First off, I’m sorry in advance if this is in the wrong section, I don’t post here often.
Secondly, I’m a cheap bastard (as in monetarily cheap). If the thought of that makes you irrationally angry, you might want to stop reading now.
If you’re still here… well, then prepare for some cringeworthy masochism from yours truly, I guess. (If you want the short version, go here.)
So, Dragonball Fighter Z. Game looks fucking amazing, and I’m one of those poor bastards that didn’t group up with the Dragonball series as a kid, and also not a graphics person. But then again, after Guilty Gear Xrd, one should expect that awesome art style of Arc System Works. You know what else should be expected of them? Re-releases. Tons and tons of them. Because I’m a dumbass, I bought Guilty Gear Xrd ~Sign~ at launch, thinking Capcom sorta implementing free-to-play mechanics in Street Fighter V (probably taking cues from Killer Instinct and Dead or Alive 5: Last Round) was a sign of a more general paradigm shift with the genre’s business models.
Nope! Guilty Gear Xrd ~Revelator~ happened not even a year later. Needless to say, I was pissed. If I had any interest in playing Street Fighter games in general, I’d rather take SFV’s apparently shitty Fight Money system (breakdown under the spoiler) over a mandatory payment to continue playing a game you already bought. Essentially buying a patch - which, in this day and age, is utterly asinine.
So naturally, I started getting very, very concerned over all the hype surrounding Dragonball Fighter Z, considering the above, especially for some of my real-life friends who are avid DBZ fans… and that brings us to how I got myself targeted by a rabid fandom/hatedom. I started telling people about the above in the comments of Maximilian’s latest Real Talk video, which is centered around the controversy regarding Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. Even if the game looks like shit, (presumably) plays like shit, is probably continuing a trend of pandering to the eSports scene, has Day negative 60 DLC, and has shied away from a Fight Money-like system… I’d still take all of that over the archaic “buying a patch” practice Arc System Works and Aksys Games still employ. DLC’s still optional and there’s still a smidgen of a chance Street Fighter V was the start of a trend where Capcom actually tries to avoid Capcom Sequel Stagnation for once. Worst case scenario, “Ultimate” Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite happens, I learn my lesson, then promptly fuck back off over to the free-to-play fighters. Meanwhile, I’ve grown to expect that spending $60 on an Arc System Works is definitely not going to be the end of it, and have come to hate them even more than how people hate Capcom nowadays. (I make a sort-of “bare minimum” price breakdown here in an attempt to better illustrate my point.)
Maybe I’m truly the odd one out for thinking about saving my own money in consumerism-addled America. Maybe people not buying a game for its graphics is still an unpopular opinion even in the fighting game genre. Maybe it’s both, I don’t even fucking know anymore. The ridiculously negative backlash I get everywhere for talking about my points above kind of shows that (including here, most likely).
