The eternal question in fighting games. 

The interesting thing about HnK combos is that they aren't infinites, they're actually just so long that your opponent dies in fucking real life

"This unexplored game seems to have less mechanics/depth to it than *game that has been played and labbed for years*"

"I've got one more emote slot bro" might be the funniest threat ive ever heard

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes", so these haters will be out here dropping bars every new release.

“Holding three buttons for OS” “Noob friendly” Hold up, when did new players care about OSes?

Twitter tomorrow: "LK digs up 10 year old drama and TRASH TALKS west coast players"

I’m reminded of a quote from Core-A-gaming “complexity does not equal depth.” I’m not saying complexity is a bad thing, but it’s not the be all end all.

if you switched your whole channel to talking about the intricacies of mad old fgs, or just talking about stories from those times then i would be THRIVING

It’s interesting that people used sf4 as an analogy for a scrub game. That sounds insane today lmao. It really goes to show that no matter how hard the game is it’ll be too easy

"Hokuto No Ken is the sequel to NBA Jam" So... Shaq Fu 2?

I think as much as alot of hardcore FG players want the crazy complex gameplay that they romanticize about, the reality of it is that it's not very marketable for the average litte Timmy. And to be fair there's ways around that! Good tutorials, the holy r word netcode, and decent single player content can go a long way, but at the end of the day I think it'll always be a hard decision for devs to choose the balance of whether they wanna sacrifice complexity for the sake of their game making money so that they can keep making more FGs. At the same time though, I think it's also fair for people to make genuine concerns for core issues (like Strive's terrible lobbies or the heavy input delay at the start of SFV S1) and we should always make that clear to devs. This shit just ain't black and white is all I'm sayin.

The everlasting never-ending endless without end perpetual undying immortal deathless indestructible imperishable immutable abiding question in fighting games

He has the same energy as the guy that sits in twitch chats shit talking games that he doesn't even play, but stroking it to how difficult his game is--which he also doesn't even play.

He says BlazBlue noob friendly but I could only get two friends irl to buy it. They all said it's too hard and kept asking me who is the Ryu of the game.

If all these games are getting easier, why am I not a 10-time Evo champion?

I feel like people are quick to forget that a lot of this "easy mode" shit that they hate also allows them to do absolutely nutty shit that wouldn't be possible otherwise. The game usually ends up funner for everyone at every level

DBFZ is what got me into the FGC. I remember at the beginning I even found quarter circle motions and the basic universal bnb to be challenging. Xrd and Accent Core are my favorite games now, but if they were my first fighting game I know for sure I never would have stuck around. Even DBFZ was still too difficult for some of my irl friends to stick with.

I'm just shocked that Blazblue was considered a noob game way back then. When I got Calamity Trigger my friend said "it's a fighting game where every character is like learning a new fighting game."

Man, i wasnt paying attention and when you said the eternal fighting game question I coulda swore you were gonna say "will this kill?" Love the vids man

Can’t we all just fast forward our mindset to the release of Guilty Gear XXXXXXtacular and start talking about how the good old days of STRIVE was “REAL” Guilty Gear

KoF has had a hold button buffer since 97 iirc, but it's only for special moves and supers

When I hear that question being raised, most of the time it is from some dude who spent a lot of time and effort to be good in that specific game and still lost a single match from someone else who he thinks its "newbie"... It may not be true for every one, and im NOT saying the guy in THIS video thinks this way.

The *eternal question* is adult gohan the *one*

" .. I look at BlazBlue as SFIV for people who play Guilty Gear." I'm gonna be honest, as someone who only got in the fgc because of DBFZ, I have no idea what this means lmao

So basically, Arcsys ain't acting brand-new, this is something they've been [STRIVE]ing toward for a long time now.

A lot of the "new game bad" mentality comes from the basic human fear of things changing. Unfortunately, this often results in lots of old players complaining about changes for shallow reasons. There are often times very legitimate concerns hidden among these complaints that get ignored by people who are very hype for the new game. I do think a general trend towards accessibility is a good thing, but its implementation often shaves the skill ceiling. As many before me have said, the best games have a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling. They have lots of room for expression and player creativity, through avenues such as movement, character-moveset-variety, and lots of freedom within the game system itself. I think a lot of newer games are especially hindered in the moveset category, with games like GBVS having very similar combo routes, similar damage, and similar setups across the whole roster. Games like SFV and DBFZ intentionally removed options from the strong "fun" characters (RIP launch Cell), and had fairly barebones systems, rather than trying to make the whole cast fun and create a system that encouraged creativity. However, both of these games seem to have strayed from that balance/game design philosophy, with newer DBFZ characters having more and more unique movesets, as well as selectable assists, and with SFV introducing all sorts of new system mechanics to the game. As a result, both SFV and DBFZ have become very enjoyable games for me to watch and experience. While I'm not heavily invested into either, my interest in them has grown a lot after I ignored them both for years. I also still think both of these games have the same skill floor as they did at launch. When the options available to the player increased, the skill ceiling also increased. I'd also like to talk about Strive, since the entire gear community is divided on this. I think a large part of the reaction to this game has to do with the aforementioned fear of change. I remember the timespan from 2017 to 2019 when all of my Xrd-playing friends would stay up late, watching top 8s at all sorts of events in hope of news. I watched them slowly become jaded when they realized we probably wouldn't get another update to REV2. I was also somewhat dissatisfied with the state of REV2, and began to move onto other games. When Strive was first revealed at EVO, everyone was hype again. Some people were hesitant, but the general trend was a positive attitude. However, when they finally revealed the mechanics, it became clear that Arcsys had changed a LOT. I often see people compare the Xrd players who are upset with Strive to the XX players who were upset with Xrd. But I think this lacks the understanding of how greatly Strive changes things. The removal of P>K>S>H>D gatlings is quite literally the end of a 20 YEAR TRADITION. Huge changes like this were bound to be divisive. A lot of my Xrd friends felt betrayed by Arcsys, as though they had waited 2 years for a game that spat on everything they knew about their favorite game. While this is obviously an overreaction, I don't think that the whole of Xrd players who don't like Strive should be dunked on. As for Strive as a game, I'm not really interested in it, and Xrd's lack of rollback has made me move on from my most-played game ever (I picked up MBAACC btw, great game, I've made lots of friends and made a lot of progress as a player in the past 2 years). But I don't think Strive lacks the movement, character variety, and system options that create a deep game. It still has airdashes (albeit changed), it has very distinct characters, and it has the most complex RC system of any GG game to date. I'm not really sure why I wrote all of this, it's kind of a mish-mash of lots of ideas. I'm not even sure if it's on-topic. But if you'd like to discuss further in the replies I'd be glad to.

“HNK is like the sequel to NBA Jam for fighting games.” Sign me up!!!! LMFAOOOOO!

The eternal question in fighting games: "What's the mix?"

The "New thing bad, old thing good" Is just people in general sadly. It never stops being boring that's for sure.

VIRTUA FIGHTER 5!! LK your timing is impeccable!

The answer to the question: any fighting game is bad unless it includes Hakumen

To my understanding, HnK is a combination of 2 things: - Characters bounce off the ground. The harder they hit the floor, the higher they bounce. Just a fun mechanic to give impact to the bounces. - Gravity scaling only affects you pre-bounce and just pretty much makes you hit the ground harder So you get this situation where "gravity" is really high and you get shot downwards. Then you hit the ground really fast so you bounce high. Then gravity scaling doesn't affect you on the way back up.

Great video loved it from minute one Thank you thank you

I've found CF to be a lot more complicated to learn than rev2. In rev I can mash 5K and confirm as Chipp or just default to gamma RC. Playing Bang, my gatlings are kinda weird (You can't do 2b-6a...but you can do 2b-5b-6a, you only have one jab, and it can't go into 2a etc) and I die if I get challenged or fail to crouch confirm and whiff 6c. That's ignoring all the other character specific stuff. Sure its not optimal or high level but that's the point, CF actually feels harder to break into.

Everytime you said 'he said this game' I was on the floor xD

This video is maybe the most perfect to kick off this discussion. I've been involved in fighting games for about a decade now and there has always been this dichotomy of gatekeeping for the community vs developer intentions. If I'm remembering correctly LK, you have a bit of history in Melee, and while that's not my scene I think it underscores your point perfectly. Around 20134-2014 with Project M was really hitting its peak, there was a massive internal debate whether or not they should remove L-Canceling. This of course being the incredibly small frame window in which a player in melee could input "L" to "cancel" the landing recovery of their move. With PM being an attempt to preserve the technical execution of Melee it was obviously ported over. However, as its popularity rose many new players found the input arbitrary. There is no interaction with it, it is simply required every single time you input a jump normal or you're slower than everyone else. So, the community starts debating "what's the purpose of an arbitrary input?" I found this fascinating because this is literally a competitive community having the power to dictate game mechanics. When it came down to it, the community decided it was more important for them to have an execution barrier than make the game more accessible and grow its audience. Now, obviously that community ran into some other hurdles, but I bring this up to underscore your initial point; members of the community have and will always complain about making the game "too easy" when developers start removing whatever the community feels separate them from the "Others" who have not put in the time with their game. L-Canceling, as with the very first combo system in fighting games, was a glitch. A technical oversight that allowed players that really practiced it to basically play a completely different game than those that didn't. Dating back to Street Fighter II, fighting game developers have taken that glitch and refined it intentionally into a feature. Ever since, any kind of similar refining has clearly been met with pushback from individuals who tie their identity to being able to do something others cannot. However, while I on the whole agree that refining mechanics, typically described as "simplifying them" is not itself a negative thing, I also think this video serves as a good jumping off point to the real conversation; when is it "too much?" Personally, I feel "too much" has been when "simplification" goes beyond reducing the execution barrier and begins encroaching on player interaction. Simplifying execution, consolidating redundant mechanics, etc. is the type of simplification I feel is hard to argue against. It allows newer players to get into the game without an encyclopedic knowledge of mechanics or hours worth of hand exercises to enjoy the game. The only counter argument being that gatekeepers don't want new players to have an easier time. I've always felt execution is actually the "easy" part of fighting games. Not to say it comes easily, my execution is still trash and I'll never be competing at Evo top 8, but rather learning combos and mechanics pales in comparison to learning how to play against other people. I'd go so far as to say combos are dribbling drills, but if you still have to focus on them during the real game you aren't really playing. My problem is when simplification stops focusing on the "dribbling" and starts changing how you're allowed to play the game. Changing the way I'm allowed to play has been my issue with Strive, and why I'm frustrated both by the "It's easier so its bad" Twitter and the "Y'all complain about everything Twitter." As evidenced by this video, fans may have been complaining about simplification for over a decade, but developers have been doing it intentionally to "widen the audience" for just as long. So has it worked? That I can't answer, anecdotally my friends that don't play fighting games aren't turned off because they're "too hard" it more often than not has to do with the fact that they don't want to play a game they feel like they have to work to enjoy. This is never going to change for fighting games, the competition is inherent in the genre meaning you'll always be bad compared to someone else. But I don't want to devolve into a discussion on why X genre is more popular than Y. I want to focus on the type of simplification I feel justified in saying is too much. My love for Guilty Gear as a franchise is the sheer diversity in playstyle. Not just from character to character, but from player to player. Kizzer plays Ky incredibly different than Zenzen, who plays different than Ain, who plays different from Rion, so on and so forth. However, They all win. They all have unique playstyles with the same characters, and they still find results. Because there is not "Correct" way to play. This core difference is why I've been at best apprehensive about Strive since the first beta. The characters, not just their execution, seem so streamlined. It now feels like there is a way you HAVE to play them, they were designed to be played this way and do not function being played another way. I also feel it's gone beyond that and the cast has been homogenized to the point that most characters seem to run the exact same gameplan. This was my fundamental issue with DBFZ, the characters largely feel the exact same. This isn't an issue caused by auto-combos or larger buffer windows; it's an issue cause by the core mechanics of the game being changed to streamline interaction. I would personally prefer every game going forward be granblue, with its auto combos and one button special, than feel like the game is trying to funnel the way I approach fighting my opponent.

5:01 I really like the way this was phrased. I really envy folks who are able to see the games in this way. One of my best friends and training partners is really good at this sort of thing, being able to explain why a mechanic is in a game beyond a surface level explanation and I feel like I'm definitely the kind of person who just tries to 'fight the game'.

God that persona music in the back ❤️

just found the channel. awesome content. I remember when everyone was super mad about SF IV back in the day. also, if execution is easier but you do not know the fundamentals of the game you can know all the moves and combos and still lose everytime you play against someone who knows his fundamentals.

Lord Knight doujin tier list please.

Bruh that made chuckle about the Barrier/Throw OS. Even back then I knew you could hard call the OS out. On super flash if they OS'd it would force the grab out and they would be hit, Free. Meter gain was busted back then. Dash cancel Houtenjin : did they get hit? No, rapid. Yes, full combo and build 43 meter back. Do it again lol.

As a noob and scrub myself, newer fighting games are created for someone as stupid as me lol. So if fighting games actually required intelligence, my brain would just die lol. All jokes aside, I couldn't get into games like Tekken and UMVC3 because of how difficult it was and it was just too much.

And BB winds up outselling every GG title to date paving the way to other easy execution fighters of its type like P4A and DBFZ which were all hugely successful and brought more people to fighting games last decade whereas Xrd ended up stumbling out the gate with SIGN and once it reached the finish line with Rev2 CF already beat it.

If I was a new player and someone did that combo to me I think I'd just fuckin quit right there lol, nobody got time for that.

HnK probably has the most cursed combos ever.

Oh yeah, that button hold system was in Chaos Code as well. They had it work for as long as you hold the button. It still has some true 1 frame link combos due to how Cthylla's Incarnation super works, but yeah, I like the system. It feels good.

Advance inputs sounds super fucking cool ngl. 5 input repeating chances for 1fr links sounds like such a good thing.

Man that ec vs wc dustloop/melty bread forums drama was comedy gold. 10/10 would love to see it again Buzzsaw plays pot

Love the persona4 soundtrack in the background lol

I think what people are saying in this vid and about Strive (and DBFZ and other games) are different though, since the BB question was “Why is execution being simplified” and the other questions are “Why is *decisionmaking* being simplified?”, which are two different questions, I feel

"blazblue so noob friendly" and here I am having arthrhytis after playing 1 match

How can anyone look at that footage of hnk, and say this looks fine, this looks entertaining to watch?

that end sentence is gold

Lordknight: "I don't want to get into east coast vs west coast" Lordknight two minutes later: "let me tell you about going to west coast"

Really intressting Video :) i think Noob friendly with deep Mechanics is the best you can do 😅 DBZ Fighterz is the best reason for that And his Look 😂😂 omg legendary Moment

That HnK game looks lit. Never played and a huge fan of the series, gonna have to see if I can find it. This isn't my first Rodeo, I've seen people hate on newer FG's many times. My twitter feed is currently full of young'uns who are experiencing this for the first time. I'm trying to guide them in the right direction but they don't wanna hear it.

"man, I can't believe I have to learn frc to play XX" *laughs in Faust*

11:28 Should've kept the rap going, that ish was fire! 🔥🔥🔥

It was tough being a long time GG player who also enjoyed BB when CT came out on Dustloop. Not sure if anyone answered you but Buzzsaw is a Potemkin player. Or was back in AC.

Under night also has throws during blockstun

my immediate thought was BB is fucking hard lol

Good stuffs. Whoa never knew dat bout bb netcode. Back in the day I always thought bb had the best netcode but I didn't know y lol

Best take on this I've seen. Everyone wants to call the new game scrubby. I'll play what I find fun, and Strive seems cool af.

13:52 COOKED

I keep forgetting to thumbs up your vids....shiiiiit -poppedandwrecked

I thought the question was "Where's the rollback, or nowadays - where's the crossplay?" Cool vid though!

I always tell people to sit down, give it 4 weeks. Someone who isn't whining about lack of depth is out there finding some really crazy tech. It'll come out.

Was that a dave chapelle reference at 5:30? LMAO

Lordknight is like the sf4 of fighting game players

Accessibility hurts no one, lol. You still have to be good at the game to excel and compete. We're acting like these are arena fighters which are TRULY scrubby, lol.

Honestly, by changing how moves cancel into each other by limiting jump cancel and changing gatling/dust they have made guilty gear way more execution heavy than before. Most of your flashy and difficult stuff in old GG was rarely safe enough to do in a match. Plus the damage being bonkers now makes everything a mind game. Its like the best of GG combined with the best of super turbo.

NO WAY YOU GOT DROPS IN THAT DEFINITELY TECHNICAL COMBO

As someone who started of with Melty blood this video awakens so much nostalgia, especially coming from LK. People will always be hating.

Honestly the grab in Blazblue is about as lenient as your standard overhead. It’s like the exact same timing for “Yo think fast” that is applied to one at least. I kind of prefer this compared to your traditional “I hope you guessed right on their approach on if they grabbed or not or you’re fucked” that GG and KOF use. Minor gripe but throws that are “forward/backward heavy” suck.

03:18 bruh.. trashing on BB for repeating inputs for a few frames, on the other side, game like KOF has that shit since 1998. So by his logic KOF is noob friendly game LMAO

Time is a flat fucking circle

Wait do Axl players have a bad reputation? I just picked him up in the beta last year lol

I cried laughing at the HNK clips. I've never seen it before and said "I doubt its that bad. I've seen MvC2." Thank you

HNK sounds really similar to KU-SO-GE. It’s hilarious that my mans in the video mentioned this game. LMAO

11:11 He's just dribbling him in the corner at this point

I really look at GG V as SFVI for people who play Guilty Gear Strive :(

Damn and I thought s broly combos were long

Some good ass content.

I looked through your videos, so I guess I see why, but legit like 75% of this comment section says that DBFZ was their introduction to the FGC, which just boggles my mind. I mean it's a pretty new-age fighting game that's not so beginner-friendly, and the tutorials are aśş, yet in this comment section I see that apparently many people played this as their first fighting game and got really into it. I mean I've never personally vibed with dbfz since there's no good Grapplers on the base roster, but I still tried my best to make the most out of those $60 and I'd say I at least got decent, but regardless if this was my first fighting game, my introduction to the genre, I would've said HELL NO and gone on with my life. I mean maybe I'm trash since I'm just a dirty bbtag player, but my utmost respect to those who had the patience and resolve to play dbfz as their first fighting game and end up liking it

New fighters have certainly lowered the barrier for entry, and that's probably neccessary to keep the fighting game genre alive. But in my opinion, fighting games don't live long on their competitiveness, no matter how easy they become. Smash is an outlier, because there's less rigid stuff to learn, it's much more about perfecting your own character than learning every inch of the oppoenent. But with fighting games in general, they need to embrace what Granblue Versus tried (and failed at): interesting Singleplayer content. The average casual willing to try a fighter will probably delve into the Training, VS, or Arcade Mode first and just try their luck mashing buttons. Tutorial Mode is not a very appealing thing, because players feel belittled when the game spends active time teaching you the basics instead of dynamically introducing these aspects through some kind of Story/Adventure Mode, even when they're absolute noobs. But fighting games, even when they try to be as simple to understand as possible, still treat beginners a bit like idiots. It's not intended to be, but basically telling a guy in front of the screen how to play AT ALL comes off as condencending. With Dragonball FighterZ, they had a huge brand and incredible visuals to bank on, and the tag system allowed for more flexible playstyles. But in terms of content, people were constantly starved for new stuff, and only the invested upper ranks kept playing, while casuals either abandoned or paused the game until the next DLC character. In a similar fashion, DLC is the big think keeping Smash Ultimate in the spotlight, with tournaments having enjoyed a good boost in popularity, but what sells the game is the content, which means characters. With OC fighters like Guilty Gear, Street Fighter, or Tekken, the roster is mainly new stuff for retained players, but not much of a point of interest for people who haven't taken notice of them yet. Offering new play modes along the way would sway more opinions than the next new face - at least that's what I've observed over the years.

What do y’all think the first thing you need to learn in a new fighting game

I thought the eternal question was why did they mash there

I love the occasional blazblue content 😭

I think a Tumblr post summed up HnK with an image of someone dribbling a corpse with his fist and the caption is "Basketball 2:Electric Boogaloo"

They thought Bb was "noob" friendly? Heck BB got me into fighters, so I guess it was?

Those hnk clips look like dragon ball fighterz turbo lol

ACR is ALMOST a kusoge, but not quite, thats why its fun

I'm sipping on that spicy water but lk hate or love him is without a doubt spitting facts

Honestly pure crazy complex games have no place in the market nowadays. Especially when newcomers are harder to get into fighting game with all the mobile games out there, unlike in the past where you gather at the arcade. KoF XIII is awesome, that game ended up almost breaking SNK apart iirc.

It's not scrubby when everyone is new mashing is the best strategy so maybe allow the game meta to evolve and develope. HNK would be dope if they balanced that shit I love fist of the northstar but seriously dribbling people to death is absurd.

People will always be saying "the last game was harder" even with sfiv they said it, which is funny looking back

Dude...You hit the CS BlazBlue stuff and I started dying. People talking shit about BB Barrier/Throw OS and BlazBlue had TRM. Even *I* could TRM when I spotted people trying Barrier/Throw OS! This shit never goes away - people are such fools!

HnK is faithful to the source material because you can do the One-Hundred-Fist Rush in real time

Persona 4 music? Have you listened to the persona 5 strikers ost?

My man is explaining HnK with Raoh thats not even fair rofllllllll, he is the NBA champion