on VF4 gameplay

With all the speculations on VF4 game play it’s hard not to wonder about the future of fighting games. Which is somewhat amusing to think there are countless of flight, driving, living, dating, combat (you add the list) simulators, but there is not one fighting simulator. Before going on, let me say if you think VF is a fighting simulator, allow me quote an individual(forget the name),†if you think vf has anything to do with real marital art at all then you are self-deluded.†The reason why fighting games is unrealistic today (I believe) goes back to the mother of all fighting games: Street Fighter. Street Fighter, specifically SF2 brought the concepts of COMBO and BLOCKING that every fighting game has adapted in one form or another. Many people do not realize this but in real hand-to-hand fighting the “SF2†notion of blocking and comboing do not exist. The block/combo of today’s fighting games is a simplification of defense and momentum in a fight. In a real fight you do not combo your opponent, instead you press on your offense with the momentum gained. Think about how silly it sounds if you tell your friend, “yea this guy was flirting with my girl and I comboed him!†And as for blocking, next time you are in a bar try it when some 250-pound dude take a swing at you. Now VF games have adopted many of these momentum attacks in forms of: strings, staggers, counters, reversals, dodging, back dashing. Some cases like strings or staggers, you press on the attack with your own momentum, and others such as counters, reversals, dodging, back dashing, you destroy your opponent’s momentum by making him miss or reversal his attacks all together. As far as “canned†combos are concerned, VF has surprisingly few of them. However float combos play a big role, which is unrealistic.

This notion also extends to defense. The best example in vf would be Aoi. Let us take a second and give her a weight of 100-pounds and say Taka weights a conservatively 300-pounds. Say Taka runs into Aoi at 7 miles/hour, what’s the force exerted on Aoi? If we take this concept into account we’ll see that “blocking†isn’t really an option for Aoi. If my memory serves me correctly, Yu Suzuki’s initial concept of Aoi is a character without the ability to block. That is not to say she is a character without defense. She has superior abilities to reverse, dodge (all forms: side, back and duck under), and redirect attacks than anyone else, which is really something more applicable for someone her sizes. Now on other side of spectrum we have Taka who is completely opposite of Aoi. He would rely on his sizes to overpower his opponent in the form of taking the hit and strike back with great force, which is why he has special knockdown, dodging, and damage properties. What’s been said about Aoi and Taka can also be applied to a lesser extend to Lion and Shun. They are all non-mainstream characters that are funky one way or the other. If you look at all the characters added from vf1 to vf3 and think in term of realistic fighting you can vaguely visualize Suzuki’s VF vision, as well the obstacle he faces.

Everyone agrees in order for VF4 to live up it’s name the game play must be revolutionary. Here are some stuff I thought up:
It would be interesting to see a phased offense/defense system. By this I mean: Say Lau attempts a punch at Pai. The result could be phased. Phase 1, this is when the punch is early stage of execution, if Pai reacts at this stage the punch is deflected giving Pai some momentum over lau (you can think in term of frames). In Phase 2 is when Pai reacts in late stage of execution, at this time Pai may attempt to “block†the incoming attack but does not have time to deflect the attack and in the process she will take a significant amount of damage (maybe ½ or something who knows). Momentum (frames) might be even or Lau’s advantage. Now the Last Phase is where Pai simply didn’t react in time and eat the punch for full damage. Pai is floored or Lau has advantage after. What’s interesting is that if both pai and lau are experienced, the game play can revolve at phase one, meaning Pai deflects and counter attacks which Lau deflects and return fire… etc etc. This is what Pai and Lau were doing at the end of the VF4 demo clip. I think it would be very exciting. The same concept can be applied to throws as well. Phase 1, a perfect escape, where the escapee has advantage or something. Phase two, escapee takes some damage. Phase 3, err.. TFT knee.. ppk, slide. =/ Again this is just 1 of a combat system. As far as how to get it to work, who knows? Maybe they can give a choice between the regular guard system or something radically new. The possibilities are endless.
Now as far as 3D movements, it is doable with just the joystick and the defense button. Dropping the Dodge button isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’d prefer dropping the old high jumping method. And have the 8-way stick controlling free movement. Maybe they can do something where outside melee range your stick controls movement freely, but once in range you’ll switch to a fighting mode and have limited movements.
Whatever the case might be in order for VF4 to be a great game it must be something groundbreaking in term of game play, because in 2 years down the road no one is gonna wuuu yaaa about the graphics as it was in the days of VF3. Keep your fingers crossed.

 

I for one am very intruiged about the prospect of "free 8-directional" movement, whatever that means. How they will implement the controls in regards to how one moves, blocks, jumps and ducks is a bit of a puzzle that I can't wait to see solved. I'm pretty sure they'll come up with something good, tho.

As for the intricate inashi/reversal/countering/momentum etc thing... I think it's going to be very difficult to make anything even remotely hardcoded here, as in Aoi's ground-throw guessing game, Wolf's b, f+P+G catch throw and Pai's reversal-reversal (which I have yet to see used in a real game). It's either not terribly interesting (Aoi) or too difficult to use.

However, Pai's and Aoi's Inashis work nicely imo, with special animations for all the other characters' inashi'able attacks making it more interesting to watch than the same highpunch reversal over and over. Perhaps they can develope this ability for all the characters, having it replace Guard in many situations, with a slew of different inashi's/reversals all yielding different results and new situations for the players to take advantage of and improve upon to the best of their abilities.

In short, I don't think a set of hardcoded strings of multi-choice situations is the way to go, but rather a more free enviroment of inashis/reversal/counters as mentioned above. Guarding could still work, and be the "poor man's defense", but the advanced players would slowly be substituting most of their use of simple Guard with the more advanced techniques of inashis/reversals. The enviroment in VF3 with it's use of Guard is ofcourse free in it's own sense, just very simple compared to how it could be in VF4.

I wanna see things get complicated

- Jan

 

Hey Mike are you talking about Bugi (japanese name) Kensei:sacred fist (US name)from Konami?.The system certainly has a lot of potential if the other aspects of the fighting engine were up to scratch,I don't think you took damage for passive block so It wasn't an overly difficult system but it would certainly be cool if it were implemented in VF (without the shoddy collision detection) nothing cooler than watching someone move their head just out of the way of a high kick while their body remains stationary,though in that game most of the time their foot would just go through your head but still count as a block :
) remember the Wolf clone? even had the cowboy outfit.

 

Interesting post you have there. I like your discussion of "fighting simulator". Although VF is the closest game to mimic real fighting (any martial artist will tell you so), it still isn't completely realistic. No one really stands there and blocks or takes combos in real life. Coming from an aikido background my first instinct is to dodge and/or turn an opponent's attack against them. But if you really want to get picky, how often do you see people get floated in real life? Probably not much. At least VF isn't as ridiculous as Tekken when it comes to floating/juggling, but if floats are removed that might compromise the VF gameplay. But it probably won't come to that. I can't come up with much to stick in VF4 personally but I'm sure Yu will surprise us.

Still, think of what would happen if you couldn't block in VF. "Dood that game suckz, you can't even block!".

 

I think UFC is actually the only "fighting simulator" out there....and even that is weak..no fighting game has taken into account someones mental prepairdness, slipping, freaking out, a stray punch, limbs getting hurt/weary - or endurance for that matter really...

"Victory can be anticipated, but not assured" Sun-Tzu

 

Nicely thought out and nicely put.

Me and my VF buddy thought abt the exact same thing.
Esp from the Lau n Pai scene.

I mean, if this is the 'new' thing to be introduced in VF4, damn it's gonna be exciting as hell.

However, it's that damn comment made by YS that got me thinking abt it being impossible.

If he wants to bring it back to its 'simple roots' and wants mass appeal, n having such a system could prove very hard for newbies.

Prehaps, this is where the 'rumoured' auto, beginner system comes in. Able to reverse some, not all.

No?

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