Yeah Guilty gear, and a big thing that attracted me to it (though I have nothing against anime, I’ve watched some)…is the strong theme of heavy metal. I’m sure this is part of how it attracted many individuals who weren’t anime fans.
Yep called it. 
One of my friend even thought that Guilty Gear was a western game, because of how heavy metal-ish/Mad Max-ish it was.
And then I pimpslapped him.
People don’t want to git gud.
(nevermind)
The online netcode is bad?
Anime games die out because the playbase is already tiny and they don’t have a constant wave of new players…they wont get that until arcsys changes there business model. The way it is now theres no point in buying any anime game 6 months after release as theres probably a new version on the way. Do i buy the non-upgradable old disc or do i just wait for the next version to come out and get it then? If i wait chances are i’ll find another game to play and not bother.
Arcsys rant(issues& things that need to change)
[details=Spoiler]bad /old business model (new discs for updates instead of dlc upgrade)
disc releases are always a year behind the arcade
Time between new editions/updates need to be longer.
**arcsys players jump from game to game too much. They’ll drop there game for what ever is the most recently patched arcsys game, its off putting + it stops the game from gaining any momentum
**
These changes will probably never happen as long as the arcade scene in japan is alive.
[/details]
Don’t think anime games will ever be as popular as sf but they could definitely be bigger than they are now.
Because Americans consider themselves to be the center of the world and anime is from Japan and therefore not cool and only for losers and nerds.
I wouldn’t be that black and white about it. Some people don’t judge it or those who are into anime and anime tropes, they just have no intrest in it, hence anime fighters not being uber popular here in the west.
If I may, let me say some thoughts on perception of anime fans sometimes known as otaku. Talks/obsessions about waifu, is definitely very detrimental to the reputation of people who appreciate anime. Also the conventions and all the cosplay is not looked on highly. The ‘nerd’ or ‘lonely virgin’ vibe gets expounded strongly, much like say hardcore Star Trek fans, or D&D fans. Anyways this also turns off many people from ever trying out an anime cause of all the stigmas attached.
However anime is like any other art form, there are masterpieces within it. Being a huge fan of animation or all kinds, I’ve seen quite a few excellent series and films. Due to the stigma attached though, many people who would otherwise enjoy some of these series will never try it out. Another barrier is it indeed being foreign. Just like foreign film (which I enjoy as well), it poses a language barrier (unless it is English or Australian) and many people hate subtitles.
Goddamn y’all making this shit more complicated than it really is.
Fighting games appeal to people with THREE THINGS:
**1. Characters
2. Gameplay
3. Aesthetics **
You need cool characters with strong characterizations that appeal to wide variety of people. MKX has that in spades… Watch the video on Johnny Cage’s pre-fight banter for an example. It’s not about the stupid ass story, but the people IN the story and how they deal with shit and each other.
Smash Bros. has about jack and all for a story, but the shit sells like crack because its the most iconic characters in video game history punching each other in the face… and two-thirds of them niggas don’t even talk!
You need gameplay that isn’t boring or shitty… No one wants to learn BnB combos with notations that look like Calculus equations that only do 25% damage and require a bunch of KOF inputs to pull off. Reduce the combo length and make the inputs simple. Stop putting in stupid shit like multiple subsystems and different meters for each individual character. Stop making dumb gameplay systems.
Hell, you can even overcome that with strong enough characters-- Look at the numbers MK pulled in even during the shitty post MK3 years, or Marvel 3 for that.
The elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge-- Aesthetics… Your average casual, and even more seasoned peeps become very uncomfortable around games with, well, let’s say, “odd” aesthetics. Arcana Heart and to a lesser extent, Skullgirls will never gain a foothold for this very reason, no matter how smooth the gameplay is.
Less schoolgirls in short skirts and otaku fetish fuel and more people who actually look like they can throw hands in these games.
When your game has a loli-to-buff-dude ratio of more than 2:1, you’ve already lost the battle.
Those three things are the real reason no anime game will ever gain more than a small following here in the West. Guilty Gear caught on because it kept these three points in mind, but even it has started to weeaboo it up with some of the goofballs in Xrd.
I dont play anime fighters because I dont like any of the characters. I didn’t like a single character in BB or Persona. Guilty Gear just has a million fucking mechanics.
The only thing that keeps me playing a fighter is if I actually think a character is cool. I play SF4 because Juri and Gouken are awesome. Marvel because Felicia/Dante/Doom is cool as fuck. Skullgirls because having a living saxophone, a zombie, and a catgirl all on the same team is neat. I-no is cool in Guilty Gear but I just cant get down with those Aksys(Arcsystem?) fighters.They dont click with me. Mortal Kombat? Motherfucking Ermac.
you know anime needs to step it up on the development side when consensus on SRK is that NRS shits on it. Although to their credit starting with MK9 they’ve got it down they keep getting better and better.
And just think, as of MKX, they have achieved attractive female faces! Science!
most anime fighters I tried to play, play the same pretty much. Dash dash, combo, dash dash, air dash combo. Even when I used to play UMK3, it even had more then just trying to rush the other person down.
Dude I’ve been talking about how the aesthetics of most anime fighters turn people away. What comments were you reading? But yeah I agree that’s pretty much the main thing holding them back. While in Japan that’s cool, most westerners frown on that loli/moe fan service stuff. I mean every game has its fan service, like Street Fighter’s Cammy, A large portion of MK’s female cast ( although they toned the fan service down a lot in MKX ), King of Fighter’s Mai Shuranui, Soul Cal’s Ivy etc. But the majority of the cast of these games are designed as legit fighters. Anime games however, well like you said, the ratio between the loli/moe and fanservicy characters, to legit looking fighters is pretty skewed.
"SF is just walk forward combo combo jump forward combo combo"
No it isn’t, because while advancing forward you cannot block. And if the opponent has pokes that cover 1/3 of the screen in front of him, mindlessly going forward means you give him free damage. Therefore matches consist of playing a lot in poking range, and you can only advance when you have a frame advantage or when you conditioned the opponent to sit and wait for an attack that doesn’t come, or by mixing your approach angles. Close positioning, which is more rewarding, has to be EARNED.
The only fighting games I play are 3S, USF4, Tekken and MK9 (MKX next week :D)
Why?
I like Ken and Ryu cuz they’re buff dudes competing with each other, I can get behind that.
I like Paul cuz he’s a broke biker dude with a weird haircut, just like me.
I like Law cuz Paul likes him and he’s fucking Bruce Lee.
I like Scorpion cuz he’s a ninja and out for revenge and since I’m a person with balls I both like ninjas and revenge.
I look at anime fighters and I ask myself who the fuck are these guys?
The only anime fighter characters I was ever interested in and I thought they were cool were the guy who lives in his bed and the guy who has a ton belts and shit and a huge thing to hit people with in Guilty Gear Xrd, but that game is full of stupidly hard mechanics and a thousand systems, so fuck that game.
Gimme a Samurai Champloo fighting game that’s easy to pick up, and maybe I start to give a fuck.
The only thing I saw in that video is more dashing, and more air dashing into combos. And charge characters and grapplers suck in anime fighting games
That’s half the cast though.
I disagree with you kanji tatsume=god tier grappler