At the beginning of August, a rather important event ended: the Evolution Championship Series tournament dedicated to fighting games ended in Las Vegas. In this blog, on the wave of nostalgia for MK and Tekken, I am going to plunge into the world of fighting games, and also tell newcomers about it and its origins. For those who don’t particularly like to read, below is a video version.
Big brother of fighting games Bitemap
Combat sports in the gaming industry were present long before they turned into fighting games in the form in which we know them now, initially the predominant genre in arcade machines was Bitemap – a genre where the main character or a group of heroes, depending on the number of players, had to, usually in an urban setting, break through huge hordes of enemies to the end of a long horizontal level, beyond which another level awaited them, beyond which a boss awaited them, and so on several times. Unlike future fighting games, in the bitmaps the characters, due to the large number of enemies, had attacks with a quick start-up and a long hit stun, to make it clearer I’ll give an example.
Character attack phases, startup, active frames, recovery frames
The character’s attack has several phases, at the time when Ken begins the attack is called a start-up, during the frames set aside for the start-up, the character begins to deliver his attack on the enemy, after which there are frames of the blow, during which the blow passes through the opponent, and finally, recovery frames when the character takes the starting position after striking or missing, in turn, the opponent after the blow may experience a hitstun if the player’s attack reached the target and a blockstun if it was blocked.
In fighting games, the frames allocated to each of these phases play a serious role in the gameplay, and framedata – an array of data that indicates the exact frames of the phases of all character attacks in the game – is extremely useful material for familiarization. In the bitmaps we are talking about now, knowledge of frame data is not so necessary, since by simply clicking many players found combinations with good startups and hit stuns in attacks, which made it possible to play games of this genre fun and not stressful, sometimes even mocking some bosses. One of the minuses of the genre could be highlighted – the plot in these games was at the level of simple action films, it touched on themes of revenge or the fight against crime. Players were usually given a variety of heroes to choose from with different characteristics and features, such as increased attack speed, damage dealt, or an increased supply of vitality, in addition, the characters usually used a unique weapon or fighting style, which made the gameplay for one of them different from the process of controlling another.
The golden age of beatmaps came at the beginning of 1987 with the release of Double Dragon; after its release, the popularity of the genre not only did not subside, but also increased for 5 years. The game provided, in addition to an extensive arsenal of punches and kicks, the opportunity to use objects found on the level, as well as take away weapons from enemies. The golden age continued with games like Streets of Rage and Battletoads, as well as the entire Golden Ax and Final Fight series, the latter of which was related to the original Street Fighter, which we will talk about later. Subsequently, the beatmap genre began to lose popularity due to the monotony of the gameplay, however, this did not manage to kill the genre completely, some games include beatmaps or references to them as a sign of respect, and some even turn them into a minigame for teaching guitar playing. There have been quite a few full-fledged classic beatmaps lately; the two-dimensional world is inhabited by Castle Crashers Mother Russia Bleeds and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game, and in three-dimensional we are greeted by Kiriya Kazuma with a whole series of Yakuza games, also, bitemap has found another rebirth in the slasher genre, the best representatives of which DMC, God of war, Bayonetta and the like are still heard, let’s go back to 1987, which became the starting point for the genre that displaced its older brother bitemap from the throne of popularity.
Arcade machine with Double Dragon on board
The first fighting games
Until 1987, fighting games were represented by an extremely small number of games; the prominent representatives of that time were Karateka and Karate Champ in 1984. They contained some of the tenets of the fighting game genre, such as a narrow arena in which confrontation with the enemy is inevitable and the division of the battle into several rounds. 3 years later, a team from Capcom led by Hiroshi Matsumoto releases the first Street Fighter in arcade machines, the game was a series of matches with computer opponents, the player took on the role of Ryu, a martial artist from Japan, to prove his strength he participates in the World Warrior martial arts tournament. If there is a second player, he takes on the role of an old acquaintance and sparring partner of Ryu – Ken, who is currently his opponent in the tournament. To prevent players from feeling imbalanced, Ken was made exactly the same as Ryu, only the color of the fighter’s uniform was different.
In battle, he used the same moveset, including the special moves Hadoken, Shoryuken and Tatsumaki Senpukyaku. The first part was not as popular as its sequels, but it introduced several more postulates into the genre – a time limit and determining the winner based on the remaining health, after its expiration. Subsequently, Capcom planned to change the street fighter genre to bit-map, but the final decision was to leave the game as a fighting game, and implement the ideas about bit-map in a new series of games – Final Fight.
Karateka – the “grandfather” of https://nongamstop-casinos.uk/review/aztec-paradise/ fighting games
Street Fighter 2
In 1991, Capcom released a sequel to Street Fighter, which began to create buzz around fighting games in the 90s. The sequel was several heads above the original, and literally, the player had the right to choose from eight playable characters from different countries. The already familiar Ken and Ryu were joined by professional wrestler Zangief, yogi Dhalsim, former special forces soldier Guile, sumo wrestler Honda, bestial Blanca and Interpol agent Chun Li. Also, the set of computer-controlled opponents was expanded and every few rounds a bonus round appeared, the machine from which became a frequent participant in memes. However, the main advantage of the game was its drawback, a bug was discovered in the game that made it possible to cancel the animation of some techniques by making others basic or special, this amazed both the developers and the game community, later it began to be called a combo, and the bug was added as a game mechanic, both in the sequels of the street fighter and in other fighting games, which will now be discussed.
Ken and Ryu prepare to sell scrap metal
Mortal kombat
Subsequent fighting games borrowed some ideas from the second street fighter, but brought something of their own, unique, for which some series are still loved by players. Mortal Kombat, created by Ed Boon and John Tobias in 1992, was especially good. The developers wanted to make the idea of a game with Jean-Claude van Dam a reality, but in the end they ended up with a different game, perhaps even better than planned. Van Dam was eventually used as a prototype for Johnny Cage; in addition to him, Liu Kang also had a real basis; Bruce Lee served as his prototype. The first Mortal kombat brought many innovations to fighting games. The game introduced blocking, placed on a separate button, unlike street fighter, in which the block was carried out by entering the direction backwards. It became easier to use techniques than in the same street fighter, instead of circular movements, when entering directions, the most basic ones were used: forward, back, up, down, techniques also appeared that were entered exclusively on the direction buttons, in addition, the concept of juggling with the enemy was introduced. While the opponent’s fighter was in the air, he could not control him, and the player who threw the poor guy into the air could make a series of blows supporting the character model in the air and end the series with a tasty uppercut or a special move; in the early versions of the game, the characters flew up extremely high, so juggling did not become a particular problem even for beginners. Subsequently, the physics was changed to a more realistic one and the number of blows during juggling was sharply reduced. Also, after the uppercuts, you could hear the famous “toastie” and see Dan Forden, who was responsible for the sound and music in the game, in the corner of the screen, and also saying this very “toastie”. An innovation was the fatality, from the developers’ idea to give the player the opportunity at the end of the match to inflict a free hit on an opponent swinging in a stupor, it grew into those very finishing moves for which many people like the MK series more than other fighting games. But there were also dissatisfied ones; due to the presence of blood and the ability to do this most fatality, the game was branded with an M rating from the ESRB. It got to the point that parents were worried that fatalities seen in the game could motivate children to repeat similar things in real life; in 1993, the US Congress even held hearings on violence in video games, and in Mortal Kombat, in particular. However, in subsequent parts of the series there was another, but no less significant sin. Some characters, namely the ninja Scorpio, Sub-Zero, Reptile, Smoke, Ermac, Rain and Noob Saibot, had a similar appearance, the only difference was their color. In later parts of the series, each of them acquired a more recognizable unique appearance and ceased to be just one repainted ninja model.
Finish Him sounded – time to make fatality
After Mortal Kombat in 1994, Tekken entered the game, both on arcade machines and on the then new PS1 console. The feature of the fighting game was to bind the hit buttons not to the force of the blow, but to a certain limb, and 4 shifts could be assigned to grabs and other button combinations, this made the game a little more intuitive for the player. In addition, Tekken was a little slower than other fighting games, its gameplay was focused on tactics and deception of the enemy, which was improved in part 3 of 98, because the ability to bypass the opponent was added. Punishments for missing a hit or entire combos were aggravated by the fact that it was possible to use walls, which allowed even a couple of three hits, but to prolong the juggling and cause more damage, and some arenas even provided for breaking one wall or floor and moving to another part of the arena, from the side of the person who fell after a strong blow, in turn, the ability to quickly get up and return back to the battle was added. Also, Tekken included some mini-games, for example, the tekken force mode that appeared in part 3 paid tribute to the bit-map genre, which was losing popularity, and the volleyball mode slightly diluted the fight with a game of ball. The cast of characters in Tekken was diverse both in terms of gameplay and ethnicity, due to the plot of the series revolving around an international iron fist tournament, the main prize in which is a huge amount of money and the title of King of the Iron Fist, for which all the characters fight, from representatives of the Mishima family, leading family squabbles throughout all parts, to masters of various martial arts and even bears and kangaroos. The merits of the series were later recognized even by Ed Boon, who called Tekken his favorite fighting game, excluding Mortal Kombat.
Who will win, Heihachi or Heihati?
Games after 1995
Then many more series of fighting games were created, both successful and not very successful, of which the most outstanding ones are worth mentioning: Guilty Gear, although suffering from a lack of balance, but a driving anime-stylized fighting game, with gorgeous music written by Daisuke Ishiwatari, Soulcalibur, an original fighting game, where instead of hand-to-hand combat, battles are fought with swords and other melee weapons, Dead or Alive, a fighting game with an excellent physics engine. Also for comic book fans there are Injustice and Marvel vs. Capcom, and for anime fans there is simply a sea of fighting games of different levels of quality, ranging from games based on Naruto and JoJo, ending with Dragon Ball Fighter Z, which is even played at EVO, in general, now it is extremely easy for a fan of fighting games to find a game to his liking.
In the late nineties – early 2000s, fighting games had what awaits any game with a competitive element – eSports tournaments, the first Japanese and then American tournaments, began to attract many players from all over the world. Annual tournaments attract both newcomers and seasoned veterans such as SonicFox, Daigo and the rest. E-sports events in fighting games also quickly reached our country in the form of the All-Russian championship – Moscow Fighting Arena, and which took over the title of the main all-Russian tournament – Russian REVersal, the last of which was held at the end of August. For the viewer, fighting game tournaments are a spectacular competition between two cyber athletes, but on the part of the players on the other side of the screen, considerable skill and understanding of their character is required for a good game. Fighting is a serious discipline and even requires the study of small but significant theoretical material. An ordinary player like me usually thinks that it’s enough to learn a couple of spectacular combos for 30-40 percent of the enemy’s health bar, but in reality it turns out that even in time to enter the blow that starts the series is not as easy as we would like. In this case, framedata comes to the aid of the player – a library of fighting games, delving into which and finding something new can be no less useful than practicing with strong players. Finding disadvantages in your strategy and replacing punishable strikes with safer ones, selecting attacks and mix-ups that are suitable for different situations, and, finally, simply comparing the performance of different characters in different games, framedata allows you to make this process faster and more informative, and both to reason with the fighter himself not to use a dangerous technique, and to help him become more competent in understanding the matchup with other characters. Sometimes, however, there are cases when the game slides into a slideshow due to the enemy’s high ping. Fortunately, this is not the case at eSports events, so those who like to complain about ping, balance or the controller in losing situations have no choice but to accept defeat, shake hands with their opponent and, without losing their dignity, go to train for a better result next time.
EVO 2019 – a major fighting game tournament
Controllers
Since I mentioned controllers, it’s worth talking about them too. For fighting games, in addition to the obvious gamepad that comes straight with the console and the arcade stick – a classic control tool in fighting games dating back to arcade machines, there are quite a lot of manipulators on the market, some switch from the usual gamepad to the keyboard, some to the hitbox, some to the mixbox, I won’t say which is better for you, I’ll just say – whatever you’re used to playing on, go ahead and play, a small increase in convenience will not replace those days or months of getting used to a new device, but having mastered a new, more convenient device for you, you can really show better results in fighting games than before, but if none of the listed devices seems convenient, it doesn’t matter, some cyberathletes even assemble the controller themselves, this is of course not a difficult task, but it requires costs, and at tournaments there are cases of bans for self-made devices, like recently Daigo,who wanted to try out his hitbox in a Street Fighter V tournament was unable to do so due to the fact that Capcom officially banned the use of a hitbox in that tournament, due to the supposed greater advantage of players with such a device. The convenience of the hitbox is certainly undeniable, but it does not introduce a huge imbalance, since for some techniques you have to perform even more hand manipulations than on the same stick.
You can win while driving
However, no matter what controller you play on, the main thing in the game will still be the reaction, understanding the matchups and knowledge of the character you are playing for, because you can’t go far with just a loaf mesh, but you can practice playing now in any of the games, techniques are written everywhere, and some even have analysis of combinations of strikes, which is very useful for beginners, having analyzed the basic combinations and strikes, you can begin to study more complex advanced combos, collections of which are in tons YouTube, in addition to this, it’s worth learning the characters’ basic moves and punishable attacks so as not to get caught using them. In general, this is my advice, as well as this blog comes to an end, thank you all for reading to the end and good luck playing online.
Tekken 7
Street Fighter V
GUILTY GEAR Xrd REV 2
Mortal Kombat 11
Best comments
First of all, thank you for consecrating the genre. In Russian there are very few videos on the genre as a whole. And non-toxic (or even neutral, look, you rolled your lip) are slightly less than zero. The material is definitely of high quality, if only because with my (albeit not very great) interest in the genre and some kind of direct participation in it (600 hours in Tekken Overall), for the first time I saw at least some references in the direction of bitmaps.
Secondly, I’ll immediately throw a stone into the garden – I categorically disagree with the opinion that the genre is blooming and smelling (I hope I haven’t changed the concept anywhere or understood something wrong). After all, one of the largest tournaments (EVO) literally with all its appearance screams how much the organizers are not ready to spend an extra yen/dollar (at the last EVO the athletes sat close to each other, at least they would have spent money on booths, by God). And there are no questions for the organizers (at least in this context), they, I believe, correctly calculate the percentage of profit. But the fact that with the monetization of the largest tournament of the genre everything is so sad leads to certain conclusions. However, it’s enough to google the prize funds of the central tournaments, and the numbers will speak louder than any of my words. And in case the argument seems untenable, I will turn to directly relevant examples. Namely the games themselves. The understanding that playing on PC is still a terrible crutch comes exactly at the moment when we begin to look beyond the golden trinity of Street Fighter/Tekken/Mortal Combat. The training in soulcalibur (the latest one at the moment) is almost unreadable in terms of which keys are responsible for what. That is, for a person who even understands something about fighting games, it is simply very difficult. For a newcomer to the genre, I would venture to guess that it will be overwhelming. As for DOA 6, there is no such “excess” as changing hotkeys. I, of course, understand that people play DOA not to fight, but to install a skinning mod and evaluate the physics of breast vibrations, but if you still want to play comfortably on the keyboard (well, you never know, maybe someone will want to play on a PC using a keyboard as a nonsense), then please, if you please, use your brain while dealing with rebinding the keys. And, in fact, if we keep in mind that the genre is extremely niche and exists for those who love fighting games not “for”, but “in spite of”, then all my “secondly” can be broken about this thesis. But to say that the genre is developing somewhere there seems to me to be very arrogant. Although from the point of view of marketing and attracting new blood, the Terminator in MK and Negan in Tekken will probably serve the genre.
Well, thirdly, there is both a plus and a minus here. Although no, even a plus sign and a tiny little minus sign. Plus for the fact that right off the bat you throw an unprepared viewer into the jungle with frame data. I really missed this at the start of the game. And I think, ultimately, this is what a lot of people are missing. Well, a downvote for the fact that, as it seemed to me, you do not explain some terms. And if a person is not strong in High Elvish (after all, the level of English among people in the CIS leaves much to be desired), then figuring out what “panish” and “matchup” are can be difficult. But, I repeat, I didn’t have such a problem, so this is not even subjective, but simply – “Let me get to the bottom of it”.