Things I Don't Like About Classic Fighting Games 

I loved opening up my physical copy of Blazblue only to see a flyer inside advertising the next version releasing in Japanese arcades a day later.

The thing I definitely don't miss is the immense balance issues. So many old games feel like their creators don't even think about how their characters stack up to each other. Every old FG had that one character whose moveset was so nonfunctional that they're damn near useless, and then that one whose moveset was so fuckin' busted you wonder how they didn't notice. People complain about balance these days but the fact that you can pick any character you want and not feel like you're playing half a functional character is great.

One thing that always turns me off of older titles are mash-based mechanics. Mash to air tech, mash to escape stagger/freeze, mash to reduce damage, etc. Mash-based mechanics feel inelegant and result in some awkwardness where mashing can get you punished as you escape the combo/freeze/whatever and accidentally get a button.

To the point of things "just working" in modern fighters: I was watching some Strive footage where someone was playing Bridget, and they landed her Rock the Baby super after a juggle at the wall with the opponent's hurtbox juuuuust in range to fall into it, and the whole thing connected. For some reason I thought "Man, if this were an older game, that super would've landed like three hits and then they would've fallen out because of spacing," but they took the time to program it to vacuum the opponent in. For an example of just that: Remy's flash kick super in 3rd Strike. Sometimes, depending on where the opponent gets hit, you'll just get, like, half the hits of the super. I think there's even some scenarios where he can land the first few hits and get punished. It just fails to juggle properly because the character wasn't playtested enough I guess that's a better word for it, then, "playtested." Most modern FGs feel like they're playtested to an extent that you don't get those kind of straight up feels bad moments.

Legit only thing I dislike is mashing for defensive mechanics. Not like pressing a button to interrupt their string, but things like mash to tech, wiggle to get out of your stun, etc., because it always ends with me pressing a button or direction I don't want by the time I recover. Pretty much anything else I can adapt to after enough time if the game is fun. Edit: Yeah and all the out-of-game stuff like netcode and delay launches too, I agree.

My dash macro died in a Strive loser’s finals on Friday and I realized how much I rely on it now. Obviously there’s the inherent disadvantage of not having one while your opponent does, but I figured I could tough it out and make it work old school. Didn’t work out so good.

I feel like my biggest pet peeve in older FGs is the lack of even a slight buffer in certain scenarios I believe that links should be hard, and link reliant combos need some practice, but there's a point where a link becomes REALLY difficult to nail down even after hundreds of hours of play. Ken's 4MK SA3 link in 3rd Strike is an easy enough hit confirm, but it's a one frame link (only on crouchers, standing opponents getting hit always block the super) if the second hit isn't meaty, and if you press too late by either mistiming the input or pianoing and missing the right frame, you burn a bar and you die, as SA3 is punishable on block and competent opponents can potentially red parry the 2nd / 3rd hits and get a jump-in punish. And then there's a couple of silly examples of 1f links, such as Xrd Pot's _character specific, very low CH 6P anti air_ which, from what I've seen in Frankentank's video, needs 6P, HFB into a frame perfect j.P, and it's one of the few meterless routes that leads into any form of okizeme from Pot.

You know what i really can't stand about old fighting games? How they didn't tell you fucking shit. Some old games didn't even have the decency to tell you your movelist. Even now i'm only mildly satisfied with the state of modern FG ingame tutorials. Like why did it take decades for devs to add a small text box with a description of what a move does and how to best utilize it in the command list. SFV came out in 2016 and there's no ingame way to check the properties of moves. Devs until now have been super comfortable assuming every player has their dustloop equivalent open 24/7 and they have to put in no effort. Good news is this seems like it's becoming a thing of the past.

I won a P4A day 1 tournament cause I had been labbing the import version on my JP Xbox for a month. I didn't lose a set til GFs but still won after the bracket reset. I took my copy to every event I could before then, but I was the only one able to just lab mad hard. And since it didn't have usable netcode, labbing was all I could do. I don't have time to get good at fighting games nowadays, so I'ma carry that W with me always. The $20 I won bought me a pretty tasty burger afterward IIRC

It's strange that Plus R has no input buffer and I had no trouble doing combos in that game. Gatling is part of it I'm sure.

It's easy to be nostalgic but I really like how inputs feel now compared to in most old fighting games and how we don't have completely useless or not even functional characters. What I really despise in modern games is having to put up with random, for a lack of a better term, "casual" mechanics such as 1 button specials/supers, type lumina shield, homing dash, autocombos that automatically do inputs or my personal least favourite SCVI reversal edge. I feel like there was way less of this before.

We are entering the golden age for people outside the popular arcade hubs. Which is good because fuck having to move somewhere to be able to enjoy a game genre.

I'm always surprised at how the lack/scarcity of imput buffer is never brought up as a reason for someone to not play older games. It's such a clear dealbreaker for me

I miss the old grab from Ac+r, it felt hard to do but was more rewarding in my opinion

So uh can we please get some of that rollback for DBFZ

Buffer. Tekken has spoiled me so much. I genuinely don't understand what a game gains from having a super difficult buffer window. Sure, for combos I'll concede that devs sometimes only want certain damage & oki for certain levels of play, but at the very least make the reversal window generous, nobody should have to hit a 1f link to backdash on wakeup- as if oki wasn't miserable enough already! Then throw in pressure situations? Freaking Susano, gotta lab the timing for every punish if you happen to be playing against one that likes to play risky with Drive moves, but the timing is _different if he unlocks a seal or not._ I am going to LOSE IT!!!

My mans, you do half circle forward forward for IAD? What's the sitch lmao

The biggest issue with Persona 4 Arena wasn't so much the fact that it got released here months later than even the USA version. That was still super normal at the time. Look at BBCT: NA release June 2009. EU release April 2010 BBCS: NA release July 2010. EU release December 2010 Arcana Heart 3: NA release April 2011. EU release August 2011 BBCP wasn't so bad with only a month between regions. Notably this is only an anime game issue. We got SF4 a whole 3 days later than NA. But whatever, we import, we get Japanese PSN cards, whatever. The huge issue with P4A was that it was the ONLY PS3 game to be region locked. Every other game we could just import but P4A specifically... the JP version only worked on a JP console. The NA version only worked on an NA console. JP release - 26th July 2012 NA release - 7th August 2012 (12 days) EU release - 10th May 2013 (276 days or 9 months) That's 9 months where the only way to play the game is to import an entire console or mod chip your console. Our community (Perth, Western Australia) did have 1 NA console and 1 modded console that could play it but nobody wanted to play a game they couldn't practice online. Then when the game came out 9 months later, all the hype was pretty much dead. About 4 months later we started to get trailers for Ultimax and our community was pretty mad...

When you brought up persona, interesting fact was that persona 4 arena was one of the few ps3 games that were region locked I believe, so European players couldn't even import the game. They just had to wait!! :(

Biggest thing I don’t miss about the classic pre Sf4 era is how big the gulf of character privileges can be

If we want to get nit picky Specials actually have a “1f buffer” (except johnny’s ground specials) in the sense that they can be negative edged in the ggxx engine. Enjoyable video though, I have similar grievances with old games despite loving them.

Older games being console only or arriving on console way earlier was really annoying. I'm mainly a PC player and had to wait like a full year for UNIST to drop on PC, and series like Tekken were completely inaccessible to PC players up until relatively recently. It's nice that we all get games at the same time not only per region now but also per platform. Hoping crossplay becomes more of the norm in the future so fighting games are as accessible to everyone as possible.

delay based net code still gives me nightmares i miss having no input buffer.. though I don't at the same time. SF4 really did start the "modern" era of input shortcuts and such MVC2 will forever be one of my favourite fighting games.. right on the edge of old and moderm for me

The delay based netcode on Street Fighter II was really bad in 1991. It took around a decade before you could input commands.

3rd Strike character balance rings pretty true for that last part.

...I don't like throwing with close buttons, that's the only thing I don't like about KoF XV

How do you feel about games with customizable input buffers like MultiVersus does? I think this will add a few different OSes people can do with different buffer configs, but it may work in a modern 2d fighter

Europe had it even rougher with Persona because it was one of the very very few region locked PS3 games.

LK doing a fucking Behemoth Typhoon to IAD lmao

Sadly we'll probably never get a game like +R or Xrd ever again because everything has to have a Dash macro nowadays. The macro forces the design of the game to fundamentally change a lot. It simply would break a game like Xrd.

Modern fighting games are a lot better with 30 frames default buffer :))

I'm with the thumbnail: fuck the stick wiggling and button mashing for optimal play. Fighting games already fuck up your hands.

A dash button changes a game entirely. It's not a modern or classic thing. It changes how a game is played entirely. 🤦‍♂️

the 100k dream is close...

I want the next Blazblue game to have Tager as a top tier.

7:08 Oh yeah when's the next SBO Watchalong? AC era hype train let's goooooo

I really don't miss how GXXAC+R had some characters that make you look at a spread sheet when you're learning them cause too many of their combos are character specific due to the weight and hurt boxes and y-axis based hit stun mechanics. Especially since some strong characters don't require you to do this as much. Its weird if you really like a character who deals with it and you want to play in tournaments with them and can't remember which combo they have that works vs a certain character so you google it before a match, I really appreciate that they toned that down in GGXrd and Blazblue.

Bad anti airs. Some old games it was invincible dp or gtfo, some chars just had no options against stupidly strong jumpin buttons.

Having gotten to play SF6 during the closed beta and also being around for the SF4, Skullgirls, and Blazblue days, I can say that I definitely do not miss dash macros not being a part of the game. If I had any bad thing to say about SF6, it would be the lack of a dash macro. Basic movement should be as easy can be, and dash macro allows for that. It's also less murder on my hands than standard dashing.

banger video!

you should invest in a new webcam, that one looks kinda old

idk Gg series known as fast game. Dash macro is good for me. I dont like fast fighting games.

Macros save my hands

As a +R player, the lack of buffer is very annoying and takes a while to get used to although I don't think there's ever been a better time to enjoy classic fighting games, a lot of them have better netcode and matchmaking than most new fighting games

2:40 this is why playing GL is so good for you, it teaches you legacy skills!

I heavily prefer older fighting games because they aren't simplified like current fighting games are. Fighting games are meant to be a test of skill...where's the skill at if you're just gonna simplify everything

dash macros suck