Best Melee Combat

[-Drifter-]

Can't believe the ES games are being mentioned in a BEST melee combat thread. LOL. Sure you didn't mistake best for worst ?

To be fair, Skyrim's combat isn't that bad. Simple, sure, but competent. Can't say the same for the rest.

 

[mirasiel]

Oh, Oni springs to mind, nothing like snapping some poor fuckers spine to start the day and I'm playing Space Marine atm and it has a very...visceral feel to it and by visceral I mean I feel like a should have a sqeegy handy for my monitor.

 

[Smeggs]

Dead Island was okay. Best melee with blunt objects I've seen.

I think my favorite is either Condemned 2 with its great brutality in fighting or Arkham City, as being able to take out fifty dudes without them touching you with your bare hands is just boss.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Manditory Dark Souls post.
Very good, realistic melee combat.

I had to raise a quizzical eyebrow at this statement. Dark Souls is definitely not realistic.

Excuse me as I lower my eyebrow to compensate. What exactly prevented it from being realistic? I think it's a fair bit more than other games that have been mentioned, like Batman where you constantly vault over enemies and AC where... actually AC is fairly realistic aside from the jumping off buildings and cushioning your fall on enemies.

I think what I liked most about Dark Soul's combat is how much control you had over it, especially spatially. In Assassins Creed and Batman I constantly felt like I was on a rail, only you could choose which rail you wanted to go on, and what combos you want to do on it.

 

[Luap26]

Vindictus, all I am saying.

 

[faspxina]

First person... none. It just doesn't work from a first person perspective.

3rd person... AC 2-Rev. It works as well and as smoothly as the Arkham games, and flows even more naturally with freerunning and even stealth.

AC2 still had most of the problems as AC as far as combat only being so much standing around and countering. They didn't speed things up until Brotherhood added that combo kill system that made even the biggest enemy clusterfucks trivial.

I found it this recently but there is a way in AC2, and apparently AC1, to do those finishing moves without having to counter, by pressing the attack button only after you land a successful hit, instead of mashing it repeatedly. If you do this by third or fourth hit you'll execute the finisher.

When I found out about this, combat did get a lot faster and I still got to do the cool executions.

And yes, Arkham Batman games have the best combat system of all time! ... of all time!

 

[Eddie the head]

Arkham City it hits that point of being fun yet being challenging at some points. A lot of other game tend to just focus on one or the other. Or just being there although it's not offensive in Skyrim.(IE not good not bad)

 

[gigastar]

God Hand. You could customise your combos however you wanted, and the game would break you over its knee and give you the great grandmother of all spankings if it thought you were being anything less than stellar at playing the game.

At least, its how it felt to me.

Manditory Dark Souls post.
Very good, realistic melee combat.

I had to raise a quizzical eyebrow at this statement. Dark Souls is definitely not realistic.

The combat is close enough.

Whiff a strike? Wave goodbye to your pecs.
Decide not to guard, evade or parry or enemy attacks? Its going to be an awfully short game.
Fail to recognise when certain enemies are prepared to parry and riposte you? Back to the bonfire. Again.

And the reverse also applies to your opponents, as you seek to exploit the same flaws that usually get the players killed.

 

[snagli]

Overgrowth or as i like to call it Watership beatdown.
There is not even a health system it´s based on skeletal structure, hit the back hard enough and you break the spine,Same for the neck And any other body part.

That little video actually made me pre-order the game instantly, it looks way way way too awesome not to buy it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

 

[Mordekaien]

First person... none. It just doesn't work from a first person perspective.

Well Chronicles of Riddick begs to differ....

My favourite? I like, M&B clunky combat, however the undefeated champion for close combat still is Batman: Arkham Asylum.

EDIT: Honorable mention goes to PoP: Warrior Within- that was beast too

 

[FalloutJack]

Barring actual fighting games where melee combat is sort of the point...

I'm caught somewhere between Devil May Cry games and Prototype with a God of War cherry on top.

 

[pspman45]

InFamous 2 (yea I know it was just mashing Square, but it looked so awesome!)
Monster Hunter - a lot of different fighting styles to choose from, all are smooth and intuitive
Mortal Kombat - punches feel like there is weight behind them, weapons make cartoony but still accurate sounds

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

First person... none. It just doesn't work from a first person perspective.

Escape From Butcher Bay would like a word. Incredibly satisfying and brutal brawling; every hit feels like it has a massive weight behind it. The brawling bits were some of the most fun parts of that game.

My choices won't be popular, but here's what I believe to be the best from all the games I've experienced:


Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Academy = Not so much the singleplayer, but the multiplayer had great physics, allows for pretty much any kind of attack you can concieve of, and rewards player judgement and skill above all else. Brilliant if you like to feel like you are the one making the difference.

I loved this game so much. Single player was still great, especially when you got the mods for realistic dismemberment, loaded a random map, spawned a load of NPCs and chopped them into itty bitty pieces. :3 Flipping over my enemy's heads and decapitating them is one of my fondest childhood memories.

Overgrowth or as i like to call it Watership beatdown.
There is not even a health system it´s based on skeletal structure, hit the back hard enough and you break the spine,Same for the neck And any other body part.

That little video actually made me pre-order the game instantly, it looks way way way too awesome not to buy it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

I've wasted more time on the Alpha for that game than I have on several complete games :']

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

Mount and Blade is simply the best melee combat system yet, and the most realistic.

Manditory Dark Souls post.
Very good, realistic melee combat.

I had to raise a quizzical eyebrow at this statement. Dark Souls is definitely not realistic.

Excuse me as I lower my eyebrow to compensate. What exactly prevented it from being realistic?

Fighting with a sword does not look like that. The melee combat is awesome but has almost no grounding in reality.

 

[-Drifter-]

Manditory Dark Souls post.
Very good, realistic melee combat.

I had to raise a quizzical eyebrow at this statement. Dark Souls is definitely not realistic.

Excuse me as I lower my eyebrow to compensate. What exactly prevented it from being realistic?

It's a little difficult to explain in detail because I honestly don't know where to start, but if you've ever so much as pretend fought with wooden sticks then you know that it's just not how sword fighting works. If you want an example of something closer to realism, check out Mount & Blade and perhaps the first two Thief games (it's been a while since I played them.)

 

[Davroth]

Red Steel 2

I want more like that. They kinda did it right.

 

[The Madman]

It's been said before and you've clearly played the game but it bears saying again for those that have not played the game:

Mount & Blade: Warband has by far the best (In terms of realistic) melee combat in the gaming industry today. Might not look like much but the game plays brilliantly and is just smooth and entertaining to play. A textbook example of simple to learn but difficult to master!

 

[Burst6]

The next is Monster Hunter, as a series. With 11 different weapon types to choose from, each with their strengths and weaknesses, players are encouraged to experiment and diversify their play styles. That is a sign of great combat. Yes, I'm aware that 8 of the weapons are melee, but my point still stands.

Finally, Dragon's Dogma. It was a surprise to see Capcom release a game that, on the surface, looks like Monster Hunter and, while the influence is undeniable, it is its own beast. The melee combat is, unfortunately, not as varied as the previous two, yet what it does is polished to a near-mirror sheen.

I thought the combat in dragons dogma was far more varied than in Monster hunter. Yeah Monster Hunter has more melee weapons but Dragons Dogma has tons of skills for each melee weapon. I found myself spamming the same attack over and over much less in dragons dogma anyway.

To me It's the opposite of what you said. Monster hunter has the simple but polished combat and Dragons Dogma is more varied.

Fighting with a sword does not look like that. The melee combat is awesome but has almost no grounding in reality.

I think it does have some grounding in reality. A lot of the moves in dark souls are very stylish, like something an actor who wants to impress would use.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Dude, NOTHING tops the Arkham Games. I mean, come on: it's incredibly simple and easy to learn, but still effective and diverse. It feels intuitive and natural, as well as visceral and real. Though I wish they had kept the sound work from the first game... nothing really compares to that nice, hard SMACK when Bruce's fist connects with Joker Henchman #43's face.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Really? So many people who say AC? That's probably one of the most boring fight engines ever.
You could just stand in a corner for 5 mins with unlimited block, unlimited enemies and just use the conter and wack one after the other and you'd defeat them withot getting a scratch.

The crusaders are the only guys which put up a fight somewhat. That's what makes the game so tedious (The first wasn't better). I really liked the stroy but the fighting felt sluggish and was somehow in the way of the story.