character implementation

Taking a cue from another member's post in antother (long) thread:

It's been an oft-stressed point of mine, whenever the dreaded conversation of VF vs T comes up, to point out the weakness of Tekken's character implementation - to me, the most glaring example of it is the representative of Sumo, Ganryu.

He may be doing anything BUT to represent Sumo. Not only are most of his "moves" quite ridiculous, and find no direct relative with the real-life practice, I find that in fighting games what's important as the moves themselves are the properties that surround the character - and there are no special characteristics for him as far as juggle time is concerned, etc; he can be floated in the exact same fashion as the little girl, Xiaoyu. He doesn't react differently to other character's actions. He doesn't make a different impact in other characters, insofar as special applications are considered (i.e. Taka vs. Aoi combos). And that's simply a joke. It shows that no care was dispensed in designing and implementing a character, that it's just a filler.

Contrast it with Taka, a superbly implemented character, who has his own set of properties and intricacies, so much so as to directly affect the way the game is played, and the difference between the two games is readily apparent.

The taka/ganryu comparison is just illustrative - the same case of poor implementation happens to just about all of the characters in Tekken, in my opinion. For all the thought of great character "design" there has been little mention of character implementation - I really couldn't give a damn if a given character "looks cool" if he isn't implemented in a cohesive/creative fashion. Not only do I really enjoy the character designs for most VF characters, I love the way the characters are implemented. It's stimulating, and the game changes for each character, directly and objectively, and not just in a "tier" sort of way (i.e. which character is better); VF has evolved way past than that, a long time ago. Tekken is still struggling with itself.

thoghts?

 

What I find most impressive though is that in VF3, as different as Taka is and actually changes a lot about the game when he's thrown in a fight, the overall balance of VF still seems to be there. It's like another set of variables are thrown on the table, but you don't have a lopsided chaos. Part of the beauty of VF imo.

With Tekken, I guess the designers felt that if they designed Ganryu to go with a totally different set of physics or characteristics, it would throw the balance off of the game. As much as the game already uses a lot of pokes, the hope in fights seem to be in maximizing launchers to ensure guaranteed damage. I guess the Tekken 2/Tag designers felt that they could either set Ganryu up for bounce combos to balance it or just let him go with the flow of what's already there to enable a balance in the game. For laziness or design purposes, I don't know why they chose what they did. But if they did a half-ass job of trying to make him unique to the differences he should have, it might have ended up throwing the game's balance way off (though Julia seems to have done that job nicely in TTT, but what do I know about it). He would probably kill everyone who was trying to poke and open up a juggle on him.

Anyways, my thoughts on the subject, but I think the consideration of balance in relation to what is already defined in the game is a factor in the decision. Which imo, makes Taka such a great work in VF3 and VF3tb (which I understand he is so different between OB and TB). For how different you have to fight against him, how different he is, he doesn't seem to throw the overall feel and balance of VF3 off.

-Chanchai

 

"Taking a cue from another member's post in antother (long) thread"

Are u referring to me????/images/icons/smile.gif
apart from Tekken, SC can be another fine example.

U have the core cast. Then the extra characters.

Go on. Turn on SC.
pick on characters like rock, nightmare blah blah blah
Try their command moves and see the outcome.
See the similarities(or any differences to begin with?)

Filler characters.

The new generation sadly focuses on 'extras'.
Yet, with virtually little to no differences between the core cast and the 'extras', I seriously do not know how such a GLARING factor could have eluded them.

IF u were to put Tekken and SC together, side by side.
U'll see the core cast(meaning the originally available characters) to have alot of thought, creativity and character.

Now compare the extra 'insert ur own amt of hidden characters' for both games.

The similarities in there.......the horror.

Yet, playing SC with the core cast is GREAT FUN!
U forgot to mention that panda character from Tekken.
Or mokujin
Or devil
Or devil jin
Or Yoshimitsu

Brings anger (occasion laughter) to me whenever I hear 'Tekken more realistic than VF'.
Yet, I must admit. TTT can be fun too.

<font color=red>SummErs' 'mibu's lone wolf'

 

I never said anything about Taka throwing the balance off the game, quite the contrary in fact - correct implementation of properties means preserving balance within the different set of circumstances that come up whenever Taka is in play, or any other character, for that matter.

And that set of unique circumstances and possibilities that surround each VF character is what drives me to be familiar with all of them, with the situations allowed by each - that's part of what makes the game so interesting and fresh; it's not just a repetition of invariable juggle combos and pokes that apply to nearly every situation, regardless of character matchups.

I'm no stranger to Tekken, I've played it completitively for many years despite being a VF fan (Tekken is widely played here, and I like to play versus in fighting games and explore possibilities), so I'm not "biased" against the game - I'm familiar with it. There are possibilities to be explored, and the game is interesting to some extent, but mid-to-high level play is always the same uninteresting crap, in my opinion.

Back to the point, however, I do think most of Tekken's characters are under-implemented - however you put the issue of "balance" in that game, it's just catering to the lowest common denominator - why bother with such a complex set of variables when you can apply the exact same properties for nearly every character? That's part of the reason why, in my opinion, there are so many characters in Tekken. There's no real reason to differentiate between them on a fundamental level. Tekken setups for juggles are extremely simplistic, the game doesn't differentiate between a mc and a MC; pokes are the norm, and they're mostly unpunishable since the dodging system is, in my opinion, fickle and unpredictable. Dashing is slow. There is no hopping game. There is no closed geometry to the stage which you can use to advantage. Plus, despite all that lack of variables, the game is still unbalanced. Julia, as you mentioned it, has almost zero recovery time on most of her moves, and most of them float for a very easy 60% damage combo. That can be applied to nearly every character in nearly every situation. She's just an example, though; I can't play Tekken anymore because of all those things. It simply doesn't hold the level of interest that VF does. It's a much less refined game, in my opinion.

 

I think it was nascar that briefly mentioned ganryu in another thread...

I agree with you that the core cast for both games is vastly more inspired than the "extra" characters, but even within that core cast there things such as:

in T3/TTT: Heihachi/Jin - fundamentally the same character; high-priority LpLpRp, WGF, sweep, all of them core setups for both - even the "upgraded" version of the uppercut, the EWGF, which is done through the SAME motion; expand the thought to the extra characters and you have Jin, Heihachi, Devil, Kazuya, too similar to bother; and I laugh at people when they try to counter that argument by saying that Sarah is too similar to Jacky or vice-versa. I'm not talking about slight move similarities only, I'm talking about character properties (or, in Tekken, lack thereof);

as for TTT/SC being "fun", I agree also that they can occasionally be, but that is of course a highly subjective notion;

cheers!

 

Ah
To make things nice n short this time...

I SOOO TOTALLY AGREE with everything apart from one.

SC is FUN!!!!!!!
ALL times!!!!!!!
/images/icons/smile.gif

<font color=red>SummErs' 'mibu's lone wolf'

 

I was just writing my take on your post. I wasn't arguing on the Taka point or in general, just handing in a perspective I had/images/icons/smile.gif

Actually, I think we both agree on a LOT. Again, I wasn't arguing/images/icons/smile.gif Didn't intend for you to take it that way.

For me, it's because of that fresh experience with VF and the variety that I love the game. So much variety that goes beyond a movelist, so much variety and yet you have BALANCE!

The Tekken comment wasn't defending or attacking Tekken, it was just my perspective. You could say they kept everything consistent because they were lazy (as a lot of effort or sheer luck would be needed to keep things consistent). You could say they kept the consistency because they were afraid the fans would hate having a new thing to work with. Or you can say I'm completely wrong about Tekken if I am/images/icons/smile.gif.

Like you, I enjoy playing VF more than Tekken because the differences make a huge difference. And they don't throw off the game, they just make it more "complete." I do enjoy Tekken and imo, there is a lot to be learned with all of the characters. But it is extremely difficult to make use of a lot of stuff and so eventually you do see a lot of same old, same old. At least in my experiences with the game.

The point you emphasized was a subtle point in my post, but both of us have a lot of thought to it I think. VF has "few" characters, but there's so much to all of them. Tekken and Soul Calibur have a lot of characters, and it's not that there's so little with them, but there seems to be little diferentiation. Some characters are clones of each other. Many characters just require you to do the same thing in certain situations, or so it seems. Maybe it's the fact that all you need in the way of intermediate techniques in the game is so universal. Sweeps and Guard Impacts in Soul Calibur. Parries, chickens, etc... in Tekken. There certainly is a lot to these games in their own right, but most of what you see are things every character can do and in the same way. The amount of specialization for my untrained eye seems to be little. Of course there are specialized aspects, at least in Tekken which I'll admit to (managing flamingo stance and movement, Lei's Haha step, the God-Fists I guess, etc..), but in essence, a lot of them provide the same function for the same goal in an all too similar way.

With VF, it appears to me that not just the little tactics are changed by the matchup of the characters but the overall strategy as well. Kage's TFT is so different against Taka. I don't know how machi anyone would want to be against Shun. And that's only a fraction of a single percentage of how things change in matchups. In almost any game you can see differences in techniques or tactics. But in VF, it seems like whole strategies have to be modified surrounding a simple aspect such as character choice. This is probably why I love team battle mode so much as well, you get all of this "craziness" with balance intact, and all in a single match.

Anyways, I'm sure there are a lot of you who probably feel the same way.

-Chanchai

 

yay
I agree with old hand on this one too.

<font color=red>SummErs' 'mibu's lone wolf'

 

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>

... mid-to-high level play is always the same uninteresting crap, in my opinion

<hr></blockquote>

As opposed to low level play which is interesting crap /images/icons/laugh.gif

I like your analysis of Tekken and it's weaknesses in comparison to VF. Very well put.

- Jan

 

On further analysis, all crap is crap

But seriously, any sincere enthusiasm one might have towards Tekken is almost guaranteed to fade away once a mid-high stage of play is reached, because there are so few true variables to explore within the system - once "movelists" and maximum juggles are memorized, there is simply very little left to do. Not so with VF, and I think that's in no small part due to the incredible movement system of the game and the way it's implemented.

It's tough to break down what exactly makes VF so much better, of course, and it's really a combination of issues, but the movement systems of VF3 really amaze me to this day, and nearly every time I put some effort into it I can discover something new, in theory or application, about it. It's so well implemented - the existence of modified commands, for example, something I really couldn't do without if I tried Everything in VF serves a distinct mechanical purpose within a cohesive system, and I feel there's nothing "thrown in" just for the sake of it. The E function is really an amazing feat of true engineering. That expands to every element of VF, from the characters to the stages. There's just a lot to it, and the way it's all woven together is truly mesmerizing.

Some have put it in the past that VF2 perfected planar fighting, and as such it would be best to compare the current Tekken to it - and it still would be unfair, because VF2, in my opinion, would win by a very large margin.

Tekken gives me that "tacked on" feeling on just about any aspect of the game: from the characters to the icky sidestep "feature", etc. Isolated aspects of the game (i.e. certain characters, techniques such as lei's ha-ha step as chanchai mentioned it) might be interesting for awhile, but it's inevitable to notice that they don't belong to a whole, have no real part in it. The system is, quite simply, broken. Compare some of the more ellaborate movement "glitches" in Tekken to the fluid E-cancel (one doesn't even have to go as far as a full K-step sequence), that's completely implemented as an integral, universal (of course, with individual peculiarities from character to character) part of the gameplay and once again it's readily apparent that there are two completely different realities to the two games.

I played too much PSO today, so please forgive the exceedingly verbose mode...

 

summers i thinik his refering to me when he talks about certain aspects of 'Ganryu' because i'm a huge sumo fan(takanohana, wakanohana) and i stressed that point. Every time I work in the arcades(part-time-job), i have to vomit when i see someone playing with ganryu!!!!!!!!!

Like I said an insult for that fantastic sport to implement such a character(or shoud I say clown) with other realistic characters like Howrang,Eddy,Lei,...(hehehe..did someone say Honda)

P.S The only realistic moves are:zupari, and a throw. at least he doesn't fire bolts from his ass......

 

Nascar, you really have a way with words/images/icons/smile.gif