Short reviews of all games I have for a system: Saturn

[sheath]

I just posted this in WM's Project Y forum, but then immediately thought of this thread. In a real fight you don't walk around each other in circles unless you were too stupid to position yourself in the environment beforehand. Real martial techniques move you or your opponent for the advantage. If you waste your energy running around before or during the fight you will lose.

Aikido:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aicHsMC6rxM

Bajiquan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5Cf1UGt9Wo

Escrima:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iL23sO1jD0

Kali:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTCHAVVhC_E

Isshin Ryu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfmmjhhNawI

[TheSonicRetard]

Here is, step by step, a direct breakdown of a series of spinning kicks by jacky and pai which demonstrates exactly how virtua fighter operates in 3D. These specific moves are from VF2, but a similar situation can absolutely exist in any VF game. This is from an overhead view, with black stuff representing things at medium height, blue stuff representing stuff at low height, and red stuff representing stuff at high height. Green represents collision.


Step one: jacky on the left, Pai on the right. Both are facing each other. Pai executes a standing grab, which pulls jacky forward and positions herself to his side.


step two: it's important now to show each character's stance in relation to each other, as indicated by the small circles within their body. Jacky executes his spinning roundhouse.


Step three: Jacky begins by kicking his back leg out down low first.


Step four: Jacky brings his leg around in frame 2. The bottom half of his leg still hits low, but the tip of his foot hits high.


Step Five: Pai drops down, while Jacky's leg is extended high. It completely goes over Pai's head. Pai executes her crouching spinning kick.


Step six: Pai's front leg extends forward. Her reach isn't long enough to hit jacky's back leg, and it all hits low since she's crouching.


Step 7: Pai pivots counter clockwise low. Her leg sweeps Jacky's front leg, which is anchored down because he's finishing his pivot with that leg. Collision is detected, and jacky falls to the ground.

Completely in 3D. This is 3D fighting - in all 3 axis. Collision isn't bound to 2 axis, and it matters in all directions. I will now break down the usefulness of side stepping in Toshinden in my next post.

[TheSonicRetard]

Battle Arena Toshinden's side step ability, to the maximum usefulness. For this example, we have eiji vs sophia.


Step 1: Eiji is facing sophia. The Eiji on the right, sophia on the left. Eiji begins by throwing his Rekkuzan towards sophia.


Step two: Eiji starts his Rekkuzan which begins to fly forward. Sophia side steps.


Step three: Eiji's Rekkuzan has completely wiffed. Sophia is now at his side and begins her rattle snake attack (which, despite looks, hits on a 2D plane).


Step four: The computer has automatically turned Eiji to face Sophia as his Rekkuzan exits the screen. Sophia's rattle snake motions forward towards Eiji, who is unable to move or defend himself because he's still stunned from whiffing his attack.


Step five: Sophia's rattlesnake connects with Eiji, causing damage.

This is literally the only way you can use side stepping in this game. Now tell me, which one of these fighting games seems like a 3D fighter? Which one used zoning along the Z-axis to ensure a hit and protection, and which one simply used the 3D space to essentially counter a special move and get a free hit? Which one seems like a 3D fighter? Anybody with eyes can see which.

That you can't freely step in and out of the screen has no bearing on virtua fighter's 3D engine. You can still freely position yourself around your opponent, with those gosh-darned moves that put you so off. And doing so has major tactile advantages.

Simply put, Virtua Fighter is 3D, and was the first to do it right. The first to demonstrate everything right with 3D gameplay.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

What awful 2.5D gameplay...

[TheSonicRetard]

What awful 2.5D gameplay...

If only it was for-real 3D like this:



that side step totally isn't a dodge move, btw. It's central to the gameplay!

edit: lol @ 5:48 in the video, when he rolls directly into Ellis' attack but, because the game treats the roll as a dodge move and nothing else, he takes no damage at all.

What 3D gameplay!

[j_factor]

Man, Toshinden really sucks.

[Thenewguy]

I think you're overstating how many Sega Rally or Daytona players put in that effort. I doubt it's a too different number from other top-quality racing games that do have championship modes; other players are likely to simply stop playing Sega Rally or Daytona a lot sooner than they would those other games, because there's a whole lot less to do.

I think a lot of people probably did master those games, this is Saturn after all, and Saturn owners had to make do with 3 or 4 good racing games for like 5 years so they probably got the most out of the ones they had.

Really this can be added as a logical next step to Sheath's fallacy-driven argument, Sega Rally and Daytona are better because they've got so little competition, the lack of competition means that people are forced into trully mastering, and appreciating those games to an extent not possible on systems with healthy racing libraries!

more is only better when the kernel is equally good to what the lesser side has.

Yes, this is what's we're talking about, nobody is saying that having 100 awful courses which all essentially play the same as each other is better than having 3 or 4 great courses with loads of variety.

[TheSonicRetard]

You're aware that Daytona USA is the top grossing arcade machine of all time, yes? Or do did arcades not have healthy racing competition?

[Thenewguy]

You're aware that Daytona USA is the top grossing arcade machine of all time, yes?

This is irrelevant, we're not talking about Daytona's arcade pedigree against other arcade machines, Daytona was a graphical powerhouse that was finely tuned to be a successful arcade machine, we're talking about Saturn Daytona vs other home racing games.

There's no point in having more than 3 or 4 courses in an arcade game anyway because most people aren't going to spend more than 20 minutes playing it in one go, the extra content wont be experienced so its largely redundant.

Being a top grossing arcade game isn't necessarily a good thing anyway, during certain periods of time simply having astounding graphics and brutal memory based gameplay would facilitate high earnings for an arcade machine, whilst something like Castle of Illusion would be a piss poor earner, people would put 50p in the machine and then play it for like 40 minutes!

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Daytona still IS a top grossing Arcade game though. Most major Arcades in the country have tons of them linked up and running still to this day and they are always packed with people waiting to play.

[Thenewguy]

Most major Arcades in the country have tons of them linked up and running still to this day and they are always packed with people waiting to play.

Sure they are

I bet the que's go round the block!

BTW my hometown has multiple Daytona's, I don't remember the last time I actually saw someone playing it (apart from me), Outrun 2 gets some play, don't remember there ever being more than one person waiting to play it at any given time though, usually I just jump straight on it no trouble.

And still, this is irrelevant, stop trying to make Saturn Daytona ride the coattails of arcade Daytona.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

When I've gone to Amusement parks like HersheyPark the Daytona machines always have people on them and a few people standing around waiting to play. When I go to places like Dave and Busters they always have 8 or more Daytona machines linked up that are in full use with people standing waiting to play. The game is still popular in Arcades and is still a money maker.

Daytona and Sega Rally are better racers because the Arcade games they are based on are also better racers than the competing Arcade racers of the time. Saturn Daytona may be a disappointment graphically but I'd still rather play it than the first Ridge Racer on PS1 because at it's core it's a better game in spite of it's 20fps pop-up graphics.

[Thenewguy]

Dance machines and lightgun games are probably the biggest earners in the arcade these days.

I'd say Outrun 2, and that rip-off Mario Kart game are far more popular racers at the moment.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Not saying other Arcade games don't do well either, but Daytona is still a contender in it all, and that alone is an amazing feat for an almost 20 year old Arcade game.

[TheSonicRetard]

This is irrelevant, we're not talking about Daytona's arcade pedigree against other arcade machines, Daytona was a graphical powerhouse that was finely tuned to be a successful arcade machine, we're talking about Saturn Daytona vs other home racing games.

There's no point in having more than 3 or 4 courses in an arcade game anyway because most people aren't going to spend more than 20 minutes playing it in one go, the extra content wont be experienced so its largely redundant.

Being a top grossing arcade game isn't necessarily a good thing anyway, during certain periods of time simply having astounding graphics and brutal memory based gameplay would facilitate high earnings for an arcade machine, whilst something like Castle of Illusion would be a piss poor earner, people would put 50p in the machine and then play it for like 40 minutes!

Daytona went up against ridge racer, which had better graphics. Oops.