I know i’m not the only one who misses them, because the announcement of Guy and Cody returning in SSF4 brought on a wave of Final Fight nostalgia throughout literally every gaming forum on the internet. Over the past couple years, we’ve seen various classic franchises such as Streets of Rage and Golden Axe ported to nearly all the current gen consoles. Now Capcom is rereleasing Final Fight and Magic Sword on XBL and PSN with GGPO netcode.
Someone’s obviously buying these things, yet there haven’t been any new titles to speak of. Why is that? Sure, we have seen a few modest offerings such as the 3D remake of Turtles In Time, but nothing that truly captures the feeling of playing Streets of Rage 2 on the Sega Genesis in glorious 320×224 resolution.
It’s almost as if the game industry has forgotten what made the beat ‘em up genre so fun to play. This isn’t a 2D versus 3D issue because third-person 3D action game developers still know how to do combat properly, as evidenced by incredibly polished series like Devil May Cry and God of War. For whatever reason, nobody can figure out how to get the hits in a modern brawler to feel right anymore.
Back in June of last year, Magnetro and i collaborated on this five-minute combo video for God of War 2, developed by SCEA Santa Monica Studios where a number of oldschool Street Fighter players worked. It’s no surprise then, that many of these combos look like they came straight out of a fighting game.
All of the editing and the vast majority of the clips were performed by Magnetro. Even though we discussed every little detail, i only had time to record three clips: the Barbarian Hammer ToD combo at 0:38, the Spear of Destiny juggle combo at 0:53, and the projectile madness combo at 1:23. It was a lot of fun messing around with GoW2 because Kratos has such an incredible variety of combat abilities and approaches, not to mention a wide selection of enemies to beat up.
Even though i think the combos at 2:56 and 4:07 are absolutely amazing, my favorite clip has got to be the 4:14 crumbling pillars sequence which was cleverly manipulated by activating the Amulet of the Fates to slow time immediately beforehand. Be sure to visit Magnetro’s website for a full transcript explaining all the combos, glitches and extras.
Here’s a short combovid made up of clips i recorded way back in 2004, when LoKD was new. For anyone unfamiliar with the Legacy of Kain series, it had one of the most astonishing storylines ever told through the video game medium.
Of course, the term combo is used loosely here since most enemies have very weak defense mechanisms. It would be more accurate to call them attack strings but combos is not too far off.
The game’s combat system is flexible enough that there are some creative things to do to the generic peons that try to rush you in groups. The command inputs are transcribed using PlayStation 2 default control conventions, but the text explanations refer to all actions by their general names. The PS2 and Xbox versions of LoKD are virtually identical, so everything here works on both versions.
Even though i don’t play online RPG’s anymore, i’ve got a soft spot for Blizzard’s Diablo series. With Diablo 3 around the corner, i’ve been watching their promo videos whenever a new character class is announced.
Although the combat systems in these titles aren’t exactly on par with fighting games, Blizzard does have a knack for making polished and precise gameplay experiences. There’s little doubt that the end product will be stable enough and structured enough to support a little combo exploration. To that end, here’s a short list of things i’d like to try from having watched the trailers released so far.
1) One major thing in D3′s favor is the sheer quantity of projectile types accessible to players. In particular, almost everything the Wizard does is projectile related. Most promising is her ability to create a Slow Time bubble, which actually lasts for over ten seconds – an incredibly long time. She also has a spell which can freeze enemies, so the first thing i’d like to test is whether the time bubble extends that freeze duration. Needless to say, that would be very useful for elaborate combo setups.
2) The second question is whether her bubble affects her own projectiles, because she has a meteor shower spell which would be great for combos. In the D3 Wizard Trailer, we can see her redirect enemy projectiles outward. It would be pretty cool to gather all of her own meteors and then spread them out horizontally in one burst, especially in a room filled with destructible objects. She also has a spell where she creates five copies of herself. Can they be manipulated using the slowdown bubble?
Not entirely sure what possessed me to do this but it turned out more or less sort of okay:
Every clip was recorded within the bland Simulator Disc training facility, so don’t worry about plot spoilers. During the tutorial stage of Basic Training, enemies are immune to (nearly) all kinds of damage except for whatever’s listed in the prompt. This is useful because it’s hard to set up camera angles for combos in 3D games. Another benefit to the tutorial is that your teammates (usually) keep quiet so you don’t have to worry about them killing your punching bags.
In case anyone wants to try these combos, i’ve written out the Xbox 360 commands. That’s the version i used, but i doubt the PS3 version is any different once you translate the button labels.
Someone’s obviously buying these things, yet there haven’t been any new titles to speak of. Why is that? Sure, we have seen a few modest offerings such as the 3D remake of Turtles In Time, but nothing that truly captures the feeling of playing Streets of Rage 2 on the Sega Genesis in glorious 320×224 resolution.
