Perhaps a loss in story/arcade mode should't default to the non-existent "insert quarter" continue screen; but move to a less challenging, or different CPU opponent.
Honestly, we've had full length single player games with multiple endings for at least two decades now. There's absolutely no reason fighting games could not incorporate branching story paths into the game design.
I do appreciate that Arc System Works is essentially doing their own in game anime at this point; but when I pop in a game - no matter how stunning it looks visually, I don't just want to sit back and watch a movie.
Fighting games are near and dear to my heart, and I do believe that they are one of the last bastions of pure game play in the current market; but I also recognize the potential the have to appeal to people that aren't myself. There has to be a way to expand and invigorate the genre beyond blatant nostalgia cash grabs with gross 3D visuals like vanilla SF4.
Which I didn't fall for, and in my own head canon SF4 was the spiritual sequel to the Street Fighter EX series. In reality, most casual players my age were unaware of the EX series, because they drifted away from video games while in college, or raising families; so Street Fighter with polygon visuals was new to them in 2009.
I finally got my gaming PC up and running yesterday, over a month since purchasing it. Strive is on the list of things to throw money at as I feel it's imperative to vote with my wallet in support of developers who are doing things I enjoy. Just need to budget for it.
In the meantime I installed KoF2002UM, KoF13, GGXX, Xrd, BDZF, and BB:CF (which I didn't get to play a ton of as the series never took off with my local friends and by the time this one released they had long since lost interest) from my Steam library. Need to download SC6 and SF5 tonight.
Memory upgrade should be arriving tomorrow, and hopefully with that - barring planned cooling enhancements - this will last me a good few years.
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| PSN: KTallguy
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| "Re(2):Re(10):Re(10):Strive to Log In" , posted Thu 17 Jun 20:50
Wow, I drop by after a bit and find all this great talk about VF! :)
As a person who played VF seriously for years, I'm enjoying messing around with this "Remaster/Remake" with friends. But for all the things I love, there's a lot of tribal knowledge that holds it back (same with Tekken). And unlike Tekken, the game is still visually bland. The characters are more like tools than people, and in the end an emotional connection is very important to draw new folks in.
Still, I was actually surprised at the amount of effort that was made to update the game. Apparently they planned on more modes but the pandemic hurt development, and the 40th anniversary date was their hard cutoff. Let's see how much content they can add, and how the player numbers hold up.
I agree with Pencilero that I'd much rather play a game than watch it. Strive's long cutscene story rubs me the wrong way for that reason (and tbh I'm not that interested in Guilty Gear's lore). But as an "in" to get emotionally connected to the characters it might be effective enough.
I think that we'll be seeing more single player content in fighting games moving forward, though. We saw the outcry at Street Fighter V's launch at the lack of a basic arcade mode... not all players play fighting games to jump into hypercompetitive online play. Some people just want to set up epic battles between fighters they love, or see the journey of each character and how they face their rival. I don't believe those cries are falling on deaf ears.
quote:
...where is Fighter's Megamix HD?!
That's what I'm talking about!
quote:
Aaaaand the funniest thing of all is that Nintendo managed to make Tekken X SF before Namco did!
Namco probably lost interest after experiencing how hard it was to put Akuma in Tekken 7.
Kazuya in Smash is a juicy get. That game is really just a big red nostalgia button now. If they could get Sub Zero in the game that would complete the circle (I wonder if Nintendo could somehow implement fatalities in a family friendly way).
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| PSN: Ishmael26b
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| "Re(3):Re(10):Re(10):Strive to Log In" , posted Fri 18 Jun 09:43
quote:
Majin Obama recently posted a pretty good summary of the reasoning behind the release, and the "rushed" launch. It's a bummer that fighting games suffer from these events, e.g. Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, then six months later Ultimate MvC3 because we now have time to finish what the tsunami interrupted.
That's interesting. It does make me wonder why they decided they needed to stick to the anniversary date for their release. I can't imagine anyone outside of Sega's PR staff honestly care about the dates that much.
quote:
Still, I was actually surprised at the amount of effort that was made to update the game. Apparently they planned on more modes but the pandemic hurt development, and the 40th anniversary date was their hard cutoff. Let's see how much content they can add, and how the player numbers hold up.
I wonder if at some point they will re-record the voices. It's amazing that for years now the fine folks at Sega have listened to Lion and El Blaze and thought those line readings were fine.
quote:
I think that we'll be seeing more single player content in fighting games moving forward, though. We saw the outcry at Street Fighter V's launch at the lack of a basic arcade mode... not all players play fighting games to jump into hypercompetitive online play. Some people just want to set up epic battles between fighters they love, or see the journey of each character and how they face their rival. I don't believe those cries are falling on deaf ears.
The fact that the arcade series Street Fighter was released without an arcade mode will never cease to amaze me.
Speaking as someone who quite enjoys single player stuff in fighting games I do wonder if the producers sometimes get confused as to what people want from their games. Story mode in titles like GG and MK are usually far too passive and dumb so I never finish them. Besides, playing through the arcade mode is a "story" mode since you fight everybody and prove you're the strongest. Fighting Krauser at the end of FF2 still feels more epic than any cinematic cutscene because I'm in the middle of it. Instead of movie-mode give me new and interesting ways to fight like VF4's quest mode or SFA3's World Tour mode and I'll be happy.
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
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| "Re(2):Fighting Game Thread 2021" , posted Sat 4 Sep 05:05
quote:
I regret to inform you that fighting games have peaked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wxfo1-CE3U
Hahaha, all of this and the replies are perfect.
“I come to bury fighting games, not to praise them.” After fighting games peaked in 1998 with SF Zero 3 and the home version of Justice Gakuen in the same year, most certainly did not peak in 1999 with detestable Third Strike, peaked again in whatever year your favorite KOF was, and then peaked once more in 2002 with Soul Calibur II, it’s been a while but now we are at the end. Thanks for the good times, everyone!
The question now is when we will have our first Boss, Blind, Brandy lagfest.
Is…is the bartender at the end of the video modeled after Professor but without his glasses?!
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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Rare Customer  | "Re(2):Fighting Game Thread 2021" , posted Mon 6 Sep 23:26
quote:
Dear all,
I regret to inform you that fighting games have peaked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wxfo1-CE3U
Henceforth, the entire genre is obsolete, and this thread is now closed. There will not be a 2022 thread.
I advise you all to start looking into getting different hobbies, such as burglary, time travel, or the biwa.
Sorry for your loss.
This reminds me of that time I went full Drunken Master 2 in that deplorable entry, Street Fighter 4 on the hoi polloi. Room spinning intoxicated off of vodka, and double perfecting one of the proselytizing sycophants of that entry.
Even dangerously drunk I would never appreciate or enjoy that entry, but it allowed me to couch my reservations of falling back on the tried and true ways of old.
Spirits and virtual fisticuffs should be more commonplace, temperament and age permitting.
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| PSN: Ishmael26b
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| "Re(1):Write n Fight" , posted Sat 9 Oct 00:30
quote:
Straight on the heels of Kyanta 2 and other kusoge, and in the spirit of the Cafe's literary-minded pugilists, we have Write 'n' Fight, a brawler full of legendary writers. Apparently by "the greatest writers of all time" they meant "the greatest Western male writers we are aware of," which is too bad since they are totally missing a golden opportunity to feature "hot female fighters Murasaki Shikibu/Sappho of Lesbos/Jane Austen/Mary Shelly," etc. Still, I'd probably main Hemingway against a bunch of scrub Shakespeares.
This reminds me of Epic Battles of Rap History, where the premise sounds like it has potential but the end product ends up being an embarrassing waste of time for everyone involved, including the audience. As you noted, it's also a bigger sausagefest than a Hokuto no Ken game but that may say more about the literary canon of public domain authors than it does about the roster.
In other news, someone tried to sell people on a 10,000 character fighting game that somehow magically generates money while being played. Unsurprisingly, it was a scam.
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| | "Re(1):Write n Fight" , posted Sun 17 Oct 14:48
quote:
Straight on the heels of Kyanta 2 and other kusoge, and in the spirit of the Cafe's literary-minded pugilists, we have Write 'n' Fight, a brawler full of legendary writers. Apparently by "the greatest writers of all time" they meant "the greatest Western male writers we are aware of," which is too bad since they are totally missing a golden opportunity to feature "hot female fighters Murasaki Shikibu/Sappho of Lesbos/Jane Austen/Mary Shelly," etc. Still, I'd probably main Hemingway against a bunch of scrub Shakespeares.
They know the cash lay in Gals Write 'n Fight! :p
On one hand, kudos for making a game.
On the other, can we just ban the West from making fighting games please? The only halfway decent Western fighting games are all Marvel Vs. Capcom fanfic anyhow, and well - I'd rather not go there. I view that as the more venal aspect of Capcom, which I do realize is a business after all; but I had so many good memories prior to that.
"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(2):Does the soul still burn" , posted Thu 11 Nov 04:39
I will play SC6 with you! If you’re playing the PC version at least, which may be part of the problem: no cross play.
I doubt the character design opinions of the small but vocal sliver of the anti-sex American left that dominates the so-called English “discourse” at Kotaku and resetera etc. really matter much for the sales, so I think you’re down to gameplay in terms of competing with Tekken and SF. It’s certainly better than the manifestly awful 3 and 4, and 5 didn’t endear itself with anyone by pulling a SFIII with the cast, so if anyone’s playing SC at all, it’s likely to be this one or the godly SC2 on a souped up Dolphin emulator that allows network play of the GameCube version (which I would love to do with you all if only I could make it work). Maybe that’s the issue: 6 is at its best when it’s like 2, but the moves are still based on the awful 3, so we all keep trying to play it like 2 but it’s just not. The red glowing rock paper scissors mechanic is so infuriatingly dumb that I assume they must ban it in tournaments?
I think it’s been hard promoting the game as “better than the last three bad entries” rather than “one of the better playing entries in the whole series,” which you can fairly do for SFV, Tekken 7, or Smash Bros. regardless of individual preference.
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: zonepharaoh
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
STM: n/a
CFN: zonepharaoh
| "Lagcalibur - the Edge of Soul" , posted Tue 16 Nov 09:40:
quote:
Be certain and let us know how the fights went and if anyone wore anything interesting!
Lagcalibur shall be the most gorgeous occasion, per MMC fashion show tradition! Our theme song shall be the finest of all game songs, transcending history and the world. "To love! To shine!"
But meanwhile: if you want to play the perfect SC2 and have a halfway working computer, you can plug your PS4 controller right into the Dolphin emulator, which the edge masters at 8-way Run have been kind enough to pre-configure for online play, theirs or ours! If anyone is up for it, I have the forbidden missing piece of the, ah, Soul Edge required to complete this technical alchemy so we can play, just let me know and I'll get it to you.
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 Tue 16 Nov 13:21] |
| PSN: Ishmael26b
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
STM: n/a
CFN: Ishmael26b
| "Re(1):Here comes a new challenger!" , posted Wed 24 Nov 00:11
quote:
Wow, I'm impressed by the visual overhaul Project L has received. I'm rooting for the Cannon Brothers, they've been part of my life ever since alt.games.sf2 and I'd like to see Western developers finally make a legit fighting game that isn't trash with shock value and shallow gameplay (MK) or MvC fanfic (Skullgirls). Although I admit, I have no familiarity with League of Legends, and outside of Dead or Alive 2 Hardcore - have little appreciation for tag fighters.
Meanwhile, the current steward and guardian of the Japanese FGC released a trailer for the Dungeon Fighter fighting game. Eighting is involved, so I hope it's fun - been a fan of their since Bloody Roar; but not so much of their recent output (see also, my weakness against tag fighters) If they can make a solid 1v1 with stable online play - bring it on!
Fighting adjacent (at least I believe this is a former Team Red staffer's project) Varvarion looks potentially fun. I'm not sure if this is still a mad passion project by a lone genius, but if it is - kudos! Impressive effort.
So far Project L does look promising. Still, I do think there are a number of people who are overly optimistic about how successful this game is going to be. As Granblue Fantasy has shown, just because something has an established fanbase elsewhere doesn't mean it's going to bring that audience into fighting games. Still, Project L already looks like it has a lot of Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid in it, so I'm certain it will find some sort of audience.
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| | "Re(2):Here comes a new challenger!" , posted Wed 24 Nov 03:18
quote:
So far Project L does look promising. Still, I do think there are a number of people who are overly optimistic about how successful this game is going to be. As Granblue Fantasy has shown, just because something has an established fanbase elsewhere doesn't mean it's going to bring that audience into fighting games.
I don't know if that's a particularly fair comparison. I have never played the other games, or watched the animes; but I do admire the commercial art aspect of GranBlue, Hideo Minaba and other artists just going crazy.
Granblue Fantasy Versus was the nail in the coffin for the Japanese developer hubris that has long been with the fighting game genre. The ability to focus on the native arcade scene and close knit community, while treating online play as a necessary evil for the world market.
Covid-19 brake checked the Japanese arcade and local communities, effectively smothering the ability of the title to find an audience upon release.
Half assed online play smothered the game's ability to find a world audience online. In a year where online events were highlighted, and now more pros were emboldened to hold developers to account instead of cashing paychecks at tournaments. Suddenly, when your payday is impacted by jank online play - now they care. Good. We could not continue to exist with developers half-assing online play.
I am not arguing that GBFV would have been the second coming; but I do believe if it launched under different circumstances - it might have found a community. As much as I enjoy the production art and illustrations, I found a lot of the cast to be very generic / boring fantasy trope fodder. I was hoping more of the insane stuff would have been incorporated, and I also dislike some of the rigid adherence to streamlined game mechanics. I don't mind simplicity in ease of execution, and macro buttons being enabled, but I dislike not having an option to execute inputs manually. Much like Street Fighter 4 intended to appeal to a more casual audience with input shortcuts, it also included baffling mechanics like One Frame Links and the cumbersome FADC mechanic; not to mention it re-introduced super move obfuscation that Street Fighter 3 eliminated by streamlining Super Art inputs.
Fighting games are still figuring out the fine balance between ease of use, and legacy inputs that need to be taken out behind the shed. Looking at you Guile's flash kick super input. . . (despised that one since SSF2) The development ought to be an iterative process, holding on to the good, and eliminating the bad - not throwing it all out and starting over from scratch.
I wish Project L the best of luck, but in the FGC and amongst casual console gamers. I don't know how many people are that familiar with League of Legends - so it too may face an uphill battle finding an audience. Casual gamers like brands and familiarity, so this is why good online play, good game play, and snazzy visuals to draw the eye in will matter.
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Re(3):Here comes a new challenger!" , posted Wed 24 Nov 05:00
quote:
I am not arguing that GBFV would have been the second coming; but I do believe if it launched under different circumstances - it might have found a community.
Granblue's net code certainly did the game no favors. And with the low player bases, the lack of crossplay further killed the PC release.
I'd argue it had other serious issues though. One major problem was the lack of presence for the source material outside of Japan/Asia. As far as I know, Granblue Fantasy never had a Western release? The anime was brought over, but it was a generic licensed anime lost in a flood of other titles. When you strip away the license knowledge, you are left with a fairly generic looking fantasy setting, and I don't think that has ever really met with success in fighting games?
Another was not just the glut of available fighting games, but what I consider a fatigue for "Arc Sys" games. You need something to stand out in a market already packed with Street Fighter, Tekken, Smash Bros, Mortal Kombat (and Injustice), DOA, Killer Instinct, KOF, and the rest. Arguably more so these days where popular fighting games can stay current with continued DLC support. At one time, being an Arc Sys game was itself enough, but going the "Arc Sys" route now means going against all the other "Arc Sys" games, as well as the tangentially related titles (Kill la Kill If) and titles that try to copy the Arc Sys visual appearance. So Granblue had to go against Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, and Dragonball FighterZ.
And Granblue simply wasn't going to win the "Arc Sys" licensed game war against DBFZ. It didn't matter that the two games played quite differently.
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| | "Re(5):Here comes a new challenger!" , posted Sun 28 Nov 02:33
Warning! A Huge Wall of Text is Approaching Fast! Sorry, this has been kicking around my brain for a while and I just took the time to empty the overflow…
That’s an interesting point, I am not a mobile gamer – being the “boomer” meme in gaming terms, I need a physical input device, and don’t want my finger obscuring the play area. Closest I ever got was a mild addiction to the Yokai Watch puzzle game. I didn’t realize the GranBlue game has zero presence for iOS or Android in the West. I only know the anime exists due to a weeb peer (no judgment – I attended anime cons in my youth when they’d still bring over people who worked in the industry) that stopped me explaining the game world to clue me into his familiarity with the cartoon.
I disagree on ASW “fatigue”, ASW is still a relatively unknown developer despite their existence for some time. Case in point, when I dared to go pick up my copy of the game just after Covid-19 lockdowns began in March 2020 – the cashier at Gamestop was blown away by the game. She could not stop gushing over the visuals, and if I weren’t doing my best to speed run that extraction mission during a global pandemic, I would have questioned how she avoided running across Guilty Gear Xrd or Dragonball FighterZ. Not that Granblue has an exact visual style to those two titles, but those are the foundations upon which GBFV is built.
Granblue Fantasy Versus is a low IP awareness game in the West, from a niche developer. Look no further than after 23 years of making fighting games, Guilty Gear Strive is their best selling Guilty Gear title. Consider that the utter unga bunga brainlet franchise Tekken was able to outpace the esteemed gentleman’s 3D fighter Virtua Fighter thanks to merely existing on the Sony Playstation – and well, that just sort of reveals a lot about the poor taste of video gamers, and the long shadow cast by Sony’s anti sprite based rhetoric in America during the launch of the Playstation brand.
The reality – even if I reject it – is fighting games are still a niche genre, and one in which the current mainstream standard bearers are fantastically inept or maliciously incompetent, see also: Street Fighter 5 at launch. How Capcom absolutely fumbles with The One Fighting Franchise they have remaining after the smashing success of Ugly Polygonal Street Fighter 2 Rehash: No, Not Street Fighter EX Edition from 2009 (see, the genre is so niche consumers got fooled into believing Street Fighter 4 was the first time the series attempted polygon visuals) – it’s a level of stupid that if scientists were to study it, ought to be used a renewable energy source.
You can be superstitious and go with – Odd Number Street Fighter Entries are Cursed (1,3,5), or Capcom doesn’t realize Street Fighter always tanks as a console exclusive title (1,3,5) – the later ports are appreciated; but ultimately they don’t help as first impressions and launch sales matter, and if you make the game exclusive to an unpopular platform (TG-16, Dreamcast) or spend all of Sony’s money on pachinko and cigarettes instead of the game’s development. . . well as the clown said, “You get what you (EXPLETIVE) deserve!”
Street Fighter 6 needs to be multi platform with cross platform online play. One of the most recognized franchises in the genre cannot exclude potential players.
Setting my love of the genre aside – Street Fighter, Tekken, and that Midway game are the only “mainstream” fighters here in the US. Mash Bros is it’s own thing entirely and I will go to my grave holding that opinion. No apologies. We now know why it was allowed into EVO given the revelation of 2020.
I wish the genre had wider success, but people get lost in their heads over it despite developers bending over backward to appeal to casual players (embracing polygons for ease of development, input shortcuts, embracing input macros, more cinematic/flashy visuals, curbing content for Western sensibilities ((“core values” are frowned upon but excessive and explicit graphic violence is just fine)) ). At the end of the day, fighting games are one of the last genres of gaming where you can be out played by the person who has invested more time in it, and losing is a bad feeling. You won’t see me making appeals to FPS developers to make me love their games, I simply acknowledge that genre is not for me and move on. I will take doing an SNK super move input / or 720 for grapplers every day over fighting with a thumb stick to aim at a moving opponents head.
What makes Arc System Works stand out above the competition is the visual fidelity, art direction, and overall presentation. I’m content with that as it’s working out well for them these days, being able to develop their own intellectual properties, and work on licensed titles using that foundation to earn income to keep making their own games, and publishing the titles of smaller fighting game developers (Arcana Heart, Chaos Code, Under Night In-Birth, Melty Blood) is why in my opinion; they are The Steward of the Japanese Fighting Game. The love for the genre is evident in their own product and the products they publish, they are the Terry Bogard to the fighting game genres Rock Howard.
Strange days indeed!
I never expected that in my future I would become a proponent of that upstart developer behind that niche Playstation game Nick Rox couldn’t stop gushing over.
A supplement on the Mash Bros genre – I find these games to be a more noxious brand of Fan Service than Dead or Alive. This is evident in the aforementioned examples coming from Warner Brothers and Nickelodeon. You’re not interested in a genre, you’re just interesting in banging your favorite toys together like a toddler. I will at least give Brawlhalla some credit for not being able to coast on massive intellectual property fandom.
Pity Pokken Tournament never took off, that scratched the old itch I had for the glory days of experimental 3D fighters from the likes of Dream Factory and Sega. Developers unafraid of the polygon based fighting with arenas and full 3D movement, unlike Namco who to this day has bowling bumpers on Soul Calibur. Just let it happen. Let the smooth brains fall out of the ring with ease. It’s a bit like natural selection. :b
The Dungeon Fighter Duel trailers have me quietly hoping a new BlazBlue series is in the works using their polygon game engine. It’s been six years since the last proper BB game (not counting ports), and BB was the series that made me respect ASW back in 2008 when all other developers were abandoning the sprite in favor of the unrefined polygon and gross normal map textures.
While I’m wishing, may as well put it out there – it sure would be awesome if ASW and Eighting hit it off and approached Konami about a making a new Bloody Roar entry. It wouldn’t need to utilize the current Red Team Unreal Engine, but I would demand every character return. Bloody Roar is one of those games that had a fantastic roster of wacky fighters, and without fail they’d axe my favorites from sequels. Give me a big bang Bloody Roar with all my favorite monstrous fighters.
Secretly I’m hoping Riot is moving toward bringing Project L in line with the visuals for Arcane. I don’t know how intensive that would be for current hardware, but it’s a worthy goal as this is a stunning approach to modern computer animation.
Fighting game boomers remember what Capcom took from you. :p
"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):GranBlue Versus Existence" , posted Wed 15 Dec 05:56
quote:
Granblue Fantasy: Versus “Legendary” and “Value” editions.
This is nice and I will most definitely snag a PC copy during a Steam sale to replace my PS4 copy.
For me, this shows how annoying the DLC situation is for Granblue Versus. I only bought the game and the first season pass, the game died pretty fast on PC.
The second season pass is $35. Vira & Avatar Belial are another $10. Legendary Edition is $50.
If you actually care about the extra stages and color sets, they aren't in Legendary Edition. That's another $12 for the stages ($4 each) and who knows for the seemingly randomly priced color sets (seriously, color pack DLCs range anywhere from $1 to $7 each.) Oh, and that character pass is so expensive because Granblue charges a premium for its characters as well, $7 per character.
The more I look at Granblue's pricing, the less I even want to consider supporting the game. I hadn't even noticed how money-grubbing it had become, particularly for a game that arguably was dead in the water up until the release of the Legendary edition. (Sure, Steam now shows 500-1000 players on PC, but just a few days ago it ranged from around 40 to 140.)
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| | "Re(2):GranBlue Versus Existence" , posted Wed 15 Dec 16:26
quote:
For me, this shows how annoying the DLC situation is for Granblue Versus. I only bought the game and the first season pass, the game died pretty fast on PC.
The second season pass is $35. Vira & Avatar Belial are another $10. Legendary Edition is $50.
If you actually care about the extra stages and color sets, they aren't in Legendary Edition. That's another $12 for the stages ($4 each) and who knows for the seemingly randomly priced color sets (seriously, color pack DLCs range anywhere from $1 to $7 each.) Oh, and that character pass is so expensive because Granblue charges a premium for its characters as well, $7 per character.
The more I look at Granblue's pricing, the less I even want to consider supporting the game. I hadn't even noticed how money-grubbing it had become, particularly for a game that arguably was dead in the water up until the release of the Legendary edition. (Sure, Steam now shows 500-1000 players on PC, but just a few days ago it ranged from around 40 to 140.)
I can understand your frustration. I've been adverse to this since the Playstation 3 days and the fighters on the platform, and my work around after the first two BlazBlue games was to wait for the inevitable mid-release game that included the past DLC on disk. That model died off for most Japanese developers, and some Western studios offered Game of the Year editions with all content; but I don't play those games.
As I mentioned in a previous wall of text - fighting games are struggling with the transition from games as a product to games as a service. Sadly this more often devolves into corporate/IP fan rhetoric, "Company A does a thing for product I like, therefore it is good. Company B does same thing, and it is bad."
No one game is unique in the absolute trash state of monetization being employed.
As a fan of the genre, I find most of the business model grating and do not support it at full price for the content I do want, e.g. extra characters. Other superfluous "content" doesn't even fly on to my radar. I'm not paying for stages, music, or colors (admission, I did buy a color pack on BB ages ago to play GaoGaiGar colored Tager). Full stop.
This is why I want to see a new challenger appear with a new business model to set a new precedent for fighting games. Bald faced cash extraction from the fanbase is not sustainable. A line must be drawn delineating what content is unlockable via play, which adds to the incentive to keep playing outside of winning matches, and which content should be paid to fund overall development.
The example from my previous wall of text was making colors unlockable through play, and maybe even some low grade character tchotchkes, e.g. glasses, hats, facial hair, earrings, little trinkets you can use to customize the existing character model.
As much as I love the fighting game genre, I find the current state of monetization disgusting and I only ever purchase characters, or in the case of SCVI customization items, when they go on sale.
Hell, I've gotten so burned on paying money for characters I don't use, I have even curbed buying single character DLC. Wait for a bundle to go on sale for a good price, then buy them all. If that means my play experience is incomplete - oh well, not my DLC circus; not my high priced monkeys. Dragonball FighterZ, SamSho 2019, GranBlue, Soul Calibur 6, Tekken 7, Street Fighter 5 - all of them incomplete in my library.
This is also why I'd like to see all characters, base and DLC available in training mode. I can't go in blind to purchases anymore and risk wasting money on a character I will not use. As cool as some characters look (Valkenhayn, Makoto Nanaya, Menat, Zeku), my brain is too small and smooth to adapt to their move sets or play styles.
I say this as a fan since 1992. Imagine how much of a turnoff it is for somebody that is only a casual player, or new to the genre.
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Re(4):Re(10):DNF Versus Existence" , posted Fri 24 Dec 05:17
quote:
Could this be the next great kusoge ArcSys game? It sounds like I'm going to have a hoot and a half with DNF when I dig it out of a bargain bin a few months after it is released.
That seems to be the vibe.
I find it fascinating that even amongst "The FGC" there's very little consideration given to the credentials of developer history. DNF Duel has exposed this for me acutely, although it has always been there.
Generally it's mindless brand loyalty and name recognition, with little consideration given to the staff, teams, and companies involved. It's such a shame because I see a lot of similarities in the old American comic book market, and to a lesser extent the uncredited assistants in the Japanese manga market (although those talents can often spin off into their own successful works), where the talent involved in these creations is so often ignored in favor of "IS IT SPIDERMAN?" The same argument could be made for film as well, general audiences tend to not have a top three favorite film directors, they just want the next big water cooler blockbuster, fastest cars, more video game-like "action" on screen.
The only potential weak link in the chain would be the Dungeon Fighter parent company, because Eighting and Arc System Works have multiple decades of quality games under their belt.
So it's fun watching people on Youtube and on antisocial media be surprised by this outcome. I went to a restaurant staffed by exceptional chef and cooks and am shocked by how good my meal is! :b I'm looking forward to giving this a shot. Assuming PS4 will be digital only, so I may default to PC yet again as I'm not keen on paying an additional fee to play the game I purchased, on the console I purchased, with the internet service I pay for.
Please Bandai, release Mobile Suit Gundam XTREME VS.Maxi Boost ON on PC. . . Then I could walk away from consoles with less anguish.
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Re(5):Re(10):DNF Versus Existence" , posted Fri 24 Dec 10:39
quote:
The whole visual cool down thing is intriguing to me. How is this different from needing to wait for a street fighter projectile to clear the screen before launching your next projectile? The only thing that has changed is the timer now has a visual, as opposed to relying on player reflex / game knowledge. Even if I can't see the clock / meter, I still need to wait until two seconds have passed before I can chuck out my next Sonic Boom. If removing that "barrier" allows more access to the genre, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
Cool down meters aren't the same as just restricting how many fireballs you can have onscreen, or how much recovery a move has. You can make cool down meters mimic those effects, but they are used for other purposes as well.
I believe cool down meters came out of much less complex combat systems. They existed simply to keep players from mindlessly spamming the most effective option. When moves went into short cool downs, you had to cycle through different moves to keep up your damage output. When moves had longer cool downs, you had to think more about when you used them.
Cool down meters are a pretty artificial mechanic, but fighting games have plenty of artificial mechanics. Juggle limits are similarly artificial, why does someone turn completely intangible after X hits? Chain combos are artificial. On-screen fireball limits are artificial. Not being able to OTG, or only being able to OTG with special OTG moves, is artificial. Etc.
Move-specific cool down timers are, well, move specific. During cool down, you are only locked out of the related moves, not all moves. This is mechanically different from regular fighting game move recovery, where you are locked out of all moves except the moves that allow you to cancel recovery.
The main benefit and downside of cool down meters is that they are separate from the move design itself. You could set a move to have a 0.5 second cool down, or 5 second cool down, or even a 50 second cool down without changing anything about the design or animation of the move itself. But again, this makes cool downs disconnected from the on-screen animation. According to a wiki, a Female Grappler's Shoulder Tackle has an 8 second cool down, even though the move itself completes in a couple of seconds and the fighter is able to do anything other than another Shoulder Tackle for the rest of that cool down time.
Of note, higher level DFO moves can have cool downs of several minutes. Indeed, this is one of the two restrictions on DFO's equivalent of super moves. The other restriction is an actual physical resource cost, anywhere from 1 to 15 "clear cube fragments". (A five-minute cool down isn't that different functionally from Samurai Shodown 2019's once-per-match super.)
Of a second note, DFO also offers a lot of moves. It doesn't really matter that a particular special might have a 30 second cool down, because you might have 10 viable alternatives. Once you get past those early levels and start unlocking more of your moves, you are never really locked out of being able to do *something*, even if it isn't necessarily your highest damage option. And you can find combos that cycle through enough moves to run out the cool down timers of earlier attacks.
Back to cool down meters in general. You could do fancy stuff with cool down meters. You could link different moves to the same meter, have different forms have different timer costs, have moves affect the meters of other moves, or have alternate conditions affect recovery times. As I said earlier, you could mimic traditional fighting game systems with cool downs, but there isn't really a need as you can get a better result just using both systems together.
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| | "Re(5):Re(10):DNF Versus Existence" , posted Fri 24 Dec 16:21
quote:
Needless to say there's already been I'm not the biggest fan of cooldown meters in fighting games, but if Duel wants its moves to behave similar to DFO then it probably needed to copy the cooldown system in DFO (or Granblue Versus).
Does the cooldown in DFO behave the same way as Granblue Versus? I never played the sidescroller so I have no idea.
Actually, I wonder if DFO also has a global-cooldown (GCD) system the way many MMOs inevitably do because the quantity of spells and abilities that any given character builds up over time leads to such a dementedly giant set of possible combinations that it becomes the only way to engineer any semblance of balance among the classes. While there are occasional moves with cooldowns in fighting games, I'd have to really think to try to recall fighting games where there's a GCD system.
quote:
That reminds me-- in the case of Granblue Versus there was a hilarious design flaw: the players could keep an eye on their opponent's icons and react on them. Like for example, if the opponent did a projectile their icon would immediately dim out, so the player could jump over while the opponent was still in motion to pull out the move. Similarly, if the opponent had a feint move and a real move, the player could easily tell by watching which icon disappeared. It's a flaw that probably could've been improved (dimming out after a slight delay for example), but never got changed in its two-year product life.
That is hilarious and tragic.
It's kind of a problem which game UI has when game UI has to always tell the truth, and both players share the screen. Sure knowing how close your opponent is to being stunned or whether they have started coming out of stun buildup lets you make more informed decisions, but it's also the case that many players use the opponent stun gauge as a way of confirming hits!
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| | "Re(6):Re(10):DNF Versus Existence" , posted Fri 24 Dec 19:32
I guess the other benefit of cooldowns in a fighting game is that it allows more design freedom to make overpowered feelgood moves. Let's say, you can make your psycho crusher plus on everything, deal tons of damage, and look super cool, but then if you find out the move is too powerful, rather than nerfing it to make it slower, super punishable and thus making the player feel less good about using this move, you just add 5 seconds of cooldown without changing the properties, allowing the player to still "feel good" while balancing the game.
It also opens other mechanics from other games with cooldowns: for example, a character with very long cooldowns, but a charging move that reduces the cooldowns of all other moves (so when you knock your opponent down, you have to decide whether to push your advantage and keep on the offense, or take the opportunity to charge while they're down, like some V-skills, Chin's drinking move in KOF2002 or Hakan's oil move). Or the opposite: a character that drains the opponent's cooldowns to make them longer when they're close to him. Fighting games don't have enough buff/curse characters in general I feel, especially team games.
You could also have shared cooldowns for a series of moves (a character with many projectiles, but all the projectiles share the same cooldown and you need to pick the right one for the right moment, no second guesses). Or EX moves: a Hadôken would have a 5 seconds cooldown, an EX Hadôken 10 seconds, a Shinkû Hadôken 20 seconds.
Of course, that wouldn't work for an established fighting game series like Street Fighter or KOF, but on a new IP like ArcSys has been doing is a good playground for that kind of things.
Or just go crazy and build MvC4 around that. Characters with rapid cooldowns on their basic moves but limited in their offense, others with long cooldowns so you have to cycle them out to allow them to recover, support characters that can buff their team's recovery or slow down the opposing team's... And add on top of that all the usual Mahvel craziness and finicky team-building strategy. It would also be a way to add some characters that are too difficult to implement, either because they are too powerful in-universe, or have powers that aren't directly used for fighting, like the telepaths or the power boosters. Or someone with a timer on their power: start the fight with rapid cooldowns, but the more you use the moves the more you add to their cooldown until they become unusable. Or vice-versa, a character that starts slow but have faster and faster cooldowns to become a monster at the end of the fight to mimic a RPG character leveling up. Put Naruhodo on a timer: he starts with a move already on a 2 minutes cooldown and he needs to survive AND find clues during that time, and if he manages, he can IGIARI and convict any opponent he wants.
Damn, I kind of want that now.
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| | "Re(6):Re(10):DNF Versus Existence" , posted Sat 25 Dec 00:22:
quote:
Actually, I wonder if DFO also has a global-cooldown (GCD) system the way many MMOs inevitably do because the quantity of spells and abilities that any given character builds up over time leads to such a dementedly giant set of possible combinations that it becomes the only way to engineer any semblance of balance among the classes. While there are occasional moves with cooldowns in fighting games, I'd have to really think to try to recall fighting games where there's a GCD system.
DFO has move-specific cool down. Cool down only really feels restrictive at the lowest character levels, when you only have a few moves.
Moves in DFO have pretty widely different cool downs, ranging from under 2 seconds (your most basic specials) to 290 seconds (your most super super move).
Similar to fighting games, different moves can have different cancel options. (Example: Female Grappler's Shoulder Strike on hit can be canceled into 13 of her grab moves, but not her other moves.) Some skills alter the properties of other moves, including adding new cancel options. (Example: Grappler's "Grappling Technique" passive skill, in addition to several other move modifications, allows her to cancel the post-hit "bounce" of Spiral (her spinning Izuna drop) into either of her air throws.) And some cancel options are locked to certain sub-classes. (Example: All Fighters get the Sand Strike move, but only the Brawler sub-class can cancel into Sand Strike.)
It may be worth noting that some moves do behave slightly differently in the PvP arena/duel mode than they behave in the main PvE game. Some moves have their cool downs increased, others see effects tweaked, etc. For example, while Neck Snap still stuns the target, it doesn't turn the opponent around in PvP.
quote:
It's kind of a problem which game UI has when game UI has to always tell the truth, and both players share the screen.
This isn't an issue in PvP DFO because each player only sees their own icons.
I can think of a few gimmicky solutions. You could put a delay on when the timers start to report their status, but this can get weird with moves that have really short cool downs.
The "obvious" fix for feints is to have them report on the regular move's timer. You arguably don't need two separate timers at all. Just have a single timer for the move, have it start refilling at the same speed regardless of whether you do the regular move or the feint, but have the end of the feint jump to the end of the timer.
For a game with a lot of different cool downs, you could possibly treat the on-screen timers as an assistance tool that could be turned off. But that could prevent you from doing anything particularly wild or fancy with timers, as you'd want timings to be predictable by the player.
Back to more general discussion, meters in fighting games are kind of like cool down timers, just not locked to "time". Starting with an empty Super Meter is similar to starting with a Super that is in cool down, except it won't refill on its own.
Some versions of Assists, Strikers, and even Tag behaviors already are cool down systems.
quote:
It would also be a way to add some characters that are too difficult to implement, either because they are too powerful in-universe, or have powers that aren't directly used for fighting, like the telepaths or the power boosters.
Saitama in the One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows takes this to an extreme. Put him on your team, and he isn't even available for the first three minutes of the match (but you can reduce the timer by attacking your opponent.)
[this message was edited by Baines on Sat 25 Dec 00:30] |
| PSN: Ishmael26b
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CFN: Ishmael26b
| "Re(1):SFII for the ages" , posted Fri 31 Dec 04:27
That's an interesting list. It's too bad that the worldwide success of Apex Legends means that there probably won't be a Titanfall 3. When I first tried it I thought Titanfall was going to be a boring shooting game but instead I found it's a game where you turn invisible, run along a wall, jump into a giant mech and step on people. Apex is fine for what it is, but Titanfall is a hoot.
How did Undertale score so high?
quote:
The most important part of this list for fighting games is not that only SFII made it, but that the list is only for console games. Flip the perspective, and it instead highlights the huge achievement of SFII as one of the best-selling games on SFC during the brief window when consoles were technologically in sync with the arcade market! Thereafter, most widely popular fighters were compromised ports, fragmenting the vote across consoles: SF Zero 3 is one of my favorite games, but what would I put on this list? The flawed but bestselling PS1 port with all its special modes? The arcade-perfect PS2 Zero collection from much later? The same is true even for 3D fighters for most of their history. Only Soul Calibur 1 and 2 had console versions that notably improved technologically on the arcade, and the arcade is where most fighting game fans played their games for the longest until recently. It really has always been a split market until recent arcade-less releases.
That was a very specific moment in time when the success of the genre crossed over with the technological capabilities of both the arcade and the home market. SF2 is the only arcade port on the list too, which is quite the accomplishment.
Oh, and as far as fighting games go, Smash made it on three times but we won't talk about that. 
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| | "Re(2):2021, you are forgotten." , posted Fri 31 Dec 04:50
quote:
If anyone was still wondering why they keep going back to the well, there's your answer. SF6 can have perfect netcode and insane visuals and it still won't come close to scratching that legacy.
I don't think it's a mystery to anybody with rudimentary critical faculties, the question I find more interesting - setting aside nostalgia for the halcyon days of arcades, pizza parlors, corner stores, and movie theater lobbies where you could congregate and enjoy a game of SF2 with friends, why is it still the best selling entry in the series?
Meanwhile, the current iterations of, or sequels to other Capcom titles outpace their legacy entries easily.
I would like to propose, despite my appreciation of Street Fighter games up to 2001 - accessibility and improving the game experiences. As contentious an entry as SF3 series was, I do believe that it added many excellent game mechanics (universal overheads, simplified super art inputs) while adding mechanics that may require further consideration (parries).
A fundamental "problem" fighting games have that, say sports games do not have is a perceived fatigue and foolish impulse to overhaul every mechanic between entries. To the point where good additions are removed from future releases and replaced with less desirable, to crap mechanics. Would the EA Sports franchises or FPS games be as enduring if with every release the developers threw out what worked, and introduced all new mechanics?
At this point I just want a Street Fighter sequel that calls to me like pre-2001 entries did. The modern clunky mechanics, gross visuals, and move toward character specific systems needs to be reevaluated. Character specific systems are fine for other titles that skew more toward the hardcore players; but for general audiences having universal and easily understood mechanics is what made Street Fighter 2 so great.
Less abstract, I still strongly feel too many fighting games are focused on obfuscating the interaction of player versus player and introduce too many cumbersome mechanics and inputs that create a new layer of first fighting the game (some may call it achieving mastery, but when gaming is an investment of time - streamlining the process is better) then fighting your opponent. Even between entries pre-2001 it is difficult to go back and remember what is the throw command from SF2 to SFA3 to SF3. Fundamentals shouldn't be so drastically altered within a series.
I say this as someone that does appreciate the pure survival of the fittest of fighting games by nature, but I always had fun being trash at modern fighters, then schooling my peers in older titles and watching them be baffled at how I could play the older title so well; but flounder in the new entry.
That's mainly because there was less minutiae to sort through to get down to the brass tacks of playing those games. Also, years of muscle memory and time invested that really should have been paying attention in school... :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
XBL: n/a
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| "Re(2):SFII for the ages" , posted Fri 31 Dec 07:52
quote:
why is it still the best selling entry in the series?
accessibility and improving the game experiences.
I think SFII was the best-selling precisely because technologically it was readily portable to the SFC, which was utterly dominant in Japan and accounts for nearly half of those sales, at 2.88 million units, and because as Pencilero says, its system was both accessible and unique at the time. Accessibility matters for console-centric lists like this one, since the most serious players were mostly in arcades, so casuals or new converts needed to think they could actually have fun! And uniqueness mattered, since it made these same people want to give it a spin! By the late 90s, 2D fighter graphics were old news and too complicated for most.
As usual, the greatest symbol of fighting games' popular decline, SFIII, shows how to plan everything exactly wrong: a highly technical game that outsiders will find both infuriatingly complex and boring. The unitiated had seen plenty of 2D fighters, so this was no longer the excitingly new big sprite experience of SFII, nor could you have much fun messing around casually like in Zero once you've entered a world of parry blocking that requires knowledge of all characters' animation frames (!?!?!) as well as cancellable supers from specials. That's to say nothing of the character designs, but you all know how I feel about that.
The reason a modern fighter like SFV would put off a new player is not simply the dopey launch and graphical hodgepodge; it feels too old yet too cluttered for people for whom cancelling, special moves, and MAYBE supers were just about the outer range of what they were willing to learn. Two supers to choose from? Two meters to look at? Two V-triggers to choose from? A zero counter and a reversal? A special move pressing two mids? Are you kidding, Capcom?    
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(3):2021, you are forgotten." , posted Fri 31 Dec 16:49
quote:
A fundamental "problem" fighting games have that, say sports games do not have is a perceived fatigue and foolish impulse to overhaul every mechanic between entries. To the point where good additions are removed from future releases and replaced with less desirable, to crap mechanics. Would the EA Sports franchises or FPS games be as enduring if with every release the developers threw out what worked, and introduced all new mechanics?
I do think it's worth pointing out that during the heydey of the 90s fighting games, novelty was ESSENTIAL to standing out, and things were often derided for just being "Street Fighter clones". This definitely was kind of a damned (Damnd?) if you do/don't scenario, because it was indeed the case that there was a bit of reinventing of the wheel that happened.
But I also think that we'd think much less fondly on that era if the games didn't have the extraordinary diversity that they had. Thinking about how we got Cyberbots, the Vs. series, regular-ass SF, Samurai Shodown, KOF, and yet others which are so wildly different from each other, and to me that was one of the things that I truly loved about that era.
History has shown that the most commercially successful fighting games outside of SF, specifically Tekken and Smash, have benefited from entries being more similar to one another than different. Smash is quite amusing to look at from an SNK perspective: it draws substantially from SNK mechanics, with the latest entry having short jump, spot dodge, forwards/backwards rolling, and more! However, history has also shown that just being generally similar to previous entries is not enough, what with Virtua Fighter never gaining traction outside of Japan, and Soul Calibur's struggles to reassert itself.
Even in FPS land, we've seen that some games that were super successful got rocked by paradigm shifts: Quake seemed like it'd be the strongest forever, but after Quake 3 the entire die-hard rocketjumping shotgunning deathmatch games which seemed to dominate FPS completely fell away in favor or slower military-themed shooters. Gears of War made the whole cover-based third-person-shooter megapopular during the X360 era, but that genre has been nowhere near as popular since. PUBG singlehandedly rocked the entire FPS world on release, and battle royale has come to be a major genre ever since. We've even seen a bunch of console-based innovations leak into PC shooters, such as the "tap interact vs. hold-button interact"! I'm personally of the opinion that no genre could benefit from radical re-invention as much as FPS! But it's also clear that after a good decade of struggle and user acclimation to the general control scheme of translation on one control, camera on another control, and aim direction locked to camera direction, has been a real benefit.
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| | "Being similar versus being different" , posted Wed 26 Jan 04:58:
quote:
History has shown that the most commercially successful fighting games outside of SF, specifically Tekken and Smash, have benefited from entries being more similar to one another than different. Smash is quite amusing to look at from an SNK perspective: it draws substantially from SNK mechanics, with the latest entry having short jump, spot dodge, forwards/backwards rolling, and more! However, history has also shown that just being generally similar to previous entries is not enough, what with Virtua Fighter never gaining traction outside of Japan, and Soul Calibur's struggles to reassert itself.
I don't want to discount the idea, but I wonder if it is a case where correlation should not imply causation.
There are arguably only a handful of surviving commercially successful fighting games to use as evidence, and one of the biggest names that also kept reinventing itself is being excluded at the start.
For Smash Bros, you have to consider that the series sees one entry released per console generation. That is a major difference from other fighting games, which could see new iterations released yearly. People grew to hate those incremental updates, particularly when they were being asked to buy each new release, and publishers probably felt pressure to "reinvent" the next major entry. Pressure that Smash Bros never felt because each entry was on new hardware, and was so far from the previous entry that people were just happen to get a new "more of the same, but bigger".
Which gets into another Smash Bros difference, the "bigger" aspect. Other fighting games tended to grow their roster slowly, or would occasionally "reset" their roster count, or became a bit too reliant on recycling old assets. The Smash roster grew significantly with every release. Modes, items, scale, and other aspects have also grown with each release. Smash doesn't need radically new mechanics when you instead get several new characters with new behaviors (and sometimes character-specific mechanics), new stages with new behaviors, new items with new behaviors, new modes and expansions of existing modes, etc.
Tekken has arguably reinvented itself in different ways. Tekken 7 has fireballs, super moves, and a number of almost random DLC guest-stars (in addition to inserting Akuma directly into the main story). Over the years, Tekken added walls, stage transitions, dabbled in tag mechanics with a spin-off series, and tried all sorts of bonus modes to varying degrees of success. Early on it tried to give the story and roster appearance a shot in the arm with a time jump.
Mortal Kombat has seen both success and apathy from sticking close to form, while also seeing both success and less than success from reinvention.
Then consider the history of Street Fighter. Street Fighter 1 was not that good. Street Fighter 2 became a global behemoth by reinventing SF1. Capcom saw continued but presumably declining success with multiple iterations of SF2, while people started to joke about the company's inability to count to 3. SFA and SF3 reinvented SF2 in different ways. SFA continued to throw "more" at players until it became a success laden with characters and various mechanics. SF3 instead eventually achieved critical success. The EX series tried to bring SF to 3D. Then SF largely went dormant until it was successfully reinvented as the new juggernaut of SF4, which saw its own gradual upgrades which gradually declined in monetary success. Even though SF5's "reinvention" stumbled pretty hard, a fair bit of that can be blamed on the release state, and the game did improve over the years. Whether right or wrong, is it little surprise that Capcom sees "reinvention" (with new mechanics and gimmicks) as a necessity of new Street Fighter design?
[this message was edited by Baines on Wed 26 Jan 05:04] |
| | "Re(1):Being similar versus being different" , posted Wed 26 Jan 17:03
I find it hilarious and shameful that Sony not only funded development of Street Fighter 5 as a Playstation exclusive title; but permitted Capcom to release it in such an abysmal state. Yes. The game eventually evolved into a tolerable state.
That does not negate the fact that first impressions matter and negative impressions impact consumer response. Arc System Works seem to have learned from the pandemic and clunky online implementation of GranBlue Fantasy Versus, and chose to run multiple beta tests (actual tests, not pre-release hype trials) for the online aspect of Strive.
I hope that as the pandemic recedes, Japanese developers do not forget this lesson.
It would be nice if Capcom would come up with a business plan for their fighting games to facilitate more than a single generational title. Sure Darkstalkers / Vampire may never be a massive hit, but if you set a budget for it and road map for development, it could co-exist with Street Fighter. Video games as a business has become so pronounced within the past two generations. I miss the days of Capcom taking wild risks on titles that may not have been profitable, but are fondly remembered and grandfathering / sideloading them into Street Fighter isn't sufficient for my liking.
In terms of game design, I have recently been mulling over the tendency of certain developers and games to toss out the baby with the bath water with every new release. In the case of Street Fighter, to Street Fighter 2 - this was a risk worth taking and resulted in a solid product; but it doesn't always work out so well.
Phantasy Star Online New Genesis has me thinking about this as a long time fan. Good ideas were abandoned, or excluded, and fans are not happy. I'm not happy, even though I'm 500+ hours into New Genesis. I miss personal quarters. I miss the ability to share items with friends. I have weapons that are the equivalent of depleted uranium in the game marketplace; but would have value to friends / noobies if I could just give them to them. I am not ignoring the crap of PSO drops and randos swiping your wares, but bring back personal quarters - invite friends, drop item for use.
Sorry, tangent; but it speaks to this trend of certain developers and titles to not maintain some continuity in terms of core title features from which a title can expand upon and add value, instead of starting from Zero and praying players stick around.
The predictable response to Baiken from the insufferable extremes of gaming just has me wishing we could indulge a deathmatch of extremists. I have to wonder if her firework move is a reference to fellow buxom amputee Kukaku Shiba from Bleach - despite Baiken predating her? Did she have a similar move in past iterations? I've only ever been a casual Axl / May / Dizzy player.
Having low attachment to the Guilty Gear franchise and my main character Axl being present in a solid form, I'm good. I assume they will milk popular character DLC, saving Dizzy for another season; and maybe placating fans of Bridget by bringing that character back in another season pass. I would like to see Kum, Answer, and Jam return. Even if Kum was just an ojisan landmate powered by anime waifu, Kum reps old fart style.
It would be cool to see a BlazBlue character make an appearance as DLC. As an Iron Tager main, I'd like to see the burly grapple battle of Buddhist Grapple versus Science Grapple.
Title needs crossplay. Yes, I chose to go the PC route to avoid the bullsh*t of paying an additional fee to use the console I paid for with the software I paid for on the internet service I pay for to play games with friends. I so despise this business model, curse Microsoft for memeing it into existence with soft brained console gamers.
Perhaps I should counter meme with Twinkies are health food, after all - you pay for Twinkies, and paying for something makes it better than if it were freely available.
Enjoy Twinkies, for your health!™
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Re(3):Being similar versus being different" , posted Sat 29 Jan 02:52:
Maybe a lifetime of console gaming has softened my grey matter, but once again I find myself badly missing the weird/wild/experimental fighting games of the mid-to-late 90s. Tobal, Bushido Blade, Psychic Force, Eretzvaju/Evil Zone, even Ehrgeiz and Weapon Lord. Smash Bros. was actually quite new and different back in 1999.
I don't really expect these kind of things to happen in the modern landscape, so I suppose this could come across as complaining and failing to adapt. I feel certain that I still have the capacity to learn, but I've just gotten so tired of putting in fresh effort (combo lab, learning match-ups) in service of performing the same old dance.
Big ups to the latest SamSho for sharpening up the disused blade, congrats to Strive for looking great and thinking about new players, good job to KoF for staying alive, happy that Smash has reached its final form. I'm guessing that Project L is probably going to be a pretty slick approach to traditional mechanics (although I don't see myself playing too much of it regardless of how easy they make it). Maybe I'll get really into Hellish Quart once it's out of early access (I never did get my fill of Bushido Blade-style lethality). But frankly there's just nothing I'm particularly looking forward to right now.
I'd love to say "just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in" in the future, but if I'm being honest I can consider myself at least semi-retired as far as FGs are concerned. Still wonderful hanging out with everyone here, though.
/ / /
[this message was edited by Mosquiton on Sat 29 Jan 09:52] |
| | "Re(3):Being similar versus being different" , posted Sat 29 Jan 06:17
quote:
I remember that Tekken 4 was kinda looked down by players because of the stages with uneven grounds it introduced and how they changed the way of playing (to the point that from Tekken 5 onwards, all arenas had flat ground again). The same happened to Virtua Fighter 3, if I'm not mistaken.
Virtua Fighter 3 indeed did have uneven ground, as well as non-uniform stage shapes and sizes.
While I thought it was a logical step to a more realistic fighter, the game's combo system wasn't necessarily up to the full challenge of varying elevations. In the real world, people can alter their moves for different heights, but in Virtua Fighter moves could immediately switch from useful to useless due to height differences. And height differences were everywhere in that game.
People that wanted their trained combos to always be consistent tended to hate elevation changes. Stages being different sizes sometimes favored certain characters and/or playstyles over others.
The biggest issue though is that some stages simply started in an unfair state. The two most memorable to me were Jeffrey's island and Pai's rooftop. On Jeffrey's island, Player 2 starts with their back to the water; Player 1 can safely back up around twice as far as Player 2. On Pai's slanted rooftop, Player 2 starts lower than P1. There are less obvious but still unbalanced starting situations on other stages. For example, P2 on Aoi's stage will back into a rising slope while P1 will back along a flat stream bed.
I somehow missed Tekken 4, probably because it was pretty late into the PS2 lifecycle before I bothered to buy the console. I vaguely remember people complaining that the game wasn't really balanced for obstructions/walls, that walls awarded too much damage, and the escape methods just weren't good enough.
quote:
Maybe I'll get really into Hellish Quart once it's out of early access (I never did get my fill of Bushido Blade-style lethality).
Just to note, the idea of Bushido Blade lethality was picked up by other developers through the years. The Deadliest Warrior games on the PS3/360 were pretty much a budget licensed knock-off, while newer titles like Die By the Blade acknowledge inspiration from the series. Meanwhile, smaller/indie developers brought the lethality to 2D fighters. One Strike as well as Slice Dice and Rice are examples of more standard looking fighters, while you could argue the aesthetics are also carried in games like Nidhogg and Samurai Gunn.
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| | "Re(4):Being similar versus being different" , posted Sat 29 Jan 09:41:
quote:
Just to note, the idea of Bushido Blade lethality was picked up by other developers through the years. The Deadliest Warrior games on the PS3/360 were pretty much a budget licensed knock-off, while newer titles like Die By the Blade acknowledge inspiration from the series. Meanwhile, smaller/indie developers brought the lethality to 2D fighters. One Strike as well as Slice Dice and Rice are examples of more standard looking fighters, while you could argue the aesthetics are also carried in games like Nidhogg and Samurai Gunn.
I have actually played several of these games. Nidhogg and Samurai Gunn I actually got a lot of mileage out of. I would almost put TowerFall and Killer Queen Black in the same category. All fun games that I kind of consider to be fighting-game adjacent.
Deadliest Warrior was a thing, huh? I'm not sure how I can accurately describe my feelings for it, but I did have the chance to play several dozen matches with some irl friends. I can't say I didn't have fun, I can certainly say I had some laughs, and all in all it's actually a pretty earnest effort to convey that Bushido Blade feeling. I'm hoping that Hellish Quart ends up being maybe a bit more nuanced and technical.
Still, I would love to see some truly new concepts launched into the world... which is part of the reason I keep hanging around this wonderful place!
/ / /
[this message was edited by Mosquiton on Sat 29 Jan 09:45] |
| | "Re(3):Being similar versus being different" , posted Sun 30 Jan 04:19
quote:
... "Soft brained console gamers"? You one of those "pc master race" guys? Ha.
No. Leave the Carnac the Magnificent routine to Carson. And now a handy reference from Even A Monkey Can Draw Manga - *chin pyoro suppon!*
quote:
This is a very interesting discussion - and one to which I don't really have an opinion... like Baines pointed out, there are instances where innovation pays off in a sequel, and instances where it backfires; likewise, there are instances where having each sequel feel like more of the same pays off, and instances where it makes players get tired of the series.
I feel like more often than not, through the history of gaming discussion online, "innovation" is a euphemism for risk taking. The filter being, risk taking that fails is considered a bomb, or franchise breaking, and risk taking that succeeds is "innovation".
Once more, I understand that video games are a business and the products need to make a return on the investment; but I'd prefer to see gaming evolve like film studios - where you have Fox for mainstream movies, and Fox Searchlight for movies that may not be massive financial successes; but are from film makers who produce quality movies for smaller audiences. Ignoring that Disney owns everything now.
As a fan of games, it would be nice if a middle ground could be struck between the Western AAA churn and the Japanese tendency to start over from scratch. Say it's a franchise known for an Arcade Mode, Story Mode, Training Mode, and Survival Mode - future iterations should always include these modes in base releases.
Developers can add new modes if they should come up with one for sequels, and if it's a success keep it; but if it's a failure - see if it can be salvaged, or abandon it for future releases. A good case of Japanese developer bungling is, once again, Sega and inconsistencies in the training modes of Virtua Fighter games. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution set the high watermark for training modes in Virtua Fighter games. It was praised at release, and as time has marched on is one of the standard bearers for how to execute a training mode in a fighting game.
Why in the hell would Sega release a less competent training mode in Virtua Fighter 5 on PS3/360? They did. Even VF5FS on PS4 still pales in comparison to a game released 20 years ago. The simplicity of advancing through moves, the ability to see a replay of how the move is executed for every move (if I recall correctly), it was a thing of beauty.
And it was tossed right into the trash. *crane shot of a man on his knees bellowing "WHYYYY?!" into the uncaring sky*
quote:
This kinda reminds me of Tekken 4. While it's true that Tekken has brought considerable innovations throughout its games, I remember that Tekken 4 was kinda looked down by players because of the stages with uneven grounds it introduced and how they changed the way of playing (to the point that from Tekken 5 onwards, all arenas had flat ground again). The same happened to Virtua Fighter 3, if I'm not mistaken.
I enjoyed Tekken 4 because it addressed my long standing issue with Namco's poor-man's Virtua Fighter: Why in the hell make a 3D fighting game where spatial awareness does not matter? It's my pet theory that introducing stages and the need for spatial awareness is why Tekken fans seethed over Tekken 4.
Hey, if you're going to copy Sega - do it right! See also: Tecmo / Team Ninja, for a while...
Perhaps the greatest loss of the legacy of Virtua Fighter 3 is Disco Kage has gone missing in action. Legend has it, he's dancing the night away in some obscure club...
quote:
Maybe a lifetime of console gaming has softened my grey matter, but once again I find myself badly missing the weird/wild/experimental fighting games of the mid-to-late 90s. Tobal, Bushido Blade, Psychic Force, Eretzvaju/Evil Zone, even Ehrgeiz and Weapon Lord. Smash Bros. was actually quite new and different back in 1999.
I don't really expect these kind of things to happen in the modern landscape, so I suppose this could come across as complaining and failing to adapt. I feel certain that I still have the capacity to learn, but I've just gotten so tired of putting in fresh effort (combo lab, learning match-ups) in service of performing the same old dance.
We have all recently reminisced over risk taking / experimental fighters of the glory days of a thriving fighting game market. I suspect the culprit is simply video games are a business, and fighting games don't make a ton of money compared to other titles, so there's less incentive to make one and less risk taking. Fortunately we have Arc System Works who appears to have focused on the fighting game as a business model, creating their own games, creating licensed games, and publishing fighting games from other small developers.
Don't forget about GigaBash. I hope this turns out well as it looks like the spiritual successor to War of the Monsters, and the developer has mentioned WotM directly in interviews. I intentionally omitted King of the Monsters as that was more Kaiju Puroresu and did not involve the level of arena combat / stage interaction of War of the Monsters.
SNK is your drunken friend you want to see get cleaned up and get their life together, while Capcom is the elderly relative that has moments of clarity in a dementia addled mind.
This is why I've been enjoying PC gaming recently now that Japanese developers have warmed to it as a gaming platform, and niche developers can thrive at the low end. That level of risk taking doesn't exist in the console space for my tastes, but now that most consoles are low end gaming PC's if a niche title is polished enough, it can more easily be ported to consoles. I just don't want to wait 6 months, or longer for that to happen. Especially when I can enjoy the games online without the console online play ransom fee.
quote:
Big ups to the latest SamSho for sharpening up the disused blade, congrats to Strive for looking great and thinking about new players, good job to KoF for staying alive, happy that Smash has reached its final form. Looking toward the future Project L is probably going to be a pretty slick approach to traditional mechanics. Maybe I'll get really into Hellish Quart once it's out of early access (I never did get my fill of Bushido Blade-style lethality). But frankly there's just nothing I'm particularly looking forward to right now.
I'd love to say "just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in" in the future, but if I'm being honest I can consider myself at least semi-retired as far as FGs are concerned. Still wonderful hanging out with everyone here, though.
Fighting Games are like sweets, I still enjoy them; but I don't over indulge in my advanced years. :b
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Fighting Game Thread 2022" , posted Fri 18 Feb 05:12:
I've been following Dogura's Youtube channel (JPN only) for a while now, especially his どぐらのクソキャラ列伝 series where he explores some really problematic characters through games. Some of these are really entertaining, especially if you know a bit about the game (KOF2001's Foxy, 02's Nameless, Third Strike's Chunli, Second Impact's Sean, Savior's Zabel, A Groove Blanka... Yes I'm old I mostly looked at older games, but he also did newer stuff like DBF or USF4).
While those are really entertaining (as long as they don't trigger some personal PTSD you may have), I especially enjoyed his latest video on "personal favourite character even if they suck" on Robo Ky. It has a lot of anecdotes on the Japanese scene at the time, how you met people into the hobby when you were just a teenager... It's something that really doesn't exist anymore now that every game and communication are online and everything is so much more convenient, but I find this window into a past long gone very interesting and nostalgic(even though I wasn't there to experience it).
[this message was edited by Iggy on Fri 18 Feb 05:14] |
| | "Re(1):New Jojo ASB??" , posted Thu 10 Mar 20:35:
quote:
WHAT
They're showing no Baoh and 10 empty slots, so I'm going to assume Baoh is out rather than one of the empty slots.
As for who they are, it's possible they will just add the characters that were included in Eyes of Heaven, but who knows?
Yeah, the number "50" is weird.
Counting Baoh and everyone from OEH, that should be 53 I believe.
Speedwagon, Stroheim, N'Doul, Pet Shop, Mariah, Yukako, White Jotaro, Trish, Weather, Diego, boss Dio, Joshu.
Maybe they dumped White Jotaro, Boss Dio and Baoh to make it a neat 50?
The original game was trash but great. But trash. But also great.
Good that they are trying to make it better (tag mode, better hitstop, 60FPS? Air jump for more lunacy?). Honestly I would have settled for the original ASB on Steam, but this even better (as long as it has all the costumes of ASB and none of the grind to get them). I welcome this with open arms, as well as any DLC they'll throw my way.
This is going to make me very emotional and thinking about Toxico when I play that.
EDIT
WAIT it's not just EOH characters. The roster suddenly became very interesting.
https://twitter.com/Vishkujo/status/1501704773292199937
[this message was edited by Iggy on Thu 10 Mar 20:48] |
| | "Re(2):New Jojo ASB??" , posted Thu 10 Mar 20:48
quote:
WHAT
They're showing no Baoh and 10 empty slots, so I'm going to assume Baoh is out rather than one of the empty slots.
As for who they are, it's possible they will just add the characters that were included in Eyes of Heaven, but who knows?
Yeah, the number "50" is weird.
Counting Baoh and everyone from OEH, that should be 53 I believe.
Speedwagon, Stroheim, N'Doul, Pet Shop, Mariah, Yukako, White Jotaro, Trish, Weather, Diego, boss Dio, Joshu.
Maybe they dumped White Jotaro, Boss Dio and Baoh to make it a neat 50?
The original game was trash but great. But trash. But also great.
Good that they are trying to make it better (tag mode, better hitstop, 60FPS? Air jump for more lunacy?). Honestly I would have settled for the original ASB on Steam, but this even better (as long as it has all the costumes of ASB and none of the grind to get them). I welcome this with open arms, as well as any DLC they'll throw my way.
Yeah, the extra characters are probably the ones from EoH.
Which is understandable, and most of them are great; still, I wish they'd add more characters for some Parts. JoJoLion severely needs more representation (EoH only had Gappy and Joshu, and the latter lost relevance after a while), and Vento Aureo and Stone Ocean could use some more villains besides the respective main antagonist from each part. I wouldn't mind if Part 4 Jotaro was removed to make room for someone else (he's not that different from Part 3 Jotaro like Joseph's two versions are).
Nevertheless, it's great to see that Bamco is still interested in JJBA.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(6):New Jojo ASB??" , posted Fri 11 Mar 01:59:
quote:
But Prosciutto? He wasn't much of a fighter, from what I remember... but he's a Part 5 villain (the Part 5 roster in the original ASB was basically heroes +_Diavolo), so it's still a welcome choice.
I suspect he will have Pesci doing some long range attacks while he tries to get close and grab you? A bit like Hol Horse and Guile?
He's a super popular character along with Risotto so that's a great choice.
That would be a great idea!
Anyway, there are three points that got me thinking:
1) About JoJoLion probably not getting more characters due to not having an anime adaptation yet: if that's a problem, wouldn't it be better to remove the Part 7-8 characters altogether, then? It would be sad, sure, but better than having these parts barely represented at all (I remember that ASB had to severely reduce Part 7's story, while Part 8 was changed to "Gappy fights the heroes from previous Parts for no reason, and that's it"). If that's not the case, I think at least Yasuho should be added (after all, she's pretty much JJL's deuteragonist, occasionally even more important than Gappy himself).
2) If Prosciutto is becoming playable, will that stage trap involving him and Pesci be removed? Or will it still be there unless one of the players is using him? And would that mean that other stage cameos have a chance of being in the playable roster as well?
3) Will all episodes of the Stone Ocean anime be released until then? There are some enemies there that would be nice additions to the roster...
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Fri 11 Mar 02:01] |
| | "One name for three fighting games" , posted Fri 11 Mar 04:30
In other news, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are going to get a special collection of their 8-bit, 16-bit and Arcade games.
The collection includes TMNT: Tournament Fighters. All three versions - which, despite sharing the same name, are actually completely different games from each other.
I wonder who thought that releasing three games with the same name would be a good idea (I read that there was actually a fourth game planned as well, but Konami had to cancel it because they wouldn't be able to work on all of them) - then again, each of them was made for a different console, so it's not like one would hinder the other.
And it's not like most people who purchase this collection will even bother trying the NES version. The SNES and Genesis ones, now that's a different story: I remember back in the 1990s some players would argue whether the better game was the SNES one or the Genesis one. Personally, I loved the bright colors on Genesis, and the fact that April and Casey Jones were in it (April is just a NPC in the SNES game), but the SNES one actually felt more like a proper fighting game (and the sound was much better) - and it had Shredder.
An ultimate version with characters and stages from both versions would have been amazing. But also quite impossible, considering how different they are.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(7):New Jojo ASB??" , posted Fri 11 Mar 04:38
In terms of characters, most of the really important ones outside of Part 7 and 8 were already in ASB because the casting was nuts. So there really aren't many vital characters to add.
Part 1: No one except some vampire mobs like Bluford and Jack the Ripper. As much as I'd like to play the weird Choi-Bonge-like character carrying Dio's head shooting laser beams through the screen, it's not happening. Even Speedwagon is in "eeeeeeh" territory.
Part 2: Once you add Stroheim, you're done. Santana is a Pillar Man without any power, and Straights... could be fun? Maybe with 2 versions, one from Part 1 with Hamon powers, one from Part 2 with Vampire powers? Problem is no one care about Straights.
Part 3: The big one. In terms of important characters, I can only see Enya missing (maybe some move set based on summoning the zombies?). But in terms of potential fighting game characters, there's basically the entire Capcom game to steal from. I would even be happy with Polnareff-possessed-by-Anubis. Even Kakyôin would be better totally reworked to be like he was in the CPS3 game.
Part 4: Once you add Yukako, I don't see who else you add that can fight 1 on 1. Rôhan was already stretching it a lot. Keichô maybe? Angelo? No one remembers Angelo.
Part 5: Trish and Risotto are the important characters missing, followed by Abbachio. All the other assassins are cool and popular and are ripe for DLC, which makes it even more surprising Prosiutto would be in the base game. Maybe Risotto will be DLC?
Part 6: Annasui over FF and Weather was a travesty, they both should be here. But once they're here... Vivienne Westwood? Yoyoma? Dragon's Dream? Rikiel??? None of them appeared in the anime anyway so at the very best they'd be DLC.
Part 7: Once you add Diego and Hot Pants, that's about it. The others are really weird and would require creative movesets that I wouldn't trust CC2 to be able to pull out.
Part 8: same problem as Part 7, but worse. I don't even see how you make Yasuho playable, and she's at least as important as Jôsuke. Please erase Joshu, I don't even want to look at him.
All in all, in terms of cast, add Stroheim, Yukako, Trish, Weather, Diego (already in EOH, probably ported) and Enya, Risotto, FF and Hot Pants, and that's basically all the characters with any kind of serious role included in the game. If the game receives DLC after the initial 50, I have no doubt most of them will be included, and that will basically be the perfect Jojo casting, anyone on top would be gravy.
But then, we're still stuck with all the problems the original game had...
First, technically, that game was a mess. I would assume the new one will achieve 1440p 60FPS even with 4 characters on-screen, but I'd like confirmation first. Anyway the art style of the original game was its best asset and scales perfectly to higher resolution, so there's at least some good hope.
The entire single player experience was terrible, but they already confirmed they've removed the scenario mode and the weird mobile-game-stamina mode to add some sort of challenge mode to unlock things, so that's another good point for the new game.
Then, the systems were some of the worst things I've ever seen. The fact one of the big talking points of the new game is "added hitstop to attacks" tells you all there is to know.
Chances are this is all being redone with the aerial dashes and team system (or strikers?) but it would require some careful thinking to make sure everything doesn't fall apart even faster than before. I wouldn't be surprised if they removed the stage gimmicks, the posing-just-defence system and maybe even the possibility to move in 3D. If they were 8ing of the Soulcalibur guys (whose Pokkén game would have the ideal system for a Jojo game), there may be hope, but it's CC2 we're talking about.
Because that's really the big issue in the end. These people were fans of Jojo and of the Capcom game, they had a lot of passion, but not a lot of skills. I can remember more than 20 years later the movesets and game plan of random characters like Debo or Anubis that barely appear half a volume. I wouldn't even be able to tell you what Jolyne or Kira do in ASB. Punch a lot, I guess?
I really hope whoever kept pushing for a new ASB for almost 10 years have thought a lot about how to improve the characters, because many of them were barely functional as fighting game characters.
That's really the difference with the CPS game: remove the Jojo licence and you still have a cast full of characters with unique moves that are all extremely distinct from anything else.
ASB's cast just blend together if you remove the licence, and I'm afraid they'll add a character that is a literal living colony of plankton, one of the most out-there concept ever to exist, and give her a worse version of Sagat's move set.
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| | "Re(9):New Jojo ASB??" , posted Fri 11 Mar 09:14
quote:
What about Rai and Kei?
Rai is more of a utility stand that would be super useful if the game had traversal. I don't see him being able to use his stand to hurt an enemy one on one... A bit like Mountain Tim, but at least Tim had a gun.
Maybe the game will have strikers instead of real assists, and Rai/Tim could appear to immobilize the opponent?
Kei is weird. Isn't Born this Way a fully automated stand that doesn't actively attack, and rather blows icy wind? I just have trouble to force myself to not think of Justice Gakuen's Akira. The human silhouette cannot get off the bike, right?
If it's just Kei and she summons Born this Way as projectiles, maybe...? But again, Kei doesn't really strike me as someone who could be portrayed punching people when her stand is not out.
The bigger problem are the main members of the Higashikata family. How can one translate Tsurugi into a fighting game? Or Norisuke? Jobin is the only one that could work, but it's weird to have Mr "I can raise temperature to 100ºC in a localized point near my body" fight evenly with Esidisi, or Avdol who creates literal volcanoes.
Strangely enough, I feel like Wonder of U might have the best chance. The stand is so weird that I could imagine a character whose job is to fill the screen with shit constantly coming from all directions. Especially if the game is more mobile with airdash.
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| | "Re(2):One name for three fighting games" , posted Fri 11 Mar 21:50
quote:
And it's not like most people who purchase this collection will even bother trying the NES version. The SNES and Genesis ones, now that's a different story: I remember back in the 1990s some players would argue whether the better game was the SNES one or the Genesis one. Personally, I loved the bright colors on Genesis, and the fact that April and Casey Jones were in it (April is just a NPC in the SNES game), but the SNES one actually felt more like a proper fighting game (and the sound was much better) - and it had Shredder.
Sorry to break in on the Jojo talk!
While the Genesis one is almost laughably unplayable (throw on wakeup fraaaaaaames) the super famicom version holds up surprisingly well to this day!
A few old associates actually worked on a fan game, check it out if you like that kind of stuff.
One interesting thing about Tournament Fighters (other than each version being a completely different game) is how it combined characters from different TMNT continuities and media: animated series, comic books and so on. Apparently there was an attempt back then to concile all these continuities into one. And then there was also the introduction of original characters like Aska (who was originally planned to be Mitsu from the live-action films, before being turned into an original character) and Sisyphus; sadly, they were never used in later TMNT works after these games.
As for the fan game you showed, a TMNT/Justice League crossover is quite... unexpected (then again, JL had a crossover with the Power Rangers not long ago, so it's not that weird). But it looks very good! Your associates seem to be doing a great job.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| PSN: Ishmael26b
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
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CFN: Ishmael26b
| "Re(1):One name for three fighting games" , posted Fri 11 Mar 23:49
quote:
In other news, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are going to get a special collection of their 8-bit, 16-bit and Arcade games.
The collection includes TMNT: Tournament Fighters. All three versions - which, despite sharing the same name, are actually completely different games from each other.
I wonder who thought that releasing three games with the same name would be a good idea (I read that there was actually a fourth game planned as well, but Konami had to cancel it because they wouldn't be able to work on all of them) - then again, each of them was made for a different console, so it's not like one would hinder the other.
And it's not like most people who purchase this collection will even bother trying the NES version. The SNES and Genesis ones, now that's a different story: I remember back in the 1990s some players would argue whether the better game was the SNES one or the Genesis one. Personally, I loved the bright colors on Genesis, and the fact that April and Casey Jones were in it (April is just a NPC in the SNES game), but the SNES one actually felt more like a proper fighting game (and the sound was much better) - and it had Shredder.
An ultimate version with characters and stages from both versions would have been amazing. But also quite impossible, considering how different they are.
Incredible! Most licensed games are an excuse for quick shovelware nonsense. But even if they are good, they usually disappear into history as whatever they were tied to fades in popularity. Leave it to the seemingly immortal TMNT franchise to have enough clout to lavishly bring back such an impressive collection of games.
The trailer missed a gag by not opening with a second rating that declared "Rated T for TURTLE!" but you can't have everything.
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| | "Re(3):One name for three fighting games" , posted Sat 12 Mar 03:33
quote:
I suspect the "strength" of TMNT as it were, is that Eastman and Laird noted early on they would need to be flexible in order to maximize profit. It served them well through the years, and has resulted in a franchise that is regularly broken down, and rebuilt to sell to new fans.
Yes, there are instances of the IDW comics which allowed Eastman to continue to play with the toys that were sold to larger corporations; but it seems that from inception TMNT was designed for mass appeal and profit. Despite it's beginnings as a humble cheeky homage to Frank Miller's Daredevil run.
JLA vs. TMNT is certainly no dumber than Marvel Vs. Capcom or DC Characters Vs. Ed Boon's Rainbow Ninja Squad. In fact, I find the comic versus comic idea more palatable than incongruous commercial IP's combined to maximize profits of the other mention games.
Really? To be honest, I kinda like when crossovers have two very different sides, to emphasize the contrast between them. Which is why I loved Marvel's superheroes fighting the very anime-ish Capcom characters, like the serious Captain America fighting (or teaming up with) the goofy Dan.
I usually find superhero crossovers kinda boring; one that I did enjoy a lot was JLA/Avengers by Busiek and Pérez, exactly because they dedicated a lot of attention to show how the DC and Marvel superheroes and worlds are actually very different from each other, rather than interchangeable.
That said, it's just a personal opinion. And I do agree with you that MKvDC was... not a good crossover. MK is too gory, so that's a case where any crossover involving another franchise will either require developers to tone down the violence (and let the MK fans displeased), keep the violence (and let the fans of the other franchise displeased), or stay somewhere in the middle (and let both groups of fans displeased). Unless the other franchise somehow manages to be just as violent (which is why guest characters coming from bloody horror movies or gory video games like God of War actually worked in MK9-11). I'd say even Killer Instinct, which is considered somewhat violent, wouldn't fit with MK at all, despite many players believing otherwise.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
STM: n/a
CFN: zonepharaoh
| "Re(5):One name for three fighting games" , posted Sat 12 Mar 13:36:
Ahhh one day I will finally read Jojo and be cool enough to join the maximum gorgeousness of these threads. I remember one time Prof and I walked by a stacked set of used copies separated by chapter and I almost did it...but then I didn't.
quote:
Wasn't this a common thing during 16-bit era, when each licensed IP would get a game for SNES and another for Genesis/MegaDrive?
True, but usually there were two different studios involved, like on the various Aladdin and Lion King games, as opposed to Konami making multiple versions of its own games...weird! In Japan, at least the SFC version is called Mutant Warriors to differentiate it from the MD Tournament Fighters, so I guess that's...something?
Anyway, I'm pretty sure not many of these 13 games are particularly good, but Turtles in Time is Konami's best beat-em-up, even over the Simpsons! It's great they'll also have the arcade version: while the home port is mostly better and has more stages, the arcade version has four players, a better last boss, and unique boss defeat animations that are lots of fun. This'll also be the first time the arcade version is officially playable in Japan, where tragically only the SFC version ever released after the initial loketest.
Taking it back to fighting games: in Tournament Fighters, the most important question for Aska fans is whether the original or US release forms the base.
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 Sat 12 Mar 13:57] |
| | "Re(4):One name for three fighting games" , posted Sat 12 Mar 17:53
quote:
Really? To be honest, I kinda like when crossovers have two very different sides, to emphasize the contrast between them. Which is why I loved Marvel's superheroes fighting the very anime-ish Capcom characters, like the serious Captain America fighting (or teaming up with) the goofy Dan.
I can see where you're coming from, and there are times when surprising pairings work well together. As a life long fan of comic books, then video games (being one of those organisms from the Proterozoic era of gaming), I appreciate both mediums - it's just, I don't place Western comic book heroes in the same category as magical martial artists (said full well acknowledging the king of popped collar costume greatness, Danny Rand Iron Fist). It's like pineapple on pizza - a highly contentious topic. :p
Street Fighter through 2001 is great. Comic books come and go. I just can't wrap my head around pitting them against each other. For me, the novelty existed in seeing the peak Capcom concept art team and sprite artists bring some of my favorite comic characters to life. I only wish I had the chance to see Capcom art and sprites for some of my favorite characters like Black Cat, Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze), and The Thing.
That's the strongest comparison I can make between Western comic books and video games. These products are cyclical, I follow creators - artists, writers, and then character. Much like my appreciation for certain comic runs, my love for Capcom is forever preserved in those golden years of the 90's until the end in the early oughts. Nothing lasts forever.
Moving to four buttons and focusing more on kusoge style broken combos was also off putting to me. I like my fighting games like my shmups, geezer friendly (SamSho2019 despite the disrespect for feudal family man Gen-an). I can't hang with combo exhibitions or bullet hell.
quote:
I usually find superhero crossovers kinda boring; one that I did enjoy a lot was JLA/Avengers by Busiek and Pérez, exactly because they dedicated a lot of attention to show how the DC and Marvel superheroes and worlds are actually very different from each other, rather than interchangeable.
Well, to be fair - cross company cross overs are incredibly rare for an industry as old as comic books.
Capcom Vs. SNK 2 is my JLA/Avengers. It's tough to top that. Anything else is the equivalent of Pepsi Co. Vs. Toyota in terms of sheer WTF (although Sega would take that challenge looking at Fighting Vipers / Fighters Megamix).
quote:
That said, it's just a personal opinion. And I do agree with you that MKvDC was... not a good crossover. MK is too gory, so that's a case where any crossover involving another franchise will either require developers to tone down the violence (and let the MK fans displeased), keep the violence (and let the fans of the other franchise displeased), or stay somewhere in the middle (and let both groups of fans displeased). Unless the other franchise somehow manages to be just as violent (which is why guest characters coming from bloody horror movies or gory video games like God of War actually worked in MK9-11). I'd say even Killer Instinct, which is considered somewhat violent, wouldn't fit with MK at all, despite many players believing otherwise.
Yeah, outside of a few years of intermittent arcade play with the first two entries when competition in Japanese fighters lost their luster in favor of "realism" and gore, where I had to follow the competition - I was never a fan of the flattened game design of Mortal Combat. Every character having the same base move set and no dizzies - sure the game may have "improved" in later iterations; but it's too little too late and the aesthetic never meant anything to me. I say that as someone who enjoyed some of John Tobias's concept art for the early games. Brian Colin also left a big mark thanks to Rampage and Smash TV. Had the privilege of meeting Mr. Colin a few years ago. Williams/Midway had some fantastic artists working for them back then.
quote:
Ahhh one day I will finally read Jojo and be cool enough to join the maximum gorgeousness of these threads. I remember one time Prof and I walked by a stacked set of used copies separated by chapter and I almost did it...but then I didn't.
I wish they would have translated it about 15 years ago. I enjoyed Araki's art so much I purchased the Japanese volumes, and only donated them to an anime club a few years ago after giving up hope on it ever becoming a thing outside of Japan. :b
Seems to be a pattern here - I give up hope, and PSO2 is localized. I give up hope and Jojo's becomes a thing. Maybe I should give up hope on Street Fighter and Capcom will start caring again? (ಢ⊱ಢ ｡)
quote:
Violent Storm would like a word with you!
That BGM is out of control, in a good late 80's early 90's manner. Reminds me a bit of the Highway to Hell (noteworthy for the rare legendary Kevin Peter Hall sans extensive prosthetics appearance as well) score.
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Re(5):One name for three fighting games" , posted Sat 12 Mar 21:22
quote:
Capcom Vs. SNK 2 is my JLA/Avengers. It's tough to top that. Anything else is the equivalent of Pepsi Co. Vs. Toyota in terms of sheer WTF (although Sega would take that challenge looking at Fighting Vipers / Fighters Megamix).
Ah, Capcom Vs. SNK 2... definitely not the most balanced fighting game ever, but nevertheless such an amazing work!
If a Capcom Vs. SNK 3 (or SNK Vs. Capcom 3 - with MOTM being 1 and SVC Chaos being 2) ever gets created someday (and while unlikely, it's not impossible, as it seems there are still people at both companies who are still friends with each other and like both companies), I would like to see them trying to make Capcom characters feel different from SNK characters... like, Capcom fighters could have six buttons and SNK fighters could have four (and use the two extra buttons for something else) just like each company usually does for their respective games, or have some mechanics exclusively for one half of the roster (like Parry for Capcom characters and Just Defend for SNK ones).
While having its flaws, I did enjoy how Arc System Works pulled this off in BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, with each series maintaining their own unique mechanics for its characters, and even having different animations for the beginning of Astral Finishes depending on the franchise the character comes from.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
XBL: n/a
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| "Re(7):One name for three fighting games" , posted Sun 13 Mar 09:10:
quote:
Violent Storm would like a word with you!
Hahaha, I mean, even if I think the Violent Storm visuals are way boring, I admit the music is hot hot hot, buuuuut then again, Turtles in Time also has probably the rocking-est of all boss themes, which is also punctuated in the SFC version by the rhythm of those bizarre twangy "wa-bang" sounds the bosses make when hit instead of the quiet "bloop" of the arcade. (Side note: in the era of peak overseas censorship, the bosses' English trash talk seems super vicious ("you're dead!") compared to in Japanese...fits the pretty violent source material I guess).
Talking about fighting games now: speaking of Aska from Mutant Warriors/Tournament Fighters, we should remember that she was a pioneer of the ass attack years before R. Mika, even if the latter had an adorable animation indicating that this could occasionally be really painful to do. I'm pretty sure this was before Yuri did it, too. Maybe Mai?
quote:
I give up hope and Jojo's becomes a thing.
I dunno, Jojo's been a thing at the Cafe, Japan, and all other finer establishments for years and years, I just never got around to it, and then there were too many!
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 Sun 13 Mar 14:10] |
| | "Re(2):Butt attacks - an incomplete history" , posted Tue 15 Mar 02:34
Reply composed prior to deluge of responses, such is life.
Copy Pasta magicko!
quote:
Ah, Capcom Vs. SNK 2... definitely not the most balanced fighting game ever, but nevertheless such an amazing work!
If a Capcom Vs. SNK 3 (or SNK Vs. Capcom 3 - with MOTM being 1 and SVC Chaos being 2) ever gets created someday (and while unlikely, it's not impossible, as it seems there are still people at both companies who are still friends with each other and like both companies), I would like to see them trying to make Capcom characters feel different from SNK characters... like, Capcom fighters could have six buttons and SNK fighters could have four (and use the two extra buttons for something else) just like each company usually does for their respective games, or have some mechanics exclusively for one half of the roster (like Parry for Capcom characters and Just Defend for SNK ones).
Could we go back to the era of ISMs without sending the modern player base fleeing? A Cap-ISM and SNK-ISM might be a simple method to incorporate, and streamline the options so as to not scare players.
At this point, I'd prefer SNK take the lead on it with Capcom consulting.
The best part of the old games was seeing new sprites for characters. Except Morrigan on the Capcom side. Were they just that proud of that sprite to keep her in circulation for so long? Such disrespect for one of the icons of her respective franchise...
quote:
Talking about fighting games now: speaking of Aska from Mutant Warriors/Tournament Fighters, we should remember that she was a pioneer of the ass attack years before R. Mika, even if the latter had an adorable animation indicating that this could occasionally be really painful to do. I'm pretty sure this was before Yuri did it, too. Maybe Mai?
You forgot Jeffrey McWild, "Running Hip Attack". This was a source of endless amusement in my high school days as my friend would shout "BEE STING!" whenever employing Jeffrey's big butt offensively. I still have a tendency to call out "BEE STING" when using dupa-jitsu.
Chronologically Japanese release dates VF is October 1993, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters is December 3, 1993. Point: Jeffrey, but clearly offensive posteriors were in the air of fighting game development (figuratively and literally).
quote:
I dunno, Jojo's been a thing at the Cafe, Japan, and all other finer establishments for years and years, I just never got around to it, and then there were too many!
Yeah, not denying that at all. Just frustrated at how long it takes America to catch on. At the very least, I should check out the first three arcs as the 90's OVAs got me hooked on the madness.
Don't know how or why, but probably similar to how Spain and Italy (to my understanding) have a strong fandom and translations of Saint Seiya and Fist of the North Star. Meanwhile, America is on it's third attempt to localize it; and I pray it doesn't end in the failure of the first two attempts. Fortunately the 90's model of selling chapters in over priced floppy format is no longer a thing.
Even if they burned out in the end, I have to thank TokyoPop for paving the way for just releasing the unflipped translated tankouban in the West, sans drip feed. It's no wonder manga struggled in the early days of Studio Proteus, Viz, and CPM Manga...
I know, I know - "Just learn to read Japanese." :p
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus
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| | "Re(3):Butt attacks - an incomplete history" , posted Tue 15 Mar 05:20
quote:
From what I read, Aska was Mitsu; the developers just changed her name once they realized the TMNT live action film with Mitsu was disliked by the audience.
That's the fan theory, but there is one big issue...
Aska looks nothing like movie Mitsu. Completely different body build, hair, outfit, weapon, everything.
Either Konami never intended for their "Mitsu" to look or be anything like the movie Mitsu, or they decided to change the character probably very early in development (and simply had yet to create a new name by the time of the prototype/beta.)
I wouldn't discard the first option; after all, the Sega Genesis version of April also looks different from all her animated series and comic book incarnations that I'm aware of (including the ones where she has become an actual martial artist). And Mitsu's live-action clothes weren't exactly the most flattering (nor was it an attire that would catch the attention of most players).
quote:
Could we go back to the era of ISMs without sending the modern player base fleeing? A Cap-ISM and SNK-ISM might be a simple method to incorporate, and streamline the options so as to not scare players.
At this point, I'd prefer SNK take the lead on it with Capcom consulting.
The best part of the old games was seeing new sprites for characters. Except Morrigan on the Capcom side. Were they just that proud of that sprite to keep her in circulation for so long? Such disrespect for one of the icons of her respective franchise...
Those... are quite good ideas, actually. Including SNK taking the lead (both can still do great fighting games, but Capcom doesn't really look interested in doing anything in fighting games besides the official SF games nowadays).
As for Morrigan's old sprite being constantly reused, nah, it wasn't pride, it was just laziness. A sin that both Capcom and SNK were guilty of back in the days. Still, it's quite sad that Morrigan had to stick with her old sprite while Dan, of all people, got a new one...
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(4):Butt attacks - an incomplete history" , posted Tue 15 Mar 07:09
quote:
I wouldn't discard the first option; after all, the Sega Genesis version of April also looks different from all her animated series and comic book incarnations that I'm aware of (including the ones where she has become an actual martial artist). And Mitsu's live-action clothes weren't exactly the most flattering (nor was it an attire that would catch the attention of most players).
I'm not sure what was going on with the Sega Genesis version. April was cosplaying as Blaze Fielding, and Karai either forgot her pants or was cosplaying as a silver Sailor Galaxia.
Which only makes SNES Aska stand out even more, as the other SNES characters were relatively accurate to their source art, including both SNES April and SNES Karai.
Except that raises other questions, as the release date I saw online for Karai's debut issue has it coming out months after Tournament Fighters was released. So it could be that Konami used designs by Eastman & Laird as the basis for Karai, or it could be that Eastman & Laird altered Karai's comic appearance to better match SNES Karai. Assuming the release dates I found online are even accurate.
quote:
Could we go back to the era of ISMs without sending the modern player base fleeing? A Cap-ISM and SNK-ISM might be a simple method to incorporate, and streamline the options so as to not scare players.
While I like the idea of ISMs in theory (play the character you want in the style you want), in practice I find them somewhat annoying. I've always been bugged by balance issues in fighting games. While ISMs appear to offer players many more options, in reality there is going to be a "best" option with everything else falling in the range of "less viable" to "you are really hurting yourself".
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| | "Re(5):Butt attacks - an incomplete history" , posted Tue 15 Mar 07:19
quote:
While I like the idea of ISMs in theory (play the character you want in the style you want), in practice I find them somewhat annoying. I've always been bugged by balance issues in fighting games. While ISMs appear to offer players many more options, in reality there is going to be a "best" option with everything else falling in the range of "less viable" to "you are really hurting yourself".
Maybe the ISMs could be fixed to certain characters? For example, only Capcom characters would have the CAP-ISM, while only SNK characters would have the SNK-ISM.
This could look like too limiting, but I'm thinking like the way Akuma and Geese were in Tekken 7: both had access to 2D fighting mechanics that the T7 roster didn't have (special moves, super bars, etc.), but said mechanics were different for each of them (if I'm not mistaken, Akuma has a SFV-styled super bar, while Geese has one styled after KOF XIV).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Asuka 120% someone still loves you!" , posted Sun 15 May 04:25:
In a complete opposite of the very bad no-good mobage collab, some wonderful crazies at Opera House are making a MEGA DRIVE (yes, you read that right!) release of one of the older Asuka 120% games, and it will come with gameplay updates! And it is planned to be released on Switch as well?!
The screenshot shows graphics like the old FM Towns version, but including the character Karina who was not in that game.
BEEP, those fine folks whose software branch helped bring COTTON back to the modern consoles, also has for sale an updated doujin book about Asuka 120% that was released in 2020 that is a monstrous 358 page beast!
A sequel that comes 20 years later!
It is fortunately sold out, which means people bought it!
But wait, there's more!
Do you want to play Asuka 120%?!
The Western scene prefers Asuka 120% Burning Fest Limit Over, which was kind of like a doujin release by the original makers of the game after their studio shut down, and you can get it and get it to work on modern operating systems, and learn about how to play it here:
Mizuumi wiki is a great place for fighting games in general fyi
The Japanese scene prefers Asuka 120% SP2, which interestingly is before the new sprites made for Asuka 120% Limited. The version which probably most people played outside of Japan because it was the one most easily downloaded on the internet was Asuka 120% Burning Fest Final, which evidently was not actually made by the original Fill-in-Cafe staff?!
Somebody please tell Brandon to get in touch with Opera House if he isn't already so that he can help get their game get the love it deserves for an international release.
[this message was edited by Spoon on Sun 15 May 05:48] |
| | "Some Jojo ASBR news" , posted Fri 27 May 02:20:
It's been a while, but finally some updates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuJOp9Z7tG8
- Release date 2nd of September
- Speedwagon, Mariah, Pet Shop and Diego confirmed
- Some new backgrounds (from EOH mostly)
- We've seen that among the balance changes some combo path and some jump arcs have been reworked, while meter gain and use have been tweated for certain mechanics.
- The mechanism for the strikers is still vague, but we know there is a mode without them to have a pure 1v1 mode
- The game still has shit netcode and will be dead on arrival online so don't buy it for that.
- Trish and Prosciutto, who appeared on some screenshots early on, are probably there as well. That would leave 4 characters... And the trailer confirms a Season 1 DLC with 4 more characters!
- Missing from EOH and potential candidates to fill the last gaps: Stroheim, N'dour, Yukako, Weather, Joshu, World Diego.
(Jôtarô part 4, C-Moon Pucci and Outer Heaven DIO nonwithstanding).
FF and Risotto still have a chance! Abbacchio too maybe?
If "Season 1" means they are thinking about a Season 2, it's going to be really interesting to see who they can reasonnably add while remaining true to the source material.
I was going to say "I hope they don't add the nobody vampires or Santana from parts 1/2", but I would be totally fine if they added Debo or Chaka with a gameplay similar to Capcom's game, and honestly those are as low impact as Bluford or Straizo would be, so, whatever.
Speaking of characters who didn't leave a strong mark in the manga, I wonder if they could use Midler finally.
[this message was edited by Iggy on Fri 27 May 03:39] |
| PSN: Gojira_X
XBL: Gojiraaa
Wii: n/a
STM: 29347508
CFN: Gojira
| "Re(1):Some Jojo ASBR news" , posted Fri 27 May 04:49
I see they learned their lesson with the last trailer and didn't include any shots of the HUD this time.
The reliance on EoH content to expand the game is a bit cheap but understandable considering EoH was probably one of the most flawed and troubling games I've ever played. Any content they can extract from it and put into a less terrible game is budget well spent.
Since the season pass says we're getting "new" characters I guess it's okay to look past EoH? Unless that "new" is just an extension of the "new" they use to describe the 10 extra characters at the start. We've yet to see proof that the team working on this game has the budget to do anything but shift assets around. Get ready for Part 4 Jojo, New Moon Pucci, Alternate World Diego, and Possessed Polnareff?
Anyway for my 4 wants, let's see:
-FF definitely, not only is she a pretty significant member of a protagonist team but I'm pretty sure ASBR is only happening because of the Stone Ocean hype, so we need more Stone Ocean in there.
-Risotto, of course. I'm not the biggest fan of this guy but I concede that his popularity is justified and his inclusion should happen.
-Abbacchio, here it is, this is their big chance to have all the Golden Wind gangsters. I think the only hurdle is how do you use Moody Blues to fight? But I'm sure someone can think of something.
-And now my weird unpopular pick - Keicho. While some people might not consider Bad Company to be the most interesting stand, it is unique in the Jojo universe in that it's so incredibly straightforward and I think it would lend itself very well to a game.
Considering how well-represented Stardust Crusaders is, it seems unlikely that they'd use anyone else from that. But if they did bring back Midler for some reason I wonder how they'd approach designing her. Even though Araki did kind of give his blessing to the Capcom redesign, afaik nobody went back and updated the manga panels and the anime notably still didn't bother using it for the few shots where she actually shows up either.
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| | "Re(2):Some Jojo ASBR news" , posted Fri 27 May 07:03
I think there were some rumors that Abbacchio had some files in EOH. Either he was scrapped because they couldn't make him work, or because of time constraints... But if that's true, he would be another character to salvage from EOH?
The glimpse of the UI we've seen doesn't show the green baby word counter on Pucci. Either the UI is not done, or Pucci only has White Snake... which would probably be better for the character. Maybe they think C-Moon and Made in Heaven should be kept as a DLC so as to not ruin the surprise of people who discover the anime now? If that's the case, it would make sense to have the base game Part 5-heavy (Trish-Abbacchio-Prociutto) since the anime is over and was really popular, and keep the DLC Part 6-heavy with like Weather, FF, C-Moon, and... I don't know, Heavy Weather.
Also, Baoh is still there somewhere (he was in one of the screenshots that were pulled out of the PS site). Maybe he's DLC too?
I like Keichô, he could be an interesting gameplay proposal. Definitely easier to adapt than Yûya, Tonio or the Super Fly guy.
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| PSN: ShikyohMukuro
XBL: IAMDC1
Wii: n/a
STM: N/A
CFN: n/a
| "Re(3):Some Jojo ASBR news" , posted Sat 28 May 06:14:
quote:
I think there were some rumors that Abbacchio had some files in EOH. Either he was scrapped because they couldn't make him work, or because of time constraints... But if that's true, he would be another character to salvage from EOH?
The glimpse of the UI we've seen doesn't show the green baby word counter on Pucci. Either the UI is not done, or Pucci only has White Snake... which would probably be better for the character. Maybe they think C-Moon and Made in Heaven should be kept as a DLC so as to not ruin the surprise of people who discover the anime now? If that's the case, it would make sense to have the base game Part 5-heavy (Trish-Abbacchio-Prociutto) since the anime is over and was really popular, and keep the DLC Part 6-heavy with like Weather, FF, C-Moon, and... I don't know, Heavy Weather.
Also, Baoh is still there somewhere (he was in one of the screenshots that were pulled out of the PS site). Maybe he's DLC too?
I like Keichô, he could be an interesting gameplay proposal. Definitely easier to adapt than Yûya, Tonio or the Super Fly guy.
This is all great news. Can't wait to get the game. Not sure who I would like to see that is missing for not announced for. Can't remember on the top of my head who were some of my favorite characters. This will be my first JoJo game since the Capcom version on the Dreamcast, which i still love to watch competitive matches online.
Here is some more info on the game below
Wiki page
Long Live I AM!
[this message was edited by Neo0r0chiaku on Sat 28 May 06:22] |
| | "Re(3):Some Jojo ASBR news" , posted Mon 30 May 08:12
quote:
I think there were some rumors that Abbacchio had some files in EOH. Either he was scrapped because they couldn't make him work, or because of time constraints... But if that's true, he would be another character to salvage from EOH?
The glimpse of the UI we've seen doesn't show the green baby word counter on Pucci. Either the UI is not done, or Pucci only has White Snake... which would probably be better for the character. Maybe they think C-Moon and Made in Heaven should be kept as a DLC so as to not ruin the surprise of people who discover the anime now? If that's the case, it would make sense to have the base game Part 5-heavy (Trish-Abbacchio-Prociutto) since the anime is over and was really popular, and keep the DLC Part 6-heavy with like Weather, FF, C-Moon, and... I don't know, Heavy Weather.
Also, Baoh is still there somewhere (he was in one of the screenshots that were pulled out of the PS site). Maybe he's DLC too?
I like Keichô, he could be an interesting gameplay proposal. Definitely easier to adapt than Yûya, Tonio or the Super Fly guy.
These are some interesting choices. I hope JoJolion will get at least one or two more representatives besides Gappy (hopefully not Joshu - yes, I know most JJL characters' powers don't seem very applicable in a fighting game, but come on, Joshu is so annoying...). Also, I'd like to see at least one more antagonist from Stone Ocean besides only Pucci.
---
Anyway, another game which announced a new character is Skullgirls 2nd Encore, which will get Black Dahlia.
She looks pretty cool. Still, it's kinda sad that her Story Mode probably won't have voiceovers (the same happened to Annie and Umbrella); it may be a small detail, but it makes the cutscenes feel incomplete since the other characters have it... It's also sad that while Dahlia and one more character will be added to the roster, there are so many interesting characters created for this universe that could become amazing playable fighters (Isaac in particular with his time-travel mechanics) but probably will never become playable, due to the problem between SG's creator and the game developers.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(1):Skullgirls" , posted Tue 31 May 02:00
quote:
After Skullgirl's amazing showing at Combo Breaker (those were the most entertaining matches I saw), I'm amazed by how far the game has gone (and how it has survived all these hardships!). I suppose the last character will be Marie to finish the initial original plan?
I guess the mobile game must be profitable enough to warrant such continued support? They were also redrawing Valentine to remove the red cross from her outfit (which is a trademark). If they start doing that almost 10 years after the fact, on the hundreds of frames of the character, just for a tiny little cross... that either means they have some budget, or some strong hope to continue with the game (maybe finally a Skullgirls 2?).
Yeah, it's probably Marie; they mentioned years ago that they wanted to include Annie, Umbrella, Dahlia and Marie on the playable roster. Hopefully Marie's story will finally tie (mostly) everything together; each character has a fascinating story, but they don't really mesh well together (and it was already implied that each character's story is like an alternate timeline or something). And gameplay-wise, it will be interesting to control a character whose movelist (and hitbox) changes twice after she takes some damage (that is, unless playable Marie is different from final boss Marie).
I'd love to see a Skullgirls 2! But again, after the situation involving the creator and many of the developers, I think it's quite unlikely... which is sad, because this series has a lot of potential.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "...Wait, which game is this, again?" , posted Wed 1 Jun 22:24
This "collaboration" had already been announced before, but now we have a trailer for the Tekken 7 special outfits added in Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown.
I have to say, I'm surprised with some choices. Akira as one of the Mishimas makes sense, and so does Lau as Heihachi (both being unscrupulous old men), Sarah as Nina, and Rey Mysterio El Blaze and Wolf as King and Armor King. But then one would expect Pai cosplaying as Xiaoyu, and instead she chose Lili; Shun is cosplaying as Ganryu rather than his fellow drunk fighter Lei, and so on. Still, they look pretty cool (I wish Sega would restore Vanessa's original skin tone, though).
There were some comments on video game sites of people complaining that Sega and Bamco should have made a real VF x Tekken crossover, but honestly, I don't think it would work well (and I say that as a casual player who loves both of them)... these two series have very different controls and strategies, to the point where a fan of one series would likely have a tough time adapting to the other's controls and gameplay until they managed to play on a competitive level. Even adding one guest fighter or two from one game to the other would probably feel odd in terms of gameplay.
Then again, if they managed to find a way to make a true crossover work, it would be fantastic.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(1):...Wait, which game is this, again?" , posted Thu 2 Jun 04:12
quote:
There were some comments on video game sites of people complaining that Sega and Bamco should have made a real VF x Tekken crossover, but honestly, I don't think it would work well (and I say that as a casual player who loves both of them)... these two series have very different controls and strategies, to the point where a fan of one series would likely have a tough time adapting to the other's controls and gameplay until they managed to play on a competitive level. Even adding one guest fighter or two from one game to the other would probably feel odd in terms of gameplay.
Then again, if they managed to find a way to make a true crossover work, it would be fantastic.
Given how well the Tekken team were able to make Geese and Akuma work in Tekken (in spite of the grumblings of some old Tekken heads about how those characters don't feel like Tekken), and those two characters come from games yet further different from Tekken and VF, I think the Tekken team could definitely figure out a way to make a VF x Tekken or Tekken x VF be fun.
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| | "Re(5):...Wait, which game is this, again?" , posted Sat 4 Jun 05:48
quote:
I know back in VF4 some people would complain how Vanessa looked like X-Men's Storm, but honestly, she looked much more interesting then than she does now. If Sega really wanted to make her look different, they could have changed her hair color, but her skin tone and her muscles looked great the way they were.
Hopefully this will be fixed in VF6. That is, assuming there will ever be a VF6.
I want to recall reading an interview where it was admitted that Vanessa's appearance was changed in an attempt to make her more visually appealing to more people. However, that may be a faulty memory on my part as anything you find online today addresses Vanessa's changes as being unexplained.
Regardless, the changes were so drastic that VF5 Vanessa could have been mistaken for a new character. (She even had a different voice actor.) It is hard to see it as anything other than an attempt to make her more visually appealing, more so when you consider that stuff such as something close to her original skin tone and (some of) her original well-defined musculature would be offered as customization parts.
Something else I noticed... VF4 Vanessa had black eyebrows, but VF5 Vanessa has white eyebrows.
As for the Storm comparison, the VF5 redesign arguably made Vanessa closer to the Halle Berry movie Storm.
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| PSN: beatolover
XBL: Dead
Wii: Dead
STM: bugrom1067
CFN: rugalbgood
| "Re(1):Capcom Fighting Jamboree" , posted Wed 29 Jun 22:11:
quote:
I recently picked up the Capcom Fighting Collection. My time with it has been limited but I like what I've seen so far. Has anyone tried it online?
Yes, and it's kinda trash! (the online play, not the collection itself!) Fightcade is better. I also feel like there is a very very small number of people bothering with it online. I played and won a single match of Vampire (not savior, plain old Vampire, just to clarify) and got world ranking 193 from that. I was up to 97 in Hyper before ranking down (and that isn't because I'm particularly good, I'm quite confident it is simply a reflection of lack of players.) I suck at Vampire savior but I suspect it's the main reason most people who bought this... well, bought it?
Oh yeah, I was wondering how Warzard would handle the online because of the password system; originally if you were trying to fight a highly leveled character as a low leveled character you were kinda fucked. There WAS a handicap system, but it only went up to 4 levels and it was optional anyway (So the opponent could easily refuse to level themselves down.)
The way this collection handles it is that everyone is just max level if you play online.
Edit: Oh yeah, and you can use warlock in Cyberbots online. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
[this message was edited by Red Falcon on Thu 30 Jun 04:46] |
| PSN: Ishmael26b
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
STM: n/a
CFN: Ishmael26b
| "Re(2):Capcom Fighting Jamboree" , posted Fri 1 Jul 00:47
quote:
Yes, and it's kinda trash! (the online play, not the collection itself!) Fightcade is better. I also feel like there is a very very small number of people bothering with it online. I played and won a single match of Vampire (not savior, plain old Vampire, just to clarify) and got world ranking 193 from that. I was up to 97 in Hyper before ranking down (and that isn't because I'm particularly good, I'm quite confident it is simply a reflection of lack of players.) I suck at Vampire savior but I suspect it's the main reason most people who bought this... well, bought it?
Oh yeah, I was wondering how Warzard would handle the online because of the password system; originally if you were trying to fight a highly leveled character as a low leveled character you were kinda fucked. There WAS a handicap system, but it only went up to 4 levels and it was optional anyway (So the opponent could easily refuse to level themselves down.)
The way this collection handles it is that everyone is just max level if you play online.
Edit: Oh yeah, and you can use warlock in Cyberbots online. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Too bad that the online community isn't there. I wonder if it's because the collection is on multiple systems? Or is everyone playing Ken mirror matches on Puzzle Fighter? I don't know, but I appreciate that even if it is bungled, an attempt was made to allow all games to be played online. (I can't imagine trying to play Warzard competitively, but good luck to whoever wants to try that out.)
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| | "Best fighting game sentient plankton" , posted Fri 1 Jul 23:48
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUnYNIYq5Bk
New characters: FF, Yukako, and (urgh) part 4 Jôtarô. Although he does seem to have some new moves. I'm surprised they didn't add Weather with FF... Maybe he'll have a Heavy Weather mode, so they want to delay him until he has appeared in the anime?
I'm still not sure if Baoh is part of the base 50 characters or if the actual marketing line was "50 characters FROM JOJO and also Baoh".
Trish and Prosciutto are still to be shown, so that would leave only 2 slots for either Stroheim, N'dour, Weather, Joshu or World Diego. I guess Weather and Stroheim? Or a new character, possibly from part 8?
If they are indeed keeping Weather away because of the anime, I wonder if they'll also have C-Moon Pucci as a DLC character.. That would be a waste, but, oh well.
I learned recently that not only is Last Survivor still alive (or rather... that it's surviving), but also that they've added Risotto to it recently. I'm sure he will be a good bait for the DLC package.
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| PSN: Gojira_X
XBL: Gojiraaa
Wii: n/a
STM: 29347508
CFN: Gojira
| "Re(1):Best fighting game sentient plankton" , posted Sat 2 Jul 00:28:
quote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUnYNIYq5Bk
New characters: FF, Yukako, and (urgh) part 4 Jôtarô. Although he does seem to have some new moves. I'm surprised they didn't add Weather with FF... Maybe he'll have a Heavy Weather mode, so they want to delay him until he has appeared in the anime?
I'm still not sure if Baoh is part of the base 50 characters or if the actual marketing line was "50 characters FROM JOJO and also Baoh".
Trish and Prosciutto are still to be shown, so that would leave only 2 slots for either Stroheim, N'dour, Weather, Joshu or World Diego. I guess Weather and Stroheim? Or a new character, possibly from part 8?
If they are indeed keeping Weather away because of the anime, I wonder if they'll also have C-Moon Pucci as a DLC character.. That would be a waste, but, oh well.
I learned recently that not only is Last Survivor still alive (or rather... that it's surviving), but also that they've added Risotto to it recently. I'm sure he will be a good bait for the DLC package.
So an actual new character not being from EoH was in the cards after all. And there's the new stage that was hinted a while ago too. I'm wondering what exactly will be the hazard there if FF is a playable character.
Hopefully this will make some noise over everyone's demo shock when the netcode wasn't updated. While I understand the want, rollback is not portable code. If CC2 hasn't done rollback before, they're not going to do it in a re-release of a 10-year-old game.
EDIT: Extended trailer of Jolyne, Ermes and FF smacking Pucci around in the new stage
[this message was edited by Gojira on Sat 2 Jul 13:57] |
| PSN: Gojira_X
XBL: Gojiraaa
Wii: n/a
STM: 29347508
CFN: Gojira
| "Re(3):Best fighting game sentient plankton" , posted Sun 3 Jul 05:51:
So the game comes out literally the day after the next batch of Stone Ocean on Netflix. I suppose that's a pretty convenient way to avoid having it spoil what's going to happen, but then it still has other late Part 6 stuff in there so it's not the sturdiest shield.
Also I feel sorry for Jojolion fans expecting anyone new from pt8 because the chances of that happening are pretty much 1 in a million. If it wasn't already clear before, the most recent trailer should make it obvious to anyone that this is happening because they need to build Stone Ocean hype in the absence of any buildup in Netflix's mess of a release schedule. I would not be surprised if the DLC was meant to be timed to the third batch.
quote:
Yeah, and I don't think Bamco will budget for an updated netcode since they don't even put it in Tekken and Soulcalibur.
The thing is, it's not really a budget problem so much as a problem of building knowledge and establishing a process.
Arcsys nearly passed up their chance; if there hadn't been rollback in Strive there wouldn't be rollback in any of those back catalog titles they're updating now, because they wouldn't know how to do it. If SNK didn't have such a good working relationship with Code Mystics they couldn't have done anything about their netcode. And while I'm not totally sure who's teaching them, Capcom has clearly been busy leveling up their rollback knowledge base as well.
Bandai Namco kind of missed the boat by not having a new game to work on when everyone was clamoring for rollback. They were stuck in a mode where they were just updating the same games for years and years, or porting past-gen stuff to current-gen hardware, and neither of those kind of projects are conductive to any real experimentation and development on the base engine. But they can totally have rollback in Tekken or SoulCalibur... just not the ones that everyone is playing. They can have it in the ones they're (presumably) developing behind closed doors. And I honestly believe that's why information on whatever they're making is taking so long.
Of course the problem with Jojo is more CC2, because CC2 is not exactly into doing technical things. They developed that new Demon Slayer game, and that was probably their first and only chance to even make an attempt at rollback, and from what I hear they didn't take it. Either they had their ears plugged or they just didn't care, but either way it means that nothing in their current backlog will have rollback, not even stuff they're working on like ASBR.
EDIT:
Dramatic Finish
[this message was edited by Gojira on Sun 3 Jul 06:35] |
| | "Re(2):It’s (still) Mahvel, baby!" , posted Mon 8 Aug 02:29
quote:
Will MvC2 still have the arcade unlock system?
Those 1up cabinets seem really strange to me. Does anyone like those mini cabinets? If I was going to go nuts and put an arcade game in my home I would at least want a full sized version.
Looking through the 1up page I see that the games can be played online through Wi-Fi. Huh.
Yeah, I have the same questions. Who would want such a things that's too big and yet too small?
On top of that, the Wi-Fi... can you imagine the server population on that thing. It's so bizarre.
Speaking of games whose online was dead before it was even alive, Samurai Spirits 2019 is getting rollback netcode. That's very good, but, unfortunately 3 years late? It would be a miracle if the game passed the 100 players bar on Steam... At least it's probably good if you have a friend to play with.
DBF is also getting rollback, which is surprising since it's Bamco we're talking of. Will Tekken7 get it? Will Soulcali... nah, probably not that one unfortunately.
Also, after 10 years, Skullgirls is finally getting a Skullgirl playable (Marie) and Capcom Germany leaked the 2 characters announced tonight for SF6.
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| | "Re(2):It’s (still) Mahvel, baby!" , posted Mon 8 Aug 03:36
quote:
I see that for the low low price of $600, an American company will sell you a replica Marvel 2 cabinet with seven other Marvel games you don’t care quite as much about but are still glad to see! I don’t know how that stacks up against the used cabinet market and part replacement costs, but I bet a lot of people at US tourneys might be really happy to see these! Or are cabinets as bizarre and analogue for arcadeless American youth as a typewriter, despite the ongoing use of arcade sticks for home ports?!
Will MvC2 still have the arcade unlock system?
Those 1up cabinets seem really strange to me. Does anyone like those mini cabinets? If I was going to go nuts and put an arcade game in my home I would at least want a full sized version.
Looking through the 1up page I see that the games can be played online through Wi-Fi. Huh.
I think a better question will be: is this cabinet's MvC2 the Arcade version or the Dreamcast (and later PS2, GC and Xbox) one? Common logic would dictate that this would be the Arcade one, but since this cabinet will also have X-Men Mutant Apocalypse and Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems - both of which are not Arcade games -, I wouldn't be surprised if the MvC2 in it is the Dreamcast version (with characters being unlocked only by purchasing them with points).
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quote:
Also, after 10 years, Skullgirls is finally getting a Skullgirl playable (Marie) and Capcom Germany leaked the 2 characters announced tonight for SF6.
I'm curious about Marie. Will she work like she does as a boss, having three different movelists depending on how much life meter she still has? Or will she be completely different as a playable character than she is as a boss?
One sad thing is that I suppose her Story Mode won't have voiceovers, just like Annie's and Umbrella's (and it will most likely be the same with Black Dahlia's). The voiceovers helped a lot with the immersion in the stories of the other characters... then again, after all the fights between the game's creator and the development team, I guess we should celebrate that we're even getting updates at all (I wonder if someday they will manage to make amends with each other?).
As for the SF6 leaks, this is happening quite often, isn't it? Then again, it doesn't look like they're causing any damage to the game (if anything, maybe they're making people even more interested in it).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(3):It’s (still) Mahvel, baby!" , posted Wed 10 Aug 05:13
That reminds me that a couple of months ago, I was watching a video with curiosities about MvC2. Some of them were new to me (like the clock in the clock stage displaying the actual time defined in the console), but many weren't (like the health bars and portrait backgrounds having the color of the type of assist the player chose for that character). One that I assumed that everyone knew but found out that most players didn't know was that the Arcade version of MvC2 had a different default roster than the Dreamcast version (and later the PS2, GC and Xbox ones) and that the ending illustrations were different in each version (as they only showed the characters available by default on that version).
And then I remembered that the MadMan's Cafe is the very reason why I knew about it - back when MvC2 had just been announced, Professor (...well, I guess it was the Professor who wrote the Cafe's news, right?) pointed out that the Arcade and Dreamcast versions each had some exclusive default characters (though all characters were available in both versions once the player unlocked everything).
This place was a real haven for me whenever I was looking for news on fighting games like MvC2 or KoF 2000... and, a couple of decades later, it still is! And its bulletin board is still full of awesome people from all around the world to talk to! And, at least for me, this whole experience started with MvC2.
Thank you very much for the Cafe, Professor!
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(5):It’s (still) Mahvel, baby!" , posted Thu 11 Aug 04:43
quote:
the Arcade and Dreamcast versions each had some exclusive default characters
I didn't know that!
So, as in the Dreamcast version the default are the one in the center of the selection screen, in the Arcade version are they arranged in a different way to keep them in the center or what?
Yes, some characters were in different parts of the select screen depending on which version was played (most of them were in the same place, since the ones available by default in both versions and the ones that were unlockable in both versions represent the majority of the roster).
Akuma, Jin, Captain Commando, Morrigan, B.B.Hood, Shuma-Gorath, Magneto, Juggernaut, Gambit and adamantium-clawed Wolverine were available by default on the Arcade but had to be unlocked on the Dreamcast.
Jill, Tron Bonne, Sakura, Psylocke, Rogue and bone-clawed Wolverine were available by default on the Dreamcast but had to be unlocked on the Arcade.
There's some news on this site about the exclusive characters (sadly, the screenshots are no longer there). And The Video Games Museum has screenshots of the ending illustrations for both the Arcade and Dreamcast versions.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(3):It’s (still) Mahvel, baby!" , posted Fri 12 Aug 08:25
quote:
These "cabinets" are targeted towards people that think it would be cool to have an arcade at home. But they don't know or can't tell the difference between a real arcade cabinet and this little monstrosity running emulators.
I think it is more a space issue.
People who feel they cannot justify the space for a full-sized arcade cabinet can still justify a "like the real thing but smaller" mini-cabinet. Or even multiple mini-cabinets. It presumably is going to weigh a lot less than a real cabinet, as well.
Of course there is also the convenience factor. Theoretically, you just impulse by one of these cabs at the local super store, or order one online, get it home, and it works. Buying a real arcade cabinet is a bit more involved, tracking down a place that has one for sale at a price you are willing to pay, hoping it actually works, swapping out any worn down parts, etc.
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| | "Re(5):It’s (still) Mahvel, baby!" , posted Fri 12 Aug 11:35:
quote:
All good points! The bigger mystery for me is how this obscure 1up (who?) somehow has the ability or relationships to re-release Marvel despite Disney allegedly driving a hard enough bargain these days that there haven’t been any other home re-releases for like, a decade?
Arcade1Up has over the last four or five years built a reputation as the arcade reproduction company. They started with easier to license titles, and presumably used their successes to land deals with harder to grab titles. They've also struck deals with a wide variety of large and successful retail chains around the world, which certainly gives them even more bargaining power when it comes to landing additional game licenses. Even if it is only a few feet of shelf stocking at most a handful of titles, they've managed to keep that shelf space and picked up more chains as well. Note that these aren't just the usual suspects either, in addition to game stores and the biggest big box stores, they have deals with places like furniture and home improvement chains (which works for people who are out to furnish their new man cave or game room, or just want a conversation piece).
They've already done Marvel/Disney license products, releasing replicas of Konami's X-Men beat'em-up, along with multi-game pinball replicas for both Marvel and Star Wars properties. They've worked with Capcom before as well, with cabinets for Street Fighter II and other Capcom releases.
The whole idea that it is a niche-but-wide-appeal nostalgia-driven replica arcade cabinet may also help with some of those game license deals. Companies are likely to have different expectations and demands for a replica arcade cabinet versus a digital and/or physical game disc release. The order of magnitude difference in the price tag is certainly a factor as well. Arcade1Up cabinets have a MSRP of around $700, and they could presumably bump of the price if necessary for a particularly big get. Arcade1Up should be able to afford even relatively expensive per-unit license deals, certainly more than console publishers can afford.
[this message was edited by Baines on Fri 12 Aug 11:38] |
| | "Re(6):It’s (still) Mahvel, baby!" , posted Sat 13 Aug 03:20
Also, in addition to what Baines say, one guy from Arcade1Up, John D, was a producer at Capcom, and somewhat responsible for the re-release of MVC2 back in 2009?, the release of MVC3, and probably also involved in MVC:I.
Then he left Capcom for Arcade1Up, where thanks to his connections made possible (or at least easier) the various deals with Capcom and now Capcom and Marvel.
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| | "Re(8):It’s (still) Shaggy, baby!" , posted Mon 22 Aug 03:37
quote:
Since the initial price is right, I recently tried out Multiversus. What do people think of this game? I'm not overly familiar with the Smash games so I don't know how to compare the way this plays to other examples of this style of gameplay. Also, what are the thoughts on the way it is being sold? It's neat that I can try it out for free, but the pricing structure also makes Fortnite look reasonable.
I tried it too!
I'm quite interested to see the F2P model working. I think they strike a good balance with simplistic 3D models with broad appeal (something that would not work with SF6's hyper complex characters who probably cost individually as much as the entire development cost of Multiversus)(and also, even people I don't know like Lebron and Black Adam have infinitely more star power than Sodom or Falke). I hate the whole "this game is now your day job" thing with battle passes, daily missions and so on, but it's obviously a very lucrative model when it works (and I'm sure SF6 will follow it as well, on top of being a full-priced game with full-priced seasons).
I still think Capcom could have a shot at a F2P model if they tried a pure Capcom crossover game, with characters kept to a complexity similar to MvC3 or TvC for example. Also because as a team game, getting new characters regularly would be more enticing. It leaves the issue of the popularity of the likes of Ruby Heart or Captain Commando, but I have the feeling those would be much better than having to deal with Marvel's notoriously terrible gaming division. A purely Capcom game would have smaller appeal, but talk to a much more passionate fanbase that would stay involved in the game longer (and have a higher paying player average).
As for Multiversus, I really don't like Smash and this game is a different shade of Smash so no, thank you. However, I'm amazed how much BETTER it is than Smash. The tutorial alone is perfect. I don't understand how Smash with its tons of weird, annoying menus and sub-modes, still hasn't found a place to explain basic concepts like spikes and tethers.
At my basic level, I find it interesting that the game chose to do away with throws and shields. Also the easy wall jump (and the fact the main platform has walls instead of being a floating board) makes stupid deaths happen less often. The idea of making it a team game with support and tank characters like a MOBA is interesting... but unfortunately it also makes the thing far too cumbersome with different loadouts and passive abilities. A middle ground would have been better for sure. It also makes viewing tournaments really unappealing with the amount of preparation and explanation the system requires.
As for the character selection, as much as I was bewildered by the concept, it works amazingly well. The answer to "who is this game for" is "absolutely anyone with a passing interest in the last 60 years of US pop culture". Anything from Gizmo to Rick and Morty, including Beetlejuice, Iron Giant and the entire DC cast is fair game. I wonder how much the recent HBO disaster would impact characters from those shows, but at that point Walter White vs Bugs Bunny is a possibility and I'm all for it.
The thing that sells this bonkers concept is the art direction, which looks fairly simple but probably was extremely difficult to agree on with all the stakeholders.
The animation of each character is another strong point of the game. I'm not familiar with some of the newer characters, but the DC characters move the way you'd expect their animated counterpart would, while the Looney Tunes are legitimate contenders for best animated characters of the year. Tom&Jerry are absolutely mesmerizing, I think the most fun I had with the game was simply playing with them in training mode.
I'd be curious to see a Mortal Kombat character joining the game, just to see if they would try to emulate some of the really bad animation the series is infamous for.
In conclusion, I think the F2P model will work very well with this game, but I think in order to replicate it would require 1) big IPs 2) great talent and passion in the dev team 3) producers that play on those strengths and don't mess up the good foundations. That's a tall order, and with this game being successful, we're probably going to see quite a few disastrous attempts to copy it.
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| | "Re(9):It’s (still) Shaggy, baby!" , posted Mon 22 Aug 09:54
quote:
However, I'm amazed how much BETTER it is than Smash. The tutorial alone is perfect. I don't understand how Smash with its tons of weird, annoying menus and sub-modes, still hasn't found a place to explain basic concepts like spikes and tethers.
I'm amazed by just how bad Smash Ultimate's menus and information presentation are handled.
Ultimate actually does explain basic and even more complicated gameplay techniques. Except it does its through brief (1-2 sentence) loading screen tips. You can access all of these tips at leisure, if you know to go to Vault, then Tips, then pick Techniques. Which will display the 69 techniques tips in their barely organized 1-2 sentence glory.
Want to know about the moves of a character? Go to Vault->Tips->Fighters, then select your chosen fighter from the roster select screen, then read the 5-60 tips for that specific character. And yes, the coverage does vary that wildly. Steve gets 60 tips, Kazuya gets 52, most characters get ~15-30, and Lucina gets 5 (two of which aren't even gameplay related). Apparently the devs assumed you'd know to look at Marth to get the information about 98% of Lucina's moveset...
Which pretty much describes how all of Ultimate's menus are designed. Things that should be consolidated are instead needlessly spread across multiple menus/selections. Information and options are presented inconsistently. Useful information is either absent or has you backing out to run through some other series of sub-menus to access it. Etc.
Smash Ultimate would make a good case study of a UI/presentation that doesn't look that bad until you actually try to use it.
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| | "Re(10):It’s (still) Shaggy, baby!" , posted Wed 24 Aug 02:22
quote:
Oh wow, this game looks way better than i thought! Up until just now I thought this and the Nickelodeon All Star Brawl were the same game! I recall that game not having particularly good animation and also being creepily silent, with no voice acting. Multiversus is so leagues better in terms of art and animation!
Nickelodeon is becoming somewhat infamous for not really spending money or effort on their games, and All Star Brawl was effectively a "budget" release as well. It didn't necessarily help that the main devs were a small indie studio. Licensed music and voice acting would have gone a long ways towards helping the title, but it just wasn't in the budget.
quote:
Yeah, that sums up the feeling I have about Smash Ultimate: the game has its head so far up its own ass that it is less a game about gaming history and more a game about Smash history. It's all self-important and assumes that you're going to do the work to get up to speed with it, and it's above telling you anything about it.
That's a fairly accurate description of what Smash has become. It used to celebrate Nintendo games/characters, then it started shifted towards being a marketing tool (like every game had to have new Fire Emblem characters to go with newer FE games), and now Smash pretty much just celebrates itself.
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| | "More Golden Wind in JJBA: All-Star Battle" , posted Thu 25 Aug 00:45:
Trish, Prosciutto & Pesci, and Ghiaccio join the battle.
We already knew about Trish and Prosciutto, but it's interesting that Pesci actually fights alongside Prosciutto (judging from the trailer, it seems he'll be to Prosciutto in ASB what Choi was to Chang in CvS2). As for Ghiaccio, I'm kinda torn... in terms of gameplay, I think he may be very interesting, but he's not a very important character in Part 5. I would prefer his spot to either go to Risotto Nero, or to someone from Part 6-8 (it's weird that this re-release of ASB is coming alongside the Stone Ocean anime, yet Stone Ocean has very few characters in ASB in comparison to other Parts).
Minor complaints aside, it's very nice to see that this game is apparently taking some pages from other fighting games. I like the idea of it having KoF-style 3-vs-3 battles, or the possibility of adding a second character as an Assist to your main character, MvC-style (even though the Stands already worked as an Assist, so... the second character is kind of a second Assist?). No Tag mode, but then again, JJBA's battles are already flashy and chaotic enough (in a good way) without tags, so adding tags maybe would be too much.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Thu 25 Aug 02:49] |
| | "Does anyone remember Pokken Tournament" , posted Thu 25 Aug 09:35
When Pokken Tournament was released, I skipped it. Noticing it was running a free trial week (ending tonight), I decided to give it a try.
When it released, I skipped it because it looked simultaneously overly simple and overly complicated, I wasn't particularly interested in any of the playable characters, and it didn't seem to have much compelling single-player content.
Having played it, my opinions haven't really changed.
The big gimmick, and the root of the complication, is that landing certain moves will switch between the projectile-focused "free movement" Field Mode and the traditional side-view fighting game Duel Mode.
The obvious issue is that the two modes change both your move list and your basic controls, which can be somewhat jarring. The devs apparently knew this, as the game pauses to inform you of mode switches, which is itself jarring.
A more subtle issue is that the move lists honestly don't feel robust enough to justify the complication of mode switching. You certainly do have more total moves than you'd find in a game like Powerstone or Psychic Force, but it feels like you still could have gotten enough move variety without Pokken's mode switching.
Assists feel a bit clunky. I'm guessing Namco wanted to avoid the combo shenanigans of other games, but can you only call your assist when you are standing around doing nothing else? Also, at least with a low level Pokemon in single-player, the charge rates are also absurdly slow. I was winning rounds before even a "Fast Charge" Assist became available.
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| | "Re(1):Does anyone remember arrivederchi" , posted Thu 25 Aug 20:00:
I think Pokkén had an original idea that needed some polish, which is more than you can say for 90% of fighting games, especially licensed ones. The idea of mixing Gundam VS/Virtual ON with traditionnal 2D 1v1 is intriguing to explore, and it extends the traditionnal long range VS short range tug-of-war in creative ways. I like it much better than Dissidia's model, for example.
A Pokkén 2 with a general pass on what works and what needs to be improved (and probably getting rid of the assists who don't really add anything and clutter the game) would be really interesting.
The other thing is that it is a very promising solution to adapt some licences. Jojo for example would work much better that way. Stick the entire ASB cast in there, and improve the long-range and mobility of some characters according to their skills in the source material. The power variety and the importance of long range VS short range stands would allow some characters to truly shine instead of being forced into a strictly 2D close combat archetype.
DBZ is complicated because of the flying so it probably wouldn't work, but a lot of shônen manga (including DB-not-Z) could look very faithful with that system.
I think it needs to be explored and refined, maybe with a different licence from Pokémon. It would be a shame if the system got abandonned never to be seen again.
EDIT
Speaking of ASB, here are the last characters. They had leaked before, but they are still a good choice anyway so I'm looking forward to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vATD2kx-GPo
Now Weather and Risotto just have to be part of the DLC and the game can be considered complete.
[this message was edited by Iggy on Fri 26 Aug 22:35] |
| | "Re(1):Street Fighter 35th" , posted Wed 31 Aug 23:31
quote:
It does remind me: are there many places to even play SFI now? Do they reproduce the concept of pounding the button for stronger attacks via modern controllers’ analogue buttons? I think I remember that in DOA2 on PS2 but never saw it used again.
Hum... That's a good question. I just checked in the recent arcade collection, and it became a 6 button game (with a lot of lag...)
Not that the game was any good, but it removes its most unique characteristic on top of that. Well, it is still aestietically interesting at least, when put in context. I like the England stages, going from Birdie's rundown street to Eagle's luxurious countryside landscape, the contrast is great. China going from the Great Wall to Gen's back alley is interesting too, similar to England but in reverse.
Thailand starts at sunset with Adon and goes to midday with Sagat (although I would have expected the other way around for the final stage). Also they start the trend of Thailand not having a street or people but only touristic vistas. Not like Bangkok or Chiang Mai are not famous for their streets busting with life...
The less said about the only black character being in front of Mount Rushmore the better.
Also, I had forgotten Sagat already has his tiger knee on top of his tiger projectile! I don't remember him having it in SF2, was it added in a later revision?
What strength!! But don't forget there are many gals like you all over the world.
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| PSN: beatolover
XBL: Dead
Wii: Dead
STM: bugrom1067
CFN: rugalbgood
| "Re(2):Street Fighter 35th" , posted Thu 1 Sep 09:23:
quote:
Hum... That's a good question. I just checked in the recent arcade collection, and it became a 6 button game (with a lot of lag...)
Not that the game was any good, but it removes its most unique characteristic on top of that.
The 2 buttons were interesting but so problematic maintenance wise (and also for injuries, people would punch the shit out of those buttons and hurt themselves, much like people literally hurling themselves at the later Sonic Blastman cabinets), so even back at the time a 6 button revision cabinet was released (I’d post a photo here if I could, but on the phone and not even sure how to get to the image board from here! w)
quote:
Also, I had forgotten Sagat already has his tiger knee on top of his tiger projectile! I don't remember him having it in SF2, was it added in a later revision?
Yes, he has it, the CPU just doesn’t use it much. In CE standing LK xx tiger knee is a pretty decent long range two in one.
[this message was edited by Red Falcon on Thu 1 Sep 09:24] |
| | "Re(2):Does anyone remember Pet Shop?" , posted Wed 7 Sep 17:37
quote:
I've watched some videos of All Star Battle R, and while it is an upgrade rather than a sequel, it seems that there was plenty of attention to details and updates. I just wish some Parts got a little more love in it (it's quite odd that this game is being re-released to coincide with the Stone Ocean anime, yet there are few Part 6 characters in comparison to Parts 3-5)... and I do wonder if we really needed a "Part 4 Jotaro" at all (maybe he's different from "Part 3 Jotaro" in terms of gameplay, but at least in the anime I don't recall Jotaro having any different skills - and it's not like his older self is radically different like "Part 3 Joseph" in comparison to "Part 2 Joseph", or DIO in comparison to Dio
It's definitely an upgrade. I'm far from having played with everyone, but some characters have had their moveset retooled to be more interesting, combo routes are longer and require more attention, autocombo can be turned off, and the general feeling is better (if only because of 60 FPS and better hitstop). There are still some oddities, some normals feel oddly chunky, some hitboxes don't feel right, but it's a major improvement either way (too bad there' functionally no online).
For part 6, Weather is basically all but a lock for the DLC (they probably took him to avoid any snail-related spoiler for the anime). The old Pucci who can evolve to C-Moon and Made in Heaven has also been announced as a free update coming later (probably for the same reason).
As for the other DLC, it depends how confident they are in the game. If they think they'll support it long term, they may spread out popular characters to have a catch each pack. More likely, they know it will be heavily frontloaded (since online is not functionnal), so all the popular characters will likely be in the first wave of DLC (Weather Risotto, Abbacchio?) and whoever will be added on top of those will be recycled from EoH.
Part 4 Jôtarô does have a different moveset, but he's basically a recycling of existing assets, similar to Anubis-Polnareff in the Capcom game. With the amount of characters in the game, we can't really be upset at this I think! Also ironically I wouldn't be upset at having Anubis-Polnareff, I liked playing him better than the other Anubis or Polnareff in Mirai he no Isan.
So, yeah, any part 6 character outside of Pucci+ and Weather don't seem likely to me. Rykiel maybe???
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| | "Re(3):Does anyone remember Pet Shop?" , posted Wed 7 Sep 21:43
quote:
Part 4 Jôtarô does have a different moveset, but he's basically a recycling of existing assets, similar to Anubis-Polnareff in the Capcom game. With the amount of characters in the game, we can't really be upset at this I think! Also ironically I wouldn't be upset at having Anubis-Polnareff, I liked playing him better than the other Anubis or Polnareff in Mirai he no Isan.
So, yeah, any part 6 character outside of Pucci+ and Weather don't seem likely to me. Rykiel maybe???
Yeah, I know that it sounds unfair to complain about the roster when there are so many characters in the game; it's just that JJBA has so many other amazing characters that could have been added in the place of what is basically an EX version of someone who was already there...
About Weather Report, I read that he's currently some sort of special Assist in F.F.'s movelist, so if he becomes a playable character, I wonder if he/his Stand would be removed from her movelist (and whether it would happen for good or only whenever there's a F.F. vs. Weather Report battle). I also read that the developers already took some measures to avoid inconsistencies, such as the Dramatic Finishes involving Prosciutto & Pesci or Pucci's Stand being disabled if they're one of the characters fighting in that stage.
As for Rykiel, I'd love his inclusion (and Stone Ocean needs at least one more villain - even Part 7 already has two of them in the game's roster)! And it'd be interesting to see him fighting and exchanging quotes with DIO (his father) and Giorno (his brother). I'd even suggest having his other two brothers being some kind of special Assists for his movelist (but yeah, that's very, very unlikely).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(4):Does anyone remember Pet Shop?" , posted Fri 9 Sep 02:30
quote:
Yeah, I know that it sounds unfair to complain about the roster when there are so many characters in the game; it's just that JJBA has so many other amazing characters
Yeah, I used to think that the reason they added a striker system was to add more characters that would be tricky to add as full-fledged characters (like a lot of characters from parts 4 or 8... or even 1 to be honest). In the end, that was not the direction they took... I guess 3D makes it widely more expensive than in KOF2000.
quote:
About Weather Report, I read that he's currently some sort of special Assist in F.F.'s movelist, so if he becomes a playable character, I wonder if he/his Stand would be removed from her movelist (and whether it would happen for good or only whenever there's a F.F. vs. Weather Report battle). I also read that the developers already took some measures to avoid inconsistencies, such as the Dramatic Finishes involving Prosciutto & Pesci or Pucci's Stand being disabled if they're one of the characters fighting in that stage.
Yes, but he doesn't show up during FF's move, so it should be OK (well, awkward if she calls him to help WHILE she's fighting him, but fighting games have been weirder in the past).
Anyway, datamining confirms that he's on the menu (not that there was any doubt).
quote:
As for Rykiel, I'd love his inclusion (and Stone Ocean needs at least one more villain - even Part 7 already has two of them in the game's roster)! And it'd be interesting to see him fighting and exchanging quotes with DIO (his father) and Giorno (his brother). I'd even suggest having his other two brothers being some kind of special Assists for his movelist (but yeah, that's very, very unlikely).
Interestingly, the game allows to unlock voices from all sorts of characters to put on your player card, and there are some glaring omissions in there.
You have all the playable characters, a bunch of characters that won't ever be playable (like Erina or the guy who drives the car that DIO hijacks in part 3) and then characters that could be playable such as Stroheim orJoshu. More importantly, several characters are missing... including Weather and Risotto. To say that it hints at who they are planning for DLC may be a stretch, but it's fun to speculate.
If we take it as face value, this would deconfirm a bunch of characters that may have had a chance, such as:
Dire (OK, maybe he didn't have a chance to begin with)
Stroheim (he was playable in EOH... Did recent events made it impossible to have a playble nazi in a game? I would have loved a tribute to World Heroes' Broken to go full circle. But I won't be sad if he's not back)
Oingo&Bongo, Enya, Debo (booooh, I loved him in the CPS3 game!) and both Darby brothers
The guys with The Lock and Surface, Tonio, Enigma
Abbacchio (I'm shocked, I was sure he'd be in!), Cioccolata&Secco
Ringo Roadagain, Pocoloco, Wekapipo
Joshu (was in EOH as well... maybe he's THAT unpopular?), Yasuho
That leaves a few characters suspiciously out of the list, such as...
Straits
Midler, all three versions of Anubis that were in the Capcom game, Alessy, N'dour (who was in EOH)
Highway Star, Bad Company
Risotto
Weather (more or less confirmed), Rykiel, as well as Dragon's Dream and Versace who both had voices in ASB but not in ASBR (suspicious!)
Hot Pants, Soundman, Diego+The World (who was in EOH)
Basically anyone from part 8 outside of Joshuu (good riddance). Or no one, since they didn't even update Jôsuke's outdated moveset.
Even if we restrict ourselves to this short list, something like Midler, Highway Star, Risotto and Weather would make for a very strong DLC package!
In terms of EOH characters, while Diego+The World is more or less expected, I have no clue how they'd do N'dour, but some movesets are very inventive so I'd be curious to see them try.
A bad guy from Stone Ocean would be nice as you said, and Rykiel, Dragon's Dream or Versace are workable choices IMO.
I'd love any version of Anubis, although the game already has a lot of counter characters, so maybe a different mechanic? If it's unique enough, that may even justify two versions, Chaka and Polnareff with this mechanic.
I'd be curious to see them take on Sand/Soundman. Hot Pants, I have no idea how they'd make her playable.
Also, RISOTTO.
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| | "Re(5):Does anyone remember Pet Shop?" , posted Fri 9 Sep 03:19
quote:
That leaves a few characters suspiciously out of the list, such as...
Straits
Midler, all three versions of Anubis that were in the Capcom game, Alessy, N'dour (who was in EOH)
Highway Star, Bad Company
Risotto
Weather (more or less confirmed), Rykiel, as well as Dragon's Dream and Versace who both had voices in ASB but not in ASBR (suspicious!)
Hot Pants, Soundman, Diego+The World (who was in EOH)
Basically anyone from part 8 outside of Joshuu (good riddance). Or no one, since they didn't even update Jôsuke's outdated moveset.
While I find it unlikely that Midler would be added, I wonder if she'd get the appearance she has in the Capcom game... In fact, I still don't get why the studio in charge of the new anime didn't give her this look. It's unlikely that Capcom would object to it, and I don't think Capcom could object, because Araki himself designed her appearance for that game, didn't he?
As for Part 8, I'd love to see Yasuho (and technically she's just as much of a protagonist in JJL as Gappy himself), but neither she nor her Stand were really fighters, were they? Oh well, maybe Kei could work (and Wonder of U, too). But as you said, it's more likely that Gappy will remain as the sole Part 8 representative.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(6):Does anyone remember Pet Shop?" , posted Fri 9 Sep 19:38
quote:
While I find it unlikely that Midler would be added, I wonder if she'd get the appearance she has in the Capcom game... In fact, I still don't get why the studio in charge of the new anime didn't give her this look. It's unlikely that Capcom would object to it, and I don't think Capcom could object, because Araki himself designed her appearance for that game, didn't he?
Midler is 100% an Araki design, and they could use her if they get the OK. For her moves, though... I imagine copying Capcom's work, especially for her normals, would probably be the fastest way, since she physically doesn't appear outside of that one panel in the manga, so there's nothing to take inspiration from.
And I think she's a valid choice, because... well... sex sells. There's a reason "Enemy of the week" Mariah has appeared in both fighting games while Enya, who has a role similar to Otoishi in part 4 as the "midway boss", doesn't.
Yasuho is important, yeah, on top of being more likable than Jôsuke, but I don't really know how they can adapt her... Although, who knows, they can use the trop of "female character who doesn't want to fight and keeps running away while accidentaly damaging the opponent"???
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| | "Re(9):Does anyone remember Elegance?" , posted Thu 15 Sep 08:36
quote:
I'm really not a Tekken player, but that trailer makes me understand why they are pushing Luke so much in SF6 : at least, even the basic trailer shows what's different and it's not another Ryu vs Ken game with some extras. From the outside, it looks so much like any other Tekken game with better surface lightning and bulging muscles? It's strange how Tekken never show any interest in pushing forward anyone that isn't Jin/Kazuya/Heihachi, and all new characters are instantly relegated as disposable novelties in the next game. Say what you want about Viper/Abel/Rashid (Or Shun'ei, K' or Ash) but at least the game cast still rotates in meaningful ways (even if the dev knows everyone will play Ryu and Iori). Even Mortal Kombat seems to have outgrown their fixation on the palette swap ninjas?
How many times have they bait-and-switched Mishima family members dying now?
Kazuya is now a killer cyborg, he's fine.
"Heihachi Mishima... is dead."
nah
quote:
Anyway. None of this matters, because the best fighting game of the generation is coming to switch, enhanced and even more gracious than ever.
Wow, the new animations are great!
Also the new scenarios!
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| | "Re(1):Re:Neco-Arc has come to battle..." , posted Wed 12 Oct 08:14
quote:
Does anybody here play Melty Blood: Type Lumina?
What do people at Cafe think of it? Will it be seen as just another anime fighter or do you think it brings a lot of it's own "flavor" given how it structures veterans to break/cancel the auto-combos into something else?
The recent patch substantially improves the game, because low shield catching both mid-hitting moves and low-hitting moves meant it was far too good of an option. Few characters had fast command overheads, so you seldom had to "gamble" with high shield. Moon Drive uppercuts were incredibly safe, with fast startup and being able to be jump canceled for free on hit/block/whiff. The auto-combo was somewhat annoying because you could accidentally trigger it a little too easily, which meant it messed up your combo route and damage. Shiki was too strong at the outset. Due to the game being 16:9, characters run HILARIOUSLY fast to be able to cross the screen effectively. Etcetera!
But it wasn't a bad game, and having lots of strong defensive options is a nice change from all the anime fighters where offensive is totally overwhelming.
Things which some of my friends who are old Melty Blood players find disappointing is how many Melty Blood icons still aren't in the game, and yet FGO guest characters still come in. Sion's absence is definitely kind of bizarre, given that she was THE Melty original character!
If the game has a problem now, it's that this very nice patch came too late, and the playerbase has dwindled substantially. I think it has a lot of neat ideas, I think people will still play it years from now, but I think many people will still prefer the wildness and in some cases flatout better animation of the original Melty Blood.
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| | "Re(2):Re:Neco-Arc has come to battle..." , posted Tue 25 Oct 23:23:
quote:
Does anybody here play Melty Blood: Type Lumina?
What do people at Cafe think of it? Will it be seen as just another anime fighter or do you think it brings a lot of it's own "flavor" given how it structures veterans to break/cancel the auto-combos into something else?
The recent patch substantially improves the game, because low shield catching both mid-hitting moves and low-hitting moves meant it was far too good of an option. Few characters had fast command overheads, so you seldom had to "gamble" with high shield. Moon Drive uppercuts were incredibly safe, with fast startup and being able to be jump canceled for free on hit/block/whiff. The auto-combo was somewhat annoying because you could accidentally trigger it a little too easily, which meant it messed up your combo route and damage. Shiki was too strong at the outset. Due to the game being 16:9, characters run HILARIOUSLY fast to be able to cross the screen effectively. Etcetera!
But it wasn't a bad game, and having lots of strong defensive options is a nice change from all the anime fighters where offensive is totally overwhelming.
Things which some of my friends who are old Melty Blood players find disappointing is how many Melty Blood icons still aren't in the game, and yet FGO guest characters still come in. Sion's absence is definitely kind of bizarre, given that she was THE Melty original character!
If the game has a problem now, it's that this very nice patch came too late, and the playerbase has dwindled substantially. I think it has a lot of neat ideas, I think people will still play it years from now, but I think many people will still prefer the wildness and in some cases flatout better animation of the original Melty Blood.
I've never played Melty Blood, but I've watched some videos of it and it looks amazing!
But I guess I should learn more about Tsukihime first, in order to understand properly who these characters are and where their special skills come from. Which is something I should have done long ago, considering it is from the same creators of Fate/stay night, whose story I loved to read (then again, reading F/SN consumed a lot of time, and the "H-game scenes" were really uncomfortable to read - sure, some of them are meant to disturb the reader, but even the ones meant to be romantic or erotic also feel disturbing... and with Tsukihime being from the same creator, I suppose the same kind of scenes are probably present in it...).
EDIT: also, this isn't really news at all, but I recently ran into an old relationship chart with the Nasuverse characters (the "Fate" part of it only includes Fate/stay night and Fate/hollow ataraxia, thus missing the hundreds of characters added in the dozens of new Fate titles and spin-offs released since then - but I'm not really interested in the titles outside of F/SN and F/HA, so it's fine), and... now I finally know where the avatar used by Professor in this board comes from. It's a very small and insignificant finding, yes, but it still made me a little happy (and I've been seriously needing to feel like that lately).
The weird thing is that I researched pictures of the character in the avatar, and she looks very different in most of them (especially in terms of hair color). I guess Type-Moon probably gave her design a considerable makeover over time.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Sat 29 Oct 21:45] |
| | "Risotto has come to battle..." , posted Thu 27 Oct 21:39
So, Risotto has been released.
His model and animations are obviously great, so no need to discuss this. He looks and sounds on par with what we can expect from this game, and it's a pleasure to finally play as him in all his glory.
But the main issue with Risotto was how to transpose him into a fighting game character. He's obviously using a lot of scapels, which is at the same time expected and boring. But fortunately CC2 has worked very hard to not only include other parts of his powers, but also make a somewhat coherent fighting plan that works with the character.
So, his main move is some scalpel projectiles that are similar to Urien's (weak=>horizontal, medium=>diagonal, strong => almost vertical). Good to harrass people from afar and get rid of pesky flyers like Pet Shop or Ultimate Kars, not a great anti-air otherwise. It's surprisingly strong for projectile wars, beats a lot of other options. It might be overtuned and too fast, but also projectiles in this game are weaken by the stylish step so it's not too bad.
His other main move is a sort of Burn Knuckle where he dashes forward and hit in extension either high, mid or low. Good for pokes, travel, or extending combos. The catch is that he turns transparent during the dash part of the move, giving him a lot of invulnerability. It's almost like Dimitri's or Dictator's dash ending with an attack. The only issue is that you can't really adjust the distance it travels, but it's very good to put yourself at a better range.
He also has to normal moves that supplement this combo-extending move: down-medium is basically Rose's slide, very fast and hard to punish while keeping him close. It can also slide under projectiles, which is good when he initiates a projectile war and then simply avoids it.
Another move is down-forward strong, where he throws a scalpel to the ground. It hits OTG, it can extend a little bit some combos, poke opponents outside of his prefered range, and since it's a projectile it works as a bait for counters.
His stand button is weird. Activating it makes him transparent, but in a way that doesn't actually makes him invisible (if only since the camera keeps following him). However, you can input forward or backward to make it a sort of short dash-into-transparency, sort of like SF5's Laura's V-Skill. It's another mobility move that allows him to keep his prefered distance and confuse the opponent.
There is also another use for this, down-down-stand, which makes him stitch himself and regain some white life (so it's theoretical healing: he still needs to not be hit for a while to transform it into real health). This looks quite strong if you can command the distances of the fight, as it costs way less than F.F.'s healing move for example. Although your gauge is probably better used to make some cancels to extend your combos.
So, up close, Risotto has a lot of ways to poke at his opponent, and many ways to continue a combo into some really damaging strings that leave him sort of safe. He also has moves that are good at frustrating the opponent, and he's very good at capitalizing on their mistakes.
But his most interesting quirk is his counter (of course he has a counter). When it hits, it applies a debuff on the opponent that prevents them from running or using some mobility tools. It doesn't seem that much since anyway up until now I was talking of Risotto as an up-close character, but he has another move that makes it extremely strong: by keeping a button pressed for 3 seconds without moving, he can inflict big damage on the opponent anywhere on the screen.
Of course, while you wait 3 seconds, you're entirely defenceless. So the general idea is to get close, harrass the opponent, for them to make mistakes, and either punish them with a big combo, or punish their pokes with a counter, and then run on the other side of the screen to use the 3 seconds attack. Or you can use the counter to paralyse an opponent, run away, and heal quickly while throwing scalpels.
I think it's quite a faithful adaptation of the character, and I'm quite happy with what they did!
Now, obviously, I have no idea how good or balanced he is, the bad netcode and lack of crossplay prevent any meaningful comparison. He seems like a character with polarising matchups, either you dominate the fight or the opponent has ways to counter your tricks (I can imagine Johnny for example to be a huge pain), and since his defensive options are not great, things can get ugly rapidly if the opponent is good at keeping the pressure.
A good assist to prevent Risotto from running away, or to defend yourself up-close, seems very important depending on your character. Risotto on his end absolutely needs to use his assist in a defensive way, unless he's so confident he can commit to one that can make his pressure even more suffocating (but then any mistake can spell your doom).
All in all, I regret that the game ended up using the assist system instead of a true team game a la XMen-SF or NGBC. That would have been very interesting.
I hope some skilled people will study the game and make some tournaments à la Mikado so we can see how much the game can be pushed in the end.
There's also something that I felt with a lot of characters and that unfortunately Risotto also suffer from: even though he has an interesting concept, it feels like he's missing one or two moves/options that would really make the character "complete". I've felt that with others, like Lisa-Lisa or F.F. for example. There's a little something that's missing, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is. It's frustrating like an itch you can't reach.
But, oh well, the game is already so much better than the previous version that I can't be greedy.
Now onto the next character! Will it be Weather, or will they delay him to the 3rd or 4th position? I can't remember the release dates, but I suppose the anime should be over by March next year, and he'll probably be added by then.
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