Modern Designers Got Drunk and Broke the Fighting Game

Street Fighter 2, oh holy fucking shit gang banging Jesus Christ...how is he going to talk shit about that? Well, I am not. Not at all. It is a fucking shining light to how to make a fighter. The fighter is simply the pinnacle of gaming. It is the least accessible genre out there and one that actually requires, gasp, skill! (Ha! Sports gamers, you thought you had an inaccessible genre? Try playing a game that requires you to break the game to play at a pro level)

Ten years and you just landed your first infinite? Hahahahahaha

From the previously mentioned Street Fighter 2 (and all that other shit called Alpha and whatever Capcom felt like making money on that year) to Smash Bros. Melee, fighting games are where men are separated from the boys (the pock-marked, acne scarred men from the still-fresh acne adorned boys). It is a frustrating and unforgiving genre where you learn how shit works or you mash buttons and controllers into floors until you beat a neighborhood hobo to death. Fighting games rock.

However, in recent years, developers forgot that they were making the gaming equivalent of the machine gun and started making god damn flintlock pistols again (accept when these blow up in your hand, they also flip you the bird while they at are at it.)

Now, I am no fucking pro. Gone are my days of canceling pixel perfect combos into a ball smashing hyper or wave-dashing a Marth until someone breaks my GameCube with a hammer. However, I still feel I can hold my own and can certainly wrestle a button masher to an at least reasonable win ratio. However, nowadays I am starting to feel a bit like Tiger Woods; I can't win for shit, no one is fucking me, and people are starting to call me Eldrick.

What. The. Fuck. Did you just call me?

You know why? Because developers are too busy putting out freshly scooped ate shit and insanity to make anything I fucking understand!

Here is the bullshit ass quivering terrible fuck that has made modern fighters taste like AIDS doused in rhino sex. and trampled in circus employees' shit.

1. USE BOTH THE D-PAD AND JOYSTICK TO PLAY! WAIT...WHAT?

Alright so the first time I played a game with this bullshit, I didn't even know it existed until about thirty minutes of play. It was Mortal Kombat v.s. D.C. Universe. Ok, I thought, it has to be using the classic 3-D Mortal Kombat engine; tap down to move into the background, tap and hold to circle the opponent like a rapey kung-fu vulture, and press and hold to duck (duh, its the same for the up button). This was a bit odd at first, but became natural quick.

And then something happened. And that was nothing.

Alright, so maybe its just like Street Fighter IV (plays on a 2-D plane, looks 3-Dish) but uglier than sin...WAIT, THE COMPUTER GUY JUST CIRCLED LIKE A RAPEY VULTURE! What in Ewok shitting heaven is happening? After dicking around for a few minutes I learned the terrifying truth: to fight on a 2-D plane, you use the D-pad. To fight on a 3-D plane you use the joystick. April fools right? No, go fuck yourself!

If they won't bother with their controls, I won't bother with my Photoshopping. 

That's right, to fucking jump or duck, you use the D-pad. To circle into or towards the 3-fucking-D background and foreground you have to use the joystick. What? Seriously, did they let the developers drink a half gallon of whiskey and come up with this? How are you supposed to perfect your pro game with a character when you have to often switch back and forth between two different control mechanisms?

SERIOUSLY. I. CAN'T. COMPREHEND HOW THIS HAPPENED.

Here is a great example of how absofuckinglutely baffling things were when my friend and I were playing it.
I would show off my superior abilities of beating the piss out of the MK's ridiculously easy special abilities and then comboing the hell out of whatever ugly mess of polygon giblets was in front of me. My friend's solution? Step into foreground, mash me in the face with one fucking button. And I couldn't fucking stop it. Seriously, I even used the fucking 'combo breaker' system (which I will talk about in depth later, nope) but still...a side step and one fucking button foiled all of my attempts to play the fighting game like a....FUCKING FIGHTING GAME.

Literally how every fight is won in this game.

2. PRESS 'X' TO PUNCH YOUR LOVED ONES AND PRESS 'Y' TO SHIT YOURSELF

Alright, so let me start this off with a disclaimer. Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a beautiful game that has a really great fighting engine behind. It is on a classic 2-D plane, thus allowing you to use either the analog stick or the D-pad to move your character around. And overall...well its fucking Marvel vs. Capcom 3!

That said, there are a couple things that, being a veteran Marvel vs. Capcom 2 player (ten long years), make no fucking sense. Mainly, the weird ass changes in some control aspects. 

To give you an idea of what I am talking about lets break down the beauty that is Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

First up: switching characters:

The red lines indicate the two buttons you press to switch characters. It feels fine on your thumb, and really, and fighting game fan should already be used to pressing two face buttons at one time. (Not to mention it is a great button masher foil).

Next, using your partners' assist attacks:

You simply press L1 for partner 'A' and L2 for partner 'B'. That is it. left hand equals assist. Done.What about the ones that don't have arrows? Why those are your fierce punch and kick (i.e. light + heavy punch) buttons. So, left is assist and right is fierce. Done and done. (And yeah, I know that is a PS3 controller, shut it).

Now, why would they change this? People have been using this for eleven fucking years! If you think this control scheme looks cluttered or bad, it is your fucking fault for not playing the game for ten years! We shouldn't be the ones learning to pet the cat all over again, we have stood by this fighter forever! Anyways, here we go with Marvel vs. Capcom 3's control scheme...

Calling in an assist is...also how you switch characters. No. Why?!

So now, these two buttons are how you call in the assist attacks. On its own, this is actually kind of an improvement. Yeah, why not assign one assist and one fierce to each side...shit, that is genius. But then they started drinking. Ok, try to follow me here. Let's say you want to use partner 'A' for an assist attack. No problem, you press L1. But now, let's say, you want to switch in partner 'A'. No shit, you hold L1. 

This, is a nightmare. I was constantly plagued by moments of accidentally switching a character when I just wanted an assist. And no, I couldn't get used to it. This game moves like a divorced parent going through it's midlife crisis: a bunch of cocaine and a convertible with the goddamn pedal to the floor. Every fight got me so jacked that I just couldn't put in the precision for this type of control. 

I nearly cried.

Next we have...whatever this shit is. I don't even really know. I hate it.

These buttons do...something. I can't fucking figure it out. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 had real fighting game input commands (light punch, heavy punch, light kick, heavy kick). You fucking spent weeks building your own fucking combos, your own fucking air combos, and your own clever way to butcher the game into a masterstroke of destruction. This fucker now has a light attack, medium attack, and a heavy attack button like its a fucking arcade brawler from the 90s. Oh, that is only three buttons? What is the last one? I guess 'X' is a mother fucking Air Combo Button. At this point, I think I did cry. 

I would go on, but seriously...I don't understand anything about the controls in this game. I could almost reliably hyper attack after nearly drinking myself into an emotional ball of rage, but they are nearly useless unless you can beat the face buttons with your dick enough to make it cough up a combo. 

Why did they do this? Its like waiting a decade for a new Super Mario Bros. game but every time you press the jump button he fucking shits a tiny game developer that flips you off and then kicks a baby.