@docvizzo
- What also makes it more dynamic is the fact that moves were much safer back in SC2. Punishing unsafe moves wasnt as big of a deal as stepping and whiff punishing. The game was more about positioning, movement, whiffing etc.
- So once you got your moves blocked in SC2, you had many defensive options. In later installments many moves were much unsafer, resulting in you being stuck in your blockstun and getting punished or being stuck at such a high disadvantage that all you could do is block cause stepping was unsafe (aka not doing stuff ).
- The combination of safe movement and safe moves allowed you to act in offense and in defense more consistently.
i think you nailed it.
you really said what every SC2 fan feels but fails to diagnose/describe
the game felt better because it was mostly safe indeed.
seeing matches like this here and how the characters are running back and forth across the stage shows the clear difference between SC2 and later installments
- Newer games often have situations where after you got your move blocked you are required to just not move at all.
Newer games feel like chess, two characters standing at fixed distance throwing moves in turns.
- Move list were much bigger, more offensive options, more defensive options. More cancels. More variety.
This is one of he most puzzling things, most games progress by adding more depth, more moves and stances that could lead to many choices, Soul Calibur did the opposite.
for example i used to main Mitsurugi in SC2.
whenever i wanted to close in i used 6,6+b,b,B which had about 7 different options coming out of the third B.
i could just press the 3rd b, i could delay the 3rd B till it become a guard crush, i could switch to (Half Moon death) stance which has 5 options to use already.
So how come when Mitsurugi has all these options in SC2, he gets all this removed and given a very lame move in SC3 which is 6,6+b,b ?
that is just oe example of the simplifying Project Soul did to the game making it a shallow game that lacks any depth compared to how it was.
Raphael Stances and Ivy Stances and Maxi Stances all got screwed up too making the game competely stale over the years.
- Guard Impact was free, adding to the fact that basically after any move you did you could GI the opponent.
that's another example of Project Soul team lack of creatvity, they can't add anything new or interesting so they just remove stuff thinking that any change is good will be good as long as the game feels different.
- Due to the safe gameplay, the fast gameplay and the free defensive options (GI, Evades etc.) you had more decicions to take in a shorter period of time.
Which was more entertaining, which is why there are people making SC2 tourneys right now, that is something i expected 12 years ago when SC3 came out and was a huge disappointment for me.
- " After SC2 the game went into a different direction with SC5 being the complete opposite of SC2 in my opinion..... but i think the fact that everything what people loved about SC2 got reduced step by step throughout SC3, SC4 and SC5 makes it close to impossible for the SC2 fanboys to like SC5"
it is not about being fanboys, it is about the game being REALLY not entertaining, not interesting anymore.
you can observe for yourself how the game's popularity dwindled over the years.
back then in (1998-->2005) Soul Calibur was on par with Tekken, having huge popularity and following.
after SC3 the game kept losing players gradually, not because of bugs as some shallow people think, but because of the whole change in movement style that you explained.
Tekken devs were brave enough to revert their game back to its roots when players complained about Tekken 4's movement style, and now we see how successful the game is.
while Project Soul team didn't learn from their mistakes in SC3, they continued in the same path they chose in SC3 by limiting the movement freedom and reducing the moves and stances making the game more shallow and uninteresting.
While Tekken kept adding more depth and becoming the most popular fighting game.
Now to the important part, judging by SC6's gameplay videos, Do you think SC6 is going down the same way ?
