Capcom/Namco Crossovers Will Push Fighting Genre Forwards, Says Developers

[StriderShinryu]

I'd try that.. if only to see what MK would be like if made by a competent fighting game developer.

I wouldn't call Capcom competent, but Midway isn't really either (the main reason MK is a big hit was because it was bloody to the point ratings systems had to be made).
Is there a fighting game company that is actually competent? Namco thinks we all are masters and have a bad habit of overpowering their bosses in Tekken, and the balancing in Soul Calibur is quite bad. That means they are out as well.

I tend to judge fighting games based on their depth, balance and how solidly they feel when you play them. In that regard, both Capcom and Namco are so far beyond Midway that they couldn't see the MK team in their rear view mirror if they flat out stopped moving forward and started backing up. The only thing MK has ever had going for it is the gore and a decent cast of characters. As a serious fighting game, it's almost always been a failure.

As to balance, it's always a tough thing to accomplish, especially if you consider both hardcore players and the average joe as points that also somehow need to be balanced (which is where I feel the Soul Calibur series went wrong). I think Capcom has done the best job of this recently with SF4 and SSF4, but they've had some massive misses too (like in MvC2). The more characters and crazy stuff you throw in, the harder an already near impossible task is going to be. Once the game actually gets out into the hands of the pros then it once again becomes an entirely different ballgame.. though this is where Capcom succeeded with SF4 largely because they did so much of the pre-release testing with actual pro fighting game players. I hate unbalanced fighters, but I'm willing to accept a little bit of imbalance if it means more variety and maybe more fun.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I have the feeling that the one that plays like Street Fighter will sell much better than the one that plays like Tekken.

This. I gave Tekken a real, honest try and thought that it was a game with potential, but mucked it up with retarded mechanics like the air juggling. It looks so horribly out of place in a game with such realistic looking combat. It could have been a lot more than it was, but instead it just comes off as kind of an amateurish fighter that people like to pretend is 'omigod so pr0.' It reminds of people who honestly try and play Super Smash Bros. as a tourney quality game.

As someone how started playing 3D fighters with Virtua Fighter, I actually always found Tekken to play a little more on the "fun" side. It is a serious fighter, and the graphic style is a little more "realistic" than "cartoon" compared to some other games, but to me the juggling always seemed to fit the real world meets anime inspired design. Now Virtua Fighter is a game where juggling feels totally out of place, and yet it can be almost as much of a juggle fest as Tekken is.

 

[Shackels]

Snip

I agree, I love characters in Tekken. Too bad the emo one's my best character >.>

lol Well, I'm mostly a Hwoarang player so while his T6 ending did show a (great) new side to his personality he'll probably always be known as the guy with the unpronouncable name who's eternally chasing after Jin in some pointless quest for restored honour. Heck, laymen can't even call him Bob anymore now that there's an actual other character (who I hate) named Bob. *cry*

I just called him "whore wang" for some reason. Why did they put bob in their anyway? to compete with sf4's fat man?

I usually try to play as the taekwondo/karate guys in every fighting game I play (besides those like guilty gear and blazblue obviously) cuz I'm learning karate myself,and Jin's movelist has moves that come right outta the stuff I'm being taught.

 

[demoman_chaos]

I tend to judge fighting games based on their depth, balance and how solidly they feel when you play them. In that regard, both Capcom and Namco are so far beyond Midway that they couldn't see the MK team in their rear view mirror if they flat out stopped moving forward and started backing up. The only thing MK has ever had going for it is the gore and a decent cast of characters. As a serious fighting game, it's almost always been a failure.

As to balance, it's always a tough thing to accomplish, especially if you consider both hardcore players and the average joe as points that also somehow need to be balanced (which is where I feel the Soul Calibur series went wrong). I think Capcom has done the best job of this recently with SF4 and SSF4, but they've had some massive misses too (like in MvC2). The more characters and crazy stuff you throw in, the harder an already near impossible task is going to be. Once the game actually gets out into the hands of the pros then it once again becomes an entirely different ballgame.. though this is where Capcom succeeded with SF4 largely because they did so much of the pre-release testing with actual pro fighting game players. I hate unbalanced fighters, but I'm willing to accept a little bit of imbalance if it means more variety and maybe more fun.

You aren't trying to say Street Fighter is balanced are you? So Zangeif's throw spamming is balaced? Ken and Ryu spamming Hadokens and a shuryuken (however that thing is spelled) is balanced? Blanka certainly isn't balanced either since he will zap you when you get close. And considering Akuma can pretty much insta-kill someone with 1 move, I'd have to strongly disagree.
MK has a lot of depth, look up some of the combos online. The original trilogy had some crazy combos, but MK combos stem mostly from creativity. In MK1 & 2 there are no real combos per say, but even the simple Scorpion spear to uppcut is technically a combo. Linking special moves into chains is where the real fun starts. MK3 added regular punching combos to the special move combo chaos.
Tekken is fairly well balanced, since most every character is mainly only different in feel and look. That is, until you get to the boss which is way way too over powered (Jinpachi from 5 pissed me off to the point I stopped playing Tekken games entirely).
The worst balanced fighting game is SSBB. MetaKnight is very overpowered (only thing he can't do is cling to walls and shoot stuff), just like Snake (but then again, it is a guy who takes down giant robots for a living and took down a tank with just grenades).

 

[StriderShinryu]

You aren't trying to say Street Fighter is balanced are you? So Zangeif's throw spamming is balaced? Ken and Ryu spamming Hadokens and a shuryuken (however that thing is spelled) is balanced? Blanka certainly isn't balanced either since he will zap you when you get close. And considering Akuma can pretty much insta-kill someone with 1 move, I'd have to strongly disagree.
MK has a lot of depth, look up some of the combos online. The original trilogy had some crazy combos, but MK combos stem mostly from creativity. In MK1 & 2 there are no real combos per say, but even the simple Scorpion spear to uppcut is technically a combo. Linking special moves into chains is where the real fun starts. MK3 added regular punching combos to the special move combo chaos.
Tekken is fairly well balanced, since most every character is mainly only different in feel and look. That is, until you get to the boss which is way way too over powered (Jinpachi from 5 pissed me off to the point I stopped playing Tekken games entirely).
The worst balanced fighting game is SSBB. MetaKnight is very overpowered (only thing he can't do is cling to walls and shoot stuff), just like Snake (but then again, it is a guy who takes down giant robots for a living and took down a tank with just grenades).

For Gief's throws to work, he has to get close enough to use them. He has some good/great pressure tools once he gets inside, but in most games he has very few tools for getting around the screen. Keep him out and he's almost useless, let him in and you're dead, which is the way most designed grapplers in most games work.

Fireball/DP traps haven't been invincible since, well, the very first SF2. In the majority of SF games today there are multiple ways of dealing with fireball spam. You'll actually find in many high level matches now a days that there are more fireballs thrown out as bait, as mid range zoning/chipping tools and in combos than there ever are thrown in a constant stream.

Blanka's electricity is probably one of the worst moves in most SF games. It's slow start up time and tendency to get traded with more often than it hits cleanly make it a very situational move, and the fact it locks you in place makes it easily baitable. Heck, even in the first SF2 it was cleanly beaten by many standard sweep kicks.

Akuma's Raging Demon can almost kill you in one hit, sure, assuming you actually get hit by it. Even at point blank range, it can generally be jumped over by just holding up during the activation animation. If you're eating it following a really bad whiff then that's not really Akuma's fault. Also balance this off by the fact that in most games Akuma takes hits like a pansy. Sure he can RD you for most of your life bar, but a combo that takes off 30% on someone else's lifebar will take Akuma's down to half.

MK may have some interesting combos (that are often you fighting against or breaking the system that the devs put in place), but so does pretty much every fighter these days. Also, Killer Instinct was almost entirely about combos but noone holds that game up as a paragon of depth. Depth comes in moment to moment play, options and mindgames not how high you can make a combo counter go.

I won't comment on SSB as I haven't played it enough to speak on it's balance or depth, but you're not the first person I've heard those opinions from.

 

[SoopaSte123]

I've always loved me some Tekken and have grown tired of the Street Fighter vs Tekken debate, so its great that the 2 franchises can come together. It makes me proud haha.

EDIT: Let me retract my pride after reading the rest of these comments X(

 

[Electrogecko]

Super Smash is the only truly original fighting game very long, and Brawl is my favorite 4 player local play game with no contest.