Yeah, I’m new to these forums and basically signed up to share my opinion on this subject, I wouldn’t say I was a hardcore fighting game fan, I love fighting games more than any other genre but mostly I play them by myself, not against friends, online, or in tournaments, I haven’t mastered all the combos of all the characters and all that stuff, but I love the stories, the one on one combat, and the martial arts aspects
But it seems to me that the developers of all our favorite fighting games have made no attempt to evolve them to fit the next generation of video games, they have made no attempt to consolize them, the Street Fighter formula was designed for arcade play, it’s loud and flashy to grab your attention among all the other loud and flashy games in the arcade, gameplay is fast and furious so you don’t play for too long without having to put in another quarter, combos are designed for joystick and button combination, and game modes are designed for accomplishing quick goals and obtaining high scores
This style of arcade gameplay isn’t a good fit for consoles, that’s what people are playing now, I can walk over to my game system and play for as long as I want, the game is mine, I can sit and play it for hours, play it for fifteen minutes and come back to it later, I can relax and think about what I want to do, it’s a completely different situation than being in an arcade, I think that the next generation of fighting games should reflect that
What kind of changes need to take place exactly? There are countless ways to consolize fighting games, but the few key ones I will list down here
Customization: It’s my game, I don’t share it with numerous strangers, I can save and load my game without it effecting what’s on the actual disk, that means I should have extensive customization
What I really mean is, fighting games should adopt RPG elements, skill building, character customization, character creation, non-linear gameplay, deep story modes, and choices and consequences, long term goals will add lasting appeal and a more leisurely style of gameplay to add to what we already love about fighting games.
Gameplay Mechanics: It was cool learning all the long complex combos for your favorite characters, mastering the timing, and showing off all the cool things you learned, short gameplay allowed a quick test of skill, and the over the top moves gave us something to look at, but on consoles I can take my time and change my strategy without worrying about giving up a round to do so
What I think they should do is put the strategy in the way you play and not how well you have learned combos, instead of canned animations, let the player have the freedom to control his own combos, instead of hitting the perfect string of buttons, allow the player to throw what he wants and when he wants, let the player play defensively and methodically instead of trying to constantly attack, I think this will add more varied gameplay.
Style: Of course, we all love the over the top flash and crazy moves, but what if it was done with more realism? I don’t need loud noises and bright colors to attract my attention, I bought the game to play in my living room, I don’t have to choose the game that catches my eye the best
This would also mean realistic damage effects, blood, bruises, heads snapping back, limping, realistic physics, and no predetermined animations, I think this would add more atmosphere to the game and a more intimate experience.
Some other tidbits that we don’t need anymore are as follows;
Health bars: Instead of wearing down a health bar until it reaches zero, they could make it more realistic and show visible signs of damage that are caused by specific strikes, damage to limbs could have different effects
Juggling: I know it gets old hearing complaints about juggling, but it’s just not realistic and it takes control away from the player when the fight is already so short, I don’t know why every fighting game has to use juggling, it’s not like you have to have juggling for it to be a fighting game
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Modes:** Arcade mode just isn’t cutting it anymore, instead we could have a large non-linear gameplay mode: maybe you can choose your opponents, maybe you have a professional record, maybe you can choose multiple tournaments to compete in with rankings, brackets, team tournaments, championships, and no playthrough is the same, Virtua Fighter has started doing this, I think it would be great to continue in that direction
Enviroments: Destructible environments, interactive environments, and more freedom, do fights really have to take place in a small generic area?
One fighting game I use to love is Bushido Blade, I feel like that was a consolized fighting game, you could fight really slow, fights could take a long time or be really quick, it had the flavor that we love about fighting games and just enough realism to make it more fun on consoles, and the game mechanics were based on how you wanted to play the game
I’m sure a lot of people will disagree with me, but I think there is a real problem with fighting games being all carbon copies of eachother, developers are resorting to introducing gimmicks like Star Wars characters, superheroes, and one or two new characters that don’t seem to fit with the others, why not introduce new refreshing game mechanics, unique styles, and make them more console friendly to reflect what the current generation of gamers are playing
Fighting games have decreased in popularity dramatically since the days of Street Fighter 2, why not evolve the formula?
