Best Melee Combat

[ScrabbitRabbit]

First person... none. It just doesn't work from a first person perspective.

Escape From Butcher Bay would like a word. Incredibly satisfying and brutal brawling; every hit feels like it has a massive weight behind it. The brawling bits were some of the most fun parts of that game.

My choices won't be popular, but here's what I believe to be the best from all the games I've experienced:


Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Academy = Not so much the singleplayer, but the multiplayer had great physics, allows for pretty much any kind of attack you can concieve of, and rewards player judgement and skill above all else. Brilliant if you like to feel like you are the one making the difference.

I loved this game so much. Single player was still great, especially when you got the mods for realistic dismemberment, loaded a random map, spawned a load of NPCs and chopped them into itty bitty pieces. :3 Flipping over my enemy's heads and decapitating them is one of my fondest childhood memories.

Overgrowth or as i like to call it Watership beatdown.
There is not even a health system it´s based on skeletal structure, hit the back hard enough and you break the spine,Same for the neck And any other body part.

That little video actually made me pre-order the game instantly, it looks way way way too awesome not to buy it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

I've wasted more time on the Alpha for that game than I have on several complete games :']

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

Mount and Blade is simply the best melee combat system yet, and the most realistic.

Manditory Dark Souls post.
Very good, realistic melee combat.

I had to raise a quizzical eyebrow at this statement. Dark Souls is definitely not realistic.

Excuse me as I lower my eyebrow to compensate. What exactly prevented it from being realistic?

Fighting with a sword does not look like that. The melee combat is awesome but has almost no grounding in reality.

 

[-Drifter-]

Manditory Dark Souls post.
Very good, realistic melee combat.

I had to raise a quizzical eyebrow at this statement. Dark Souls is definitely not realistic.

Excuse me as I lower my eyebrow to compensate. What exactly prevented it from being realistic?

It's a little difficult to explain in detail because I honestly don't know where to start, but if you've ever so much as pretend fought with wooden sticks then you know that it's just not how sword fighting works. If you want an example of something closer to realism, check out Mount & Blade and perhaps the first two Thief games (it's been a while since I played them.)

 

[Davroth]

Red Steel 2

I want more like that. They kinda did it right.

 

[The Madman]

It's been said before and you've clearly played the game but it bears saying again for those that have not played the game:

Mount & Blade: Warband has by far the best (In terms of realistic) melee combat in the gaming industry today. Might not look like much but the game plays brilliantly and is just smooth and entertaining to play. A textbook example of simple to learn but difficult to master!

 

[Burst6]

The next is Monster Hunter, as a series. With 11 different weapon types to choose from, each with their strengths and weaknesses, players are encouraged to experiment and diversify their play styles. That is a sign of great combat. Yes, I'm aware that 8 of the weapons are melee, but my point still stands.

Finally, Dragon's Dogma. It was a surprise to see Capcom release a game that, on the surface, looks like Monster Hunter and, while the influence is undeniable, it is its own beast. The melee combat is, unfortunately, not as varied as the previous two, yet what it does is polished to a near-mirror sheen.

I thought the combat in dragons dogma was far more varied than in Monster hunter. Yeah Monster Hunter has more melee weapons but Dragons Dogma has tons of skills for each melee weapon. I found myself spamming the same attack over and over much less in dragons dogma anyway.

To me It's the opposite of what you said. Monster hunter has the simple but polished combat and Dragons Dogma is more varied.

Fighting with a sword does not look like that. The melee combat is awesome but has almost no grounding in reality.

I think it does have some grounding in reality. A lot of the moves in dark souls are very stylish, like something an actor who wants to impress would use.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Dude, NOTHING tops the Arkham Games. I mean, come on: it's incredibly simple and easy to learn, but still effective and diverse. It feels intuitive and natural, as well as visceral and real. Though I wish they had kept the sound work from the first game... nothing really compares to that nice, hard SMACK when Bruce's fist connects with Joker Henchman #43's face.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Really? So many people who say AC? That's probably one of the most boring fight engines ever.
You could just stand in a corner for 5 mins with unlimited block, unlimited enemies and just use the conter and wack one after the other and you'd defeat them withot getting a scratch.

The crusaders are the only guys which put up a fight somewhat. That's what makes the game so tedious (The first wasn't better). I really liked the stroy but the fighting felt sluggish and was somehow in the way of the story.

 

[-Samurai-]

I always loved the combat in the multilayer of Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Academy, and even more so with a mod that slowed it down and made it more strategic.

Also, The Cursed Crusade has fun combat.

 

[lord Claincy Ffnord]

First person... none. It just doesn't work from a first person perspective.

Try Dark messiah, seriously, it doesn't cost much and its completely worth it, it has the best first person close combat I have ever seen in a game. Although I'll admit that beyond the combat it doesn't really have much else going for it.

 

[jollybarracuda]

I'm really surprised at all the Batman votes for best melee combat. Sure, it's endlessly enjoyable, but it's about as deep as a puddle of water. Then again, depth shouldn't have to come before enjoyment, so maybe i'm just feeling particularly hipster right now. *flips hair*

I just recently I started playing Mount and Blade Warband; and i must say, the first fight in that game (which kinda comes out of nowhere in the middle of the streets), was, well...it seemed kinda like crap. But then you get into fights in the big open fields with armies and it all comes together better than any other realistic combat game has been. Especially with the More Sounds mods that adds better sword and armor clanks (and one of the hobbit's battlecry's from Lord of the Rings...) it really stands as the best sword fighting game I've ever played. I want a version of that game with trolls and orcs...

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Riddick:Escape from Butcher Bay. It had great hand to hand combat.

 

[octafish]

Riddick, Condemned, and Zeno Clash are my picks. I know a lot of people love the Rocksteady Batman games, but I hated the combat in Arkham Asylum, it was just an unwelcome distraction from the good bits of the game. In fact I abandoned the game about two thirds in when I just couldn't stomach yet another venom thug. I played Chaos theory instead and it made me feel better.

 

[Doopliss64]

Dead Space. Resident Evil 4. Actually, just horror games in general.

Oh, oh wait! Penumbra: Black Plague. No, Amnesia. Yeah.

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

Fighting with a sword does not look like that. The melee combat is awesome but has almost no grounding in reality.

I think it does have some grounding in reality. A lot of the moves in dark souls are very stylish, like something an actor who wants to impress would use.

What an actor would use trying to look stylish would get him killed within a few seconds in real life. Actual realistic melee fighting is somewhat unexciting for the screen, so realistic HEMA swordfighting has (to my knowledge) NEVER been seen in a movie. Even Mount and Blade is a little Hollywoody, but it's still more realistic than Dark Souls.

Dark Souls still kicks all the ass though.

 

[revjor]

Chronicles of Riddick had probably the best fps fist fighting i've played.

 

[Skin]

For me, it's The Witcher 2. In a lot of melee focused games (especially RPG's) I'll find myself drifting off in the middle of combat, but TW2 requires you to be on your toes at all times lest you be torn to shreds. Geralt isn't the average damage sponging RPG hero and you're always just a few sword strikes away from a GAME OVER sceen, so strategy and quick wits are vital to survival. You've got make use of your environment, separate your foes from the herd, prioritize targets and strike quickly before rolling away, etc. It feels appropriately lethal, and nothing makes you feel more badass than flawlessly picking off a large group of bandits.

I find it quiet flawed. For one, you never seem to do enough damage, so the game turns into rolly polly with Geralt for 15 minutes as you slowly carve down the enemies health and cast Quen every so often. The lethality in -melee- combat is poor and thus the game slows to catatonic sloth status.

The plus side in TW2 however is forcing you to utilize everything in your possession to exceed in a fight. If you are not prepared for a fight, then you will not have it easy. Then it runs into other problems such as alchemy being retarded since some fights you CANNOT drink a potion beforehand, bombs and traps require far too many ingredients that turns the skill into glorified farming, etc.

So, all in all, Witcher 2 has good combat, but its melee combat is not outstanding. It also suffers from a stupid difficulty curve (very hard to a complete joke)