PSN Fighting Game Sale

US only…but if you are buying from any other store on PSN, what are you doing?

PSN flash sale fighting games:

https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-us/flash-sale/cid=STORE-MSF77008-9_FLASHSALE15_G

PS4
Divekick – $4.00 – 60% Off
Guilty Gear Xrd Sign – $24.00 – 60% Off

PS3
Arcana Heart 3 – $6.00 – 80% Off
Dead or Alive 5 – $4.00 – 80% Off
Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate – $10.00 – 75% Off
SoulCalibur V – $8.00 – 60% Off
Guilty Gear Xrd Sign – $20.00 – 60% Off
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle – $20.00 – 60% Off
Street Fighter X Tekken – $7.50 – 75% Off
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 – $10.50 – 70% Off
Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Complete Edition – $6.00 – 80% Off
Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition – $3.00 – 80% Off
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike: Online Edition Complete Pack – $5.00 – 80% Off
Chronophantasma is supposed to be on sale too… keep an eye out for it
Digimon All-Star Rumble – $16.00 – 60% Off
Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix – $2.00 – 80% Off

PS2
Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 – $2.50 – 75% Off

Vita
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R – $3.00 – 80% Off
Street Fighter X Tekken – $7.50 – 75% Off

PSP/1
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II – $2.00 – 80% Off
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus – $2.00 – 80% Off
Mortal Kombat: Unchained – $2.50 – 75% Off
Street Fighter Alpha 1 – $1.20
Street Fighter Alpha 2 – $1.20
Street Fighter Alpha 3 – $1.20
Tekken – $1.20
KOF99 – $1.20

EVO 2014 – Predictions

It is that time of year again and this EVO is shaping up to be one of the best ever. With huge numbers of players in USF4, Marvel, Smash and BBCP there promises to be a lot of hot competition, upsets and perhaps some surprise champions.

Given that, I’m going to have to play it safe this year and pick people based on being “solid” rather than brilliant. Will this strategy pay off? Only time will tell…

Main games:

USF4: Infiltration. Akuma is still strong and has new tricks which Inf. will use. He also has enough real alternative picks that he will never face a bad match-up. More a “safe pick” than a confident one, but it is hard to see him not getting close and a lot of his stronger opponents could fall earlier or not really perform (the Japanese sandbagging evo special).

Marvel: F.Champ. As much as I would hate to see it, I think he is still the guy who cares the most and will be at the top of his game. The other contenders, Wong and G can beat him, but only if they are 100% focused, which I don’t believe they are.

BBCP: Going with Dogura here (solid character), but will option select with any other player starting with “D”. Really feels pretty open given the size of the tournament and potential for strange character specialists.

Other games:

KI: Seems like it is setup for Justin, so I will go for Chris G, just because he has to win something, sometime. Would at least be fun to see these two going for their first real evo title.

KOF: Xiaohai just because I see him a bit more solid all around than the others going.

Tekken: A shame to see this is a bit of a non-event, being over on the Friday and not being well represented. But at least it is at EVO and hopefully there will be some great matches to watch. I have no idea who is going, so I’ll just guess somebody from Korea.

Smash Melee: No idea, probably some guy

Injustice: Probably not the same person as Smash. So, somebody else.

A special good luck to QisTopTier who is competing for the first time this year. I know lots of people will be wishing you all the best.

EVO 2014 Lineup – Thoughts

Once again the drama has unfolded and the EVO fighting game championship (on xbox) lineup has been announced. This year we are getting:

The Lineup

* USF4 (Assuming it is out and about)
* UMVC3
* Injustice
* KOF13
* Killer Instinct
* BBCP

* Smash Bros Melee (Pending Nintendo approval)

That isn’t the most dramatic lineup ever, but there are still a few talking points.

The Winners

BBCP is the first new inclusion and a well deserved one given the game isn’t really out in the West. I’ve already reviewed the import copy and had nothing but praise for it (albeit in pre Kokonoe days). I hope it does really well and brings a lot of hype and love to the anime community. Will it last? Probably not given it’ll soon be replaced by something else. But just like P4A proved last year, fighting games don’t have to provide “10 more years” to put on a good show.

Killer Instinct? Weeeeeeeeeeellllllll you can see where they are going with that game. It brings in some new players… it is a fighting game… Sure, why not. I have some thoughts about the quality of the game, but unfortunately I’m not yet certified with 3 years of playing experience, 80 hours of dedicated training and two years of modern tap. As such, I’m not permitted to actually share my opinion on the game yet. Maybe one day…

As for Smash, it is unclear what the problem with Nintendo actually is. I’d speculate that they want to tightly control marketing of the brand with the new game coming out (and not wanting to appear like a fighting game). I’m sure this will get sorted out one way or another.

The Losers

The first thing you will notice is that there is no Tekken. In fact, there is no 3D fighter at all. This is obviously a big call, the reason given is the dropoff in attendances in majors for the game (fair enough) and the fact that a new Tekken might split the player base (super confusing).

One might argue that KOF is in exactly the same situation. So how does it get in? Well apparently through bringing international players. But does it? With help from stat guru Dahbomb we did a little checking:

http://bbr.s23.eatj.com/evo2k13/player/byCountry

Taking out US and Canada we have for EVO 2013

KOF 96 internationals or 22.17% of total entrants

SF4 229 internationals or 14.3%
SFXT 77 internationals or 14%

TTT2 42 or 11.7%
P4A 44 internationals or 10.9%
Marvel 141 internationals or 10.4%

MK9 17 internationals or 8.5%
Smash 58 internationals or 8.3%
Injustice 41 internationals or 7%

So clearly KOF has by far the biggest international representation proportional to entrants and this reasoning holds up. Even if you take out Mexico, KOF is still well ahead of any other game. Further there appears to be less cross over with other titles so not holding the game may cause a drop off in people flying in. Contrast that with sfxt, whose international players were probably coming anyway.

The other big losers? Well I don’t think anybody expected Sfxt to get in, even though it had a relatively good attendance last year. Like it or not, the game is a bit of a dead end with USF4 about to drop soon. Similarly MK9 couldn’t “surprise” again and P4A has had its day (but did a good job for what it is).

Conclusion

Ultimately besides Tekken not being run there are few surprises in the lineup. While the cutting back of games is a bit surprising, the event did feel a little bloated last year and one last day of finals is probably for the best. Either way, there is something there for everybody… if you like 2D fighters of course.

But 3D fans shouldn’t worry too much, I’m sure Tekken will be back and the other games will get side events or exhibitions if the will is there.

Also Floe. There needs to be something with Floe.

Persona Japan Countdown Teaser – Update

Way back in September (seriously what the hell Atlus???) there was a teaser site put up for something Persona related. http://toddhunterreport.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/persona-japan-countdown-teaser/

You might remember my conclusion at that time that it was just an announcement related to Persona 4 Arena 2 (or P4U2 or P4 Ultimate suplex hold thingy if you are so inclined).

This was based on the colour of the site matching the character select screen, three boxes representing the three new characters and the fact that we are really expecting an announcement for the game.

It was also backed up by the fact that these announcements are almost 100% complete wastes of time these days, so that would more or less fit the description perfectly. Remember this?

Maybe Atlus are just getting competitive.

Since that time, not a lot has changed except we now have Teddie appearing in the three boxes in a series of rumbling poses. This only suggests that it is still Persona related given his role as a mascot for the series (while keeping in mind he was central to presenting the events in the fighting game).

But now we may have another piece of the puzzle from an arcade site in Japan:

http://www.ko-hatsu.com/

Through the magic of google translate we can see that the arcade version will be out and about on November 28, a few days after the announcement. Could those cities in the teaser be the locations where the game will playable (Osaka here)? I’d suggest all signs point to yes.

Now this doesn’t mean that Persona 5 isn’t going to be announced at the same time, it just seems more unlikely to me. Will we get P5? Will we get a P4 port or follow-up? Will it just be a fighting game that will cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth? (Mind you, I’m actually keen for it, I enjoyed P4A once I could actually play it…over a year later…). Will it be a grand reveal of P5, P4-2 and P4A2, but all on a device with a ‘3’ in the name but no ‘P’?

Or just maybe it is all for the bloody SMT4 PAL release date…

Only a few days left to know for sure. Either way the meltdowns are due to be spectacular.

Blazblue Chrono Phantasma BBCP – Import Review

The Blazblue series and I have always had a strange relationship. Given I am in Australia, the first taste of the series was stores saying “Here is this Blazblue game that is coming out 6 months after the rest of the world, please buy it…oh and don’t forget to preorder the sequel which is due out…umm next week.” Needless to say, it wasn’t off to a good start.

But I purchased the game as a fighting game fan and sunk some time into it. The end results were quite mixed. I enjoyed the diversity of characters and the overall strong presentation. The fighting felt good, it was deep enough and the online play was extremely solid. Unfortunately I didn’t stick with it. Why? Because none of the characters clicked…at all.

I tried them all out, did all the challenges my dexterity would allow for and got to the end of the cast and gave it up. The characters I enjoyed playing didn’t appeal to me aesthetically. The couple of designs I liked? They didn’t feel like fun at all. I’m very much of the school of players who needs to have both aspects covered to enjoy a game. Because I didn’t get what I needed, it was back to something like Street Fighter 4.

A few years later and a brief dabble with CSEX later (where I hit the same issue) I’ve returned for more with Chrono Phantasma. Rather than wait for a PAL release which may or may not ever happen, a kind Japanese friend hooked me up with the ways and means to get it over PSN and I’m back in the game.

There are quite a few changes to get through. Most noteably, the game removes gold bursts and adds an “overdrive” mode. This powers up your characters and sometimes allows new moves for the duration. It is a positive change and makes characters feel more unique in general fighting. Other mechanics like a guard crush that uses meter are less of a break from tradition, but still result in a game that is overall faster and makes you feel more of a participant. You’ll still go through the period of watching your character get smacked around the screen in an endless combo, but you should graduate from this period a lot quicker this time around.

To help speed the game up further, hitstop has been lessened and the combos are intended to be shorter. In practice it doesn’t feel like a huge change. It is still very much Blazblue in this regard and some characters like Kagura can still stop you hitting a button for what feels like forever. The good news is I never felt Blazblue was fundamentally broken, so the subtle changes are more about making a good fighting game even better.

All of this would be wasted if the cast wasn’t up to scratch and fortunately the new additions really help round out the roster.

• Amane Nishiki – Whilst Amane may not be everybodie’s cup of tea design wise, the level up and chip gameplay is unique and offers a lot of strategy.
• Bullet – An interesting rushdown character who is fun to mess around with and especially scare new players.
• Azrael – Provides an interesting weak point mechanic and a somewhat normal design.
• Izayoi – Another quality design, who unfortunately might not measure up yet in actual gameplay. If you like stance characters, she might be worth a go.
• Kagura Mutsuki – In a game full of bullshit, he might just be the most bullshitest. Plenty of moves and mixups for days, you’ll learn to hate this guy (or play him).
• Yūki Terumi – Builds meter fast and then goes to town. Frame Traps for days and an online menace.
• Kokonoe – Upcoming, looks fun with her gravity mechanic.

Importantly, of the seven characters above, five could be termed “easy to stomach” (Amane and Kokonoe are sure to be more divisive). For those people who were bothered by the general design of a lot of the characters, you do have more options here whilst the game remains pleasingly representative.

To balance things out further, the old characters have had moves changed or added, most in the name of making them more fun to play. Whilst some characters like Tsubaki don’t gain a lot (a fireball that seemingly every move in the game blows through) old players should find something new to play with. The catch? There is so much new here that balance problems are inevitable. This means it may be another release before the BBCP changes reach their full potential and more waiting and a further fragmented user base. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So what we have is a quality fighting game that is improved in just about every aspect. The question then is, as an English speaking fan can you actually acquire this game and play it? The answer is yes and this introduces the most impressive new feature of all.

Whilst you get all the usual on and offline modes, it is the interactive lobby world system that shines. After setting up your cute pixel avatar you are presented with a world map. You then select your region and look for a populated 64 player lobby. Once in, you can challenge other players, walk around, chat or just generally mess about. The social features are neither here nor there and giving your Bullet a balloon isn’t the killer feature. What is impressive is how it replicates that old arcade feel.

No longer are you sitting around waiting for a name to pop up on your lobby screen. You can see the person, you can look at their stats and you can see their win streak (if any). If you dare line up and have a go at them? Others can see your win too. Or, like me, you might be forced to run in shame after a bruising loss. But there is no real escape, they might just follow you to the next station for a rematch.

It adds an edge to the matches which is missing in other games. It also makes it a hell of a lot easier to find local players. If there is nobody in Australia for instance? I can browse over to the Indonesia region. From there, it is off to Japan where the connection still holds up. Capcom and others need to steal this feature and they need to steal it fast.

Of course you don’t need to use it if you have a populated friends list, you can just use the regular lobbies and invites. The menu system itself is all Japanese, but the kind people at dustloop have provided a full translation http://www.dustloop.com/wiki/index.php?title=BlazBlue:_Chrono_Phantasma. With this open you’ll have no trouble doing what you need to do. In particular I’d recommend finding the setting to switch off the automatic saving of replays. This can buy you a few valuable seconds after each match which really adds up.

What do you lose? Well the story mode is 100% Japanese so if you can’t speak it you’ll get little out of it. Personally I never even completed the story mode in previous games so it isn’t an issue. If you are even considering importing this? Chances are it is not a big deal for you either.

If you have the means, grab this game. Who knows when it’ll finally make its way over and there is already a decent gathering in each region to compete against and language will be no barrier. At the time of writing there was generally a reasonably full lobby in America, ten or so Australian players and full lobbies in Asia. If you have always held off on the series or gave it up a long time ago, it just might be time to return to the land of anime.

USF4 Dual Ultra Analysis #USF4

If the rumours are to be believed…and they probably can’t be… we’ll soon have the option to select both ultras in Ultra Street Fighter 4. The catch is that either ultra will only be at something like 66% strength. Is that fair and balanced? It is hard to say because we don’t know what else has changed.

But we can speculate based on the existing character balance and it goes a little something like this:

Improves them:

• Abel – Has two decent ultras, but they are match-up specific. Whilst the damage nerf hurts them, being able to roll in as a mix-up and either hit the elbow or catch them with breathless will be pretty powerful.
• Blanka – Damage will not be a problem, so this change would make Blanka quite nasty to deal with. U2 to help in match ups with the danger of U1? (rumoured to be easier to combo into). This change helps Blanka.
• Dan – U2 is always the serious pick, but having U1 on board as well could be very useful. Especially in a troll context, you’d want to be able to pull out both
• Dudley – Would seemingly help him a lot. U1 to shut down and punish and U2 to end combos would make him a better all-around character.
• E. Honda – He doesn’t really need the damage, so the grab would help him out and picking both “just because” would probably be the default. You would want it to be like his earlier versions to be fully useful though.
• Fei Long – Gets less from U1 than Cammy making U2 a lot more of a viable choice. He already has options to escape pressure, but one more will not hurt him.
• Hakan – Often has to give up damage for the AA ultra but no longer. Will make him a more dangerous proposition and probably quite annoying to fight against.
• Juri – The problem here is the balance with the custom combos. Will she get a shorter timer? Or will her attacks do less damage? If it is still viable, having both Ultras could make her a lot more fun to play.
• Rose – Again the balance is the key here. Do the orbs do less damage or stay out for a shorter time? Could certainly be better with both.
• Rufus – Hard to see players giving up the U1 damage and 99.9% of their gameplan to try to land it. But I suspect U2 is underrated and having both could improve him where he currently struggles. A sleeper.
• Ryu – Like Rufus, could help to expand the character with his second ultra which doesn’t get used enough. Another potential sleeper.
• Sagat – Makes Sagat a lot more deadly in fireball wars even if the damage drop hurts him. Expect players to add to their tools.

Good in some matchups:

• Akuma – The threat of a demon will still be there and the ability to punish different things with U2 will be useful. Look for the dual option in certain matchups where straight U1 isn’t the best option.
• Chun-Li – She would need a bit of a damage buff, but having both options could help her in a few match-ups where fireballs are involved.
• Dhalsim – You would always want U1 and the drop in damage wouldn’t be welcome. If the rumours are true and he gets a damage buff, having another option might help him against certain characters.
• Dee Jay – Match-up specific, given U1 can be difficult to land in any way where U2 wouldn’t hit as well. I would see it more as a mix-up tactic because he often needs more options.
• Ibuki – Will have to see how Ibuki plays, but being able to shut down fireballs and still threaten with the grab should help her out.
• Makoto – Certainly helps her against fireball characters as she can shut them down and still threaten some decent damage.

About the same:

• Adon – Will be able to shut down fireballs and still have a nice way to combo into damage. But the damage hit will probably be too much to take for U2 and he can already get around fireballs easy enough. So probably not a worthwhile selection.
• Balrog (Boxer) – It gives him another mixup option especially when you factor in something like TAP into U2 or headbutt. It is hard to see U2 still being useful enough to remove damage from one of his best options (combo into U1 or to shut down fireballs)
• Cammy – A hard one to call because you could expect Cammy to be a little different in this version. Having the U2 option would be nice, but it is unlikely to be more valuable then the raw U1 damage.
• Cody – Doesn’t have a huge difference between the ultras and players are likely to have specific setups. So I’d say having one or the other will be the norm.
• C. Viper – She has a second Ultra? Picking both might add another dimension to her play, but by now I think what she is trying to do is pretty well set in stone.
• El Fuerte – Having both doesn’t add a lot, because they can be used in much the same way. What he really needs is the full damage.
• Evil Ryu – Has no trouble hitting either ultra in a combo, so I would expect most players to pick one over the other depending on who they are fighting.
• Gen – Already has enough options and some really powerful ways to hit his ultra. So I wouldn’t think the two Gen players in the world need another ultra.
• Gouken – U1 doesn’t add much that U2 can’t do, so you wouldn’t expect to see both ultras in this match-up. He can do enough damage off a grab without it.
• Guile – Unless they change U1 to make it easier to hit, or buff the damage on U2 significantly, it is unlikely you’ll want to bother with both.
• Guy – I could see players adding in U2 as mix-up options to give Guy a bit of an extra boost. But it is unlikely we’ll see it much.
• Ken – U2 could help him in some match-ups, but he doesn’t really have that match trouble that he needs it. DPs all day.
• M. Bison (Dictator) – There isn’t much of a case to pick both ultras given they can generally be landed in the same way.
• Oni – Players will probably still stick with the damage given the similar setups.
• Sakura – U1 is pretty situational and doesn’t seem to be a big part of how she is played these days. Players will probably stick with U2.
• Seth – Bullshit chip and a longer range punish? Probably not, he already has enough options to get around fireballs and needs the damage.
• T. Hawk – Your first thought is “broken” because he can jump into a 50/50 mixup and react to what you do or do not do (jump or not). But really, T.Hawk already has this with his SPD so it doesn’t change a lot. With the damage nerf, you’ll stick to one ultra.
• Vega (Claw) – U1 can be hard to land … as can U2. It probably doesn’t help him much as it is, but may give him options if explored.
• Yang – You’ll probably stick with the Ultra you like and the method you combo into it.
• Yun – Given he has no problem getting around fireballs, will be like Yang and you’ll just stick with the one full ultra.
• Zangief – Much the same as T. Hawk. If you like protecting the skies, you’ll threaten with his command grab instead.

Unknown

• Hugo? – I haven’t mentioned the other new characters, but Hugo could be an interesting case. If dual ultras are in, you would assume he is in some way designed around the inclusion. As a grappler? Well I have no idea how they could balance it, but it might be one to watch.

Conclusion

• 12 characters better
• 6 characters improve in certain matches
• 21 others stay the same.

It is all hypothetical at this stage, but that is part of the fun. The consistent theme seems to be that having dual ultras either isn’t a big deal, helps some lower tier characters significantly or could make some characters more fun to play. As such, this could potentially be a very positive change for the game.

The only concern will be certain match-ups getting even worse (say with Akuma having the U2 punish and U1 for damage) as even more options are shut down. But at the end of the day, finding all that out will be part of the fun.

There is a lot of characters there and a lot of speculation. What do you think? Will your character get a lot better or is it a non-event?

National Novel Writing Month (NanoWriMo) 2013

It is almost November again and that means it is NanoWriMo time once more. Because I enjoyed it so much last year I’m planning on getting back into the saddle and seeing what I can churn out. In 2012 I worked on “When God Gets Bored” and finished the 50k words inside 10 days. It’ll be a bit different this time judging by my work since then and I may even struggle to get the quota in.

But I’ll try.

On that note, I’m planning to write “Just Walk Forward”. This will be thematically similar to “Being Hamish” in that it will involve the life and trials of a young adult. This time instead of searching for aliens and trying to understand love, he’ll be trying to piece things together through one of my own passions, fighting games.

What I want to do is explore this world a little through my characters and hopefully shed some light on what makes the fighting game community so special. It has probably been done before and better than I’ll be able to do. But that doesn’t matter, the plan is there, the paper is ready and I’m keen to get stuck into it. I think I’ll be able to spin a pretty decent story.

Are you going to take the plunge and commit to a novel? If you are on the fence, make sure you at least sign up and start writing some words on the first of the month. You’ll never quite know where it will take you.

Add TheToddHunter at http://nanowrimo.org/participants/thetoddhunter/novels on NanoWriMo and we can cheer each other on.

Tekken, Next-Gen Fighting Games, Sales and Their Tutorials

The next generation of game consoles (sorry Wii U fans) is only a couple of weeks away. With the shiny new consoles will eventually come a batch of shiny new fighting games. Whilst we wait for those, the fighting game community (FGC) grows and stumbles and generally gets on with business and leaves the focus on the current games and how we can get more people to play.

Tekken especially is the subject of a lot of the current discussion. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is widely regarded as a high quality title that did a lot right in terms of business models and catering to fans. Yet not a lot of people seem to be playing it competitively or casually given the dismal sales. Why is that? A number of reasons are typical sighted:

1. It is too hard to get into, with too many characters, too many moves and not enough feedback.
2. It is seen as a “spin-off” title due to the tag-team nature and lack of “7” in the title.
3. Tekken just isn’t fun to play or fighting games are getting boring.

The last reason is a bit of a dead end for discussion and the middle reason can be easily fixed with the next release. The first problem, with there being too many characters, moves and no feedback is the theme of this article.

To combat it? A lot of suggestions have been thrown out. These tend to centre around simplifying the game back to 1v1, a small roster of characters (say 10-12) and the removal of “clones” that differ only in subtle, hard to pick up ways. Whilst they are all certainly valid points and may be successful, I would not necessarily go down that path. I think the beauty of the title is this depth and complexity and I know the love that players have for it. I wouldn’t like to see that advantage removed just to chase more players, instead I would like to see more players brought up to scratch.

How can you do that without intense help and coaching? You can’t. So you provide that intense help and coaching.

Let’s switch to another fighting game to highlight where I’m going with this. Persona 4 Arena (P4A) is often considered a “beginners” fighting game. It is easy to get into with auto-combos and doesn’t necessarily have the depth or complexity of other titles. Whilst I don’t necessarily agree with that, you can certainly argue that it is doing exactly the types of things suggested for Tekken with diverse characters in a small roster.

The problem with P4A is that if you play a competent opponent or even AI level, you will still get completely destroyed. Despite the apparent lack of difficulty, you’ll still be blown up as you try to hit a button and you will have no idea why. The question asked by the casual gamer at this point might be along the lines of “what the fuck just happened?” and off back to “Call of Duty” they go. When you get a bullet through the brain from across the map it sucks in that game, but at least you know where it comes from.

Instead of no feedback, I want to see the end of the match present you with something like this:

It doesn’t take much to show how to block all those cross-up attacks that destroyed you. Similarly mashing buttons is a recipe for disaster but it is just as bad to press one in a frame-trap or other contrived situation. Players will learn this themselves over time, but time just isn’t something that fighting games can rely on. What we need is instant feedback and the chance to go back and practice those mistakes. Even adding a couple of attacks to a combo isn’t a difficult thing if you are told about it. So you should be. When your combo didn’t work at 33 seconds into the final round? The game knows that you missed a 2 frame link or what you attempted just isn’t going to work. Give the player another chance straight away and I’m sure they’ll get better.

How is this feasible? Well both next-gen consoles are constantly recording gameplay. It hence makes sense to me that the game would be able to timestamp snapshots to make this review and analysis possible. Will it be difficult to record all the combos and battle occurrences that are worth tracking? I don’t think so, considering you have to be working all this out anyway. Will it remove the sense of discovery for fighting game players? No I don’t think so. It can only go so far and the job really is to take players beyond the point of no return to getting sucked in forever.

With this system in place, fighting games are no longer an impenetrable mystery. They become something that players can dive into and continuously get better. This is especially important because of the other main driving factor. Practicing in fighting games sucks. Most people don’t want to spend time in training mode getting better, they just want to fight. So I say let people fight and train them in small chunks right after. After you have just had a beating down by some kid who was screaming obscenities at you the whole time? You might just be a little bit more motivated to learn.

I’m sure I’m not alone in getting fed up with losing and deciding it is time to spend a night in the training room to level up. But then when you start doing it? You realise it is getting late and you have a big day or work tomorrow and you have a million other games to play and within seconds you are playing something else or just fighting randoms again. If I had the feedback and instant gratification of a practice option? I might finally get that stupid Balrog dash uppercut loop down.

Once you have that in place, you then expand the social features of your games. Going onto youtube or SRK or NeoGAF is all well and good to learn about the games, but we can and must do better. Let players create a channel in game and allow subscriptions. Then when your favourite Julia player uploads a new combo you can view it and try it out yourself. Want to practice a particular situation between two characters? Empower players to set up the sequence themselves and then share it for others along with corresponding notes. This isn’t about being lazy, it is about making things easy which lets more people get better. They don’t need to be the next Chris G either, they just need to be good enough to compete and know why or why not they are winning. At that stage, fighting games and the unique thrill of competition they bring will do the rest.

From there you provide the same analysis features for other people’s matches, highlighting not only what they did wrong, but what they did right. Daigo just pulled off some crazy combo in a match? Well here it is, here is the notation and here it is ready to practice as a custom challenge. In this context it isn’t just for beginners to learn, it is something for veterans to sink their teeth into too.

You’ll notice in this discussion that there has been no mention of F2P business models to enhance sales. This is because I don’t believe we have the games to support them yet. F2P works for mobile devices because the games are addictive as hell and easy to get into. Whilst fighting games can certainly drain your life away, they take work and help to get to that point. Once we have the quality in place and the masses ready to be engaged? It will not really matter how you try to sell it. People will buy it and the ability for monetisation of community contributions will be there.

#Divekick – Review

I’ve never really played a divekick character in a fighting game. They are effective, but oh so cheap and annoying which means a game being based entirely around them isn’t a great start. When everybody can spam jumping into the air does it make things fun? Turns out it mostly does.

Divekick is a cross between a fighting game and a party game with the simple base mechanics of diving into the air and then kicking back down. Whilst technically it should really be called Jumpdivekick, I can see why they compromised for brevity so I’ll let it slide.

Matches play out simply. You pick your character and proceed to dance around the screen to score a hit. Once you get that first hit, the round is over and the process resets. This core simplicity is mixed up by special moves and character specific abilities like teleports or a hard to time parry. It is easy to pick up, it works and you’ll find yourself having a lot of fun without the usual barrier to entry of a more fleshed out entry in the genre.

There are two main criticisms of the title that I have seen. The first is that it looks like “a cheap flash game”. Whilst there are not exactly AAA production values going on here, I think the graphics are functional enough and attractive in their own way. Of special note are the well crafted sound samples and music. You’ll instantly smile at the intro sample when starting the game and the lobby music’s elevator theme is perfect for getting you into the mood for a match. Which is ideal, because you’ll be hearing it a lot. But more on that later.

To go with the underrated graphics, I’ll also address the theme that the game is “too complicated”. When first announced, the title was displayed as a simple battle between the two main protagonists “Dive” and “Kick”. From there, extra characters were added, air and ground abilities, characters that use lightining…it seemed to go on and on. The concern was that the game had progressed “beyond a joke” and was now trying to poorly emulate the exact genre that it was originally parodying.

Fortunately, I don’t think these concerns really play out in reality. Whilst there are plenty of strange abilities, they don’t play a huge part in matches because of the meter requirements. Whilst they can easily turn a match, this is more a fault of execution or letting your opponent dominate then learning execution or specific match-ups below the highest level. Your main concern is still the varied angles of your Divekicks, which is simple enough to grasp. Whilst a “pure” mode would have been welcome, the perceived over-complexity is not a concern.

There are however, some real issues that I have with the title. Firstly the game just launched, but already there seems to be a lack of an online presence on steam. Divekick includes a story mode, but it is quickly completed and isn’t really all that much fun. It shines as a competitive experience and that is where you want to be playing it. GGPO is godlike as ever and when you find a match it performs great, but just be aware that you will be best served by having a solid lineup of friends to play against in your region.

Presentation wise, the game sticks with the scheme of two buttons only, throughout the entire app. This includes the navigation of the menu screens which is a step too far. Whilst it makes sense given the potential support of a two button controller, probably 0.01% of people will ever have one, so a default option to use arrows or the mouse would have been a better move. By all means have a two button configuration, but let us make the choice if we don’t want to mess about before starting the action.

Finally a word about the Fighting Game Community references. The game is heavy with them and some of them are less subtle than others. Do you know the history (or lack thereof) of the Baz? Do you know who Markman is? Hint, he is a boss:

These type of references can go either way and can limit or increase your enjoyment of the game. Whilst I welcome the FGC focus, I do question some of the choices. As many will know, the FGC doesn’t exactly have the best reputation due to a number of incidents over the years. Whilst this is not a deserved reputation in my opinion, I can see where a lot of comes from given the reporting of negative events and actions of well known people in the scene. This is why I question the use of Mr N and Stream Monster in particular. Anybody curious about their origins might do some searching and find either an unsavoury past or a current consistent shame of fighting game streams. By all means include the high class illuminati like S-Kill, but I would hope any future efforts put the spotlight on more positive aspects of the community. Certainly there are enough there to select from.

Is Divekick worth your money? This will depend on how many people you have to play against. As a single player experience, it just doesn’t hold your attention long enough but with friends it shines. Even if you don’t follow the FGC, you could do a lot worse than jumping into the air and kicking back down.

The Fighting Game Community and Collusion – An Outsiders Opinion #FGC

The winds of (hopefully) change are sweeping through the fighting game community (FGC). Due to a number of repeated incidents of flagrant pot splitting and collusion in grand finals, a coalition of tournament organisers and related websites has got together to stamp out the process.

Here is the new rule being adopted care of Eventhubs:

Competitive spirit is the lifeblood of the fighting game community. Unfortunately, this year we have seen a few incidents where players intentionally underperformed, usually in the final matches of a tournament. This behavior is unacceptable, and it must end.

To guarantee the integrity of future tournaments, major tournament directors have come together to standardize Evo’s rule regarding player collusion:

“Collusion of any kind with your competitors is considered cheating. If the Tournament Director determines that any competitor is colluding to manipulate the results or intentionally underperforming, the collaborating players may be immediately disqualified. This determination is to be made at the sole discretion of the Tournament Director. Anyone disqualified in this manner forfeits all rights to any titles or prizes they might have otherwise earned for that tournament.”

Since that time a lot of people have commented on if this has been a good idea or not. The consensus from most is that it is a great initiative and that something had to be done. On the other hand, there is some concern about sites like SRK or Eventhubs not covering events that do not agree to this rule. Either way, it seems that doing something is better than nothing so we will all cross that bridge if problems arise from it down the track.

The top players to whom this change has been directed? Well they have often taken the opposite approach. Without calling out individuals, a clear pattern of comments along the lines of “we should be able to pick who we want” or “it is unfair, why should tournaments have this power” makes it clear that they don’t understand the real issue at all.

This drama all culminated in the SF4 grand finals at the Next Level Battle Circuit weekly event (NLBC) when we were about to be subjected to an unusual Yang/Balrog grand final. Quite rightly the broadcaster Spooky pulled the plug on this contemptuous display. Given the recent events it was almost unthinkable that the players involved wouldn’t have just picked their best and played it out. But instead here we are and it seems the real issue still hasn’t sunk in.

So this is where I will try to lay it out from a different perspective. I’m not from New York or California. In fact I’m on the other side of the world and will likely never get to go to a major American tournament. Nor, due to work and distance (this is a big ass country) am I involved in the major scenes in Australia, where groups like the Shadowloo do amazing work without any of the drama that gets associated with the FGC. Does that make my opinion of fighting games irrelevant? Maybe. So I’m not going to talk about frame traps or the validity of counter picking. Instead, I’m going to talk about life and here is a real beauty to throw at you:

If you don’t have a career and the start of a family by the time you are about twenty five? You are just fucking around.

That’ll be a statement that gets a lot of people offside, especially those younger or around that mark who haven’t achieved those seemingly arbitrary milestones. Even lots of people in their thirties or older will be scoffing at that and arguing that they are just doing fine and dandy as they are.

That might be true, you probably are doing fine. The point is that for most people? If you are not working towards those goals you are going to reach a point one day when you had wished that you had. You don’t need kids at 25. But when you have them at 35 your perspective on life will change. I know, I’m old enough to look back and think about what might have been. I can see missed opportunities, I regret time wasted on certain things and not enough time spent on others. I wish I had a better house and a faster car. And you know what? I’m actually not doing too badly at all.

How does this relate to collusion and the FGC? Well the link is quite clear to my mind from the two different parties involved.

Firstly organisers. Don’t believe the rumours and hype, these people are dedicating large portions of their lives to a mostly thankless and unprofitable task. What do they get in return? The satisfaction of a job well done, some experience and something they can look back on when they are older and feel proud about. When players do not take these events seriously? They are robbing these people of that feeling. Through no fault of their own, they are dragging these people down to the status of just fucking around.

Tournaments do not have to exist, streams do not have to be set up and nursed through hours and hours of free entertainment. Instead of spending a hundred hours on an event? These same people could spend a hundred hours interning for free at an event organisation company. It isn’t enough to just do something for the love of it. One day you’ll have somebody looking at you across the dinner table asking why they can’t go on a holiday this year. The answer may be that you spent six months running “Fighter Event 7” instead of building towards a promotion. When that talk happens? You will not want your kid watching the grand final on Youtube and seeing Dan vs Juri as the crowd boos. You’ll want to show them something that mattered, to you, because you loved it and so did everybody else that was there.

If you can, they’ll understand (eventually).

For players themselves it is even worse. The line that often gets thrown around is “I play for fun”. This sounds like a lie, to yourself and others or at least a short sighted mistake. Playing for fun is working a 50 hour week to feed your family and getting your mates around on the weekend for some beers and marvel. Fun is going to a tournament, finding another player and throwing down for $20 in a hastily cobbled together money match. Fun is never getting to a grand final and not trying your best and not taking it seriously because you feel you have nothing to gain by winning. If it is fun for you? Realise that it is only fun because it is a competitive tournament you got through, exactly the thing you are actively working to destroy. Players will walk away, sponsors will abandon you and organisers will start talking to the Dota crowd. Then you are left just holding your stick with a lot of wasted hours behind you. When you are flipping burgers or trying to learn how to play League of Legends properly? You’ll wish you had been working towards a degree instead.

Trust me, that feeling of regret is not going to be fun.

There are really two choices you have. Get a real job, get a real family and really play for fun. If you do this? You’ll enjoy your games, get the things you’ll one day wish you had got earlier and you’ll never have that awkward moment where you wake up and realise you have pissed away thousands of hours of your life.

The alternative is to play to win. Train like a crazy man, show up to every tournament and always present your best and body anybody who dares to sit down beside you. One day you still might wake up with no money living in a bad neighbourhood alone in your bed. But you know what? You’ll at least be able to look back at your time and know that you gave it your all. The FGC might have taken off or it might not have. But you would have tried your best to help every tournament organiser and every sponsor and every tournament to be the best it can be.

And you can be proud of that. And that’ll be enough.

So my plea to the “top players” who don’t understand what this is all about is for them to stop and really think it over. What are you going to be? Somebody who is pushing the FGC to be the best it can be? Somebody who is just playing games for fun and getting on with their real lives? Or somebody who is just fucking around and heading for a really bad epiphany at some point down the track.

You can’t have it all and at some point you have to choose. Next time you sit down at a grand final no matter how small the pot? Pick your best, win the match and smile to the camera after. You never know, things might just start to work out for you.