There Are No Bad Fighting Games
==Part 3: The Fine Line Between Cheap and Free==
Hopefully I've made the case that fighting games have shed the shackles of the soulless cash grabs and sloppily implemented control schemes of the early 90s, and that with a little understanding and a bit of curiosity, they can be just as fun and rewarding as an epic RPG (if not more, because of the time saved). Even so, not everyone will be satisfied. Some people will still complain, almost relentlessly, about the pitfalls of the fighting game genre. More often than not, these are some of fighting game's biggest fans.
If you've ever been around someone who loves or hates fighting games long enough, you've probably heard something like this:
"That game is cheap."
"XYZ character is cheap."
"That game is a button-masher."
"You can win just by mashing."
"That game is for casuals."
"They made XYZ too easy, the ABC is better."
Come on, admit it, almost everyone has at least felt that way at some point. Well, I'm sorry, but it's time to let you know that you are wrong and just plain bad at games. Sort-of.
There's no denying that there are overpowered characters in many fighting games. This could be completely intentional, like in the case of a boss character that you can select by unlocking them or through some kind of code. It could be unintentional, as in the case of a character possessing an all-powerful glitch or some unstoppable combo ('infinites', the kids call em') that the developers didn't catch before releasing the game into the wild. Or, it could be something trickier - like a character with movements unique to the entire cast that will trip up anyone that isn't familiar. In the case of overpowered characters, yes, it can be obnoxious. Everyone has that friend that will ONLY pick that one 'cheap' character - idiotic grin on their face as they decimate their buddies round and round. But while you could just let it rock and try to have fun exploring you own character, if you really wanted to beat them, understand this - Every "cheap" character is a one-trick pony. In Tekken, you can duck and sidestep lasers, fireballs, and other 'cheap' nonsense. Jump over a goofy character and watch them spin to their doom. Block the first hit of your opponent's combo and see if they've got anything else. Yes, it does take a little work, and work isn't fun, and games are supposed to be fun, but letting some nonsense like that ruin your experience is even less fun.
Ah, but what about the lowly button-masher? A button-masher could either reference a person (ex. someone who hits every button randomly, which somehow wins them the glory of your household tournaments) or a genre of fighter (a game that isn't as complex as other games, thus seemingly devoid of skill, and therefore it's not worth trying to practice). While the concept is real enough that it spawned its own term, button mashing is born from a very simple concept - animation frames. If your opponent launches an attack that takes less frames of animations than your attack, their attack will hit first. If it takes you longer to recover and throw out another attack before they do, you'll get hit again... and again... and again... and so forth. And so, it seems that just by virtue of hitting the buttons faster and more clumsily, your buddy has mastered this foolish game! This isn't entirely incorrect, but often times (well, all the time, really), the button-masher players are beating their friends because their friends don't know how to block. Or jump. Or have the most basic understanding of frames and other fundamentals (see Part 2). Yes, this can be a big hurdle for a lot of players, but once you get the concept down in one game, and understand that it exists every game (even seemingly unrelated fighters like Soul Calibur and The King of Fighters), you will completely break that lower tier of player.
Finally, there exists a combination of the two pain-points above. It exists in a lowly player, the type of person that will often give up on anything in life that gives them the least bit of resistance. This is the player who is 'pretty good' among his fighting game group, but absolutely dismisses any game where their friends can consistently get the edge on them. I don't know what to call this person, but for fun let's say they are the "balance monsters". "Balance" is a concept in competitive gaming that refers to making the variety of options (be it characters in a fighting game or weapons in a first-person shooter) as even as possible. If one character is stronger than all the others, it stands to disincentivize exploring the variety in a game. You can see why, in this pseudo-egalitarian society of ours, that would raise an issue with most people. In reality, balance is one of the more overblown talking points, especially at an amateur level.
First of all, with all of the interesting and unique character designs and mechanics that go into even the dumbest-looking fighting games, you have to be a pretty boring person to want to pick a character just because it's easier to win with them. Even payed professionals find it difficult to give up on the characters they love, even if it means doing poorly at their job. Second, tier lists (largely opinion-driven rankings of characters) and in-depth discussions of balance are primarily reserved for those at the very peak of the game. I find it pretty unbelievable that any group of friends is so evenly matched as to mirror what goes on at the height of competitive gaming. To put it simply, you'd do better to get inside the head of your 'cheap' friends (or some knucklehead online player) and try to outsmart them than you would to worry about a nuanced situation you heard about online.
That's it. I've got nothing else. Fighting games are incredible and diverse. From exquisite and often dynamic background visuals, to amazing character designs, fun, intricate, intuitive, complex, gameplay systems, incredible soundtracks, and the sort of fun that's inherent in any competitive endeavor, it's hard to pin down a genre that is more robust. Honestly, whenever I'm listing out my top 10 favorite games or whatever, I leave fighting games off. I can't rank them. I've got a PS3 with over 20 fighting games on the hard drive, and I'll be damned if I play any one more than another. Heck, I've even got to plug in the Dreamcast or another older system just to enjoy titles that never got a proper port. I don't even do that for the SNES, and I own 90% of the games that come with the SNES Classic.
[insert picture of your favorite fighting game here]
==Part 3: The Fine Line Between Cheap and Free==
Hopefully I've made the case that fighting games have shed the shackles of the soulless cash grabs and sloppily implemented control schemes of the early 90s, and that with a little understanding and a bit of curiosity, they can be just as fun and rewarding as an epic RPG (if not more, because of the time saved). Even so, not everyone will be satisfied. Some people will still complain, almost relentlessly, about the pitfalls of the fighting game genre. More often than not, these are some of fighting game's biggest fans.
If you've ever been around someone who loves or hates fighting games long enough, you've probably heard something like this:
"That game is cheap."
"XYZ character is cheap."
"That game is a button-masher."
"You can win just by mashing."
"That game is for casuals."
"They made XYZ too easy, the ABC is better."
Come on, admit it, almost everyone has at least felt that way at some point. Well, I'm sorry, but it's time to let you know that you are wrong and just plain bad at games. Sort-of.
There's no denying that there are overpowered characters in many fighting games. This could be completely intentional, like in the case of a boss character that you can select by unlocking them or through some kind of code. It could be unintentional, as in the case of a character possessing an all-powerful glitch or some unstoppable combo ('infinites', the kids call em') that the developers didn't catch before releasing the game into the wild. Or, it could be something trickier - like a character with movements unique to the entire cast that will trip up anyone that isn't familiar. In the case of overpowered characters, yes, it can be obnoxious. Everyone has that friend that will ONLY pick that one 'cheap' character - idiotic grin on their face as they decimate their buddies round and round. But while you could just let it rock and try to have fun exploring you own character, if you really wanted to beat them, understand this - Every "cheap" character is a one-trick pony. In Tekken, you can duck and sidestep lasers, fireballs, and other 'cheap' nonsense. Jump over a goofy character and watch them spin to their doom. Block the first hit of your opponent's combo and see if they've got anything else. Yes, it does take a little work, and work isn't fun, and games are supposed to be fun, but letting some nonsense like that ruin your experience is even less fun.
Ah, but what about the lowly button-masher? A button-masher could either reference a person (ex. someone who hits every button randomly, which somehow wins them the glory of your household tournaments) or a genre of fighter (a game that isn't as complex as other games, thus seemingly devoid of skill, and therefore it's not worth trying to practice). While the concept is real enough that it spawned its own term, button mashing is born from a very simple concept - animation frames. If your opponent launches an attack that takes less frames of animations than your attack, their attack will hit first. If it takes you longer to recover and throw out another attack before they do, you'll get hit again... and again... and again... and so forth. And so, it seems that just by virtue of hitting the buttons faster and more clumsily, your buddy has mastered this foolish game! This isn't entirely incorrect, but often times (well, all the time, really), the button-masher players are beating their friends because their friends don't know how to block. Or jump. Or have the most basic understanding of frames and other fundamentals (see Part 2). Yes, this can be a big hurdle for a lot of players, but once you get the concept down in one game, and understand that it exists every game (even seemingly unrelated fighters like Soul Calibur and The King of Fighters), you will completely break that lower tier of player.
Finally, there exists a combination of the two pain-points above. It exists in a lowly player, the type of person that will often give up on anything in life that gives them the least bit of resistance. This is the player who is 'pretty good' among his fighting game group, but absolutely dismisses any game where their friends can consistently get the edge on them. I don't know what to call this person, but for fun let's say they are the "balance monsters". "Balance" is a concept in competitive gaming that refers to making the variety of options (be it characters in a fighting game or weapons in a first-person shooter) as even as possible. If one character is stronger than all the others, it stands to disincentivize exploring the variety in a game. You can see why, in this pseudo-egalitarian society of ours, that would raise an issue with most people. In reality, balance is one of the more overblown talking points, especially at an amateur level.
First of all, with all of the interesting and unique character designs and mechanics that go into even the dumbest-looking fighting games, you have to be a pretty boring person to want to pick a character just because it's easier to win with them. Even payed professionals find it difficult to give up on the characters they love, even if it means doing poorly at their job. Second, tier lists (largely opinion-driven rankings of characters) and in-depth discussions of balance are primarily reserved for those at the very peak of the game. I find it pretty unbelievable that any group of friends is so evenly matched as to mirror what goes on at the height of competitive gaming. To put it simply, you'd do better to get inside the head of your 'cheap' friends (or some knucklehead online player) and try to outsmart them than you would to worry about a nuanced situation you heard about online.
That's it. I've got nothing else. Fighting games are incredible and diverse. From exquisite and often dynamic background visuals, to amazing character designs, fun, intricate, intuitive, complex, gameplay systems, incredible soundtracks, and the sort of fun that's inherent in any competitive endeavor, it's hard to pin down a genre that is more robust. Honestly, whenever I'm listing out my top 10 favorite games or whatever, I leave fighting games off. I can't rank them. I've got a PS3 with over 20 fighting games on the hard drive, and I'll be damned if I play any one more than another. Heck, I've even got to plug in the Dreamcast or another older system just to enjoy titles that never got a proper port. I don't even do that for the SNES, and I own 90% of the games that come with the SNES Classic.
[insert picture of your favorite fighting game here]
