Fighter Archetypes...

I was playing VF5 last year, but stopped when I felt I hit a wall. After not overly enjoying the rest of the fighting game options I have played since, I decided to return and am amazed at how quickly it all comes back. VF5 just feels more natural, despite my relative lack of experience.

My fighting game experience is primarily in 2D fighters (Street Fighter, Samurai Shodown, Blazblue, etc). Most of my understanding of metagame and tactics is, obviously, heavily influenced by this. I feel I need to expand my knowledge on 3D fighters. The first point I feel I should gain a better grasp on is fighter archetypes.

In a 2D fighter, I can quickly look at a character and classify them. Rushdown, zoner, footsies-heavy, turtle, etc. From this, I can immediately see how my strategy needs to work against theirs. In 3D fighters, I am not so sure these same definitions apply. How do you classify the play-style of a character in 3D fighters, specifically the characters of Virtua Fighter?

As an aside on this question, Grappler characters. There is no doubt (to me, at least) that characters like Wolf fit the same grappler archetype as characters like Zangief or Tager. Does this then mean that the play-style of grapplers is much the same between 2D and 3D fighters, or is it merely a superficial similarity and they actually play completely differently?

 

I suppose it depends on how you're looking to define the superficiality being applied to the 2D-3D comparisons. If it helps, I think that a Wolf-Zangief-grappler comparison is much more reasonable and agreeable than a Strider-Kage-agile type of comparison.

In both cases, the grappler is heavier, slower, but tremendously more damaging and (obviously) grab-heavy.

The 2D agile character has bullet-like moves that blast him all over the screen and out of sight, while the 3D agile character has the blessed Z-axis, and thus doesn't need to move as superhumanly as the 2D ninja to get across the idea of agility.

Like I said, it depends on how you draw the line and define the archetypes. I think it's less universal than you're implying.

 

I do not consider it even remotely universal. That was why I stated `In 3D fighters, I am not so sure these same definitions apply.' In general, I do not think the 3D fighters fit into the 2D archetypes, but instead carve their own niches. For example, Algol (SC4) is the only 3D fighter I can think of who has a serious projectile game, whereas every second 2D fighter spams projectiles all day. That is not to say that zoning, as a concept, cannot exist in 3D games, only that the mechanics behind it would be quite different (Hilde's (SC4) playstyle could perhaps be considered zoning). That is also why I was asking if grappler characters where only superficially similar (big, slow hard-hitting characters with a throw-emphasis), or if they play very similarly (albeit with an extra axis to consider). I *never* play grapplers, so this is something I have *no* idea about!

 

I suppose I meant that suggesting such comparisons is unnecessary, as a whole. I get what you're saying, though.

I'm not much of a grappler-type player, myself.

 

Perhaps I am wording it poorly. I am not meaning to draw comparisons, rather I am using my 2D fighter background to try and illustrate the question. Perhaps rewording it would be best.

How do you classify generic play-styles that various characters in 3D fighters typically fall into? For example, Eileen's play-style is clearly very different to Aoi's, not just in moves and fighting style, but in the core strategies their characters best follow. What terminology do you use to classify these play styles, and how would the rest of the VF characters be similarly classified? Alternatively, am I barking up the wrong polygon and such classification just does not exist with 3D fighters?

 

It does, but like most anything worth playing, it's really more about the feel of it than a verbal definition. I'm not the guy to answer specifically, anyway. If any game can illustrate a different category with every character, it's definitely Virtua Fighter.

 

altought there are some universal mechanics in vf, some characters espress their potential in some areas than others of course. As you already noticed, wolf is a grappler and has a strong throw game. But in order to do that he has high and low throws (you can't grab a character while crouching with a standing throw and viceversa) and strong mids to scare people who tries to attack you to interrupt your throws (throws can't beat attacks like in 2d fighting game).

Some other characters are more about the pokes and take advantage to keep the pressure, like lion or eileen.

I'm not sure the "zoning" type is in vf. Just something like hakumen maybe. A character like that could be kage-maru, since has really long range attacks, but it will be reductive classify him as just a zoner.

The cool thing about vf is, yeah there are some strong point for everyone, but you can do mostly everything with everyone. I'm a wolf user and i have less fast attack than some other characters, but i have 2 pokes to test the opponent's defence.

It's really hard classify some character since they have their own stong areas.