Actually it really is like they took Super Mario or Kid Chameleon and let you beat up another player.
Being able to wavedash, cancel, or combo doesn’t change that fact.
The great variety in stages is also proof of that, if jumping about and maneuvering yourself wasn’t part of the game every stage really would be flat, dull, and boring.
So basically you honestly believe this:
Is fundamentally the same as this:
If things like combos, cancels, or anything remotely requiring skill outside of “jumping about” doesn’t make it a fighter, then what even makes a game a fighter outside of “people doing martial arts in a flat room”?
Yes, I honestly believe they’re fundamentally the same. Again, the huge variety in stage is literal proof of this. The environment is entirely part of the game, which in turn makes platforming part of the game, it’s just that you don’t see the real beauty of that because the community will limit it to the most boring ones available (most of the time anyway).
See, your problem is that you probably think I’m dismissing it because it’s not a fighter. I don’t give a shit what it is, it’s fun. Insanely fun. Raw Melee / Brawl is more fun then any god damn fighting game that’s come out in the past five years. The harder you try to pigeonhole it into being a fighting game, the harder it is to accept it as such because it isn’t. This is fact. It trumps convention naturally, but when you rid of it of that to become what it isn’t, well that’s when the arguments begin. Smash is beautiful for what it is, and I have to agree with d3v’s statement on what the Japanese call it, VS platforming.
Why you (the community) doesn’t embrace that is beyond me though.
nah they think this is the same as the Smash
I see the beauty of it, frankly I think banning any stage that isn’t a flat floor and the vast majority of those goofy rules the Smash community makes up is silly and ruins the entire point of the game. I always felt the interaction with the environment is part of what adds skill to the game and what makes it fun. Without that it’s just a boring game full of rules made by people desperately trying to make it like SF.
As far as thinking you’re dismissing it, I’m not singling you out, it’s more than over the years I noticed a sort of divide among fighting game fans, you either get ones who don’t care what category a game is so long as it involves combat, has skill, and is fun. Then on the other spectrum you get the ones who pretty much dismiss ANY game simply because it tries something different. I’ve had people tell me Anarchy Reigns was “a beat em up like streets of rage”, despite the fact that outside of the beat em up story mode, the game really isn’t like streets of rage. The game may not be Tekken obviously but the main mode and meat of the game is multiplayer vs; by their logic Tekken is a beat em up simply because it has a beat em up story mode outside of the pvp.
It’s moreso annoying when the arguments tend to be things like “it’s nothing like a fighting game, you’re not supposed to have the camera behind the player, if the camera isn’t sideview like SF/Tekken you can’t have tournies!” Such things weren’t said in this thread, but I have actually seen quite a few whose mentality is pretty much "if it isn’t like SF(for 2d)/Tekken(for 3d), it’s “shit/not a real fighter/not worth playing”. The kind of people who would call multi tier stages “dumb and pointless” then jizz themselves when they saw it in Tekken Tag 2. I’m talking the kind of people who freak out over a car driving past in the city stage in MK9 because “The car moving past distracts me, the stage should be static with nothing moving omfg interactive environment not tourney worthy stage ban iiiiiiiiiiiit!”
This is the sort of thing that is limiting fighting games, because you get games like Tobal or Bushido Blade or Virtual On that get ignored and passed over because “they did it wrong, it ain’t like Tekken/SF, it’s garbage”. Hell these types prolly wouldn’t even play an OG SF game because they’re used to the games having to be what they THINK SF is, same goes for Tekken. It’s even sadder because the kind of games I mentioned can even have cool innovative ideas that simply die and never get a chance to be improved upon because the game itself either sucked(so people assumed EVERY feature the game had was shit by default), or because it didn’t stay on a strict and narrow course that people expect and got ignored/shat on for it. Tao Feng wasn’t a good game, but when people refuse to view features objectively and simply determine “This game was shit/I didn’t like it, therefore this new feature is bad and must never be attempted again ever”; it’s limiting potential for newer fighters.
It depends on how much it is like a fighter, if the combat mechanics are predominantly of the DMC game itself it would be very similar that’s for sure, but would it have the sidestep/frame-trap/mixup aspect? Would we discuss it in a language of frames? Would it be wildly different from say, Tekken, VF and Soul Calibur? These three games are very different when you look at them from the point of view of someone who plays one of them, but if you explained them to an outside observer (just explained the point, other basic stuff etc.) they would seem very similar. 3D fighters aren’t really my forte, but they still have a set of identifiable characteristics whose absence makes us feel it’s not a “real” fighting game.
The contention may come from someone saying “but look! they’re fighting! It’s a fighting game!” which is fair. The term isn’t clear. Over here “fighter” pretty much means 2D or 3D fighting game as is generally understood, though sometimes people do branch out into stuff like Gundam. Smash probably gets derision because of how eager some of the players seem to be to want to argue that their game is a “real” fighting game. Since people do understand what they mean by fighting games usually, but strain to describe them, the usual treatment of these players will be: “Buddy no one gives a fuck, just take your game elsewhere.”
Versus Platformer is perhaps not that great a definition. The platforming aspect is there, but the versus part is what is of prime importance. You ring out people in VF, that means it has a big single platform you’re fighting on! Platform game!
There’s a difference between “this isn’t a fighter” and “this game sucks” btw. I don’t think Smash is a fighter. Actually, I don’t even think third person view camera arena games are fighters, like you said in your last post. So I’m one of those guys, single me out if you want.
Smash does a few things from fighting games (both 3D and 2D) differently
-alternative life bars, instead of depleting it, you increase the opponents damage making him “lighter”
-2 alternative ways to ring out along with the standard “falling out the ring”: getting shot into the air and getting shot to the sides, also gives you a chance to get back onto the stage
-different implementation of multi-tiered stages, DoA and Tekken have multi-tier stages except you can’t freely move between them, Smash allows you to
-“jumping and maneuvering” is important in many fighters
You guys can set up some set of prerequisites to being called a “fighter” and there will more than likely be 2 fighters that don’t fit and 3 non-fighters that do but it always ends in “it just isn’t a fighter, ok?”.
Again, just call them “alternative fighters” if it bugs you that much to see them called “fighting games” like SF.
Really are those the only differences? Come on. 2D and 3D fighters are a lot narrower than that even.
Do I really need to type “including but not limited to” for you to not deviate from the point I was making?
Really? Those are the differences you choose to mention over the core, apparent ones?
Okay fine, you got me bro… carry on 
Apparently they’re not that apparent.
Items? Marvel Super Heroes had gems falling.
“stocks” of life? Alternative to rounds. 2 out of 3 pretty much means you have 2 stocks of life.
What’s left?
Stage hazards? DoA and Fighters Megamix have walls that caused harm.
The controls? Has more buttons than VF.
lol ssbb is a platformer with multiplyer, but it’s still awesome and shows a way gaming can go
You got me! XD
i would like some viable motion controls… superman punches cpu bionic arrrrrrrrrrrmmmmm!!! KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE!!!
well… well damn, where was this when we were bashing sc4?
Smash was originally designed as a multiplayer fighting game. Simply becuase the later added adventure mode, does not mean that the meat of the game was not the fighting. That logic can OH SO easily be applied to Tekken. Fighters don’t have to abide buy certain strict ass rules rules to be a fighter. As long as the game is designed with muiltiplayer Vs. combat as its main core, its a fighter. It may be a different kind of fighter, but it still is. Categories are ok, but outright eliminating them from the genre is stupid. I mean look at how many kinds of fighters there can be
2D fighters
3D fighters
Platformer fighters
Shooter fighter thingys
3rd person fighter thingys
I just wish a company actually dared to be different and come up with an idea for a new kind of fighter nowadays. Hopefully when they do fighter fans won’t bitch about having their perfect genre tainted.
Anarchy Reigns 
helping hand
Maybe fighting gamers will give this a
foot to the throat
This is worse than the guy who posted a novella on why he hates MvC3.
Here’s where I think we’re at. You think that because Pit Fighter (lol) considers Smash a fighter, he’s trying to pigeonhole it into the Street Fighter mold like certain other communities. However, at least coming from his posts in this thread, it’s clear to see he and I just have very liberal definitions of fighting games. I’m not an idiot, and I’ve been playing fighters for two decades now. I’ll be the first to tell you how Super Street Fighter IV and Arcade Edition feel like two different games; what would seem like imperceptible differences between the two games to the untrained player’s eye, I recognize and acknowledge.
But I’m also acutely aware of gaming history and have the habit of tracing back the tropes in games we take for granted. Also, I know when things are more than the sum of its parts: I recognize Smash as **a fighting game viewed through the lens of a platformer. **Without either influence, the game as we know it would not exist, and everyone has to agree on that at least.
Also, I see all of the following games:
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[media=youtube]j_3rmoA1JKY[/media] [media=youtube]wgPnv8rYEnw[/media] [media=youtube]plPXglTaw_c[/media]
as being very different games that were conceived with the same broad strokes, taken in wildly different directions.
Which is exactly what the OP is talking about when he talks about fighting games “evolving.” He wants to see the genre adapt to the current gaming landscape, which they must continue to do.
Thank you, you seem to understand this very well. People wanting to have diff categories for fighters with unique playstyles/elements is fine(shooters and other genres have many categories their games can fall into based on this), it’s when it turns into this odd “Well I dunno, that game can’t be a REAL fighter, I mean, it isn’t like SF/Tekken…” that it gets goofy imo. I mean like to the guy earlier, what defines a fighting game? If say the DMC style game given in the example had:
-a deep combo system
-required strict timings for various attacks/combos
-footsies, maybe even crossups, okizeme
-jump cancels, cancels in general, wavedashing, and other techniques generally considered more advanced or skillful fighting game mechanics
How would that not then be a fighter? Because the camera isn’t set to the side? Because the stage may have interactive elements? Because the game doesn’t use qcf motions for specials/supers?(as that may be harder with a camera behind a character and taking into account slight directional deviations and positioning) I admit if someone tried to tell me “oh, that isn’t a real fighting game”, then I’d assume they pretty much are just saying it isn’t because it isn’t a 3d fighter like Tekken(ie. the stage isn’t a completely flat floor with nothing going on beyond walls, camera set to the side). I’d like to think there’s a lot more to what makes a fighter special than what camera it uses or whether the stages use flat floors. It would suck even more if say just as an example, Anarchy Reigns came out, was actually a lot more technical and deep than people gave it credit for, and it flops/gets no tourney play because “It ain’t like SF/Tekken”; yet SFxTekken(or hell Tekken Tag 2 even although I doubt it) somehow ends up like a real shallow scrubby game and it gets tourney play and succeeds solely because “Well, least they used the right camera and the stages don’t do anything!”
I mean seriously there’s people who try to claim doujin games aren’t real fighters because “da groundgame aint as deep as SF and you can’t zone cuz you can jump and fly an shit” but then will salivate over Marvel which has the same stuff. I can’t help but think if Ono made SF5 a 3rd person camera thing with interactive stages those types would bitch endlessly then play it anyway and call it the best fighter ever, then bash any other game doing something similar…