It really depends on which Street Fighter Game you are talking about, if your speaking of say…Champion Edition then yeah, CE. Dictator can rape nearly all of the cast very convincingly however if you talk about Hyper Fighting, everyone on there arguably besides only Bison were tournament viable. Super Turbo has a strong contention of competitive characters as well, and lets not forget Street Fighter IV, this game was very balanced and I forgot what the site was, but it posted all around the world tournament results and it showed a incredibly varied amount of characters placing in the Top-3 ranging from top-tier to even near low tiers.
However balance is highly overrated and does not necessarily tribute to a deeper fighting game anyhow. Anyhow “most skilled based fighting game” can be forever debated, simply because their are simply so many multiple variables that to say insert fighting game is superior to insert fighting game is difficult to gauge simply due to the structures of each fighting game.
You can include a lot of fighting games into this category and many of them in which were not even incredibly balanced at that.
as far as the spread in street fighter, TrueSephiroth, you’re kinda proving my point. I agree, though, balance isn’t everything – but what it does do is allow for a MUCH wider breadth in playstyles, thus making metagaming more challenging, and the game in general more diverse and intriguing. As far as analyzing fighting games, i kinda say in my 2nd post that I agree its very difficult to ‘rate’ fighters against each other. Everyone has their own preference, and I doubt id be able to sufficiently establish my belief as the superior one, even to myself. I suppose I’m trying to explain where my sentiments are coming from, and that’s all.
my lil bros played fighters with me since 91/92 (sf2ww). they also play smash at my lil cousins house. when they tell me ssb is nowhere close te being a real fighter like kof, motw, sf or any other real fighter i believe them. they have played 99% of the fighters released since 91/92, thus their opinion regarding ssb is what id consider real.
True, diversity can come in the form of balance, but again that’s only one factor in the entire list of what goes down. MvC2 is incredibly unbalanced with the Big-4 literally dominating the entire show, however that game when played at the highest levels with the intricacies in it is incredibly deep, even though 85% of the cast can’t even be played competitively.
Tekken 4 is another fighting game that is incredibly unbalanced, with a character like Jin who is arguably the most broken tournament viable Tekken character to ever show up, however even though Jin has dominated 99% of the tournament placings, the character viability in there is great still, with how Paul gains damage, Ling’s AOP madness, Nina Runaway game, Lee rushdown, Steve turtling etc, etc.
Even look to CvS2…Blanka is insanely stupid in that game, Dictator with a full A-Groove meter literally becomes the most broken character in there, Cammy is scrubtatstically easy to own people with and she is a monster to boot. However through it all, the character diversity in there in how they play against each other is huge, great, and deep, regardless of the fact that many of the characters within that game are incredibly overpowered in contrast to others.
What I’m saying is balance doesn’t necessarily make for better character diversity and bigger strategies all the time, as shown by the example games above, hence why I’ve always stated it’s overrated.
Your examples argue that play diversity can come from how players use a character. It in no way attempts to argue that a larger pool of different characters doesn’t increase play diversity. And how could this not be the case? If player interpretation breeds more play style, and there’s more viable characters for players to interpret, its very likely to lend to more viable play styles.
Also, I never said diversity ONLY occurs from a wide range of characters, but I would say it’s the primary factor. Without it, you have a relatively very small pen to move around in.
Really I went to a tournament earlier this year and i was the only Metaknight there. It was pretty varied in characters, the most popular was Zelda though with 6 players using her. People claimed that I was tier whoring with Metaknight, but I ended up losing pretty bad to the top Fox player. Also wasn’t Fox absent in Melee?
Oh and Smash players need to stop coming in here preaching about their shitty game. We play Street fighter. If you want us to acknowledge your game beat us in ours. If Smash is harder and better it should be real easy for you guys to learn SF and own everyone of us. Thank you and have a good night.
^ This. Smashers need to quit arguing about this shit; no-one’s mind is going to change and no-one gives a fuck. Take it back to Smashboards and quit trolling these forums.
That’s odd. Could have sworn it was the other dude. Well, whatever.
that is all.
and you guys can enjoy SMASH all you want. I know a lot of kids who love it. But it is NOT a fighting game in the traditional sense.
SFII was a game ANYONE could play. I traveled arcades back in the early-mid 90s a lot when they were more prominent. EVERYONE was good at SFII. I had a chance to win like nayone else.
A few years bakc many gamers got together for a gaming tourney. SSFIIT was one oft he games featured there. I got third even after never playing in forever. Many other gamers that play 3S. MVC2 and GG played it and all that is was pretty basic. BECAUSE IT IS.
SFII is incredible and started the fightin g game craze along with MK, but 3S,MVC2 and GG are far above it. Anyone who doesn’t see this is extremely biased.
Tekken series is good but not at the top. I can half leran them oves and hcaratcers and compete with the top players ( I knwo becasue I have done it). And I played Tekken for years on and off. It is technical but not up there with the top games for that reason.
KOF series is not much harder (if at all) than SFII. Fun and some neat combos and moves, but not even close to being on the other games’ levels.
and while SFIV/SSFIV does take a little skill to take, it is mainly a series ANY players can pick up andf get some wins at. I played some guys the other night that started fighting games with SFIV and he was able to even out with me by spamming moves that had more priority than mine. It is just a scrubby series all together.