Fighting Games in the Escapist?

[Maximum Bert]

I used to Love the Blazblue series and was hyped for guilty gear Xrd. But I live in the UK and the Satanists who run Atlus decided to not bother releasing Xrd in Europe, and BB Chronophantasma only got a shitty digital release. I hope you go bust Atlus I really hope you do.

One of my favourite fighting game seires is the king of fighters games. They are awesome though sadly SNK has been rather quiet recently.

As Dreiko has already mentioned its more Zens fault for the horrid EU releases at least it was in the past not sure whats happening with Xrd though funny thing is in the game timeline its got a date of 2014 20th December that reads something like if all has gone well the game is available in North America and Europe now so I guess all did not go well again.

You could just do what I do and import the American or Japanese version bonus with the Americam version is quite often you will get the game a lot cheaper as well as sooner on Valentines day GGXrd was half price digitally for the day (or weekend cant remember). I just made an American account so I could get the free day one DLC characters and any DLC I wanted cheaper (rarely buy any) and the game earlier.

I dont know what is happening with SNK but I would love to see a new fighter from them XIII was great imo so I would like to see a new KOF or Last Blade especially. Rumours are around they are making a new fighter but they are not much more than rumours atm and so could be false.

 

[Grahav]

Goddammit Atlus.

I mean it when I curse Atlus. However I do love their games (when I'm allowed to have them) so I hope their games survive them.

While I like the KoF series I have two petty issues with SNK. First, they cut off K9999 and have put a shadow the hedgehog clone sometime ago. Second, they really screwed a manga about fighting games that gave companies free publicity. I haven't bought the last KoF because of that.

Yeah Tetsuo was cool I'd like him back too. Although K'is pretty cool in my opinion, I like anime black people with white hair. To be honest they could replace the whole cast for all care, as long as they keep my man Terry Bogard. I think he's fucking awesome, he's my second favourite fighting games character just under Ken Masters.

My only real complaint is that Supers are interrupted way too easily in most SNK games, and they always stress out over Orochi when he's last actual appearance was fucking KOF 98. It's been 17 years guys I think your safe now.
I haven't heard about them screwing over a manga though, that sound pretty shitty.

Not K' (he is integral to the story) but that guy named "Nameless." I will not even post a picture of that here.

About, the manga it was this one: Hi Score Girl

the situation: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-08-06/hi-score-girl-manga-recalled-after-snk-copyright-charges/.77361

My interpretation. Yeah, the letter of the law was broken. BUT, overall what the manga was doing was free advertising, the thing could have been solved in a friendly matter, but it turned into shit.

I am so mad.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I've been playing UNIEL since summer (JP version) and I'm glad to see more people giving it a go. Maybe now they'll see that they should have also brought Melty Blood over lol.


And lol the captcha was "too salty!". It really is magical.

 

[EMWISE94]

I'm in this odd position with fighting games, I enjoy them for the most part, I'm a sucker for combat systems that rely on stringing together moves (whether a small move list or large one) in glorious combos and all the lot. BUT, I've always been turned away by the multiplayer side of fighting games as its usually a competitive scene. Don't get me wrong I like playing competitively but I usually take that stance if I'm having fun with the game and just generally enjoy playing, I'm not gonna sit down for hours playing match sets trying to perfect skill, I just wanna play for fun and I feel that the way that fighting game communities usually present themselves is like if you're not playing to get into competitive level akin to tourneys then you shouldn't be playing them; a slight exaggeration I know but seriously that's the vibe I usually get from the FGC. But to state again, I enjoy playing at a casual level honestly, yeah I'll try to be as pro as I can but I'm not trying to get to any pro tourneys... casual tourneys maybe where its all shits and giggles. I've tried finding like sparring partners to play with online and whatnot but I'm in a region where fighting games are like... non-existent, even Steam groups I've joined that try to unite South African fighting game players are dead so my usual recourse is to search outta my region but so far only Skullgirls has good enough net code that I can play against people worldwide with the least lag, haven't tried BB: Continuum Shift yet so yea.

Another odd position I'm in with fighting games is that I play em on PC, and anyone that plays fighting games will tell you, fighting games communities on the PC: ghost towns. Well not all of them, USFIV has a bustling crowd but Skullgirls, KOF XIII, MK 9? its hard to find matches. Yeah I know i just kicked off this post with "I'm not a fan of the multiplayer aspect." but lets be real here, rarely do fighting games provide a satisfying single player campaign. Story modes are usually just going through 7 random matches and getting a what-if ending for the character... aside from MK 9, that is a story mode I enjoyed immensely and would want more fighting games to take that approach, I've heard people always bring up Blazblue as a close contender but I went through Ragna's story in Calamity Trigger and was NOT amused. The visual novel style feels too lurchy in pace for me and I just... don't like that style of story telling to be honest, I don't care about the multiple endings and scenarios I wanna know the TRUE one. Also not really a fan of like challenges that usually are a variant of "beat opponent in X moves or in X amount of time" usually because I find that to be tedious at times, especially if I find the games control to be stiff (mostly looking at you KoF)

On the topic of anime fighters let me jump to what I like visually in a fighting game... anything that isn't anime fighters! most of them have art styles that look too "generic anime" especially with the sprite usage and also the character designs in most of them bore the shit outta me. Guitly Gear is the only one that I like visually... well I wont lie I despise how Xrd went with 3D models but they still animate like freakin sprites! but its character designs I like so I'm cool with. Of the fighting games I play I'd say I like the visuals of Skullgirls and Street Fighter IV the most, Skullgirls cause yeah its awesome 2D animation, character designs I'm a bit mixed on... okay its only really just with Parasoul, her attire bugs me for a commander of the Canopy Helghan Army and whatnot.. but its just me and my minor gripes; as for SFIV I just like that cartoonish 3D look also the character designs are simple and work, like their not too boring and not too over the top. KoF XIII... the visuals are... okay I guess, not unpleasant the backgrounds are usually pretty impressive but 90% of the cast have the most bland and boring character designs I've ever seen... I've never been so bored of a fighting games cast. Mortal Kombat sits in a weird place for me, the variety of cast for me is kinda cartoonish and yet most of the body types are too similar.. I'm glad to see that female character design in MK X have toned down the pointless titillation that MK 9 had going on.

In terms of controls and gameplay, I honestly prefer simpler inputs, I love MK for that and I really wanna try out Killer Instinct cause it just looks and sounds amazing and I hear the controls are easy to pick up... don't got an Xbone though so here's hoping for a PC port. Speaking of MK 9 I also like t cause of how smooth it feels to chain together moves, yeah GG and Blazblue feel that way too sorta but their inputs sometimes annoy me. Skullgirls I feel is fun but too fast paced at times, with SFIV I feel like combos in that game feel stiff at times, I went back and played Alpha 3 when I couldn't access my Steam games for like a week and I preferred how the combo stringing felt in it. I don't play KoF XIII much... fuck those inputs, also its combo flow kinda feels stiff as well kinda like SFIV's but even more.

I... wrote a lot, its currently 3AM so I'm gonna assume the 4 paragraphs above are probably filled with a bunch of waffling and nonsense so let me muster some energy to write a nice little TL;DR:

I enjoy fighting games for their combat centred gameplay and the nice little challenge that comes from stringing together combos, I don't really play online much cause I'm a scrub and I honestly just wanna play for fun and not to get to any tourney level of pro (kinda like what I do with Mobas) also I play em on PC and its a ghost town for most fight games there. I mosty play Skullgirls and USFIV online but live in South Africa so I cant get local matches and sometimes lags an issue (not in Skullgirls though I get smoothish matches there, around 300ms which is not that bad!), I also play GG X2 (looking forward to Xrd on PC) BB but not that much, hoping to see KI make it to PC and looking forward to Tekken 7 as I've played every Tekken aside from TTT2 and 6, also looking forward to SFV.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I'm in this odd position with fighting games, I enjoy them for the most part, I'm a sucker for combat systems that rely on stringing together moves (whether a small move list or large one) in glorious combos and all the lot. BUT, I've always been turned away by the multiplayer side of fighting games as its usually a competitive scene. Don't get me wrong I like playing competitively but I usually take that stance if I'm having fun with the game and just generally enjoy playing, I'm not gonna sit down for hours playing match sets trying to perfect skill, I just wanna play for fun and I feel that the way that fighting game communities usually present themselves is like if you're not playing to get into competitive level akin to tourneys then you shouldn't be playing them; a slight exaggeration I know but seriously that's the vibe I usually get from the FGC. But to state again, I enjoy playing at a casual level honestly, yeah I'll try to be as pro as I can but I'm not trying to get to any pro tourneys... casual tourneys maybe where its all shits and giggles. I've tried finding like sparring partners to play with online and whatnot but I'm in a region where fighting games are like... non-existent, even Steam groups I've joined that try to unite South African fighting game players are dead so my usual recourse is to search outta my region but so far only Skullgirls has good enough net code that I can play against people worldwide with the least lag, haven't tried BB: Continuum Shift yet so yea.

Another odd position I'm in with fighting games is that I play em on PC, and anyone that plays fighting games will tell you, fighting games communities on the PC: ghost towns. Well not all of them, USFIV has a bustling crowd but Skullgirls, KOF XIII, MK 9? its hard to find matches. Yeah I know i just kicked off this post with "I'm not a fan of the multiplayer aspect." but lets be real here, rarely do fighting games provide a satisfying single player campaign. Story modes are usually just going through 7 random matches and getting a what-if ending for the character... aside from MK 9, that is a story mode I enjoyed immensely and would want more fighting games to take that approach, I've heard people always bring up Blazblue as a close contender but I went through Ragna's story in Calamity Trigger and was NOT amused. The visual novel style feels too lurchy in pace for me and I just... don't like that style of story telling to be honest, I don't care about the multiple endings and scenarios I wanna know the TRUE one. Also not really a fan of like challenges that usually are a variant of "beat opponent in X moves or in X amount of time" usually because I find that to be tedious at times, especially if I find the games control to be stiff (mostly looking at you KoF)

On the topic of anime fighters let me jump to what I like visually in a fighting game... anything that isn't anime fighters! most of them have art styles that look too "generic anime" especially with the sprite usage and also the character designs in most of them bore the shit outta me. Guitly Gear is the only one that I like visually... well I wont lie I despise how Xrd went with 3D models but they still animate like freakin sprites! but its character designs I like so I'm cool with. Of the fighting games I play I'd say I like the visuals of Skullgirls and Street Fighter IV the most, Skullgirls cause yeah its awesome 2D animation, character designs I'm a bit mixed on... okay its only really just with Parasoul, her attire bugs me for a commander of the Canopy Helghan Army and whatnot.. but its just me and my minor gripes; as for SFIV I just like that cartoonish 3D look also the character designs are simple and work, like their not too boring and not too over the top. KoF XIII... the visuals are... okay I guess, not unpleasant the backgrounds are usually pretty impressive but 90% of the cast have the most bland and boring character designs I've ever seen... I've never been so bored of a fighting games cast. Mortal Kombat sits in a weird place for me, the variety of cast for me is kinda cartoonish and yet most of the body types are too similar.. I'm glad to see that female character design in MK X have toned down the pointless titillation that MK 9 had going on.

In terms of controls and gameplay, I honestly prefer simpler inputs, I love MK for that and I really wanna try out Killer Instinct cause it just looks and sounds amazing and I hear the controls are easy to pick up... don't got an Xbone though so here's hoping for a PC port. Speaking of MK 9 I also like t cause of how smooth it feels to chain together moves, yeah GG and Blazblue feel that way too sorta but their inputs sometimes annoy me. Skullgirls I feel is fun but too fast paced at times, with SFIV I feel like combos in that game feel stiff at times, I went back and played Alpha 3 when I couldn't access my Steam games for like a week and I preferred how the combo stringing felt in it. I don't play KoF XIII much... fuck those inputs, also its combo flow kinda feels stiff as well kinda like SFIV's but even more.

I... wrote a lot, its currently 3AM so I'm gonna assume the 4 paragraphs above are probably filled with a bunch of waffling and nonsense so let me muster some energy to write a nice little TL;DR:

I enjoy fighting games for their combat centred gameplay and the nice little challenge that comes from stringing together combos, I don't really play online much cause I'm a scrub and I honestly just wanna play for fun and not to get to any tourney level of pro (kinda like what I do with Mobas) also I play em on PC and its a ghost town for most fight games there. I mosty play Skullgirls and USFIV online but live in South Africa so I cant get local matches and sometimes lags an issue (not in Skullgirls though I get smoothish matches there, around 300ms which is not that bad!), I also play GG X2 (looking forward to Xrd on PC) BB but not that much, hoping to see KI make it to PC and looking forward to Tekken 7 as I've played every Tekken aside from TTT2 and 6, also looking forward to SFV.

The story in Blazblue is a constantly repeating time-loop with myriad permutations based on slight changes. This loop has gone for about 70000 years. The "true end" in CT isn't as much "what really happens" as it is "that one loop that finally triggered the events that will end the looping, allowing for time to flow freely again".


Basically, the stories all happened, true end is just the final loop. To get the true end you have to beat everyone's storymode.

Also, outside of continuum shift, there's another, newer blazblue called Chronophantasma. You're basically still on the 2009 game my friend XD.


Finally, tourneys are fun. Just like how you have fun by playing casually so do people in competitive settings have fun there. The point to them is that it's MORE fun than simply playing casually since you have a higher skill level so a lot more insane and amazing stuff happens on a regular basis.

 

[EMWISE94]

The story in Blazblue is a constantly repeating time-loop with myriad permutations based on slight changes. This loop has gone for about 70000 years. The "true end" in CT isn't as much "what really happens" as it is "that one loop that finally triggered the events that will end the looping, allowing for time to flow freely again".


Basically, the stories all happened, true end is just the final loop. To get the true end you have to beat everyone's storymode.

Also, outside of continuum shift, there's another, newer blazblue called Chronophantasma. You're basically still on the 2009 game my friend XD.


Finally, tourneys are fun. Just like how you have fun by playing casually so do people in competitive settings have fun there. The point to them is that it's MORE fun than simply playing casually since you have a higher skill level so a lot more insane and amazing stuff happens on a regular basis.

I'm aware of how theres a 3rd BB game but like I said I mostly game on PC so never really bothered looking up or following the BB storyline as the games weren't available me (on Steam anyway I know Calamity Trigger was there for yonks but was on GFWL but... its GFWL you know how that was.) Also I'm not entirely against competitive play or tourneys its just a lot of times I look up footage for fighting games and whatnot you mostly find tourney footage and like the OP said (quoting Yahtzee): fighting games are a celebration of character. and most tourney vids only seem to celebrate the characters that are top of the tier list, obviously not all the time but you know what I mean. When I look up footage of a fighting game I love the tourney ones sure but I wanna see more than just the top tier characters being used over and over, I wanna see the whole cast, kinda the reason I love Maximilian_Dood's 'Week of *insert KI character here*' vids, cause he showcases all the characters while also showing you a tourney level play style.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I've honestly always preferred western fighting games over Japanese ones (though I did love Darkstalkers back in the day). I'm not a big fan of most Japanese animation styles, and I'm not an ultra-hardcore fighting game fan, so I can't spend 100's of hours learning individual fighters.

I tried to get into games like Blazblue and Guilty Gear, but something about them never really clicked, while I had a blast with MK9 and Injustice, and I jumped up and down in excitement when they announced that Killer Instinct was coming back. I don't think I played Tekken past Tekken 2 or 3. I grew up with Street Fighter in the arcades, and I certainly enjoyed it, but once I saw Killer Instinct it was pretty much "Street what?".

I'm totally stoked for MKX. I love the variations system, I think all the characters look great (I've watched Erron Black's trailer about 10 times today, I think he looks phenomenal) and I just can't wait to play it. To me, MK is one of those games that's just as fun to watch as it is to play.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The story in Blazblue is a constantly repeating time-loop with myriad permutations based on slight changes. This loop has gone for about 70000 years. The "true end" in CT isn't as much "what really happens" as it is "that one loop that finally triggered the events that will end the looping, allowing for time to flow freely again".


Basically, the stories all happened, true end is just the final loop. To get the true end you have to beat everyone's storymode.

Also, outside of continuum shift, there's another, newer blazblue called Chronophantasma. You're basically still on the 2009 game my friend XD.


Finally, tourneys are fun. Just like how you have fun by playing casually so do people in competitive settings have fun there. The point to them is that it's MORE fun than simply playing casually since you have a higher skill level so a lot more insane and amazing stuff happens on a regular basis.

I'm aware of how theres a 3rd BB game but like I said I mostly game on PC so never really bothered looking up or following the BB storyline as the games weren't available me (on Steam anyway I know Calamity Trigger was there for yonks but was on GFWL but... its GFWL you know how that was.) Also I'm not entirely against competitive play or tourneys its just a lot of times I look up footage for fighting games and whatnot you mostly find tourney footage and like the OP said (quoting Yahtzee): fighting games are a celebration of character. and most tourney vids only seem to celebrate the characters that are top of the tier list, obviously not all the time but you know what I mean. When I look up footage of a fighting game I love the tourney ones sure but I wanna see more than just the top tier characters being used over and over, I wanna see the whole cast, kinda the reason I love Maximilian_Dood's 'Week of *insert KI character here*' vids, cause he showcases all the characters while also showing you a tourney level play style.

This issue is most pronounced with imbalanced messes of games than the ones I list above in my first post. Capcom ones are really bad about this, since they have a lot of chars who clearly are inferior in every way and are never used competitively. This is why I don't play those games, I agree with you that you wanna see everyone do well.


In the games I mention, the balance is more evenly handed so if you go to the tournaments you will see MANY chars. In the latest Evo, the top best char in Blazblue didn't even make it to top 8! And out of the top 8, we had 6 different characters being played!

I fear your approach is too much grounded in a capcom-centric angle. Try and explore the other areas out there and you will be surprised!

(Though yes, pc is sadly a handicap, you will wanna invest in a ps3/ps4 to get those games, I wonder if Xrd is even gonna ever hit PC, they definitely have made no plans about it known and Japanese arcades are already on the next version of Xrd as we speak)

I've honestly always preferred western fighting games over Japanese ones (though I did love Darkstalkers back in the day). I'm not a big fan of most Japanese animation styles, and I'm not an ultra-hardcore fighting game fan, so I can't spend 100's of hours learning individual fighters.

I tried to get into games like Blazblue and Guilty Gear, but something about them never really clicked, while I had a blast with MK9 and Injustice, and I jumped up and down in excitement when they announced that Killer Instinct was coming back. I don't think I played Tekken past Tekken 2 or 3. I grew up with Street Fighter in the arcades, and I certainly enjoyed it, but once I saw Killer Instinct it was pretty much "Street what?".

I'm totally stoked for MKX. I love the variations system, I think all the characters look great (I've watched Erron Black's trailer about 10 times today, I think he looks phenomenal) and I just can't wait to play it. To me, MK is one of those games that's just as fun to watch as it is to play.

If I were to list one key difference between arcsys fighters (BB GG persona) and MK is that arcsys fighters are reliant upon timing. You have to press the button for the subsequent move as the move you're currently doing is occurring. There's a small window of time and getting accustomed to that is more akin to practicing an instrument and getting the muscle memory down than waiting for a visual cue to do the combo, at least in most cases. (usually combos with visual cue demands are on TOP of the timing demand so it's even harder)


What we have in MK however is a complete LACK of timing. The attack strings are always occurring in the same timing, no matter how you tap the button. You just tap it half a second ahead of time twice and the move will hit twice when it is programmed to do so, no timing needed. This system basically makes doing attack strings super easy since there's no timing demands. You just need to press the right button the right number of times and presto; you have a string.


Now, the PROBLEM with the MK approach is that, as I said, the attack string always happens in the same timing. It has no variance. It's always the same exact speed, the same delay the same everything. In arcsys games however, the freedom of the system allows you to do it with ANY timing. No kick or punch is hidden behind two other punches. You can ALWAYS do ALL the moves at any time. Sure, at an initial play level, the ease of execution will override this barrier but as someone who had already been competitive when trying MK9, that system felt horribly restricting and dumbed down compared to what I had become accustomed to. I like having all my options at my fingertips at all times, all my moves to use at any time. In MK you only have the first hit of the two/three hit strings to use during neutral play and then if you land it or if it becomes blocked you go from there.

Imagine if you could also do the second hit or the third hit of those strings, at any time. Imagine if you could combo multiple third-hits together without anything between them, at any time! This is what arcsys games are like!

 

[EMWISE94]

This issue is most pronounced with imbalanced messes of games than the ones I list above in my first post. Capcom ones are really bad about this, since they have a lot of chars who clearly are inferior in every way and are never used competitively. This is why I don't play those games, I agree with you that you wanna see everyone do well.


In the games I mention, the balance is more evenly handed so if you go to the tournaments you will see MANY chars. In the latest Evo, the top best char in Blazblue didn't even make it to top 8! And out of the top 8, we had 6 different characters being played!

I fear your approach is too much grounded in a capcom-centric angle. Try and explore the other areas out there and you will be surprised!

(Though yes, pc is sadly a handicap, you will wanna invest in a ps3/ps4 to get those games, I wonder if Xrd is even gonna ever hit PC, they definitely have made no plans about it known and Japanese arcades are already on the next version of Xrd as we speak)

Define 'capcom-centric' cause I'm not too sure what you mean by that. There's hope that Xrd will come to PC cause Arc Sys started putting out later instalments of BB on Steam (right now on Continuum Shift) with the notion of testing the waters to see if theres a market there, they also tossed GG X2 #reload and Isuka on Steam, plus Xrd was made with Unreal Engine, porting that shit to PC shouldn't be that hard I know most japanese games dont port well to PC mostly cause the engines they're made in aren't too well accustomed to PC waters. But like I mentioned in my first post, never really been into anime fighters, I only picked up BB Calamity Trigger cause this was back when I was getting into fighting games and wanted to grab some of the well known titles to see how they are and whatnot, gameplay wise its pretty good i guess, I honestly try not to get into the nitty-gritty of fighters in terms of like learning the frame count on moves and all that cause for me it tends to feel like I'm now studying the game for an exam or something. Yeah I know that's a weird reason to not want to get that into it but I honestly prefer keeping at surface level with fighting games.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

This issue is most pronounced with imbalanced messes of games than the ones I list above in my first post. Capcom ones are really bad about this, since they have a lot of chars who clearly are inferior in every way and are never used competitively. This is why I don't play those games, I agree with you that you wanna see everyone do well.


In the games I mention, the balance is more evenly handed so if you go to the tournaments you will see MANY chars. In the latest Evo, the top best char in Blazblue didn't even make it to top 8! And out of the top 8, we had 6 different characters being played!

I fear your approach is too much grounded in a capcom-centric angle. Try and explore the other areas out there and you will be surprised!

(Though yes, pc is sadly a handicap, you will wanna invest in a ps3/ps4 to get those games, I wonder if Xrd is even gonna ever hit PC, they definitely have made no plans about it known and Japanese arcades are already on the next version of Xrd as we speak)

Define 'capcom-centric' cause I'm not too sure what you mean by that. There's hope that Xrd will come to PC cause Arc Sys started putting out later instalments of BB on Steam (right now on Continuum Shift) with the notion of testing the waters to see if theres a market there, they also tossed GG X2 #reload and Isuka on Steam, plus Xrd was made with Unreal Engine, porting that shit to PC shouldn't be that hard I know most japanese games dont port well to PC mostly cause the engines they're made in aren't too well accustomed to PC waters. But like I mentioned in my first post, never really been into anime fighters, I only picked up BB Calamity Trigger cause this was back when I was getting into fighting games and wanted to grab some of the well known titles to see how they are and whatnot, gameplay wise its pretty good i guess, I honestly try not to get into the nitty-gritty of fighters in terms of like learning the frame count on moves and all that cause for me it tends to feel like I'm now studying the game for an exam or something. Yeah I know that's a weird reason to not want to get that into it but I honestly prefer keeping at surface level with fighting games.

Frames are a more precise way of describing speed. You can say "this move is faster than that move" but it's less precise than saying "this move has 3 frames recovery so it is safe since no other move has 3 frames start-up but if you instant block it that will give you 3 extra frames to do stuff in so you can punish it but only with attacks that are fast enough that they occur in 6 frames or less, which usually are quick pokes".

Basically, when you wanna communicate precisely, you use frames. It's not a law and it's not studying, it's simple clarity.


As for capcom-cenctic, I mean that if you purport that the impression you got from tourneys regarding the character usage is as you said it is above, you have not inspected Blazblue or GG or UNIEL or DFC or Arcana tourneys, since their reality is so vastly different than your impression. The character issue you mention only really is an issue in Street Fighter related games and Marvel since they have such bad balance. Other games are nowhere near that bad.


Also, the designation "anime fighter" is kinda weird to me, since there's no GG anime that the GG game was based on. Like, take DBZ Budokai, that's an anime fighter, there was DBZ, an anime, then they made a fighter for that anime, ergo anime fighter.

Japanese-made games with anime art-styles though, those are just 2D fighters. You can't really bunch all of them in one group since if you actually play them, games such as Aquapazza are very much similar to Street Fighter whereas games like Melty Blood are nothing like it. They all are vastly different in art-style and tone as well, not just gameplay. Finally, SF4 is ALSO anime-like just as much as those other things, since anime is more of a medium than just one type of look. SF is just one more variance of it so it's not any less anime than arcana heart or under night in birth. The limited edition back in 2009 even came with an actual anime movie dvd bundled that tells the story in more detail. How can a game that is sold with an anime OVA packed together not be "anime" when you list other games such as BB in that anime category.

 

[EMWISE94]

Frames are a more precise way of describing speed. You can say "this move is faster than that move" but it's less precise than saying "this move has 3 frames recovery so it is safe since no other move has 3 frames start-up but if you instant block it that will give you 3 extra frames to do stuff in so you can punish it but only with attacks that are fast enough that they occur in 6 frames or less, which usually are quick pokes".

Basically, when you wanna communicate precisely, you use frames. It's not a law and it's not studying, it's simple clarity.


As for capcom-cenctic, I mean that if you purport that the impression you got from tourneys regarding the character usage is as you said it is above, you have not inspected Blazblue or GG or UNIEL or DFC or Arcana tourneys, since their reality is so vastly different than your impression. The character issue you mention only really is an issue in Street Fighter related games and Marvel since they have such bad balance. Other games are nowhere near that bad.


Also, the designation "anime fighter" is kinda weird to me, since there's no GG anime that the GG game was based on. Like, take DBZ Budokai, that's an anime fighter, there was DBZ, an anime, then they made a fighter for that anime, ergo anime fighter.

Japanese-made games with anime art-styles though, those are just 2D fighters. You can't really bunch all of them in one group since if you actually play them, games such as Aquapazza are very much similar to Street Fighter whereas games like Melty Blood are nothing like it. They all are vastly different in art-style and tone as well, not just gameplay. Finally, SF4 is ALSO anime-like just as much as those other things, since anime is more of a medium than just one type of look. SF is just one more variance of it so it's not any less anime than arcana heart or under night in birth. The limited edition back in 2009 even came with an actual anime movie dvd bundled that tells the story in more detail. How can a game that is sold with an anime OVA packed together not be "anime" when you list other games such as BB in that anime category.

Well I usually see the term anime fighter tossed around but its a VERY short list actually, usually consisting of BB, GG, UNIEL, P4 Ultimax and some others that I left out. the term is usually used to group those with that... you know, very typical looking anime style, no necessarily the whole pixel sprites art direction. I wont lie its not a very solid category and honestly a lot can fit in there but lets just say it appeals to the 'anime' crowd more than SFIV would or even KoF. Also the grouping tends to mostly feature 2D fighters so yeah, I rarely see stuff like the DBZ games grouped in there or even stuff like J-Stars All Star Battle and thats about as anime fighter as you can get.

Also I will admit I rarely watch tourney footage these days of capcom fighters, I mean I already see UMVC3 as a cluster molest on visuals, sure its not THAT bad but it gets busy at times, also the camera does that thing which I despise in that characters have really high jumps and sometimes floats and the camera tracks them and leaves the chaos to happen below and I find that kinda distracting. I remember hearing about last year's USFIV with Snake Eyes' Zangief but never looked into it. In fact i rarely watch tourney footage at all these days, I missed last year's EVO so I might go and watch the top 8 for the TTT2 side of it on youtube later.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Frames are a more precise way of describing speed. You can say "this move is faster than that move" but it's less precise than saying "this move has 3 frames recovery so it is safe since no other move has 3 frames start-up but if you instant block it that will give you 3 extra frames to do stuff in so you can punish it but only with attacks that are fast enough that they occur in 6 frames or less, which usually are quick pokes".

Basically, when you wanna communicate precisely, you use frames. It's not a law and it's not studying, it's simple clarity.


As for capcom-cenctic, I mean that if you purport that the impression you got from tourneys regarding the character usage is as you said it is above, you have not inspected Blazblue or GG or UNIEL or DFC or Arcana tourneys, since their reality is so vastly different than your impression. The character issue you mention only really is an issue in Street Fighter related games and Marvel since they have such bad balance. Other games are nowhere near that bad.


Also, the designation "anime fighter" is kinda weird to me, since there's no GG anime that the GG game was based on. Like, take DBZ Budokai, that's an anime fighter, there was DBZ, an anime, then they made a fighter for that anime, ergo anime fighter.

Japanese-made games with anime art-styles though, those are just 2D fighters. You can't really bunch all of them in one group since if you actually play them, games such as Aquapazza are very much similar to Street Fighter whereas games like Melty Blood are nothing like it. They all are vastly different in art-style and tone as well, not just gameplay. Finally, SF4 is ALSO anime-like just as much as those other things, since anime is more of a medium than just one type of look. SF is just one more variance of it so it's not any less anime than arcana heart or under night in birth. The limited edition back in 2009 even came with an actual anime movie dvd bundled that tells the story in more detail. How can a game that is sold with an anime OVA packed together not be "anime" when you list other games such as BB in that anime category.

Well I usually see the term anime fighter tossed around but its a VERY short list actually, usually consisting of BB, GG, UNIEL, P4 Ultimax and some others that I left out. the term is usually used to group those with that... you know, very typical looking anime style, no necessarily the whole pixel sprites art direction. I wont lie its not a very solid category and honestly a lot can fit in there but lets just say it appeals to the 'anime' crowd more than SFIV would or even KoF. Also the grouping tends to mostly feature 2D fighters so yeah, I rarely see stuff like the DBZ games grouped in there or even stuff like J-Stars All Star Battle and thats about as anime fighter as you can get.

Also I will admit I rarely watch tourney footage these days of capcom fighters, I mean I already see UMVC3 as a cluster molest on visuals, sure its not THAT bad but it gets busy at times, also the camera does that thing which I despise in that characters have really high jumps and sometimes floats and the camera tracks them and leaves the chaos to happen below and I find that kinda distracting. I remember hearing about last year's USFIV with Snake Eyes' Zangief but never looked into it. In fact i rarely watch tourney footage at all these days, I missed last year's EVO so I might go and watch the top 8 for the TTT2 side of it on youtube later.

No dbz budokai is legit 2D with side-stepping as the only thing that it has in 3D. You may be thinking of the tenkaichi games in which you fly around. Budokai is a proper fighting game but also an anime game ergo anime fighter. There's also Super DBZ which is made by old SF2 devs which also is an anime fighter.

But yes even if you bunch all of those games together, it's still incorrect since there's not just one "traditional anime look" nor one look that uniquely "appeals to anime fans" since anime is a wide medium that has many styles dating far back which all appeal in various degrees to different anime fans. That's like saying all 3D photorealistic graphics in games are done to appeal to "movie fans" but nobody would say that since it's obvious that not all movies look like just one thing. It makes little sense therefore to bunch anime together in one look just because there's some samey material out there. Don't confuse what's good with what's popular.


I'm not sure about the tag finals in evo2014 but if you wanna see some hype finals watch the blazblue ones. The champion was literally in tears by the end lol.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

I find it quite odd that the Escapist has all but given up on Fighting Game news these past months. I can't tell if it's a decision to, or if the staff just doesn't care all much about the genre. Given the slew of updates and reveals that have been KI Season 2, and Mortal Kombat X on the brink of releasing - I've seen practically 0 coverage on both of these games, even though any news reveal from both of these generate a ton of attention.

Oh well. I got plenty of other sources I can go to for FG news. But I do think it's a bit strange how it seems to be left out here.

OT: MORTAL KOMBAAAAAAAT!

Hell, yes I'm looking forward to MKX more than quite a lot of other releases this year. Personally speaking, MK is among my most favorite fighting game franchises. And I've been a fan of Netherrealm's style for quite some time too. There's something about their ability to create games oozing with cheesy charm that I greatly enjoy. And besides the style of MKX, I love everything else I've seen. The variation system is a huge deal. And I can see myself sinking a ton of hours into this game trying to master variations. Add to the fact that I've never seen an MK game that has sooo many characters I want to main. I'm gonna play this for a long time, it seems.

I got my Collector's Edition preordered and I'm counting down the days to release.

Killer Instinct is a game I really wish I could play. I loved the original KI's on SNES and I'd love to be able to experience the new one. But, I'm just not going to get an Xbox One. And that sucks. All I can really do is watch videos and streams of it.

GG Xrd - I was a big fan of the Guilty Gear series back in the day and I'm glad to see it back. But imo, Xrd seems to be lacking too much in content. A sparse cast of characters with what seems to be a stream of others getting added into the game post-release doesn't sit right with me. I'll keep my eyes out for a complete edition down the line, because I'd love to play this again.

SFV - Another game I got my eyes on. I was never a big fan of Street Fighter (Personally, I was always more of a KoF guy. But dat 3rd Strike tho...) and yet I still have a soft spot for the series and want it to become interesting to me again.
After the Fighting Game bliss that was 3rd Strike. I thought 4 was a bit of a sore thumb. It was far too slow and stiff in my opinion, and also looked like shit. SFV looked somewhat different from 4 during it's first announcement. But every video I've seen ever since looks like it's truly evolving into a different visual style altogether. The lighting and depth of the single stage we've seen look very good. And Charlie! Yes! SFV seems like it could be promising.

 

[Maximum Bert]

As for capcom-cenctic, I mean that if you purport that the impression you got from tourneys regarding the character usage is as you said it is above, you have not inspected Blazblue or GG or UNIEL or DFC or Arcana tourneys, since their reality is so vastly different than your impression. The character issue you mention only really is an issue in Street Fighter related games and Marvel since they have such bad balance. Other games are nowhere near that bad.

I can see what your gettin at Dreiko but I think you may be generalising a little yourself here. Some of Capcoms games have been broken as hell so much so that you never see any but a few in competitive play most notably Marvel Vs Capcom 2 but also to a lesser degree UMVC3. SF2 is still changing now and SF3 you have a few top characters such as Chun, Yun, Ken, Urien, Makoto, Ibuki, Akuma/Gouki, Dudley then the rest that hardly ever get played competitively unless the other guy is trolling or doesnt care/ thinks hes so hot that he can do it with worse characters.

I dont think Arc make any games as broken as MVC2 but I would not say they are amazingly better at balancing I mean how often do you see shadow characters played competitively (not counting Shabrys) in Persona 4 Ultimax outside Shadow Chie and maybe Shadow Mitsuru and Narukami. In guilty Gear the top tiers still seem to be ones like Zato and Faust with Ky probably up there as well oh and ofc Elphelt. You do still see people play a variety of characters of course and even bad characters can do good in the hands of specialists.

And lets not forget Kokonoe in Chrono. I know a lot of the issues I have mentioned have been patched or are going to be patched but that wont make the game perfectly balanced but really atm with SF I dont see it being any more broken than a lot of Arcs games sure Marvel is completely whack in its balance but SF4 as the latest one isnt so bad. Third strike is probably the worst balanced SF game (not including 1) and you still see a fair few characters represented.

Arcs games are great as a whole but I really dont think they are superior in balance to the SF franchise and indeed many other Capcom games like Darkstalkers but I will admit they are more consistent in their balancing.

Also as an aside I hope we get the patches for BB ,GG and Ultimax on consoles soon or with Ultimax at all.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

As for capcom-cenctic, I mean that if you purport that the impression you got from tourneys regarding the character usage is as you said it is above, you have not inspected Blazblue or GG or UNIEL or DFC or Arcana tourneys, since their reality is so vastly different than your impression. The character issue you mention only really is an issue in Street Fighter related games and Marvel since they have such bad balance. Other games are nowhere near that bad.

I can see what your gettin at Dreiko but I think you may be generalising a little yourself here. Some of Capcoms games have been broken as hell so much so that you never see any but a few in competitive play most notably Marvel Vs Capcom 2 but also to a lesser degree UMVC3. SF2 is still changing now and SF3 you have a few top characters such as Chun, Yun, Ken, Urien, Makoto, Ibuki, Akuma/Gouki, Dudley then the rest that hardly ever get played competitively unless the other guy is trolling or doesnt care/ thinks hes so hot that he can do it with worse characters.

I dont think Arc make any games as broken as MVC2 but I would not say they are amazingly better at balancing I mean how often do you see shadow characters played competitively (not counting Shabrys) in Persona 4 Ultimax outside Shadow Chie and maybe Shadow Mitsuru and Narukami. In guilty Gear the top tiers still seem to be ones like Zato and Faust with Ky probably up there as well oh and ofc Elphelt. You do still see people play a variety of characters of course and even bad characters can do good in the hands of specialists.

And lets not forget Kokonoe in Chrono. I know a lot of the issues I have mentioned have been patched or are going to be patched but that wont make the game perfectly balanced but really atm with SF I dont see it being any more broken than a lot of Arcs games sure Marvel is completely whack in its balance but SF4 as the latest one isnt so bad. Third strike is probably the worst balanced SF game (not including 1) and you still see a fair few characters represented.

Arcs games are great as a whole but I really dont think they are superior in balance to the SF franchise and indeed many other Capcom games like Darkstalkers but I will admit they are more consistent in their balancing.

Also as an aside I hope we get the patches for BB ,GG and Ultimax on consoles soon or with Ultimax at all.

The shadow chars were jokes though, not meant to be competitive. Only in the latest patch out in arcades do they ever get played. It's like unlimited chars in BB but not broken so they would not be banned and lend an illusion of more new content than there really was to P4A2.

As for Kokonoe, she was that good yet not ONE made it to top 8 in Evo. Instead we had the B tier chars Bang and Tager competing. That in and of itself is proof enough. If you wanna put it into SF terms, that'd be like no Evil Ryu or Rose players making it there but Gouken and El Fuerte making it instead. Can you really see that happening?


Oh and the BB patch is gonna be out in less than a month in the form of CP Extend. It's gonna be so awesome, I can't wait. D:

 

[Danny Dowling]

Capcom wise I have to say I believe that Darkstalkers is the pinnacle of "good" and the pinnacle of "fun" is easily Super Gem Fighter. A slightly deeper version of one of those would be an inst-buy for me.

Street Fighter 5 looks kind of promising, but SF4 is fairly dull. It's disappointing that it took them an entire console generation to get SF4 right, I feel like it's only now with Ultra at the point it should have been at with initial release. Everything prior just feels too imbalanced and, above all else, just plain wrong.

And then there's the fact that STrekken is just an excuse for them to test ground bouncing for SF5 and choose which characters made Ultra... ugh Capcom really are a scummy company.

 

[Maximum Bert]

*snip*
As for Kokonoe, she was that good yet not ONE made it to top 8 in Evo. Instead we had the B tier chars Bang and Tager competing. That in and of itself is proof enough. If you wanna put it into SF terms, that'd be like no Evil Ryu or Rose players making it there but Gouken and El Fuerte making it instead. Can you really see that happening?


Oh and the BB patch is gonna be out in less than a month in the form of CP Extend. It's gonna be so awesome, I can't wait. D:

Im not convinced they shadows were meant to be jokes but whatever thats unimportant I still think you are playing favourites even if you dont mean to and El Fuerte has won a few tournies a guy called Pepeday does pretty well with him. As for Gouken I dont recall him winning any tournies but some people do well with him Velociraptor being the one that comes to mind I cant find his placing but I think he was just outside top 8 in Evo. Im not sure Evo alone is a good marker of strength but here we go for SF4 and Chrono EVO 2014 results

1st MD|Luffy Rose
2nd Bonchan Sagat
3rd RZRFuudo Fei Long
4th RG|Snake Eyez Zangief
5th EG|Ricky Ortiz Rufus, Rolento
5th RZR|Gackt Fei Long
7th HORI|Sako Ibuki, Elena, Evil Ryu, Gen
7th EG|Momochi Ken, Juri

Quite a mix im sure you will agree only duplicate is Fei Long with Fuudo and Gackt playing him. Nobody considered Rose top tier before Luffy won and Sagat is also while not weak more of a B character at the time the top tier was considered to be Yun who did not make it and Evil Ryu which Sako uses among his many characters and still since this only Daigo and Sako have ever done well with Evil Ryu and only Luffy has managed to do well with Rose.

Next with have Chrono top 8

1st Galileo Litchi
2nd Dogura Azrael
3rd BE.TSB|Dora_Bang Bang
4th JYoshiki Nu-13
5th N-O Rachel
5th JTiku Tager
7th sG Litchi
7th Tochigin Azrael

Ok so here we have two Litchis and 2 Azraels both strong characters Rachel is also pretty powerful then you get B type characters like Bang and possibly Nu and somehow Tager got in there but then again you have Zangief somehow in SF probably because the guys playin them are just that good with the character (or they are not as bad as everyone thinks)

These results alone would appear to show SF4 as the more balanced game which is why I dont like just going off of oneset of results i.e EVO which for some reason is seen as the be all and end all when its clearly not.

In both games you are likely to get dominating players and therefore see their character a lot but if its just them who seem to be able to win with that character then yes the character may be strong but they obviously arent bas strong as people would like to make out.

Point is as I stated earlier Capcom and Arc games are not miles away in their balance sure both have some whack balancing at times but not enough to destroy the game and over time a lot of issues get addressed.

I will give it to you that the Chrono top 8 and especially the grand finals were amazing possibly the best ever. SF s were also good but it wasnt gonna top Chrono that year Marvels was good as well im pretty much done with that game but the finals were fun.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The difference is that in Blazblue, the best chars are Kokonoe and Carl, both of whom didn't make it and instead we had B tier chars and Nu beat out a lot of others (Nu is like B+) while in SF4 you have Rose, Evil Ryu and Fei Long, who indeed are those chars that are most played due to being top tier.

Litchi and Azrael are strong but NOT top tier, they're in the range of Rufus in SF4, not of Evil Ryu. That's the key difference. Of course some of the better chars will make it but unlike SF, it is possible for none of the best ones to make it and the best players won't instantly switch mains and those who do will not be rewarded.


Also, Tager is much worse than Zangief in context. You have to see how he lost against Nu (the other lower tier char) to really appreciate how bad he is. It's just that with a few good reads you can make anyone work in this game despite tiers, which is what's good about it. It's the same how Bang came third (beating the Rachel player, Rachel being another very strong char).

 

[Grahav]

I always find it funny to discuss character tiers.

Overall, tiers vary with the skill set of the player. In Blazblue, serious playing (tournaments) Rachel is top, Tager is bottom. But at lower levels of skill, Tager is awesome. Rachel, not so much. Rachel needs longer strings to deal the real damage and manage wind, pillars and frogs. Do a command grab with Tager, and see half life disappears.