Fighting games not impressive anymore...

Tobal 2 and BB were awesome!! I need to find these games on ebay.

 

I agree that what you say needs to be implemented, but the "hardcore" fanbase will have issues with it. SEGA and Namco might have to make all new franchises to implement these ideas with characters from their well known franchises

 

It was done before - Soul Calibre (Soul Blade)

 

I don't play fighters much, as I suck at them.

But here is my two cent anyway.

IMO physics for eye-candy is OK. But for game play, there might be issues.

In real life we have a relatively fine control over say how you throw a punch, but in a video game all you got are 2 joysticks and a bunch of buttons.
In real life we got depth perception, in a game you have at most a 2D screen updating at 60fps.

Will the players be able to observe the more visually subtle (but none the less significant) effects create by the physic engine and react to them properly with such limited controls.

Secondly with a full blown physic engine there is a chance the game might get too complicated to play, to be enjoyable.

Unless that is your thing, and you are one of those who enjoy playing ultra realistic helicopter simulators.

 

Tobal 2 was one of my favorites... When I found out it wasn't coming to the states, I imported it. First game I ever imported. Playing the quest mode (which was actually pretty sweet) was kind of difficult when you don't know Japanese and had to figure it all out by guessing (all I had was a translation of the main menus)

I still have the game sitting on my shelf (side question: were all JP PS1 cases like that?). Kind of wish they'd translate it and release on the PSN as a downloadable PS1 game or something. I haven't been able to play it since I sold my near launch PS1 (a bit after the PS2 came out, I think).

 

The point is not to have a full-blown physics engine in the traditional sense..

I'm sure some people here probably believe tacking Havok 4 onto the end of VF will cause all there wierd and wonderful awesome fighting mechanics to be possible..

In reality however the REAL next-step for fighting games is not strictly physics..

Real physics would be nice but IMO would be a level of complexity that isn't entirely necessary to add further realism to these games.. For example you only have to look at Assasin's Creed to see what a sophisticated context-based, semi-procedural animation engine can be capable of without being directly physics-driven.. This is what is REALLY needed IMO..

I'll be back later to speak more on this..

 

I'd say this is the perfect sub-genre(boxing) to start incorporating physics based animation into the gameplay.

1) it's character/envionment limited
2) it's based in reality
3) it's easy for non-gamers to relate to (expand the market)
4) the competition on the market is slim

A standout new boxing game that looks great (fn3) and is responsive and reacts realistically could do wonders. Then take this knowledgebase and apply it to the traditional fighting genre with new IP. Or an older IP that isn't expensive like Karate Kid!

 

The genre has really been old and stale for a long time. Superfically, almost all DOA, VF and Tekken type games plays the like they played almost 15 years ago. There has been increase sophisication in terms of the fighting engine but those changes are often subtle and sometimes serve only to make moving from beginner to expert harder.

There no reason for all fighting games of be defaulted to 2 min matches with 2 out of 3 falls within a small defined space.

Imagine a VF with a Fight Night or wrestling feel but without some of the basic rules. Fights having the ability to last from 1-2 minutes to 15-20 minutes. Model damage accumulation with the ability to target certain body areas such as attacking one's legs to weaken their kicks. How about going from having perfect form to 10 minutes later being barely able to stand.

The fighting genre has so much latitude so I fail to understand why well known franchises simply depend on their names and basically give the same formula as any other devs. There is no reason to maintain the constraints that were develop for arcades to fill up the machines with quarters.

 

I agree somewhat, but I don't think those changes should come at the loss of the classic formula games, which is what I'm getting from your post (maybe mistakenly). I'd be pissed if VF turned into what you gave as an example there. I imagine the reason VF/Tekken/DoA/etc. don't change much between sequels is because the fans would go nuts -- I recall even mild changes in VF3 (I think?) causing a rather large amount of bitching, similar in one of the Tekkens.

I'd be happy if the VF team (or any of the other pedigreed fighter makers) tried another type of fighting game as well though. Hell, I'd love to see a studio like Naughty Dog or Insomniac try it (or any other studio that has a history of quality titles). There's definitely plenty of room in the genre to have some creativity (smash brothers shows that). I'd love for some new fighters, but I'd be a little ticked if all of a sudden VF6, Tekken6/7, etc. were all drastically changed from their previous entries.

I agree there is definitely a lack of new material in the fighting game genre, but there's plenty of room for new arrivals, rather than having to change the beloved classics.

 

There no thing wrong with classic fighters but the fighting genre needs a shot in the arm and a new breed of fighter games are needed. Devs should put more efforts into bringing something fresh and new into the genre even if that means a bunch of hit or miss titles. I rather have devs run popular franchises into the ground if it means that in 5 years from now I can go "Man, VF and Tekken has nothing on this game".

 

I think you'll find developers and publishers would rather take a chance on a new franchise than taking a real risk of running a currently healthy franchise into the ground.

Overall, I agree with your sentiments -- the genre needs some new blood and some creativity thrown in. Of course, I still want my VF5, badly.

 

Yeah, I agree. I've seen one of the newer Mortal Kombat games (Armmagedon?). Talk about running a series into the ground. It had this horrible single player 3rd person game with real basic controls. However, it did a in depth create a fighter feature but you had to play the 3rd person game or tournament to gather enough gold to buy all the upgraded moves and clothing. I kept going "WTF, this is the best they could do after 15 years and how the hell did Lui Kang die".

 

I think physic effects could be more suitable for game like dbz than for game like VF5 and the likes (more realistic fighting games, with no fire ball ....lol ).
Cloth simulation or more realistic motion add very few to the game play

You could imagine a game where you battling in a huge environment (not as big as crackdown city, but huge), an destructible environment where you can hide yourself, set trap (like delayed fireball), use force like blast, to make make stuffs (buildings, mountains, etc...) collapse upon your adversary or to throw broken part to him while dashing toward him to try to overtake his defence.

I think this could be bring interesting physic based game play to non realistic fighting games