Game Discussion of the Week: Street Fighter II

Good lord she was smoking in the 90s. The way she ate that carrot in Bio Dome with Paulie Shore was pretty amazing.

But is Garou worth the price?

Balancing in most tournament fighting games is relative. winnersdontusedrugs had some pretty good insight on it.

It is also important to add that balancing can be done in many different ways, like designing frame data anf hit boxes from the conception of the game.

However you can also resource on nerfing and buffing the characters. Buffing in particular is a great way to balance a game because it enhances the gameplay experience.

That is why Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 and Capcom Vs. SNK 2 are regarded as some of the best fighting games of all time.

The balancing in those games is slightly different than the balancing on modern Guilty Gear and BlazBlue games, but they still balance themselves out because the amount of buffing demands from the player planning and strategy while knowlege of the attack and defense resources of each character.

In Street Fighter for example there are characters that are harder to use, ot at least have some moves that are harder to perform in certain fighting scenarios. When these moves can be done on the fly and performed properly and with planning, the seemingly weaker characters can outperform a top tier character.

At last it is important to consider that psychology and intuition play a role in tournaments and that having the most skills in controlling a match through provoking and causing setups while using your intuition can overcome any other obstacles you may have as a player.

No company can possibly balance those aspects because they are part of each individual experience and dedication to the game.

So those games may appear completely unbalanced at first glance but when you take into consideration the metagame those games level out to create the best possible spectacle that no other games can.

Like I said before, Street Fighter II may not be the best fighting game in history, but it is definitely the most important, and influential.

Gameplay-wise it doesn't even make it to my top 10 which is:

1. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 New Age Of Heroes
2. Capcom Vs. SNK 2 Mark Of The Millennium
3. The King Of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match
4. Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix
5. The King Of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match
6. Street Fighter III Third Strike Fight For The Future
7. Garou Mark Of The Wolves
8. Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom Ultimate All-Stars
9. The Last Blade 2
10. Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R

However I recognize the game is more relevant than all of those games because they would not exist the way they are without it.

Yes, at a straighforward level you can argue that it is one of the most unbalanced games ever because everyone is super buff in comparison to their original games and their unique specials are very different for each character, which is also the reason that makes it one of the most fun games ever. I would say only Mugen is arguably better, but that game was never official.

Balance in a straightforward way is what ruins fighters. If you take Ryu Vs. Ken in Street Fighter 1, the fight will be perfectly balanced, but it will also be perfectly boring because there is no challenge that requires creativity and mind play, it is all about doing things first.

With Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 you have god tier characters like Storm, Magneto, or Cable for example. Cable has a bean that goes instantly all across the screen and gives him an incredible reach. So when you saw people at the arcades finding ways to deal against those situations using lower tier characters themselves it was simply spectacular and it always moved the crowd enthusiastically behind their shoulders.

Also most people never even tried to learn a character, they were straight going with the normal attacks which is fine, but were wasting their bars as soon as they got a hyper. As oppose of those that never gave up and were able to use even the last of their resources.



The ones that figured them out always stole the show, particularly when the situation would seen flat out impossible to deal with for a regular player, and that is what made it so special.

Adding to my previous comment, another reason why buffing is ideal is because it adds those resources I was talking about that are needed for lower tier characters to utilize against the toughest competitors while remaining lower tier and taking every one by surprise. Street Fighter II received this treatment in the Alpha games, and ultimately in the core Marvel Vs. Capcom series.

About the AI on Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 that was brought up, this example applies perfectly because the reason why it is still doable even for me to defeat that high level of AI on a regular basis are because the moves resources in UMK3 characters is significantly larger than the resources on MKII characters. Hence beating MKII AI is significantly more complicated because all you have going for you is speed of inputs and if you fail you are done for the entire match.

You forgot MVC1, Hulk and Captain America were beasts in that game. Also in the regular MK3 Kabal was unstoppable while in MK Trilogy it was Noob Saibot that had a big advantage, but was also stoppable.