Caltrops - Gamerasutra - Fighting Games Zseni Loves

Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra

by Zseni 02/18/2003, 6:03pm PST

FABIO wrote:

curst wrote:

Mortal Kombat 5 are also really cool games that newbies can just pick up and play much more easily, but VF4 is the most rewarding IMO.

In the 2 hours I spent playing MK5 until I got bored, I got the impression the entire thing was nothing more than just "memorize your character's two best combos and do them over and over and over". Each character only got a tiny handful of special moves and most of them seemed useless. The characters only get ONE fatality each (wtf?) and they're all just rehashes of the boring generic ones: cut off your enemy's head, kiss of death, etc. Where the hell is Lui Kang turning into a dragon and biting the guy in half? The whole thing just felt too slow.

Am I just out of the loop? Are all fighting games these days just simply memorizing the 50+ hit, preprogrammed, arbitray (why does punch + punch + kick work and not punch + kick + punch?) combos and waiting to "fake" your opponent out before unleashing it over and over and over? MK2 was the last fighter I enjoyed and could get into. I tried Soul Calibur but it seemed to be another combo game. Then there was Capcom vs. SNK, which everyone seems to agree is nothing more than button mashing.

I'm only a casual fighting game player, so I like a good balance between "quick to pick up" and "not so quick that someone dumber than me will be as good." I usually beat down the Weaponsmith, my brother beats me down, his AZN best friend beats him down, and the AZN's brother beats down everyone, ruthlessly. Any game that preserves this order is by my default a quality production. Any game that makes sure that eventually even worst of us can manage a 1:2 win to loss ratio against the next highest guy up is a fun production.

X vs. Capcom games, while lots of fun to look at, seldom preserve the pecking order. The AZN's brother still beats everyone but the Weaponsmith has held the field against all comers just by relentlessly turboing all the buttons. On the PS1 the house game was Tekken 3; for the PS2 it looks like DOA 2 Hardcore is going to be the game of choice for a long time to come, or until we get Tekken Tag. But I'm sweet on DOA2H because it's the first fighting game I know that actually has a genuine, legitimate, unmistakeable bishie (Ein, the karate guy) to go with all the hot-ass girls. Plus DOA2H has a tag mode and a team mode, a sparring mode with a dummy opponent that actually fights, and lots of outfits. EEEeeEeeEEEE!

One other thing: although it's not implemented well, although you have to go through the horrible cutscenes in the game, the versus mode on Zone of the Enders is pretty fucking sweet. In general the design on that game is just outstanding - graphics, gameplay, music - but the plot, and especially the VOICE ACTORS are INCREDIBLY HORRIBLE. Warning anime-gay ahead: there's a 13 episode Zone of the Enders anime series, plus an hour-long "movie", and in both of them the pilots are super-duper. One gets drunk on his own power and goes insane, the other is an aging drunken bum who left his wife and kids and is searching for sko salvaltion. Anything that gets the pre-teen boys out of the giant robots and back in the kitchen where they belong is excellent news.

If you like mecha anime at all, both productions are worth checking out. GET 'EM QUICK from user saguliera on the p2p server via www.animefantasia.com - the guy has heroic bandwidth; if you have anything faster than a modem you can get the whole series within a day.