Could a knockback-based platform fighter with a deliberate de-emphasis on combos have competitive potential?

[Quillion]

(Yes, I know I've started way too many of these "What if a knockback-based platform fighter..." threads)

I know some may find that thought abhorrent given how Brawl-on Smash games are, but still, Samurai Shodown gets a lot of respect as a competitive game despite how integral combos are to the vast majority of fighting games.

So giving it some thought, if some group were to make a knockback-based platform fighter designed around not doing combos, it could probably be something like this:

• Fighters need to die easily, this is a given so that matches aren't agonizingly slow.
• Projectiles would be extremely weak at best (and only on one or two characters) so that the risk-reward of getting in for big hits is in play.
• No i-frame maneuvers like rolling and dodging, since that would unnecessarily drag out matches.
• There's more reason to tutorialize DI so that survivability on hit can be extended with good reads. Maybe late shields could also improve on the obscure V-cancel mechanic in Melee.

 

[Kirbeh]

Never thought about something like this tbh, but it sounds like it'd make for an interesting experience at least. Perhaps stages in such a game would have more platforms and stage objects to tech off of to try and increase survivability if they choose to go with really high kb

 

[Quillion]

Never thought about something like this tbh, but it sounds like it'd make for an interesting experience at least. Perhaps stages in such a game would have more platforms and stage objects to tech off of to try and increase survivability if they choose to go with really high kb

This kind of set up could be a way to make walls balanced. Never thought of that.