HD Remix designer attacks Street Fighter IV
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I pretty much agree with what he says. I know I'd take advantage of it not having the double blind character selection and pick characters to counter the one my opponent has chosen. This probably harkens back to the day when your opponent was sitting beside you on the arcade cabinet or couch.
At least he doesn't sound bitchy about the whole thing; I think it is an honest critique.
At least he doesn't sound bitchy about the whole thing; I think it is an honest critique.
I think many of the issues that Sirlin identifies are not going to be deal-breakers to most fans, a fact he pretty much admits with his last sentence. Every game is about taking the pluses with the minuses, but my personal opinion would be that SFIV succeeds in more areas then it fails, and will be at the king of the fighting game heap until Tekken 6 (hopefully) arrives this winter.
I think that Sirlin's complaints only highlight how disconnected he is with casual Street Fighter players. The casual player doesn't care about kara-throws or low-short combos, because they don't know what they are. The casual player will pick a character they like the look of, or they can do the moves for and stick with it. Does it matter that Vega is a bottom tier character? No, because he's got that badass claw. Casual players do not think in terms of frames and the casual player is not using a joystick.
Basically, he's listing things that irritate him about tournament style play, and projecting them onto people who simply don't care about them.
Basically, he's listing things that irritate him about tournament style play, and projecting them onto people who simply don't care about them.
Sure, he's talking about it in a language that makes no sense to anyone who hasn't played a lot of fighting games or at least isn't acquainted with the lingo. But his complaint is really much simpler than that: there are tricks in the game that require a lot of mechanical skill that a casual player doesn't have access to. The talk about kara throws and combos are just examples where this happens. The reason a casual player doesn't care about such things is because they don't know about it.nilcypher said:
To put it simply, his point is basically: movesets should be dead easy for everyone, since the pros will come out on top anyway with their superior zoning, timing and strategy. Based on this, SF4 isn't casual friendly.
But that's the thing, the move sets are easy for everyone. The majority of the special moves are based around the same four or five inputs, for example, if you know how to do Ryu's moves, then you know how to do Ken's, Dan's, C.Viper's, Sagat's, etc, etc.Woe Is You said:
When you start getting into exploiting bugs like kara throws or single frame link combos, you're moving out of the realm of casual players.
Also, I didn't really go into his complaints with the controls before, and I feel like I should. It seems like most of his complaints with the controls stem from the fact that he is using a joystick, rather than a control pad. This comment, for example:
is ludicrous if you're talking about a pad, as all three kick buttons and all the punch buttons are assigned to their own buttons, I would imagine, expressly for the purpose of doing ultras, and the handful of special moves that require you to press all three. They're also very handy for EX versions of special moves. You might wonder why I'm focusing on pads over sticks, well that's because, by definition, a casual player is not going to buy a new peripheral to improve their game. It's also worth mention that Super and Ultra combos are supposed to be tricky to pull of, because they're so damaging. They're like a reward for taking the time to practise them.
Sirlin's main problem, having read his comments a few times is that his idea of 'casual friendly' seems to be 'even new players should be able to compete at a tournament level', which is completely removed from any reasonable definition of 'casual' that I can think of.
The reason here is that most of them would have seen the tournament replay of SF3:3S where Daigo full parries against someone and then hits a super link for a win.Irridium said:
That, and if I recall correctly, he's marketed for 'western' gamers.
Honestly, the Sirlin's [or whatever his name is, sorry...] complaints have no bound; he complains about the game not being 'casual friendly' [yes, besides the fact that one of the most damaging combos is devastatingly easy; jump hardkick - low hardkick], and then goes into karathrowing and one-frame combos. The game is 'casual friendly' [I hate that term so much...] to the fact that some of my friends, who have barely ever played a fighter, let alone SF, can actually compete against me in SF4. I honestly think he's just.. sort-of cut about not having the ability to 'parry' moves [the watered down version is a focus block, but let's not get into how useless that is to a normal player], and other specialities that tournament players had mastered to get a huge edge over other players.
Also, the complaints about qcf+PPP and Ultra's to Supers... 'casual' players will be using a controller if they buy the console version, which on the Xbox 360, handily has a macro for PPP and KKK. Two-button throws are ENDLESSLY useful; I love having the ability to choose when I throw [and please, oh please don't tell me two-button throws are hard on a pad; you can mash it with your thumb to pull the damn things off.]
If anything, he could have complained about Zangiefs throws having stupid ranges and damage capabilities compared to anyone else, but... hey.
He's the 'expert', no?
I agree with just about everything the man says, except this:
In the end, I'm still loving SF IV. Despite my many complaints (the big, nitpicky one being that it doesn't play like SFA3, which is still my favorite in the series), I think the game is really very good.
I hate reducing damage in combos. Long combos are fine, short combos are fine, whatever. But don't reduce the amount of damage for an entire combo ever, because it's stupid and makes no sense. If you are even considering that, just remove that combo from the game entirely. I don't combo to rack up numbers on the screen. I don't care if I do 2 hits or 25 hits. I'm just in it for damage. So keeping a combo in the game but artificially reducing the damage of the moves is, to me, extremely irritating and unintuitive. It makes me not want to combo. And that's my rant.
In the end, I'm still loving SF IV. Despite my many complaints (the big, nitpicky one being that it doesn't play like SFA3, which is still my favorite in the series), I think the game is really very good.
I don't know: to have "reasonable" success button-mashing a fighter that came out for consoles two days ago doesn't seem like a feat too reflective of anything to me.D_987 said:
...Which makes sense, since if you look at a game like Soul Calibur tournament players aren't of less skill, they just have to rely more on - you said it - timing, essentially. It's an unfortunate posture Capcom's taken that arduous combo memorization must remain a component of the majority of their fighters, even ones that are billed as being accessible, since all it does is deter new people from becoming involved in the increasingly stale SF community. Fighters shouldn't be akin to math homework: other genres have moved on, so should they minus a few niche titles for the overly nostalgic.
Super Smash Bros. Melee, the DBZ Budokai and Budokai Tenkaichi series, and the increasingly dull SC franchise, among others, all represent a new generation of fighters inasmuch as they've each tried to make gameplay less contingent on memorization, which is fitting given the shift from trial-and-error the entire industry has underwent (my opinion: SSB simplies with large maps where placement becomes significant and strong basic moves that can be chained and items; Budokai with simple combo execution; Budokai Tenkaichi with a two-button setup and the ability to outmaneveur/out-pay attention to your opponent; and Soul Calibur with a lot of powerful quick jab-like moves, ring-outs, continuations, etc).
And anyway, what the hell is SFIV? SF or SF Alpha 3 except worse gameplay, better graphics, and a nice PR copy. Big deal.
Does it matter? I'm saying that chain canceling and single-frame links are not bugs. Yes they are tournament-level tactics, but somebody insinuated that they are simply bugs to be exploited and should not be taken into account. Incorrect, I say.nilcypher said:
Ah, I see your point now. When I said bugs, I was referring to kara throws specifically. I don't think that chain cancelling and single frame links are bugs, but I also don't think they are the purview of casual players.willard3 said:
Apologies for any confusion, I realise now that I could have phrased it better.
On a related note though, the combo tutorials are part of the hard challenge mode, yes?
It's all good.nilcypher said:
And no, the combo tutorials are definitely part of the Normal challenges. I never even touched the Hard ones, considering I couldn't get past any character's 4th tier (and even then I only made it to 4th with two characters, mostly by button-mashing until it randomly did the combo).
It depends on the character but I have seen some of this in the fourth or fifth level of the normal trial mode for some characters.nilcypher said:
Tgun what you have said here is so off base I really do not know where to begin. I will start by saying that if there is a brick wall between the player and complete mastery of the game because of dexterity tests rather than skill tests the game cannot and should not be called accessible or casual friendly. A "casual" player is well within his or her right to want to master the game, they should not be prevented from actually doing so because the game requires you to count frames in order to get the most out of a character. You want to know what the biggest difference between high level ninja Gaiden players and low level players is? It's literally one button, the block button. High level players understand that Ninja Gaiden is a defense oriented game rather than offensive like DMC. No one is required to perform crazy just frame type moves to actually get through that game, no half mad button input requirements that have people psuedo button mashing so that they can actually register the inputs in time, no need for half the Xbox 360/PS3 players to go buy an Arcade stick because their dpad will make their fingers explode and they still won't even do half the badass combos.tgun said:
It's also funny that you bring up the whole PPP/KKK button macro thing because these macros actually force the player to give up a certain degree of control over character behavior. The player is pretty much always going to be stuck with at least one two button press move no matter what they do unless they give up two attack buttons! Let's not forget if they use PPP/KKK in place of fierce they will end up always doing EX's as soon as a bar fills up. Then if they try to position their buttons in a way that actually lets them use PPP/KKK manually they will most likely end up with a situation where they need an extra finger to pull off an ultra (and some other moves) all of this is dependent on how they are comfortable holding the controller and their level of reflex in each hand. I just tried this myself and found it even easier to fuck up an ultra on a pad than it is just using the PPP/KKK macro buttons.
Of course much of this stupidity could be solved by making the focus cancel require any two punch buttons or any two kick buttons rather than MP and MK and throw be any two kick buttons.
Sirlin is right, as usual.
It boggles my mind that anyone would try to argue that a game where a casual player won't even be able to do a basic move on the movelist is "casual friendly". There's just no way that someone new to fighting games can do a 720 or 2x qcf while someone is trying to hit them.
Even after weeks of non-mashing, deliberate Virtua Fighter play, my friends universally elected to use simpler throws instead of a 360 throw because they messed up the 360 too often and/or got hit before the input was done.
It boggles my mind that anyone would try to argue that a game where a casual player won't even be able to do a basic move on the movelist is "casual friendly". There's just no way that someone new to fighting games can do a 720 or 2x qcf while someone is trying to hit them.
Even after weeks of non-mashing, deliberate Virtua Fighter play, my friends universally elected to use simpler throws instead of a 360 throw because they messed up the 360 too often and/or got hit before the input was done.