…are you serious?
what the hell aksys. this is terrible design.
To be fair, having a 4 button configuration means you should be able to adapt to one pose with your hand and still have easy access to all of your commands/buttons, like home row on a keyboard or something similar. This is an option that isn’t available to traditional 6 button layouts, and there are benefits to it. CD for throw seems a little weird, but I prefer that over toward fierce a la KoF.
Yeah, I pretty much stopped paying attention to that game as soon as I heard their plans for button combinations. Probably an overreaction but meh.
I dont think any other 4 button fighter has 10 game mechanic universal commands (counting the bursts and exs as one each)
On the topic of Cage, here’s one of my countless favorites:
[media=youtube]oMoyl7PO7Cc[/media]
More ask blog stuff …
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Yeah, like once or twice but…
OH MY GOSH HE IS SO FREAKY!!!
HE HAS GREEN TEETH!!
GREEN!!!
I don’t care if she’s a princess! That’s just mean!
13 if you count em separately, yeah. It’s initially a staggering number, and the closest I can equate it to is KoF (EX punches/kicks, HD Activation, Blowback (With Air/Stand/Ground varients), Roll, Guard Roll, Throw), which a lot of people don’t seem to have a lot of trouble with, insofar as memorizing the universal commands. At the end of the day if it’s /just/ a factor of memorization, we’re all clever people and anyone who wants to play the game should be able to figure that stuff out. In that regard, I remain willing to reserve judgement on the intuitiveness of 13 universal commands until I actually sit down and put a couple hours into it.
(If you have giant fingers like I do, it brings up its own unique problems though, which is the “I cannot accidentally hit more than one button without activating some separate mechanic”)
Also, related
Spoiler
[media=youtube]5PJddmfesaA[/media]
Man, sometimes I dislike being a PS3 gamer more then 360. I just noticed Maximilian had an open lobby for UMvC3 on 360 last night. First off I’m annoyed that I missed it, seeing as I don’t have a twitter account, and second, I really want to play him, but I only have a PS3 version of this game. I had a 360 version, but when I forgot to get my brother a birthday gift months ago, I gave him this saying that was his gift.
Sigh, I really do want to play Max at some point. I love his videos…
But it’s not. You can easily tell from a glance. I believe the whole point behind 4 buttons is simplicity/streamlining. It’s supposed to make things easier on the players. It’s supposed to help bring in more people. Correct me if I’m wrong if that’s not the intent behind using 4 buttons over 6.
Having such a high number of universal mechanic commands is counter-intuitive to that design and would be better spread out on a 6 button layout.
That’s how I feel. maybe i don’t know what im talking about, which in that case, I’d love someone to help me see the light.
Not having to move your hand to perform every available in-game action can be seen as streamlining. As for bringing in more people, I don’t think the expectation is that at all (At least, not with the layout. That probably belongs to the “mash A to hit confirm into automatic super” mechanic), since 4 button is/was actually a pretty common layout for years and years, (Speaking of silly button combinations, how could we forget Soul Calibur!) and 6 button sort of grew out of that. I’m of the opinion that the universal commands exist (and in such number) specifically to avoid going to a six button layout, whether that’s because they want to use the model of Arcade cabinet they’ve had for the entire BB cycle, or some other more esoteric reason.
This is all somewhat moot in the face of modern fightsticks though. There will undoubtedly be macros for this stuff.
This is about an accurate representation.
Those button combinations for persona 4…damn. I’ve purposely avoided looking at any gameplay an info for the game (I had never played any SMT or Persona game before and I’m currently playing through 3 so I can know about the p3 characters), but shit. Well…I’m certainly gonna have 2 or 3 macros for this game if it gets overwhelming.
I’m talking about when 4 button layout was first made. Wasn’t it a form of streamlining/bringing in more people via added simplicity. Also, one of the things about the 4 button layouts from all those games is that they were reasonable with the amount of universal commands.
I can understand your opinion, but I believe that they’ve gone too far and as a result, what they’ve done here is just now counter-productive. It’s like saying, “Well I have this patch of carrots, and to make counting easier, instead of 4x4, I’ll do 1x16. Which is perfectly fine, until you start going, instead of 10x10, I’ll do 1x100”, at which point, you’re starting to create more work for yourself, defeating your original purpose.
Note: I have a rather limited understanding of what I am about to go on about, so hey, this might be completely wrong!
Accessibility aside, there is another factor influencing the number of buttons: the legal issues. In Japan, most button layouts have been patented. Capcom owns 6-button, and I believe SNK owns 4-button. Games like Blazblue get around this restriction by being technically a three attack button fighter with a dedicated special button (3+1). Persona, by that definition is 2+2, with two attack buttons, and two special persona buttons.
That aside, with the number of universal mechanics, I honestly can’t see an elegant way to implement that by way of additional buttons.
They could of gone the AH3 route (published by the same company) and done a 5 button game and then add a 6th as a dedicated mechanic button specifically for this game. I’m super sure they’re intuitive enough to work around it.
But eh, what do I know.
Pretty sure they had that idea. GG is 5 buttons after all (P K S HS D)
Even more reason for me to go, “Why didnt they do the same for P4A?”
What are you citing for the 4 button simplicity thing? Just out of curiousity, I was always under the impression it came first and Capcom moved to a 6 button layout to differentiate their games and cabinets.
It’s quite possible they’ve gone too far with this, and I’m not trying to dispute that, I’m just willing to give it the benefit of the doubt until I’ve had some hands on time with it. Some functions (Throw, roll, sweep, DP, Universal Overhead) are ones that should obviously be picked up first, but things like one more cancelling, hopping and air facing correction seem like you don’t necessarily lose out on not knowing them until you’re more comfortable with the system. How much of it you need to know out of the box is also going to go some length to determine if it is intuitive for new users.
I believe AH was developed by a different company and published through the same people, so there isn’t really any overlap on a development side between those two games, is the first answer that comes to mind. GG is a valid example though, so I’m not sure what changed.
if it were perfectly intuitive, it would all jive well and cool out of the box.