I know nothing of Mortal Kombat but...

[Hollock]

I like them, but I suck ;_;

 

[-Seraph-]

Unlike other fighters, you will not get away with button mashing against anyone with any experience, your moves are slower and more deliberate and you rely on quick countering and well timed combo strikes.

If you can win by button mashing, you're playing a bad fighting game. This stupid shit about button mashing being able to beat players who have even the basics down on the games mechanics is a stupid misconception that needs to die. And again, any decent fighting game will not let you win by button mashing.

There's a phrase amongst pro players that says: "to beat a scrub, you have to play like one". In other words, someone's doing random shit? Do random shit to them and let them see how much fun they have.

You can still use strategy to beat a button-masher rather easily, but it may take a few tries to figure out what punishes what.

I played a button-mashing kid in MvC3 once. Little did he know Hulk has armor on his standing M and H. That kid got smacked around oh so many times...

Even if I face an opponent who button mashes, I don't dumb myself down to their level, and I'm rather conditioned to not button mash anyways. If they are button mashing, you can just counter them on their recovery frames, zone the shit out of them, or throw combo them to death which is my personal favorite.

 

[endplanets]

Best fighting games are the ones that anyone can play since you don't have to take a 3 week correspondence course in memorizing bullshit combos and quarter circle turns for every different character. Let newcomers jump right in and fight well, but allows room to improve.
Soul Caliber 2 was good at this since you could assign A+B, A+C, etc as separate buttons on controllers and press a direction for most of the moves. Blaze Blue (the first one) was also good at this because you could use the thumbstick for some moves and a good number of moves are done with just a direction and 1 button. Smash Bros is the best at this with every character having the same input system (but annoying items and eventually tripping come in.)

 

[SageRuffin]

Even if I face an opponent who button mashes, I don't dumb myself down to their level, and I'm rather conditioned to not button mash anyways. If they are button mashing, you can just counter them on their recovery frames, zone the shit out of them, or throw combo them to death which is my personal favorite.

Trust me, I agree. I'm not saying it's a concrete rule, just something I heard a few years ago by people who really knew what they were talking about.

You have to be careful with that though, lest the masher decries your blocking and use of combos as "cheap".

Best fighting games are the ones that anyone can play since you don't have to take a 3 week correspondence course in memorizing bullshit combos and quarter circle turns for every different character. Let newcomers jump right in and fight well, but allows room to improve.
Soul Caliber 2 was good at this since you could assign A+B, A+C, etc as separate buttons on controllers and press a direction for most of the moves. Blaze Blue (the first one) was also good at this because you could use the thumbstick for some moves and a good number of moves are done with just a direction and 1 button. Smash Bros is the best at this with every character having the same input system (but annoying items and eventually tripping come in.)

That's a flawed argument, as in order to become "good" (subjective of course, hence the quotes) you can't simply assign multiple commands to one button and call it a day.

But let's say you could, and did. Now you have everything else about the game itself to worry about. Let's first use your first example, Soul Calibur. Everything's cool - you press a shoulder button and out comes Siegfried's otherwise-noted [A+B] attack that hits 3 times. Okay... now what about zoning? Hit properties? Counter-hit properties? Attack levels? Match-ups? Frame advantage? Frame disadvantage? Invincibility? Priority? The list goes on.

Just saying that "fighting games are better with simplified controls" (to paraphrase) is a massively incorrect assessment. Sure, the controls may be easier, but you still have everything else about the game engine to worry about. There's not a single fighting game made where you can simply "press button" to win.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

I like the Soul Calibur series. It's the fighting series I'm best at. Ivy is my girl in 2. None of my friends play it, however. They like 2D fighters.