Welp, that completely ruined my hour. I figured I'd respond to some of the posts in here after a jazzy 3S time and an accidental Sassy VSav encounter (40+ matches that left my neck feeling like Homer's after he hulked out, but those were great fights nonetheless. After finishing half of my post (most of it being somewhat lengthy and measured responses to Dahbomb who said some good stuff) I accidentally reloaded the page.
The only music that could describe what I felt at that moment must have been this. Excuse whatever spelling and grammatical errors you encounter because I'm DONE.
Once you managed to hook someone in based on the allure of the team mechanics... then you had to deal with vanilla Skullgirls which was a mess. The IPS kept changing and even then originally you had long combos and just some weird shit with it. It was really hard to keep up with so many iterations on those changes. It's good now but it was a lot asking people to stick around for over a year before these problems were fixed.
Yeah, it was pretty bad, but mostly because Mike and the rest of the team at Lab Zero had no way of knowing that Autumn and Konami were about to be sued to oblivion. Litigation-Gate was disastrous (obviously, losing their jobs and adding an entire sequel's worth of content and features while working at noodle cup wages is no joke). Nine months is really fast for a UMvC3 expansion, but pretty shitty for a game that clearly had issues (and a lack of characters) at launch.
Next problem is that initially and arguably still to this day... Skullgirls simply does not have the character roster size to accommodate for a potential 3v3 fighter. If you have like 9 characters starting out and you need to build a team of 3... well you are using 1/3rd of the cast on your team already! Being able to use any move for an assist is an excellent feature that Enzo will come in and berate on but he's wrong and should not be catered to... but the issue is that the best move for an assist generally gets figured out and you will still end up with the same few team configurations that work. So you still need a lot of characters for this to work well.
I can understand the character size issue. Without the ratio system it'd be a far bigger problem than it is now (really, it's much better at fourteen characters).
In regards to the assists, I'm glad that we're on a similar page, but you'd be surprised by the sheer amount of assist variety that persists to this day. A lot of these characters have moves they have no business using in the first place as grapplers, RTSD characters, keepaway characters and chargers, so the end result is pretty interesting. Big Band has what is most likely the best DP assist in the game, but he's also got a wall creating near full screen wall punch, an overhead assist and a very good charged grab assist with an AA option if that is your flavor). It's the same with other characters like Peacock who has four different projectile assists that range from far away overhead use to solid close range blockstring use). The sheer number of armored assists in the game (that aren't even the best for their respective characters, I might add) is also amazing. Aside from Painwheel I can't think of another character that ended up in that Haggar Lariat/Hsien-Ko Gold Pendulum ghetto.
The character ratio system is also something that is debatable. I personally like it but for others it might not be very appealing. When you first get into the game you think "man I should just concentrate on one character and play a solo character" and then you get locked into a single character not willing to try out a multi character team. It's one of those things that is better to pick one option rather than have the user be able to use all possible options. It's both a strength and a weakness of the game.
I don't know if I'd still be playing the game if it didn't have the ratio system. I wasn't ultra fond of being stuck with three characters in MvC3, but back then there wasn't a fighter in my mind that made such an idea work so smoothly. After a couple of years of duo teams I have decided to move to a trio team by including Squigly into my ParaBella sandwhich. The process is moving along more smoothly than I expected and I'm a really stubborn guy that doesn't like changing configurations or characters.
In a team based game you expect players to play multiple characters at a decent level and for that to be a reality you need to make each individual character easier to play. It's hard enough learning 3 characters by themselves but then also learning how they play with each other on a team, learning their assist/DHCs timings and then learning 3v3 team match ups... it's a brutal experience starting out.
The other problems are more minor but they are still substantial to talk about when framed in the context of a MVC2 successor. The game is 6 buttons but assists require you to press two buttons. The game is trying to be SF-esque with its button lay outs but it has a lot of other double button inputs for stuff like throws and assists. The appeal of a game like MVC2 is that you have easy one button throws and one button assists. It's a complexity issue that sort of pushes away newcomers (and Skullgirls has enough of that as it is). MVC2/MVC3 are definitely not newcomer friendly but starting out it's easier to grasp into the 4 attack buttons and two assist buttons. It's easy to air throw people and call assists which feed into the fast paced, team based play style of the game.
I know it can't be me because I see that SG has clicked with a lot of other people (even some first timers who joined the genre with SG). All the helping tools like 360 protection, the IAD buffer, the lenient chain system, super short charge times and the simplified inputs (no double quarter circles, almost zero DPs and only one 360 motion) have made this game very learnable even without combo trials (God, I miss those). It can't be a coincidence that this is the only fighter besides MvC3 where I can complete a 40 hit combo without needing Strider's Ouroboros lmao. I mention below that going with six buttons was risky, but the Mike really pulled through in terms of playability and ease of use. Aside from SF2, VSav and SG there really aren't many six button fighters as easy to play and learn with. The one button assist issue might be an annoyance for stick players, but macros work perfectly fine for pad players in my experience. In regards to throws... I'm not a big fan of the mvc3 option select and in from what I remember most fighters have people input throws with two buttons.
Honestly, if it weren't for my time with VSav I might have struggled more with SG and if it weren't for SG I might not be playing Alex or Urien in 3S today since they have a lot of charge moves and even 360 motions (in Alex' case because who the fuck doesn't powerbomb with Alex!?).
Another smaller issue is that the game doesn't really emulate the pace and structure of MVC2/MVC3. I am not talking just about the speed here (Skullgirls is fast but not as fast) but rather the verticality of the action. Super jumping is kinda limited in Skullgirls as is aerial mobility for most of the cast (Painwheel is really the closest to an aerial character in Skullgirls) so that focuses most of the combat on the ground. MVC3 did this as well a bit compared to MVC2 but a lot of the action was still in the air with characters with really fast dashes and flights. This structuring of the action is what really separates the Marvel games from many other anime games combined with the team based game play (which to be fair Skullgirls does emulate well).
Thank God for that as far as I'm concerned. I accepted it in MvC2 at the time, but as Melee and Smash in general grew I began to dislike how super jumps wouldn't zoom the camera back a bit just so that we can see both players. It's not quite dizzying or disorienting, but I don't like it. SG sits somewhere between GG and VSav in the verticality department (so long as we don't include dust overheads) and I'm perfectly okay with that. It wouldn't bother me if Mike increased the super jump height by 25% (or so) for Skullgirls 2. Once we get more air friendly characters like Hive and Feng it would be a pretty good idea.
Skullgirls is one of the closest games to MVC2/MVC3 but it's still not a "Mahvel" game (and I am not talking about Marvel characters here obviously). Mike Z can call it MVC2-like as much as he wants but it doesn't hit the same notes as that game does.
I guess we'd have to agree to disagree on this one. Aside from the verticality issue it feels like more of a proper sucessor mechanically than MvC3 does in my eyes.
One thing that many people don't get is that these team based fighters don't really work well in bringing in newer audiences if each individual character requires almost SF character level of mastery to play.
I figured SF character levels of mastery is just about the base for most 2D fighting game characters with lower (or higher) difficulty depending on the developer (Think ASW's buffers, Lab Zero's 360 protection or KOF's crazy ass motions). MvC3 characters mostly feel easier because their big damage supers are downright toddler friendly compared to raging demon inputs or double quarter circles (fuck double backwards quarter cirlces).
Despite having only 9 or so characters, Skullgirls is still a fairly difficult game to play at a 1v1 level and when you expand that team vs team it becomes even harder to grasp. As opposed to if you played MVC3 1v1 it would be a very basic and vanilla (even boring) 2D fighter where you had 3 attack buttons and a launcher only.
Yeah, people do get spooked by the extra two buttons and unique launchers too easily. Those are literally the only major control differences between the two titles.
just from the outside, it looked like Mike Z liked a LOT of different Capcom fighters and just kinda threw them all together. Like he really like Marvel, but he also wanted SF complexity, with some Darkstalkers and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure thrown in for good measure.
More or less
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Skullgirls having 6 buttons of normals per character. It's a lot of normals to memorize for a 3-man team.
I would have felt the same way had I not discovered VSav before SG. There really aren't that many super fast six button fighters out there even with anime included. Six button Street Fighter is one thing, but six button Marvel/VSav is an entirely different matter. Between assists, precision snapbacks (don't want to waste a bar snapping in the full health character while all the red from your target heals) and grabs it can become a bit daunting. For whatever reason I got lucky and it doesn't bother me which makes no sense because I suck at combos.
Skullgirls wasn't a very good game when it first came out, let's be real here. People are quick to forget stuff like Double Butt slam assist and the first few iterations of the IPS.
Believe me when I say that people who actually played against that extensively have not forgotten. I think I expanded upon the whole launch debacle earlier in my post. It was a rough first nine months. The IPS being so lenient just provided me and many other people with laughs lol. I've seen too many Mahvel length combos to care about who is performing them, so the ToDs were good fun, but the game certainly changed for the better.
Even at the most basic, non-technical level, just smacking someone around with Hulk's buttons flat-out felt better than anything in that game, too.
Controversial opinion here but the feel of hits in MVC3 are unmatched in any of the current crop of 2D fighters. They really nailed the look and feel of the game.
The posts of men who haven't experienced enough diamond encrusted level three happy birthdays, skeleton stabbings from Eliza, Big Band rush punches (or cymbal flashes holy fuck) or Beowulf chair smashing crossups.
I think SF4, MvC3 and SG were the cream of the crop in terms of audiovisual hit impact in impact for fighters last generation. Brawl was super soft compared to Melee in that regard and BB's hits have always sounded substandard compared to Guilty Gear's. Most anime fighters in general tend to have very little audio or tactile impact in my experience. As far as video games go I know all ya'll will back me up when it comes to Ninja Gaiden. A visceral audio and tactile video game experience if there ever was one
Kind of funny that the game had depth in all the wrong places though; do you think the game would have been more successful if they made every character half as detailed, in regards to both gameplay and art, but with twice as many of them?
Six buttons was certainly a risky move, but I don't think it would have brought much more people in. This is an old genre full of IPs and companies with long histories and most people who stuck with it even at a mid level have their firm choices and preferences.
I think with a 3v3 you need like 30+ characters. The scope of a true 3v3 is really beyond that of Skullgirls. It was an ambitious title to begin with. Mike Z definitely tried though and I give him credits.
Dahbomb pls
Twenty characters seems like a fine floor if said fighter uses a ratio system. We'd also run the risk of only having Capcom titles to pl-
Skullgirls still has some excellent ideas for a future game in this same style if someone wants to attempt it (and by someone I mean Capcom, let's be real here folks).
Fugg
Skullgirls kinda seems like Mike Z had a bunch of ideas fighting game mechanic ideas he'd accumulated throughout the years and tried to put all of them in a single game. Being a small independent studio meant they could do whatever they wanted, but it seems like they overlooked big/important questions (Does a tag fighter with this number of characters make sense? Does the Street Fighter-esque 3P/3K button scheme make sense for a tag fighter? IPS may do its job at making infinites impossible, but does it make doing/discovering combos enjoyable/satisfying? Is it easy for players to intuit how IPS functions? A ratio system gives players flexibility but it also makes it seem like we don't know what we want the game to be- is it a good idea?)
A lot of the foundation for SG was built around the idea that they'd update it with DLC until the final game looked like a sequel when compared to the vanilla version. Anyone who played the original would probably say that they easily reached the goal with 2nd Encore. Unfortunately it's been anything but smooth. The first nine months was the worst of it, but a bad (not horrific because KOF XII and SFxT still exist lol) nine month first impression is almost impossible to shake.
Also CVS2 is the greatest 3v3 fighter of all time you scrubs
Eh, it's not as hectic as Marvel or as balanced as SG. It's still a fun fighter and it's style is easily in the top echelon. If there is a fighter out there harder to nail than Darkstalkers IV it'd have to be Capcom vs SNK 3.
IPS is a pain in the ass. I played at locals a few months ago and was like "Oh, my bnb doesn't work anymore due to an IPS change".
Isn't this a normal occurence in most fighters?
Has MikeZ ever explained why he didn't go with simple hitstun deterioration?
He wanted a system easier to understand than hitstun decay. Well, it was that and building an infinite-proof combo system. For me it worked out on both ends. He seems pretty happy (for Mike, that is) about it too.
I know people who are really into Skullgirls that champion this as a reason the game is good. I haven't played much of the game but IPS sounds fucking boring
You should play it before you knock it.
IPS is a pain, especially with the addition of the undizzy system, but at least they accomplish what they were both designed to do; it's not just about preventing infinites, but making SkullGirls a never ending series of ridiculous resets at high levels. Mike Z opted for easy reset creativity rather than easy combo creativity, but a lot of the players never get there or don't really like it.
I prefer it to hit decay, but it certainly did accomplish what it set out to do. It's not a coincidence that Desk never did find an infinite in SG. I also prefer the reset creativity any day of the week. There is an actual chance I might be able to do those some day. Even SG's myriad of helping tools aren't going to make me obtain those Severin tier swag combos.
I actually think it's the opposite... I think the IPS was put in to promote creativity. Well the initial version of it anyway... the point of it was to make as long of a combo as you can and as intricate as you can without repeating moves.
Yeah, the IPS at that time treated crouching normals, air normals and standing normals differently (on top of a whole bunch of other things), so took forever to reach the burst levels with six buttons. The IPS should haved been tightened up, but Mike gave people leeway. Turns out that wasn't the best idea.
Issue was that the initial version of IPS still resulted in really long combos (or even pseudo infinites/loops) that killed a character anyway so the distinction between infinites and non infinites wasn't a relevant one. It's like saying MVC3 doesn't have non TAC infinites as if it matters because people die in a standard BnB anyway.
yep
Skullgirls reset game is great though. Mike Z definitely understand what it took to make a reset game legit in these games.
yep
That Cerebrawl game is gonna go through the same problems Skullgirls had. That is, if it gets released.
Only if they face a company wrecking lawsuit right at launch.
I love love love Skullgirls. I love how it plays and I LOVE how it looks, Peacock is easily one of my favorite video game characters ever, and I wish I could play it more, but...
The thing is, I don't care about team fighters, I love Skullgirls in a 1 vs 1 setting, as absurd as that sounds.
You sound like you'd be right at home in Japan.
....what exactly would be a not alienating visual style for a new fighting game, though? Really, I'm drawing a blank here.
"Whatever is drawn and programmed by Capcom" would be my old response, but Guilty Gear has taken off, so I guess a visual style that indicates you have a lot of moolah? Unfortunately not everyone can be Namco, Netherrealm, ASW or Capcom.
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