I had always why most fighting games (barring Super Smash Bros or Power Stone) have button combinations I know it is a fighting game tradition but it seems that in most fighting games you have to press certain motions to execute a special attacks. This normally applies to fireballs, special attacks or other manuevers but why is this common to only fighting games?
Moving to fighting game discussion. This isn’t a game play question.
Sory about that but why do most fighting games use button combinations?
it allows for more total moves without needing more buttons.
you have up+attack (jumping attacks), down+attack(crouching attacks) and neutral+attack with every character in street fighter.
you also have lots with forward+attack, back+attack and plenty with diagonal up + attack.
It usually goes with the properties of the move. For example, Guile’s sonic boom recovers far too quickly for it to be one button or even a 236 ( :qcf: ) motion, so he is limited to charging. Another example is Zangief’s command grab having 1 frame start-up. His SPD comes out far too quickly for it to be one button so they make it a 360 motion ( :360: ). The 360 motion also limits the potential setups Zangief is able use (AKA not being able to walk up SPD). I hope this clears that for you.
The only game I know outside of the fighting game genre with button combinations is Marvel Superheroes War of the Gems for SNES.
So i suppose platform games can use button combinations, but unfortunately it is a dying genre
I’ve always wanted to see a side-scrolling beat em up with fighting game type button combinations.
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Final Fight 3 had super moves, which employed SF-style commands. I miss Dean…
So that is why they utilize the button combinations for fireballs and grabs? I always thought it was mostly for execution or just annoy some gamers.
There are bunch of skate- and snowboarding games where you have to do certain motions and button combinations to do tricks and special moves (like earlier Tony Hawk games and EA’s “skate.” series). Also, in some recent sports games you can do tricks and skill moves by doing certain motions (like recent FIFA games). Those are some examples of games with “special motions” outside of fighting games.
Battle Circuit.
Capcom’s SNES X-Men game had them.
There’s also a bit of chance involved. The fact that they do require special inputs means that there is a chance for you to fail. This creates a level of stress as players know that there is an inherent risk to everything they do. However, unlike an artificial dice roll, you can control this “chance to fail” through practice, it’s simply an application of old arcade game design mentality - allow the player to eventually overcome everything through skill.
lol
^^ That also means I got no skills at all but I see what you mean. I wish I had those old school arcade style controls where they explain how to do it but you cannot find those nowadays unless you own a machine.
This is stupid and adds nothing to the game so it shouldn’t be an argument. Basically the “Chance” to fail doesn’t really happen at high level play, which means that a better player is better than a worse player for an utterly arbitrary reason. It’s not even a matter of player differentiation or actual interesting kinds of skill. No designer would EVER use this as a reason to put motions on moves. Messing up a hard combo is much more interesting than messing up a motion.
The primary reason for inputs is it removes room for reaction.
A gief SPD takes around a human minimum 5 frames to do assuming the player is absolutely flawless in exection. In reality, it’s going to add somewhere in the realm of 7-20 frames of “startup” without affecting the ability to punish with the move. This in turn restricts the situations Gief can throw you and shut down your options (one button SPDs would make whiff punishing a grappler’s dream and ruin the amount of other cool tools they could have). Most of the move motions you see are holdovers from the SF2 era because they are inherently recognizable and familiar to most people. The sonic boom is similar, it restrictions types of actions (pretty much any forward movement) while adding a cooldown to an otherwise near flawless attack. In reality, you could make a Sonic Boom type move a “cooldown” move like an MMO where there’s just 1.5 seconds where you can’t do it at all after executing one which would achieve similar purposes. However, there’s an elegance with the Sonic Boom. It doesn’t actually “tell” you anything within the game, which avoids clutter and can be pretty reasonably figured out through a few seconds of trying to do one yourself.
The shoryuken is similar. Imagine if characters had one button Shoryukens. Guile has one in a sense (only requires 2 simultaneous inputs or a couple frames of movement basically). However, he’s restricted in being unable to make any real form of offensive action, so the other player is free to do things like get better positioning, deal chip damage from afar etc while this is happening. If Guile could do a Flash Kick freely, you would see him dismount offensve by simply doing reaction Flash Kicks to twitch movements. Overall, giving powerful moves like these restrictions that reduce the ability to react faster or do them in situations you have higher control of reduce the amount of options that are now limited the other player has, and through this, makes for a more active game while adding more tools.
This post acutally makes a lot sense to me,it has given some understanding on how those mechanics actually work. I use charge characters like Bison or Guile (even if I cannot do their supers or ultras or win most of the time), I actually find them to be somewhat easier to use then shotos as there is less chance for me to miss the input. I have to admit I do react a lot and the button combinations only seem to make things worse for me. Even though I am not compete agree, I do understand it somewhat or I just need to look at the old threads more.
What would happen to charge characters if all their motions became quatercircles, or half circles?
Obviously guile would be unstoppable, but what about guys like Bison and DeeJay?
Are the moves so good that the 2 second delay is neccesary? Good charge players can still use the moves whenever they want through smart buffering.
It wouldn’t be possible to redesign any current fighter to button motions. Street Fighter characters for example have all been designed with motions in mind, and are balanced around that.
However, if a new fighting game were to be created, it would be perfectly possible to create a fighter that dedicates a button (or buttons) to special attacks as long as it were balanced around that fact from the get go.