Wednesday, May 5, 2004

   Fighting Games

Yesterday I decided to post something on Otakuboards concerning SEGA's upcoming Virtua Fighter: Cyber Revolution. There wasn't much to say, other than that it wasn't a "fighting" game and more of an "adventure/career mode" game. I did it to poke fun at the game, because I hate the Virtua Fighter series. Anyway, Charles apparently missed my naming Virtua Fighter: Evolution in the "Crappiest Games You've Ever Played" thread I started a while back, and was surprised at my bashing VF this time around. Now, I know that a lot of people like the VF games, so it's not a given that I'd think the game is crap, especially considering I AM a "gamer." So I'm going to explain to Charles and everyone else who cares why I think the VF games are horrible. In a very unorganized fashion. Ok, I guess it's most fair to start with the fighting mechanic of the game. It has all the basics--tons of moves per character, 8-way movement, "counters," grabs, "reversals," rising moves, juggling moves, etc. It's very close to the fighting mechanic of Dead Or Alive, which has all of the above as well, and it's all executed similarly too. So, then, why is that mechanic a problem? Well, because it sounds more complex than it really is. Rising moves and juggling moves and the gigantic list of special moves that characters have--all are ridiculously easy to pull off. On top of that, they're intuitive, meaning that if you've played fighting games for any considerable amount of time, there's not that much of a learning curve. At least such is the case for me, and Virtua Fighter: Evolution (that's the one my friend has that I've played), just like DOA3, and SC2, are all a complete joke to me. Because all the special moves are something along the lines of P,P,P,K,->P, "competent" button-mashing can make you quite unpredictable and deadly at the same time. Anyway, I found nothing rewarding about the fighting itself, because any "hadcore gamer" who knows how fighters work can become as good as he'll ever need to be in about a half-hour. Now, I'm sure all of you insane VF regional champions think I'm wrong. Well, I'll be more than happy to come over and totally school you at your own game. AgentAA7 (sn), another buddy of mine, beat his roommate (the friend who owns the VF Evolution disk and was using his personal "butt-ugly monk") with HIS EYES CLOSED, just to make a point. If that doesn't show that the game is a bit button-masher-friendly, I don't know what does. Now, did I get "as good as I'll ever need to be" at VF Evolution? Honestly, I don't know, because I didn't try playing the game's highest difficulty level computers, nor did I play any true VF god. But I certainly got way too good considering I played the game for about a day. And I can't bring myself to put in the year's worth of work it would take to improve the little bit I would. I'll go ahead and address a certain criticism right now: how can I judge a game, especially any depth it might in actuality have, but only having played it for a day? Well, first of all I didn't start playing video games last month. I can get a pretty good impression of what a game has to offer from even a single evening of having played it. So far, I've never CHANGED my impression significantly after having played a game more. I claim that I know about how "deep" VF Evolution is as a fighter from having played it for an day. You may disagree, but then again what you may consider deep I may consider to be inconsequential. (Also, I think "ring outs" are criminal.) Anyway, moving on... Now, I don't really care THAT much if a fighting game has poor fighting mechanics if it offers a whole lot more otherwise. Examples: Soul Calibur 2 has Link (Gamecube), killer music, and... umm... so anyway I haven't played it for a few months now. I'll talk about SC2 in another post. Another Example: DOA3. Another button-masher, but with unbelievable graphics and just plain awesome animation. This game has by far the best martial arts technique that I've seen in a 3-d fighting game. And I consider myself a bit of an authority on some martial arts technique. So I like DOA3 simply because of its visual appeal. I'll discuss DOA3 in a different post perhaps. Anyway, back to why VF sucks. To me, cool characters are paramount when it comes to ANY game. I need to like the character I play as. And every fighting game offers at least SOMEBODY who I think is cool, with the exception of VF. Heck, even Tekken, which I think is the most horrendous fighting series on this side of the galaxy, has Hwoarang (I like him because I practice Taekwondo). Virtua Fighter has the ugliest characters I've ever seen in a fighting game. Seriously, every one of them is butt-ugly. Their skin textures are revolting, and their faces are repulsive. It's unbelievable that on average 10000 polygons make up a VF Evolution character as opposed to only 8000 in a DOA character. Where did those other 9000 polygons go? It's shameful. I'm tired of people saying how graphically the game is a real achievement. That's just BS. And it's not like I thought every character sucked to begin with. I mean, I tried out everybody. But they're all horrible. Every one of them looks like a total asshole, or is just super ugly. Don't get me started on that tank of a woman Vanessa, or the old man who sounds like a freaking bird. Also, not all characters are balanced. There are clearly beginner characters and advanced characters and what not. That's not what I call balanced, especially considering what button-mashing can do in the game. Anyway, the bottom line is this: there are only four fighting games in the history of fighting games which I have played for the sake of a skill-based fight (because it was clear who the truly skilled were). These are Killer Instinct, Killer Instinct Gold (or KI2), Super Smash Bros., and Super Smash Bros. Melee. All other fighters--the cell-shaded Capcom crap, Tekken, VF, SC, DOA--I played just for the heck of it. SC2 for the music, DOA for the visuals, the rest because I felt masochistic. (Also I can beat pretty much all fighter arcades using, if I have a bad day, a buck.) So I'd play Virtua Fighter for what reason then, if not to become awesome at it and have crazy fights against my brother (who is another hardcore gamer)? Well, sure, if I owned the game I'd play through Quest mode (there's no Kumite mode in VF Evolution, which I'd play if I had VF4 instead) and stuff. But after a couple of weeks with the game it'd never see the light of day, much like my SC2 disk. So, not having a PS2, and thinking that visually it just hurts, there is no reason for me to play it a friend's house when that same house has a GCN and Xbox with way cooler multiplayer games. There's probably more things I can think of to explain why I dislike VF, but they escape me at the moment. Maybe they'll come up in a discussion.

Comments (5)