I miss those non-japanese fighting games

[Eyeball]

I miss school. We had this piece of crap PC around the back that could juuust about Run MK1 and Barbarian and would often spend recess pounding each other's pixellated faces in. Video games honestly haven't been as fun ever since.

In other news, the more "realistic" fighting games of today aren't bad if you're into boxing or MMA.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

That US fighting games spawned from MK says it all. When MK came out, it was huge with kids (including myself) and casuals, but was universally dismissed as shit by fighter fans and reviewers (reviews - in actual printed magazines - were a decent measure of quality in 1991). The problem was that while it looked incredible, every single character in MK played exactly the same, except for their 2-3 special moves. Same speed, hit for same amount, same endurance, no advantage/disadvantage in offence or defence, and (special moves aside) no difference in whether they were good at short v long range. It was also vulnerable to 'special move spam', where you just keep on spamming the ranged move. Still fun for me as a young teen, as those moves were both pretty and visceral, but very very casual as a fighting game.

Compare SF2. The special moves aren't 'win-by-spamming', but merely additional attacks to be used situationally (some characters favour minimal special-move use). Each character differs in how strong their defence is compared to offence (e.g. Blanka is all-out offence, Dhalsim is all-out defence), in their speed, how much damage they do, whether they're best at long-range or short-range (it's quite deliberate that Chun-li has no fireball attack and can be hit when she tries to spin-kick across the screen, while Ryu can fireball with impunity and Dhalsim has no close-range power attacks), and how much their blocks reduce damage. Even their basic moves are all completely different (Blanka's short-range bite-combos, Dhalsim's stretch-those-arms-across-the-screen, Ryu's generic balance, Sagat's push-them-from-short-range-to-the-middle-to-open-them-up-for-the-uppercut).

Yeah, I spent too much of my teenage years stoned in front of a computer screen. Come to think of it, the period during which I smoked marijuana (14-17) syncs up perfectly with the period in which I was playing console games at friends' houses instead of the monocled playing crpgs on my PC (played the shit out of wizardry and ultima as a kid, but abandoned the genre during my teenage years).

The biggest turd aspect in the original MK trilogy is the fact the controls are utterly horrible though.

 

[RK47]

When's marvel?

 

[DwarvenFood]

That US fighting games spawned from MK says it all. When MK came out, it was huge with kids (including myself) and casuals, but was universally dismissed as shit by fighter fans and reviewers (reviews - in actual printed magazines - were a decent measure of quality in 1991). The problem was that while it looked incredible, every single character in MK played exactly the same, except for their 2-3 special moves. Same speed, hit for same amount, same endurance, no advantage/disadvantage in offence or defence, and (special moves aside) no difference in whether they were good at short v long range. It was also vulnerable to 'special move spam', where you just keep on spamming the ranged move. Still fun for me as a young teen, as those moves were both pretty and visceral, but very very casual as a fighting game.

Compare SF2. The special moves aren't 'win-by-spamming', but merely additional attacks to be used situationally (some characters favour minimal special-move use). Each character differs in how strong their defence is compared to offence (e.g. Blanka is all-out offence, Dhalsim is all-out defence), in their speed, how much damage they do, whether they're best at long-range or short-range (it's quite deliberate that Chun-li has no fireball attack and can be hit when she tries to spin-kick across the screen, while Ryu can fireball with impunity and Dhalsim has no close-range power attacks), and how much their blocks reduce damage. Even their basic moves are all completely different (Blanka's short-range bite-combos, Dhalsim's stretch-those-arms-across-the-screen, Ryu's generic balance, Sagat's push-them-from-short-range-to-the-middle-to-open-them-up-for-the-uppercut).

Yeah, I spent too much of my teenage years stoned in front of a computer screen. Come to think of it, the period during which I smoked marijuana (14-17) syncs up perfectly with the period in which I was playing console games at friends' houses instead of the monocled playing crpgs on my PC (played the shit out of wizardry and ultima as a kid, but abandoned the genre during my teenage years).

The biggest turd aspect in the original MK trilogy is the fact the controls are utterly horrible though.

Pretty sure you could use a joystick.. well MK2 was my favourite out of the early series, and I also enjoyed the first 3D one, because of the weapons. Anyone remember the precursor to MK ?:

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Eh, Bloody Roar barely registers on fighting game difficulty scale. IIRC (it's been forever since the PS1 days) it was really easy to beat anything just by using the bunny girl. SNK and Mortal Kombat have set a pretty high standard when it comes to fucking the player in the ass without lube (though KoF XIII is notable in that the two final bosses are considerably easier than Magaki was in XI).

then maybe it was the emulator's fault or funning it too fast.

 

[warpig]

Anyone remember the precursor to MK ?:

I liked Pit Fighter when I was a kid, it was kind of shitty but it reminded me of cheap "martial arts" movies that were popular back then.
Let's post some more fighting games:

Capital Punishment - never played this one, I just remember seeing the screenshots.

Thrill Kill - that was a fun game! It was never officially published because of the "think of the children" people (luckily pirates didn't care) and was later remade into a shitty "Wu Tang Clan" game.

Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness - Japanese and animu, but somewhat original.

There was a Star Wars figting game on the PSX!

 

[Lyric Suite]

Maybe if non-Japanese developers actually knew how to make a good fighting game...

Are there any good fighting games besides SF2, Japanese or western? Frankly, i can't remember many. Seems to me the genre peaked with that game and characteristically the Japanese tried to top its success by exaggerating every single aspect of it.

 

[warpig]

Are there any good fighting games besides SF2, Japanese or western? Frankly, i can't remember many. Seems to me the genre peaked with that game and characteristically the Japanese tried to top its success by exaggerating every single aspect of it.

What about 3d fighters, Tekken or Virtua Fighter? I wouldn't say that these are using the SF2 formula.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Hah, SF2 hasn't been anywhere near the peak of the genre for two decades now. Heck, the last console generation was especially good for fighting games overall, probably the best era for the genre.

 

[Sodafish]

Oh shit that takes me back

 

[agentorange]

its cuming



http://www.indiedb.com/games/gangbeasts

 

[Gerrard]

good fighting game
SF2

 

[Mangoose]

Maybe if non-Japanese developers actually knew how to make a good fighting game...

Are there any good fighting games besides SF2, Japanese or western? Frankly, i can't remember many. Seems to me the genre peaked with that game and characteristically the Japanese tried to top its success by exaggerating every single aspect of it.

Soul Calibur

 

[G.O.D]

An Interplay classic

Anyone remember the precursor to MK ?:

Thrill Kill - that was a fun game! It was never officially published because of the "think of the children" people (luckily pirates didn't care) and was later remade into a shitty "Wu Tang Clan" game.

That game was great. Enjoyed it alot.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Mortal Kombat trilogy will remain a great memory for me. Single player, with all those special moves and fatalities to learn. Then there were "tournaments" where everybody could beat the shit out of each other. Fun times.
Barbarian with it's cutting head move was good for that too. The sequel was more like Final Fight where you had to beat the monsters of a warlock.
Usagi Yojimbo on C64 had really interesting setting, with the sword fighting with evil ninjas and rhinos.



International Karate is a game which I come back every year. Those punches in stomach and breaking bricks with head. The sequel with two players and one computer had beautiful animations. And dat music. :nostalgia:. Another nights and days spent on playing.





Most of the great stuff is brought by Japan. From 2d masters SNK and Capcom - King of Fighters (98 edition is my favourite), Last Blade 2, Ninja Masters, Samurai Shodown 4, Garuo - Mark of the Wolves, Darkstalkers, Street Fighter Alpha 3. As for their bigger 3d brothers, Tekken 3 takes the golden medal. Virtua Fighter 2 is hard to learn, and hard to master even one character. Teeken 3 was more flexible, and it had so much variety in styles of fighting that's really enormous. Bushido Blade was another title which I remember. Every move can be your last, you can kill easily, but the same thing applies to you. You could hurt enemy and it was visible in his moves. Bio Freaks was cool with it's deadly arenas. You could cut off both hand of the enemy and he could still fight, with blood spilling all over.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Oh shit that takes me back

 

[Misconnected]

After Tekken & Soul Calibur on the PSX I haven't been playing real fighting games. Or, I haven't really been playing them, I suppose I should say. The Devil May Cry series kind of filled the void for me, and it coincided with me not really having the time or opportunities to play local multiplayer games.

... I'm not sure I have the reflexes to not suck horribly these days. But are there any cheapo but decent fighting games with a reasonably approachable online community?

 

[Azrael the cat]

Maybe if non-Japanese developers actually knew how to make a good fighting game...

Are there any good fighting games besides SF2, Japanese or western? Frankly, i can't remember many. Seems to me the genre peaked with that game and characteristically the Japanese tried to top its success by exaggerating every single aspect of it.

I'm certain there are. However, it gets drowned out a bit by the way that Camcom took the same attitude to long-term support and balance that Blizz did with WC/SC. Even aside from the patches, there are so many additional versions of SF2 (after the first one, you could play any of the 'boss characters', so the challenge came from defeating the opponent instead of being outmatched), where they would repeatedly balance and rebalance (first time around, the wrestler was underpowered because he was a defensive close-range fighter, and hence there was zero reason why you wouldn't use Sagat or even Bison for the samel Dhalsim was a good long-range fighter in the original roster, but paled in comparison to Venga, so the wrestler went from slow to the fastest of the defence-oriented characters (though slower than offensive guys like Blanka or chunli), it became easier for Dhalsim to maintain range (the 'deathzone' where Dhalsim can't get free for a clean hit was shifted to close-range while he can hit at full power at midrange, etc).

I never really found anything meaningfully new in Japanese fighters after SF2 (after the first couple of balance adjustments), and I don't think any future Jap fighting game captured the tactical complexity of SF2. Same reason why I never liked the 'turbo' version of SF2 - so much of it was that SF2 was the thinking-man's tactical version of the fighting game, almost a 3way combination between fighting games, bluff-heavy poker and tactics, and the slowish pace was a key feature of this. I was never a great button-masher, so perfection was being able to go an a destructive early-round all-out attack rampage as Blanka, then drop back briefly and just lure your opponents into advancing to attack...just as you're tapping away at the lightning-all-around counter,

 

[NotAGolfer]

Ah, that reminds me of this one here:

I played that game for dozens of hours until I was finally able to block most enemy attacks. Boy did I feel badass afterwards. ^^
After some time the solo tournament got boring of course and my friends didn't have the patience to become a real challenge.
Fucking great fighting game though, and self imposed challenges like beating every opponent with karate or things like that help to keep it fun for a while.
...

:Looking for a download:

 

[Sodafish]

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Maybe if non-Japanese developers actually knew how to make a good fighting game...

Are there any good fighting games besides SF2, Japanese or western? Frankly, i can't remember many. Seems to me the genre peaked with that game and characteristically the Japanese tried to top its success by exaggerating every single aspect of it.

I'm certain there are. However, it gets drowned out a bit by the way that Camcom took the same attitude to long-term support and balance that Blizz did with WC/SC. Even aside from the patches, there are so many additional versions of SF2 (after the first one, you could play any of the 'boss characters', so the challenge came from defeating the opponent instead of being outmatched), where they would repeatedly balance and rebalance (first time around, the wrestler was underpowered because he was a defensive close-range fighter, and hence there was zero reason why you wouldn't use Sagat or even Bison for the samel Dhalsim was a good long-range fighter in the original roster, but paled in comparison to Venga, so the wrestler went from slow to the fastest of the defence-oriented characters (though slower than offensive guys like Blanka or chunli), it became easier for Dhalsim to maintain range (the 'deathzone' where Dhalsim can't get free for a clean hit was shifted to close-range while he can hit at full power at midrange, etc).

I never really found anything meaningfully new in Japanese fighters after SF2 (after the first couple of balance adjustments), and I don't think any future Jap fighting game captured the tactical complexity of SF2. Same reason why I never liked the 'turbo' version of SF2 - so much of it was that SF2 was the thinking-man's tactical version of the fighting game, almost a 3way combination between fighting games, bluff-heavy poker and tactics, and the slowish pace was a key feature of this. I was never a great button-masher, so perfection was being able to go an a destructive early-round all-out attack rampage as Blanka, then drop back briefly and just lure your opponents into advancing to attack...just as you're tapping away at the lightning-all-around counter,

Well, there's been quite a bit of advancements in the field of tactical gameplay since SF2. The classic example used to be Street Fighter 3 and just how tight its gameplay was (if you want to have an easy succesful troll, go tell SF3 fans that SF3 is not a thinking-man's fighting game). But going by more modern (meaning now-last-gen) examples, King of Fighters XIII is probably the pinnacle of classic style 2D fighting gameplay, combined with a big and varied roster (though it's a shame they didn't continue developing the active-tag team system used in XI, but switched back to old KoF team mechanic). But probably most notable is what ArcSys did with BlazBlue with the Drive system they introduced. Basically, Drive replaces the usual fourth attack button with a special button that's unique to each character. These range from relatively straightforward, like Ragna's Soul Eater which is basically a fourth attack button with added health stealing effect, to ones you'd expect to see like Hakumen's Zanshin height-based counter, to something that really mixes up the usual fighting gameplay like Rachel's Silpheed which changes the wind velocity and direction of the arena thus effectively instantly altering movement and projectile speeds (and it works in all four directions) for both sides of the fight. It's more accurate to say that what's happened to tactics in fighting games is that ever since Street Fighter 2 there's been a general trend towards increased complexity (Namco's canned combo-based gameplay aside). As for things like balance (in principle there has to be a sufficient degree of balance, but I agree that roster diversity should never be sacrificed for "perfect" balance), it's probably more than anything driven by fan reactions, from way back when to this day.

One thing remains constant over all the years though: Street Fighter 2 is still one of the basic measuring sticks when it comes to being a good fighting game, and it'll probably remain so forever.


On a sidenote: Capcom actually moved back to overmatching bosses that have a statistical advantage compared to the rest of the roster. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo did introduce Akuma, who is still one of the hardest bosses ever due to the absurdly high damage and having moves unlike any others present in SF2. During Street Fighter Alpha series both Akuma and M. Bison would have boss versions without regard for roster balance. Street Fighter 3's boss makes other Street Fighter 3 bosses look like easy fights (SSF2T Akuma not included). Besides Capcom, SNK is infamous for having hard bosses and they have not let up with that (though XIII's final boss is much easier than the final boss of XI, but that's more due to the fact the XI boss is absurdly hard even by SNK standards).

 

[Phinx]

I remember Eternal Champions on the Genesis as being decent but I wonder now.

There was also Weaponlord, which I haven't played but somehow fascinated me.

That one was cool for the posters of the girl in bikini:

And now for something more refreshing:

Weaponlord was awesome back then extremely underrated, the controls and awkward execution for special moves takes a little getting used to (similar to primal rage) but still a great game.

 

[pakoito]

Weaponlord is what happened when they sat top FG players to make the ultimate fighting game. It was. Too complex and modern for people to understand in the late SNES/Genesis era. It introduced mechanics that weren't reintroduced and hailed until recent games.

 

[Gragt]

Not non-Japanese but does anyone share my appreciation for The Last Blade serie? I love the style and aesthetics with the "less is more" approach, like how some stages do not feature music but only the sound of the wind in the trees.

Edit: Well, looks like I'll have to fire up Weaponlords soon to find out.

Also, no mention of Shaq Fu yet?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

There was a Star Wars figting game on the PSX!

Mega shit. Think early Virtua Fighter but even clunkier. I borrowed it from a friend and didn't have the heart to tell him the game .

edit: ^^apparently I didn't have the heart to tell you people how much it sucks, either