SF:IV is a fucking TERRIBLE game.
By MordeaniisChaos 4 Comments
Let me just preface this by saying simply I have never played another fighting game seriously. I've played a few like BlazzBlue or whatever the fuck, some MK when I was about 5 years old, thats it. Nothing as much as this. On top of this, I purchased SSFIV on Games on Demand on my 360. I do not have the manual. Never saw it, touched it, or got the opportunity get the information contained within.
Which is kind of why I hate this game.
Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. EVER. have I been more insanely frustrated by the impenetrable shell of bullshit around a game. Morrowind? Whatever. Stalker? Holding my hand practically. Mount and Blade? Makes total sense! Controls so intuitively it's like an extension of my body. At least when put next to this god damn game.
Capcom, as many of us know, has been really hurtin' in this less than healthy economy. So, it's hard to believe that they would be so incredibly naive with this game. I get that Street Fighter has a HUGE following. I know that SFIV probably did pretty well for Capcom. But I have to wonder when Capcom will see that the only way to stop having a smattering of mild commercial successes among a plethora of failures, is to make these games appeal to PEOPLE. Not fans, but GAMERS.
I'm not good with fighting games. I need to learn how to play them. I don't even have the basics down. Z movements? Fuck it. I just do two quarters and call it good. Not because I'm lazy, but that's just what I do for whatever reason. I try and do better. It just doesn't happen.
So, I knew I sucked. I knew I'd need to figure the game out. I jumped right into the training.
The first thing I thought? Fuck, why do i need to go into a fuckin' menu just to find out how to do what the game is supposed to be teaching me.
After a while, I decided to just deal with it. Hitting select to see what I should see up front isn't insurmountable. After all, it's just a couple buttons. Right?
Nope. As I get up there, I'm a little frustrated by how picky the game is when it comes to diagonally jumping. Ie, most of the time I just jumped straight up or blocked. Again, my fault, and I've gotten a good bit better at it since then. A bit frustrated with the timing of pulling off moves (something not at all demonstrated or spelled out at all). But all in all, it seemed ok. It was clear that it was mostly just because I have no experience at all.
Then I got into the combos.
Jesus Christ. The timing is just a bunch of bullshit. First of all, it requires WAY too much trial and error to have even a slight idea of what the fuck the timing is on any of it. Most of the time, the timing seems totally off, totally senseless. Some of it was reasonable. Most of it was ridiculous. And the amount of time allowed was ridiculous.
So eventually, I got to know a character, became decent, with them, knew all their moves, etc.. Started the Arcade stuff up. On easy.
After about 15 hours of frustration (often extreme, like when fighting a certain projectile spamming, flash kicking dick bag), I started to get the hang of the game. I still had little to know idea how to counter moves in any way (by which I mean respond, I don't mean it in the game speak sense), but I was starting to win. If just barely. Then, finally I was getting ok. There were still some characters that would just demolish me, but the simpler fights went well.
Then, I finally got to Bison. My rival. So I think "Oh, this will probably be tricky. Hopefully this takes me a few tries, so I know it's challenging, but I'm sure I can win without a ton of trouble."
Noooooope. Between moves that hit from a different direction than they moved in seemingly at random, an ultra that pretty much always avoids interuption and lands on a different side every other time, spamming of his fucking, drill of purple flame move or whatever the hell it is 4 or 5 times in a row, often with it being unblockable, and his CONSTANTLY being close no matter how clever I got with putting distance between us, I spent as much time trying and failing to beat him as I did just to get to the point where I could fight him.
On easy.
Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. EVER. have I been more insanely frustrated by the impenetrable shell of bullshit around a game. Morrowind? Whatever. Stalker? Holding my hand practically. Mount and Blade? Makes total sense! Controls so intuitively it's like an extension of my body. At least when put next to this god damn game.
Capcom, as many of us know, has been really hurtin' in this less than healthy economy. So, it's hard to believe that they would be so incredibly naive with this game. I get that Street Fighter has a HUGE following. I know that SFIV probably did pretty well for Capcom. But I have to wonder when Capcom will see that the only way to stop having a smattering of mild commercial successes among a plethora of failures, is to make these games appeal to PEOPLE. Not fans, but GAMERS.
I'm not good with fighting games. I need to learn how to play them. I don't even have the basics down. Z movements? Fuck it. I just do two quarters and call it good. Not because I'm lazy, but that's just what I do for whatever reason. I try and do better. It just doesn't happen.
So, I knew I sucked. I knew I'd need to figure the game out. I jumped right into the training.
The first thing I thought? Fuck, why do i need to go into a fuckin' menu just to find out how to do what the game is supposed to be teaching me.
After a while, I decided to just deal with it. Hitting select to see what I should see up front isn't insurmountable. After all, it's just a couple buttons. Right?
Nope. As I get up there, I'm a little frustrated by how picky the game is when it comes to diagonally jumping. Ie, most of the time I just jumped straight up or blocked. Again, my fault, and I've gotten a good bit better at it since then. A bit frustrated with the timing of pulling off moves (something not at all demonstrated or spelled out at all). But all in all, it seemed ok. It was clear that it was mostly just because I have no experience at all.
Then I got into the combos.
Jesus Christ. The timing is just a bunch of bullshit. First of all, it requires WAY too much trial and error to have even a slight idea of what the fuck the timing is on any of it. Most of the time, the timing seems totally off, totally senseless. Some of it was reasonable. Most of it was ridiculous. And the amount of time allowed was ridiculous.
So eventually, I got to know a character, became decent, with them, knew all their moves, etc.. Started the Arcade stuff up. On easy.
After about 15 hours of frustration (often extreme, like when fighting a certain projectile spamming, flash kicking dick bag), I started to get the hang of the game. I still had little to know idea how to counter moves in any way (by which I mean respond, I don't mean it in the game speak sense), but I was starting to win. If just barely. Then, finally I was getting ok. There were still some characters that would just demolish me, but the simpler fights went well.
Then, I finally got to Bison. My rival. So I think "Oh, this will probably be tricky. Hopefully this takes me a few tries, so I know it's challenging, but I'm sure I can win without a ton of trouble."
Noooooope. Between moves that hit from a different direction than they moved in seemingly at random, an ultra that pretty much always avoids interuption and lands on a different side every other time, spamming of his fucking, drill of purple flame move or whatever the hell it is 4 or 5 times in a row, often with it being unblockable, and his CONSTANTLY being close no matter how clever I got with putting distance between us, I spent as much time trying and failing to beat him as I did just to get to the point where I could fight him.
On easy.
The lowest fucking setting.
Now, I know that It is all because I"m not good at the game. The game is a good fighting game when you know what your doing. I am not disputing that. When I'm doing well and not struggling with the controls, I'm having a good bit of fun. But the amount of frustration involved in someone looking to increase the number of people looking to keep buying into the SF scene byt getting into the fighting game genre is completely unacceptable. In a game that is all about timing and execution and understanding strategies and knowing the moves of those your fighting as well as your own, the answer to my problem A) shouldn't be the manual, B) and if it has to be, it shouldn't be unavailable to me at all, and C) absolutely should not be "Well maybe if you looked up a FAQ" .
I shouldn't have to read in depth guides to figure out how one character works just to enjoy a game. Games need to be built for people who know how to play them AND include the tools you need to get to that point. Not one or the other, and CERTAINLY shouldn't just assume your pretty good at it.
Am I going to stick with it? Yes, I certainly am. Do I hope to eventually enjoy the game? Very much so. Can I right now? Not really, no. It's one thing not to tell a person how to use the mechanics of your game. It's totally different not to even teach the basic core mechanics and controls. And for a fighting game, it needs to have far more feedback (for example, show me how my timing is wrong, rather than just telling me. Let me slow things down to figure it out and look for the cues in animation and all that. Hold my hand a little. Explain things properly.
/rant