As you painfully know, there are plenty of people who keep calling PSASBR a “Smash Clone.” While that is true to an extent, it’s a rather sloppy term. Putting aside any possible negative implications that such a term could carry, it also ignores the fact that there are a number of other games that have the same kind of gameplay. Hell, I have a stack of such games on my desk right now. It is clear that there is a nameless sub-genre of fighters that separate themselves from traditional fighting games by using these following mechanics and characteristics:
[LIST]
[]Multi-Player
[]Simplified controls
[]Individual playfields have different features, layouts and even hazards
[]Power-Ups and useable items
[]Matches are score-based, as opposed to round-based.
[/LIST]
Aside from Smash and All-Stars, other games like this include:
[LIST]
[]Power Stone 2
[]Jump Super Stars
[]Jump Ultimate Stars
[]DreamMix TV World Fighters
[]Guilty Gear Dust Strikers
[]Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL
[]Anarchy Reigns
[/LIST]
…and perhaps others that I don’t know about. Point is that there are a number of games that are like Smash and there is no doubt that there will be more in the future. Thing is, we can’t just keep calling them “Smash Clones.” I mean, people stopped using the term “Doom Clone” for first person shooters by 1996, and can you imagine if you were playing a KoF game and someone walked up and called it a “Street Fighter Clone?”
So a simple, clear term is needed. The problem is that there has yet to be one that has taken hold. I’ve seen them called arena fighters, party fighters, brawlers… I’ve personally used the term “platform fighter” since they incorporate many of the elements of platformers, but that’s just me.
So let’s pick a term and stick with it, just for the sake of convenience and the benefit of future game developers. Suggestions?
Platform fighter as a party fighter, just by the name, could apply to any “noncompetitive” fighting game like the Naruto fighters. Platform fighter would tell you that while it’s a fighting game, the mobility is that of a platformer.
If you can’t do something well, don’t do it. Stick with “Smash clones” as long you don’t have the proper knowledge to accurately define genres – a task that no one on this site, and on the internet as a whole, is able to handle yet.
Anarchy Reigns is a 3D action game while Smash clones are 2D action games, so your list is whack.
After that I’d say the number one defining feature of these sub sub genres is the camera angle and how the controls interact with it. Every other feature you mentioned is irrelevant. (A Smash clone with one opponent, a flat stage and no pickup items is still a Smash clone.)
In the 3D action game Power Stone, if you press a direction on the controller, your character will turn around and face in that direction. But in the 3D action game Tekken 5, the character’s direction is locked which allows for more a complicated control scheme i.e. having more moves. We call the latter “3D fighting game”. Smash, compared to SF is the same deal just in 2D. You press backwards and the character turns around, while in SF the direction is locked, allowing for a different control scheme, and we call the latter “2D fighting game”.
So your whole counter-argument comes down to the complexity of control schemes and camera angles. I have to disagree. To me, a fighting game is defined by the gameplay focused on close combat between the players and victory defined by defeating your opponent. Close combat in this case meaning a primary focus on hand-to-hand or melee weapons, as opposed to shooters, which focus primarily on ranged forms of attack.
Aside from the fact that one game uses a 3d environment and the other uses a 2d environment, the core fundamental gameplay mechanics are the same between the two. The biggest difference that Anarchy Reigns has over Smash and Power Stone is that it uses a dedicated over-the-shoulder camera for each player, as opposed to all players using the same camera. I do admit that this factor can be a subject of debate.
We know that these games are not the same as SF, KoF, MK, Tekken, VF, etc… But by the very basic definition, they are fighters. But they are different enough to earn their own category, to separate them from standard fighting games.
My whole point is that we need a better name then “Smash clone” when talking about these kind of games.
The difference being I never told people to stop disagreeing with me by trying to cover it up by saying the issue is unimportant. We all know the issue isn’t important, but that doesn’t mean we should just never talk about it. All I really got from the post I quoted was “Shut up and agree with me or you’re elitist and dumb.”
nah
my thing is this
it has like 99% of the elements of a fighter
so to me (this goes specifically for melee the other stuff i couldnt care less about even though i play those games)
i would call it a fighter
i wouldnt call it a party game cause to me playing sonic shuffle, mario party, wario ware
those are party games
you get stars, precious stones, coins/points from mini games
the objective is clear
then you see melee in the standard that is usually played at tournaments
i would call it a fighter
to me all the dumbass effort over the years to try and separate it just speaks to a underlying complex of
"yeah we are the real dudes! we are fgc and even though we hate on each other and we meat ride our own shit and if its not our game then the scene is ass"
we still got enough time to discriminate on these games over here
to me it feel like some corny this is the boys treehouse shit
but yall aint got the rights to shit
it should be called a fighter
people wanna call it something else to add that little aside, that little asterisk like we on that exclusive shit
Okay, so my problem with your post (besides the over use of the return key) is that because it is a game about combat and is played in tournaments, it’s a fighting game. In which case, I’m going to start a competitive Call of Duty league where the only weapon allowed is knives, and I’m going to call it a fighting game.
Here’s the deal basically, I don’t call Smash a party game, but just because it has players attacking each other doesn’t make it a fighting game. Another thing is that something doesn’t have to be called a fighting game to be competitive. There are tons of other genres that are competitive that aren’t called fighting games. Hell, Pokemon is incredibly competitive and everyone calls that a kid game too. I don’t see a problem with some people calling Smash a different genre but still acknowledging how competitive and tournament viable the game is. It’s got nothing to do with a negative connotation or shitting on the game, it’s just the simple fact of the matter that when you say fighting game, one doesn’t generally go to Smash first, and there’s a reason for that, because it’s so far different from the fighting game genre.
Because all of the core designs of the game and the mechanics differ greatly from those of fighting games? Main focus of platforming, shields that protect you from all sides, stages that vary greatly and affect how you play the game, free roam movement that doesn’t lock you to your opponent, no lifebars, analog directional inputs that affect the strength of your attack, so on and so forth. Don’t get me wrong, as I mentioned in my last post, this doesn’t make Smash not a competitive game or not tournament viable, it just to me differs it so much from the fighting game genre that I can’t agree to put it in the same category. Also, before it even comes up, the term Nontraditional Fighter is stupid and makes no sense and I hope to god people don’t take that term seriously. The term by definition is an oxymoron, you’re saying it’s a fighting game that doesn’t play like fighting games.