When Street Fighter 2 first appeared in the arcades, I described it like we describe Shadow of the Colossus nowadays. "It's all boss fights, nothing but boss fights. But with huge, highly detailed bosses, each with their own unique flavor." To distance it from the Double Dragon clones, I stopped calling SF2 a fighting game and started calling it a martial arts game. A simulator.
Yes, it had some weird stuff, like that bit where "that Ryu guy" throws a blue light orb out of his wrists. This was in the days before anime was part of the mainstream consciousness. But in spite of that, SF2 had an incredible variety of attacks: six attacks per three vertical states, with a primary speed vs power tradeoff, plus subtler variations in attack area, duration, and priority. Everything you needed to know was presented visibly. This is "visible gameplay mechanics", and it is good game design.
By contrast, SF4 has the heads-up display from a battlemech game: there's gauges and numbers and such all over the screen, with no indication what each affects or is affected by. If we wanted to add time-dependent resources to SF2's spatial resources, that's wonderful, but make it fatigue or anger or smugness or overconfidence, and animate it in the character's body language and facial expressions, not some abstract gauge far from the player's focal point.
Then there's the over-reliance on magic attacks. Supers, specials, whatever you call them, they've almost completely supplanted the basic punches and kicks. The magic attacks themselves require a dexterity test of the player, where anyone could walk up and play 95% of SF2.
Fighting games have always had many offensive options. What we need now is to balance that with some defensive options.
Defense has been the weak point of fighting games. "Blocking" almost always means a single, non-animated still shot. In actual martial arts, freezing in a covered-up state like that is a bad tactic. Rather, defense has just as much variety as offense: hard vs soft blocks, dodges & weaves, ripostes, "slipped" attacks, and the various implications that blocking with one limb vs a different limb has on one's counter-attacking options. We have six buttons available, after all.
SF3's parry system was an attempt, but it was too extreme. If you timed it right, you were instantly able to do any combination whatsoever. If you timed it wrong, you were severely punished by whatever combo the opponent could bring. Martial arts does not work that way. You have to choose a defense, and each has its tradeoffs, just as attacks do.
At the very least, animating the various defensive options would improve the look of the matches by removing some of the visual repetitiveness. As is, SF4 reminds me of Final Fantasy 7: each side takes turns doing a combo, with the occasional summoning of the Ultra Combo that's much too long to watch 50 times.
Capcom's unthinking inclusion of abstract-gauge mechanics with no grounding in the real world is a case of lazy game design. A re-thinking of how defense is handled, by looking at how it works in the real world and dovetailing off that, could have deepened SF4's gameplay in a way that makes sense to ordinary, walk-up-and-play people.
Street Fighter used to be about martial arts and what would happen if you pitted a capoeira practitioner against a sumo wrestler, in the days before the UFC television show did it for real.
Now it's just disconnected fantasy.
Well, you above stated that SF2 had that stuff "in the days before anime was part of the mainstream consciousness." Now that it is embedded in our culture, it is only natural to use it as a resource. SF4 had a lot to catch up, and I wouldn't be surprised if they imagined what a boy back in 1994 had experienced during these almost 15 years, and applied it to the game to appeal them again.
I like using slow tankers in RPGs, strategy games and similar games. Unfortunately, fighting games aren't friendly with them. From the time limit which forces you to go into the offensive to the damage obtained even when you are blocking and the fact that all blocks and parries work the same. Just like you say, there aren't enough defensive techniques.
"Then there's the over-reliance on magic attacks."
While i agree that SF4 mechanics definitely rewards players who can use the 'magic attack' ultra and super combos effectively, i disagree that this wasnt the case back in SF2.
For example in SF2 playing as Ryu you could effectively trap your opponent with fireballs and positioning, forcing your opponent (in their attempts to dodge the fireballs) to put themselves in a weak position that you could exploit. This was a strong strategic theme for this character and has carried through the series.
Other characters in the game also heavily utilized 'magic attacks' for their more successful strategies back in SF2.
"What we need now is to balance that with some defensive options."
The defensive options in SF4 are numerous:
-the simplest is blocking, there is high and low blocking, and the important requirement of facing towards the attack, if it meets the direction and height of the attack then its a guaranteed defense but at the cost of some small health reduction (chip damage).
-dodging is feasible by jumping, dashing, teleporting (for some characters), but this comes at the cost of sacrificing position and committing to a particular movement for a predictable amount of time (sacrificing your unpredictability).
-focus attacks allow you to take a hit and still follow through and disable your opponent briefly (combo opening), you can also focus attack and after taking a hit dash forward instead and do a completely different action, the cost being you take some temporary damage (regens if you dont get hit again soon after).
-counterattacks are attacks that are very quick or have priority over other attacks such that when your opponent attempts to attack you, you can hit them and fizzle or overwhelm their attack, with the cost that if you misread your opponent you might use the wrong counter and pay (this opens up the range of options because almost all attacks become a valid defensive move).
"Capcom's unthinking inclusion of abstract-gauge mechanics..."
The ultra combo meter is specifically labeled 'revenge' until it charges up, when it charges up it means youve been taking a beating and gives you a new powerful weapon to use to even things up. But yeah the super combo meter and all its uses are quite invisible to the player.
"Street Fighter used to be about martial arts and what would happen if you pitted a capoeira practitioner against a sumo wrestler"
I disagree with this being the ultimate design intent, i have no special insider knowledge for this, its just that over the iterations of the series the game has become overall more balanced and matched which seems to indicate the design goal is to make all characters equally strategically capable rather than necessarily a true simulation of their inspired fighting styles (and of course there are all those physics defying special moves that cannot possibly be considered a simulation of real martial arts).
As for your thoughts on defense I definitely agree that there is room for improvement in the fighting game genre as far as defense is concerned. There really hasn't been a game that does limb damage very well and makes it part of the strategy of the game to actually think about the detriments of blocking with one limb over the other. With that said though you can't make defense too strong or the game will turn into a turtling match. I think if defense was to be implemented deeper in a game it should be implemented on a character by character basis. For instance instead of give everyone the same defensive tools, give them defensive tools that make sense for their character and fighting style then balance out their damage and speed to reflect that their defense is their primarily strategy when playing with that character. The defense has to be somewhat reliable though or it just ends up under powering the defensive focused character when compared to the rest.
To ask Capcom to change their main fighting franchise though to accommodate that isn't very realistic. SF is what it is, SF. I would be looking to new intellectual properties to push those new ideas forward before looking at an old and established IP to change. With an IP like SF you can't just go and change the entire system without upsetting a large fan base. Some SF loyals think SF4 is even pushing it.
"While i agree that SF4 mechanics definitely rewards players who can use the 'magic attack' ultra and super combos effectively, i disagree that this wasnt the case back in SF2."
True, but when SF2:WW debuted, most of the world wasn't exposed to QCF motions and the like. Those were a SF innovation, and since SF1 was known to few, their power was balanced by both their secret status in addition to the bizarre method of triggering them. There wasn't yet an internet to look up that kind of stuff, and before the home versions came out you had little time to experiment on your quarter. I remember having to ask another player at the arcade how to do Chun-Li's wall-spring, for example. Tactics like the fireball-DP trap took even longer in their discovery.
"you can't make defense too strong or the game will turn into a turtling match."
A good point, but I'll point out that turtling isn't possible if there is no single, perfect defense. There isn't much of a turtling problem in the Mortal Kombat series AFAIK, because every attack does damage; blocks only reduce it.
"The whole casual aspect of the marketing campaign was just that, a marketing campaign to sell the game and possibly keep 10% of those new fans for the long term. The core hardcore fighting fan is still the people the games are designed for and the subtle complexities of the combat engine show this."
I completely agree with this, and it is precisely the problem I'm railing against. Catering only to the existing crowd is how series -- and genres -- die. This is what happened to the shoot-em-ups.
-R
Further, you got the genre names wrong. Street Fighter is a fighting game, like Tekken, Virtua Fighter, and Soul Calibur. Double Dragon is a beat-em-up, like Streets Of Rage, Golden Axe, and God Of War. (Arguably, those last two are "hack-and-slash" because they focus on weapon combat.)
And by the way, you said "turtling isn't possible if there's no single perfect defense," implying that there is a perfect defense in Street Fighter. Well, there's not! Throws are high-damage moves that are specifically designed to go through turtling and they can't be stopped except by jumping, which stops the player from being able to block (in SF2 and SF4). Also, special and super moves inflict chip damage against blockers. And, finally, you can't block high and low at the same time, so there are always some attacks that can hit through your defense anyway. But most importantly, there's no turtling problem because you cannot do any damage by blocking, so a player who just blocks all day will eventually mess up and get hit or take chip damage and then lose the match by decision when the timer runs down.
It really looks like you just don't understand the game at all. You even got the basic attack information wrong at the very beginning. Six attacks per three vertical states? Did you even play the game? There are close-range and far-range standing attacks. You missed a whole state there.
By the way, "shoot-em-up" games like Rolling Thunder and Shinobi didn't die. They just changed to first-person and third-person views instead of side-scrolling 2D.
I don't know, Ron. I am honestly wondering if you played more than ten minutes of Street Fighter 2. Maybe the problem is that you are under the impression that martial arts training grants super powers, or maybe you have completely forgotten how SF2 played, I don't know. Maybe you're just not very good at the game, but I'm pretty sure that guys like David Sirlin would tear your argument to shreds faster than I can, which I would attribute largely to them actually knowing what they're talking about.
http://www.sirlin.net
"Then there's the over-reliance on magic attacks."
Gotta disagree with that, why? Over-using these special moves makes the player easily vulnerable and punishable. After playing one whole weekend of Street Figther 4 online, the game basically revolves around timing and skills not relying on special moves. A jumping player can be countered by an uppercut, a player spamming fireball will eventually get hit by a "drop-in" high kick then combo-ed to death. If a player misses their ultra move due to lack of timing, they are left vulnerable to a counter combo.
Constant blocking is defeated by throws, this will instantly be engraved on new player's minds and instantly change their over defensive habits, hey, maybe they'll start using the Focus Move chained with the evade function.
"Catering only to the existing crowd is how series -- and genres -- die."
Objection-
Look at Guilty Gear 2 Overture, from fast paced 2d fighter to 3d disturbing crossover between Warcraft RTS and Dynasty warrior clone #2800- It killed the serie, too many changes and there was no feedback taken from the fans.
And then, If you don't respect the current fans of the serie, then why make sequels? Why not launch a new Product altogether? Capcom seriously did a great move by adding the massively Rumored/April fool joke "Shen-Long/Gouken", they pulled off an Ed-Boon and man did that play in their favor.
Now as for the Defense part of Fighting games: Many characters have Counter moves such as Gouken's counter strike, Rose and Abel's Anti Air grabs and Zangief's parry status when doing his powerbomb walk. Now THAT'S balanced defense :D Focus moves just add on a whole new layer to all that.
Finally, Do you really want to see a Street Fighter with the " Everyone can win" mechanic seen games like Super Smash Brother Brawl? Really now :) Lets not try to appeal to everyone with such classics or any well known Franchises or else we'll lose what created the franchise then crash and burn. R.I.P Alone in the Dark.
All fighting games have three big learning curves: reflexes, tactics, and knowledge. The first two could be earned through playtime. The last bit, the knowledge, well that's a catch. You have to have someone tell you how to do it, and then you have integrate it into your tactics and reflexes. And that's one special move.
Ryu and Ken each had three distinct special moves in SF2, with specific uses. Not too hard of a cliff to climb, really, if you want to get good. Now there are how many? And multiplied by how many specials, finishes, combobreakers, etc. etc. etc.?
Thanks for writing this up. Good stuff!
Anon: "SF2 was never "realistic" in any way."
It was realistic in a lot of ways -- the loser's character portrait especially. Yes, there some comic book weirdness in it. But likewise I wouldn't call, say, VF1 'totally unrealistic' just because of the ridiculous jump. You have to remember what "simulation" entailed in the 16-bit arcade era. 3D didn't exist yet, so liberties have to be taken just to make something playable. Sticking too close to reality a la "Best of the Best" (NES) produces something unplayable. Pilotwings (SNES) is classed as a sim but it doesn't calculate fluid dynamics.
"you got the genre names wrong. "
Not for 1991. There wasn't a fighting genre in 1991, and still wouldn't be until there were enough SF clones to merit the new category. AFAIK the first clone came in 1993 (Fighter's History), whose company was promptly sued by Capcom. (Fortunately, Capcom lost.)
Likewise, Wolfenstein 3D wasn't an FPS until about the Quake era. And currently we don't say we love the wad-em-up genre -- we say we love Katamari. One game, nor one series, does not comprise a genre. Or else I'm a fan of the tactical-trap-action genre, exemplified by Tecmo's Deception series.
"but I'm pretty sure that guys like David Sirlin would tear your argument to shreds faster than I can,"
Actually I went there first. Sirlin seemed ambivalent, so I brought my arguments here to get broader feedback.
For the record, I agree that "turtling doesn't exist", mainly because I've never had much of a problem with it personally. But when people invoke it I understand where they're coming from.
"By the way, "shoot-em-up" games like Rolling Thunder and Shinobi didn't die. They just changed to first-person and third-person views instead of side-scrolling 2D."
Er, I think you just proved my point by misinterpreting what a shoot-em-up is. AFAIK the only commercially made in the 21st-century is Ikaruga.
Rom:
Just to be clear, I didn't say the genre was dead yet, I'm saying it's headed that way.
"Do you really want to see a Street Fighter with the " Everyone can win" mechanic seen games like Super Smash Brother Brawl? Really now :)"
Of course not, but I don't want to see "everyone will lose" mechanics either. There's a balance, and it's tipped too far toward the hardcore.
Matt:
I've tried VF on many occasions, but I have other issues with it. Perhaps it was partly due to bad-first-date syndrome: VF1's floaty jumps (accidentally done), juggling, and ring-outs were a perfect storm of fail for me. My best friend -- whom I met through VF1 as a matter of fact -- said it was because the designers wanted to discourage jumping. I'm fine with that intent, but that was a wrong way to go about it.
And I have always felt the characters, and the game as a whole, lacked personality.
Finally,
thanks Ted.
PRE POSTING EDIT: I just saw your newest reply about your definition of a simulator before I hit submit. The only thing I'll ask is: is that still your definition now that games HAVE become more realistic/3D/whatever? Like, I'd call Gran Turismo a driving simulator but not Need for Speed. If SF2 is a simulator in the sense that two characters are fighting then almost all videogames ever are simulators right? Streets of Rage would be a "neighborhood brawl simulator." (officially my new favorite type of simulator lol).
I also think that your comparison of SF2 and SF4 is not very strong. Anyone who's played either game with the intent of getting better at it will learn how to do all the "magic attacks." They are not that difficult to execute. And when you have access to all of your chosen character's tools/moves, you should use them! Be able to hit with a fireball or hit with a jab both accomplish the same thing: hitting. Knowing when to use which moves (be it normal/special/super) is where the real meat of the game is. There's no more over reliance on specials in SF4 than there was in 2. You will see lots of fireballs being hurled about in either game.
The claim that SF4's gauges are "all over the screen" is bogus. In both games there are exactly two locations where you'll find a meter. Your life meter at the top of the screen and the super meter at the bottom of the screen. That's it. In 4, yes the ultra meter is shoehorned onto the super meter but it's essentially in the same spot. They aren't far from your focal point, they're next to your character. Nor are they abstract. They're arguably the most concrete thing in the game! You take a hit your life bar drains. When your life bar drains completely it's game over. When you deal damage or take it your super/ultra meter fills up. When it's all the way full you can use that move. When you suggest putting these mechanics as facial expressions, I think that would be way more ambiguous in meaning (and potentially harder to notice) than a meter flashing "SUPER!." It's an interesting idea though.
As for the defense issue, are you criticizing Street Fighter or fighting games in general? Yes blocking is the staple defense in SF but you can also reversal where you beat out attacks with one of your own. SF4 has throw counters (also in SF3) to defend against throws. Jumping is also a way of avoiding damage. So is using a Focus Attack. And certain characters have special moves that act as counters. 3D games like the Soul Caliber have weapon deflecting/parrying and sidestepping.
When you mention deepening gameplay for "walk up and play people" I think that's bit of a contradiction. Adding more options for casual players will likely leave them even more clueless as to what they can execute. This is a problem with the Guilty Gear series. There's so many extra game mechanics compared other fighters that players new to the game take a long time be able to fully integrate their use effectively. If they only occasionally walk up and play there's a possibilty they may never.
Street Fighter 4 is arguably bringing more players to the genre than any other recent game. Because it's a thowback to SF2, probably the most popular and iconic game of the genre. The developers have stated this themselves. You play Street Fighter for the things that make it Street Fighter. Innovation will come from a new series, not SF.
Thinking about all the different fighting games that exist versus what you're looking for... I dunno man. I probably have more to say but I think I'll wait for a reply. Hopefully this post isn't too jumbled.
First off, Ron, I don't think anyone really disputes your ideas that Street Fighter is catering more to the hardcore fan. The disagreement comes in your tone of wanting to change Street Fighter's system. I believe, and I think others agree, from their posts, that it would take a new intellectual property to accomplish. Street Fighter fits the hardcore niche for the most part, and I don't see the developers wanting to change what defines Street Fighter as Street Fighter. It is and always has been designed as a tournament style fighting game, with deep fighting mechanics. To strip it of that and potentially ruin its established name doesn't make sense.
Now for a little prediction on my part, I think competitive video gaming is going to become much larger as time goes on; we haven't seen anything yet. With that will come a need for such hardcore games as Street Fighter. So I honestly don't see the genre dying because 1 on 1 games like fighting games will be very popular. People like the story lines of the two fighters in boxing or UFC and they'll come to love the story lines of e-sports pros about to go 1 on 1 against each other.
From a casual standpoint there will hopefully be some games to fulfill that niche, but I wouldn't hold my breath for Street Fighter being the game to do it.
The number of moves hasn't changed much over time with SF. You mention about 3 moves in SF2, and SF4 has the same 3 basic moves: shoryuken, hadoken, and the hurricane kick. There are two extra super moves, but that's really it. Sure, there are some characters that have more moves, but overall the character's move lists aren't that big. In comparison many 3D fighters have about 10 times more moves per character.
Far Faaaar from it bro. Capcom seriously delivered this time. BlazBlue is gonna add more spark to the 2d fighting game genre, Tekken 6, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, King of fighters 12 and then some. If people want easy fighting games, put it them easy or get smash brother brawl, maybe even fund another Power Stone. Yet this genre isnt for the "casual" players and if fighting game developers attempt to appeal with casual gamers, they will break their original concept, lose their fans and then its over. You cant appeal to a group that already isnt attracted to that kind of game, it ain't worth it.
"Of course not, but I don't want to see "everyone will lose" mechanics either. There's a balance, and it's tipped too far toward the hardcore."
If you want an example of going too far towards the hardcore side, checkout Guilty Gear or Virtua Fighters: Counters versus counter on Counters, High chained air combos, alternate states unlocking more moves. THAT'S hardcore. Even third strike was extremely hardcore as you had to know your parry timing and even the Character's UNIQUE medium attacks to gain ground faster, hell you even had to pick your preferred super move to bring into battle effectively.
Sf4 made it a bit more simple in those matters, the only thing that really takes it hardcore is that Focus attack cancel-into-evade and Ex-Cancel-into-back dash or forward dash.
Yet you get one super move, one ultra, standard with each character, no secret moves aside from Dan's super taunt.
I agree that I don't like games where the focus is on who can do the most ridiculous input sequence at 1/60th of a second timing. Honestly, that's why I switched away from Street Fighter eventually and started playing Tekken and then Soul Calibur. At each step, I was finding a game with less difficulty on inputting complex commands and more emphasis on tricking my opponent, executing short moves with good timing, and using tactical positioning to my advantage. The problem with Street Fighter (in general) isn't that the game is "too hardcore." The problem is that the challenge in some iterations comes from wrestling with the input interface to unleash crazy super-powerful attacks, instead of coming from outwitting the other player. What I'm really saying is that it's not that the game allows higher skill levels ("caters to hardcore"), but that the game rewards a skill that I don't find fun (fast-paced precision input) over a skill that I do find fun (fast-paced tactical thinking).
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