so is Smash bros a fighting game or what

[SilverWah]

This is a debate as old as time itself but I believe Smash isn't a fighting game.
Call it a 'platform fighter' if you wanna be politically correct.

 

[smileyhead]

I don't understand people sometimes.

 

[duwen]

I don't understand people sometimes.

View attachment 290866

Yeah, by that logic Gradius and CoD are the same genre.

 

[smileyhead]

Yeah, by that logic Gradius and CoD are the same genre.

Subgenres exist, you know. They are both shooters, but one's a shmup, the other is an FPS.
Still, I would argue that Smash and [insert socially acceptable fighting game here] have way more in common than those two.

 

[CoolMe]

Yea, whatever one chooses to label it it's still under the fighting game genre. Though is it like say SF or KoF, no, similar goal but different execution.

 

[duwen]

Kind of... except FPS and Shmups are their own individual genres and share no commonality except a shooting mechanic. Both of those genres have their own subgenres too.

 

[AlexMCS]

It all depends on each one's definition. If it's as simplistic as that Bob Sponge meme a few posts above, even beat 'em ups are "fighting games". Dynasty Warriors 2+ are fighting games. Assassin's Creed series is fighting games. RPGs are fighting games. So no, let's stop.

Fighting games started as 2D 1v1 combat games where victory meant defeating the enemy by completely depleting his HP.
It evolved with the inclusion of combos and additional mechanics, but they have all been conceived with that core goal (Enemy HP -> 0) in mind.

3D games took that core gaming idea and added an additional dimension (I particularly abhor 3D fighters), while never steering far from it.

With its default settings, Super Smash Brothers is a party game loosely based on fighting game mechanics.
The core mechanic, more than HP depletion, became zone control. The main strategy is very different from the traditional fighting games. You have to primarily maximize your area control instead of your damage, only focusing on damage to allow yourself better zoning while preventing zoning from your opponent.

Arena Fighters (Xenoverse, Shippuuden) are closer to traditional fighting games than Smash.
Even Power Stone is more of a fighting game than Smash Brothers, but both fall in a different category.

In summary, no, in my opinion, Super Smash Brothers is not a fighting game at all, but it shares many values when set in a specific way (1v1 combat, mostly).

On that premise, any 1v1 combat game can be taken as a "fighting game", even though it does not share the core goal of the original ones.

P.S.: Shmups are not a subgenre of "Shooters" at all. No one refers to "Shooters" (TPS/FPS) when talking about SHMUPS which are entirely different beasts, with different execution.

 

[FAST6191]

It all depends on each one's definition. If it's as simplistic as that Bob Sponge meme a few posts above, even beat 'em ups are "fighting games". Dynasty Warriors 2+ are fighting games. Assassin's Creed series is fighting games. RPGs are fighting games. So no, let's stop.

Fighting games started as 2D 1v1 combat games where victory meant defeating the enemy by completely depleting his HP.
It evolved with the inclusion of combos and additional mechanics, but they have all been conceived with that core goal (Enemy HP -> 0) in mind.

3D games took that core gaming idea and added an additional dimension (I particularly abhor 3D fighters), while never steering far from it.

With its default settings, Super Smash Brothers is a party game loosely based on fighting game mechanics.
The core mechanic, more than HP depletion, became zone control. The main strategy is very different from the traditional fighting games. You have to primarily maximize your area control instead of your damage, only focusing on damage to allow yourself better zoning while preventing zoning from your opponent.

Arena Fighters (Xenoverse, Shippuuden) are closer to traditional fighting games than Smash.
Even Power Stone is more of a fighting game than Smash Brothers, but both fall in a different category.

In summary, no, in my opinion, Super Smash Brothers is not a fighting game at all, but it shares many values when set in a specific way (1v1 combat, mostly).

On that premise, any 1v1 combat game can be taken as a "fighting game", even though it does not share the core goal of the original ones.

P.S.: Shmups are not a subgenre of "Shooters" at all. No one refers to "Shooters" (TPS/FPS) when talking about SHMUPS which are entirely different beasts, with different execution.

Yet if we look at fighting in the real world, something games quite clearly want to ape and/or evoke a feeling of, then pins, ring outs, submissions and more feature heavily and have done. Zone control as you term is is equally dominant in that as a concept -- whether I am considering the range and moment in my sword (to say nothing of the Italian craziness), adopting a defensive posture to mitigate attacks (possibly even subconscious -- usual mark of the untrained is a dude twisting lower half, even at serious risk to stability, to protect their bollocks) , considering footing (or doing something like drawing a circle around me with a sword, not a fancy flourish or way to dull it before the fight but as an example of the limit of my range), and even going so far as phrases like "back against the wall" (which most non infinite arenas, which is most games, have an equivalent of which diminishes your movement options further -- "the best defence is not to be there when the attack is made" and all that) or "on the ropes".

This fixation on 0hp makes about as much sense to me as saying COD is not because regenerating health. It can be a thing you note in contemplating its design/mechanics but disqualifier is a stretch. I might even contemplate combo locks in this.

 

[duwen]

Yet if we look at fighting in the real world, something games quite clearly want to ape and/or evoke a feeling of, then pins, ring outs, submissions and more feature heavily and have done. Zone control as you term is is equally dominant in that as a concept -- whether I am considering the range and moment in my sword (to say nothing of the Italian craziness), adopting a defensive posture to mitigate attacks (possibly even subconscious -- usual mark of the untrained is a dude twisting lower half, even at serious risk to stability, to protect their bollocks) , considering footing (or doing something like drawing a circle around me with a sword, not a fancy flourish or way to dull it before the fight but as an example of the limit of my range), and even going so far as phrases like "back against the wall" (which most non infinite arenas, which is most games, have an equivalent of which diminishes your movement options further -- "the best defence is not to be there when the attack is made" and all that) or "on the ropes".

This fixation on 0hp makes about as much sense to me as saying COD is not because regenerating health. It can be a thing you note in contemplating its design/mechanics but disqualifier is a stretch. I might even contemplate combo locks in this.

That's a ridiculous comparison... games evoking real world concepts cannot be used as an analog to them being in the same genre. Conceptually an FPS war game and an RTS war game share more real world commonalities than Smash vs most other 'traditional' fighting games, yet they are very obviously completely different genres.
The battle system in many turn based JRPG's has similarities with a lot of fighting games (particularly those like DoA that have a rock-paper-scissors (block-counter-attack) approach to their combat), but no one would ever be convinced by an argument that FFVII is in the same genre as DoA6.

 

[FAST6191]

A sad state of affairs. I have long wanted full fighting engines in non fighting games (something like the Bouncer and maybe Godhand sort of doing something in that world but precious little else does) but that is another thread entirely.

There are times when games are divorced from their nominal reality, often for the better (not the best comparison but can't imagine how you could do tetris in real life outside of a complicated conveyor belt setup. Or keeping it old school then pong does not much resemble the tennis some clones of it called it, might do for air hockey though), but fighting games don't generally find themselves in that realm outside of no injuries and maybe gravity being a bit less. I might like to see such a thing (think how something like Fez nominally adds a fourth dimension) and I not sure how that could come to pass off the top of my head but again different discussion*.
Sometimes this can also be a matter of tech limitations and things take a different path before simulation tech catches up. That is not an impossibility here, and might be a limitation of my next pondering of whether anybody playing say international karate would have been surprised to see ring out, submissions, karate contest scoring, ring out or similar in such a game compared to "you win by being the first to catch this floating widget"?

*even before that I would note I am not actually overly fond of things being so wedded to nominally realistic things (is some breathless fanboy going to tell me about a game using real weapons or martial arts... yeah) and some of the more interesting stuff does tend to come from the very weird and wonderful Japanese things.

To that end I am back at my how would I train an AI thing and contemplating the mechanics involved. HP and damage % still see the same notions for avoidance techniques and/or aggression employed, area control and whatever else. A bot trained to beat smash will do about as well if thrust into street fighter (maybe with controls abstracted and whatever threat-distance metrics it used suitably modified), and both would fail miserably in F1 driving simulator (and vice versa).

 

[AlexMCS]

Yet if we look at fighting in the real world, something games quite clearly want to ape and/or evoke a feeling of, then pins, ring outs, submissions and more feature heavily and have done. Zone control as you term is is equally dominant in that as a concept -- whether I am considering the range and moment in my sword (to say nothing of the Italian craziness), adopting a defensive posture to mitigate attacks (possibly even subconscious -- usual mark of the untrained is a dude twisting lower half, even at serious risk to stability, to protect their bollocks) , considering footing (or doing something like drawing a circle around me with a sword, not a fancy flourish or way to dull it before the fight but as an example of the limit of my range), and even going so far as phrases like "back against the wall" (which most non infinite arenas, which is most games, have an equivalent of which diminishes your movement options further -- "the best defence is not to be there when the attack is made" and all that) or "on the ropes".

This fixation on 0hp makes about as much sense to me as saying COD is not because regenerating health. It can be a thing you note in contemplating its design/mechanics but disqualifier is a stretch. I might even contemplate combo locks in this.

As I said, opinion. Obviously 2D fighters are about zone control as well, but ring-out is not the goal.
Many value corner combos and what not, but in Smash, zoning IS the game.

In fighting games, you use zoning to maximize damage.
In smash, you use damage to maximize zoning.

In smash, positioning is so much more important due to it.
I love Smash, but, in my opinion, it is not a "fighting game", as described above.

Also, 2D fighting games (the ones that matter to me) aren't trying to emulate real life that closely.
Core Smash skills (back attacks, wavedash, edge hog, DI) also do not translate to FGs, and most FG's core skills (anti air, okizeme, huge combos), do not translate well into smash.

Smash also has way too many defensive mechanics: dodge, block, instant block/reflect, air block, air dodge, and roll.
Most fighting games get at most 3 of those and none get them all.

trained to beat smash will do about as well if thrust into street fighter

Have you ever tried putting a top smash player against a top INSERT_FIGHTER_HERE player to see how they fare?
Not good at all.

That's because the skill set is different, and it's different because the goal is different.
A godlike fighting game player won't instantly do OK in smash without having to learn all its quirks, that's how different they are. Different enough to be another genre.

Said godlike player would be ok playing any other fighting game though.

 

[FAST6191]

Most human top level players have all sorts of different timings, damage ratios, move/counter move to turn into subconscious input that make directly leaping from one game to another and expecting to compete a tricky endeavour, though less tricky for various types of AI. Same happens for RTS, FPS, puzzler and anything else I have seen go competitive over the years. Equally most don't tend to cross compete until their base game dies (FPS at one point having a serious shelf life issue -- tetris and starcraft being the only things to have a proper bit of longevity really) and at that point they are also running up against biological limits (same reason as old people drive too slow, just appears about 25 and is done by 30. Seen quite starkly in APM in Starcraft with the few older types all to a man sporting lower APM seemingly only being there by massive strategic skill advantage).

All that said we seem to be back at what constitutes the essence of a fighting game. Smash certainly pulls on different levers (some work for me, most don't but different discussion there) but at its heart it is a duelling (which is to say they care about the location and direction of their opponent(s)) set of opponents concerned with attack windows, defensive posture, damage taken and skin it all with things most would recognise as fighting moves in real life and games, done in real time response to human input.

It also occurs I neglected to mention timers above in contemplating things.