Fighting game is something so great

pattheflip

There’s more room for complexity in the 2D space than in a 3D brawler because you can line yourself up on the same plane. You can’t do a lot with up and down, but

this is basically the core of the problem IMO – the “up and down” are hands down the wackest parts of a 2D beat-em-up. Aces Wild has more satisfying combat design than any beat-em-up i’ve played and IMO a lot of that is unlocked by sticking to a flat 2D plane instead of the weird 2D-but-with-weird-depth.

i think most of the stuff you’ve described would be better served in like, a PvE Power Stone style game than a 2D beat em up. which isn’t to say that it wouldn’t work in 2D, or it wouldn’t make it better, but i think game devs have largely left behind the genre because the value of working within those constraints is only useful as a specific nostalgia play (see: River City Girls), not because it’s a particularly good template to build for a one-vs-many hand-to-hand combat fantasy.

exodus

Hmm, I still think it’s a good format for exploration, precision combat mechanics, and discovery, I just gotta get the money to prove it ha ha.

James-

I definitely agree that there’s still a lot of untapped potential in the 2d belt scroller genre. It seems like when things really started to die out with that genre was when things were getting the most adventurous and interesting.
The massively increased opportunity for exploration over a locked plane never really got explored, and I love the idea of a branching area.
It seems like there’s boatloads of potential for interactable stage elements that still haven’t been done (now I’m just thinking about the stage elements in Disgaea and how easily you could have an area where standing in the right spot grants wild benefits, or baiting enemies into the right spot let’s you do all sorts of things. How about areas with some inspiration from the arena in Monster Hunter world - all sorts of hazards you can trip.
As for how to make the combat flow without being fiddly because of the slight height differences… I’m not sure about that one. Seems like there should be some ways around it, but I’m drawing a blank.

exodus

One thought I had is a “lock plane” button, where you hold a trigger, for example, and then you’ve got access to street fighter style moves, with up and down and etc.

What really got me interested in interactable stages, oddly enough, was Castlevania, Dawn of Sorrow, where I think you hit something and got a wooden shard, and I thought… why not more of this, all the time!?

James-

exodus there’s always the Guardian Heroes method - three planes you can shift between, each one a locked 2d area.

exodus

yeah, I always liked the idea in concept, but not as much in practice (same for the fatal fury two planes fighting system). To me it feels more complex than holding a lock plane button, but I could also see that being a barrier for other folks who don’t want to have to hit a million buttons to do things. It’s a tough one - Guilty Gear isuka had a “change direction” button for the 4 player mode and it totally sucked. Frankly I’d rather play Queen of Heart where they had autofacing but it didn’t work 20% of the time, than have to hit a button to face my opponent properly on top of all the other dang guilty gear buttons. So… I see good and bad to the “lock plane” button idea.

James-

I wonder if a targeting system might be a good compromise? Choose an enemy to lock onto, and you are always considered on their plane. Tap a button to cycle lock ons. I’m not sure if that would be better or worse than a lock plane button, but it would be more consistent with what folks are used to, and help make it really clear what enemy you’re engaged with.

exodus

hmmmm, still strikes me as maybe too complex - this would actually be a fun game jam topic though, belt scroller genre expansion. HMMMMMMMMMmmmm maybe some day for an internal necrosoft jam.

James-

p3ters I’ve been meaning to get into the Sailor Moon S SNES fighting game, and the community for that is dedicated, but quite spread out, so online play is a already big thing for them. I’m really curious about the ramifications this quarantine will have on fighting game group ( and multiplayer heavy gaming communities in general). Fighting is a genre so dependent on really precise timing and lack of lag, I’m curious if there will be a shift in popularity of games based on quality of netcode, or what will happen.

Any chance the weekly is moving to the internet? Pinball’s a bit tougher (though I could play Devil’s Crush/Dragon’s Fury for hours) to shift online sadly.

exodus I guess you could always go the simplest route and have some gimmick that physically narrows down the stage for specific miniboss/boss battles. It would take the control of plane locking away from the player, but also not require them to keep track of another thing they have to control.

p3ters

I miss playing fighting games :( I bought that UNICLR game which is supposed to be awesome but have yet to touch it. It’s so hard to make time when you have other games you wanna play and can only do one at a time.

I live in the same town as one of SoCal’s premier local fighting game weeklies, but it’s the same night I play pinball in another venue right around the block lol.

or at least used to… before the quarantine. I miss social gaming :(

p3ters

James-
yaw, a lot of the local communities are hosting weekly online tournaments now! including the one close to me!

all the games I like are played on PC tho (Tekken and Guilty Gear)… and my current PC is a decade old (built it to play Starcraft 2 lol)

but I bought all the games on steam knowing one day I will have a new PC! with the current quarantine this may finally be the time to make it happen lol

pattheflip

Both NorCal + SoCal WNF has started running netplay weeklies for a bunch of games.

Sailor Moon S is wild.

James-

pattheflip I’m a massive Sailor Moon fan, so I figure if anything is going to convince me to stick with it and learn to play, it’ll be that or X-Men Children of the Atom.

pattheflip

James- IIRC it was made by ArcSys (though credited as Angel, apparently?).

Highlights include:

All normals are cancelable into backdash/forward dash (if your character has them)
Blockstun can be canceled into any special move (bonus: Jupiter and Uranus have command grabs that I thiiiink are 1F)
Everyone’s throw is some awesome pro wrestling shit
Discord is here if you wanna find people to play with

James-

pattheflip I’ve been in the discord lurking for a bit (thank you for the link, though!), but I haven’t put aside the time to start learning to play… I even picked up a cart of it, just so I can play on actual console even.
I did not realize about the cancels - that sounds wild!
I love what ArcSys did with it, it would be incredible to see what they’d make with the license now if they had a chance to do another one.

pattheflip

BTW, if anyone is interested, I did a Twitter thread just now TL;DRing some of my recent FG writing work.

pattheflip

Also, I had this in drafts for over a year and never figured out what I wanted to do with it, so it’s perfect Exclusive Insert Credit Forum Content:

TL,DR; Play Sailor Moon S

My wife loves Sailor Moon. She loves Sailor Moon so much that her family will reminisce about her young years by saying “Remember how obsessed you were with Sailor Moon as a kid?” and I have to remind myself that they do not realize she is still obsessed with Sailor Moon.

After seeing Sailor Moon S tournaments crop up here and there at a bunch of tournaments, I asked her about it, and found out she had her old Super Famicom copy lying around. I played it and realized why people are bringing it back; I invited my old Bearcade buddies over to play it and we cracked out for a few hours like it was some hot new shit.

I think that part of the joy of picking up Sailor Moon S is the joy of discovery, and I don’t want to deprive you of that, so I wrote this Spoiler-Free Review of Sailor Moon S for the Super Famicom instead.
- - - - - -
Sailor Moon S is like playing kickball when you’re thirty years old and realize those bouncy balls are way more fun when you’re kicking with Grown Adult Power.

Watching someone play Sailor Moon S for the first time in their lives is a fighting game purity test.

Playing Sailor Moon S validates your off-hand habit of judging people based on their favorite Sailor Senshi.

In the first 20 minutes, you’ll think about how shotos really are kinda cheap.

In 30 minutes you’ll wonder whether it has super moves.

In 1 hour you’ll feel dirty.

In an hour and a half you’ll realize that you don’t care if there are super moves because they’re probably kind of underwhelming compared to the shit you just figured out.

In two hours you’ll realize that you’re playing Galaxy Brain: The Fighting Game and you’re going to enter the next Sailor Moon S tournament you see?

In a week or two you’ll be at a Sailor Moon S tournament and realize you only played the game for two hours.

In the first game you play at that tournament, you’ll meet a person who will beat your ass and then invite you to the Sailor Moon S Discord.

Playing Sailor Moon S reminds you that every game you ever learned how to play was Worth It;

Playing Sailor Moon S also reminds you that every game you ever learned how to play is not That Serious.
Play Sailor Moon S.

James-

pattheflip sold. I have set up a folder on my computer just for this - it’s time to finally make it happen.

Karasu

exodus As you are very aware I love truly Bad Fighters! A recent favorite is Battle Monsters for the Saturn (I also love digitized mocap games) but I’m at a loss to categorize it as terrible or TERRIBLE.

Oh also really loving the in depth talk about 2D vs 3D brawlers further down the thread. I wish I could talk coherently about game mechanics because I feel like I have a lot to say!

James-

Karasu I just looked up Battle Monsters, and while I love it, I had so many images in my head already from the title calling up King of Monsters in my brain, that I was just not ready for it.
It’s not often a Saturn title can make the SNES port of Killer Instinct look really good.

Karasu

James- I mean yeah, I’d like to think I prepared you for how not great it looks, sounds, and plays, but… yeah. It’s extremely rough and hard to love, but somehow it’s my kind of thing! It’s got a real sort of warmth to it, and it’s amazing to me that in 1995 something so roughly hewn could make it to a physical disc for a major console. I love it.

I keep hoping that someday I’ll come across some footage of the actors in makeup getting the moves all filmed.

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