SCIV vs. Tekken 6: some objective feedback needed

[Nofacekill3r]

I always found it funny how some people think that more difficult/technical execution makes for a superior game. Personally I always thought the mental aspect of a game was the most important.


Are people going to start attacking chess because it's not hard enough to move around the pieces?

 

[Nukleurfire]

hell yeah bushido blade

that is all

 

[KingAce]

SC is very noob friendly, it's very easy to pick up and play, and get a sense of feeling that you're accomplishing something. Other fighters, like tekken are heavily dependant on execution of combos...this doesn't make them more technical IMO.

What it does make them, is focused. There engines place players in a compact environment where fights are forced to playout within certain limitations. And because of this emphasis, the boundary between high level and low level is very clear. You're either really good, decent, or neither.

SC isn't dependant on execution, as much as reaction and anticipation. Like I have said before this isn't a combo driven FG.

Because of 8wayrun, and the power of back dash, there is a mulitude of ranges you can play SC, you have a lot more freedom for your ideas.

While to me tekken is a turtly game, because of the neutral block button and the massive amounts of damage off an opening. SC can be played both aggressively or turtly, this is usually dependant also on how different every character is in SC.

To me tekken is like mini hilde fights.

High level SC exists mostly in theory, because high level SC is mostly reaction based, jumping lows, stepping Bs, ducking throws, blocking lows, GI and JI, just okis, and just frames...high level SC remains to be seen because the average human being doesn't have the brain capacity to do these things. And there is just so much to master, and if you can win without these skills, then it isn't necessary to learn them. That's why in North America high tiers dorminate the scene while this isn't true for other countries.

I don't know how much of tekken is mind game driven, but SC is a completely driven by this...This is probably most apparent in first to 10 fights. Where both players are constantly evolving and adapting to new situations. If a string ends with a high, duck it and punish your opponent, however you opponent might bait you by doing the string again but not completing it...these types of actions change the dynamic of the game constantly and make it that much harder to figure out your opponents intentions.

Sometimes in SC you have make a choice to either take some damage or take a lot more damage, or even lose. For example when next to the edge good players will attempt to break throws that will ring them out, and risk a throw that will just damage them. And then if your opponent knows you will always break the the throw the will ring them out, he might never go for it, and just take the free damage, to which you might then risk breaking that damaging throw in anticipation of your opponents arrogance.

High level SC is a thinking man's game, if you want a good headache play Zass vs Zass first to 10...well you have to know enough about the character. But do it...with someone who knows the character just as well. It's probably the best representation of mental adaptation and evolution is SC.

I think that's enough...for now

 

[Cricket]

I always found it funny how some people think that more difficult/technical execution makes for a superior game. Personally I always thought the mental aspect of a game was the most important.


Are people going to start attacking chess because it's not hard enough to move around the pieces?

I understand your point, and agree to large extent. However, I think it's beneficial for a fighting game to have just enough difficulty of execution (at least for some moves/combos) to reward mastery.

 

[Tiamat]

SC has more fighting style variety. You can only do so much when virtually all the characters are weaponless fighters.

Also, I agree with Nofacekill3r


Tekken is a better competative game for two reasons that have nothing to do with gameplay
1) it has an arcade version
2) tekken is a lot more popular than SC in the US

 

[piggy]

Other fighters, like tekken are heavily dependant on execution of combos...this doesn't make them more technical IMO.

Execution = technical...if the moves cannot be executed correctly, then the game becomes that much more difficult to learn, which is what most people have said from the beginning.

SC isn't dependant on execution, as much as reaction and anticipation. Like I have said before this isn't a combo driven FG.

Again, this is why Tekken is more technical, since it is based just as much on reaction and anticipation (isn't this what all FG psychology is about?) as well as execution. Another example of this (which has been mentioned, though perhaps forgotten) is that throws in tekken are breakable on reaction - the animation of the throw shows you if it is a 1, 2, or 1+2 break...this is not true in Calibur (Unless, perhaps, you are Aris preparing for Worlds back in the day). The psychology of throws is pretty much the same (no RO possibilities, but damage / oki etc. still applies) but there is another level of technique involved when all of this is kept in mind.

One place where the technical aspects of tekken and calibur are at a similar level, however, is with juggles. In Calibur, when you really get into it, you can learn multiple juggles off of single launchers, based on the AC possibilities of your opp. Knowing these multiple juggles, and applying them requires a high level of skill, and a lot of practice.

It is easier for a high end tekken player to be very good in calibur, than it is for a high end calibur player to be very good in Tekken

And I can't say enough - I am not saying that Tekken or Calibur is better than the other. They are different games that will appeal to different players for different reasons.

 

[Belial]

I'll adress some of what has been said.

spacing is less of an issue in tekken than SC

Compete bullshit. Tekken revolves around spacing, Soul Calibur around mixup

juggles are the goal of tekken

True, but not exactly the juggles, but ability to set up big damage.

SC is more masher friendly

I dont know about mashers. But what is true - Learning curve in Tekken is much, much higher than in SC.

it is not advisable to mash the input in anticipation of a grab,

It is advicable not to mash. Welcome to competetive gaming.

lows in tekken are mostly launch punishable

true, there is low parry that makes even chip-damage lows punishable with a launch. But this issue is a matter of game mechanics - tekken doesnt rely on basic mixup (Yomi lvl1).

FC recovery in tekken is quite limited compared to SC

You have all the same options both in T and SC, . However it is generally not good to duck in tekken unless in fuzzy guarding (some people fuzzy low parry etc). which happens a lot. Spacing in general is preferrable over ducking.

8 way run system is no where to be found in tekken, where movement essentially boils down to dashes

Movement system is far more advanced in tekken. However tekken has its own 8wr (which is sidewalk and that has sidewalk-only moves) it is just not very usable, just as it is not very usable in SC.

Soul Cal gives you more options. But if you like memorizing and repeating Block Strings and Combos (ala MvC2, SF4, etc) Play Tekken.

Common delusion. Tekken has a lot more usable options, and infinitely more if your opponent is unfamiliar with something on your move set.

Tekken equals better competitive fighting game hands down

Definitely if your goal is to spend 10 years to even get any good at this (and you're not guaranteed to, as well)

Personally I've been playing both games at high level, and I hate tekken.

There is just too much to learn and too dissapointing in the process. You dont want to play the game for 5 years and still have characters you dont know? I can tell in Tekken I've been playing vs Steve for this 5 years almost everyday. And in the end I admit I'm still not perfect vs steve, there is still a lot to improve. And I dont play every character on daily basis, no. (and there are like, 40 characters and they add up)
If you dont have a huge community dont even get started on tekken. If you want to have fun - dont even get started on tekken.
The thing is, most people keep playing tekken just practicing juggles hoping for a random hit and call that fun. I dont know whats fun in it. In fact I cant even see whats fun about tekken at all.

In SC you can get good fairly fast but the game is deep enough. Basic mindgames in general are very fun and challenging. In SC if you read your opponent you can always counter it and deal damage without having 4-5 things that you can fail exectution on in the process. (yes in tekken you can know exactly whats going on but unable to do anything) and most important, it is true rock/paper/scissors - like somebody else posted, so it means it is totally calculatable outcome, you can do your homework, where in Tekken if your opponent has better movement you cant do shit unless you practice movement and learn to exactly dash the needed amount of distance and buffer a launcher to hit his particular set-up/string. All just frame.

 

[LKV]

Tekken revolves around spacing, Soul Calibur around mixup

that statement is too strong. but anyway, the rest of my statement was to imply that there are far fewer instances in tekken where you can be completely outspaced, like in a Taki vs Kilik matchup. punishment aside, many long range characters in SC can quite effectively keep shorter characters at bay. you can't hit the bo staff but it can hit you.

It is advicable not to mash. Welcome to competetive gaming.

lol, yes. i originally wrote "it is not possible", but then i thought well it is possible, but it probably won't help you break that grab. but in SC, for most throws you *can* mash a button while you guarding and you *will* break it if you guessed correctly.

true, there is low parry that makes even chip-damage lows punishable with a launch. But this issue is a matter of game mechanics - tekken doesnt rely on basic mixup (Yomi lvl1).

low parry is significantly weaker in T6BR. small juggles only. it's not like previous tekkens at all.

can you elaborate on "tekken doesnt rely on basic mixup (Yomi lvl1)." ? it seems to me that there is plenty of mixup in tekken.

You have all the same options both in T and SC, . However it is generally not good to duck in tekken unless in fuzzy guarding (some people fuzzy low parry etc). which happens a lot. Spacing in general is preferrable over ducking.

um, yes, you can do any move from FC if you RCC (but then you aren't in FC anymore). but you lose a frame or two in trying to RCC, IIRC. you don't need to rely on RCC in SC in order to have more options from FC. like i said, you easily have 6 and 4 moves and buffered 8WR moves at your disposal from FC. and as a side note, almost no one uses RCC to punish in tekken that i recall, save for a few heihachi players in T5/DR when punishing lows with twin pistons, for example.

spacing is preferable to ducking randomly, although some characters and some situations for you to duck. back dash has been nerfed in T6BR, so no more leaping across the screen as an easy answer.

Movement system is far more advanced in tekken. However tekken has its own 8wr (which is sidewalk and that has sidewalk-only moves) it is just not very usable, just as it is not very usable in SC.

i really don't think that tekken's sidewalking can be compared to 8WR. first of all, there is no diagonal movement in tekken, and there is no smooth backwards or forward movement. and as i mentioned, there are no moves that use it as an input-- if you are side walking, any simple button press will register as a regular standing move.

(yes in tekken you can know exactly whats going on but unable to do anything)

hmm, there's always a way out of something (especially if your character has a basic d+4), except for strings that contain a mixup or that force you to block the whole thing. or am i misunderstanding you?

and most important, it is true rock/paper/scissors - like somebody else posted, so it means it is totally calculatable outcome, you can do your homework, where in Tekken if your opponent has better movement you cant do shit unless you practice movement and learn to exactly dash the needed amount of distance and buffer a launcher to hit his particular set-up/string. All just frame.

yes high level tekken requires you to master the movement and mechanics of the game, and it does require more precision and knowledge of the characters. different strokes for different folks, i guess.

 

[Master_Thespian]

Movement system is far more advanced in tekken. However tekken has its own 8wr (which is sidewalk and that has sidewalk-only moves) it is just not very usable, just as it is not very usable in SC.

Not trying to be funny or anything, but without diagonals, wouldn't it be 4WR? Or more accurately 4WW (since hold the stick in one yields the slowest movement)?

 

[feeqmatic]

Not a tourney player, but far from a noob in either. I have to agree with what many are saying.
SC is much more noob friendly. That should be readily apparent just by looking at the average character move set. Hell the most complicated character in SC is a tekken character…


That said I think LKV explained the technical differences best, a few other elements to think about are the absence of ring outs, soul gauges and other gimmicks in found in SC. Characters like Hilde, Ast, Voldo, etc all benefit greatly from such gimmicks, but as a whole such gimmicks do not affect the overall gameplay in Tekken.


I predict that there will be much less bitching about “tiers,” “scrub tactics” and the like in the general Tekken community as opposed to SC as a whole. Tekken just becomes much less noob friendly once you hit a certain level. Since Tekken 3 I have never came away from a match in which I lost to what I believed was an inferior opponent using exploitive tactics. This is not to say that tekken is without button mashing moments, over powered moves/characters, and whiffing/lost inputs. But the overall mitigation of damage, the diminishment of turtling, ankle biting, and spacing techniques (along with the aforementioned absent ringouts and soul gauges) Tekken, without necessarily being more complicated, is definitely more friendly toward hardcore skill type players.


On a side not I think that is one of the reason’s why it has never gained the popularity of DOA, SC, SF, etc on as broad a basis, especially in the “tourney” crowd.


Lastly I think that Tekken’s overall feel is cooler and better. In SC there is often that niggling reminder in the back of the head that somehow all of these characters are fighting with deadly weapons that seem to be made of paper mache, where as in Tekken, even in its most over the top moments you require much less of a departure from reality. This also means that the characters and fighting styles all feel immensely more diverse and immersive. Aside from maybe Maxi, X, and Rugi, there are few characters that seem to provide the same overall sense of style and grace as most Tekken characters, let alone stars like Christie with her Capoera, Bruce with his Muy thai, Ling with her Kung Fu, Lei with a whole lot of shit. Etc.


I guess this isn’t turning out to be quite that objective, but you are a journalist compare my statements with opposing ones figure out the middle ground

 

[I_N]

To me tekken is like mini hilde fights.

That was a good one, thank you :)

 

[spongebob]

@ OP maybe u shud ask this on TZ too.

Not saying what ppl are saying are wrong but sum stuff are down to opinion.

 

[IdleMind]

As a tournament player in both games, I have to say the difference comes down to a couple of very minor things.

Movement is more complicated at its core in Tekken, KBDC, stair stepping and other seemingly very esoteric movement techniques form the basis for high level play.

Frame traps are much more important in Tekken. In general, you recieve more frames on hit, and force more situations than in SC.

SC is much more heavily dependent on the mindgame because the damage isnt so high that fishing for a launcher for half bar plus isnt a viable tactic- you have to poke and set up more often- whereas in Tekken sometimes you can just space out a whiff and launch for half bar+. (side note, in SC:BD, its more like Tekken... half bar off standard launchers, really powerful dashing and steps.. food for thought)

Thats really all there is to it, imo.

-Idle

 

[Dullyanna]

High level SC exists mostly in theory, because high level SC is mostly reaction based, jumping lows, stepping Bs, ducking throws, blocking lows, GI and JI, just okis, and just frames...high level SC remains to be seen because the average human being doesn't have the brain capacity to do these things. And there is just so much to master, and if you can win without these skills, then it isn't necessary to learn them. That's why in North America high tiers dorminate the scene while this isn't true for other countries.

So in theory, high level SF hasn't been reached yet because people aren't psychic DPing everything on "reaction"? When people talk about attaining a high level at fighting games, they aren't talking about having greater psychic powers than the fucking CPU at max difficulty, mate. You're apparently forgetting what risk v reward is.

 

[Destinizish]

blaz blue vs SC4

blaz blue: why are you blocking when you could be rushing down?!?!

SC4: more open ended in how you can play

Considering you've only really played BB online, people have to take this with a grain of salt.

Blocking is extremely important in BB. Having a solid defense is more important than a solid rushdown game in general.


SC4- I don't know if I would call it more open ended than BB, considering that this is comparing a 3D fighter to a 2D fighter. As such, it kind of boils down to what TC said. Yes, SC has 8WR, and bigger movelists. But when you're comparing it to a 2D fighter, which in general SHOULD have a smaller movelists, you can't really bring stepping into the argument. Hence why 3D vs 2D is impossible to compare.


Tekken- Though I'm no master of tekken, from a lot of the play I've seen, and from experience that I do have playing it:

Movement tends to be much more complicated than SC. (Though this can be said for other games too, IE: Virtua fighter, simply because the movement in SC isn't that complicated when it comes down to it)

Much of the gameplay revolves around said movement, spacing, poking and who has the better launcher.

In general, whoever has the better launcher is the higher tiered character in tekken.

 

[I_N]

but sum stuff are down to opinion

That's exactly what I was asking for. Opinions :) That's not that I'm completely devoid of my own, neither am I ignorant of SC and Tekken game mechanics myself. My original purpose was to get as much competent feedback as possible from skilled competitive players to help me stay objective. Nevertheless, I've never intended to conduct a massive poll :)

 

[KingAce]

In addition I think SC's cast is harder to balance.

 

[Sagitis]

well I've been playing soul calibar and tekken series for a while, I am no pro but do I have the idea of game mechanics.


WARNING WALL OF TEXT

Although both game have different emphasis:
tekken setup spacing( steps, attack distance) , aerial juggle/combo ,
soul caliber setup spacing (8way run, attack distance), stun juggle/combo
Perhaps if everything comes down to basic in 2d world it would be similar to Justin Wong vs Daigo evo09 play (that is just basic but the Japanese took it to another level)

At the end of the day both game relies similar mechanics, that is
block: block, parry, guard impact (i.e parry with opportunity window)
move set: stance, special moves, basic moves, stunning (yep tekken has stunning but not as much emphasis as SC, in SC all class has stunning moves (probably) due to combo chance)
movement: ground ( tekken vs Soul calibar => 8 way run vs stepping), areial user controlled vs character specific (similar to 2d fighting e.g melty blood vs street fighter 3 third strike)wake up (mini game),
environement: emphasis on ring out , wall game, confined, slope (environmental effect), infinite, breakable floor ( tekken 6 br)

combos: emphasis of juggle and setup

tekken and soul calibur has them all:
I will here put some in that some user have left
SC: 8 way run move set = tekken During step movement
SC 8 way run = tekken side step, side walk (however the side walk has a tendency to go towards your opponent)
SC: GI = tekken: low parry or parry for some character

Both games have a large cast with different move style(juggle based, parry based, Counter hit based) and stance. ( From my arcade experience Gundam seed /vs are the most unbalanced flawed, and repetitive character game but no to the point unplayable)

the main difference is how to developer implement them.Who does have a hard time implementing them well pretty much the same. And in current days both developers are trying different way to to counter turtle players.

However I would say tekken is harder to tune, just check how many patches tekken 6 to BR have gone through. Because all character have no aerial movement and their body movement are different developer need to make sure no infinite combo and abuse of move,thus they removed the environment scape (slope, breakable object) from tekken 4 to tekken 5. Tuning of life bars and damage always exist both games

If you need me to chose SC or tekken, i would actually prefer tekken because I am not really impressed how SC implement 8 way move I always got a problem in preforming side walk then normal move immediately (not 8 way move) perhaps that is me.

From tourney youtube from my experience Tekken has more heated moment, probably due to the game mechanic that if you move you are not guarding compare to SC emphasis on guarding and catching GI. In tekken if you got launched you are really launched/(lunched ?), so every moves and setup counts. Moreover wall games tekken are getting better these day compare to tekken 4.

Perhaps at the end of the NAMCO BANDI would not want to have two same genre arcade block buster game competing each other,one reason is it hurt sales. There is always an optimal point in games market, thus SC franchise is less emphasized because tekken is favored in current Japanese. People might ask why they are still developing soul calibur when NAmco is focusing on tekken my reason would be 1) there are market around in home console 2) tekken and SC are based one the same engine thus development cost are reduced . Maybe one day when current tekken story arc ends they will put more emphasis on SC

 

[Jaxel]

In addition I think SC's cast is harder to balance.

I dont think Soulcalibur is harder to balance... I think Project Soul just sucks. In fact, you can EASILY go through each character in SC4 and point out very easily what needs to be tweaked to make that character less powerful, or more viable. Just because Project Soul DOESN'T balance the game, doesn't mean its hard.

 

[FleshMasher]

Someone posted that he likes Tekken more because it is more realistic.
That's exactly one of the points why i like Soul Calibur more. Like i like BurnOut over, say, Gran Turismo.
I like exaggeration in videogames. If i want reality i go outside... Ok this sounds a bit lame, but that's how i think. Gimme Taki WR BBB, please.

SC also seems to be faster, although i've heard that Tekken actually has faster jabs, when i play Tekken it feels sluggish to me. As if they were moving under water.

And SC's movement system, with 8WR, step, A_B_K_G+up or down for jump attack/jump or crouch attack/crouch feels much more natural and intuitive to me.

This is just my opinion, and probably biased and obsolete, since i dropped Tekken after playing SC1 for Dreamcast. And barely touched it ever after. And when i did it always made me like SC even more.