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Post by Sarge on Feb 28, 2021 11:22:43 GMT -5
Same here, VF4 Evo is about the only game in the series I've put any time into. The mindset is a little different, though, than even something like Tekken or DoA. VF feels more "real" than other fighters, like it's actually at least somewhat anchored in real martial arts. Others are, too, but they feel a little more flowing and less technical in nature. I'm sure this is why Virtua Fighter has its fans beyond just the fact that it pioneered the genre.
As for DoA, I love the counter system. That's what really endears the series to me - it feels fast and flowing, but also has a lot of room for the sort of rock-paper-scissors mind games that have just enough depth to make it all entertaining without being overly complex.
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Post by toei on Feb 28, 2021 16:06:55 GMT -5
VF4 was actually a minor hit in North America (1 million+), so you'll find it's usually the one people have the most experience with. It also had a really good tutorial mode.
2 is the one I played most because I had a Saturn - it's simpler, obviously, but it's the best of the early VFs. It's an excellent game, IMO. VF1 is still fun to me in a very basic way - not many moves or characters, but everything deals so much damage that it changes the dynamic. VF3 was apparently controversial among hardcore players because added dips and hills to the fighting arenas (something DOA also did later, IIRC, in a more over-the-top way), which supposedly upset the balance at high-level play. But I don't care much, personally; if you want to play a VF with that Dreamcast charm, that's the one.
Sarge is right in saying that it's more grounded in reality than other fighters. It's also more balanced, which is why there were always fewer characters added in each game. When the trend became to have 30 or 40 characters, VF tradition was to add two new characters per entry - because each of them had to represent a completely distinct fighting style, and each of them had to be properly balanced for every possible opponent. These two things are key to what makes the games great, but they're also key to what made them less popular in North America - people wanted 50,000 characters and a bunch of flashy shit. Which is why I hate Rival Schools, btw - you're constantly being interrupted by stupid-ass overlong special move animations. Also, VF is lighter on combos. They're still important, but they don't go on forever, so the flow of fighting is much better, with a lot more back-and-forth.
Another thing to note is that both Dead or Alive and Soul Calibur were built on the skeleton of Virtua Fighter. Their control scheme comes from it, as does some of their basic fighting logic. This was the case with many early 3D fighters.
-Soul Calibur has the weapons to distinguish itself, and is generally more fluid; this lends itself to a bit of button-mashing, but not too much, and it feels great to play.
-Dead or Alive added the counter button; the first game was developed on Sega's Model 2, and the port was a Saturn-exclusive for a while. If it didn't have the counter button, it would have been a simple VF clone. I'm not a fan of that mechanic, but later entries made it a little less overpowered, while generally adding more emphasis on combos and the "sexy girls" aspect.
-Tekken was created by Seiichi Ishii, who had been the number two man on the Virtua Fighter team after Yu Suzuki; he set it apart by creating a different control scheme, which would necessarily change the fighting logic. This is the "each button corresponds to a limb" scheme. It's very clever, but I always found that it wasn't quite applied in a natural way. It was better to learn combo strings than to try and pull the combinations it seemed your characters should be able to pull based on basic knowledge of fighting and martial arts.
-After Tekken 2, Seiichi Ishii went on to create Tobal. Once again, he built it around a distinct control scheme, with 3 attack buttons, corresponding to high, mid, and low attacks. This concept is present in most 3D fighters, but Tobal made it central; high attacks can be blocked standing or ducked under; mid attacks can be blocked standing, but will hit a crouching character, even if they're defending; low attacks will hit a standing character who's blocking, but not one who's crouching and blocking. More so than other 3D fighters, Tobal lets you link together these 3 heights of attacks very easily and fluidly.
-There's also Bloody Roar. At first glance, it's probably the most button-mashy of the bunch, which is why it seems to get less respect. You can just kind of mess around with the controls and still pull long combos and attack chains that look really cool. On the other hand, it doesn't mean it's just random and devoid of skill - even against the computer, this approach eventually hits a wall, let alone against a skilled opponent - and those games are crazy-fluid. Probably the most fluid series of all. The gimmick is the animal transformations. I've only played the series very superficially, but it's fun.
Those are the main "standard" series. Sega also had Fighting Vipers, which is basically a flashier, faster and less technical VF with an armor gimmick - certain moves can blow some pieces of basic protection away from the opponent, so subsequent hits do more damage. When they have no protection at all, however, they become faster, which can be to their advantage. Hyper Mode on the Saturn lets you blast away your own protection. Also, though most fighting involves fists and feet, some characters carry an object - say, a skateboard, or a guitar - that they'll pull out for some moves. The first game was cool, but the sequel kind of sucked - the new look was terrible, and the two new characters were trash - which I think killed the series, along with the FV head being moved to VF when Yu Suzuki started working on Shenmue, and subsequently left Sega. The Last Bronx has a "gangs of Tokyo" thing going on, and is weapon-based. The weapons do a ton of damage, so like Samurai Shodown, it's all about finding ways past the opponent's defense. It's a cool game.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 28, 2021 17:08:18 GMT -5
Nice write up toei. I'll just say in my experience based off jumping back in with the newest entries... the skill limit to later Tekken seems practically infinite. In a daunting kind of way. It did get a little over the top with the roster size too. I was always a Marshall Law guy all the way back to the originals and 3 (though weirdly it was his son Forest Law in this one haha, same controls). Anyways, Tekken is a freaking blast for me to watch during EVO and other tournaments year around. It's almost like watching wrestling or something live. But it felt like I hit my skill limit fast and was dog crap "ranking" wise with its leaderboard system. I might attribute this all to how complex the combo system is. Even though pros stick to a dozen of the usual strings, but yeah. Soul Calibur on the other hand has an arguably simpler control scheme and it felt like I got way better at this one again, maining Maxi. I got 200+ wins online and put it down after that and 50 some hours. Was super rewarding. That said, the player base just might be smaller than Tekken's...
It was surreal jumping back into Soul Calibur 2 and Tekken 3 after playing the new entries though, and picking up the characters I knew well quite easily again.
I always loved Bloody Roar. I'm going to give those all a look again and give Virtua Fighter 4 a shot. Since you all keep telling me about PS2 emulation, seems like a good month to dip back into that!
Hard to forget these covers. Definitely played these two entries the most:
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Post by Chema on Feb 28, 2021 18:09:45 GMT -5
I don't play fighting games, but Retro Club is a good incentive to try one.
I will play Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 28, 2021 18:29:33 GMT -5
I don't play fighting games, but Retro Club is a good incentive to try one. I will play Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast. For single player, that's quite possibly the best choice with its story mode.
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Post by Ex on Feb 28, 2021 21:25:02 GMT -5
I don't play fighting games, but Retro Club is a good incentive to try one. I will play Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast. It is always my hope that Club Retro will encourage people to play games that are outside their comfort zone. It helps us grow as connoisseurs of the medium. Soul Calibur is an excellent choice, especially the Dreamcast version. It's one of the rare games I'd give a 10/10 to. - I have played all of the Bloody Roar games, quite a bit. I think it's an above average fighting series. This was my favorite entry:
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Post by Sarge on Feb 28, 2021 22:08:21 GMT -5
Well, that's frustrating. I've been trying to run a few fighting games on PC, and they don't want to work correctly for me. The first is Last Bronx. Yeah, it's on Saturn and arcade, but I hear that the PC version is really good. I finally got it running, and slowed down properly... and it crashed out on me in the second match. Screw it, if I play more it'll probably be through the Saturn port. The other is a game I always wanted to give some run back in the day, but never could get it. It's FX Fighter Turbo by Argonaut Software. Well, I got it running, but the audio is completely busted in the ISO I got from archive.org, and I'm having a really hard time sourcing a safe alternative download site. So it might not happen.
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Post by toei on Feb 28, 2021 23:25:28 GMT -5
Well, that's frustrating. I've been trying to run a few fighting games on PC, and they don't want to work correctly for me. The first is Last Bronx. Yeah, it's on Saturn and arcade, but I hear that the PC version is really good. I finally got it running, and slowed down properly... and it crashed out on me in the second match. Screw it, if I play more it'll probably be through the Saturn port. The other is a game I always wanted to give some run back in the day, but never could get it. It's FX Fighter Turbo by Argonaut Software. Well, I got it running, but the audio is completely busted in the ISO I got from archive.org, and I'm having a really hard time sourcing a safe alternative download site. So it might not happen. The Saturn port is good, but I suggest trying the Model 2 Emulator, too, to run the arcade original, if only because it looks a lot better. It's an easy-to-use emulator that works very well. The home port has a few small bonuses, though, and as I remember, the difficulty of the CPU is different. And if, for whatever reason, someone wants to try a truly heinous 3D fighter - maybe as reference for scoring, or something - try Fight for Life on the Jaguar. Watching a video of FX Fighter Turbo just now reminded me of that game. Both are Western attempts at a Japanese-style 3D fighter released around the same time, but FX seems like it must be a lot better. There was also a Korean 3D fighter mentioned in a HG101 article that I always wanted to try, but couldn't find online. I forget the title, but it was mentioned in the big inventory article on '90s Korean games.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 28, 2021 23:32:27 GMT -5
Yeah, I remember that, while perhaps not up to the level of the best, FX Fighter was still received well. I'd also expect at least some competency with Argonaut involved, at least from a technical standpoint.
EDIT: I clearly suck at Last Bronx. I'm going to need to look up some info, maybe even read a manual. Stage 5 is seeing me bow out - the big dude is just absolutely destroying me. That suplex takes off half your life! I also need to figure out a good way to lead in, since opponents have started turtling on me a lot. Basic combos just tend to whiff.
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Post by toei on Mar 1, 2021 2:04:32 GMT -5
Yeah, I remember that, while perhaps not up to the level of the best, FX Fighter was still received well. I'd also expect at least some competency with Argonaut involved, at least from a technical standpoint. EDIT: I clearly suck at Last Bronx. I'm going to need to look up some info, maybe even read a manual. Stage 5 is seeing me bow out - the big dude is just absolutely destroying me. That suplex takes off half your life! I also need to figure out a good way to lead in, since opponents have started turtling on me a lot. Basic combos just tend to whiff. Who are you playing as? Also, I can't remember if the Saturn port has some kind of tutorial. I think it has a mode where it shows you the moves, but it doesn't explain the mechanics. Basic advice: -Remember that height of attack matters. High, mid, low. If the opponent blocks your high attacks, go for a low attack. If they block low, go for a mid attack. Etc. This also applies to your own defense, of course. -Dashing in and out of range is a good way to fool your opponent into trying to attack you. If you get out the way in time, it leaves them wide-open. Obviously, this is better if you play as a fast character. -Throws are more important in Sega's 3D fighters than in Street Fighter-type fighters. You might want to practice with them a bit to figure out the range and timing. They get past blocking, of course; to counter a throw, you need to use your fastest attack (usually a weak basic hit). A standing throw won't work on a crouching opponent (and remember - if they crouch, punish them with a quick mid attack!), but there are throws that grab them from a crouching position. -This is a slightly more advanced mechanic, but in this game, as in Virtua Fighter, you can cancel many of your moves by pressing the block button. I don't mean frame-cancelling like in 2D fighters - I mean that you can start, say, a kick, press the block button, and your character will stop their kick and return their leg to its former position. IIRC, the VF community calls it "G-Cancelling" (ie guard cancelling). This is how you feint the opponent. Likewise, you don't always have to go forward with basic combos. You can start one, then stop it with guarding (or just not input the full combination) and go into something else, so as to be less predictable. -There's also a ground roll move that you can use to approach faster. I was never good at using it, though. -Finally, if you're too used to 2D fighters, you might not have the reflex of using the guard button. Use it! Learn what the opponent's basic combos are and how to block them. Remember, there's no chip damage, and you get a clean chance to hit back after successfully blocking a combo or any kind of strong attack. Don't just hold the guard button pointlessly, though, or you'll invite a throw on yourself. -Hit opponents where they're down. Each character has a slow ground attack and a quick one. The slow one will rarely work on advanced opponents (the amount of time you spend on the ground depends on the damage you took in the previous attack, and you can speed up recovery), but the little damage from the quick ones add up.
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