/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.3362173]

Are super bars really necessary for a 2D fighting game? I feel like they trivialise a lot of the basic mechanics, and footsies only start to matter in high level play because of it. After all, why would you practice basic skills where's all sorts of complex tools with which you can take out 60% of your opponent's lifebar. Just get pounded until you combo into Super into Ultra, and you're all set.
I can understand that fighters are a derivative genre and long-time fans crave new systems to master after obsessively playing "traditional" titles, but there's a point where it turns into a ridiculous show that doesn't even resemble combat.

[Anonymous No.3362178]

Are bars (life or supers) necessary at all?

It'd be more realistic and resemble real combat if they'd actually get knocked out after a few certain hits.

[Anonymous No.3362241]

>>3362178
> Realistic
> Jumping over opponents
> Juggling
> Cancelling special move animations
> Shooting fireballs
Yeah sure

[Anonymous No.3362272]

Most supers are telegraphed and can be blocked or parried. The bar has to be built up. Kill yourself kouhai.

>>3362178
Go play Bushido Blade.

[Anonymous No.3362275]

60% is a hell of a lot. Try 20–30% not accounted for scaling for most games.

You trivialize everything way too far. You act like supers are end-all of gameplay. Well, watch any match between top-level players, this for example https://youtu.be/2PpE3oxnTsU .

So where do you see any lack of footsies? Supers just raise the cost of a mistake in fighters. People who can't mixup/footsie always pretend it's all about landing a bigger combo or a super. It helps, but the ability open up your opponent and think strategically is more important.

[Anonymous No.3362362]

>>3362178

It's not 2D, but Bushido Blade is the closest game to what you want.

>The bulk of the gameplay in Bushido Blade revolves around one-on-one third-person battles between two opponents. Unlike most fighting games, however, no time limit or health gauge is present during combat. Most hits will cause instant death, while traditional fighting games require many hits to deplete an opponent's health gauge. It is possible to wound an opponent without killing them. With the game's "Body Damage System," opponents are able to physically disable each other in increments with hits from an equipped weapon, slowing their attacking and running speed, or crippling their legs forcing them to crawl

[Anonymous No.3362392]

>not playing SamSho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmFDtMw2Ee0

[Anonymous No.3363109]

>>3362272
>Most supers are telegraphed and can be blocked or parried. The bar has to be built up. Kill yourself kouhai.

This
Now that I'm thinking about it...I've probably won more matches because an opponent botched a super, or did one that I was able punish than I have lost matches because I got hit with a super

Most new players don't have the fines to properly land supers every time, so really it's more of a hindrance for people at low level play

[Anonymous No.3363127]

>>3362275
>People who can't mixup/footsie always pretend it's all about landing a bigger combo or a super.

>Be beating someone multiple times in a row
>Only really focusing on mixup/footsie game and basic combos
>Losing opponent gets all snarky and implies I'm shitty because I'm not using any long flashy combos and keep interrupting their attempts to pull them off
Gotta love players like that.

[Anonymous No.3363725]

>>3362173
Wouldn't that do the exact opposite though? If both players had equal access to a super punishing attack that would encourage them even harder to not leave themselves open for mistakes.

[Anonymous No.3363732]

>>3362173
have you played tobal 2?

they put them there because it's fun. are you telling me CvS2 isn't fun? because fuck off if you are.

[Anonymous No.3363783]

>>3363127
I'm that guy, except for scrabble.

I disregard tile scores and combo squares, and just try to make big words that look impressive.

then I get stomped by 50 points by the end.

[Anonymous No.3364307]

>>3362178
I would say that life bars are necessary, especially for 2D fighters like OP is talking about.

2D fighters aren't striving for realism. They aren't meant to be "fight simulators." Fighting games are, or at least they have become, competitive games for two players to test their skills against one another. Being able to quickly and easily tell exactly how much vitality you have remaining is essential to the gameplay and competitive nature of the game.

>>3362173
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with supers as long as they're balanced and don't go too overboard. You look at games like SF4 and it's "ultra" system and you can clearly see that they went too far with the ultras. They were widely panned and viewed as a cheap, artificial "comeback mechanic," and that's true. If an ultra can take 1/3 or more of your health in one hit, that's probably a bit much and I think Capcom was right to take a step back in the other direction with the Critical Arts in SFV.

Supers keep the game interesting. They're meant to be a game-changer once the bar is filled, and it gives you one more thing to have to be aware of during the match. You have to focus on using your own super, as well as be on the lookout for your opponent's super. The addition of "EX moves" that allow you to spend some of your bar for an upgraded special move is also a great mechanic and alternative use of the bar.

So yeah, I think super bars are good. Like all things in a fighter, however, they need to be balanced.

[Anonymous No.3365069]

>>3362178
Go play Fighter's Destiny for N64

Actually don't, it's fucking terrible precisely because it took advice from people like you

[Anonymous No.3365079]

>>3362173
The only reason Supers were introduced to SF2 was to keep up with the Jones' that were SNK and their flashy Desperation Moves in the KoF series.

Supers in general are a neat idea and I have nothing against them, in fact few things in vidya feel better than mastering a dry meterless BnB into super in 3S, but putting them in SF2 all slapdash in ST was a mistake.

[Anonymous No.3365092]

>>3364307
>2D fighters aren't striving for realism.
Pretty much this.

We're talking about a genre where bugs (like move cancels) were accommodated into game mechanics. It's like saying that Quake 3 doesn't feel like real combat.

[Anonymous No.3365391]

>>3362173
I hate super bars. I can live with using a segment to do an EX move, like EXing a hadouken to shoot out two, that's not a big deal. But when you use your entire bar for a combo that takes off 1/3 of the opponent's health that's just overkill. It makes you play more defensively because you don't want to get caught in that huge attack and die because they got lucky pulling it off so fast.

[Anonymous No.3366128]

>>3362178
Fight Night boxing games are exactly this. The novelty wears off in whole two minutes and frustration kicks in permanently afterwards. Having UI is a good thing in games.

[Anonymous No.3366315]

>>3362173
You're right and also SF2HFighting is the best SF game.

[Anonymous No.3366397]

>>3362173
If you don't have the "basic skills" you're never going to be able to get that super combo off. If you hate super bars, it's probably because you lack any of the skills necessary to defend yourself.

[Anonymous No.3366437]

>>3366397
The problem is, in Street Fighter at least, the supers are too hard to do. QCFx2 + PPP is hard to pull off in a pinch and you end up doing a regular fireball or dragon punch instead.

[Anonymous No.3366624]

>>3366437
Yeah nah that's bullshit. Supers are stupid but it's not because they're hard to execute.

[Anonymous No.3366640]

>>3362362
Also fighter's destiny

[Anonymous No.3366709]

>>3366437
>QCFx2 + PPP is hard to pull off in a pinch

Dude...that's like one of the easiest inputs for a super there is, are you being sarcastic?

[Anonymous No.3366718]

>>3365092
>bugs (like move cancels)
thank you

[Anonymous No.3366731]

You really overstate how much impact on a match supers have if you think it boils down to "get super, boom, there goes 60% opponent's life"

That said, as much as I like some classic "no frills" fighters like Karnov's, super meters do have their place sometimes and games like KOF and Guilty Gear show how they meter can be used as a mechanic to make a game more varied and interesting. KOF supers generally can't blow through anything the opponent can throw at you the way SF supers can (so you generally can't expect reversal super to be a sure bet), and you can spend the meter on defensive options like GC roll or blowback instead. GG's use of meter can seem overcomplicated at first but really gives you a lot of options not found in most other games, opening the door for new tricks and ways to use your existing moves that make the game richer and offer more room for variation in play styles even between two players who use the same character.

KOF13 is not a bad game by any means but it's a perfect example of a game that went a bit too far in the direction of "save up all your meter for a huge round-ending combo", I'm glad KOF14 is scaling that back and overall taking a lot more design cues from 98 this time around.

[Anonymous No.3367678]

Jesus fucking Christ people.

For example, go play KoF '98 online via Fightcade.

Just try to throw a super out of the blue. Try to land it, I dare you. Protip: 99,9% of time it will be a waste of bar. The remaining 0,01% will be you playing against a total noob like yourself.

This goes for all popular games. SFIII, Garou, you name it. The only exception is super throws, but I'm sure you can't even play charge characters, let alone grapplers.

[Anonymous No.3367701]

>>3365079
>but putting them in SF2 all slapdash in ST was a mistake.
ST itself was a spur of the moment thing developed in just a few months after SSF2 failed to perform well and their next gen fighters (Darkstalkers, X-Men) weren't ready yet. And their initial plan for Super Combos was something like Alpha 2's Custom Combos, but that proved to be to ambitious to develop in the tome they had, so they settled with supers as we now know them. The fact that most of the supers were basically a few specials automatically performed in succession is a holdover from the initial concept.

[Anonymous No.3367730]

>>3362178
Go play IK+

[Anonymous No.3367886]

>>3366709
I think anon means at home on a controller, where you have to use your whole hand to press PPP, rather that having a finger on each input.

[Anonymous No.3368045]

>>3362173
You're an idiot

[Anonymous No.3368071]

They're not necessary, no, but they add extra depth and are not detrimental to a fighting game in the least bit.

>Footises only start to matter in high level play because of it
>60%

Oh, you're an idiot, I got it.

[Anonymous No.3368692]

>>3363732
Fuck CvS2

[Anonymous No.3368695]

>>3366315
I like you.

[Anonymous No.3368987]

>>3367886
I still don't think it's that hard...
What kind of controller do you use?

[Anonymous No.3369062]

>>3362362
>buy BB2
>kill every fighter in one hit with no effort
>get insta-killed by character with gun every time

This game series just seems like an elaborate practical joke.

[Anonymous No.3369223]

>>3362272
>Most supers are telegraphed and can be blocked or parried.
Not defending OPs idiotic topic, but what if it gets comboed into???

[Anonymous No.3369249]

>>3369062
It's called realism.

[Anonymous No.3369403]

>>3369223
Damage scaling. Also, even if it hits, full damage isn't guaranteed as some attacks may make the other guy juggle rather than fully connect. And then there's the fact that there's some margin of error for input and timing.

[Anonymous No.3369409]

>>3368987
Mostly I use pic related, for both Saturn and Dreamcast. It can be a litrle weird to shift your thumb to hit all the buttons. To clarify, I like super combos, I was just trying to play devil's advocate for the other guy.

[Anonymous No.3369431]

>>3369409
Ah yeah...I guess I could kind of see it being a little hard with that layout, which worries me cause I just ordered a Hori controller with similar buttons

But on a playstation styled controller I find it pretty easy to hit all the buttons using the shoulder buttons, which I could map it to be like as well

[Anonymous No.3369484]

>>3362173
charging super meter with non connecting attacks should never be a part of game mechanic

turtle and spam mid punch for that extra 10% of super bar, whoa such a display of skill, shame on me for not being good enough to interrupt it immediately!

[Anonymous No.3369491]

>>3369484
100% completely agree.

Super meters are good, but they need to be carefully balanced to work well. In my opinion they should always favor attacking over defending.

[Anonymous No.3369493]

Super meters add resource management to the game. It works in having to know how to build meter as well as deplete health.

AoF's spirit meter is a predecessor to the concept (even though the game is le poo).

[Anonymous No.3369538]

>>3362173
rage systems are bad in general and supers became a dumb way of making matches more dynamic but in an awful way

this is martial arts movies/wrestling, you name it rule no.1, the underdog gets beaten but hen retaliates with a force of a thousand suns

in reality this is insanely difficult to implement

watch high level Tekken7 matches - players drop combo if there's a risk of raging opponent but not enough to kill him

also, countless fighting games allowed for infinite low health game changer-move just to capitalize on this one moment of awe

fighting games genre is the most stagnant type of vidya at the moment, even indy and fundraiser projects leech from nostalgia and lack imagination

[Anonymous No.3369547]

>>3369538
That's why they should favor the attacker instead of the defender. Turtling is the worst plague of fighters.

>fighting games genre is the most stagnant type of vidya at the moment,
lol at this part though, they're the most thriving of all the retro genres.

>even indy and fundraiser projects leech from nostalgia and lack imagination

Unless this is what you're talking about. There's almost never been an indy fighter that's even close to decent. It's far too hard a genre for a small and or inexperienced company to make something balanced but interesting enough to be fun.

[Anonymous No.3369549]

>>3369538
I get the feeling you don't play fighting games, but watch them on youtube

[Anonymous No.3369594]

>>3369547
>lol at this part though, they're the most thriving of all the retro genres.
And yet Capcom still won't revive any of their fighting IPs that aren't Street Fighter.

[Anonymous No.3369619]

>>3369493
>taunt to break the opponent's concentration
That was pretty fucking neat fampai. More games should make taunts useful.

[Anonymous No.3369623]

>>3369594
They probably finally realized it wasn't great business to compete with themselves so they stick to what's most popular. These days if you like Capcom style fighters SF keeps you covered. Otherwise there are plenty of other games. I almost never play SF these days.

[Anonymous No.3369784]

>>3369062
you need to sidestep

[Anonymous No.3371835]

>>3369623
We will never get another Darkstalkers.. :(

[Anonymous No.3371854]

>>3369594
> It's 2016, the year of skyrocketing budgets and billion dollar IPs
> "Hey guise you remember POWAH STONE???"
> Breaking News: Capcom acquired by Ubisoft

[Anonymous No.3371992]

>>3371854
People give Capcom a lot of shit, but they're one of the only independent game companies out there who are still successful making similar games and franchises than they did in the retro era.

[Anonymous No.3372023]

>>3365069
>tfw as a kid I for some reason really really liked Fighters Destiny 1 but only got to rent it.
>tfw last year I picked up 1 and 2 because hey the second one must be great too.
>tfw replaying 1 just what the fuck

[Anonymous No.3372102]

>>3371854
Street Fighter itself brought Capcom closer to bankruptcy than any of its other fighting IPs did.

[Anonymous No.3372105]

>>3372102
Do you mean the first one, or the series as a whole?

[Anonymous No.3372119]

>>3372105
I mean Street Fighter 3.

[Anonymous No.3372123]

>>3372119

Was SF3 that much of a failure?

[Anonymous No.3372125]

>>3372119
I hadn't heard it but doesn't surprise me at all. 3 had a fuck ton of work put into it, it's still got some of the best sprite animation ever. Given the leap in quality even from Alpha 3 I'm not surprised it cost them an arm and a leg.

At the same time, that was the darkest period for fighters. Arcades were dying out but online hadn't taken over yet. Meanwhile the PS1 had been so bad for ports that it killed a lot of the home fanbase as well.

[Anonymous No.3372159]

>>3372123
It depends how you define failure. As a game it's still considered by some as the best Street Fighter they ever made. But it did come out at a time that was bad for fighters and it was nowhere near the financial or cultural success they had hopped and planned on it being.

[Anonymous No.3372182]

The fact that everyone claims Darkstalkers was never relevant but don't know how big a bomb Street Fighter 3 was shows that people really don't know much about the genre's history.

[Anonymous No.3372195]

>>3372182
Morrigan is popular, but Darkstalkers was never as popular as SF in terms of player numbers. Not even 3.

[Anonymous No.3372226]

>>3372195
All 3 Darkstalkers games made the top 5 of their years' arcade income charts. SF3 New Generation only outranked Vampire Savior by one spot in 1997. The next year SF3 Second Impact dropped all the way down to 12th.

[Anonymous No.3372284]

>>3372195
Does anyone else think it's weird how Morrigan is like one of the most recognizable video game characters of all time?

>>3372226
Interesting, where did you get the numbers? How was Third Strike received?

[Anonymous No.3372528]

>>3371992
Yep, but I don't give Capcom shit and it wasn't my point anyway

I'm just saying that today games have insane budgets, unless they are smaller download titles on PSN/XBL/Steam. So If Capcom miscalculate something, they will potentially lose A LOT of money.

Old Capcom IPs like Darkstalkers, Power Stone, Cyberbots, Tech Romancer, etc. are mostly forgotten/unknown by everyone except hardcore fighting game fans.

The current "nostalgia" trend, aka "woah dude, do you remember that old game which LITERALLY EVERYONE played when they were young???", only applies to top-selling games. As for smaller games, it seems to me that no one gives a fuck about these in the corporate world.

[Anonymous No.3372535]

>>3372284
>Does anyone else think it's weird how Morrigan is like one of the most recognizable video game characters of all time?
Not at all. MvC and CvS are responsible for this, I assume.

[Anonymous No.3372541]

>>3372528
>As for smaller games, it seems to me that no one gives a fuck about these in the corporate world.

Probably because most people don't give a fuck about them in the world at general. Darkstalkers did alright, but their other fighters were never as big as SF.

Times have changed though. Companies don't shit out 10 similar games hoping the sales will add up, they put all their work into 1 or 2 games and bank everything on that.

There are smaller games, but they're not made by the big companies as often. And fighters are a weird genre that are extremely hard to develop a game good enough it will be accepted by the community which keeps most of the little guys out. Or they appeal to the causal crowd and go the Skullgirls or Dive Kick route.

[Anonymous No.3372656]

>>3372541
Yep, exactly what I meant.

SFII was defined by the era it came out in. Its graphics were cutting edge for the time; no fighter came close to it in terms of ease of control, balance and depth. It pretty much pioneered competitive 1-on-1 fighting, and revitalized arcade industry back then.

Now the times are very different. Not only 2D fighters have been outdone by 3D in terms of popularity; but Tekken's and Soulcalibur's popularity has already faded away largely. Arcades are dead. Graphics in fighting games haven't been very surprising since Tekken 5. So, in short, the fighting genres' peak is long gone.

Most importantly, we live in a world of half-casual games made for the lowest common denominator of players, with game-long tutorials, cinematic cutscenes and "open world" shoved everywhere without need to be more like GTA. Fighters are neither of those things; their difficulty level outdoes other half-retired niche genres like shmups.

But they also lost their spot in the "popular competitive game" tier in the West. Today this term mostly refers to the likes of CS:GO or DOTA, heavily relying on their gimmicky IAP/DLC. They allow but 2 players fight against each other and require a whole lot of skill just to pull off special moves; this is different from, say, Smash Bros—a game which is accessible to kids, has tons and tons of recognizable characters and allows 4 players fight at once.

All in all, making a fighting game sounds like going against the current today.

[Anonymous No.3372746]

I loved the Capcom Vs. games and Alpha 3. The super moves were easy enough to pull off and were basic that just about everyone could learn them and made things faster paced.

I fee Super Ultras and all the craziness of ArcSys games is a little too over my head to the point I don't even bother with the supers and just stick to basic attacks.

[Anonymous No.3373381]

>>3372284
>Interesting, where did you get the numbers? How was Third Strike received?
This site, which cites Gamest magazine:
http://www.netlaputa.ne.jp/~dummy/gamest/magazine/meslt.html
Unfortunately Gamest went under in 1999, so no data for Third Strike there. Might be able to find it in some other magazine if you looked hard enough, though.

[Anonymous No.3373383]

>>3373381
Screwed up that link.
http://www.netlaputa.ne.jp/~dummy/gamest/magazine/mest.html

[Anonymous No.3373386]

>>3362173
I think a 2d fighting game with no supers at all and gameplay which is a refinement of Street Fighter 2 would simply be the cat's meow.

[Anonymous No.3373715]

>>3372159
I wish more people would realize this. SF3 may have been a commercial flop, but it had very little to do with the actual quality of the game.

Capcom clearly thought that they could make lightning strike twice with another numbered entry in the SF series. Unfortunately, it came out in arcades at a time where the arcade scene was in decline, and didn't even get a decent home port until years later.

[Anonymous No.3373721]

>>3373715

>SF3 may have been a commercial flop, but it had very little to do with the actual quality of the game.
I disagree, I think there's a lot of reasons people would have to be disappointed about SF3 when it came out. That got better with time though.

[Anonymous No.3373767]

>>3362173
>I feel like they trivialise a lot of the basic mechanics, and footsies only start to matter in high level play because of it.
Do you actually know what you're talking about (no) or did you just spend five whole minutes in a fighting game thread and try to come off as educated?

[Anonymous No.3373993]

>>3373721
What would those reasons be?

[Anonymous No.3373998]

>>3372656
That's the way it is for any genre defining game. No matter how big the first person shooter games get, none is going to have the cultural impact that Doom. Street Fighter 2 is no different. It introduced most of the world to the joy of fighters and changed the whole landscape. That doesn't happen very often.

And even if it's not the most popular competitive genre of game out there, it's still bigger overall now than it ever has been. It doesn't matter if there are 10 people playing DotA or CoD for every one person playing a fighting game because there are still so many people playing them. I don't even tend to focus on the more popular ones and there are always plenty of players.

While it's true that many games these days cater to more casual or newer players, there are also ones that cater to more dedicated gamers. There's plenty to go around. Unless you have no job or are independently wealthy you won't have time to focus on even a fraction of the games that come out now anyways, so it's a perfect time to be super choosy.

[Anonymous No.3374001]

>>3362362
How do you beat the last boss in the story mode of bb2? Dude teleports whenever I land a killing blow

[Anonymous No.3374034]

>>3362173
that's bs since in this game the bar will fill faster for the person in the lead anyway.

[Anonymous No.3374075]

>>3373715
SF3 was a commercial flop because the game was terrible for the first two editions. Awful voicework, lame backgrounds (2i's version of hot spring is great though), and bad UI.

3rd Strike redeemed the SF3 series because the new visual and audio directions blended perfectly.

No offense to Kinu Nishimura but her artstyle just wasn't as compelling as Daigo Ikeno's. I do think SFV shouldn't have gone for a retread of Ikeno's SFIV take and instead tried to adopt Nishimura's more stylized art for a better identity.

pic related isn't from SF3 but the general principle remains. CvS2 worked miles better than the first game because of the solid identity that came from mixing audio and visual motifs.

[Anonymous No.3374418]

>>3373993
No returning characters aside from Ryu and Ken. New characters are weird. Slower game speed. Smaller roster. Have to limit yourself to one super.

[Anonymous No.3374456]

>>3374075
>>3374418
yeah you both are right

but really the main reason was everybody was busy playing Tekken 3 or Virtua Fighter 3 which seemed to be the natural evolution of the genre at that time.

[Anonymous No.3375835]

>>3374075
>SF3 was a commercial flop because the game was terrible for the first two editions

To be fair, I think the same can be said of every vanilla first version of the numbered entries of the SF series including SFV

Capcom always starts off a little rough and it takes them a few years to get it right.

Also, goddamn CvS2's artwork is godlike

>>3374418
>No returning characters aside from Ryu and Ken

These are the same people who insist that the entirety of the SF2 cast has to appear in every single installment of the SF series. Their opinions are bad and they should feel bad.

New Generation may have gone a bit overboard with the sheer number of new characters, and while I have to admit it was off-putting at first, I think some great characters ended up coming from the series. People just needed to give it a chance before immediately dismissing it for not having Honda or some shit

[Anonymous No.3375839]

>>3375835
It was just a bit much. I bet if Chun Li and Akuma were in the first edition, it might have been a little less shocking. Also, Necro and Oro being replaced with Makoto and Hugo in the first game. Maybe include Urien as well.

[Anonymous No.3375863]

>>3374075
>CvS2 worked miles better than the first game because of the solid identity that came from mixing audio and visual motifs.
Don't forget that every character no longer had a pre-set ratio

[Anonymous No.3378268]

>>3369223
This is a good question.

First of all, you need to have skills and reaction to do that. It's not easy, as in most cases you have to start inputting the directional inputs for the super ahead (called "buffering").

Now the rest differs from game to game. In SF, as >>3369403 said, after 7 or so hits your damage lowers considerably. E.g., here's how it works in SFIV:
>1st and 2nd hit—normal damage
>#3—80% damage
>#4—70%
>#5—60%
>…and so on until 10% (minimum damage).

So, If you connect a super on 10th hit, it will hurt like a light punch. Way to spend all super/ultra bar on shit. So people saying, "lelelel just Super into Ultra lmao" don't understand that it will deal much less damage than intended. Also, keep in mind that even if you dizzy your opponent, the combo counter WON'T reset, meaning scaling will take full effect.

In KoF'98, you can't cancel a special to super, and there are no EX moves. Juggling potential is also hugely limited. It's very rare you can combo a launcher into a super. For example, you can do it with Kyo using his double kick; but it's a bitch to connect and by itself it deals negligible damage. Most you can (usually) hope for in KoF'98 is the usual combo like jump-in—>close heavy punch—>fast enough super like Ryuko Ranbu, and it takes quite a lot of skill to time it correctly.

Even then—most supers in KoF'98 are very slow, telegraphed, won't connect from a light attack, and some characters like Terry are actually fine without using them at all.