What I Miss About Old Fighting Games 

I think the lack of slowdown in old games had to do with them being arcade games. They wanted rounds to be fast so that the machine can do more games per hour and they get more quarters that way.

Mechanical diversity in BlazBlue is astonishing.

On the point of uniqueness, I think what has happened is that newer games have become increasingly standardized. Not only within the game (by giving everyone certain universal tools), but also in character archetypes. New fighting games have a long history of ideas to choose from, and they pick and choose the ideal ones for the game that they're trying to built. When the Strive team was designing Testament, they were able to look at the +R version for inspiration, and streamline them down to what many people consider a very fun and well balanced character. Old games *didn't* have that design history. Instead they had to get experimental for characters, which created the potential for both innovative and frustrating design. Zabel (who LK has done a great deep dive on) is a great example. His movement options practically created a new genre, but he also has degenerate moves that are mysteriously unblockable. I think new games could stand to take more risk when designing character movesets, but your tolerance for power-level and frustration will dictate a lot of what you find comfortable.

One of the most alien things I ever heard was a fellow saying that the reason he couldn't get into BlazBlue despite it appealing to him was that all the characters felt too different, it was like he had to learn a whole new game for each one. Now for me that's exactly why I liked it but for people just dipping their toes in and wanting to look around to see if they want to set up shop, it's a surprisingly big turnoff. It makes sense, so I see why devs are favouring standardizing most characters just to keep new people invested and willing to experiment - but it makes me sad all the same.

BBCF being treated as an “old” game makes *ME* feel old. It’s easy for me to forget that CP is nearing a decade old too….

On the subject of uniqueness, it's because of the big focus on balance that is probably the reason for it. Devs are way more conscious about trying to make a competitive game, and so it's a perfectly logical standpoint that they want to minimize the number of variables that need to be accounted for - not ONLY by the players, but by on their end. Just on movement they already have to account for each character having different walk speeds, run speeds, jump arcs, hurtboxes, etc. so removing stuff like variable wake up timing that forces a player to put in more effort than the reward they might get out of the mechanic just makes their job easier. Even as recent as the 09 era, where creators did start focus more on competitive balance, a lot of fighting game devs were still throwing weird mechanics in just because they thought they'd be neat. Whether it's better or worse is, IMO, dependent on how interesting the mechanic being cut was.

I always loved how overdrive in BB was both an offensive tool and a burst. It's the kind of thing that contributes much more to player expression than long movelists and high execution barriers.

Personally I don't mind the slowdown in Strive, _however_ DNF having long, cinematic animation on the _single_ super that you get for _free_ every round is getting old fast.

Something that does make me sad to think about in New games is that characters like Nine,Izanamo, or even Susanoo feel like they won't exist in their unique forms anymore. Like it feels like to me that if Susanoo was in a game he would just have most of his seals at start and maybe only 1 or 2 need to be unlocked while they take power from his kit, or nine would just have her spells on certain buttons instead of dealing with the mana system, or Izanami just would lose her float stuff. The uniqueness of old games is why I usually play them more imo.

about slowdown counterhit I will always be thankful that Tekken 7 added a counterhit animation and it doesn't slowdown the game at all. If you haven't seen it, they add a singular line on light ch, any ch that would give a new combo starter you'll see the camera zoom for exactly 10 frames before backing up and to the players eye it acts as your hit-confirm signifier without fucking up your pacing, because tekken doesn't have CH text calls mid match. It's REALLY nice, AND gets spectators hype. Good video as always

It's really funny that without roll canceling CvS2 would be an even more unbalanced and boring game. A lot of "jank" stuff keeps shit interesting and better for long term. Developers just have to learn what the "good jank" is and what the "bad jank" might be.

I like jank in old games cause it can add so much flavor to characters. Melee has a lot of that, like Luigi is just designed to be a joke version of Mario, but ends up being a completely unique character (that no other character in any Smash game has ever replicated) cause of weird janky stuff.

A little jank is good and I think it's about time people realize that.

That slowdown stuff is really lame imo. Really hurts the flow of the game when they can happen so often. The diversity in characters and lack of patches, while not necessarily making the games more balanced, it allowed the metas to develop in a more natural way. Compared to forced meta switch ups every 6 months to a year.

Melee wavedashing was known about before the game launched it just seemed not that bad. Sakurai said it in an interview.

Honestly I prefer older games with how they approach characters and how they differentiate their tools to create identities. It really opens up a character and having players express themselves in more extensive ways than in newer games. I.e a character like Dante in UMvC3 or I-No in Xrd or +R

Big agreement on the first one. The sheer difference between characters is why I keep comming back to BBCF year after year. If I ever get bored I can just pick up a new character and it's an entirely fresh experience

The drive button is the greatest innovation in modern fighting games and I'm glad DNF Duel just straight up copied it over. With a lot of the Strive DLC chars you can really just FEEL how badly the devs wanted to give these characters Drives but couldnt so they had to make them specials

I will say that the lack of slowdown on +R's Roman Cancel is one of the things that repels a lot of newer players from the mechanic. It's not something you can improvise with, by the time your brain recognizes the successful RC the window to actually *do* anything with it is long gone, you have to already know what you're going to do before you RC and that can be super intimidating... especially since it adds to the execution spaghetti that a new player is already struggling with without having to worry about RCs. Eventually you get used to it, either through extensive labbing or finding a guide to when to RC you can eventually figure it out, but it's way more commitment than a lot of players will want to put into the mechanic.

The Melee community has taken "no downtime" so far that I actually don't use the fastest instant rematching I could be. You can see that you're about to get finished off, press A+B+L+R+Start, and be looking at the countdown for the next match in *frames*. I actually have to tell some people to chill after a while because my brain gets fried and I have trouble staying invested in the outcome of every match.

That is part of why I love KOF. Even the HD cancel back in the day didnt stop the game much

The wavedash was actually discovered in the development of SSBM but they decided to leave it because they didn't think it would affect the game too much. Melee actually underwent a lot of balance changes in the later PAL release but the removal of wavedashing was not one of them

I used to hate the counterhit slow downs in Strive, but eventually I came to like the counter hit slow down a lot for the mechanical implications that it has, it makes counterhit feel more meaningful to me now. By the time that lights got counterhit slow down in the last patch I was legitimately excited. Also when someone hits me with wake-up super I have time to be mad and get over it by the time the animation is over or if I was doing a safe jump or baited it I have enough time to think "wow they're totally dead" and think about whether I'm close enough to get a corner route or not. I've come to appreciate having time to think at certain points in the match.

Old Games definitely have their Charms!!! I love the no slowdowns or very minimal slowdowns. I personally can't stand all the Cinematic Actions in particular when it comes to newer games. Older games like Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo didn't even need a dash mechanic in the Game at all as the Game was fast enough as is. Fast Paced is why I like older games because I find them more exciting.

i LOVE slowdown. long animations kind of suck when you just have to hold it and watch the movie, but counter hit slowdown makes counter hit so much more accessible as a mechanic. i hated SFV counter hits because (except for crush counter) you really really have to grind to be able to react and get CH combos, and some characters like urien need them to link into BnBs, whereas others don't

I really do enjoy the immediacy of games originally intended to be played on a cabinet. It's not my favorite part of these titles- I think that title goes to their lack of polish; both artistically and mechanically. Still, cool focus for a video

The jank tech being patched out thing really hits if you compare Strive to older GGs. In old GG, throw OS is a way of abusing throw input priority and proximity throws to make offense universally stronger, FDC is a character specific way of apply kara FD cancels that made Chipp Faust and Ino mad top tier, and BDC is a glitch that literally defined the entirety of playing Slayer, and the games embraced all these and actively taught you them. Now, both of the first two are out, and if Slayer ever makes it into Strive I KNOW they are going to just give Mappa and bite invuln for free on the first few frames because they’d never put an execution barrier like BDC in intentionally (also this would require putting a good backdash in the game which they also don’t want to do lmao) Also as a bit of an aside, I think Strive on *paper* is good about having supers not interrupt the game too much, but in practice you use them way more than any other GG because they’re optimal for wallbreak, and because of that you almost always see them combined with the wallbreak slowdown too

God finally someone talked about the slowdown in new games. Rage Arts in tekken are the biggest offenders imo, look at Negan Marduk and Ganryu, whole ass movies for NO reason

Love the analysis as always lk.

With number 1 Another great example is the newest Killer Instinct where each character managed to feel very unique and the instinct meter was wholly unique to each character

ur killing it w the content lk

I've been making a little fighting game in my spare time recently and I was thinking of adding a unique mechanic to each character but I was concerned it would just make the game messy. seeing that there were older fighting games that did that kind of thing puts me at ease a little.

this is part of the reason why I still in 2022 play p4U2 daily. the game has next to zeros slowdowns with the exception that gives true slowdown, is shadow frenzy, and supers, when someone inputs a super yeah the screen freezes but its so fast in conparison to strives 1000000 counter hit slowdowns

Samurai Shodown V Special is still one of my favourite games of all time

Having started at strive, the lack of slowdowns takes a while to get used to, but feels even better to play with when you figure it out (imo). I do sometimes wish some older games had a way, other than finishing a set, to allow me to catch my breath and think, but just getting up in a second/having to follow up immediately instead of having a COUNTER flash across the screen really helps keeping me invested in each moment of the match(and also allows me to drop combos more often :^) )

In addition to new(er) games making characters feel more unique through universal mechanics, under night's current iteration is also similar to cf because of vorpal traits, meaning beyond the universal benefits of vorpal you also gain an additional bonus to the install. Chaos for example can whiff cancel specials into each other while in vorpal, which is probably the strongest trait in the game. Also definitely with you there on patch culture, something I miss from melee for sure.

The first time I watched Strive's beta gameplay I somehow thought the slowdowns are added to help with the rollback netcode. With more hitstop the game gets "rollbacked" seemlessly since they have a lot of spots(hitstops) where they can hide them. It also helps in garbage collecting the inputs not needed in the game freeing up memory. Just a theory though.

after playing a bunch of dbfz and strive, and recently going more in-depth into BBCF and GGXX:AC+R, there are qualities i like to both. I like that newer games like strive streamline the mechanics so it's easier for a new player tell know which attacks serve which functions and which attacks can combo into which. While it was required at the time due to the way fighting game mechanics evolved, i do think having very complicated and unique combo structures for each character can make it overly difficult to learn and get to the point of intentionality. I believe the peak gameplay is when both players are at that point and trying to out-wit and out-strategize the other one. Having a player successfully hit the enemy means it should be easy to get the damage they've earned, without having to then pass a super difficult execution test first. I think the ideal is for all players to play at their peak and the games should try to help them do that, and making conversions easier puts more focus on the neutral play of the match, which I like. I like crazy punishes, but i also like having a match where my enemy and I are fully in each others' heads. The thing I wish strive was able to bring over from older games like CF and +R is the flexibility of each character. Most characters just flat-out had more attacks in older games and it made them more capable in a wider range of situations, assuming the player could think of and execute that option when needed. Strive kits have very big strengths, but a lot of them also have pretty big gaps where the player is not really rewarded for making a correct decision, depending on what that is. I main Leo so the first attack that comes to mind is Siegesparade, which used to give him backturn stance and potentially a grounded combo extension off of almost any air-to-air hit. But he doesn't have a single aerial special in strive and it's harder to convert air-to-air hits into grounded combos now (it's basically only possible by using jS when you're close-ish to the corner), so he's Heavily incentivized to stay on the ground and try to anti-air the enemy. I know that jumping is more dangerous in Strive in general, but in older games it was at least an option to try and push back against an enemy jump-in and prevent being crossed up, and it gave both players more options for them each to try and strategize around. It's not that the way Strive does it now is bad, since it's still been some of the most fun I've had with a fighter for a while, but when I go back to mess around with older GG or BB titles every character feels so.. capable. The best matches are when players are evenly matched and in each others' heads, but those matches get even better when both Characters have a range of tools that make them feel like a valid a threat in almost any scenario and it's all up to how the players Use those tools.

6:57 Wavedashing is actually a result of the in game physics engine. Sakurai himself also told people how to use it back when the game came out.

I just miss how simple, but fun fighting games could be. I've been playing a lot of Darkstalkers on the CFC and that fact really hit home for me.

I'm currently working on my own fighting game and having a hard time balancing when to slow down and when not to.

Ive been playing XX AC+R recently for the first time (my only other gg experience is about 50 hours of Strive and I mostly got into fg's with SFV) and I cant agree more, I think strive is an excellent entry point into the series but once you get a feel for how whacky and unique old games can be its hard to not become a bit of a boomer

Personally I'll say that GGST's huge slowdown counterhits are a major, major reason why I'm still playing it while bouncing off previous Guilty Gears. Being able to *actually* hitconfirm things as someone with slow hands, being able to have a quarter of a second to figure out what just happened and what mistake either I or the opponent made, and it just feels cool. It does the exact opposite of taking me out of the game, it keeps me engaged. If a scuffle is a happening and then that *BOOM* and the slowdown happens, it's exciting! It makes information much more clear, and it lets you know that the tides are about to turn. Compared to older Guilty Gears, having never grown up with them, the constant lack of real information in a way that's easy to digest and the constant action turns me off of them. It just sorta feels like nonsense is happening, but I don't ever really know entirely what it is, and it feels like there's not a lot of moments in each match to really recognize a beat, as it were.

"Old fighting games" Blazblue and Xrd. Goddamn, I'm fucking ancient...

Has Daisuke ever talked about just how influential Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers was to the development of Guilty Gear, because I think it's fairly obvious.

>blazblue is an old game Oh god I am literally in a nursing home rambling about not being able to break throws.

Slowdowns and cinematics are so everywhere

I had absolutely no idea how Nine ACTUALLY worked til today. Maybe I'll check her out

I think the biggest thing I miss is wildly varied health, in my most formative game, Bloody Roar: Primal Fury my main Stun was the tankiest character in the game, but his moves were fairly slow and relied on cancels to be dangerous, while Uranus was able to die in literally one hit if she went into Hyper

i agree with all your points except for the slowdown issue. i really like the slowdown in modern titles like strive as it adds more weight and feel to my attacks and just feels cooler. the slowdown on connected hits just adds more to the experience to me

one thing as he mentions why I like old FG is how unique each character is by tht I mean the universal have different stats, and they lean in to there gimmicks a lot more, especially in anime fighters, this is partly the reason I'm sort of giddy with DnF Duel because of how they incorporate gimmicks since characters have less special moves they almost overloaded the ones they do have

Blazblue Overdrive is basically extend force from the Arcana Heart Series.

BBCF to me is the perfect balance of having mechanics streamlined just enough but still deep enough to not be braindead, and have character uniqueness and have a workable cast overall. New games feel..... dry. Not necessarily bad but just dry Also yeah I like jank shit it can make stuff really fun, and defined some older games.

0:09 is there a way to tell when a game is close to reaching its good points or bad points?

Older fighting games are just so fun even if there not good there usually fun. Newer games can be the same but sometimes they make it less fun or have less combo freedom.

strive slow down is effect gameplay basically , if someone pick ram first , despite character strength when rekka hit counter , the slowdown will effect the follow up , im annoying about that

The amount of times I'm not in control of the game due to a cinematic and/or load time in newer games really lowers my drive to continue playing. I find myself continuously opening up +R or older arcade games because they let get in and play faster as well as keeping me engaged in the game. I just wanna play sometimes man. Sometimes the load times and super cinematics, despite how cool they are, really grate on my patience after an hour depending on my mood. :/

right on with the stuff that stops momentum. SF4 really started the trend and it's now become standard which sucks. i feel like strive is honestly pretty ok in this regard. the slowdown i don't mind as much (counter etc). it's the camera changes that really kill. imo the only time you should see an extended cinematic with camera changes is when something ends the round. otherwise it's just disruptive.

As someone who mainly plays Street Fighter, a couple small things I miss: 1) Character-specific combo routes. In 3s, I thought it was cool how certain juggles only worked on particular characters. It wasn't a requirement to learn them but it really showed character mastery when someone knew all the routes for all their opponents, and it was exciting as a viewer to see some crazy genei-jin ender or Necro juggle that only worked on two characters in the game. These were pretty much absent in SF4 and 5. 2) Retaining control of your character post-KO. It's fun to hit your opponent with some dead-body-only combo enders after you win. 3s, MvC2's dead body combos were dope, now they're gone almost everywhere. 3) Stages without a bunch of stupid nonsense going on in the background. More normal streets, please, fewer people in the background cheering/dancing/falling down/running around. I like it when stages look like actual locations, people going about their real lives, not extras in a reality show.

About the wake up thing on different timings, i would hate that thing, i dont see sense on change the wake up time on diferent characters, is just absurd

It's interesting that you talk about slowdowns and pauses in games. It felt like Blazblue went through a reversed version of the trend. When BBCP came out, I felt like I had to hit buttons a lot faster to do stuff. I couldn't describe why, but it was really noticeable.

🙏🏾

A fond memory of mine is when I visited a friend is Austin and we just chilled playing Aquapazza for 3 straight hours. Since all of the fight information was already loaded, we'd hit Rematch and be fighting again almost instantly. We'd lose track of who actually needed how many more Rounds to win a Game because the actual Games loaded as fast as the Rounds. It was just fighting for fighting's sake. Winning Games basically didn't even matter anymore. Aquapazza's sheer speed had let us experience a trance state that I don't think I've had any modern fighter replicate.

I actually think slowdown in newer games being stronger is a good thing. While being "taken out of the game" can be weird, it can also provide small moments of respite for the player in the defensive or receiving end. More time to go, "ok what are my options? Why did that happen? How can I get out of this?..... Is that death?" While someone with years of fighting game experience can answer these question and evaluate their situation within a fraction of a second, giving newer players a little more time to ponder is great to me. But more importantly it lowers the entry into the game. You still need skill to react to the counter and have your combos set up, but it requires far less time spent in the lab to get the muscle memory and reaction down. A lot of older players don't realize how much of their life they have spent building that muscle memory. They have spent YEARS playing fighting games so it becomes "natural" to them. So, when it becomes easier to react to its understandable why many people would view it as bad. I love fighting games. But the thing that always stopped me from purchasing them is they are so hard to get into that most of their online communities dwindle within the first 6 months of release. Lowering the barrier of entry, to me, is nothing but a good thing. As long as they leave room for high levels of skill expression, then to me thats a good fighting game.

Honestly I can't play those crack fast games for too long, my brain just gives up and I can't think straight anymore, it takes a lot more when there's slowdowns and long animations, they're like smol breaks mid match

Wait so with counter hits, what if you could press a button faster to end the slowdown early and get like a bonus in tension or somethinf

I don't mind slow down stuff, I just don't like cinematic stuff a la supers that take 10-20 seconds of cutscene or the stage transitions in Strive.

On the 1st point with characters feeling different from each other is the main reason I play low tiers in newer fighting games. They tend to have more variety in their play style and feel from the rest of the cast so someone like Frieza, Big Buu, Piccolo, etc is more fun to me than someone like any super goku.

I like the slowdowns in modern fighting games, personally. Things like cinematic supers and Strive's wall breaks just look cool, and I love the gameplay effects of things like the RC slowdown and counter-hit slowdown. Hell, thanks to the counter-hit slowdown I can actually sometimes do counter-hit combos in Strive, where I never felt it would possible for me to do so in any other fighting game.

Character uniqueness is huge for me and i think u called out all the good points. Strive is today's char uniqueness game imo cuz after hkd u can run ur stuff differently per char, but still lacks the aspects u mention

i really do miss the crazy character mastery from players in games like blazblue.

kinda agree

I agree is all I can say

The whole uniqueness and staying in the game bit makes me think LK would love Killer Instinct. Don't know if he's ever put any time into it

I'm personally a big fan of just how crazy old games are. They're modern games, but compared to the newest NRS game, MK11, MK9 - Injustice 2 are all so goddamn crazy and that's what make those games fun. Flash can sometimes fucking cross you up on Corner Oki and even the Flash player won't know lol. It's kinda why I have hope for DNF Duel, why very much so new and having a lot of modernizations, it's the first game that's made me get that old feeling of crack in my system like pre-MK11 NRS in awhile.

I enjoy extraordinarily painful game mechanics. So, I play Xrd Baiken and Slayer. :) But actually, I think what people are getting at with the mechanical and stylistic separation of characters in older games is what I enjoy a ton from these older games. I'll use one of the more infamous kusoge games, JJBA: HFTF as an example. A round of Jojo's and a round of Strive are fundamentally pretty similar (unga bunga until the cows come home) but I'd much rather have a roster of dio - iggy - hol horse - avdol etc. then have sol ky giovanna etc, you know? A lot of older games also do their universal mechanics justice by presenting unique ways of applying them, even if they're ACTUALLY universal. Using jojo's as an example again, the way 2 characters will use their stands is pretty much completely different outside of combos, with some not having the same mechanics at all. Even with how similar jotaro and dio are, you'll find they still use their stands completely differently for pressure, combos, etc. and I'd consider them the two most similar stand users in the game. Why did I use jojo's as an example? Because so much of the game is both so diverse and so broken in spite of how "uniform" the game may look on the surface. 3 buttons and a stand activation is pretty simple until you put effort into making your characters extremely unique. Sol, ky, and giovanna are all decently different, sure; but they all kind of have the same ideas too, you know? They use mid-range buttons with multiple options for pressure, generally play in a more aggressive fashion, punish players who play too defensively against them by preventing escapes beyond counterhitting them in many interactions, etc. And while many characters in a game are bound to share the same lifeblood (all fighters should be able to preform the fundamentals of a fighting game, after all) it's when you get into the weeds that you feel a lot of these characters are similar. Even looking at the two most similar characters from HFTF, Jotaro and Dio, they feature a TON of functionally different abilities that impact their playstyles to the point that they play entirely different. Jotaro generally likes having his stand on, actively turning it off only for combos or for blockstrings once he's already gotten in; DIO plays a harder rushdown game then jotaro with a similar idea, except dio's stand is usually off since it's far better to play around his stand off normals and disconnected specials; and only turn it on when he's looking to use Stand-on supers or end a combo. Both of these differences are no mistake; they are, for all tense and purposes, almost the same character (playing into the idea of SP and TW being the same stands) however minor aspects of their designs dictates the kind of things each one utilizes. Jotaro is more active with switching his stand, which enables him to "change gears" in his gameplay; he has some really good pressure supers, but they become unsafe in stand on mode - yet his stand off normals are primarily designed soley for combos and pressure. Dio, by comparison, is designed mainly around having some pretty dominant SO normals, has many specials designed around directly applying pressure or playing in neutral to begin with; with certain specials being incredibly strong in loops or combos. Not only that, but his stand-on version specials or supers are more specialized tools that work in tandem with his kit. He's designed to be rounded. It's things like that which I really like in a lot of older games. Going back to strive as an example, Giovanna and Sol are very similar- Poke / combo start with slash, are both relatively fast with high damage, they both heavily incentivize counter hits compared to other characters, they both possess a punishable dashing attack and a punishable "jumping" special, they both feature two "big hit" supers, they can both bring an opponent fullscreen with RC combos, etc. The only things I can functionally discern between the two is that sol has a fireball, dp, guard crush special, and command grab while giovanna has a unique dash that augments her pressure a bit. Sure; these tools do change them a bit and make them more unique, but looking at both games at just the respective surface levels (I didn't even have to specify the kinds of moves the jojo characters have, just what they do for the character) the older (and literally incomplete game) is so much more interesting.

I agree with the first 2. Unique characters and jank shit are great. I don't think we need to go full old game unique but every character having unique mechanics and/or meter would be great. Even the front/back knockdowns with different timings are okay. "Jank shit" in games has turned into proper mechanics now. If I remember correctly, roman cancels were created due to a bug with Jam where she used to have an infinite, wave dashes in Tekken turns into well still wave dash for certain characters and even combos were based off a bug in the old Street Fighter games when people realized that enemies that have gotten hit can still be hit mid air. The jank shit that did not get patched out in the modern era is how in Dragon Ball, standard air combo should be L > M > L > M > H but people realized you can autocombo after a 2H after using your smash and still get a hit. That shit slaps. Of course, now a lot more characters have unique air combos but it used to be super hype that you can autocombo when you're not supposed to.

I think even outside of slowdown, modern fighting games matches take way too long also bc they add way too many comeback mechanics and give characters too much health or too long combos. I like fighting games to go quickly and not waste my time. Ironically I feel like in a way some of these older games are less jank bc you'd never see someone just raw rage in old Tekken or see a block string feeling like it's going forever in in older street fighter. I very strongly believe that simple is often better.

I think for many old FGs the devs were more focused on just creating different archetypes, which made a situation where you'd have like 24 completely unique characters but 4-6 of them would end up being so OD that the other characters couldn't even compete with them at the highest level (Because the tools/system interactions power gap would just get so wide and Arcsys for instance wasn't about to just revise their entire character to make them stronger either, which is why you see a lot of the weak BB characters stay weak throughout the entire series). Whereas in new FGs they sort've have a "Control group" where they have an idea of "This is what a character in this game should be" and the cast members end up being more of a variant of that starting point than a unique system which is why it feels homogenized. You're basically trading extreme roster variety (For good and bad) for "Well, at least I can pick whoever I want and they won't be so terrible that I'll actively hate my life when I have to play against Izanami and feel like she came out of a completely different game than my character".

I’m glad you say dbfz is extreme in not making characters unique or very similar to each other. I feel like this isn’t said enough when I talk with dbfz players they treat me like I couldn’t be more wrong about anything in my life. I swear they just don’t have eyes.

"so much slowdown" Me now that I've become a KOF fan... "Oh you mean like how KOF 15 freezes every few seconds right... That's.. totally slowdown right? It's definitely not terrible optimization right?!"

Have you ever try killer instinct ? Because it has a lot of the element you talk in this video

I may not be... _Good_ at fighting games, but I agree with a lot of what you said. Personally I'd also add that I miss fighting game devs just throwing stuff out there and hoping it works, which if nothing else led to very unique design. Nowadays devs are more conservative with throwing wild mechanical shakeups in their game and that's a shame. Though what I'm glad about is that there are still some (mostly indie) fighting games being made to this day that have some of those usually missing aspects. For example Skullgirls has little to no slowdown, on top of not being afraid to mess with character stats, as well as throwing a wrench into the classic tag fighting game formula by allowing you to choose your team size. More characters is more versatile but less gives you very big stat improvements. Still very little jank to be found in anything nowadays though, unless the game is more or less an intentional kusoge (looking at you, Kyanta 2).

BlazBlue is one of the best fighting games of all time when it comes to what they let the characters do even if they make a new blazblue I don't know if they will ever go as crazy as they did with cf

Tekken (old and new) didn't have any slow down either, iirc (aside from tekken 7 having supers that take awhile and even then, slow down only happens when it's a tight round finish)

I'm really hoping for a shift of mentality of japanese devs when it comes to their newer games, especially Arcsys with future GGs. I really miss the character uniqueness and stuff like the homogenized gatlings in Strive hurt a lot in terms of uniqueness and character feel. Every character's best pressure starter is along the lines of c.S > H. Not only in pressure but combos as well. Additionally, there are a lot of different techniques in older GGs like BDC, IADC which are absent in Strive. I get the impression the devs knew that there weren't many "advanced" techniques so they just opted to make kara cancels more available. But they did it only with kara stuff across the entire cast, further solidifying the feeling of homogenization and characters feeling similar.

I'll push back on a couple of these. 1. Unique characters are cool, but having drastically different wake-up times and hurtboxes for every character just creates a ton of knowledge checks, which doesn't really make the game more fun for me, personally. 2. As others have said, old games had less downtime because they wanted your quarters faster, but for Vampire Savior in particular, having no time to think after you just lost the round is also a neat game mechanic. That said, I feel pretty much the opposite about +R as you do, LK. Sure, there's no slowdown on RC in +R, but combos in that game are composed of tons of multihitting moves with an enormous amount of hitstop that give you time to think about your routes, which is the same purpose that RC slowdown gives you in Strive. There isn't this enormous amount of hitstop in BlazBlue, and I attribute that to why combos just didn't feel satisfying to me at all in that game. I love Skullgirls, and there's a huge reward in that game for recognizing that you landed a counter hit, but SG does not give you time to think and recognize that moment, which is why after playing SG for over 1000 hours, I still don't have a gameplan for counter hits, because I'll never notice that I got one in the heat of the moment.

I believe Sakurai did mention that he was aware of wavedashing while working on melee, but I doubt he knew the implications of it towards gameplay, and would probably be wasting the very limited development time they had by removing it. In way, a there is a patched version, being the PAL version, which patched several bugs, including some that were at least somewhat applicable to gameplay. Wavedashing probably wasn’t patched because it wasn’t a glitch, and once again, I doubt the dev team knew how much it changed the way people played the game, hence why they removed it in ultimate. despite the presence of directional airdodges, by making the airdodge slower as it’s used more and giving ultimate characters much higher friction than melee (and sm4sh for that matter) characters, airdodging into the ground could hardly be considered a wavedash. Wavelanding still exists, but practical use of it is somewhat niche, unless you’re doing on a platform between stocks because you think it makes you cool.

Honestly all fair opinions that i either agree or am neutral about, but to me both the heavy slowdowns and instant round change from darkstalkers are bad, i like to be able to take a breath and able to rethink how i will tackle the next round, something like third strike is the perfect middle ground for me in that aspect.

Are the eras in fighting games determined by when a street fighter game is released? It seems so eg 09ers

only problem with old fighters is that people tend to stick to one character and never learn that many others. Since the inputs are so different. the playstyle need to be, but not necessarily the inputs. they KINDA did the thing im talking about in strive, but i hope you get what i mean. a great mix of old school and new school fighting games would be perfect (if possible ofc). Being able to enjoy many characters is great, but don't think everyone has the time to learn that many specialized combo routes for each one.

dbfz is like watching the the og dbz anime all over again with how long the cinematics are and how often they come up.

I miss the flair of the old game. I love strive, but I miss the grittiness of old games. Sol doesn't really cuss people out, people aren't out to kill each other anymore, and it reflects in the lack of unique dialog between characters and intros and round overs both cinematic, and text based (a la Xrd or Granblue). I'm glad that my man Sol (for example) finally find some peace, my dude deserves it; but man it's reminding me that I'm old now myself lol.

I love those old games for the nostalgia of playing them in the arcades, but I can't play more than 20 matches _at most_ per sitting in them anymore; they're just way too exhausting for what they are. I definitely prefer a more deliberate pace nowadays.

Thank you! Less slowdown please!!! The conversation always devolves down to cinematics, UX, and long combos, but there are so many micro-actions involved in a given fighting game match that, separately, seem miniscule, but overall contribute greatly to taking players and spectators out of games. There are plenty of "older" titles that have this slowdown, but they just don't come to mind because the greatest fighting games that have stood the test of time always keep you immersed. I feel like a lot of these newer titles won't last long-term less so for all the usual things people complain about like graphics, combos, complexity, online, etc. and more so because of this. Reevaluating ground movement, hit stop, visual slowdown, space traveled between actions, etc. need to be bigger conversation pieces when developing the new marquee fighting games.

1) Makes video about "Old fighting Games" 2) Goes on and on about a game that's barely 8 years old

I think a great example of the "jank shit" section is Marvel vs Capcom. Half of the stuff that defines MvC as a series is utterly jank nonsense that no one would ever design on purpose. Just unholy, poorly balanced bullshit. Yet somehow it works, and people love it.

LK what are your thoughts on DNF ?

it's not even close to the same as darkstalkers but I like that mk11 still has the 2nd/3rd round start whereever the last round ended. just a little uniqueness. the way capcom is talking about sf6 sounds like they want to get back to some of this stuff, it's possible the industry's tendencies will go back the other way again. or find some kind of ideal balance.

Its a platform fighter but Rivals of Aether NAILS this Every single character has a gimmick. Sure everybody has kill moves, good instant aerials, etc but everybody has some weird little mechanic that makes them recover differently or have a different gameplan other than DO JUGGLE. They added fanmade characters to the main roster, and there are more polished characters but the reason they got in is that they have strong ass gimmicks.