Smash Brothers - winning formula no one uses?

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

Smash Brothers has hit like a hurricane, selling 4.85 million units worldwide according to Nintendo as of the end of march. And once the European release hits, no doubt at least another million units will be sold. Its undoubtedly one of the biggest, if not the biggest fighting game in the world at the moment.

So what makes Smash so appealing to people? First I would have to say the characters. Putting everyones favorite characters from their favorite games is gonna be big hit among fans, but that alone isn’t enough to keep people playing a game. So its gotta be the control scheme and gameplay play and mechanics. In that respect smash is quite unique. And in my opinion, is probably the best example of a game which is easy to pick up and play, whilst still offering lots depth and competitive play for more hardcore players since Tekken.

This is something which I think is missing from alot of new fighters today, most requiring you have played fighting games before and are familiar with stuff which is 2nd nature to hardcore fighting game players. This results in a very high entry level and learning curve, which isn’t very appealing to people new to the genre and games. People like instant results, and thats why games like Tekken, Soul Calibur and DOA get quite alot of critical acclaim, cause the reviewers themselves are actually able to play the game for the short and get alot of out it. Where if you stick a game like guilty gear or capcom vs snk 2 in front of them, they can’t properly judge the game since they don’t have enough to play them and thus not truly appreciate what the game can do.

So it is surprising that no one has used the smash formula to make their own smash style fighter. Just as Street fighter 2 was followed by a slew of games all trying to capture some of its success, the same thing seems to be happening with Guilty Gear, but not with smash. You could say the games which resemble smash the most are anime based fighters like Naruto, dragonball z, with their more simplified controls. However they still have more in common with more traditional fighters, with life bars, power meters, time limits, etc

So whats stopping other companies like capcom, namco and even a company like EA making use of their IPs and licenses to make a smash style fighter? They have alot of memorable characters and memorable games to take characters, stages and music from. They wouldn’t even necessarily have to be solid fighting game, they would still be cash cows and people would lap them up.

So what companies do people here think would make a good or bad smash style game?

2

DreamMix TV World Fighters.
Onimusha Blade Warriors.
Narutimate Accel series.
Jump Ultimate Stars.

Bit of a nebulous question. Anyone could. Capcom could make a Brawl styled Power Stone 3 or something. It could be argued that Marvel Nemesis is a Brawl-styled game due to the nature of its controls; even though its nothing like that series at all.

3

The Naruto GNT series has huge potential in this regard, but never quite succeeded. GNT4 was a one-character game (well, 2 or 3 others had somewhat of a chance), and the EX series is ruined by some elements of its core engine (i.e. the ridiculous OTGs).

4

add D.O.N Battle Stadium to that list. that game actually tried to fuse traditional 2d fighting gameplay with Smash’s.

5

smash is not easy to play. it just seems like it to the casual eye.
you can’t get hardcore w/o practicing that tilt/smash thing and getting used to it…(and its harder than playing street fighter)

its popular cuz of the characters and cuz its a good party game and cuz it has alot of content.

6

Oh man. This is gonna be funny.

7

Any company has the potential to make a Smash clone and probably make the gameplay even better but the real reason why so many buy into Smash in the first place is that is that it’s a major Nintendo cross over.What other game can you play where Mario,Snake,Sonic and Pikachu can all fight each other to the death on the same screen?

The main goal for a company would have to have one hell of a presentation to hype the game up if they want any real sales.Does anyone think Smash would have been anywhere near as successful if it had been pitched as a game with a totally original cast instead of a Nintendo franchise ones?

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I could only ever assume that Capcom was desperate to not have Viewtiful Joe:Red Hot Rumble compared to Smash, as it for no other apparent reason lacks a regular “victory by kills” versus mode. Instead, victory is always from score, which is handled like Smash Bros Coin Battle mode with score-rewarding missions added. A shame, as an option to cut out the mission/score system might have given that game a little more life.

Another series that felt like Smash without the crossovers was Digimon Rumble Arena.

One big problem with Smash-style clones is that the games often just aren’t well made. VJ:RHR misses a vital gameplay mode. Rumble Arena 2 added four-player support, but seems like it was made on a shoestring-budget by an inexperienced team. DreamMix TV was equally lackluster, and didn’t get a worldwide release.

9

You know who could bank off the Brawl concept the best? Square.

Lets all think about that and cry a little. It would sell retardedly well and would bring forth unfathomable amounts of fanboy bullshit.

But yeah, Smash Bros is a super fucking hard game to really get into… but is this an inherent function of the game style or more a funciton of Smash Bros? I haven’t wasted a lot of thought on this, but I think a Smash like game could be made to still be readily accessible even for higher end play.

10

They’re pretty close with Dissidia.

11

It’s not the gameplay that makes it a winning formula. Smash is not hard to get into, lol. Don’t make it more difficult than it needs to be.

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Even if somebody were to improve on the formula, it would be dismissed as a "smash clone"
What I’d like to see is smash bros with ALL the popular characters, snake, master chief, cloud, mario, kerrigan, jimmy from double dragon etc. Of course it wont happen until EA owns everything. Lucas? Lucario? Ike? Who the hell are these people? Where the hell can I get a game and watch?

13

'lol @ the tilts and smash comment.

Anyways, the unique thing to remember about Melee is that the gameplay is basically king of the hill. If you can keep the other player off, you win.

The control scheme is ridiuclously simple. Push a direction, push A or B and you get one of 13 ish moves, plus grabs and the 4 throws. Comboing doesn’t even exist until you get remotely good at the game, and there are a million nuances to understand about the physics of comboing and not getting comboed.

You’re also given a much larger screen to play on, far bigger than on any Street Fighter. There are also not lifebars, you get more of a gauge that tells you how far you can get hit by a move, when you reach a certain percentage, you will die from almost any hit.
(This gives an illusion of less restriction than a traditional fighter, the bane of a casual game)

In addition, there’s the fact that it is a 3D game. Not the gameplay, but the graphics; this adds appeal for some reason.

Smash is a very appealing game simply due to mass fan appeal with the characters, the previous success it’s had, and the very easy gameplay. Mash on B for projectile is top tier in newbie play.

14

I was gonna say this. You’re absolutely right.

And if anyone played Jump Ultimate Stars when it first came out, the community was super scrubby. Like, seriously, beyond the beyond scrubby. There was this one clan that had rules against blocking “too much”. :rolleyes:

That’s because with games like these, you’re attracting the fans of the characters, who don’t really give a shit about competitive games. That’s not really bad, until those same people try to influence the competitive scene for whatever the fuck reason. It’s been a million years since Melee was released, and you still got guys on SWF complaining about no itemless play for that game, when none of them will actually ever go to a tourney.

But yeah, it’s weird that we don’t see more of these games being released either way. Though, off the top of my head I can’t really think of a franchise or company with as many popular characters as Nintendo.

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So let them complain. They still have an opinion even if it’s viewed as scrubby. If anything they have to adapt to everyone elses style if they ever do want to play competitively.

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it’s a great formula simply by virtue of the fact that it lets players get right to the game without having to learn extraneous bullshit like learning how to do commands (very hard if you don’t have a history with SF2) and memorizing move lists.

i doubt it’ll ever catch on in our community, though, because too many people are willing to give up a much wider player base if it means they can have dp motions

17

i wish american comics would take up this formula for fighting games… i feel that would be a match made in heaven…

18

I want to know this too.

19

This is bait right?

Right?

It’s arpe-o-rama if I get snarky here hunh? :looney:

20

This is a fighting game forum, so why are we talking about SSB? Is it even a fighting game?
Even the NHL games have fights on 'em too…

Please dont confuse popularity to quality.

Brawl is garbage and a smack in the face of the fightig game genre.