To be Complex or not to be

I recently purchased Street Fighter 3^rd strike online edition for the Xbox 360. It is considered by many aficionados to be the pinnacle of the series despite being released over a decade ago. Being a long time fan of the Street Fighter series and taking advantage of the games $15 price tag, I thought I owed it to myself to see what everyone was talking about.

After watching a multitude of games on Youtube between high level players, I certainly was intrigued. Most striking to me is how fast the gameplay is and how unlike many other SF games, many players employ an aggressive “rushdown” strategy that puts constant pressure on their opponent. The games parry system also takes the focus off of endless projectile wars, and so while they remain useful distractions, players do not have the ability to “zone” or grind the game to a stalemate.

With that said Id like to focus on what a game like this means to the fighting game genre, and as always, how things could be made for the better. Any SF3rdstrike player worth his salt knows jargon like: hit confirming, canceling, linking, and kara throwing. The existence of such jargon is also the reason why the vast majority of players will never be worth their salt. These high level game mechanics are well implemented and they certainly add a layer of skill to the game, the problem is that they add a layer of what I would call “Execution Skill”. This means that the player must devote considerable practice to mastering the precise technique required to consistently execute these tactics during a game. To better illustrate this point think of a game like golf, an unskilled golfer knows that he wants to hit a ball in a high arc out of the bunker and land it next to the hole, because he has not practiced this very nuanced swing thousands and thousands of times, he will most likely not hit a favorable shot. This failure is frustrating to the unskilled golfer, though a pro player can hit that same shot in his sleep.

My contention is that although there is a market for the hardcore gamer who enjoys spending countless hours mastering his controller technique, overall this proves to be a major turnoff for many players and stands as a significant barrier to entry for those looking to enter the genre. I love the concept of a skillful fighting game, but I don’t want to have to live in a mountain dojo for 6 months training my fingers like a concert pianist to be able to compete in what is ultimately a video game. Rather than relying on the tedium of complex button combos, I think the fighting game genre would be better served by sticking to a more simplistic and user friendly control scheme. A game that did this in excellent fashion was Smash Bros for the Nintendo 64. This was similarly a fighting game but only had 3 attack buttons and a total of 5 necessary buttons. Despite such simplicity the game was played professionally, and was universally considered to be a highly skill based game.

The advantage in offering such simplistic controls is that a new player can quickly feel competent in his ability to compete. Though he may not have the tactics and experience of a veteran player, the player never feels unfairly penalized for his “inability to execute”. Because of this you never hear someone complain, “I wanted to hit you with a Shoryuken but I accidentally did a medium punch”. The player is not tasked with the challenge of performing a move, that’s easy, instead he must focus on decision making, timing, and reading his opponents maneuvers. These are skill sets that all people can maintain, juggling an opponent into a 1o hit combo and linking that into a SuperArt is something few can or care to achieve.

Ultimately I think SF3rdStrike is a truly excellent Street Fighter game which caters to high level players who want to experience a game so nuanced that there is always room for them to improve. For the sake of the fighting game genre, I think developers would be best served by keeping the fast pace and aggressive gameplay demonstrated in 3^rd strike and marrying it with the ultra simplistic controls of a game like Smash Bros. Keeping the game easy to pick up, exciting to play, and difficult to master, is surely the recipe for a successful fighting game.