A Few Things About Street Fighter 4
Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 10:24PM Street Fighter 4 is finally here, with several perfect 100/100 reviews. Here's a few things I noticed about the game.
In ranked matches, you can see the opponent's name before the match and kick them or reject the challenge. This allows you to cherry pick who you fight and negates the entire purpose of a ranked match.
In ranked matches (well, all matches) there is no double blind character select. This means the optimum strategy is often to wait until the opponent chooses first so you can counter-pick. This is a very annoying situation.
When lag inevitably happens in an online fighting game, there are different ways to handle it. Some SF4 matches I played had large input delay, maybe as high as 15 frames. This is the time between your button press and seeing the effect happen. Adding input delay is really the worst way to handle lag. GGPO's amazing netcode shows that avoiding input delay and hiding lag in other ways is the way to go. That technology has been readily available for years, so it's disappointing to feel input delay in an online match.
The button config screen is "the wrong way." The right way is for the screen to list functions, then you press the buttons you want to assign. The wrong way is to list buttons, then you scroll through lists of functions to assign. The reason that one way is right and the other way is wrong is pretty clear when you watch people try to configure buttons. I've had to watch what must be thousands of people do this over the years in all the tournaments I've helped run (not to mention local gatherings). When the config screen says "Jab" and requires you to press the button you want, you just press the upper left button on your stick (or whatever button on your gamepad). This is a one-step process. But if the screen lists "X" and then requires you to scroll through functions until you find jab, it requires a two step process. You have to know which button on your controller is labeled "X." When this screen is the right way, no one has to know if the upper left button happens to be X or A or B or whatever else.
If you think this is negligible, you have never seen people set buttons. The wrong way turns what should be a 3 second task into a fairly confusing affair. Yes I know the wrong way allows you to have lots of functions in your list, but this can be done the right way also.
On to gameplay issues. The jumps have strange acceleration to them. While that's subjective, look at Zangief's jump that seems to have the acceleration of a flea. (Incidentally, why does his splash not stay out the whole time in the air?). Also, getting hit out of the air is extremely floaty, which means it takes unusually long to get back to a state where you can actually move again. This "moving in jello" feel is reinforced by many throws that have dead time at the end when it seems like you should be able to move (see Vega's for example).
The size of the stages is extremely large relative to the size of the characters. This helps runaway tactics.
Optimizing for the 1% rather than the 99% case. There's two examples, the first is tech recover (quick get up from a knock down). 99% of the time, I want to get up fast, but this is the action that requires button presses. Why not admit that getting up fast is the intent and make it default, unless the player holds down some buttons to get up slow? That's how it works for Robo-Ky in Guilty Gear, by the way. Incidentally, don't the two kinds of get up timing only lessen the importance of knockdown by allowing you mess up the attacker's timing a bit? Like the decision to have large stages, this seems not to favor offense.
Next is the 2-button throw, a bad idea in fighting games with 2D gameplay. 3D Fighting games are different beasts, so they are excused here, but note that even Dead or Alive offers a macro to turn its 2 button throw into a 1 button throw...and maps that macro to a face button by default. Anyway, 2 button throws solve a non-problem that no one has ever actually had. That's the problem of accidentally throwing and being sad about it. Street Fighter 2, Guilty Gear series, and Street Fighter Alpha 2 all demonstrated that 1 button throws work just fine and don't actually create any problems. Adding a second button press just adds complexity where it's not necessary, and helps nothing. (Edit: it does add a throw whiff which could be a good thing, but simpler is still better...)
Other non-problems we might solve in 2D fighting games would be to make blocking 1 button and jumping 1 button (each are traditionally zero buttons). We certainly could add those button presses, but it would make more sense to reduce the button presses to as few as possible: zero to jump, zero to block, and one to throw.
It's especially unfortunate that Cammy's hooligan throw requires a 2-button throw in the middle to complete it. Why exactly is this necessary, rather than one button?
2 button throws actually introduce the problem of kara-throws, a bug from SF3 that we now have again in SF4. This is when you cancel a forward moving attack a frame or two into it with a throw command in order to greatly extend your throw range. Do the designers want a long throw range or do they not? If they don't kara throws shouldn't be in the game. If they do, then base throw ranges should be extended for all players, not just the ones who input a difficult command.
Another similar bug is the chain combo cancel bug. As an example, consider Sakura. Low short does cancel into special moves. But if you rapid fire the low short (do it 2 or 3 times quickly each one cancels the last) then you CANNOT cancel the last hit into a special. I'm not saying this is a problem at all, necessarily. This restriction is there for good reason: to prevent the game from degenerating into low short -> big damage stuff. It would make more sense to give players a reason to start combos with bigger moves sometimes. Guilty Gear does a great job of this by reducing your entire combo's damage by 20% for each low short. (Hey Guilty Gear players, I know I'm simplifying there.)
Ok so what's the problem, sounds good that you can't do low short, low short, special move, right? But you can do it. If you make the last short a link rather than a chain (do it slowly, but not so slow that it doesn't combo) then you can cancel it into a special move. So really, you can get around this restriction if only you have high dexterity skills. Now, this is also true in ST and SF HD Remix, but that's not so much intent as what we were stuck with. For an entirely new game, I'm surprised to see this still there. I'm even more surprised to see combos that use this in the challenge mode, meaning the developers know about it and accept that low short is really this powerful. SF4 Sakura, for example, can low short, (link), low short, ex shoryken, ultra. She can do a lot more than that, but you get the idea.
This issue of rapid fire moves using a bug to cancel into specials is actually minor compared to the next topic though, a topic that will dominate much of the game: link combos in general. The game is filled with difficult 1-frame links. These are moves that just barely combo into each other with 1/60th of a second timing. In high level play, players will master these and they become common. So Sakura doing low jab, (link), low fierce, short helicopter kick, (link) low short, ex shoryuken, ultra for 50% will be common. One friend of mine already does this combo in real matches after only 2 days of playing, as well as other scarily damaging combos off low short that involve hard links.
Other examples, Ryu can now link low short, low jab, low forward. He can also link low strong, low strong, low roundhouse. Linking is the name of the game, which actually makes the game closer to CvS2 than to 3s or ST. The effect of all these links is to hide the actual game behind an impenetrable wall of execution. If you practice (ie, develop 1p skills unrelated to strategy and unrelated to interaction with the opponent) then you gain access to the real game, a game of high damage off small hits, but only for the dexterous.
Of course some level of this is inherent in just about every fighting game. It's a question of how far to turn the knob towards 1p activities and away from strategy. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo has dexterity requirements of course, but winning tournaments while using zero or very few link combos is entirely possible. That simply isn't the main focus of the game. The existence of many, many new links in SF4 shifts the focus toward that though.
Next up, we have ultras. All I'll really say here is that in real matches I find myself having to pump qcf x 2 over and over looking for the right moment to do the ultra. When I find that moment, I have to complete the qcf x 2 command with PPP. Let's hope I don't press PP in those moments, because that command gives me a super, which is an entirely different move. I'm not sure what qcf x 2 + PPP is doing in a "casual friendly game" in the first place.
Then there's focus canceling. The idea of paying half your meter to cancel a move is taken from Guilty Gear where it was called roman canceling. It's a wonderful mechanic in Guilty Gear, by the way. The command in that game is press any three buttons--I use PPP. This is actually pretty natural because when using a joystick, your right hand's natural resting position is on those PPP buttons usually. In SF4, the roman cancel command is medium punch + medium kick, then tap forward, forward. This is really awkward and a whole lot of inputs for one decision (the decision to roman cancel). I wish I could map this command to PPP or something, rather than having to do button presses AND double taps. There's many combos involving this that you'll need to be able to do to be competitive, so I'm not sure why this ended up requiring so many extraneous inputs.
When I read about the 100/100 scores, I see again and again how "simple and elegant" the game is. Two super meters, a 3-tier focus attack system, and all the complications above seem to fly in the face of that. Even more though, I hear how "casual friendly" it is. This is deeply mysterious and I'm not sure why this so often claimed. Not every game has to be casual friendly, so it would seem more honest to just explain how casual unfriendly all these things are. Qcf x 2 +PPP all the time, extra button presses to throw, extra button presses to roman cancel, and many, many extremely difficult link combos work in concert to create that impenetrable wall of execution between you and the actual game (the interaction between you and your opponent). I wish we could get rid of all this stuff and focus more on the gameplay itself.
Edit: I forgot to mention two more things. First, the unlocks. I'm very surprised to see basic functionality of the multiplayer game--the characters--locked behind tedious 1p tasks. I had to pay a tax of fighting the computer on easiest for long time just to get the core features of the game. (I did this picture-in-picture while watching episodes of Frasier.) I'm fully aware that casual players love unlocks, and that's why non-essential content like costumes, movies, icons, and titles are all perfectly fine to give as rewards for playing 1p content. But the *characters*? This steps on the toes of those wanting to play the multiplayer game by making our first experience with the game a very boring one. I wanted to hire a MMO gold farmer to do this for me.
And the last thing I should have mentioned here is that despite all these many problems, there is fun to be had in the game...
Reader Comments (275)
zOMG, so true, and I thought I was just having a hard time getting through all the challenges (I'm not that great, but some of the stuff I thought would be easy, wasn't.), maybe the game is just making it hard for me.
Here's another thing you could say. Casual players often do not have nice joysticks. 360 players especially feel the pain of the d-pad, and at $70-$160 PER PLAYER for a nice joystick, not to mention the joysticks have pretty much been SOLD OUT (at least the good ones) since Capcom uttered, "SF4", it really makes the QCF x2 moves even more scary.
Still a fun game. Too bad Capcom probably won't patch the game. SF4 Championship Edition anyone?
As a casual player of SF games in general, II feel that the game is friendly to casual players, in the sense that casual players can pick up the game and quickly be having fun against other casual players. It's not friendly to casual players in the sense that it's easy for them to get from where they are to being a master, but that's likely to be true in many games, and it's not what most casual players want, anyway. Casual players don't mind that they aren't and won't be masters. They just want to have fun with the game. And I think that SF4 can give them that, although not in the online mode.
Look, I don't know linking from canceling. I've heard those terms, I kinda understand what they mean, but I don't know how to do them, with what character, and anything else. But I rented SF4 and played against some of my buddies and we all had a good time.
I mean no disrespect but SF4 is not Guuilty Gear, nor is it supposed to be. Guilty gear was very much about combo oriented (while not as much as melty blood), and was designed to be as such, with mechanics such as reduced damage per hit, and burst. Street fighter is intended to be a different beast entirely. Street fighter is supposed to be designed around the strategy aspect of fighting games, rather than the dexterity (whether this is true about the game is still up for debate). I think that whereas you said the damage of consecutive hits should be reduced, the length of link combos should be reduced, with instead more of a focus on counter hits, and well timed special and ex attacks, and I'm not saying combos have no place in SF4, because you really can't do fighting games without them, but to me it would seem silly to try and make a combo-oriented 2d fighter without things like airblocks, burst, a large amount of multi-hit attacks, and things like that that made the comboing work, and work correctly, that just doesn't seem to be what SF had been intended to be, it's the thinking man's fighting game, if you will.
Response by Sirlin: I don't understand your comment. You start with saying "no disrespect but..." then you agree with all my points.
Wrong on every point.
You seem to dismiss lower level play, demanding that more advance mechanics either be dumbed down or removed. It plays to SF4's strengths to have a two tiered game: one that appeals to people who haven't touched fighting games since SF2, and one for players who followed it through 3rd Strike. The advanced mechanics should be hidden from the casual players eyes, even at the expense of making them unintuitive. I agree that commands shouldn't be complex for the sake of complexity, but you seem to be dismissing the game over what amounts to nit-picking.
The one-button throw made some versions of SF nearly unplayable. It favored button-mashers who would launch throws unpredictably, putting the experienced user at a disadvantage. Accidental actions in a fighting game are a BIG problem. Even if they are "happy accidents" for one player, they will still be frustrating to the other. While the command could be simplified, both mediums execute an focus attack, and both strongs will taunt, so the expectation of someone learning the layout will be for both lights to have some output.
You seem to confuse "bugs" with features. If something is left in the game intentionally, it's no longer a bug. Kara throws offer the player two options, a longer throw with an increased input time, and a shorter throw with a simple input for fast-reactions. The input could indeed be simpler, but having two tiers of throws for two tiers of players is still a good idea.
Double QFC is simply a legacy issue, it's there for players who remember SSF2's supers. An alternative input for supers (QFC+FP+FK) and ultras (QFC+3P) is a very good idea, but SF4 was designed so people who only remember SSF2 would not have to relearn anything, so these should not replace the default inputs.
Focus canceling is no more difficult than a standard special move. Plus, it is intentionally not a move unto itself, it is an application of the Focus attack. Having multiple high level gameplay systems can make a game intimidating. Tying many kinds of high-level gameplay to a single move was the genius of SF4. It makes it easy to understand, even if it results in an extra input.
Lastly, I think we both know that balancing the requirements of dexterity and strategy is a stylistic choice. I like short links because they reward a player for practicing combos on his own time, but still require skill in executing them. It's a happy balance between games that seem archaic because of a lack of combos and games that test memorization above dexterity, but it's subjective.
I think most of your suggestions would be suitable for a patch, like the large "Championship Edition" that they're rumored to be releasing as downloadable content, but only as alternative inputs. The moves currently in place were chosen for a reason, and the praise for SF4 that seems to baffle you does indeed indicate that there is something you are missing.
Response by Sirlin: It's hard to have a discourse with you when your grasp of the subject is so low. Yeah that sounds condescending, sorry about that, but really what can I say here? Tens of millions of players would disagree with your claim that the entire SF2 series was "unplayable" with 1-button throws. Next, I certainly do not confuse bugs and features (a really insulting claim, by the way). If we count kara throws as a feature and not a bug, then all my objections still stand. A barrier of execution that adds no decisions at all (adds no depth at all, in other words).
I tend to agree with Sirlin here, using 1p dexterity checks as the highest level of gameplay is bad. When I say that, I don't mean just that they take all results out of the hands of the other player, I mean that the dexterity check invalidates the opponent's (human or CPU) response.
The Tekken guy, in an attempt to argue otherwise, explained exactly why this is. If the 1p check is so difficult that only a tiny percentage can do it, it might look clever... but if it's made easier and more accessible, the same game becomes boring. The core gameplay was actually flawed all along, it's just that most people were denied access to it.
I love the ninja gaiden example, cause even the hardest 1p check in that game is relatively easy, and yet the game itself is punishingly hard. It's not about dumbing it down, it's about how sound the fundamentals of the design are.
This may only be a problem for me since I use a gamepad instead iof a joystick; About the PPP and KKK: Only a couple of characters use these buttons for something other than Ultra moves. But when trying to do an Ultra, I don't see why there needs to be a difference between PPP, and KKK.
Requiring a different Ultra button for the few characters that use kick instead of punch is silly. What ends up happening, at the start of every match I change my controls to put the PPP, or KKK that does that current character's Ultra to the right trigger(can't do this online though). Balrog is the only character that can use both PPP, and KKK to perform his Ultra, I don't understand why they couldn't extend this courtesy to all the characters. When playing Sagat, my PPP is basically a dead button. If they let us do Ultras by using PP or KK instead, I could map my trigger buttons to throw and focus attack, to make those cancel combos a little easier.
As it is now, I have left bumper to throw, since I find it extremely awkward to push two buttons during Cammy's hooligan combo, but this means I don't have a light kick button, which isn't an issue until I pick Rufus and want to be able to do all three endings for his Messiah Kick.
Response by Sirlin: Remember that to *really* play the game, you'd be using a joystick. Anyway, it's extremely awkward (or impossible) to map more than 6 buttons on a stick. Using 6 is quite enough so it's not really reasonable for the game to ask a stick player to play with more than 6 because of mapping PPP buttons. And in SF4's defense, it does not ask the player to use more than 6 buttons. But when you are actually pressing all three punch buttons (not a macro, but really pressing them) I was pointing out that just slightly mistiming them results in the command for the super.
Simplicity is the key to many games, however I do believe that there are tiers of play in a good fighting game. SF4 has some glaring faults, but not so many as you make it seem. Point of note, SF4 is not GG. It really sounds like you want GG with SF characters. SF4 manages to include great depth with it's gameplay, not on the level of SF3 mind, but good either way. You almost sound like you want one button supers and specials. I'd recommend CvS2: EO for you in such a case. A simple game with depth is terribly hard to do. Those that spend enough time in the game, will be rewarded for it in tier skill.
Response by Sirlin: I'm having trouble imagining how could have read anything I said and come to the conclusion that I want GG with SF characters. I absolutely never asked for that. GG is incredibly complex and not a mainstream game AT ALL. The reason to even bring up GGXX is to point out the irony that such a complex game has a simpler command for roman cancelling than the "casual friendly" SF4.
You also seem unaware of my entire development effort on SF HD Remix. Was the end result of making commands easier to make them like CvS2:EO? No, saying so allowed you to make a clever comment that unfairly represents my stance.
I appreciate the bit at the end that states that despite all these "problems" there is still fun to be had. Some like their games technical, some like them more cerebral. The situation reminds of alot of Melee, which was no doubt described as a super casual affair when it first came out, but is actually one of the most technical games in the fighting scene when looked at deeply.
I do agree with a lot of your article, especially the PPP thing. There was absolutely no reason to do that, it hasn't been like that in any other Capcom game, and they said themselves that they were trying to stay true to the genre. Every other game has been either double button or double motion, but correct me if I'm wrong.
You make an excellent point about the link situation as well, but how would that problem be solved? You could just remove links, but the combo game suffers, and personally I like to see the creative combos that links allow for.
my biggest complaint is the number of "charge" moves on some characters.
I can pretty much perfect my way through the 1p game with ryu style characters, and yet with chun li style characters I get destroyed on the first fight.
tap back twice then forward and puch > than hold back for some inexplicable amount of time then forward and punch... I can pull off her moves (other than the kick spam of course) about 1% of the time, while with Ryu (and the rest) I can spam Hadouken all day, no problem.
I suppose it is possible that there are people with the opposite problem, that some players are Ryus and some are Chun-Li but you know, I like to change it up a bit, and honestly in the older games this was never a problem for me (i think mostly because you really could tap the direction you were supposed to "hold" twice instead of holding it).
I agree totally on the unlockables as well, but I think the reason for this is they expect you to BUY costumes, so they couldn't make them unlockable, honestly they should have just done both, and let us BUY them if we didn't want do do the grind of unlocking, i'm sure they would have gotten some extra $ from you and me if no one else. I hate grinds in MMOs and I hate them even more in fighters. I have a job! Games are supposed to be FUN! Not exercises in demonstrating to the world that you have more free time than the next guy.
tell me about it trying to pull off blanka's ultra and super (while that cheap zangeif throws me, and then seemingly throws me again before i even hit the ground) is almost impossible. but what i like about it is that it brings back the difficulty of sf2. playing against a cheap computer just like a little brother always with the same moves back to back.....F'N zangief and diahslim.
Linked here from PA.
I couldn't agree with you more. My brother picked up SF4 and I actually hate the game, although I realize that you aren't trying to convey that SF4 is a bad game here at all.
I just think you are spot-on with the comments about the game being unfriendly to casuals. I'm in no way a casual gamer overall, but I am when it comes to fighters. There's a few I've loved in my time, but never competitively or anything.
Yet SF4 is obviously geared towards the pros... All the fiddly moves, chains, links (and whatnot) that you mentioned highlight this. I don't want to master these strange button sequences to win, I want to be able to fight with a chance from just playing the game for a while. As it stands I have to practice alone in some tutorial room for 15 hours+ to even have a chance of succeeding with a character in the higher-level single player content or online.
Is it too much to imply that money may have been involved in seeding those 'casual' comments? Who knows. All I do know is that SF4 would have been traded in for cash if it were mine to sell. My brother seems attached to it, but the amount of profanity I hear from the lounge when he turns it on makes me wonder why he bothers keeping it.
Response by Sirlin: Nice post. ;)
I'm a casual street fighter fan. I've been playing since it's first inception. As a teenager beating the game with a variety of characters just to make another character playable was fun. I had nothing else to do on my weekends. As an adult though my time of play is limited. I don't play this game to earn secret characters. I play for the challenge of online play. Additionally, after paying over 60 bucks for a game, I believe all characters should be playable or more easily accesible. Maybe I'm alone on this but I did not buy this game to "unlock" secret characters in arcade mode. Hell, that's what achievements are for! Other than that, though, Street Fighter 4 is top notch!
Ok after spending more time with the game, I take back what I said on the 1st page of responses. I thought all the technical screw ups I was having was just me needing to get used to the game. Now I know for sure the motion for ultras is just awful and to hard not to screw up in the heat of battle. I play(ed) Eddie in GGXXAC and I think most BnBs in SF4 that involve links in them are harder to do than Eddie's BnB combos. The only link I can do 100% in this game thus I can call it "easy as it should be" is Ryu's (usually after focus attack crumple) f+hp link dp+hp. (mash on that d/f+hp) All combos should be easy as that one. I never thought of ST as a perfect game as it has his own share of problems, but it's very sad that in 2009 a new street fighter game fixes many problems but also creating a lot of new ones. After reading all your responses, Sirlin , on the weird jumping and stuff, I say I agree with almost every complaint you have on the game. But you said one thing that can't be more far from the truth- that "training" in ST= playing good competition and learning the matchups, and training in GG= just practicing combos. That is just wrong. Guilty Gear is very much like ST in that you MUST play each match-up in a completely different way. Maybe sometimes you can't do the same BnB combos so you have to practice different variations, but you also have to know what beats what, in what ranges to be, what are the opponent's options and how to counter them. It was a shame to read such a statement about GG from you of all people.
Response by Sirlin: Consider this clarification then. The amount of "winning skill" you gain in training mode in Guilty Gear is vastly more than the amount you gain in training mode in ST. Yes that really is true and it should be obvious. To even play Potemkin for example, you have to be able to FRC his normal throw and do a difficult timing combo that goes into heat grab. Not only that but it's character specific so you have to practice 3 or 4 versions of that strict timing. You need learn at least some really damaging combo off low heavy. You could spend endless hours practicing combos like that and it would be very damn helpful. If you spent zero hours there, good luck winning even if you know all the matchups. I'm not saying you improve in GGXX by training mode only, but I'm saying you improve a hell of a lot in training mode even if you need real gameplay experience to go the rest of the way.
I don't see why you should debate that or feel sad about it. It just is what it is. Pick Honda and play matches in ST. Do you need training mode? Not really. Lots of characters will work fine if you know somewhere between 0 and 1 combo in ST.
just think, only a few more terrible games until Street Fighter IV: Third Strike.
eh, a guy can dream : /
So I'm getting to the party rather late here and not sure if you're still even checking this post for comments. However, there are a few things going through my head that I just want to comment about. Apologies up front on clarity and this may be a bit meandering as this isn't going to get a lot of editing after the fact. Also bear in mind I haven't played SF4 yet, however, I'm also not looking to specifically defend any the attacked mechanics in game terms, I'm going to try to stick more to design theory than the current real world implications on SF4, so for example I have no opinion on the potentially odd jump mechanics (except to believe they can't possibly be any funkier than VF1 which is about as low as that bar can go), besides I think that has been well covered at least in the comments that I've read that they are "different" to say the least, and that difference is at least potentially detracting from the experience if nothing else.
Anyways, first thing I think that needs to figured out is, what in the world "casual" actually means. The terms hardcore and casual have changed dramatically over the last 5 years I'd say. Games like Call of Duty seem to define "hardcore" yet seem to be played by the most casual of gamers who own little else but their current gen system and a few FPS and sports titles. Casual has become an almost derogatory word slung largely at Nintendo and Popcap because they are generally non-violent, fun and make boatloads of money with relatively meager production values and simple (though not necessarily shallow) game mechanics. I think it's perhaps more useful to remove "casual" and replace it with accessible (and by extension more likely to meet with mainstream success), which of course has its own variety of pitfalls, but is, I think, slightly more precise.
So first a quick look at SF4's accessible nature. SF4 is more accessible mostly due to it's roster with some points to presentation and less so due to mechanics. The characters who were too "weird" "alien" etc, from SF3 were excised and nearly the entire SF2 series cast returned with only the smallest handful of new characters. People see Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Guile, characters who have made it into the mainstream vernacular referenced in any number of media and are already somewhat more comfortable with the game. Given the density of SF2 characters in the cast, the passerby is almost garunteed to see a familiar face in the game (something SF3 did not do and never recovered from long term despite people always clamoring for new and different) which will draw them in. Further they moved to a 3-D presentation which allows for more passerby appealing effects as opposed to sticking with hand drawn sprites which as we all know can be utterly beautiful but seem to be discarded all too quickly these days by the average consumer as outdated and only suitable for portables or downloadable games. This is similar "casual friendly" approach (familair faces and flash) which allowed something like MvC2 to be successful despite it's horrendously unfriendly high level mechanics.
This oversimplifies of course, but Capcom's SF2 roster is the most powerful weapon they have to try and make themselves relevant to the mainstream again beyond any level of mechanic they can institute. So yes, this grants them a lot of goodwill other developers simply wouldn't receive. Those characters had something that is difficult to quantify, Ryu the generic Japanese gi-adorned fighter somehow rose above all other gi-fighters on the subtleties of his design. Those characters got it right in some fashion impossible for me to put words to that it can be argued that C. Viper, Abel and all post SF2 (and arguably Alpha) characters, seem to be missing. Nothing strictly wrong with those characters, but it's like when you put Blizzard's character design against other developers. They just do something right, but I'm not an artist or art critic so it's hard for me to quantify what is right in those cases, just that it hits the right chords in your head.
As far as marketing the design goes, there's no parries. This follows an apparent trend of undoing what SF3 did and lost them casual arcade goers. SF3 did many things, but most publicized was the introduction of parries. Design-wise I don't think parries are a problem, simple command, ease of intent (I'll mention more about that in a bit) and effective risk reward. However, it was decried as making the game a turtlefest and making the gap between high and low level play too extreme. True or not that was the takeaway I got from the "casual" audiences. So, out it goes, it feels more like SF2 now. Nevermind the other mechanics that have been thrown in, parries are gone, so it's safe to go in the water again!
In a nutshell, those seemed to me to be crux of the marketing push of SF4 is "casual friendly", reality be damned, but how often are marketing and reality traipsing along hand in hand? Hell Capcom's most casually mainstream successful fighter after SF2 is arguably MvC2 which is about as unfriendly mechanic-wise as Capcom has ever been. With that I think, I'll move into my little bit on mechanics.
Now I think I fully understand your intent with your critiques. I can go to a major national tournament, brush off my ST skills and still be competitive with most. I don't use a ton of combos or "high level" technique, I just know the game and have a feel for it after years of playing. However, I can't flip around the screen with Magnus and triangle jump infinite cancel to save my life and get destroyed utterly by V-ism Alpha players. ST has a certain degree of purity that is to be admired and enjoyed and in my mind will stand atop the 2-d mountain with the likes of Samurai Shodown 2 for a very long time. I think there is a scale for 2-d fighting games to be ranked on strategy and mind-game vs. execution importance running something like ST, SF3:3S, MvC2, GGXXAC+ (or whatever iteration it's on). I think you can fit things like Melty Blood and Arcana in that scale somewhere closer to GG etc. I think in the world of fighting games, the extremely long, hardcore (read inaccessible) combo somehow became the norm emphasizing 1P study as you say vs. 2P experience. That's always been what has kept me away from seriously playing the likes of HnK or Sengoku Basara X and any of the other Arc Systems or other "modern" 2-d fighters. In terms of relative to it's contemporaries (including Tekken 5/6 or VF5 in that peer group) SF4 is pretty casual friendly. It steps back down that scare towards ST. Have the mechanics/inputs been simplified as much as possible? Clearly not from your criticisms, but they are a far sight more "casual friendly" from most anything else out there currently. This of course doesn't absolve them of any errors made or needless complexity, but again I see where the claim comes from.
Onto the specific mechanics I'll keep it short(er than the rest). On 2 button throws, I am a fan. For me they allow clarity and intent of command at relatively little cost of execution. I can do what I want when I want never an accidental throw and you get punishable whiffs. It does usually introduce karas, not ideal but that I think comes down to if you prefer being stuck with option select exploits or kara exploits. Karas are less problematic for me and again clarity of intent is the ultimate trump for me. All commands are ultimately aiming for a balance of clarity of intent (I want to do precisely move X) vs. ease of execution (Can I reliably do move X with the control scheme presented). I think 1 button throws blurs that line more than it needs to. And yes, CvS2 did have 1 button throw whiffs, but talk about feeling awkward and just off. Granted there were all sorts of things CvS2 had that felt weird, but that was one of the bigger ones for me. What if I didn't intend to throw but the game interpreted my attempt to FP as a throw from out of range and caused an unnecessarily punishable whiff. If you are going to 1 button throw by all means do not include a whiff if that button has any other use as that leads to a really bad feel, ultimately I can be happy in either situation but prefer 2 and would only be nitpicking 1 button throws.
The rest of your criticisms appear valid, though I haven't had time with the game, they do sound to be perhaps "artificial barriers" to entry of the highest levels for better or worse. Some like this as it allows them to flex their well practiced muscle, some just want to match wits with all the tools readily at their disposal. I tend to have similar preference to you in fighting games, however, I love me some Beatmania IIDX and bullet-hell shmups which are about the most inaccessible (hardcore) games ever created. I think where SF4 has succeeded is that it has lowered the barriers to entry for lower level play relative to it's contemporaries and provided people with the comfort factor of familiar characters. It does have some unnecessarily difficult high level execution (which from description kind of reminds me of the EX games where I admit I loved the expert training modes if not the actual 2P game play) for the high level gamers to dig into and flaunt, again for better or worse. If that were to be removed there no doubt would be people railing against the game for it being overly simplistic compared to it's contemporaries and refusing to play it. Bottom line is you can never please everyone and there are certainly improvements (from what I hear about the jump mechanics that would be chief among them) that could be made and hopefully some of it will be taken to heart for SF4: Attack of the Giant Champions Edition or however they name it (would be nice if they could get it all right after location testing with the first go, but there I go with my unreasonable standards). Anyways, that's my rambling 2 cents, make of it what you will and I'd be happy to clarify anything I said further since like I said this is no well edited article that I've written.
Response by Sirlin: It has a cast of characters that people like and no parries. Right, good so far, but I don't see how you consider those two things ALONE some proof of "casual friendly." Surely you can imagine a game with those characters that is 1000x harder to play than the actual SF4. There are many ways to make something not casual friendly even if you do those first two good things you mentioned. Like, oh I don't know, have to constantly pump qcf x 2 + PPP and hope you don't press PP accidentally. Overemphasis on link combos, etc.
And again with the 2-button throws. I still think that's all in your head. To make it really concrete, tell me the specific option select problems (or any problems) with SF2 Bison's throw. Do you throw the opponent when you don't mean to? No, you don't because you'd never want to use strong or fierce at the same times you'd throw. Do you accidentally throw when you want to do a combo? No because there are no combos that could even possibly overlap. His combos are like low forward, low forward scissor kick or jump roundhouse, low forward, psycho crusher. There aren't any actual problems there that occur in real matches. You're willing to go from no actual problems to an extra button press and kara throw bugs?
Wow, so either I came off a lot more harshly than I thought, or perhaps you are coming off more harshly than intended from being tired of responding to these arguments for the last 2 weeks, which is entirely understandable. Anyways in response, the "casual friendly" is more marketing than anything else and the way it has been run with in the gaming press is perhaps a bit disheartening given the reality, but as I said, reality and marketing rarely have a lot in common. I also never said that the points you agree were accessible absolved them of anything else, in fact I said it absolutely did not absolve them of any other accessibility transgressions. It's the face to draw people in it's even part of the marketing of "Hey this it's safe to come back, you know these people, the scary stuff is gone". We both know not all the scary stuff is gone and some new scary stuff has been introduced (again arguably unnecessarily so) but that's the marketing. The other, and perhaps I failed to make it clear, more important aspect is that while it's not the best it could possibly be, it is far more accessible than its contemporaries it appears.
Let's look at this as an arcade game, how it was originally designed, and besides you have said yourself if you really intend to play you'll have a stick. Now is a 3 button ultra the path of least resistance? The ultra-in input economy? No, absolutely not. However, with a stick and button layout that falls in a way natural to your hand as any modern stick should, pressing 3 buttons at the same time is also not a terribly difficult task to time. Perhaps I'm spoiled by being a one-handed Beatmania player who has to hit 7 key chords simultaneously in an even smaller window, but since the VS games or the alpha games it hasn't been a problem. Could it be improved, made easier a la Alpha 3? Sure, so again your argument is valid, but I would consider that to be a nitpicky point and no true barrier to play.
As far as throws go, I'll just agree to disagree, based on your reaction it's a painfully belabored point. I'm honestly happy in either environment, if you held a gun to my head and asked preference, I would indeed say 2 button, but it really doesn't matter to me and is the essence of nit pick. If your only goal is economy in inputs one button works fine and is entirely functional after all my favorite 2-d fighters are ST and SamSho2 so I'm hardly going to fight hard on this one, I just personally place discrete input for a throw above that economy. For your goal, 1 button is objectively better, for my preference 2 button is better for me, I'll just leave it at that.
As far as the links go, they are probably artificially difficult, I haven't spent the time with the game to say exactly, so I'll accept that statement at its face. If I were to fiddle with it, based on my experience with other games I'm certain I'd agree with you. There are a segment of the fighting game population, the ones who keep the games going beyond their commercial viability who I think would demand that needless intricacy and I can see them being perhaps catered to for that. But, from what I've heard the game remains enjoyable even in the relatively ignorance of the lengthy links if just due to damage scaling. So I'll grant that timing on the links could easily be lengthened to be more "casual friendly". So in essence I disagree with you on very few points, again my main point of contest I guess was just the attack on it being "accessbile"/casual friendly.
It is not 100% casual friendly no, it is not a perfect game, there are quirks about it and while we don't have to like them or even fully accept them, they don't appear to be enough to discount the game entirely, as you say yourself, there is definitely fun to be had there. Overall though, in the last decade or so, what fighting game has come out that has been more accessible and more sound at a high level of play (HDR not withstanding as at heart that's still a game well over a decade old, however well tuned it may have been this time around for accessibility)? Things have just gotten more and more complex since ST, more and more daunting to the average player. From everything I've seen and read SF4 scales it back an admirable amount. Is it as accessible as Guitar Hero? God no, but I would argue it's more accessible than say a current gen Madden which seems to have plenty of pick up and play appeal.
They could've done more, yes, it's not perfect, yes, however, it's a lot more playable across the board from what I've seen than the VF series (of course everything is more accessible than that), the Tekken series, Guilty Gear, Melty Blood, Hokuto no Ken, Basara X, the King of Fighters series, etc. Maybe some would say DoA and Mortal Kombat are more accessible but I would be of the mind that they don't hold up as well at very high levels of play, but that's not an argument I'm willing to get into at this point. And yes there are mechanics you can probably cherry-pick analogs from and criticize SF4 for, such as Roman Cancels being easier in a game that is at the 2-d pinnacle of casual unfriendliness (and yet still has 1 button throws). Alpha 3 using 1 button level 3 supers, but that's in a game filled with hopelessly complex V-ism combos. So no, not every element of SF4 is casual friendly, yes there are games that have handled different elements more in line with your design theory for accessible gaming. But as a whole product I think they did a pretty good job of packaging it in a way that people can get into. And for the tricky links in the console versions they at least acknowledged them and said "Here they are, and here is a mode in which you can perfect them if you so desire." which I think is laudable. You would know better than I what games fit your mold better than I do, the only ones I can think of would be arguably Mark of the Wolves and Samurai Shodown V Special, though there you have your feints and odd cancels and fiddly Issen and Ken Ki meters respectively. Plus those games both have been panned by critics for appearance/characters, so while character design and polish are superficial, so are game critics and the casual game buying public who will purchase Army Men before Metal Slug.
So in conclusion as far as the mechanics go, I don't think your wrong about them. I may have the mildest of disagreement on throw execution preference and think maybe some elements are blown out of proportion a little but those are hardly sticking points for me. Things could have been done differently and the end product may have been better for it (bearing in mind that neither of us are saying that the current product is a "bad" game even with its more difficult mechanics in place). But, in the end I think Capcom did a pretty good job with creating a game that can bring people back to the fold, grow the market segment for fighting games and so on. They won't do for Fighting Games what Nintendo or Guitar Hero have done for video games as a whole, but they've done a far sight better than anyone else has and I think have successfully created the most casual friendly legitimate/solid/traditional fighting game in the last decade plus.
I agree with some of your points in this article and disagree with others. Obviously there's no point in restating things you've already said so it can be assumed anything I don't comment on, I agreed with the blog post. I disagree with the statement that the button config screen being "the wrong way." I understand that it could possibly be more confusing in a tournament setting except people that are actually competing in these tournaments should be familiar enough with the game to be able to configure their controller. It's my opinion that the interface for changing controls has to be adjusted based on the kind of inputs you'll have to be giving while playing the game. In fighting games you often have to mash several buttons at the same time. Being able to set R1 to LP, MP, and HP makes Ultra Combos easily mastered on the fly rather than having to contort your hand into some sort of gnarled mutation. Furthermore, sometimes a player in a fighting game will want to assign the same action to more than one button so he can roll his thumbs across the controller more fluently for different combos. In the end, being asked what button will do this function provides less customization than being asked what do you want this button to do.
As far as the tech recovery, this is once again a common occurrence for fighting games and there's once again a reason behind it. One of the biggest parts of playing a fighting game is quick response time to what all's going on in the game. Yes, obviously you're going to want to get up more quickly more often than not, so as you're learning to play the game you learn to hit that button at the right time. Your character who just got knocked to the ground isn't going to just automatically flip right back up without conscious thought towards the recovery and since you're the one controlling his consciousness as you play the game, you have to be the one to react. The same thing can be found in all manner of fighting games from Soul Calibur to Super Smash.
As far as the throws are concerned, I personally was greatly pleased with the changes to the throw mechanics after I'd taken the time to relearn them. It, in fact, does actually help you have more control over your character's actions. With the one button throw mechanic they used to have, if you were near your opponent, and you hit the appropriate attack button, your character would perform their throw rather than their attack. There's plenty of times I wish my character would have done the attack instead of the throw and that's even truer in SF4 with the more complicated combos you can arrange with the more fluid fighting styles. Making it a button combination now forces me to specifically tell my character to throw, thus when I try to use my attack near an opponent, he'll still attack rather than throwing if I use HK near an opponent when I'm Ryu. Pressing two buttons at once shouldn't be a problem for anyone that got Street Fighter 4 expecting to play a FIGHTING game. If it honestly does get to you, let me refer you back to my comments on the controller configuration. Feel free to set your trigger button to your two buttons.
As far as the issues with doing the input for the Ultra combos, I again point to setting up your control configuration with the inputs you'll need to do to play the game in mind. It's as simple as QCF x 2 and then R1 for me when I play because my R1 button is set to PPP. QCF itself is among the most primal ,basic, and common inputs for a fighting game. They sell T-Shirts that have the arrows for QCF on them followed by a punch for goodness sake. Adding a second QCF after the second is only a way to make the most powerful attack your character has a little more difficult to perform than a hadoken. I find QCF x 2 much easier to perform than the Z thing they have you doing for a Shoryuken.
On the topic of the input for focus canceling, while I agree the input could be a bit smoother, I don't know that I totally agree with how you said you'd wanted it. In all honesty, to do the cancel you don't push all of those buttons. You just push the forward forward. You're canceling the move you entered by pressing LP + MK. Yes, there are some instances where you are specifically looking to get to that cancel be it for a juke or to do some combo, but there are other times you're doing a focus attack and realize that you'd be better off not following through with that attack and would like to quickly cancel and move. The single button combination now serves multiple purposes.
Like I said earlier in my post, I agreed with most of your other points I haven't commented on. I'm not trying to pick a fight or say you're wrong, but offer a different point of view on why I believe these various crimes Street Fighter 4 has committed against you were charities to players like me and likely many of those who wrote the high scoring reviews.
Response by Sirlin: I disagree with all sorts of things there. Most strongly with the button config screen. The drawbacks you are claiming are not actually true at all. You can have a function called PPP and set a button to it. To see this in action, play Capcom Classics Collection 2. This next feature is not even necessary to support, but if you want to set one button to be multiple functions, again see Capcom Classics Collection 2. It has those features and yet it's still "the right way" where you go there, press the buttons you want in order, and never need to know which one was called X or A or whatever. So the method I'm talking about has no drawbacks. Meanwhile it has huge advantages. Please consider that I have seen thousands of people configure buttons. Yes, literally. After years and years of console tournaments where I watch player after player configure their buttons, I can say decisively that one way is very fast and the other isn't. It's because one way requires no extra step of knowing which button is called "B" while the other one does. So there is no tradeoff here, one way is simply better than the other.
Also, I've had to say this like 20 times now and I'll say it again to you. STOP suggesting that I map PPP on my joystick. This is not feasible and generally a bad idea. I understand why you do this on a pad, but if you are really serious about fighting games, you're playing on a stick. On a stick, it is very unreasonable (or impossible depending on the model) to play with more than 6 buttons on the face. So do NOT use that as an argument about PPP commands overlapping PP commands being ok.
I disagree with your other points as well (fewer inputs to focus cancel is easier than more inputs, should be obvious?) and 2 button throws solve problems that aren't even real in the first place. I asked a previous poster to tell me specifically with Bison in ST (just to pick something concrete) how one could possibly accidentally throw. You kind of can't. If you want a combo, you do one and throw doesn't overlap. If you want to poke, stand short or stand roundhouse are good for that and you wouldn't do the throw command unless you meant it. Before talking about any other game or any other character, do you agree that there is no problem with ST Bison having a 1-button throw? I think you would because there really is no problem. After you agree to that, we can go over the other 16 characters one-by-one. You'll find that only Chun Li's stand strong is an actual problem.
Wow.
A larger load of whining i have never heard, and for someone that's is making bold comparisons.
I think it pertinent to address a few of said comparisons first.
DoA to any Capcom product?
You sir should stop claiming to be a fighting fan and stick to bad anime reviews,as DoA is widly accepted as the single worst fighting franchise by any real big game players(see Diago,Combofiend and many other's comments to this effect).
As spoken by the leaders of competitive fighting game play,the true leaders and not the garbage you see on G4's reality shows about games.
Although for a laugh some of the best players vs japanese stars you can watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4y78ra83Og&feature=related
Good stuff over all.
Second you comment on Guilty Gear,a game that is twice the cluster F that MvC2 ever was from one hit kills to errors in play control.
I am not a Capcom fanboy but i am a huge fighter fan over all,i have bought and tried most every fighter to make it to our shining shores and can easily attest to this simple fact.
Capcom is the Blizzard of Fighter,while of people(less skilled in game and more skilled at whining as this author proved) can complain,rare can they find true fault.
Plain and simple the problem with most fighters is lack of depth,which SFIV address on multiple levels, from a two button throw format(a great addition for any change to the mechanics as anyone can tell you,quick get up's or tech recoverys are a reward for learning the game and a capcom standard that changing that now would be a step in the wrong direction for longtime fans and casuals alike as it is in more games then a slower timed get up is,FADC now this is a tool for the mighty, and not repeat not to be given to someone who initally pick's up a stick and spams jump roundhouse duck roundhouse and as such should require timing and precision to pull off.
Hell if we are going to dumb this down why not add in the i win button?
Would the race to i win be the better route for you?
While SFIV is ment to appeal to more casuals.the money is in the longtime harder core games, and capcom has done a masterful job of blending the two.
SFIV does have it's faults, but lets stick to the real issue here,you dont like the new,and dont like the old,constantly compair it to mostly inferior franchises(due to sales numbers,fanbase,reviewers scores, you name it SFIV beats it and that is why they are inferior)
If the pro's in the field really like it as a whole,who are you to decry it?
A scrub,a scrub doing a review, but a scrub all the same.
Feel free to challenge me sometime if you dispute this fact.
XBL gamertag Whaling Dan
Response by Sirlin: Your post is full of jackassery, so no comment other than to say for the 10th time that I did not offer a review of Street Fighter 4.
I agree with most of what is said, but completley disagree with the first part about input delay. I've been a network programmer for 10 years in the video game industry so I wanted to comment.
15 frames is 250ms of delay which yes is noticeable. But to translate that to something we all can understand as network gamers, that's not round trip (ping), because of how input delay methods work it's half the ping so if your input delay is 15 frames, you are playing against someone to whom your ping is 500ms and then complaining that you feel lag? Come on man it's one thing to have issues with the game balance but are you seriously trying to say you could have written the network code to have no lag under any conditions? That's simply not possible.
I checked out GGPO, and yeah they *could* have used it but didn't for what I assume is the one draw back of GGPO is that correcting the simulation will generate visual artifacting which isn't optimal. The more latency there is, the longer the delta between the accurrate simulation and the "real time" one becomes which means more noticeable corrections. Most console games use input delay methods, and what they did was no different than the rest of the industry.
However, the game balance ... is horrible. The match making is so awful it makes me want to ask their UI designer wtf they were thinking?
Why is there no option to play online without the unlockable players? Is this such a far fetched crazy idea that they didn't even consider it?
/sigh a decent game, but Sirlin you and I definitely agree on a lot of things, one day companies will realize the market for competitive gaming that free sites like teamwarfare.com and others have taken charge of for free.
Meanwhile we'll have to make due with these medicore gaming offerings.
Response by Sirlin: You have to understand how, er, not-theoretical this is. I could tell you about how theoretically, it's just bad to introduce input delay in a genre so timing intensive, but the jury is already in. GGPO demonstrated beyond any doubt that no-input delay is better. There are petitions thousands of posts long on this. There are (literally) millions of games played under GGPO and it won over practically everyone. The response was so strong that finally at the end of HD Remix development, the creator of GGPO did come in and help. HD Remix uses the same method.
So yeah, it's not just my opinion. It's pretty much...everyone who plays fighting game's opinion. We've seen input lag and we've seen GGPO and the response is overwhelming. Perhaps you are simply unaware of how huge a phenomenon it is and how huge the internet push from fighting game fans was to get GGPO into HD Remix and SF4.
I know, lets put input delay on a game where links have to be made in 1 frame!
I can't see any problem with that!