I'm an 18 year old guy in Idaho. I've been playing video games as long as I can remember, starting with an old dusty NES, some Mario, and Battletoads. Now, I'm just another gamer, it seems. And while it's a little uncomfortable being associated with video games simply by virtue of being 18 and male, I can't argue with the accuracy of the stereotype. That said, I'm a gamer, not a guy who plays games. It's a large part of my life and who I am. I'm not here on DTOID because I have a pastime or a hobby. I'm here because I have, for lack of a better word, a passion.
But I can't seem to think of anything useful to say about myself, so I'll hope my posts give some insight.
So, a little over a week ago, I posted this, more or less on a whim. I felt like blogging something, Street Fighter and Smash Bros came to mind, and then as I wrote it, I realized the damn thing was too long, and I'd not yet touched on two of the four things I wanted to. So, instead of dropping it, I chose to make it even LONGER, but release it episodically (see what I did thar?) and devote one post to each of the four. But instead of actually talking about one of them, I just said “LOOK I'M DOING SOMETHING” and people went “yay.”
Then I started writing this son hof a beetch (Bison?) and ran into some troubles. Between Thanksgiving madness, losing my work, rewriting it, and realizing I actually still had it all along, and other non-writing-related mishaps, I'm late on my self-imposed one-week deadline. I apologize to myself, and to you.
So here I am, in the first real post, and dammit if it isn't harder than I thought it'd be. Not only because of life, but because suddenly I realized that I know more about Smash than I do about Street Fighter. That's unfortunate. So I had to do a little looking. (WIKIPEDIA HO!)
We'll need some history. For perspective. Capcom released Street Fighter in 1987 to arcades, in which the player, as Ryu (or the functionally identical Ken, on the 2p side) fights up the ranks of the tournament, ending in a match against Sagat. Don't ask him about it. His scar still burns occasionally.
Like Harry Potter's spider sense.
Anyhow, the main draw for a lot of people was the two-player ryu-vs-ken fight. Street Fighter 2 was redesigned to focus more on the multiplayer aspect, offering multiple playable characters, each unique in moveset and control.
From then on, it was all about making that competitive fight better. Making sure no character was unbeatable, making sure no tactic was unbeatable. While each new Street Fighter sub-series throws in new game mechanics, each revision/update/semi-sequel/whatever you wanna call it puts balance and competitive value at top priority. In theory, anyway. There have been some missteps, but the point stands.
Super Smash... well, it was kind of an accident.
"We don't make mistakes here, we just have happy little accidents."
See, basically, Nintendo wanted to put something out there to fill space. So, this guy, Masahiro Sakurai, around 1998 or so, decided he wanted to make a 4-player fighting game, but realized he needed something unique. So he built himself a prototype and presented it to Nintendo, who put a small budget towards this little dick-around multiplayer fighting game in which Nintendo's flagship characters beat the hell out of each other. It was never meant to be anything more than that. It was never even meant for a stateside release.
But then people liked it. A lot. So they realized “OH HEY we actually got something here” and brought it to us dumb westerners, marketed with the one thing we love most: Violence.
Because it's a game with competitive value that doesn't totally suck, we looked into what we could do. And that led to the discovery of Z-cancel combos, the OP nature of “spikes” (think volleyball if you're unfamiliar), and how important items were to the game, since they could easily sway the entire tide of the fight.
Smash Bros has always held one thing above all else: fun. The kind of fun you experience when you can just let loose and have a ball. And when that's the attitude from the devs, it makes sense that it would pervade the minds of the consumers, and color how we see the game. I think this is the biggest reason so many people see the game as a more casual game. That's what it was designed to be.
I think it's really disappointing that so many people write off the game so quickly thanks to the marketing. Because the reality is that even without trying to build a rival to Street Fighter, Sakurai started a series that survives as the premier alternative to traditional fighting games. And damn, does it do a good job of it.
I love Smash Bros. Funny enough though when I started playing Brawl again a few weeks ago, I realized that I hadn't actually played the game in over two years (Summer '08)!! As much as I enjoy to get my ass handed to me in Street Fighter and MvsC, fighters like Smash Bros and Power Stone are more my thing.
I grew up loving Smash Brothers long before I really got into other fighting games, but it was kind of the only thing I knew. I was a real oddball as a kid. I had all the systems nobody else bothered with. The Playstation was something I completely missed until I started working at a game store.
What this means is that I grew up playing on a Sega Saturn and a Nintendo 64. My fighting game library consisted of Virtua Fighter 2 and Super Smash Brothers.
I loved both, but obviously Virtua Fighter went over my head. I played it quite a bit by myself but never had a friend to let me tap into the game's depth. Smash Brothers I also mostly played by myself, but you actually could get friends into it pretty easily.
Then I got my Dreamcast. I would dabble in playing Marvel vs Capcom 1 (I still think it's more enjoyable than 2) at home and at the arcade even though I would always lose, and then a posee of friends and I began to get competitive in Dead or Alive 2. That was actually the first time I probably really got into a fighting game. Power Stone was another dear favorite of mine at the time.
Some time around there I played and loved Super Smash Brothers Melee to death. I would play it and Dead or Alive 3 frequently down at the local teen center. Those two games were my first experience with any kind of local competitive play. The competition wasn't really that fierce or anything, but it was fun times.
I actually didn't tap into my Dreamcast's fighting game potential until I began dabbling in online emulation. I became part of a fighting game guild on a website that shall forever remain unnamed, upon which time I finally had a pool of people aside from a few personal friends to play against. The people who pulled me into this website were SNK fans, and SNK games were often what I would play. King of Fighters 2003 was probably the first 2D fighting game that I got seriously competitive in. Fun game. It's too bad the followup King of Fighters XI didn't have online capability. SNK pretty much established my dominance toward 2D fighting games. I respect Street Fighter. I even like some of the older entries like the Alpha series. They aren't what made me love the genre, though. Not even close.
Since then I started to build a collection of Dreamcast fighting games, dabbling in them whether I had people to play with or not. I just had fun treating my Dreamcast games like a practice mode and my online emulation gaming as the real thing.
After that point I started working at a beach amusement park in the games department. I'd carnival style games all around the place. Take money from people and talk a lot of shit. Fun times. I would frequently work at all the arcade ticket related locations. The prize center of the arcade was somewhere they would frequently put me. I have a tendency to be able to handle stress much better than most people. I would thus get the high stress jobs. The central prize center was way up there.
I was good enough that the actual arcade department would borrow me on occasion, so thus every once in a while I had genuine access to all the arcade machines and not just the ticket-spitting ones. In general the arcade became a hangout for me and I got into my first and only real local scene: Capcom vs SNK 2. Hell of a game. It was the one all the good people would play. I never went to tournaments directly, but my arcade would still attract some of the players from the competitive circuit.
After that I kind of petered out from fighting games. I stopped working at the arcade. I started working at a game store. I remain fairly knowledgeable about the genre and I put that knowledge to use whenever I have the time to run a Fatal Impact tournament or when I talk shit with the Podsumaki crew, but the amount of time I actually spend playing fighting games is rather reduced.
Still, Smash Brothers was one of the games where I started. Right now? I'm probably just waiting for King of Fighters XIII and praying that it has good netplay. All reports point to the game being amazing. Even KD Alpha thinks so, D-Toid's local Street Fighter IV god.
Fatal Impact will run plentiful should King of Fighters XIII have good netplay. Not having to deal with helping people set up emulation software would be a blessing from the heavens.
@Roager: SNK's turning a profit on the game for once. That's the only real word. Apparently some local Californian tournament scenes are getting imports of the game to try it out, but there's no word on even a console release. I believe SNK publicly stated they wanted the arcade unit out in the wild long enough to really leave its mark.
So sorry you lost lost your job. That's harsh, and right before the holidays. Really no matter when that happens, its a stressful, scary thing. I hope you've got something great waiting in the wings. My sympathies, and an Honorary Fap go to you.
@DynamoJoe. Whoa, dude. Misinterpretation. I meant I lost my DRAFT. i.e. The work I had completed on the post. I was already jobless. :(
@WryGuy. I thought the JP console release had already happened. My god. Well, this is lookin to be a pretty long wait, then. I guess I can live with that. Sucks, though. Good that they're making money on it, though. That's a plus.
I've wanted to get into SNK games, but I've never been any good at them. Any advice there?
I picked up a cool bit on insight into SF from a commentated match, I'll just write it out here for your perusal.
Fear is a major part of SF. This is because walking forward is pretty much the scariest thing you can do in SF. When walking forward, your character has no defenses whatsoever; he is completely open to attack. However, seeing a character walk forward towards you is also a scary thing in SF. This is because you know that whoever it is your playing is ballsy enough to simply walk in on you, no defenses, to attempt a throw or attack or what have you. So in this way, fear is a big part of SF. If you can get the other guy afraid of you then that opens up a whole new level of mind games that you can play on him.
Another example of fear would be in the wake up game. Let's say that your playing a guy who always does wake up uppercut on you and it has connected a couple times. In this case, the guy who got hit by the wake up shoryus might think twice about pressing buttons on the downed guy's wake up, for fear of getting hit with the uppercut. So now, let's say that the other guy senses that his opponent is afraid of his wake-up uppercut. Now, when he get's knocked down, he can bank on his opponent's fear in making his opponent not pressure him on wake-up, giving him a get of of jail free card.
I think it's SF's slower pace when compared to Smash that can allow these sort of mind games to flourish. Just some thoughts.
Yeah, I can see that SNK games are a little more freeform, especially with shorthops and rolls and such. I just can't seem to put any of that stuff to good use.
@Jomonoe
A lot of the spacing/zoning/wakeup stuff still applies in Smash, though it's based a bit less on fear, since it's often easier to defend your approach, and since the wakeup game is slanted in favor of the downed player, whereas SF's wakeup game benefits the player standing up, thus further punishing knockdowns.
A lot of this fear business is gonna show up in execution, if anywhere. I'll have to remember to go back and check all the comments for stuff to bring up.
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What this means is that I grew up playing on a Sega Saturn and a Nintendo 64. My fighting game library consisted of Virtua Fighter 2 and Super Smash Brothers.
I loved both, but obviously Virtua Fighter went over my head. I played it quite a bit by myself but never had a friend to let me tap into the game's depth. Smash Brothers I also mostly played by myself, but you actually could get friends into it pretty easily.
Then I got my Dreamcast. I would dabble in playing Marvel vs Capcom 1 (I still think it's more enjoyable than 2) at home and at the arcade even though I would always lose, and then a posee of friends and I began to get competitive in Dead or Alive 2. That was actually the first time I probably really got into a fighting game. Power Stone was another dear favorite of mine at the time.
Some time around there I played and loved Super Smash Brothers Melee to death. I would play it and Dead or Alive 3 frequently down at the local teen center. Those two games were my first experience with any kind of local competitive play. The competition wasn't really that fierce or anything, but it was fun times.
I actually didn't tap into my Dreamcast's fighting game potential until I began dabbling in online emulation. I became part of a fighting game guild on a website that shall forever remain unnamed, upon which time I finally had a pool of people aside from a few personal friends to play against. The people who pulled me into this website were SNK fans, and SNK games were often what I would play. King of Fighters 2003 was probably the first 2D fighting game that I got seriously competitive in. Fun game. It's too bad the followup King of Fighters XI didn't have online capability. SNK pretty much established my dominance toward 2D fighting games. I respect Street Fighter. I even like some of the older entries like the Alpha series. They aren't what made me love the genre, though. Not even close.
Since then I started to build a collection of Dreamcast fighting games, dabbling in them whether I had people to play with or not. I just had fun treating my Dreamcast games like a practice mode and my online emulation gaming as the real thing.
After that point I started working at a beach amusement park in the games department. I'd carnival style games all around the place. Take money from people and talk a lot of shit. Fun times. I would frequently work at all the arcade ticket related locations. The prize center of the arcade was somewhere they would frequently put me. I have a tendency to be able to handle stress much better than most people. I would thus get the high stress jobs. The central prize center was way up there.
I was good enough that the actual arcade department would borrow me on occasion, so thus every once in a while I had genuine access to all the arcade machines and not just the ticket-spitting ones. In general the arcade became a hangout for me and I got into my first and only real local scene: Capcom vs SNK 2. Hell of a game. It was the one all the good people would play. I never went to tournaments directly, but my arcade would still attract some of the players from the competitive circuit.
After that I kind of petered out from fighting games. I stopped working at the arcade. I started working at a game store. I remain fairly knowledgeable about the genre and I put that knowledge to use whenever I have the time to run a Fatal Impact tournament or when I talk shit with the Podsumaki crew, but the amount of time I actually spend playing fighting games is rather reduced.
Still, Smash Brothers was one of the games where I started. Right now? I'm probably just waiting for King of Fighters XIII and praying that it has good netplay. All reports point to the game being amazing. Even KD Alpha thinks so, D-Toid's local Street Fighter IV god.
Fatal Impact will run plentiful should King of Fighters XIII have good netplay. Not having to deal with helping people set up emulation software would be a blessing from the heavens.
Sorry to ignore the vast majority of that monstrous post I just skimmed through. I'll get back to it when I've got a little more time.
Anyhoozit. Tell your friends, everyone fap. More readers is for yes.
@WryGuy. I thought the JP console release had already happened. My god. Well, this is lookin to be a pretty long wait, then. I guess I can live with that. Sucks, though. Good that they're making money on it, though. That's a plus.
I've wanted to get into SNK games, but I've never been any good at them. Any advice there?
Join a Fatal Impact tournament if I ever manage to have the spare time for one of those again.
Fear is a major part of SF. This is because walking forward is pretty much the scariest thing you can do in SF. When walking forward, your character has no defenses whatsoever; he is completely open to attack. However, seeing a character walk forward towards you is also a scary thing in SF. This is because you know that whoever it is your playing is ballsy enough to simply walk in on you, no defenses, to attempt a throw or attack or what have you. So in this way, fear is a big part of SF. If you can get the other guy afraid of you then that opens up a whole new level of mind games that you can play on him.
Another example of fear would be in the wake up game. Let's say that your playing a guy who always does wake up uppercut on you and it has connected a couple times. In this case, the guy who got hit by the wake up shoryus might think twice about pressing buttons on the downed guy's wake up, for fear of getting hit with the uppercut. So now, let's say that the other guy senses that his opponent is afraid of his wake-up uppercut. Now, when he get's knocked down, he can bank on his opponent's fear in making his opponent not pressure him on wake-up, giving him a get of of jail free card.
I think it's SF's slower pace when compared to Smash that can allow these sort of mind games to flourish. Just some thoughts.
Yeah, I can see that SNK games are a little more freeform, especially with shorthops and rolls and such. I just can't seem to put any of that stuff to good use.
@Jomonoe
A lot of the spacing/zoning/wakeup stuff still applies in Smash, though it's based a bit less on fear, since it's often easier to defend your approach, and since the wakeup game is slanted in favor of the downed player, whereas SF's wakeup game benefits the player standing up, thus further punishing knockdowns.
A lot of this fear business is gonna show up in execution, if anywhere. I'll have to remember to go back and check all the comments for stuff to bring up.