Category: Fighting Games

Every one of us remembers the first time we started really playing fighting games. Casual play is fine, but once you cross that threshold into competitive fighting games, there’s no going back. It completely changes the way you think about the game from that point on, and that feeling sticks with us for a long time.

Red Bull, putting in a lot of work to give the FGC the attention it desires, has put together this short compilation of interviews of people who have been playing Street Fighter since Street Fighter II. The landscape of the game and the genre is so different form those days, it’s really encouraging to hear about how far we’ve come as a whole.

Source: Red Bull eSports

Every one of us remembers the first time we started really playing fighting games. Casual play is fine, but once you cross that threshold into competitive fighting games, there’s no going back. It completely changes the way you think about the game from that point on, and that feeling sticks with us for a long time.

Red Bull, putting in a lot of work to give the FGC the attention it desires, has put together this short compilation of interviews of people who have been playing Street Fighter since Street Fighter II. The landscape of the game and the genre is so different form those days, it’s really encouraging to hear about how far we’ve come as a whole.

Source: Red Bull eSports

Welcome to the Rollback: a frame-by-frame look back at our past week’s most notable news and our favorite SRK articles from November 4 to November 10, 2016!

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Zavian “mushin_Z” Sildra, Editor-in-Chief:

Frame 1:
Messatsu! Akuma is Coming to Street Fighter V, Playable at the PlayStation Experience in December

This. This was the announcement–well, teaser, to be accurate–that so many Street Fighter fans were waiting for: Akuma is joining the SFV roster, and sporting his Shin Akuma kanji, too. I really look forward to seeing how he plays in Street Fighter V’s V-System!

Frame 2:
Game Theory and Dim Sum: Xiaohai Talks about His Approach to Tournament Play

A great in-depth interview with one of Street Fighter V’s–and The King of Fighters XIV, not to forget–rising stars.

Frame 3:
Balancing Act: A Look at Street Fighter V and The King of Fighters XIV’s Opposing Balancing Philosophies

A thoughtful exploration of the reasoning that shapes what the fighters in Street Fighter V and The King of Fighters XIV are capable of, and why the “edge cases” in these games’ casts cleave to different sides of the tier list.

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Sam “Trilby” Foxall, Assistant Editor:

Frame 1:
NuckleDu Doesn’t Think Younger Players Have an Advantage in Street Fighter V

With Liquid|NuckleDu blazing quite the trail in recent tournaments, some people may feel that his youth may play into his success. In this interview with Capcom Fighters, Du states (among other things) that besides having more time to practice, age doesn’t really factor into people winning at Street Fighter V.

Frame 2:
“I’m Falling in Love with Melee Again”: Hungrybox Talks to Shoryuken about Smash and His New Career Path

Getting chance to catch up with the Evo 2016 champion at Canada Cup, our own Missing Person got the opportunity to chat to Hungrybox about playing Smash full time, his thoughts on the future of Melee, and trying to crack Smash 4.

Frame 3:
The Nintendo Switch Playable at Tokaigi 2017, Host of the NicoNico Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Championship

With the Switch present and playable at Tokaigi 2017, fans like myself are now excited that this event may be the place where Nintendo unveils details on the rumored Smash 4 port for Nintendo Switch. All will be revealed in February.

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Keegan “Interrobang!?” Spindler, Features Editor:

Frame 1:
Captain Falcon’s Super Smash Brothers Melee Home-Run Contest Distance Record Has Been Claimed

These are the sort of stories that make me smile–I love seeing players passionate for other aspects of their game, and this is a record that takes a huge amount of practice and skill to break.

Frame 2:
“I’m Just Preparing for Capcom Cup”: Infiltration Talks His Break, Coaching, and Commentary with Shoryuken

Infiltration is one of the most notoriously unusual members of the FGC–not only is one of the only leading players from Korea, he’s also the sort of guy to bring Hakan out while he’s down in games against some of the best in the world. It’s fascinating to get into his mind.

Frame 3:
Larry Lurr and My Smash Corner Teach Fox Neutral Game in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

There’s something incredibly satisfying about so detailed and interesting a tutorial as this, and roping in the best Fox in the world to help out just makes it better.

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Bonus Frame:
Get Ready: Evolution 2017 Reveal Coming Next Week

Expect the first solid information on next year’s Evo to arrive on Wednesday, November 16! Watch for it on Shoryuken.com!

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Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article and the selected posts are solely those of the writers, and do not reflect Shoryuken.com as a whole.

As Melee marches on towards the bright lights and big production values of other esports, it’s always worth a look back at the quieter times in its history. Flashing back to the beginning of the YouTube era of Melee, when players were uncertain about its future as a competitive game, Last Stock Legends have chosen to document the history of one of the first Melee videos to reach over 1000 views on YouTube.

The video in question, a match between Tang and Lunin, acts an effective snapshot for that epoch in Melee’s history: the capture equipment wasn’t the best, and the play looks slow when compared to the current meta, but the passion for the game is evident. It’s the people like Phil and HomeMadeWaffles cheering in this video that kept the flame of Melee burning during its darkest hour, so it is vital to preserve and remember these matches–which may seem minor in the current era of massive prize pots and huge sponsors.

Last Stock Legends recently released a video about the history of the Wombo Combo, which is also worth a watch, to see what birthed a phrase used in multiple esports.

Source: Last Stock Legends

Balancing any game, let alone a fighting game, can be a very difficult thing to do. Just trying to get two sides in any multiplayer game–where the sides aren’t exactly the same–to be “balanced” is hard enough. Fighting games however, with their large casts of characters, each with unique moves and properties, present an even bigger challenge.

With how challenging balancing can be, it’s interesting to see how developers try to go about doing so, especially with new games. This year in particular saw new installments of two major fighting game franchises hit store shelves. Capcom’s Street Fighter V hit in mid-February, while SNK’s The King of Fighters XIV launched in August. Now, while there were other fighting game releases this year, these two have been singled out because they seem to represent opposing philosophies when it comes to balance.

Make Them Strong, or Rein Them In–Two Different Approaches to Balance

The balancing philosophy for The King of Fighters XIV’s is easy enough to figure out. SNK’s Hidetoshi “Neo_G” Ishizawa has gone on record that he prefers to make the characters as strong as possible and balance them out from there. Considering that Neo_G’s previous works (when he was at Capcom) included games such Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Capcom vs. SNK 2, and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, the fact that this philosophy is being applied to KoFXIV shouldn’t be surprising.

For Street Fighter V on the other hand, Capcom hasn’t really been forthcoming with any sort of similar philosophy when it comes to the game’s balance. That said, taking a look at the properties of the moves in the game, combined with how the game itself changed during last year’s beta testing, it seems that Capcom wants to do the opposite of what SNK is doing. They want to make sure that no character becomes too strong. A lot of tools that were a bit on the strong side were adjusted in each iteration of the beta before release. This can be further seen in how the DLC characters lack certain things that the launch characters have, such as meterless invulnerable reversals, and two-stock V-Gauges.

The differences in philosophy is something that permeates every bit of the design of these games, and can easily be observed by players who know what to look for. One of the more subtle differences can be felt in the range of the characters’ normal punches and kicks. The King of Fighters XIV, in general, has more generous hit boxes and characters pokes tend to hit further out, while Street Fighter V tends to have stubbier pokes, especially for crouching normals. You can see examples of this difference in the slides below.

Click to view slideshow.

Other noticeable examples include Street Fighter V generally only allowing dive kick style moves off a forward jump, while The King of Fighters XIV allows them from both neutral and back jumps.

System Knowledge vs. Match-Up Knowledge–Why Each Philosophy Works for Its Game

Now with both teams going for the same goal–a balanced game–the question then is: why go for two differing philosophies? The answer may lie in the nature of the games in question.

In any competitive fighting game, character match-ups–how one character’s tools stack up against others in actual combat–are what define its balance. Street Fighter as a franchise in particular tends to put a high emphasis on the knowledge of these match-ups, thanks to its focus on character tools over universal system tools. Street Fighter V is no exception with its unique V-System making it so that each character has a unique set of sub-systems (their V-Skill and V-Trigger). It’s highly likely then, that Capcom decided to balance the game the way they did to avoid having very uneven match-ups.

Now this isn’t to say that match ups aren’t important in The King of Fighters XIV–they are. However The King of Fighters franchise has also made itself known for a series of unique systems and mechanics. Aside from helping define the series, these mechanics–such as hops, rolls, and more–help characters deal with the strong tools of other characters and mitigate bad match-ups. This has allowed The King of Fighters XIV to have things like a very strong zoning game, while still retaining the fast, aggressive rushdown that the series is known for.

In practice, this means that there is a premium placed on learning how to use and how to deal with these universal mechanics.

Patches and Edge Cases–Dealing With Problematic Characters Post-Release

Another reason for why these companies went with the balance philosophy that they did may have to do with how they fit into their plans for future balance patches. As part of this, they’re also likely considering the kind of edge cases–problematic characters that may need to be fixed–that tend to arise from either.

Capcom’s plans for balance patches to Street Fighter V revolve around having major changes happen in between Capcom Pro Tour seasons. This is both to keep players from having to deal with large shifts in balance patches, as well as to please older fans who prefer giving the game time to grow, like the old arcade titles, instead of the more aggressive patching schedules of modern games. SNK on the other hand isn’t limited by such; while they do want to allow characters to be strong, they are willing to step in to address any edge cases when it comes to balance.

Speaking of edge cases, despite the best efforts of both sides, problematic characters that may either too strong or too weak can still pop up. While it launched with decent balance, with a large portion of the cast sitting in the middle to upper tiers, The King of Fighters XIV did have some characters who were deemed a bit too strong at the start. Nakoruru with her invulnerable bird companion was one of these. Meanwhile K’, with his easy damage from safe pressure, was arguably the best character in the game–and was nearly a constant presence in top tournament teams. Both were eventually addressed, alongside a few other issues in a recent patch.

Street Fighter V, on the other hand, seems to have the opposite issue. While the game does seem to have a clearly defined top tier, none of these, not even Chun-Li, are really true edge cases. Instead, the edge cases seem to be in the bottom of the tier list. F.A.N.G seems to struggle in tournaments, with only a select group of players able to be competitive with him. Meanwhile, Zangief has seen some of his most ardent character loyalists, such as Red Bull’s Snake Eyez, switch to other characters despite having used him for years in previous games.

In a way, however, having the edge cases be in the bottom works out more in Capcom’s favor than if it were the other way around. These edge cases are much more noticeable when they happen to be strong characters, simply because players and spectators alike see more of them. On the other hand, a weak character may not garner as much attention when there’s a decent-sized pool of viable characters in competitive play.

In SNK’s case however, whether or not top characters like Nakoruru, K’, and Mature were really that dominant or not (something that really couldn’t have been judged off a month of play) didn’t seem to matter as much as the fact that they were highly visible. These characters being strong caught the eye of many, making them much more noticeable than if they had been problematic for being weak. Not having to stick to a set, seasonal balance schedule definitely helped them in this regard as they were able to address these edge cases as soon as possible.

Fun and Freedom–The Subjective Reasons Why One Balance Philosophy May be Better Than the Other

With two opposing philosophies when it comes to balance, the question that is begging to be asked is, which one is better? The answer to this isn’t really clear cut, and is quite subjective–depending what a player enjoys.

The key word when trying to see who or what kind of player would enjoy one or the other balance philosophy is “freedom.” Both games are trying to emphasis a certain kind of freedom.

Street Fighter V seems focused on giving players the freedom to choose almost any character that they like, and have a good chance at doing well competitively. Yes, it does have a few edge case characters who struggle, but for the most part a good number of the cast are perfectly viable.

More importantly, the top tiers don’t really have any really oppressive tools that allow them to totally dominate the rest of the cast. Compare this to certain past installments, where strong tools made certain characters nearly mandatory for winning a tournament. For example, Chun-Li may be the best character in the game, but she’s nowhere near as dominant as in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike where she would win almost every tournament. In fact, Street Fighter V has a large pool of characters who have proven to be reliable tournament winners.

However, despite the large number of tournament-viable characters, there are some players who state that Street Fighter V feels “boring.” In a way, they do have a point: strong tools that players must learn to beat before they can even win a match can make for interesting match-ups. This is the cost of the kind of freedom that Street Fighter V’s balancing brings.

The King of Fighters XIV, on the other hand, promotes a different kind of freedom. It allows players the freedom to find, use, and even abuse strong, dominating tools, strategies and tactics across the game’s 50-character cast. Even a character considered to be mid-tier like Mian has something that can be hard to deal with, in this case, her seemingly endless dive kicks. Meanwhile the former top tiers who were nerfed in the 1.03 patch have still retained some of their tools. Nakoruru still has invulnerability on her bird cling, while Love Heart still has the generous hit box on her crouching heavy punch.

The cost of this kind of freedom–as explained before–is that games balanced this way tend to have their “problematic” characters at the top of the tier list. However, competitive fighting game history has shown that games with dominant top tiers can thrive in the tournament circuit. Games such as Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, which had noticeable balance issues, thrived simply because the games were interesting and fun enough, despite the issues brought on by this kind of freedom–or maybe even because of them.

With this in mind, perhaps there really shouldn’t be a question of which balancing philosophy is better. Each individual player is bound to find one or the other method more interesting and fun to play.

The fighting game genre has always been full of different games and different developers each doing their best to express their own philosophies–about not just fighting game balance, but of mechanics, aesthetics, character design, and the like. This has led to a surprising amount of diversity in the fighting games available.

It’s this diversity of games, and of philosophies and ideas on fighting game design and balance, that has led to the genre as we know it today. With various styles and sub-genres of games that different people enjoy and compete in, depending on their tastes and preferences. What Capcom and SNK have done with Street Fighter V and The King of Fighters XIV is simply just a continuation of this.