Zero Punctuation: Soul Calibur IV

[Swenglish]

That really cheered me up.

Thankyou Mr. Croshaw.

 

[Asymptote Angel]

Why does the video player laugh in my face when I hit Play?

 

[Sondetsu]

How to beat a throw:

Duck or do a quick attack because throws only working on people standing and guarding.

There.

I'd try to reply to the many other pieces of ignorance in this comments section but there's so much that I'd have to write the bible and nobody would read it anyway so it's pointless.

I'm a huge fan of Yahtzee Croshaw but I will never understand why he bothered with this review. He made it clear in his Brawl review that he didn't care for fighting games, even longer ago that he doesn't care for multiplayer in general and I'm sure that he's less likely into competitive gaming than he is into JRPGs.

To answer the original question in the review, it's "A complex video game fist fighting equivalent of chess." The various subtle details enable an expert to be better than a button masher. The button masher will just never know them because it's more complicated than simply pointing and shooting somebody and these things are never described in the manual because the developers know that 85% of people wouldn't read them.

The only thing I'll agree with in the review is I don't understand people who will buy these games just to button mash against computer AI (namely himself). These games weren't designed for your audience.

 

[videogameblogger]

Imagine me reading this aloud, quickly, doing my interpretation of a witty English bloke.

The world isn?t perfect. Fighting for an imaginary utopian state is a noble thing, especially when you can attach your name to such a soap box rant with less integrity than Gamespot at a Metallica concert. Or not. But after returning to the real world one can recognize the inherent good qualities of a less than perfect creation.

Take stories in fighting games. Anyone who dissects a fighting game seeking a meaningful story would have a better time finding a video game blogger who doesn?t have THE NEXT GREAT IDEA, which is ultimately as innovative as Halo 3. Since karate champ, designers of fighting games tend to focus on the mechanics of play and deliver the same emotional depth of the recent Jackie Chan film. Who watches Jackie Chan films expecting depth?

The trend in biting video game commentary has spiraled out of control. When failed writers like Chic can carve an audience out of the same herd who borrow mom?s cam to make youtube diary entries, it is clear the trend must die. Adam Cesspooler and Morgan Manjaw killed the horse years ago.

Yahtzee?s micro-machines-commercial speed spitting style commentary with Family Guy inspired random penis humor is squeezing out the very last bits of milk. As much as we enjoy laughing with you at the quirks of games, developed in an industry you?ll remain a bitter fan, on the outside of, attacking Soul Calibur 4 for story and useless customization shows you?re winding down.

Perhaps its time you get back to flipping my burgers, cause I?m one of the folks who remember Old Man Murray?and you sir, are no Old Man Murray.

(Hey look, I can write run on sentences in 5 minutes too! If only I could animate tired clip art figures, I would be fam0u5!)

 

[Heroic One]

I never overly liked fighting games much to ever bother purchasing them. Renting / goofing off at a friend's house seems as far as they can last.

Yoshimitzu's dialouge tends to be funny, that's about it.

 

[Panayjon]

The main difference that fighting games have from other multiplayer genres is that FG's are meant to be more personal. A 5v5 team match on Halo is fun, but at the end of the day it's just 9 random people playing with you. In a FG, it's 1 person. A friend, family member, or a person who just walked up to the 2P side of the arcade machine you were playing at. This invariably creates relationships, and since the game is the common thread in those relationships, talking will lead to discussion about the game and its intricacies. If we can assume that the two players continually strive to improve, this will make both players' skill levels increase (and by skill I mean knowledge of the game coupled with adaptivity and consistent execution of difficult moves).

The problem is, FG's actually require a work ethic before you get anywhere, and that's why you hear a lot of "this game takes no skill/button mashing is all you need/X or Y is broken/etc." Granted, not every FG is balanced well, but then again very few games in any multiplayer genre are. If you keep an open mind and assume that you DON'T know a lot about the game, then you will learn more from the internet, your friends, and the rest of your FG community.

But yeah, I don't like SC4 yet because it hasn't proven to be as deep as SF2 yet. maybe later.

I'll ignore that your name reminds me of Ancestral Recall, which is the last thing in all of gaming that should be talking about balance. Instead I'll just say this. Games. Work. Two words that should not be in the same sentence. Fighting games have a steep learning curve. To call it a lack of work ethic might be going too far, since a good game should be fun from start to end. I'm resigned to say that fighting games are a niche appeal.

At any rate I actually wanted to bring an idea to the table about balance. Now that consoles are hooked up to the internet and all, how about patches and updates? I feel as if fighting games would benefit greatly from this, so that once an abuse/glitch is found it can killed off. Whereas currently people will find something to abuse and then abuse it. Also... what's up with all the characters in fighting games. Ken from SF has always been top tier for instance, but why are there tiers of characters? Shouldn't a good game be balanced? Rather than having a whole slew of characters that are great and others that comparatively suck?

Note that this is simply the observations of someone who likes fighting games. Recognizing and fixing these issues would help alleviate the genre from its limited appeal.

 

[Heroic One]

Also... what's up with all the characters in fighting games. Ken from SF has always been top tier for instance, but why are there tiers of characters? Shouldn't a good game be balanced? Rather than having a whole slew of characters that are great and others that comparatively suck?

I always assumed it was for those guys that like to go, "Hurr hurr, I beat you with Worthless Guy A when you were Supreme Diety X! You are teh sux!!"

 

[zikoro]

For a fighting game it is actually alright... for a fighting game! I don't really see the point of adding a storyline into SC4 if it is going to be short and repetitive. I loved Soul Calibur 3; note: Soul Calibur 3 was the only Soul Series that I have played; since it had a DECENT story mood in it and Chronicles of the Sword! They should have added that back in the game!

 

[Ares Tyr]

Despite loving Yahtzee's videos, I also have a deep seated love for the Soul Calibur series, and that hasn't changed with the fourth. I understand that fighting games are his thing, just like point and clicks aren't mine.

But hey, atleast I always kill those asswipes who button mash and spam grabs.

I love you Mitsurugi. Promise you'll never leave me?

Also, there's nothing more fun to me than making a created character named "Super Pope X" and "Lt. Cumswap" (an exact replica of Major Raikov/Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 3 after he falls out of the locker in only banana hammock) and destroying my competition with ease.

Also, you don't want to fuck with my character "The Fanny Bandit". Undefeated.

I don't play fighting games for the story mode or anything like that. It's not a depth thing, I'm just good at them and I like to fuck people up on them. I'm not insulted by him insulting the story because Soul Calibur has a very crazy ass story that no one should really be paying attention to. Look at the pretty graphics and people sword fighting. Cool.

 

[Panayjon]

Also... what's up with all the characters in fighting games. Ken from SF has always been top tier for instance, but why are there tiers of characters? Shouldn't a good game be balanced? Rather than having a whole slew of characters that are great and others that comparatively suck?

I always assumed it was for those guys that like to go, "Hurr hurr, I beat you with Worthless Guy A when you were Supreme Diety X! You are teh sux!!"

Yeah, good point. However, that's not always inherently apparent. Way to alienate even more people from the genre as cries of busted and broken ring throughout the room.

 

[Black yeoman]

We seem to be fogeting a couple of points:
1: if a game is fun, its a good game (no matter how japanise).
2: Yahtzee seems to stretch his opinions for humor, I wish people would stop calling the videos "reviews".

 

[Theo Samaritan]

I do have to say, seeing Yahtzee with boobs is rather... how can I say it? Disturbing? Mind-burning? ...Vaguely erotic?

You should try him with a dress as well! *points at avatar*

 

[SPLastic]

Once again, nice work by Yahtzee.

I'd also like to mention that as a resident of Canberra with a 13 year old sibling, I can safely say that I am better at randomly smashing buttons than a 13 year old.

 

[Gregorius]

I like Soul Calibur/er but I can't defend it.

I can defend the general fighting genre, though.

They're only just behind FPS games when it comes to a pure match of skill, so those who like actual competition are the ones most drawn to it.

Are you kidding me? Fighting games are pretty far away from games of pure matches of skill

You clearly have never played a proper fighting game.

Indeed.
3D Fighters have a tendency to buttonmashing, but some games do it right (DoA, for example, if you look past the T&A).

2D Fighters are a lot less about buttonmashing, and Guilty Gear even "punishes" you for it: Using the same move over and over will weaken it with each successive use (e.g. if you used the Punch command 5 times in a row, the damage will get tinier with each hit). Then you can Roman Cancel out of a combo (in the middle of it), break someone else's combo with a Burst, use Dead Angle Attacks, simply guard or guard with faultless defense, etc. etc...

... be back later, I'm off to play some GGX2:#Reload.

That's not necessarily true, man. Most fighting games these days punish you for button-mashing, not just the well-designed ones. In fact, when you use the same attack over and over, like a Kick attack, you will eventually get penalized for it. Although the second you guard / use another attack in SCIV, the damage counter is reset.

Oh, and another thing. The game is horridly broken in some parts. Example: Mitsurugi. You can do an infinite juggle with his Down+Fwd Kick attack for an easy KO (or Ring Out).

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Man Yahtzee even hates the cream of Fighting Games, the Soul Calibur Series.. Maybe he'll uderstand the babes of Dead or Alive slightly better?

 

[Black yeoman]

Also SC means splintercell

 

[Black yeoman]

Man Yahtzee even hates the cream of Fighting Games, the Soul Calibur Series.. Maybe he'll uderstand the babes of Dead or Alive slightly better?

Sorry for the double post, but I hope that is a joke.
I can't beleive anyone with any moral fibre would buy dead or alive.