| Original message (2067 Views )
| Replies: |
| PSN: IkariLoona
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
STM: n/a
CFN: n/a
|  "Re(1):A History of 3d Movement in Fighting Ga" , posted Fri 5 Aug 20:54  
Since a beat-em-up like Guardian Heroes was mentioned, maybe it's also worth mentioning Streets of Rage 3, since IIRC it not only had the regular movement used in the past games, but also a sort of roll that moved you character up and down the "Z axis" for a likely pre-defined distance? (it's been ages since I last played it, so not sure)
Having 2 different way to move up and down the stages would enable you to use the slower walk to set up grabs (which personally I almost always set up with walking vertically instead of directly toward the front of an opponent, not unlike a chess pawn attack), so a slower and more deliberate offense, and the roll for quicker, likely more defensive movement.
I wonder to which extent 3D fighting games that have you shift to different part of a relatively complex terrain (later DoA games, and Bushido Blade, apparently?) count as a sort of off-shoot from Fatal-Fury-ish movement. In DoA, at least, that kind of stage transition tends to be irreversible, as you over move to lower terrain and can't get back to the top where you may have started...
And that in turn reminds me of stages that change their own configuration during the match, something some Dissidia stages could do IIRC...
...!!
|
| | "Re(1):A History of 3d Movement in Fighting Ga" , posted Sat 6 Aug 01:12
Various points to consider:
It's really hard to consider Trap Gunner a fighting game, even if it's a really good versus game. In particular, if you did, you would need to include an entire lineage of 3rd person non-fighting action games that preceded Trap Gunner. Also I'd just want to put Silent Bomber somewhere on that list.
Where's Tech Romancer on your list? I know you love that game.
Senko no Ronde is strongly derived from Psychic Force, so even though it has much more prominent shmup/STG elements, it shouldn't be a different timeline from Psychic Force.
If you want to consider beat'em ups in 3D, you're going to have to go way further back, unless you want to put Powerstone in its own timeline. Consider that as far back as the NES/FC, we had "3/4" view beat'em ups that had friendly fire options! Also, Spikeout was huge in arcades! I can't believe you left that one out if you're going to leave in Max Anarchy! The Kunio-kun games had straight up versus modes. I imagine that these beat'em ups which didn't have or need a concept of being locked onto a target were quite influential in the development of those 3D beat em ups because those 3D beat em ups didn't need to invent new systems for how to move and act; you just moved in the direction you pointed the dpad/stick in, and you attacked in that direction! You almost don't need antecedents to make that up.
Up-and-coming For Honor is derived mostly from two things: beat'em ups with guard breaks (very specifically, No More Heroes, where you have to switch between high and low stance to hit people that automatically block high or low), and Nidhogg (which suggested the daring idea that the PLAYER should automatically block high/medium/low by toggle).
Demons' Souls and its ilk are the current actual most prominent 3D fighting games, but their lineage is definitely descended from a combination of Zelda 64 and Monster Hunter. Quite fantastically, you can look at the Iron Knuckle boss in OoT and see it almost directly copied in the Souls games. OoT even has plunging attack, and different backstep/roll animations at a single button press.
|
| PSN: Ishmael26b
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
STM: n/a
CFN: Ishmael26b
| "Re(2):A History of 3d Movement in Fighting Ga" , posted Sat 6 Aug 11:22
How would something like Warrior be classified? You were able to move across the entire screen and even had to deal with environmental hazards. But is it 3D?
quote:
Did Psychic Force have 3D movement? I mostly remember it as fighting on a 2D plane; its big difference from "normal" fighters being permanent flight, with the removal of gravity and "ground".
To me, it feels that there is mechanical overlap between "Fast paced mech battles" and "High flying sorcery battles". Simply going by the names you gave them, I think you've fallen into a trap of using game themes to try to differentiate game mechanics.
You might need, rather than different groups, some kind of intertwining tree or net. Something for both direct paths as well as a way to acknowledge similar mechanics in different games. (For example, I don't know that there is any development connection between Psychic Force and Senko no Ronde, but to me they are mechanically similar, with that whole 2D plane without gravity or ground system.)
In a way Psychic Force and Pit Fighter were doing the same thing; you were moving about in an enclosed space while trying to intersect with your opponent. I agree with you that mapping games out on a chart according to mechanics is an easier way to sort this progression. It also might help to limit the discussion purely to fighters; while other games where a mechanic originated can be referenced if we spread the too wide we'll be here all damn day.
quote:
Did Virtua or Toushinden contribute? I know I don't remember!
In VF the method by which the characters interacted with their 3D environment varied from game to game. Toshinden, however, seemed to really pride itself in the ability of its characters to do a Dark Souls roll into the fore or background. Video games have taught me that rolling around on the ground is a winning strategy in a sword fight.
|
| | "Re(4):A History of 3d Movement in Fighting Ga" , posted Sun 7 Aug 06:09:
quote:
That is only because rolling on the ground somehow makes you half or fully invulnerable to attacks. Even Bushido Blade allowed sword swings to pass through you without effect when rolling, but Bushido Blade did have some questionable hit detection even against standing opponents.
Games like Bayonetta even slow down time to show that you do not actually need to physically avoid an attack, but rather only need to go through the motion of avoidance to be granted intangibility.
According to some people, in the earliest versions of Hyper Light Drifter, the regular evasion move had no invulnerability frames, which radically changed how you had to defend yourself from attack. It certainly would make the game a lot lot harder, because it makes dodging much less straightforward.
Indeed, because of the invulnerability/recovery period dynamic of dodges, a lot of enemy attack patterns have to be specifically adjusted around that: you'll find enemies that have trick timing to make you evade early, or that have active areas extending and persisting behind the attack so that you canNOT universally apply a strategy of invulnerability through the incoming attack. The bosses in Souls games as the series has gone on are full of funky timings, and dealing with having enough Stamina to dodge, attack, and get out is probably the major tactical consideration in a boss fight in Souls.
Indeed, the very phrase "dodge through the attack" is kind of an oxymoron. Dodging specifically means NOT going through the attack! It means going around the attack!
What I dislike about invulnerability-dodge centric game design is that it is a catch-all solution to your problems. It is still an exciting thing that demands timing and some spatial awareness, but it becomes the answer to ALL your problems.
Bloodborne quietly became the first million-seller 3D fighting game to not have universal blocking.
[this message was edited by Spoon on Wed 10 Aug 02:57] |
| | "Re(5):A History of 3d Movement in Fighting Ga" , posted Sun 7 Aug 16:26:
quote:
Indeed, the very phrase "dodge through the attack" is kind of an oxymoron.
It's also kind of funny how in games you typically swing a sword at a dude and the sword just goes through him and comes out the other side. Like a woman passing her fingers through her beautiful hair... but with considerably more particle effects.
But, when this happens, the dude, having been bested, must pay in hit points. It's in his contract. It's really the game's hair, and when you're in a commercial for a high-end hair product you are more or less obligated to do as you're told.
Dodge a dude into a sword though, or a club, or whatever, and he passes right through and comes out the other side like a diver gracefully piercing the placid surface of an Olympic pool the size of a two-by-four. Embarrassed at being beaten at his own game, the weapon is too ashamed to demand that the dude pay in hit points... even though the sword has to pay the rent and the greedy landlord only accepts hit points as payment. Every month the sword has to hand over most of the hit points he's taken off the player by the sweat of his brow (err... the sword's brow), and every year or so the landlord has the unmitigated gall to ask for more hit points.
What a goddamn racket, thinks the weapon. What does this asshole even do with all those hit points? Doesn't he have enough of them by now? Maybe someone should pass a sword through the landlord. Maybe we could see how he likes that!
Then you have cases in Dark Souls where an enemy swings his sword through another enemy, and the sword is like, "Yo! My guy! Should I take some hit points off this dude?" And the guy that swung the sword is like "Nah man, that's my friend Bill." And the sword is like, "Man, you know I could really use those hit points but okay, if you say this guy's cool then he's cool." But the sword sounds kind of sarcastic when he says this. So the guy fires back, "Let's just focus on hitting the player, okay?"
Meanwhile the player is just endlessly spamming the roll and randomly mashing the "square" button every few seconds.
On a slightly tangential note though, doesn't it feel great when you connect with a powerful attack and it tears a character model apart? You don't really have to think about why the attack didn't stop... or whether they had some complicated agreement worked out ahead of time. The attack doesn't have to stop because there's no longer any guy in the way... that guy has been obliterated. He's been transmuted into chunks of compromised geometry in a gratuitous display of intuitive logic. There's only air in front of the attack now, or maybe a cool explosion/blood effect that might even be a little transparent. And it's total child's play for e weapon worth its salt to pass through something like that. Now that's an honest way to live your life (if you are a sword, anyway).
This is actually why I kind of really liked Capcom's Shadow of Rome even though it was really not objectively all that great a game. In my memory, attacks were more likely to turn people into chunks than not. Maybe I just used charge attacks all the time.
Shadow of Rome does demonstrate that special Capcom mastery of charge attacks. I'm not 100% sure they use the "sweet spot" mechanic I like so much (and which shows up in games like Dragon's Dogma and Monster Hunter). But one thing I am sure of is that charging up those meaty (literally meaty) hits just felt so good. "Are you not entertained?" So says Russell Crow in the movie my wife's mother's sister once mistakenly and hilariously called "Radiator."
I have to say, I was entertained!
/ / /
[this message was edited by Mosquiton on Sun 7 Aug 17:14] |
|
|
who follow the path of a warrior
"Re(4):A History of 3d Movement in Fighting Ga" , posted Sun 7 Aug 05:50
roll makes him the coolest character of all AND an important predictor of 3D dodges!? Spoiler: I still hate Dan. 
