Smash vs Traditional Fighters

[CloneHat]

I recently purchased Tatsunoko vs Capcom. After watching lots of Vs. gameplay on the internet, I wanted to try it out for myself. However, I'm afraid to say that compared to Melee, the game feels much shallower than its competitive following would suggest.

The entire system feels archaic. No analogue usage, limited character movement, and more issues make controlling slow and restrictive. Most of the gameplay consists of simply hammering out practiced combos. Literally you throw projectiles, air dash back and forth, and wait for someone to get hit so you can watch 10 seconds of automated combo.

With so many fighters like this, I wonder: why has Melee not caught on? Smash seems so much more advanced than traditional fighters; why do the pros stick to Street Fighter?

 

[Bones0]

People will stick to what they know, and Melee is definitely the most unique fighting game I've ever heard of. Can't speak from experience, but it seems much more convenient to play Street Fighter and other traditional fighting games because transferring skills from one to the other is quite easy, so even as new games come out you can enjoy the same basic experience. Melee is probably never going to have a sequel that even comes close to it, so players who invest time in Melee are typically in it for the long haul.

 

[KishPrime]

As you state, analog controls are one of the biggest differentiators between Smash and other fighters. Most people don't give that aspect of the game nearly enough credit...it is a huge technical and skill barrier difference.

That said, traditional 2D fighters still have plenty of depth, it's just different depth. How much depth do you need for a good game, anyway? As long as it's good, few people are going to drop hundreds of hours of work to learn a new system.

 

[Massive]

Further contributing to Bones0's point, traditional fighters tend to be more popular than melee because all of their skills are transferable. Almost every game uses the basic dragon punch/hadoken input mechanic giving anybody who knows how to preform these moves an instant understanding of some core mechanics.

There is more incentive to switch to a newer game because of the similarity between the previous ones. Street Fighter players, for example can switch to Guilty Gear or King of Fighters without having to relearn all of their inputs. They can focus on combos/strategy right away without dealing with the basics like non-players or converts from non-similar fighters.

Smash is actually pretty similar to some other fighters. The input style in the Naruto GNT games is remarkably similar, even if the arenas are 3D and the games are not competitive. The shonen jump stars games on the DS are effectively tiny smash clones.

I highly recommend trying out street fighter or guilty gear though. They can be amazingly fun in their own right, and you can learn a lot about your habits by seeing what you're inclined to do in a different environment. There are always lessons you can apply to your smash game from other fighters.

 

[Myztek]

I've recently gotten into Marvel vs Capcom 3. While it's fun, it's still no where close to the same kinda fun I get out of Smash.

One of the reasons I prefer Smash so much is because of how dynamic it is. With things like directional influence, varying percentages and trajectories, etc, the game is almost always different. The likelihood of the same combo working twice in a row are much lower in Smash.

Most of all, Smash allows you to be very creative, I think. There are so many different options when performing a combo or just doing anything.

From the time I've played MvC 3, I can say the one thing I hate about it is getting hit and knowing there is NOTHING you can do while being combo'd. You simply have to wait for it to end, then go back to playing.

 

[MTKO]

Further contributing to Bones0's point, traditional fighters tend to be more popular than melee because all of their skills are transferable. Almost every game uses the basic dragon punch/hadoken input mechanic giving anybody who knows how to preform these moves an instant understanding of some core mechanics.

There is more incentive to switch to a newer game because of the similarity between the previous ones. Street Fighter players, for example can switch to Guilty Gear or King of Fighters without having to relearn all of their inputs. They can focus on combos/strategy right away without dealing with the basics like non-players or converts from non-similar fighters.

Smash is actually pretty similar to some other fighters. The input style in the Naruto GNT games is remarkably similar, even if the arenas are 3D and the games are not competitive. The shonen jump stars games on the DS are effectively tiny smash clones.

I highly recommend trying out street fighter or guilty gear though. They can be amazingly fun in their own right, and you can learn a lot about your habits by seeing what you're inclined to do in a different environment. There are always lessons you can apply to your smash game from other fighters.

I just installed Guilty Gear XX #Reload (I think that's what it's called) last night. I use my keyboard because I don't have a controller, but it seems pretty easy to get used to the controller. I've only played a little Super Street Fighter II Turbo before, so I'm pretty unfamiliar with these types of fighting games. It seems like it can be a lot of fun though. I don't have anyone else to play against, which is the only problem right now.

 

[Hydro_Smasher]

I love melee. Street fighter 3 alpha is cool, but nothing matches melee in my heart.

 

[Brightside6382]

I recently purchased Tatsunoko vs Capcom. After watching lots of Vs. gameplay on the internet, I wanted to try it out for myself. However, I'm afraid to say that compared to Melee, the game feels much shallower than its competitive following would suggest.

The entire system feels archaic. No analogue usage, limited character movement, and more issues make controlling slow and restrictive. Most of the gameplay consists of simply hammering out practiced combos. Literally you throw projectiles, air dash back and forth, and wait for someone to get hit so you can watch 10 seconds of automated combo.

With so many fighters like this, I wonder: why has Melee not caught on? Smash seems so much more advanced than traditional fighters; why do the pros stick to Street Fighter?

You play one fighting game other then melee, you don't even learn the game or get into it much. Now you think you are qualified to say something is more advanced then the other? You are an idiot.

 

[Mooo]

You play one fighting game other then melee, you don't even learn the game or get into it much. Now you think you are qualified to say something is more advanced then the other? You are an idiot.

He actually is asking for reasons why smash isn't more advanced, he said that smash seems more advanced and that he wants to know why it isn't/isn't seen as such. You're the idiot here.

 

[Pengie]

Anyone who says that Melee is "deeper" or more "advanced" than other traditional fighting games is an idiot. The same goes for anyone saying the opposite. Both types of games look vastly different but in realit they are extremely similar; for instance, Street Fighter footsies are nothing more than a less epileptic version of dashdancing in Melee. Both techniques serve the same purpose (bait out a move from the opponent to punish it) but they look totally different because Street Fighter tends to be more methodical in the way that it looks.. As far as how difficult they are to play when compared to one another, sure most taditional fighters would have difficulty doing extended combos in Melee, but at the same time, I wonder how many smashers would be able to do an reset with Sentinel's unblockable (2 frame window at the end of Sentinel's fierce I believe.) in MvC2 or one of the myriad resets that Magneto has in the same game. As for the movement aspect that you mentioned, that probably has more to do with the fact that TvC is pretty canned in terms of movement; a game like Marvel 2 feels much more open. All in all, both smash and traditional fighters require a great deal of skill and neither is more "advanced" than the other. If anyone truly believes that that is the case then I invite them to enter a tournament for whichever game they view as less "advanced" so that they can get bodied by everyone there.

 

[CloneHat]

Anyone who says that Melee is "deeper" or more "advanced" than other traditional fighting games is an idiot.
...
If anyone truly believes that that is the case then I invite them to enter a tournament for whichever game they view as less "advanced" so that they can get bodied by everyone there.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the complexity of the game. A highly skilled archer might not be able to fry a simple omelette; different skills are being used in both situations, regardless of proficiency. Claiming that a game can't be more complex than another is like arguing how all characters are equal because they all have strengths and weaknesses.

I'm saying that Smash has many more options at the player's disposal. Movement in Smash is easily more complex than in an average traditional 2D fighter. Agree?

Combos. In traditional fighters, we have hit confirms, combos on crouching characters, damage scaling, and more to worry about. In Melee, we have different character weights, fall speeds, damage percentages, double jumps, air dodges, and most importantly, DI, which adds an element of cognitivity to combos. Once again, more options.

I'm not woefully ignorant on either subject, and I'm not trying to slander traditional fighters. I hope I can encourage healthy debate and see reason in both sides, but for now I am giving my viewpoint.

 

[StretchNutz]

Well I like UMK3.... so yeah. Kabal is easymode.

 

[Bigfish]

What do u think of Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 2??? my friend a tree is really good at it!!

 

[Zodiac]

Im a TvC player myself and let me tell you , melee is faster than it..and you know why? Because it is one of the two FASTEST fighting games out there. MvC2 is faster, but thats it. you'll be hard pressed to find anything faster than melee, or deeper. But TvC does have depth if you're willing to look for it, of course not as deep as melee.

 

[1048576]

2 Frame window is easy sauce for most smashers I'd imagine. RSHDL is a 3 frame window between jump and lazer and it requires a million inputs and every Fox in New York can do that.

 

[The Star King]

I don't know much about other 2D fighters, but I'm not going to assume that Smash is more deep just because I've delved further into Smash more than the other fighting games.

 

[Signia]

TvC wasn't really well received... I haven't heard much in the way of tournaments or events with TvC lately, the community is dead... it's a Wii game, it never stood a chance.

I can totally understand other fighting gamers being turned off by Melee. The game gets no support from its developers, and there are no sponsors (money), so it appears to be a dying franchise even though its community is actually running beautifully. Complete outsiders will see Brawl as part of the series and lump them together... and that game feels nothing like a fighting game.

As far as the actual game goes... notice how different this game is. There is no health bar. You get kills with ringouts. Everything feels inconsistent (even though everything is... it's just super complex) because of analog inputs, hitbox complexity. And while the complexity causes every situation to be appear unique, this can be a turnoff to some players who are looking for repeatable strategies to adopt. When strategies aren't repeatable, everything feels random. They actually are repeatable... there are just a lot of them, and you have to determine what to on the fly... so it feels dumb and random for a longer time than in other fighters.

Without a health bar, the game changes so much that many believe it belongs in its own subgenre. Go on SRK and you will see people claim it's not a fighting game at all. And they're right... by their definition, which requires a health bar.

We all probably think they're being short-sighted... but you really can't apply the same mindset in Smash as in health bar fighting games. The percentage mechanic is only an illusion of damage... they will only die when you push them into the blast zones. Instead of positioning, spacing, and mixing up being a means of doing damage, damage becomes a means of changing positioning until they're off the stage.

As someone who came from playing Soul Calibur IV competitively (which has ringouts), the transition didn't feel that strange... ringouts in that game are like "gimps" in Melee.
But I still cannot get the idea of "damage is not REALLY doing anything" out my head when I play the game. Since traditional fighters and Melee play differently in this respect, they are justified in their doubts about Smash being in the same genre.

 

[ETWIST51294]

My god this thread is ********...

Did I really see someone say that GG and SF are easy to cross over because they have the same inputs? Are you stupid or just ignorant? GG has some wild inputs ans SF is completly different and they arent similar other than the fact that theyre 2D and have a health bar. You guys need to play some fgs before talking out of your ***, because its really obvious that 90% of you aren't even mediocre at traditional fighters.

 

[MK26]

question: is DI unique to smash or are there any traditional fighters that use a similar system or one that accomplishes a similar goal?

What about being able to turn around and look away from your opponent?

 

[Roneblaster]

Etwist in dis bietchhhh



Ninjaed

 

[Lovage]

i was gonna post some of my thoughts in this thread

but then etwist posted and ruined the chances of anything ever good coming from this thread lol

 

[CloneHat]

My god this thread is ********...

Did I really see someone say that GG and SF are easy to cross over because they have the same inputs? Are you stupid or just ignorant? GG has some wild inputs ans SF is completly different and they arent similar other than the fact that theyre 2D and have a health bar. You guys need to play some fgs before talking out of your ***, because its really obvious that 90% of you aren't even mediocre at traditional fighters.

Seeing as you're an expert at both games, it would be nice to hear your opinion on the subject.

 

[Signia]

Lol ETWIST is right I just didn't want to be that one mean guy in the thread for once

some of you said some hilarious things that show how limited your scope of the FG community is.

 

[mallu000]

I don't understand why people always bring up the depth and complexity issues. What does it matter and is it really relevant? I mean there's no one who can master everything technical in smash, street fighter or in any other competitive fighter. I mean let's say Melee is the most complex game there is and let's put a number on it like 100. Then there's SSFIV which has the number of 95. Now let's say most competitive fighting games fall on the range of 85 to 100. So who can tell the difference between a 90 and a 92 game or even 95 and 100? Who even chooses game to play based on those kind of numbers. It really doesn't matter if the game is TvsC, MvsC, Smash or SF because they all have enough things to make the winning based solely on skill and it's just about choosing the one you like most if you're in position to choose a competitive game. And then there's the thing that even the best players in every popular game have something to learn and they never achieve that 100 % potential that is theoretically possible.

There should be talk about why people turn away from smash or choose smash over traditional fighting games and not about such trivial and silly questions like the depth issue and "herpderp smash is not fighting game because it's not herpderp".

One thing I prefer in SF and TvsC is that there's rarely moments when I have absolutely no idea what happened. In Smash there comes quite often moments when I don't understand what happened no matter if I did something good or got KO'd. I'd say traditional fighting games have more solid mechanics and I know in most cases what happened and why. This I can clearly see as a reason why many people turn away from Smash and the high learning curve is totally related to this and a part of it.

 

[ETWIST51294]

Seeing as you're an expert at both games, it would be nice to hear your opinion on the subject.

I'm not and expert and I never said i was. I'm good at them though. And that post wasn't aimed at you btw.

My opinion is stfu and actually LEARN how to play some fgs before you say an opinion. Smashers who act like thier game is super ****ing more complex than everything else piss me off just as much as FG elitists that think smash is super easymode and is for kids.

 

[Pengie]

This doesn't really have anything to do with the complexity of the game. A highly skilled archer might not be able to fry a simple omelette; different skills are being used in both situations, regardless of proficiency. Claiming that a game can't be more complex than another is like arguing how all characters are equal because they all have strengths and weaknesses.

The whole point that I was trying to get across was that they're not really all that different. Smashers like to think that they're all unique little snowflakes because of a couple of things in Smash are different, but overall the same skills in Melee can be applied across the board in most other fighters.

I'm saying that Smash has many more options at the player's disposal. Movement in Smash is easily more complex than in an average traditional 2D fighter. Agree?

I never really saw that as being a point of contention, but sure. Although I will say that, except for a couple of characters, most of those options don't get used outside of spacing and tech-chasing every now and then. Most of the time you see dash-dancing as the primary movement because you don't really have to commit to anything. Every now and then you'll see players wavedash back, but, at least in my experience, that's just to readjust the spacing.

Combos. In traditional fighters, we have hit confirms, combos on crouching characters, damage scaling, and more to worry about. In Melee, we have different character weights, fall speeds, damage percentages, double jumps, air dodges, and most importantly, DI, which adds an element of cognitivity to combos. Once again, more options.

Of all the things mentioned, DI is really the only significant one; if there's one thing that really sets Melee apart from other fighters it's that (aside from the obvious stages/platforms). It does lend more of a dynamic nature that I personally don't see in other fighting games; however you seem to be focusing on a small part of the game. Sure Melee's combo game gives both players more options, but other fighters more than make up for that in the lead up to the combo; that is to say, the mixup game. Smash is relatively lacking in mix ups because of the all purpose shield that, as long as it's not to small, blocks everything. Meanwhile other fighters have crossups and the ambiguity that those can bring, as well as overheads/lows to open people up. If there's one big difference that I've noticed between the communities it's that Smashers tend to focus on the actual combos whereas the traditional fighters tend to focus more on the process of opening people up rather than the combo. I guess that that's just a natural extension of where most of the options lie for each game.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

One thing I prefer in SF and TvsC is that there's rarely moments when I have absolutely no idea what happened. In Smash there comes quite often moments when I don't understand what happened no matter if I did something good or got KO'd. I'd say traditional fighting games have more solid mechanics and I know in most cases what happened and why. This I can clearly see as a reason why many people turn away from Smash and the high learning curve is totally related to this and a part of it.

I like that kind of depth in a game, SF and TvC doesn't have more "solid" mechanics, just more simple. I don't mean this in any offense way at all, but just because only good players can make use of those super fast moments doesn't mean we should take them out for those who can't use their character as well. Those shine->bair moments you see on youtube that have everybody in the comments go "WTF happened at 13:53!" aren't accidents.

Speaking of TvC, I actually enjoyed that game more than SF4. It was basically MvC 2.5 and it was nice to see a decent VS game more recent than MvC 2. The joystick online is about 30 dollars now, opposed to those 130 dollar ones available at the same brand and quality for 130 dollars. Of course, MvC 3 came out and crushed whatever was left of it.

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

The fact is that there will never be an agreement on this touchy subject.

I personally think Melee is chess and other fighting games are either checkers, connect four, or tic-tac-toe. But then again I will admit I know nothing about other fighting games and thus my opinion is utter worthless trash.

I really liked X-Men Mutant Academy though for the PSX. Greatest fighter ever.

 

[mallu000]

I like that kind of depth in a game, SF and TvC doesn't have more "solid" mechanics, just more simple. I don't mean this in any offense way at all, but just because only good players can make use of those super fast moments doesn't mean we should take them out for those who can't use their character as well. Those shine->bair moments you see on youtube that have everybody in the comments go "WTF happened at 13:53!" aren't accidents.

Speaking of TvC, I actually enjoyed that game more than SF4. It was basically MvC 2.5 and it was nice to see a decent VS game more recent than MvC 2. The joystick online is about 30 dollars now, opposed to those 130 dollar ones available at the same brand and quality for 130 dollars. Of course, MvC 3 came out and crushed whatever was left of it.

Well yeah, I just wanted to avoid the world "simple" because it easily gives the wrong idea but I agree with you. I'm just not a big fan of that kind of complexity cause it would take me too much effort to get to the level where I can "see" everything that's happening and understand those wtf-moments even though they are quite funny sometimes. And I can totally understand those who prefer smash-only but I want to be able to challenge people in many games and switch between them easily.


TvsC had potential but the fact that it's a Wii game and most people don't know Tatsunoko killed it. I play it quite often yet and I too prefer it over SF4. I usually don't like the tag team stuff but in TvsC it's done quite well and in a way it's easy to pick up and understand the possibilities there lie.

 

[Deleted member]

Lol ETWIST is right I just didn't want to be that one mean guy in the thread for once

some of you said some hilarious things that show how limited your scope of the FG community is.

how about you actually explain **** instead of keeping ur elitist **** to yourself

 

[VicViper]

Oh lordy, it seems like some of you have a lot to learn about traditional fighters.

I can certainly understand why this place gets as much crap as it does. So many ignorant assumptions have been made in this thread based on complete inexperience and very shoddy intuition.

There really aren't too many major differences between Smash and "traditional" fighters. It's only about as different from "traditional" fighters as the 2D Mortal Kombat games are.

I recommend going onto SRK or Dustloop or what have you and learning about a variety of games. I recommend Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike, Capcom VS SNK 2, Marvel VS Capcom 2, Arcana Heart 3, Vampire Savior, Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo, and Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting in particular.

 

[Redact]

Oh lordy, it seems like some of you have a lot to learn about traditional fighters.

I can certainly understand why this place gets as much crap as it does. So many ignorant assumptions have been made in this thread based on complete inexperience and very shoddy intuition.

There really aren't too many major differences between Smash and "traditional" fighters. It's only about as different from "traditional" fighters as the 2D Mortal Kombat games are.

I recommend going onto SRK or Dustloop or what have you and learning about a variety of games. I recommend Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike, Capcom VS SNK 2, Marvel VS Capcom 2, Arcana Heart 3, Vampire Savior, Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo, and Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting in particular.

You sounded like you had an idea for a second, then you fail to mention Guilty Gear, but instead mention Vampire Savior, AH3 and such?

I've been playing 2d fighters for a while and am among the one of the top players in my country in the games I actually play (Im not a fan of SF) but I agree with the majority of people here.

I feel that the majority, if not all 2d fighters are just too simplistic when it comes to a large amount of factors.

Oh you blocked ___? You punish with ___ for maximum damage, or you try to do something gimmicky and milk out more damage from getting a counter hit/something with better scaling off (with risk)?

The thing that I find simplistic about these games is that once you hit, you have two options theoretically: Go for the most damage possible, or go for some reset/gimmick to milk out more unless defended correctly.

I don't feel smash suffers from this combo/punishing flaw, due to the way DI and knockback is, most combos will be different and there is almost always oppurtunity for more damage if you predict correctly.


Most games have I find have very stale movement, especially the SF series, where each game has the basics (such as backdash, forward dash, super jump) and some form of +1 (rolling, airdash or such) which ends up not having enough options IMO in comparison to melee.


Disagree with me as you will, but this is a simple statement of opinion from someone who plays a large amount of 2d fighters.



Also another note: When I try to get other 2d fighting game players here into smash, I find that the players here find melee to be one of the following:
Too fast
Too complex
Not linear enough

or simply enough

"Too hard"

 

[ETWIST51294]

vampire savior = GG real talk.

Most underrated fg ever

 

[Redact]

vampire savior = GG real talk.

Most underrated fg ever

Yes but one of them is still played (in Japan at least) and has a much better reputation
(and N-O only plays one of them LOL)


Also noticed I didn't even mention % vs HP, another thing that IMO smash has going for it

 

[ETWIST51294]

VS is still alive in JP dude. They still have nationals that get about 150 people.

And i don't see how GG has a better rep when VS never got the chance to have one.

 

[Redact]

VS is still alive in JP dude. They still have nationals that get about 150 people.

And i don't see how GG has a better rep when VS never got the chance to have one.

It has a better rep because its more well known and it's commonly underrated

Its not so much a bad rep (as in people think the game is bad) it's more along the lines of "no one has any idea about this game"

 

[ETWIST51294]

Well, yeah. People know it exists but ignore it (in America). But w/e, we got GGPO I guess.

 

[THeDarKnesS]

I think that Melee players have A LOT of bias when it comes to good fighting games. I don't think ANY game will live up to SSBM. There will always be something you wish was better, even in Melee, yet most claim perfection.

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

Ok so in an effort to increase my knowledge base on other fighting games, I decided to check out shoryuken.com. While checking it out I decided to see what the other FG communities said about melee by reading already existing posts. These are a couple I came across...
http://shoryuken.com/f2/super-smash-brothers-253912/
http://shoryuken.com/content/if-smash-bros-fight-club-1390/#comments

So as it appears, they are a bunch of closed minded elitist morons with no respect for our game. So why should we respect theirs?

As far as I'm concerned, after reading that crap I couldn't give a **** less about all these shallow traditional clone war "can't not look at my enemy" button mashing combo memorizing life bar sucking homo games. If you defend that crap over smash, just like they told somebody on shoryuken, get the hell off smashboards and go back to shoryuken. I piss on your genre and am proud they don't consider melee a fighting game. It's 100% factual that Melee is the better, deeper, funner, and more competitive game through and through. Suck on that.

Checkers, son.

 

[CloneHat]

I'd think we can do better than flamers on SRK, Zivilyn Bane.

Redact presents a good example of someone who has a thorough knowledge of both, and backs up his point accordingly.