A bit of love for Super Smash Bros.

[Danalys]

i figure the fighting game could still have a rejuvination. just need to abandon the SF2 model compelely. either that or the action platformer with multiplay death matches will be the death of it. imagine playing Ninja gaiden or DMC up against other balenced characters. anyway they've been moving fighting games down a blind alley of being impossible for newbies to pick up and get into over the years. time to simplify and move on. i've always wanted one where you use an analog stick for movement and one for angle of attack or block. choose a four button configuration to go with it and hey presto. purly timing, reaction and stratergy based fighting. distance to oponant could change the attack aswell. but each character would have strength and weaknesses based on reach, speed and technique. no good going for flying kicks with a wrestler who can't jump well.

 

[standing ovation]

Third strike is where burnt out fighting gamers go when they die. It's heaven. Unless they where assholes in their former lives. They still go there but they play Chun Li.

According to experts Ken, Yun and Chun Li are top-tier.



[size=-2]P.S. You ought to play Super Smash Bros. Melee; it's better than Super Smash Bros.[/size]

 

[Crayon]

According to experts Ken, Yun and Chun Li are top-tier.



[size=-2]P.S. You ought to play Super Smash Bros. Melee; it's better than Super Smash Bros.[/size]

Actually, I was talking about Melee. I forgot the subtitile!

Top tier is Chun Li, Ken, Yang... and sometimes Makoto.

Or you could say top tier is Ken, Yang and sometimes Makoto. Then Chun Li is god tier.

When somebody in a casual match picks Chun right off the bat, it's almost considered rude. You know you are in for the most tired, predictable, formulatic scrub match. Thing is, the jokes on them, because when you break their ass, they look like an ass.

I was playing at a regional one time. Some top players where there so I didn't really have a chance of winning. I picked Hugo (im the best in the state!!!!) to mix up the fights. So there's this guy who would play Yang and srub me all the time in casual play. Shortly before this tourny, I had established that my Hugo could stomp his Yang most the time. So our match starts and he picks Chun!!!! Then he pulls this weird corner trap that keeps Hugo stuck in block stun wile chipping your bar! Someone tapped my shoulder and whispered to red pary into a Gigas Breaker. Funny the guy mentioned because not many people can actuall execute that. But I can.

I won!!! My opponent was shamed. He commited suicide that nite and left behind two loving parents and a younger sister.

 

[Tagrineth]

I don't know any true fighter fanatics IRL so I have trouble with longer combos as well as wrapping my head around the more complex mechanics. If I had someone I could "train" with I could learn that stuff. I fighters.

Smash Bros.: Melee is fantastic. It does have a hardcore following, and many fighter communities have embraced it as a refreshing change from the SF2 formula.

Brawl could make or break SSB's hardcore appeal. If wavedashes are left in the game and SHFFL tactics don't get nerfed too badly, as well as some characters *COUGHSHIEKCOUGHFOXCOUGHFALCOCOUGHMARTH* getting toned down appropriately (hopefully we won't see another SSB->SSBM Ness & Kirby style raping)... we'll see great things.

 

[Crayon]

I don't know any true fighter fanatics IRL so I have trouble with longer combos as well as wrapping my head around the more complex mechanics. If I had someone I could "train" with I could learn that stuff. I fighters.

I developed system for teaching people Street Fighter and it's easy and works pretty good. It game to me while I was getting the most savage beasting on earth.

I was at a bigger tournament and there was a crapload of people there. There was only one huge Third Strike machine. I got matched up against Ricky Ortiz. I don't know who won this year but that year Ricky won 3rd Strike in Evo. That made him technically the best player in the world. As in, Japan flew in their freakish mutant super players and Ricky beat them. So now Ricky was going to beat me and I was intent on giving it my all. So we get started and we play a total of four rounds with Ricky taking all of them. He was playing Ken and he beat me with almost exclusivly low roundhouses. You know taht low hard kick sweep that you start abusing the first time you ever play SF2? He beat me with practically nothing but that. He didn't do it to show off and nobody gave me shit for it, either. He was in tournament mode and he did just no more than he needed to do to beat me. It was insane. It was like he was just charming me into walking into this one totally basic move over and over.

After that surreal mauling I had an insight into the barrier of entry for new players. So now I try to introduce two newbs at a time, starting with third strike. They both get to pick either Ken or Ryu. Then I explain how to low roundhouse, block high and low, throw, dash and overhead. Then I ban all other actions, including jumping. I make them play like that and anyone who des anything other than the allowed moves has to stand still and get thrown. If they stick to the plan, the action starts heating up pretty quick because they're moveset is so limited and balanced. Also, there are no execution issues to frustrate. They've got blinders on.

When they start shit talking I allow them to jump in with any move they want and I show them crouch feirce (that dramatic looking slow uppercut) and how it works for anti-air.

You let them play like this and if they get bored, they probably aren't learning. They probably thought they knew how to play becaue they played it for hundreds of hours as a kid. If they stick to my plan and keep an open mind they will start appreciating what it takes to win. I don't know how long you should play like this, but from my experience, the longer guys have stuck to the limited regimen the more dramaticly they improved.

 

[Tagrineth]

You let them play like this and if they get bored, they probably aren't learning.

I'd be the player that gets frustrated with everyone else wanting to stop because they're bored. >_>

 

[poopypoo]

I developed system for teaching people Street Fighter and it's easy and works pretty good... but from my experience, the longer guys have stuck to the limited regimen the more dramaticly they improved.

Yeah this is pretty good insight for anyone who's never taken SF seriously before. Our solution was to create rules that weren't quite so hardened as yours. No jumping was definitely one of them, but we'd mix it up. For example, we'd pick one button ppl were allowed to use per round, and this helped people unearth all of the moves for their characters. Same character fights were always interesting this way. And no throws or all throws were important. How many people get so far and still don't understand throws? Then we'd change it up a lot, though. Helps keep people from getting bored. As with most video games, very few people really want to learn to be fundamentally sound. They just want to have fun. What's up with that?

What I find interesting is how much more reliable these fundamentals feel in SF versus almost every other fighter (except VF). I geenrally use it as the primary indicator of whether a fighter is any good or not.

 

[Crayon]

What I find interesting is how much more reliable these fundamentals feel in SF versus almost every other fighter (except VF). I geenrally use it as the primary indicator of whether a fighter is any good or not.

Virtua Fighter.

Now I had and played VF2 on my Saturn for awhile. But never really got into it as noone would play with me.

Then with the hype for VF4 I got the game and alot of us played and we liked it alot. We got thru the phase where you "discover the jab" and everybody gets annoyed. Then teh game was really fun.

But one sunny day me and one friend hooked up the Saturn out on the patio. We drank a few six packs and smoked a few packs of ciggs for 6 hours. Back to back Akira v Lau matches. No character changes. Going back to VF4 our game was positivly transformed. The stripped down VF2 really focused us on the basics and we were finally confident that we were good without any other frame of refference. He went to Japa last year and made it a point to go play.

He came back and said "Yeah, we're pretty good."

Edit: I wanted to edit the thread title to include general fighting discussion. Seems I cant. Anyone hook me up?

 

[StefanS]

Smash Bros.: Melee is fantastic. It does have a hardcore following, and many fighter communities have embraced it as a refreshing change from the SF2 formula.

Brawl could make or break SSB's hardcore appeal. If wavedashes are left in the game and SHFFL tactics don't get nerfed too badly, as well as some characters *COUGHSHIEKCOUGHFOXCOUGHFALCOCOUGHMARTH* getting toned down appropriately (hopefully we won't see another SSB->SSBM Ness & Kirby style raping)... we'll see great things.

The great thing about SSBM is come it comes in a disguise. At the first glance it's just a simple button masher, the moves are simple, the "special" moves are easily triggered, etc. But that's not really the case. Granted the controls are not difficult, but they sure are sophisticated. Timing is very critical for success. Some moves are important for not falling of the platforms, others are good for kicking off. Personally, I find SSBM a more tactical - yes items drops are part of that - and clever fighter than say SC. Newbies can trigger a few moves in SC by just button mashing, sometimes dealing a bit of damage. But they stand no chance against me in SSBM. In fact, when playing against my friends I've been forbidden to use certain characters (that includes my fav Luigi ), I may only use the shitty ones. That said, I am a SSBM addict, for real.

 

[Crayon]

... I am a SSBM addict, for real.

Have you tried Marvel V Capcom 2?

It's kind of special to me. I make sure never to look at faqs for it and I never subject myself to real competition. I play it in the home only, amongst friends who vow to completly discover the game themselves. I've seen people play it at tournaments and I don't want it to get like that.

The game is crazy awesome. Your post reminded me of it because the space control is so exaggerrated. Kind of like SSBM. So have you tried it? It's getting pricey now, but if you have friends to play with I think it's worth it.

 

[darkblu]

Personally, I find SSBM a more tactical - yes items drops are part of that - and clever fighter than say SC.

beware, young man, are walking on very thin ice here.. : )

Newbies can trigger a few moves in SC by just button mashing, sometimes dealing a bit of damage.

i do have to agree with you here, though - SC combos, the way they are, allow for accidental combo pattern matching. being a seasoned SC player myself, i have to admit that my 'intended combo' : 'performed combo' ratio stands somewhere in the 80s %. and in some extreme cases of difficult combos i can get as low as 50% performance rate - in the rest 50% of the time i get the next closest combo instread which often can cost you the match.

 

[Crayon]

i do have to agree with you here, though - SC combos, the way they are, allow for accidental combo pattern matching. being a seasoned SC player myself, i have to admit that my 'intended combo' : 'performed combo' ratio stands somewhere in the 80s %. and in some extreme cases of difficult combos i can get as low as 50% performance rate - in the rest 50% of the time i get the next closest combo instread which often can cost you the match.

That happens in 3d fighting games. Sometimes it's incidental to the movelist and buffering system. Sometimes it's by design. You think it was an accident that the origional Eddy Gordo was devastating (relativly speaking) in the hands of frantic button mashers? The entire Soul Calibur
roster swings a little that direction so there is a fairly high frequencey of accidental strings. DOA is notorios for being masher heaven. Even Virtua Fighter 4 introduced the very appealing monk character, Lei Fei. Lei Fei deviated from the basis of the other characters to basicly flatter the button masher.

 

[Fox5]

The original smash bros was a very fun but highly flawed an imbalanced game. I also think it originally launched in Japan in 1997, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that when Melee launched in 2001 it was a very finely honed master-piece.

At the first glance it's just a simple button masher

I'd disagree with the literal meaning of button masher, since you're not locked on rails like a normal fighting game, nor facing an opponent, and that randomly mashing buttons is a good way to fall off a level, I'd say it definetely doesn't qualify. Button masher to me means something like in marvel versus capcom where you can pick say wolverine and just hit random buttons without any thought in win, and even at the low level I'm pretty sure this can't happen in ssbm.
I'd compare smash bros more to the battle modes that used to be in side scrolling beat em up games like final fights and streets of rage.

Smash is basically how I chose my suitemates in my apartment. Though I just picked up marvel versus capcom 2 the other day and we're playing that, though honestly it's not enough street fighter for me. It even plays considerably different from marvel versus capcom 1.

 

[Tagrineth]

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is fun until someone figures out or reads up on one of its many broken combos and character strategies. Then it gets stale very, very fast.