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Post by vysethebold on Jan 27, 2008 14:03:44 GMT -5
Alright guys, lets stop the bashing now. The author of the article, the head editor of the site, and several long-standing members of the board agree to keep the article the way it is. So the article will stay the way it is.
Please don't drag this discussion any longer, guys. Let's get on with our lives and talk about more important things.
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Post by Pitchfork on Jan 27, 2008 23:24:24 GMT -5
Devil's advocate: maybe fighting game articles should give a mention of how well they were received amongst the competitive/hardcore crowd. (Operative word: hardcore.)
But I don't agree that a lack of tournament viability necessarily makes a fighting game worthless. Just because, say, Project Justice (broken by Momo, if I'm not mistaken) isn't featured at EVO doesn't mean a group of fighting game fans can't spend an afternoon playing the hell out of it and loving it.
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Post by dai jou bu on Jan 28, 2008 19:52:15 GMT -5
I like 8-bit and 16-bit fighting games, I like Smash Bros., I like SNK - and I like them all more than anything Capcom ever made in the genre. Comboing is boring. A severe lack of balance IS a real problem. The SFII template isn't the "right way". It has a lot of inherent flaws that are totally needless and that a failure to discard lead to the death of the genre. Fighting games should have a ground level entry level. They should have the comboing toned down or eliminated entirely. They should abandon all of those needlessly complex move commands. Complain about how it does things the "wrong way" all you like, but Smash Bros. is basically a refinement of, and improvement on, a genre that had for eight years prior been defined by an inherently flawed game. I dunno if this post was partially meant to be sarcasm in tone since you contradict yourself the moment you say that the SF II model is "wrong" and "incorrect," and then proceed to bash everything based on the SF II model, which is a pretty darn good concept, given the limitations of standardized arcade hardware at the time. To put it in another way, this is like saying Calculus (which is essentially something like Guilty Gear XX in the 2D fighting game genre) is wrong and flawed despite the fact that it is essentially the "sequel" to algebra simply because it uses concepts that work based around this model and improves upon it by adding more complex functions into its equations. Smash Brothers would be something from applied mathematics.. Anyway, my two credits on this matter: - A fighting game's appeal to me comes from either how well it builds upon existing concepts or how well they can implement radical ideas while still being considered a fighting game, with the latter being more favorable to me yet is frowned upon by 98.88% of the fighting game populace because... well, it just is. - I totally agree that a fighting game's competitiveness is determined by how many people play it. Melty Blood feels super-bland to me and I personally believe it's not tournament-worthy, but it sure appeals to a lot of people for various reasons I can relate to.
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Post by kyouki on Jan 28, 2008 20:34:34 GMT -5
My understanding of that bit is that he considers SF2 to have been a great game (it was easy to get in and you could actually play it without being competitive and without mastering it), but that it set a template that later games copied, rather than copying what made SF2 the hit it was. If that is not what he is arguing, then I guess I disagree with him.
People flocked to SF2 because of the awesome graphics. They stayed because it was a really well designed game with interesting characters and lots of tactical options. This kept people playing. It attracted basically everyone who might step into an arcade- great graphics stood out from the crowd, it was easy to play, and if you got good enough you could finish it on a quarter.
It just so happened that it was designed so well that it was worthy of mastering and competing in. This fueled the furor even more, because it gave you something to do after you mastered the AI. It's fun to get good enough to one credit a machine, but it's also nice if there is some kind of challenge for you after that. Otherwise you move on to the next machine.
This is all stuff worthy of copying. But then Capcom wanted to keep the ball rolling so they started tweaking and adding, tweaking and adding. They made tiny improvements and continued to make it less and less friendly to new players. So you go from marketing your game to basically anyone that steps foot into an arcade, to a smaller and smaller subset of that audience.
At this point a lot of fighting games are not meant for some guy walking into an arcade (or a game store). I look at a game like Guilty Gear or Hokuto no Ken and don't know where to start. There are all these meters and gauges and special stances and neon sparks and electricity all over the place and all these cancels and super cancels and just frames and roman cancels. That is stuff that's meant for the guy who is going to go to the arcade and play every day so he can master that and compete. That's cool, but you're locking out a huge portion of your audience by doing so.
Smash Bros, Soul Calibur, and Mortal Kombat (!!) are all really successful because they are pick up and play games. I'll let others who are more knowledgeable about them comment on their tournament status (I know MK is not tournament worthy, at least the 3d ones). Fighting games can be very popular and can sell well. You just have to design them so that some guy can walk into best buy off the street, pick up the case, look at the back and go, "Oh, this looks cool." But then the important part is he has to be able to take the game home and play it and not feel absolutely overwhelmed.
I should be the target audience for the Hokuto no Ken game- I love that show. I have all the comics and all the movies (even the live action one with Gary Daniels!). I watched the whole TV series over the course of a year. I hate toys and crap but I had some Kenshiro figures on my desk at one time. I legitimately enjoyed the 3d PSX Hokuto no Ken game. But I can't play the fighting game. I spent nearly $80 on it, and I just don't have the time to figure out what all those gauges and meters do and how they interract. I even went and bought the strategy guide hoping it would break it down stupid-like for me, but it only made it worse.
Last Blade may or may not be tournament worthy. Let them discuss that at SRK or the EVO high council meetings or whatever. Mentioning that Last Blade "sucks" because it is not tournament level in one of these articles would be like mentioning that a shoot em up sucks because it is too easy/hard to one credit. I just don't think that's the goal of this site.
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Post by evilsamurai on Jan 28, 2008 22:23:09 GMT -5
I agree about Hokuto no Ken and Guilty Gear. The most successful fighting games are the ones that are easy to learn but hard to master such as Tekken, Street Fighter 2 (Super Turbo is still played worldwide), and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (if you can't have fun with MvC2, go bang your head against the wall). The original Soul Calibur was excellent but the sequels have been going downhill. Mortal Kombat is terrible except for UMK3 and Shaolin Monks, which is not even a fighting game. King of Fighters has always seemed too complex and rushdown oriented for me. It says something that the most popular SNK series in the US by far among casual fighting gamers is the relatively simple Samurai Shodown (1 and 2 sold more than any other SNK games and even 5 Special sold out of its entire run).
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Post by YourAverageJoe on Jan 29, 2008 13:18:50 GMT -5
I think Guilty Gear is pretty accessible really because it's easy to find out what buttons are fast enough to initiate a combo and you can mash buttons from there on. It also has relatively simple motions compared to, say, early KoF titles.
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Post by Shellshock on Jan 30, 2008 10:43:53 GMT -5
...sorry but if you play fighters alone, you are not playing them correctly). The Last Blade series are simply not good fighters to play against other people competitively. That basically means they were failures as fighting games. Comboing is boring. A severe lack of balance IS a real problem. The SFII template isn't the "right way". It has a lot of inherent flaws that are totally needless and that a failure to discard lead to the death of the genre. Fighting games should have a ground level entry level. They should have the comboing toned down or eliminated entirely. They should abandon all of those needlessly complex move commands. Complain about how it does things the "wrong way" all you like, but Smash Bros. is basically a refinement of, and improvement on, a genre that had for eight years prior been defined by an inherently flawed game. I couldn't disagree with you more. I do however, see your point: fighting games getting so complex that newcomers can't get into. True. But combos are not boring, quite the contrary. They do turn off people that lack the required coordination to pull them off, yes. But the ones that do have that ability (and can also easily pull off old-school SNK desperation moves like Geese's Raising Storm) enjoy them very much. Starting with KOF96/97 all "complicated" desperation commands were converted into "double circle forward" motions, be it to make the games more appealing to the newbies that wanted to get on the band wagon or just to make the game more "fluid". This is when I stopped playing KOF games, but then again, it's just my taste. Smash Bros. is not a refinement of fighting games by a long shot. It's more of an action/fighting hybrid. Sure it's fun, I love the series, and it's a great party game; but just like other Nintendo products it is but a clever way of drawing in everybody who can't get into fighting games because they think they are too hard with over-simplified controls, tons of fan-service and an excellent 4 player mode.
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Post by Revolver Ocelot on Jan 30, 2008 12:47:46 GMT -5
Yeah. I agree with shellshock. Combos are awesome. Saying fighters shouldn't have them is insane. Besides, professional players don't even use combos. Have you ever watched professional tournament matches? All they do is block, poke and whiff intentionally to create openings for like 80% of the match and when an occasional opening does occur, only THEN will they exploit that opportunity with a combo.
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Post by Weasel on Jan 30, 2008 14:40:48 GMT -5
The most successful fighting games are the ones that are easy to learn but hard to master such as (...) Marvel vs. Capcom 2 I don't know about the rest of you, but I had serious trouble learning MvC 2. Of course it could be because I have no friends to play it with, and I've been playing the Dreamcast version against the (unfair) CPU player with the basic Dreamcast controller and not an arcade stick. But I can't get the hang of any of it, despite the fact that I managed to figure out the first game.
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Post by Shellshock on Jan 30, 2008 21:37:34 GMT -5
The most successful fighting games are the ones that are easy to learn but hard to master such as (...) Marvel vs. Capcom 2 I don't know about the rest of you, but I had serious trouble learning MvC 2. Of course it could be because I have no friends to play it with, and I've been playing the Dreamcast version against the (unfair) CPU player with the basic Dreamcast controller and not an arcade stick. But I can't get the hang of any of it, despite the fact that I managed to figure out the first game. Call me an old man, but I hate all those hyper, frantic, spastic, 100-hit-auto-combo, flashy-special-move fighting games.
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Post by dai jou bu on Jan 31, 2008 17:06:09 GMT -5
Besides, professional players don't even use combos. Have you ever watched professional tournament matches? All they do is block, poke and whiff intentionally to create openings for like 80% of the match and when an occasional opening does occur, only THEN will they exploit that opportunity with a combo. I'd also agree with combos being important in fighting games; as it shows how skilled you can be if you can pull them off in the right situation. It's only when learning combos becomes essential to be considered minimally skillful in casual play is when I see it as a problem. Of course, "minimally skillful" here is subjective because said player could be hanging around people who are seriously into the fighting game in question and are dying to improve themselves by all means possible. Also, what fighting games are you talking about here? A lot of the match videoes I've seen in recent fighting games always use combos even if they're blocked for mixups, pressure, and block damage from special moves.
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Post by morzas on Feb 22, 2008 1:20:35 GMT -5
I just read over the Last Blade article and it is way too positive. The Last Blade series had serious potential but came out horrible. It is almost as infinite ridden as X-men vs Street Fighter. May someone please edit the article to mention the horrible brokenness and slowdown ever present in the series? People have also said that the Last Blade is a good game with no decent port as the Neo Geo was not powerful enough to handle it (and the games were not beta tested enough.) I'm quoting this for emphasis. Despite the original poster's trollish attitude, I think it'd be important to at least make a note that LB is a grossly imbalanced game. In all the fighting game circles I've been in, that's what the general consensus has been.
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Post by Revolver Ocelot on Feb 22, 2008 8:41:52 GMT -5
Again with this thread...
People. LET. IT. GO.
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Post by morzas on Feb 23, 2008 2:42:29 GMT -5
I don't understand why you're so angry over this. I think it's important that the level of competitiveness is addressed (even if as just a single sentence) in any article about any given fighting game. This is, after all, Hardcore Gaming 101.
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Post by vysethebold on Feb 23, 2008 3:41:39 GMT -5
Look guys, I don't know how else to say this: if you don't like our decisions as an editing staff, that's fine. However, you have to respect our decision regardless. Our decisions are in the best interest of how the editing staff and the authors of the articles want to write about these games. We have a different audience in mind for these articles than most of you are used to. These articles are simply meant for beginners, people that are new to hardcore gaming, not the person who is already hardcore (though you can, of course, read the articles if you are already). Chances are, if you already know a ton about a certain game, you don't need to read an article meant to introduce it. Please try to understand this stance. That is not to say that you cannot bring up concerns. Please do so. However, do not keep harping on a subject after we've already discussed it. If you keep doing so, your arguments will work against you simply because it annoys us.
Let's forget this thread and move on with our lives, please.
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