According to the poll most people are saying that strategy is more important then execution. I agree.
What gets me is this: SFxT**
I liked the game, than bashed the game and sold it, and now have the game again (got a free copy, gamestop error in my favor). Coming back and playing this game after 2 months has opened my eyes in a way. I still don’t think the game is perfect/the best game ever/better than what’s out there but…
The game absolutely places more emphasis on strategy then on execution.
The execution barriers are far less then most other games out right now. Nearly everything that was in SF4 has been made easier. Most 1 frame links are 2 frames or more. Supers are a single quarter circle motion. pretzel motions like Guile and vega ultras are gone. Even the more damaging and “difficult” combos are ridiculously easy compared to Marvel and AE. And although magic series into launcher scales badly it still does decent damage and gets your character out and healing life back.
More people could theoretically pick up this game and play it than any other capcom fighting game out right now with the exception of maybe Super Turbo. The reason for this is that you can get to the meta game/yomi game much faster.
Because the requirements to play the basic game are so low players can start playing the actual game, i.e. the “meta game” much sooner. Some players will never reach the meta or yomi aspects of certain fighters, ever, because they will be forever caught up in the execution of the game. MvC2 and MvC3 both come to mind here. Unless you are doing rom infinities in MvC2, or TAC combos mid air into various loops in MvC3, there is no way you are actually playing the game in a certain sense. I mean, yes, you are technically playing the game, you have a controller or stick in your hands… but you aren’t really playing the game. Not the mental part of the game, you are stuck in the physical part only.
Most people, if what they say about why they like fighting games is true, like them because of the mental aspects and challenges that fighting games present. Out smarting another player, thinking 3 or 4 steps ahead, knowing that the opponent know what you are thinking and having to make that split second change. The list could go on and on but the thing that is important here is that all this takes place in the mind. I know some will respond saying that it will take execution to do the things that you are thinking about, and this is true. But, that’s missing the point. When the execution barrier is so high, very few players will ever get to the point where they can enjoy the game mentally.
Again, let’s look at MvC2 as an example of that last statement. The last couple years of it’s tournament life there were really only a handful of players that could play at that level. No one was going to beat these guys. The game was slowly turning into a spectator sport for all intents and purposes. People would watch and cheer and get hype but only a small group of people could actually play the game. The reaction time required, the execution, and various other barriers prevented large portions of the FGC from ever getting to the meat of the game… the mental aspect, not having to worry about execution and simply being able to think and plan an attack and then change plans if things didn’t work out. If you are worrying about execution during a high level MvC2 match you are going to lose.
SFxT and Super Turbo both allow players to get into the meta game much faster, though for different reasons. SFxT, as I mentioned, lowers the entry barrier by making the basic game easy to play and the moves/combos easy to do, letting new players focus on other things like zoning and footsies, since if all else fails they can rely on abc into launcher to at least make some progress. this combined with the aforementioned easy supers and the ability to cancel any hit into a super let’s them easily do combos they may not have been able to do other wise. A good player is going to hit combos like that in another game anyway, like SF4AE. Letting a player with poor execution have the ability to perform moves/combos like that makes it so the game relies more on the mental aspect, the meta, yomi, ect, instead of route memorization of combo strings and 1 frame link timing. No one I know liked memorizing stuff in school… why do people like memorizing stuff in games? It’s beyond me. Games should be fun pure experiences, not trials of patience and frustration.
Super Turbo does this in a different way. The game is very basic. No air blocking, no focus, no parry, no dashing, no rolling, none of that stuff. Each player gets a single super and that’s it, besides of course their special moves and normals. The game mitigates this with 2 things: very high damage and simplicity.
Getting hit in Super Turbo HURTS. The game also has a much lower “possibility space” due to it not having any of the things I just listed. This makes the game simpler. Note that this doesn’t make the game stupid, or easy, or anything negative at all, that’s not what I am trying to get at. Simplicity in this instance is a very, very good thing. Possibility space is all the things that can possibly happen in the game between two opponents at any given time during the match. Compared to a game like UMvC3 with it’s assist calling, air blocking, DHCs, tags, team composition, snapbacks, assist counters, super jumping, multiple hypers, TACs, ect… the possibility space of Super Turbo is lower. Much lower.
The reason this is good is because this allows players to get into the meta/yomi game of ST much sooner and thus arrive at a place where they can actually start playing the game. (remember for me, simply holding a controller is not enough to be considered “playing” the game, there must be a mental aspect to it.)
There isn’t as much of a need to spend hours upon hours, if not days worth of time, in training mode learning esoteric combos and perfecting 1 frame links. You can pick up the game and start playing, really playing using mental and physical aspects, much sooner.
This also ends up being better for the players who have better execution. Imagine 2 players of roughly equal skill mentally but one has better execution. Regardless of the game they are playing the player with the better execution will win. But, this will become more apparent in a game where strategy is more important than where it isn’t. This is because in a game where strategy is the focus there are less barriers to get in the way of the fight itself… Which allows players to actually fight each other in a literal sense, by doing battle mentally using the game as a medium. It is you vs him, and all, or most, of the artificial barriers are gone. Execution will always be present in the fighting games but the more a game is focused on it the less it becomes about the mental aspect and the less people that can truly play the game. Lowing the barrier allows more people in and thus you have more opponents. To me, that is what it’s all about anyway. The fight itself.
** I am not saying SFxT is omgbbqrofltheGreatestGameEvar! Just point out some things I have been noticing since I started playing the game again this last week. Coming from playing nothing but Marvel and AE for the last 2 months it has really been an eye opening experience.
