General Gaming Do you play fighting games?

[Fizzzzle]

I used to, but I haven't really dove into any since Mortal Kombat X or something else thereabouts. 

 

I just kind of got turned off by fighting games turning gradually into more service-based approaches to monetization. I understand that there are certain games where that model applies to, and fighting games are certainly one of them.

 

Take the Sims, for example (just making a comparison). The games as a service model kind of works for it because I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of people who play the Sims don't really play all that much else besides The Sims, so paying $100/year or whatever it ends up being to buy the stuff/game/expansion packs is not really a big deal to those players. I think players of games like Tekken and Soulcalibur probably tend to fit a similar mould. They might dabble in other games here or there, but they'll keep coming back to their favorite fighting game.

 

 

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I, a VERY casual player of fighting games who will probably just play one for a couple weeks before getting bored and moving on to something else, kind of feel like those games just aren't for me anymore. They want to lure you in by putting the base game on sale for $10 all the time in the hopes that you'll get hooked and spend $700 on all of the DLC characters/outfits/etc

[crispy4000]

I played quite a bit of Rushdown Revolt a while back, but have since focused exclusively on getting through more of my single player backlog.

 

I’d only consider buying DLC for a fighting game if I was really into it.  I’m cool with trying it years later if it means I can own a complete edition (for cheap).

[skillzdadirecta]

No they play me.

[GameDadGrant]

Yes.

[EternallDarkness]

I used to love them, back when I would play with friends in person, always great fun. But these days I rarely play in person with friends and playing fighting games online just isn't all that fun to me. 

[chakoo]

Yes but mostly retro fighters. 

[TheLeon]

Not really. Maybe if I had people to play with locally I could get into ‘em. 

[Phaseknox]

1 hour ago, Fizzzzle said:

They want to lure you in by putting the base game on sale for $10 all the time in the hopes that you'll get hooked and spend $700 on all of the DLC characters/outfits/etc

They usually put the complete editions of fighting games on sale just as frequently as they do the base versions, and they’re not that much more. I really like fighting games, but I never buy them on day one because I know that they will be more complete for cheaper in the future.

[Dre801]

Not really.  I was really into Tekken and Samurai Showdown back in the day though.

 

I own DOA3, several Tekkens, and Samurai Showdown 2, but haven't played them in years; they're just sitting on my game shelf.

 

Never really got into Street Fighter.

[Keyser_Soze]

3 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I, a VERY casual player of fighting games who will probably just play one for a couple weeks before getting bored and moving on to something else, kind of feel like those games just aren't for me anymore. They want to lure you in by putting the base game on sale for $10 all the time in the hopes that you'll get hooked and spend $700 on all of the DLC characters/outfits/etc

 

I think fighting games are going through a figuring things out period. Unfortunately a lot are pay for base game (mostly bare bones) and then pay for extra characters later. Something like SFV was so lacking at launch it really should have been a free game and then it would have made it easier to stomach paying for the extra characters.

 

As for something like KOF you get a lot of characters right off the bat, and I think they are adding modes for free (like the Rugal fight) in which case I don't have too much of an issue paying for extra fighters if I like them.

 

Virtua Fighter turned a lot of heads by being "free" (You can't buy it but you needed to download it with PS+) and without discussing numbers they said it was very profitable for them. The only thing they sell is cosmetics. While not a casual friendly game this is probably the best game for a casual to get into.

Then Multiversus also showed that if it's free people will show up and the characters are free in that one as well.

 

Right now fighting games really need a big hook to justify paying $60 for it. Because up front cost basically insures that those hardcore people who really want it play it for a long time and a casual like you will get your ass kicked if you want to get it on sale down the line, with little single player content really you have to be willing to play another person online.

[Phaseknox]

1 hour ago, Dre801 said:

Never really got into Street Fighter.

Like ever? Not even the earlier games, and Alpha games? They’re some of the best fighting games IMO.

[DPCyric]

Haven't been playing as much recently because I currently don't have an arcade stick but it is one of my favorite genres. SFV was a huge letdown coming from 4 sadly and I've played less than normal because of that too (Thankfully 6 looks amazing just is currently missing all of my mains). I still need to get the "new" Samurai Showdown it looks great but BlazBlue, Soul Calibur, DBFZ, Skullgirls and MK are all great right now. I would like another MvC the last one was an unbalanced messed and they nerfed my entire team (which was nowhere near top tier anyhow) 

[Biggie]

Just Tekken

[best3444]

After Soul Calibur 1 on Dreamcast I never touched a fighting game since. Just not into them anymore. 

[dualhunter]

No, but back in the day I played a ton of Street Fighter 2 (mostly SNES). Also liked Killer Instinct and played the first 3 Mortal Kombats. Didn't keep up after that. I got the PS2 Street Fighter 2 Collection but barely played it so I never bothered with newer collections of sequels. I played the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters (NES, SNES and Genesis) over the weekend since they're part of the Cowabunga Collection.

[skillzdadirecta]

As I've said often whenever this topic comes up, I was LEGENDARY in the local arcades at Samurai Shodown and Virtua Fighter 2. Like 20 wins on one quarter good. I still buy most of the fighting games that come out. I just don't play them that much anymore.

[GameDadGrant]

45 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

As I've said often whenever this topic comes up, I was LEGENDARY in the local arcades at Samurai Shodown and Virtua Fighter 2. Like 20 wins on one quarter good. I still buy most of the fighting games that come out. I just don't play them that much anymore.

 

#skillz (dadirecta)

[Paperclyp]

I’ve been studying and practicing Tekken and KOF, and I am hot garbage. 
 

Weirdly I have some inherent knowledge of street fighter from playing that more than any other fighting game series, and so when I watch videos on how to play fighting games I realize that certain overt techniques I have sort of learned over the years just by playing. 
 

But for Tekken (which I’d love to get good at) I understand the absolute basics and I know like literally 2 combos, but there’s so so much to actually learn. 
 

I would love to really get decent and be able to engage with the games like people who actually understand them can do. 

[SoberChef]

Just came here to post a favorable memory of not only Virtua Fighter, but also Battle Arena Toshiden.

[Mr.Vic20]

I did back in the day, but now they don't really hold my interest. I'm not a terribly competitive person so playing against another isn't much fun for me and I usually just play through the arcade/story mode once or twice with a preferred character or two and then I'm done. So I tend to buy my fighting games on sale and blow through them on a single weekend. MK is cheesey fun, with silly stories, so I tend to play through those. 

[Bacon]

No. They never clicked with me. I'd love to play them and be good at the, but like, I actually have to practice them. It wasn't something I was good at naturally. And I don't like that when it comes to video games. If I don't have a certain level of base skill by default then I lose all desire to get better. It is the same thing with mobas. I am far better at them now due to playing more games on PC, but when I first played LoL or something like Starcraft, I just had no gamer instinct like I do with a bunch of other games. That's how fighting games are. 

[Derek]

I got into Mortal Kombat X for awhile. I really enjoyed how they did through unlockables. Before that, my last fighter was probably whichever Super Smash Brothers came out before the Switch. Also, I tried MKX one time online and got thoroughly squashed.

 

@best3444 I loved me some Soul Calibur. That was probably the first console fighting game that I really dug.

[Bloodporne]

I still play the SNES Street Fighter II once in a while, that's quite literally it. I tried to get into online fighters with SFV and it made me irrationally angry so I uninstalled it and that's that for fighting games for me. 

[GameDadGrant]

Fighting games are great for “pick-up-and-play” sessions since they don’t wallow in dialogue and needless wandering around to find the next story beat. It’s pretty much just straight to gameplay. Even those with story modes have relatively short scenes between you actually playing. 
 

I appreciate them specifically because how well you do is entirely dependent on your own skills. Not if you’ve leveled up enough, got the best weapon, or if your teammate bailed you out of a tight spot. It’s quite visceral. Sadly, most gamers can’t hang.

[Phaseknox]

22 hours ago, GameDadGrant said:

Fighting games are great for “pick-up-and-play” sessions since they don’t wallow in dialogue and needless wandering around to find the next story beat. It’s pretty much just straight to gameplay. Even those with story modes have relatively short scenes between you actually playing.

Yeah, and that’s what I like about arcade style beat ‘em ups as well. There’s really nothing more to them than pure gameplay, and sometimes that’s all that I’m really in the mood for. However, I don’t know why these genres remain strictly arcade style games. Their gameplay lends to more than just being quick fix type of games.

 

One of my favorite beat ‘em ups is Buffy the Vampire Slayer for Xbox. It came out back in 2002, and I still play it to this day. It’s a linear 3D beat ‘em up at its core, but has a decent story, cast of characters and some platforming and puzzle solving as well. It’s the natural evolution of the beat ‘em up genre IMO, yet it’s one of the few of its kind to ever come out and twenty years later we still get the same 2D pixel art sprite based arcade style beat ‘em ups that we got back in the 90s. Sure they’re still fun and provide classic retro arcade entertainment, but why don’t we get ones like Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well? Lengthier 3D ones with involved stories, characters and environment platforming and traversal.

 

I just don’t get why the genre remains strictly retro arcade style. And the same is true for fighting games as well, why do they all have to be arcade tournament fighters? Why aren’t there any single player focused adventure ones where you create a character, start as an amateur fighter, train and get better at fighting learning new moves and working your way up the ranks until you become champion? Basically, a fighting game that’s a deeper, more involved and lengthy experience than simply being a pick-up-and-play quick fix type of game. Both could coexist, there’s no reason why there should only be one and not the other. 

 

22 hours ago, GameDadGrant said:

I appreciate them specifically because how well you do is entirely dependent on your own skills. Not if you’ve leveled up enough, got the best weapon, or if your teammate bailed you out of a tight spot. It’s quite visceral. Sadly, most gamers can’t hang.

Well, a lot of us gamers aren’t the young bucks that we once were and can’t hang like we used to.  I was in my 20s in the 90s and kicked ass at fighting games back then, but now in my 50s not so much. I drop the difficulty down, and button mash for the most part. I can still pull off the occasional combos and special moves, but not like in my youth. I just don’t have the split second reflexes required to really excel in fighting games anymore, and I only play them single player as I probably wouldn’t be able to hang with other players.

[stepee]

I like playing fighting games though they typically are probably not exactly worth the money unless on sale for me, since I pretty much stick to single player. I still enjoy them though and probably play at least some of one once a week.

 

Lately I like firing up KOF15 and just running through the story mode. It’s a really great feeling fighter, probably the best KOF has ever felt to me. Wish it had more content. They need more mission modes in them for us single players, but as long as I have an arcade mode least we are okay.

 

Of course I enjoy the MK and Injustice games as they give you some real meat in SP, but gameplay wise they are definitely not my favorite. I have really high hopes for Street Fighter 6 both delivering a good SP and maybe even a multiplayer that I’ll dip into a little bit.

 

I also like doing nostalgia runs and just firing up 90s fighters on the deck and going through them. I’ll always have a blast with any of the VS games, all the way up to MVSC3 actually.

 

 

[stepee]

I don’t know where else to put this so how do you guys feel about dlc with fighters these days compared to the frequent sequels in the old days?

 

It’s weird to me that even though I’ve now spent a total of only $30 since I bought the original SF5 to get all the characters, I still somehow feel like it’s a rip off sorta. I have a hard time justifying paying for characters, so I don’t like it. I want to just pay once and get a bunch of peeps and not think of price per character. But really the amount of content I have in SF5 now compared to launch, it would have literally been 3-4 sequels at $50+ a piece back in the 90s, so I actually saved a lot.

 

But then that’s also only because I waited out additional characters for like half a decade until they all came out and there were decent deals.

 

But then there are also stages missing still even after buying the CE upgrade and Season 5 Premium. 7 stages which is quite a few, apparently to get those I need to get the Capcom pro tour dlc collection, and you can’t even buy them with in game money. They want $40 for those. Like, to get everything it still would only be the price of one extra game, but there is no way I can get myself to spend $40 on 7 stages so now I still just don’t have everything idk.

[Keyser_Soze]

2 hours ago, stepee said:

But then there are also stages missing still even after buying the CE upgrade and Season 5 Premium. 7 stages which is quite a few, apparently to get those I need to get the Capcom pro tour dlc collection, and you can’t even buy them with in game money. They want $40 for those. Like, to get everything it still would only be the price of one extra game, but there is no way I can get myself to spend $40 on 7 stages so now I still just don’t have everything idk.

 

A lot of that is just to support the CPT and made special for those particular events so I don't think of them as necessary to have or something that would have ever been included in the game in any version.

[stepee]

1 minute ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

A lot of that is just to support the CPT and made special for those particular events so I don't think of them as necessary to have or something that would have ever been included in the game in any version.

 

Well then my complaint is just that SF5 should have a stage for each character :P

[Keyser_Soze]

20 minutes ago, stepee said:

Well then my complaint is just that SF5 should have a stage for each character :P

 

A valid complaint but also SFV was a disaster at launch. It was cleaned up later through balance changes and good DLC characters but it never became a casual friendly single player game.

[DPCyric]

5 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

A valid complaint but also SFV was a disaster at launch. It was cleaned up later through balance changes and good DLC characters but it never became a casual friendly single player game.

 

As a SF fan I still don't own V almost got it in a humble bundle but they changed what tier it was in and it wasn't worth the extra price for me. I'm excited for VI some of the new characters looks great don't know if I will ever give V a chance.

[stepee]

6 hours ago, DPCyric said:

 

As a SF fan I still don't own V almost got it in a humble bundle but they changed what tier it was in and it wasn't worth the extra price for me. I'm excited for VI some of the new characters looks great don't know if I will ever give V a chance.

 

If you are a SF fan I would definitely consider getting it now, it’s a good time to get it. Right now you can get the CE Edition + S5 for $28.50 on Steam, which gets you everything besides those 7 special stages I mentioned. With 47 characters, the story mode, the arcade tiers, individual story modes for all the characters, and a bunch of other stuff, it’s a very complete game now. It will be years before SF6 can match the character variety that’s here now.

[Keyser_Soze]

4 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

If you are a SF fan I would definitely consider getting it now, it’s a good time to get it. Right now you can get the CE Edition + S5 for $28.50 on Steam, which gets you everything besides those 7 special stages I mentioned. With 47 characters, the story mode, the arcade tiers, individual story modes for all the characters, and a bunch of other stuff, it’s a very complete game now. It will be years before SF6 can match the character variety that’s here now.

 

That being said the story mode is terrible (also free no matter what version you have) and the individual story modes are also quite disappointing. Heck down to the end they became just one fight, they really stopped trying.

[stepee]

Maybe but at least it’s stuff to do SP unlike KOF or Strive! They don’t need to be much, just little incentives to give structure to playing single player. 

[DPCyric]

On 9/20/2022 at 10:22 AM, stepee said:

 

If you are a SF fan I would definitely consider getting it now, it’s a good time to get it. Right now you can get the CE Edition + S5 for $28.50 on Steam, which gets you everything besides those 7 special stages I mentioned. With 47 characters, the story mode, the arcade tiers, individual story modes for all the characters, and a bunch of other stuff, it’s a very complete game now. It will be years before SF6 can match the character variety that’s here now.

 

I honestly really don't see the point until I can get the whole package for like $10 plenty of other games I can play and the new characters in 5 I really don't find interesting and most of my characters are not that good in 5. Street Fighter 6 has some new characters that actually look interesting to me but sadly none of my mains are going to be in the launch roster.