Future of 2D Fighting Games

When you ask people "What do you think is the future of 2D Fighting Games?". The Reply you'll most likely get is Guilty Gear. Thats a perfectly reasonable answer. At the moment Guilty Gear is having alot of success. It's the most popular 2D Fighting game in the arcades in Japan, and hardcore fighting game players all over the world are starting to jump on board. Also new 2D fighter's are adopting the same style as it, fast paced, combo heavy, overly complex, anime graphics/visuals.

However I can see problems going down this path. This new breed 2D fighter may work in the Eastern part of the world, where anime is cool and massive player bases. But in the western world i think these overly complex fighters are scaring people away.

Take Guilty Gear for example. It has such a complex game system, its not the sort of game someone new to it can just pick up and play. Take the total fighting game noob (someone who never really played any kind of fighting game at all), they see Guilty Gear they think it looks cool, wouldn't mind giving it ago. You'd probably scare them off before you even got anywhere past explaining all the gauges on the screen and what they do. And the worrying thing is, i can only see Guilty Gear getting more complex overtime, with new updates. And its little friends will also no doubt try and stay on top of the competition.

I like to think that 2d Fighters has kind of reached a peak with complexity by now. Fighter's have got more and more complex over the years, cause they have needed to. After the SF2 games era, games got a lot more combo heavy, to the point where the games go ridiculous such as mvc2. So games like Guilty Gear had to change the psychics in thier games from previous fighters to stop things like infinites. Which makes the game more complex, as the player has to think of new and interesting ways of continuing to combo thier opponents.

But this sort of fighter really isn't doing us any good as far as attracting new players, these complex fighters only really cater for the hardcore scene. Players who have been playing fighting games for years and need something new and more complex to challenge them and keep it interesting. Now this is not a problem in Japan since they have a very healthy arcade scene with many players. But when it comes to western world, our scenes are really small when compared. With each new game coming from Japan less and less players are playing it, as they are not catered for us. Even though anime is popular here, anime by most people in the Western World is just looked upon like another cartoon, something for kids. Then the games are extremely complex, instantly making people think "WTF is this all about? this game looks weird and is too hard"

I often play Tekken with a casual group of friends. They got little to no idea what the hell they are doing, just the next step beyond random button mashing, i guess you would call that educated button mashing. But the point is they get alot of fun out it, without ever the need to really learn the game. Now i know this is what seperates us from the casuals gamers, but if a game is so complex in the first place to not get many casual players, then the only real place players are coming from are from other fighters. Leaving us in a state of just recycling players over and over again. But players get older, they get more important things in their lives to do and drop out of the scene. Will this continue untill no one is left?

Lets go back to the days of SF2. You could jump, move forwards, backwards, and crouch. You had 3 punch buttons and 3 kick buttons. You could block and you could throw. Its the sort of the game which is easy to play, but hard to master. Games like Guilty gear are hard to play, and even harder to master. You could probably sit down with a total fighting game noob, and teach em how to play SF2 in 2 minutes. "Thats your health bar up, This is how you block, this is how you throw, and this how you do that special move". Then take guilty gear "thats your health bar, thats your tension bar, thats burst gauge, thats your..." Interrupted by noob "hold on a sec what are these other 2 bars". You haven't even gotten to what the buttons do yet.

But its not like these complex fighters are the only ones avaliable. There are other fighters being which are nowhere near as complex, such as NGBC. But why arent we playing it? Well one theory is that if the Japanese aren't crazy about it, then we aren't playing it (I realise people do play NGBC in Japan, but its nowhere near the scale of say GGXX and 3s). Players in my eyes, are far too worried about what the japanese are playing rather playing what they like. But hey, Japan is a credible place to copy. They got the heathliest arcade scene, they got the best players, there are loads of match vids of them so we can steal thier tactics, so why shouldn't we play what they are playing.

Now comes the tricky part. What do tournament organisers run at events. It's hard for them to decide what games should be supported. Do you go with what you know will get good turnouts, or do you go with something abit risky, but has the potential to attract a load of players...

Hyper Street Fighter 2 Tier List

The game has been around a few years now, but remarkably theres been very little tier discussion for it. Probably due to the nature of the game, with so many characters from different versions its extremely hard to rank the characters since so many of the matchups go unplayed. I doubt we will see many CE Balrog verus ST Feilong for example.

Anyway i had a crack at it, and heres what is probably a very debateable tier list.

Tier 1:
CE Bison, CE Guile, CE Ryu, CE Sagat,

Tier 2:
WW/HF Guile, HF Ryu, CE/HF Ken, HF Sagat, ST Dhalsim, ST Balrog

Tier 3:
WW Dhalsim, HF Blanka, ST Chun-li, ST Ryu, ST Vega, ST Bison

Tier 4:
CE Vega, CE/SSF2 Dhalsim, HF Chun-li, SSF2 Ryu, SSF2 Ken, ST Ken, ST Honda, ST Deejay, ST Sagat

Tier 5:
HF Honda, HF Zangief, HF/SSF2 Balrog, SSF2 Bison, SSF2 Sagat, SSF2 Chun-li, SSF2Vega, SSF2 Deejay

Tier 6:
ST Blanka, HF Dhalsim, HF Vega, SSF2 Honda, ST Feilong, ST Guile

Tier 7:
WW/CE Chun-li, WW/CE Blanka, CE Balrog, WW/CE Honda, HF Bison, SSF2 Feilong, SSF2 T.Hawk, SSF2 Guile, ST Zangief

Tier 8:
WW Ryu, WW Ken, WW/CE/SSF2 Zangief, ST T.Hawk, SSF2 Blanka, SSF2/ST Cammy

If you would like to discuss the list, then please head over to this thread

Thanks

Street Fighter 2: The Rivals

Street Fighter 2 was the biggest fighting game series ever, and was a huge success, and its no susprise that many a company tried to get a peice of the action. i want to see some of you old skool heads share your memories on classic games. If theres a game which isn't on this list which you think should be, then post it up with reasons why it should, i don't want you guys just making random lists of games.

Anyway heres some of the best:


Fatal Fury Special(SNK):
One of SNK's answers to Sf2. Following suite with SF2 champion edition, Fatal Fury Special is essentially Fatal Fury 2 but with more characters. If you overlook its controversial plane switching you'll find a deep fighting game. the air game is not as rich as SF2, but on the ground, i think zoning, poking and espeically block pressure strings are even more important than that in SF2. Added bonus is that game is pretty balanced and would make a great competitive fighter.

Samurai Shodown 2 (SNK):
Now i don't know if Samurai Shodown was the first weapon based fighter, but if it wasn't it was certiantly the first one to do it right. Samsho 2 simply improved on what was already there, adding more characters, better visuals, etc. The characters all very original and the game visually is amazing. But what you'll notice about samsho 1 and 2 is that it doesn't play like SF2 at all. The action is alot slower and combos aren't necessary at all (although they are in there and very powerful too). The emphasis in this game is your ability to out zone and poke your opponent, captilising on any mistakes.

Mortal Kombat 2 (Midway)
Mortal Kombat exploded into the scene with its fancy digitised graphics, simple easy to play system and gory falaties. All that was missing was good gameplay. Mortal Kombat 2 gave us better gameplay. The game was never gonna be as deep as Street Fighter 2, but it wasn't meant to be. Its easier to play, has a block button and every character has the same moves(although slighty different properties depending on the character) other than specials. Its great fun and always gives you a nice feeling when you perform a fatalitiy on someone. Main problem with the game is that its too shallow at higher levels of play and becomes abit of a turtle fest, with whoever attacks first often losing the round.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Konami)
Basically if you like Street Fighter 2 and like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you'll love this. Only the Snes version however, the Mega Drive version is horrid in comparison and any game with Evil versions of the turtles in them, need to dead in my opinion. Anyway back to the Snes version. Its really cheap SF2 style fun, all the turtles are there aswell as shreddar and other villians like the Rat King. However there are a few characters which only made appearances in the comics, when most of us where probably hoping for more characters from the cartoon. This is my only real problem with the game (very minor one at that), other than that its probably the best console only SF2 clone ever.

World Heroes Perfect (ADK)
The world heroes series has a susprising amount of games in the series, 4 in total, WH1, WH2, WH2 Jet and WHP. The first 3 WH games are memorable for their unique controls at the time. Only 3 buttons, 1 for punch, kick and throw, but what was really interesting is that the longer you held one of the attack buttons the more damage it did. WHP dropped this for a more traditional 4 button layout. Its a solid game, with a large slection of characters with a few interesting game mechanics such as deflecting projectiles (simple parry) and blow defense (gaurd break attack). The combos can get quite silly though.

Power Instinct 2 (Atlus)
Another Rival to SF2, and one of the few series which still survives today. This version of game obviously takes alot from SF2, but it did add something new. All the stages have destructable walls at either end, and once they have been knocked down the stage expands. Power instinct all introduced the double jump afaik. And finally some of the characters had the ability to transform. The game is also quite hilarious (theres a move called Teeth Throw, what more can i say), especially the granny characters.

Fighter History Dynamite (Data East):
The Fighters History Series is quite famous for being a complete rip off of Street Fighter 2. Capcom even tried to sue Data East, but lost the case. Fighters History gets alot of stick for this, but if you think about it logically you will see that theres a pretty good game underneath. Sure it copied SF2, but SF2 is awesome, so Fighters History is awesome too. The only real differences in gameplay is that you can hop back and theres a more flexible combo system. Its extremely fun and a good laugh, too bad the game is ruined by Karnov who pretty much destroys every other character in the game.[size=12][/size]

Killer Instinct (Rare)
Killer Instinct is probably the most original SF2 rival since Mortal kombat appeared on the scene. Only thing that is similar to SF2 is that it has a 6 button layout. The first thing which sticks out about KI is the grahpics. Pre-rendered animated backgrounds and sprites gave the game a great 3D feel to it. The system is also completely different such as winning player of the first round keeps what health they have. Also automatic combos with combo finishers which can get to insane levels. But what makes this interesting is that the opponent can break combos if they can guess and time thier combobreakers right. This keeps the combos extremely varied as no one wants to be become predictable and have thier combos broken.

Art of Fighting 2 (SNK)
Yet another attempt by SNK to compete with Street Fighter 2. The first thing you'll about the game is the huge sprites for the characters. They were extremely detailed for time, and what was particularly awesome is that damage would show on the characters, like bruises and thier clothing getting torn. Also i nice bonus is that when the opponents move far away their sprites getting smaller and much larger when close up. Gives the game nice ccinematic feel to it, this was later put into the Samurai shodown games. Gameplay wise Aof2 is not all that, but if can be a fun game nonetheless.

King of Fighters 94 (SNK)
SNK's longest running and most successful series started with KOF94. A game that brang the fatal fury series and art of fighting series into one game, plus loads of new characters. What set this game apart was that you have to select a team of 3 fighters to play with. The also introduced Kyo, the hero of KOF, and now one of most popular SNK characters. The gameplay also changed alot from previous SNK titles, the action was alot faster and was more combo oriented, with many flashy special and super moves.

The History of Fighting Games: Part 2

Chapter 1: In the beginning, Part 2

In the first of part of "In the beginning" we looked at the father of fighting games, Karate Champ, the intitial blueprint which all future fighters would follow. The original release of Karate Champ was a single player game, two player versus didn't come about till slighty later. However in 1985, a few other companies took a stab at the fighting game genre based on the original of Karate Champ, Shanghai Kid and the more popular Yie Ar Kung Fu. Both Single player games.

Shanghai kid was similar to Karate champ in alot of ways, but quite different at the same time. First major difference is that there is only 1 joystick, used for movement and blocking. And 2 buttons for attacks. While the attack commands become alot simplier, blocking became much more complicated. Most of us are accustomed to only blocking high/mid and low attacks in fighting games, but in Shanghai Kid you had 3 areas to block, head, high/mid and low areas. When playing through the game you would face opponents of increasing difficulty, but the thing which set it apart here is that you was told by red circles on your enemy where you should at attack for that moment. If you attacked elsewhere there was a good chance you would get countered and lose some of your health. Which reminds me, the point scoring system employed by Karate Champ is now gone. In its place a small life bar which would deplete if you was hit, much more familiar.

Many of you have probably at least heard of Yie Ar Kung Fu. A single player fighting game which makes use of the same controls are Shanhai kid, a joystick and a punch and kick button. Now what makes this game stand out is are the enemies you face. You control Oolong and with your deadly kung fu attacks you take on many different opponents each weilding a different weapon and with each boss brings a new challenge, each requiring a different strategy. Yie Ar Kung Fu also brought greatly improved graphics to the fighters (well compared to Karate Champ and Shanghai kid). All the characters look very unique and theres even two different backgrounds/stages to the game, awesome.

Next on the List is Galactic Warriors. It allowed for 2 players to fight eachother, nothing new there (karate champ already did this), it allowed for a choice of characters. Granted there was only three, but three is better than one. Galactic warriors also introduced the the projectile, not bad for a game made in 1985. Granted they were little more than rockets, activated by only a push of a button (not the motions we are used to today), but it did add a new playing experience to fighting games, now you didn't have to be right next to your opponent to do damage. Also of note is that the character sprites where much larger and alot more detailed than the previous games. This would soon become standard among fighting games.

It would be two years before another fighting game appeared in the arcade, but it would be one of the most important fighting games in history. Next time on the history of fighters, "The Birth of Special Moves"

The History of Fighting Games: Part 1

Chapter 1: In the beginning, Part 1

In the beginning, in a time even before Street fighter, where graphics were blocky and sound was often nothing more than the odd bleep, there was a fighting game which gave birth to the genre. Its name Karate Champ (Data East USA). Made in 1984 during the day where arcades were supreme, this odd game let you fight your opponent in unarmed combat. There wasn't life bars, or specials moves, just plain old normals. However this was not the oddest thing about the game, each player had two joysticks with which to control their identical men (only a palette seperated them, a brass tactic also employed by Street Fighter). The left joystick for movement and blocking and the right joystick for attacking, moving both sticks would result in different normal moves, similar to how command normals work in more modern fighting games. Attacks range from jumping attacks to sweeps, from long range pokes to little kicks to the legs.

Now it doesn't sound at all remarkable, but the game actually had tactics believe it or not. Your moves don't simply work by pushing the stick in a direction. All the moves had a start up time, for which you had to hold the stick a direction untill the move finally came out. If you move the stick away from that direction, then the move would stop mid start up. This allowed for feints, coaxing your opponent to make a wrong move so you could strike them. Now both you and opponent are trying to do this so to try and land a hit to score a point. First person to win 2 points won that round. However this in itself caused a serious problem at "high level play". More often than not the person who commited a full move first would get hit for thier trouble. This meant both players would play very defensively, not wanting to try and strike eachother.

One of the best features about the game is the little training part, just before you start. Its quite common in snk games to see a little tutorial on how to do the universal moves, utilising the ABCD buttons. Now Karate Champ you have something similar, but instead of just watching you actually get to try them out with your character as your being shown. I think this is great and should be standard in all fighters. Karate Champ laid down the foundation, but who would be the ones to bring the genre to new heights.

Welcome to the Skow Yard

For those you don't know me, I am r3ko, and this is my Skow Yard.

In my Skow Yard, i'll be discussing Fighting Games. I'll be taking a look at aspects of the genre, and do my best to try and update this blog regularly with my Skow thoughts.

You probably thinking by now, "who is this clown?" and "what does he know about fighting games?" Truth be told i know about as much as Jack Shit, and Jack just left town. Well thats all for now, stay tuned for future blog posts.