Lately the fighter genre has made a comeback with the release of Street Fighter IV and the upcoming release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 which is scheduled for early next year. The question is, why? Fighting games suck. And not just because I suck at playing them but for several legitimate reasons. Fighting games had their heyday in the 90's when games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II were released but since then there really has not been much improvement in the fighter genre as a whole. Unlike other video game genres that are constantly evolving and changing, the fighting game has pretty much remained the same. Racing games have become increasingly realistic, FPS evolve to meet the demands of the online gaming community, sandbox games have become more complex and detailed, and even RPGs have changed significantly from their early days. The only thing that has really changed about fighters is the number of characters in most of them could now rival a small army.
When the fighting genre did attempt to evolve by transitioning from 2D to 3D graphics, it was a disaster. Fighting in a 3D arena just wasn't the same and so fighters started to die out with fewer and fewer actual good ones being released. In recent times fighters have gone back to being 2D with 3D character models to give the impression of depth and now their popularity has one again sky-rocketed. When a genre actually has to revert major advancements because it couldn't adapt the gameplay to the changes, it's a warning sign that something is wrong.
Fighting games are boring because you're doing the same thing, one-on-one duels, over and over again. There aren't really any levels or storyline, it is just you, facing off against another character who is either controlled by a CPU or another person, and duking it out. Sure this could be cool for awhile but how many times can you repeat the same actions and still have fun? What other modes are there? Time Trial? Survival? How about coming up with a new mode where you have to fight three characters all at once? Oh wait...that was actually such a dramatic evolution that it became a whole standalone game (Smash Brothers)!
Many people complain that the yearly release of Madden is just the same game with updated rosters being repackaged and sold for full price but fighters are an even bigger offender of this. What really is the difference between Street Fighter II and Street Fighter IV? Cooler graphics? A couple new characters added to the roster? Is that really all the franchise was capable of evolving in the seventeen year timespan between the two arcade releases?
Fighters don't really take any skill to play, either. A lot of people probably would disagree with this statement and admittedly, I am personally bad at fighters but only because I have no interest at all in playing them. Being "good" at fighters isn't so much about actually having skill as it is having experience with the game and memorizing all of a character's techniques (which can be a ridiculously lengthy list). Once you can perform any technique at will, the only thing you need to do to become "good" is play the game enough to learn what beats what. Then, when your opponent performs a Dragon Uppercut you know you have to counter with a Fireball immediately. This isn't skill at the actual game, it's just memorization of a rock, paper, scissors mechanic.
Sometimes people will spam the same move over and over to win a match and it actually works. One example I can recall from Street Fighter is using M. Bison's down and B attack where he dashes forward. I remember people abusing this attack so much that it literally became the only one they performed in entire matches. If you saw an M. Bison vs M. Bison match, chances are it would be a war of the forward dashes. Take a look at the video embedded below where someone playing as Guile jump-kicks his way to victory. Does spamming this attack make him a good player?
This isn't a phenomenon that was only used back in the day, either. Recently playing Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit on Xbox LIVE, the very first match I played the guy would simply spam energy attacks. Trying to get close enough to actually fight him proved to be quite a chore as an undefended ki blast can deal thousands of points of damage with a single hit. If I did close the distance he wouldn't even fight back, he would just fly away and resume his energy attacks. Sure I could counter this strategy by emulating it myself but why should I have to do that? Needless to say, it wasn't very fun. Not only is attack spamming a problem but it can be just as easy in many situations to button mash your way to victory. Randomly mashing buttons on your controller to come out on top isn't gratifying and isn't fun.
How fighters can be played competitively at a professional level I'll never understand. In First Person Shooters, not only do you need to have an expert level of precision aiming and knowledge of the game, but you also have to be able to outsmart your opponents. You need to be able to predict their strategy and adapt to their tactics. In most cases you also need to use teamwork to overcome the enemy team. Fighters aren't predictable at all because you never know how the other guy is going to fight. Will this guy spam jump kick? If so you just need to think about what beats that to win. Maybe will he spam Fireball so you have to think about what beats that and you'll win. Fighters come down to who has more experience to know what to do at any given moment, not about skill at the game.
The one exception to this argument would be Super Smash Brothers which took fighting games to a whole new level by taking one-on-one duels and turning them into a four player brawl. Stages actually matter in Smash Brothers as well unlike in other fighters which are just there for scenery. Spamming attacks in Smash still happens but with a lot less frequency and if all four players are still in the game, one attack is not going to be able to save you.
Most fighters are just the same game except with different characters and a different rock, paper, scissors mechanic to memorize. It is high time this tired genre either evolve or retire altogether.
Comments
Wow. I am just stunned by the staggering ignorance on display here.
Fighting games haven't evolved? have you tried BlazBlue or Tatsunoko vs. Capcom?
Or Soul Caliber or Tekken, both 3-D games that are very popular and play extremely well, not to mention Dead or Alive.
There is so much strategy in fighting games: timing, spacing, offensive vs. defensive. Each character can take months to properly master.
Playing against another human provides a fantastic challenge, one that no other game can equal.
All games have a version of spamming. Starcraft has the Zerg Rush, Call of Duty has Noob tubes, etc...
I think you really have no iea what you are talking about.
Yeah, the person who made this article has no clue about what fighting games are about and how the have evolved. From Karate Champ to SF2, to MK, BlazeBlue, Guilty Gear, KoF, so many games that have gone in their own directions and improved their own fighting formula.
please dont make any post about you talking about fighting games
Ps : your talking about FPS like this is better because x y z ( tactics reading action of opponent ) is this what fighting games are !!! at n00bsabot WINS !!
i have played first person shooter for years and it takes about 40 hours to master a first person shooter but i have been playing street fighter for my whole life and still have not even came close to even mastering it play someone with some skills or get some
I have to agree withthe author of this article. Fighting games are rubbish and it takes absolutely no skill to become any good at them.
I would have actually taken the point further though and added that all people who play fighting games are c*cks!
Kadey1up. PSN or Live. I'd like to have some matches with you.
Fighting games involve no skill? Are you serious?
Aside from strategy games, there's no greater test of video game skill than facing off against a human opponent in a good, balanced fighting game.
People spam attacks, you say? A skilled player will wipe the floor with a spammer every time.
And 3d fighters were a disaster? Sure, there were a lot of bad ones, but there were a lot of bad 2d fighters also (just like any genre, look at how many crappy fps games are out there). The Virtua Fighter series was the pinnacle of skill based fighting games and the DC port of Soul Calibur is one of the best games ever made, period. I personally don't care the Tekken series, but that's only because I prefer other fighters, not because it's a bad game.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, how can you slam an entire genre for being terrible when you're admittedly not any good at it? It sounds like you haven't played any fighting game enough to make an objective judgment.
No skill indeed.
EVO 2010 SSF4, Losers Finals: Infiltration (Akuma) vs. EG Ricky Ortiz (Rufus):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=JuwZabfCPjM
Infiltration took 3rd and Ricky Ortiz took 2nd (to Diago) overall from among 1800+ competitors.
I forgot about Virtua Fighter! Wow, that was a great game.
I kind of agree with him. While I'm not the biggest fighter fan, I used to be in the older days of Tekken when I was young. However I haven't gotten a single fighting game since Tekken 3 because I've never felt a fighting game has justified the full price tag that I have to pay for it since it doesn't offer me the type of experience a long and full game like MGS or a Final Fantasy game would offer me.
lol, yeah right, compare a game that you can play for years, to a game that mostly will play it, end it and never touch it again...
I think a good fighting (or any other good versus) game is like buying a nice car, you can keep taking it for rides with your friends for years to come.
Most people don't see the depth fighting games have to offer because it comes in such a pure and simple form. If you don't like versus games to begin with nobody's going to blame you, but that doesn't mean fighting games are bad.
are you still playing Fifa 07, 08 or 09 by any chance
With online play, I think it does, although I am not a big fighting game fan myself.
While I do not personally enjoy playing most fighting games either, I suggest you read this article www.sirlin.net/articles/yomi-layer-3-knowing-the-mind-of-the-opponent.html if you wish to see an example of the depth of strategy that some can involve and why they shouldn't be dismissed as a genre.
Seriously? They suck because you obviously have no skill.
I happen to know the #4 XBOX Live ranked SSFIV Gen player in the world. I play him on a regular basis and makes me look like a complete fool.
However, he has the unique ability to be able to count frames and time his attacks with great precision.
Gen has no projectile attacks so spamming is impossible.
Watching good players play and learning from them is the only way you'll get better.
There are people online though that ruin the experience with mapping certain moves to the turbo button. Those players get the "avoid this player" treatment from me.
Virtua Fighter 5 is another game that requires a great deal of patience and skill. Button mashers will get punished by someone who knows how to dodge and counter.
Seriously though, I hope you didn't write a flamebait article like this to just get hits.
How come whenever somebody doesn't like something, the inevitable argument is that I don't like it because I have no skill? I got this response on my Halo 3 articles as well then when I politely informed the person I had a 2.7 kill/death ratio they were BAFFLED at how I couldn't like it. I don't hate fighters because I have no skill, I hate them because they TAKE no skill.
But in this article you yourself admitted to not being very good. Fighting games aren't for everybody, that much is true. But those who don't like them just won't get it. Being able to play people online means there's never any real "end" to it, you keep playing as long as you still enjoy it. And you can also play offline in person. Part of the skill you're not seeing is in being able to either correctly anticipate what your opponent will do, or be good at reading them, its not just about execution.
Why would a genre have to change if it works just fine how it is? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Translation: I keep losing at fighting games when I'm bothered to try, and I don't care enough to even learn the basic mechanics of the game. I'll just write a troll article on how lame fighting games are, even though I admit I'm bad at them (making my argument invalid, and launch into a uninformed rant on how spammy and skill-less these games are (they're repetitive too). At least FPS games require strategy, execution, and on-the-fly adaptation against different opponents (just like other games). FPS games are totally not spammy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1nPehJrJs0
WAIT A MINUTE, WHY IS EVERYONE SAYING I HAVE NO CREDIBILITY. I PLAYED SF2, SMASH BROS. AND DBZ, SO I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.
Because if you complained about how doing the same move over and over can win you a match:
If you know they're going to do the same thing over and over then counter it; you only need three major punishes to win a round in most games anyways.
And "fighting games are just knowing what to do in a given situation"? That sounds like this to me "FPS games are all just pointing the cursor and pressing the fire button"; sure you can boil it all down to that, but there's a hell of a lot more you're omitting.
you don't think it takes skill cause you have none to judge what skill is required to be good. that's exactly what girls say about sports when they say stupid comments like "it's just bunch of guys throwing/kicking/hiting a ball around"
Your submission has triggered the profanity filter and will not be accepted until the inappropriate language is removed.
Your submission has triggered the profanity filter and will not be accepted until the inappropriate language is removed
why does this keep popping up and i am not doing that at all? you Fail.
Your submission has triggered the profanity filter and will not be accepted until the inappropriate language is removed
why does this keep popping up and i am not doing that at all? you Fail. your writing about something you cant even play but are putting a whole genre down because of that. No skill, no wins, and just plain mad about it. bad article to post. Epic fail on your part my friend. you clearly do not only understand the genre but also dont like them to begin with. so why even bother? the examiner needs to get better writers for its site. Add to that your not even giving any real example of why the genre is bad to begin with,. your basing it all on you gettin beaten. Alex, that happens to anyone. somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. you wanna win, learn how to play the characters you chose and learn how to not cry cause you lose. To be good at something means trial and error , learn and practice and not expect instant gratification when you have not applied the require skill it takes to be good enuff to beat anyone either better than you or on the same level.
Ok Alex let me break it down to you in all. All fighting games have the same required things to learn in order to wanna play at a competetive level. Examples. Space control, Timing, offensive and defensive strategies, evasion, escaping, baiting, trapping, Character control and moveset rememberance, execution, adjusting and adapting, quick thinking and of course knowing and exploiting other players and characters weaknesses and strengths. these are foundations of fighting games and as well of other genres too. but each are used in different manners of the type of gameplay required for them. you do not have to be a bonified MASTEr at the characters but you the person must know these factors before you even put ya quarter in the machine or picking up the joystick..
Oh please... you have a 2.7 kill/death ratio?? Stop lying. Not even pros can maintain that. Most pros have a 1.6 kd ratio. What rank are you? a 30? If so, you suck at Halo 3 and should stop boasting about your kd ratio where you can inflate it by playing noobs. An even bigger lol is you bashing fighting games. Yes, all you got to do is memorize all the moves, combos that require ridiculous timing, hit comfirm, work on spacing, defense, etc... They clearly take no skill /sarcasm. I mean, the best player Daigo clearly proved he was the best at evo among 1700+ players. So many players played, and yet the results were not random. That proves there is a big enough skill gap to warrent it's competitiveness. Get a clue.
You can check my stats on Bungie.net. My gamertag is Xander756. The fact "Daigo" won only oes to show he was the most experienced player at the event, not the most skilled. Fighting games take expereincet to win. They do not take skill. Also, I did play Halo 2 professionally, read the bio sometime
I'm pretty sure skill and experience go hand-in-hand. Let's take a sports example for instance: Lebron and Kobe are two of the most skilled players in the NBA. Why? Because they have rigorous training methods and practice non-stop to become more skilled and thus more experienced.
All racing games suck it's just a bunch of cars going around in circles on a racing track nothing ever changes...boring.
All FPS games suck it's just a bunch of floating guns in 3-D space and dudes shooting at each other nothing ever changes...boring.
All Football games suck it's the same sport every year why can't they add jetpacks or something nothing ever changes...boring.
All Platformers suck how many times can you jump around collecting the same items over and over nothing ever changes...boring.
All fighting games suck all I do is lose to the same spammed attacks over and over again why should I learn how to block or how to defend myself nothing ever changes...boring.
Chess sucks why can't I just beat anybody who's practiced for years in my first try why should I have to learn strategies and defenses the other guy should stop spamming Queen nothing ever changes...boring.
I think I've got the gist of your argument, yes?
This man right here got it.
Did you really just complain about Chess? HA HA! That's worse than the guy that wrote the article!
Simply put: perfect job, my good sir.
Queen-spamming is so ridiculous, and why hasn't Chess died yet? Seriously, it needs to retire or evolve; you obviously need to completely rework the core mechanics of an older game to keep it relevant.
That was just awsome
I love how Trufus totally missed the blantant sarcasm in this comment.
plz respond to this, alexander. also, if you have fighting games so much, why did you put MK in your "Top 5 Games that should be on XBLA"?
examiner.com/xbox-360-in-national/five-games-that-should-be-on-xbla
I parodied Alex's article, but on FPS games.
http://iisnotinformed.xanga.com/731541618/why-fps-games-suck/
Comparison with Chess is exactly what I was thinking of! If anything, Alex's arguments can be made to Chess... graphics hasn't changed much, gameplay mechanic still about the same... "Chess comes down to who has more experience to know what to do at any given moment, not about skill at the game." lol
i lolled. great job.
Yes, in chess the Queen is too overpowered and throws this primitive game off-balance. As a usable boss character she is worse than your usual culprits like Rugal and Gill, and even Sagat. So, she must be soft-banned in all regional tourneys (stubborn users will get the frown from the really-very-important gaming community) and get the ban hammer ultimately in national and international tournaments.
This hater author who is a bit clueless and hurt has his own half-baked views about fighting games, but at least there are a few instances that are agreeable and overall it is still slightly better than those useless eaters that yak all day about balance in the genre. Make your own game, or quit it.
All in all, good players rarely complain about such trivialities, but the lousier players will as these actually hurt them big every time.
Winner.
You just dont 'get' it
This is what happens when you let random xbox live scrub casual gamers write an article.
Fighting games take an incredible amount of skill, even when it doesn't seem like that at times. You have to factor in execution, knowledge on not only the character you are playing against, but also the opponent, mind games, offense and defense, etc.
Crying about "spamming moves" is one of the top things a scrub can say. If it's not broken, don't fix it. There are ways around any move in fighting games. In your SF video example, they are without a doubt not good, but put them up against a good player and they will get trashed. Just cause you don't know how to BLOCK doesn't mean fighting games are bad.
You have to understand that there is a whole different level of game play within all these games. People go to tournaments for fighting games and play against some of the best, and even make money.
I'm sure even if you want to get good at a fighting game, you cant because of your scrub m
All I have to say is that in the video, Guile "spammed" the jump-kick, because that's all he had to do to win. It's up to the Vega to come up with a way to get in. It's the same with every other fighting game...
That "Vega" was the comp, vega wasn't playable in WW which that clearly was.
not only that, but this is an example from the early 90's. near 20 years. remember duke nuken/doom, where you didnt even have to properly aim at the enemy to shoot them? skill, much?
In this article: I talk out of my ass.
FPS games don't take any skill. All you do is just point and click at people till they're dead.
hey look it's someone who has no clue how to play fighting games claiming that fighting games take no skill
let's keep reading and see if we can put this in context
...
ohhhh I see you're one of those idiots who thinks smash bros is a good fighting game and not a dumbed-down piece of crap designed for button-mashing scrubs like you
p.s. fps games take no skill how can people play those competitively all you do is point and click on people's heads
How can you write an article on a subject as broad as a genre of games and so frequently make base, definitive statements?
I don't even understand why you wrote it, was it to stir up an argument? I was thinking of writing a response that would debate some of your points but you've already clearly shown that you have no interest in discussing much of anything, you apparently just wanted to vent out frustrations mindlessly.
"I got this response on my Halo 3 articles as well then when I politely informed the person I had a 2.7 kill/death ratio they were BAFFLED at how I couldn't like it. I don't hate fighters because I have no skill, I hate them because they TAKE no skill."
So your counterpoint to the fact-based arguments presented in the responses to the mind-numbing ignorance in your article is...you're good at Halo. Gotcha.
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