The "new" fighting game

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
21

Exactly.

I have time and time again mentioned how SNKP marketing is a complete and utter failure when it come to hyping KoF XII and is pretty much doing so till now. Ignition didn’t help either; hell, they didn’t even respond to the Evo side-tourney the Evo staff wanted to make for the game, canceling it.

Even in Asia, they’ve dropped the ball big time. Hush-hush release. No advertising or promotions. Quick announcement of 2k2 UM arcade. All these factors didn’t help one second in letting the public know that they’d rather go back to the older games (because '98 and 2k2 are the only games they’d want to play) and ignore XII.

A sad state of affairs, but they’ve been far shooting themselves in the foot with that kind of attitude. The subpar netcode in the console versions is just the straw that broke the camel’s back; unless it (hopefully) gets better with more patching and other improvements.

There’s already an entire topic about it in the KoF XII forums. Which people need to get over already.

22

This guy gets it.

I live in podunk. There is no scene here at all. There’s no arcade, even! My friends who play fighting games are into Smash and Soul Calibur. Which, I’m lucky in that aspect, as SC is my best game to begin with. But back to the point at hand.

The reason I never got any better over the decade is that I had no competition. With that, I got easily bored of the game, and drift away.

Now, with the advances of technology, as long as there’s decent netcode in a game, I can play someone and learn. I grew up playing all these different types of fighters, loving all of them, but with a lack of competition, it was impossible to learn. Now it is. BlazBlue has great netcode, and has given me the opportunity to play several really strong Japanese players in this game. It has been a great learning environment. HDR had great netcode as well, allowing me to learn some higher play in a game I got bored with playing the computer years ago. Marvel’s netcode has allowed me to have a crash course in that sick, twisted game. Even SF4 and SC4’s netcode allowed me to get some decent competition in (if their connection was good enough to allow it).

That’s not true with any SNK fighter to date. Not a one has allowed me to have a match that didn’t involve mass amounts of input lag. Therefore, I won’t be learning the intricacies of any SNK fighter that I can’t play on GGPO.

So basically, it’s true, for me at least. If a fighting game is without even halfway decent netcode, the entire package is wasted on me. It would only stay in my 360 long enough to earn the offline achievements, then collect dust or waste hard drive space.

It’s time that gaming companies wake up and realize that this is the new world order of things in the industry.

23

The reason why fighting games are making a mainstream boom in America is because of online play. Yeah having decent gameplay and a good presentation helps also to draw in a crowd, but all that amounts to doody if you don’t have stable online play. There are ALOT of Americans who live in areas where there is no scene. People who have friends that only play soley FPS and Music games.

If a fighting game doesn’t have good netcode, then it better have some damn good single player modes. But really, what kind of modes are going to offer a deep single player experience in a fighting game?

Some say use practice mode to keep yourself busy. It’s one thing to sit there by yourself in practice mode KNOWING that you’ll have competition later on. It’s another thing to sit there in practice mode knowing you have a game with crappy netcode and all your local friends are fragging it up on FPSers.

All a fighting game needs to be loved by the tournament community is great gameplay. But if that’s all the game has then it’s just going to remain a niche genre for the rest of it’s existence. For a game to reach mass appeal… first you got to hype it up, then you got to back your shit up. You draw in a crowd with a great presentation with menus and opening cinematics, then you make sure your game play is as good as a sausage Mcgriddle on Monday Morning, then you gotta make damn sure that your Netcode isn’t so crappy that it makes the game unplayable.

If companies think they can just start releasing fighting games without paying attention to presentation and a solid online experience… then they’re in for a rude awakening.

You can’t release a $60 game with a $20 production value and expect the consumer to be forgiving. This is 2009, There are new standards to be had for fighting games to be moderatley successful and developers have got to be stern about quality control.

24

I was hype for KOFXII. It was going to be my first KOF and I was stoked for it. The small cast was a non issue for me. I think the game looks beautiful. It’s got the pacing and speed that I like and lacks all the massive amounts of subsystems that turned me off of KOF. It was a pure fighter and I was stoked…till I heard from massive amounts of people that the netcode is straight ass. Wont be buying till it’s got a good net code cause I don’t know anyone in the real world who even knows what KOF even is and I’m just not playing fighters by myself anymore.

25

Are you really that lonely? Comments like that are just weird. Mai isnt even that great of a character, if you want tits hit the internet. Theres plenty of porn for you out there.

Anyways, gameplay wise KOF12 is dam amazing. I just hope the DLC that Ignition is tryin to get out the door comes fast enough. Its a shame that lots of people arent going to experience such a great fighting game due to reviews. KOF12 fighting engine is amazing and very exciting. SNKP forced this released, this game should of been held back till October at least or November. I dont blame Ignition, this is SNKPs fuck up.

26

There’s a thread for “No Mai, No Buy?” Really? Mai’s a fucking stupid character. There, I said it. Elizabeth and Mature were suspect choices, sure. But Kula, Vanessa, Yuri, King, and Chizuru are much more interesting and cool female characters. I don’t need my video game girls to be naked with unnatural sized boobs. I download porn for that, k thx :wink:

EDIT: lol at Projectjustice saying the same thing I said, but beating me to it by 10 minutes!

And sir, you get it as well. I thought SC4’s netcode was horrible, with 20 frame lows becoming unblockables :rofl: But that’s not the point. The point is that unless you live in a major city or a college town, you’re strapped for competition. Online play with good netcode (HDR, SF4, BB, MvC2, and VF5 of all games) is what makes a fighting game work in america. I’m in your boat. I have access to solid offline competition for BlazBlue, SF4, and Tekken. The rest of it, I need the internet. And bad netcode is the reason I failed to really learn some games that I had genuine interest in.

27

:lol:

Exactly, I would want Vanessa in the game over Mai everytime.

28

http://megg.us/b3s/shitstorm-flyer.jpg

29

yay. debate time.

30

I have to agree that netcode just has to be part of a fighting game package these days. If you’re going to leave it out you may as well leave out Versus mode too.

It should come as no surprise that the decline of the first golden age of fighting games came around the same time as the decline of the American arcade. Street Fighter 2 was the shit because you could go anywhere and play it against people. No one was putting their quarters on the machine to try and beat Bison in single player.

The arcades and fighting games both declined around the same time, but with HDR and SF4, people had the ability to once again put their quarters up, this time without even leaving their homes. You better believe that shit is a big deal.

Then BlazBlue comes with it’s amazing netcode, and BAM! Suddenly people can realistically play fighters against human competition anywhere in the US for the first time in some 10-15 years. You don’t have to download 5 year old roms and some random program you’ve never heard of before, you can buy a stick and a game, and go kick some ass.

That shit counts.

31

Fuck gameplay! I got into Street Fighter for the same reason everyone else in the world got into Street Fighter: You can play as a green, electrical beast that bites people’s heads!

32

Everything I wrote has been completely and utterly refuted by this statement.

33

I think KOF would’ve done better, not sure by how much, if they had better netcode.
I was EXTREMELY hyped up for it, even though I never played a SNK game…but once i heard how bad the netcode was I passed on it. And put it in the “rental” category. And a lot of my friends were the same way.

A lot of my friends that hopped on the BB train, are now back on SF4 now too. So i think developers need to get past the “throw a gimmick” in the game attitude and just really polish every aspect of gameply before releasing a game. And for the God, market your shit better. To keep up with the sheer mainstream power of Street Fighter, a lot of these games have to go on a marketing blitz to sway some fans.

34

A lot of these game DON’T have the marketing power of SF4 and NEVER WILL.

Capcom has a host of game series that reach into basically every genre there is today, they can throw a parade for SF4 if they want to.

SNK is a small fighting game company that is owned by a Pachinko company that gets their cash from weird dating sims.

I’d say that the reason KOF isn’t marketed well isn’t because SNK chooses to do so.

35

In MONSTER you could play plenty of beasts and one of them could slash himself, get blood on the opponent and then make it explode. Othello is so badass he doesn’t feel pain and so hotblooded and manly that he can burn people with his own blood.

Though that didn’t stop the game from being unpopular. :confused: Blanka’s too ugly for my tastes anyway (as are 50% of the cast in Street Fighter)

36

Euhh, I don’t think that anyone knows the nitty-gritty behind those glitches right now. I’m not even sure if there’s much more to know about them. I don’t think much is known yet anyway, because those three videos were uploaded two days ago, and that foreign language article showing them was written yesterday.

The first and second video show the same glitch. There is a good explanation of it in the description for the first one; just click the video itself to open it in its own tab/window, and then click the “More info” button to the right of the video box on its YouTube page.

The third video is really too blurry for me to see what’s going on. There is a brief explanation of it in its video description: basically the pushback is not working on some move or other if you hold a certain direction, and it enables an easy infinite.

Hope that helps. Sorry for stating such obvious things if you were looking for more in-depth or technically detailed explanations.

37

Frankfurt, SolRahlX, MP, and Master Chibi, I just read all of your posts and just want to say…THANK YOU!! Thank you for saying what I felt about the current fighting game standard all along. I mean I would so rep every last one of you guys if I was able to. :tup:

38

The question is what sort of fluff is best to put in a game?

for 3D- I’d argue customizations. I think SCIV did it best. For a 3D game, all I think you need is an arcade mode, vs mode, online mode, customization mode (but you better have a lot of options)

for 2D- Blazblue did fluff the best, SFIV fluff was horrible because it was forced on you.

KOFXII is a historical fighter- it’s probably going to be the first game that was done in by its netcode. Hopefully Namco saw this, as I’m worried about T6 netcode.

39

SF IV is not all marketing,nostalgia and legendary brand.

It’s still a solid as heck fighting game even if plenty of people hate it with a passion(and no game is perfect or suited for everyone anyway).

Blazblue is also a very solid fighting game,although I suspect the bizarre fighting style of each character will put off those who mainly enjoy traditional martial arts or mma.BB is and will always be more niche than SF simply because of the strong anime influence and bizarre fighting style.

Capcom also did fighting game with bizarre fighting style and they ended up being niche like vampire savior.

KOF isn’t popular in north america to begin with,so SNKplaymore couldn’t afford those bad reviews.There’s no way people are going to give a shit about this franchise if SNKplaymore keep fucking up everything they release to begin with.The upcoming samurai showdown game look atrocious and it’s going to be ripped apart by critics.Another fail associated to SNKplaymore…

What I find really strange about KOF XII is that the fighting engine is touted as fantastic,yet nobody care in the arcade scene anyway.It seems like the fighting engine isn’t enough to carry a game in both console or arcade play.

Tekken 6 will be a huge success,I’m sure of it.It will have a lot of fluff,stuff to unlock(clothes and extras) while you play solo or online and there’s seems to be an adventure game in there that can be played with friends(possibly online?).Add to this the fact that Tekken 6 already dominate the arcade scene and you will have the best selling fighter of this generation outside of brawl.

40

kitzkozan:

I would agree that SF IV is not all marketing,nostalgia and legendary brand". However, I would argue that this accounted for the majority (~75%) of the sales. Besides the bankable name brand (which is nothing to sneeze at, but it hasn’t really done much for Capcom since SF2), the primary reasons why SFIV has sold as well as it has are because a) Capcom went with a suitable graphic engine that would appeal to many players (not all, but many) - i.e. they didn’t go with sprites - and b) they hyped it to hell.

The other pluses in the game’s portfolio - solid engine, solid online, lots of stuff to do, etc. - were all bonuses. If the game had 2D sprites, or wasn’t as hyped as much as it was, it would have sold a fraction of what it did, regardless of other factors.

On the other hand, SNK has done an abysmal job with KoFXII’s promotion. They already had two strikes going against them out the starting gate: First of all, KoF doesn’t have huge name value outside of JPN arcades and in places like Mexico and Brazil where I’m not even sure game sales are counted. We can also blame SNK’s tradition of releasing weak/late ports of their games to home systems that people actually own, if they ever release them at all. Second, if their aim was to draw in a mass audience, their second strike was go with 2D sprites. Regardless of whether you think KoFXII looks good (and I do think it looks good), to the majority of players, it barely looks better than its predecessors. The sad fact is that Johnny LeetHaloPlyr will take one look at KoFXII and scoff at it’s “old” visuals.

So with those two strikes against them, SNK needed to hype this fucker to the heavens. We’re talking Mortal Monday levels of hype. But while SNK has typically been awful at hyping their games (as has Capcom when it comes to their fighting games, though hopefully they’ve learned their lesson with SFIV), the general lack of hype SNK has shown for their own premiere fighter is astounding. I don’t understand it really. The fact that they unveiled arcade KoF2k2UM so quickly seems to suggest that they don’t have much faith in KoFXII even before it was released.

The subpar netcode is really the last straw. The lack of extras in the console port is damaging, yes, but I’m not sure how much notable extra they would have been able to provide. Much would have been forgiven if they sufficiently good netcode, since the “you can always play against other people have have fun” factor is a strong selling point. But they didn’t even get that right! It’s astonishing how badly they’ve dropped the ball on this. And when you consider how much money they’ve spent on the game, well, it leaves me concerned for SNK’s future.

Not that Namco needed the help, since they know how to hype their games, but they’ll probably take note of what Capcom did with SFIV and equal or surpass it with Tekken 6. Barring some catastrophic failure or mistake (like every copy of Tekken corrupting your system’s HD), Tekken 6 is going to be a monster hit.