Single Player Fighting Games are Bad (and can be better)
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- Опубліковано 22 чер 2024
- Red Earth / Warzard is absolutely worth your time.
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#redearth #boss#fightinggames - Ігри
Shout out to my boys who play fighting games by themselves because their little brother thinks it's for nerds and their country has bad internet
@evanescere feel's bad bro
I play by myself because im bad
@@DatBoi-mo9vc same
i play byself because im to young to go to locals and my brothers dont like fighting games also i cant connect my pc to ethernet so i have to play on wifi online
I actually play with my little sister, but she hates losing to me so we don't play much
I know alot of people in the FGC don't really care about fighting cpus but strong single player options really justify the purchase and replayability for alot of people. I think single player and online are equally important.
Same here.
hard agree, giving more options to have fun with the games isnt wrong as long as it's well executed. For me they serve as a palette cleanser to online fight.
@@Gensolink Me too. It's really nice to chill and play single player after hours of online play.
Single player options are often abysmal. Just 1frame dps or supers on reaction and other bs. Nobody would put with having an aimbot in a shooter so why should we put up with this.
I deeply agree but yet to others it’s a stupid thought but sadly so true that they completely overshadow there words
I've said this a number of times, but technical action games like Devil May Cry are pretty much designed with a fighting game design thesis with a focus on single player. The best of that genre is able to encourage system mastery and challenge the player in unique combat situations. There's no reason the same philosophy can't be applied to fighting games.
I was mashing buttons in DMC and killing everything as a kid, lol.
@@l_r_a_start_fox8698 Filthy human child. Where's your motivation?
Yo, for sure. I’ve always thought the same thing about Ninja Gaiden series.
Yeah thats why i loved Chronicles of the sword and weapon master in SC and Tekken Force. Just fun modes where you just get into it and eventually get motivated to get better. I think GBVS rpg mode had the right idea. Mainly wish the stages were actually longer and let you see more of the setting.
@@l_r_a_start_fox8698 yeah and you got a shitty score and were playing on the lower difficulty levels.
This is why I really liked Virtua Fighter 4 Evo’s “Quest” mode. You fought against cpu opponents designed to play like real people. They did things humans would do, in fact I think they were actually designed to play like specific real life VF tournament players if I remember correctly. That mode was so fun and engaging. You traveled to various arcades on a map and tried to become the champion of each one all while earning money you could use to unlock colors, items, skins, and accessories for your character. That’s still probably my favorite single player mode in a fighting game of all time.
And let's not forget the special events where they tuned things to play differently, e.g. faster moves/lower recovery, more bounce, etc.
Soul Calibur 1's quest mode did it for me. Single player modes (arcade) are essential in a fighting game. But a head to head style fighter without multiplayer is an instant pass for me. That's why I didn't pick up Dragonball z kakarot. Single player is mostly for training or comparing your score to another human's
I remember getting so much into that as a kid. I really miss good single player modes in fighting games in general honestly.
Reminds me of the GBC game "Power Quest."
didn't VF5 have that as well? and Killer Instinct's shadows, when given enough data will play eerily similar to people
Red Earth was super, super underrated. Like a Beat em Up and a Fighting Game mixed with JRPG.
Bro we need a modern game that mixes all that
@@joonaspenttila201 I mean, I wouldn't mind a game like Red Earth, but with way more stages and playable characters. Hell, give it a co-op mode. I'd buy it.
@@dave9020 but imagine if it had character creation too👀 and you could get new moves and all
@@joonaspenttila201 Would be cool, too.
Capcom where u at?!
Genius move, Capcom: create a great single player experience in the arcade, yet never put it on any form of home platform where it would be most appreciated. It’s not like bringing it to home platforms now will hurt the arcade profits on this!
just use mame
Glad this comment has now aged poorly! Looking forward to Red Earth’s first official home port alongside some of the best fighters of the 90s, and yes I do include Puzzle Fighter in that.
@@SAPProd I was about to say "boy, have I got news for you..."
@@violetcaster4644 you should have seen me pop off like crazy at that trailer! Stayed up for three hours gushing about it.
@@violetcaster4644 what is the news ?
A single player focused fighting game, that never got a home release, that’s Capcom logic for you 🤷♂️🤷?
The game bombed hard, that's most likely the reason why it never got a port.
Also it's a CPS3 title which were really hard to port to most consoles of the time (Only Jojo's Bizarre Adventure got a port during it's release frame, even Street Fighter 3 had to wait plenty of years for a console release)
For all you zoomers out there, arcades were a thing.
@@FrMZTsarmiral cap com must’ve lost faith with Dreamcast by then
@@hankhill7827 bruh I know five year olds who know what arcades are, folks don't need a reminder lmao
@@punkitt
People actually went to arcades back then, a lot.
Every game with delay based netcode is a single player game
lol
Specially if you live in a very small country
Loved this
AKA, why I ditched Nintendo's terrible online after 1 month. Smash Ultimate Disappointment.
Sadly, you aren't wrong.
The Touhou fighting games do similar thing with their story mode spell cards. Most bosses start off as AI before calling their spell cards in which case you then have to use the game mechanics to beat the bosses before their pattern gets too complicated and lose a life. Grazing, cancelling melee to bullets to specials, etc. as well as the skill card deck that allow you to adjust your builds.
Yes! Someone mentioned this!
Bumping this!
I cannot reccomend the first touhou fighting game enough! (7.5 if anyone is wondering) The well thought out single player combined with unique fighting game mechanics (that doesn't stray too far from the core SF design) and very well designed characters and sound effects make it one of the only FGs I've enjoyed a ton purely for its single player content! (I say this cause I for the life of me can't get anyone to play it with me! lol) (Also I can't be bothered to look up playing against JP players online just to get bodied! lol)
@@Alienrun join the hisouten discord
MrCrazybark they said they like 7.5 not 12.3 (I’m more of a fan of 12.3 though)
@@Alienrun I've done no lives lost of all the fighting games on lunatic mode too; You really learn how to jump cancel your bullets along with how to properly graze and conserve your spirit bar.
Remember when people would emphasize single player content ever since the release of MK9? Can we go back to that?
@@y2kjetters317 Even MK forgot the other modes.
Remember when companies gave you a ton of shit to do on top of the game itself? I spent hours playing Abyss mode in BB.
SFV Story Mode: "No, let's not do this in every game now."
@@phantomspaceman I mean, atleast they tried. I'm legit curious on how the story could continue from here
@@mostverticalproductions4808 Maybe if fgc gamers wouldn't've trash-talked on said single-player modes so much over the years, fighting games would still have them more often...
red earth is really underrated and its outrageous
For years I was hoping Capcom was going to do something with the series; like porting it at the very least.
@@KirbyGotenksabsorbed atleast they put the wizard girl ın assist ın some mvc games as far ı remember
@@Qvmmy She's a playable character in Pocket Fighter/Super Gem Fighter, and in SVC Chaos. Her most recent appearance was a brief cameo in Dr. Strange's ending in MvC3. She really deserves more spotlight, as does Red Earth in general.
@@KirbyGotenksabsorbed exactly
Red Earth sux a lot. Star Gladiator or Blood Roar are really underrrated.
As someone who is completely new to fighting games and really wishes I could enjoy them, More fighting games need this kind of campaign. People wonder why Fighting games are so much harder to get into, while telling new players to watch 30 minute long tutorials and to practice in the lab for hours to learn the mechanics. Everything here is exactly what literally every other genre has been doing for decades to teach players how to play games, and I guarantee that's the reason why other genres are more 'intuitive' than fighting games.
An FPS can be very complicated and hard to control for someone brand new to the genre, and if your first ever experience with an FPS game was to boot up overwatch and play against either shit AI or real humans, you would probably hate it and not want to keep playing games of that type. (I actually know this from experience when I tried getting one of my friends into OW without realizing he never played an FPS before) But FPS games also have decades of single player games that much more naturally teach players through their campaigns. In Half Life 2 you don't start out with every single weapon and ability from the start, the game literally starts you out with nothing and goes over every basic aspect of the game from aiming the camera and moving to picking up items, all without turning it into a boring tutorial.
It's such a fundamental aspect of game design that I'm shocked that seemingly the only example of a fighting game actually doing this is from some random obscure arcade machine from the 90s.
Probably because making one for a fighting game is much harder then a FPS
Mortal kombat deadly alliance is my absolute favourite single player fighting game. It's amazing fun, to this day. It has a whole quest mode where you learn combos, and fight guys, and it's dozens of hours long, and there's cut scenes for all the story etc. The game is a really really unique 3D fighter. These days modern MK games are 2D fighters, like the originals, but yeah in the middle there for a while they made 3D fighters with side stepping and everything, and every character had 3 martial arts to choose from and swap between mid fight. And one of those martial arts was a weapon martial art. That was so unique, of a system, there's nothing like it in any other 3D fighter. Like some characters you could plunge your sword into them so you lose the sword and can't use it any more but it slowly drains their life and they can't take it out
As someone who is relatively new to fighting games and in a similar boat, I feel that it's due to the arcade mentality of Fighting Games never really going away. Most Fighting games start off as Arcade games and its rare that they get a fully-fledged campaign mode like FPS games do. And even if they do, it may in a genre that doesn't make it clear how the skills transfer over, if at all.
That puts the onus of "easing in" the player on the arcade ladder itself. That alone has the issue of difficulty depending on how the programmers/arcade operators (for those that have togglable difficulty settings) were feeling that particular day, but even so it means that stuff like special move inputs still aren't particularly intuitive, which becomes a problem down the line. That's not to say that it can't happen (CvS1 basically pushed me heavily into learning inputs, or at least quarter-circle related ones, to unlock the bonus content), but it certainly feels like the exception.
If you want to learn more about this game be sure to jump on Fghtcade where you can find a bunch of people playing, also there is a Discord filled with resources and good people to get some GGs in with discord.gg/7eNk7pm
Permanent link here from an Admin of the Discord :D discord.gg/7eNk7pm
ahyes, Fightcade. The SOLEMN HEAVEN for PROS :)
where nobody wants to help answer your noob questions
and you get verbally abused every time you lose FTs.
@@NickDyers what? Why would you say this it's unrelated to red earth or its community.
@@NickDyers Red Earth doesn't have enough players to verbally abuse you
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Soul Calibur 2's single player campaign with stages where enemies were hard coded to react in certain ways in certain situations or where enemies could only be harmed by a certain category of move. These were interesting and eye-opening in exactly the way you describe in the latter half of the video. Great content!
That sort of thing was in Soul Blade, and yeah that mode did wonders in teaching me winning strategies.
I’ve never had more fun with a game than Soul Blade’s Edge Master mode. All the weapons made it into effectively many games.
It's interesting you mentioned Them's Fightin Herds, because its story mode covers some of the bases you show here.
1) The story mode is presented like a top down RPG until you get into a fight. There's dialogue, puzzles, exploration, etc. This means that someone who is unfamiliar with fighting games has something else to do. They're not perpetually out of their comfort zone.
2) It teaches its mechanics separately and organically. There are platforming sections that are very clearly teaching you character movement. The "fodder" enemies aren't the playable characters, but more limited enemies, "predators," who have fewer moves. The snake shoots venom, teaching you how to handle projectiles .The wolf does jump ins, teaching you anti-airs. The hawk flies, teaching you how to handle air-to-air situations. etc.
3) It does something genius with its boss battles. It turns the playable characters into story mode exclusive boss versions of themselves. An example is the zoner velvet. The boss version has her throwing walls of projectiles across the screen. In order to beat this fight you have to learn to run block, air block, and use moves that cover distance to force your way in, all lessons that still apply to fighting a human player velvet.
It only has it's first chapter out, only letting you play as one of the playable characters, but it def deserves checking out.
When I saw your title, the first thing I thought was dark souls. It’s the game I enjoy playing, along with stuff like hollow knight and cuphead, when I’m not in the mood for a head to head fighting game. I’m so happy to see you include the dark souls boss reference.
I even recall reading of a successful tekken player, who got his competitive fighting game start from dark souls PvP. The similarities are real. The way I beat dark souls challenges are by doing exactly as you describe in the video. I bait and punish whiffs, I block punish laggy attacks, and I dodge and punish telegraphed long start up attacks. Every boss is beaten by learning the their move set and divising the correct counter.
Anyway, excellent video. I’m hoping I can try Red Earth on console some day. Lastly, may I ask where the guitar riffs in your outro come from? I love some good doom/stoner rock too.
Capcom had the lessons.. From red earth to the D&D beat em ups to star gladiator. Inspiring Dragons Crown as well and Gods Hand
True, 90 Capcom (their golden era) inspired everyone imo. Just look at Arc System works, they basically just picked up where Capcom golden era left off, in terms of fighting games
Had this thought while playing through the halo campaigns on mcc! It’s not competitive or particularly hard on normal, but it was fun, engaging, and got me up to speed with general controls, movement, and thinking about problem-solving in the game that when I looked at fighting game single player I was incredibly disappointed 😞
Edit: this is also important because story and arcade play throughs are consistently some of the most viewed videos for games. Not tutorials, not tournament vods, not montages. Single player content is what draws people, and when it sucks people right off the game.
I've never seen a more elegant fighting game tutorial than Footsie's arcade mode, every fighting game should take some lessons.
I've been saying for a very long time that I think compelling single-player content will sell fighting games just as well as good online content. To jump out of the genre, the most popular game mode for Starcraft isn't even the default PvP mode, it's a co-op mission mode that puts you against an AI. Between things like ladder anxiety and not wanting to just get bodied over and over, some people just want to sit down and chill against an opponent that they'll probably beat and will never complain about it.
I know that a lot of people will point to Mortal Kombat, but I actually thing the right direction for single-player content is what was done in Them's Fightin' Herds. More of an RPG-style story than a cinematic story with random encounters replaced by fighting game segments against very simplified NPC fighters. It gives people an opportunity to learn as they play while without overwhelming them with giant text dumps that most fighting game tutorials tend to be.
Also it wouldn't be that hard to make an AI behave more like a human in a fighting game. Trouble is that I don't really feel like there's any effort being put into it: most of the fighting games I play, the easier difficulty AIs will just kind of stand around and occasionally push a button... It's not hard to analyze what makes a new player fail when an experienced one succeeds and work those habits in. I'd rather fight an AI that literally mashes buttons randomly, one that jumps way too much, one that spams a single special move or over-uses very unsafe buttons, misjudges the distances of their attacks... I can imagine how it could be scripted in my head as someone with light programming experience, and it's really not that complex.
The problem with this is that characters take a lot of time and money to develop, so single-player only boss encounters are a big ask, hence Red Earth's anemic roster
To do it right in a fighting game that people still actually want to play beyond SP content, you'd need both a massive budget and a willingness to actually devote resources to it, which you're simply not going to get outside of maybe NRS games, and NRS is notorious for just pumping out a ton of garbage content consisting of nothing but basic CPU fights
@@8Kazuja8
doesn't blaz blue do this for boss characters?
give bosses worse frame data and more damage then their playable versions and there you go.
I don't think it's a budget and development time issue as much as it is just studios not really taking these things into consideration, Red Earth wasn't a success so its mechanics and ideas were never explored as most people either don't really know about the game, or are put off by how it doesn't work like conventional fighting games.
If a studio was to actually take hints from Red Earth and pull it off successfully it would become an industry norm, but devs often don't think it matters since most people playing fighting games at a decent level don't care about single player content, so they only prioritize simplifying combos and inputs, rather than improving the teaching of the mechanics.
Single player content is greatly needed for regions that have barebones options for local play or even online. To make bosses better I would like it more if they had multiple avenues of attack vs reading the player's inputs
I think Blazblue Calamity Trigger tried to do some interesting 1P stuff like when Jin can’t use his sword against Tsubaki so you can literally only jab and kick
Virtua Fighter 4 Evo had the system of fighting AIs of opponents, traveling to different arcades, and it was the most like fighting humans I've ever experienced. You could train your own AI in that game, and the AIs at the top arcades mimicked some top Japanese players.
playing against an actual AI and not a hardwired bot sounds way more fun than the singleplayer that fighting games currently have
I love this video, its what youtube should be about. I think this kind of single player experience like Red Earth could be incorporated into mainstream fighting game single player modes with the emphasis being on training players how to react properly to things they will regularly see fighting against human opponents. Having a boss which jumps a lot can teach players how to anti air effectively. A boss that throws a lot could teach players when to look for throw and when to tech them. This is a simplified version but things like this could bridge the gap between absolute new players and long time fighting game enthusiasts. I started playing SFV last month and I feel bad for any new fighting game player because the only way for them to get halfway decent is to get shit on for hours on end because most "new" players are proficient in one or more other fighting games. Half of the "new" players are just like me and play at a high level. I try to go easy and give clearly new players a fun game but the fact that this gap exists needs to addressed better.
This is the real reason fighting games are not as popular as other genres. It requires either the perfect environment (friends with equal dedication and similar skill levels etc.) or a dogged mindset to unlock the skills necessary to get most of the fun out of them. They rely too much on the old arcade mindset of winning at all costs so vital information about in game mechanics is never properly explained. Designers treat fighting games like Call of duty where there are less mechanics needed to be mastered (not saying its easier or harder just less mechanics). This leads to frustration as new players need to do homework in order to learn already well established fighting game conventions.
I a fighting game afficianado, cant find detailed information about the property of ex moves in street fighter anywhere outside the . They expect me to waste hours in training mode testing it out as opposed to Capcom just writing it down in the move description. Now imagine being a brand new player learning about ex moves for the first time...
The expectation for a new player to do that much homework just to not be bad is too much. Single player should be the place where that training is done. This training should be a fun experience not homework. The designers should be trying to teach new players mechanics outside of the obvious ones. I swear the designers just focus on getting to learn how to do inputs and nothing else.
I found another perfect example I spent 2 hours in training mode with zangief trying to hit his command grab in the air better. I got through his trial missions so I can do all his combos but i was trying to do a basic air grab after a hard counter that hits them in the air. I wasted 2 hours trying different versions of comboing air grabs and i was only able to hit it with the ex version of the air grab. I then went to the frame chart to see start up times on the air grabs only to find out they all have the same start up time....so for some reason the designers decided to only allow the ex air grab to work in a combo but never explained it. All of this could have been avoided if command list by the description it said "can combo after hit in air"
Capcom Fighting Collection has me so hyped, and part of it is Red Earth’s first official home port. I know a lot of Darkstalkers fans (and even non-fans) are getting tired of multiple releases of that series as part of “the test”, especially after the debacle that was Darkstalkers Resurrection, but it seems like things are in a better position for everyone involved this time around: Capcom learned they need more than just Street Fighter, and gamers know they need to support this collection not just for new entries in these games but for more collections to show Capcom the support is there. Red Earth may finally find the fans that have eluded it, Puzzle Fighter might find its competitive scene, and Capcom Fighting Fans may actually have fun again.
I remember i played this game called armored core and you could sort of record your play style while you played the game and share you AI with your friends
How cool of a learning tool would it be to download AI's to play against that mimic some of the best players in the world?
I love AC! Didnt know you could share AI though. Tho I got into For Answer and V/Verdict by the time new gen consoles and online died lol.
I really loved some of Jojo:Heritage of The Future bosses, especially N'doul, Vanilla Ice and Death 13, because they also taught specific concepts.
N'Doul: moving around projectiles and being able to counter zoning
Death 13: air combos and using movement to catch up to him whenever he runs away
Vanilla Ice: avoiding big, slow, unblockable attacks and punishing him during his openings to teach an exaddurated version of whiff punishing.
Definitely agree with that, even if I despise N'doul's stage with a burning passion. Just wish Death 13 was harder and not just "J.c go wheeeeee". Tho it definitely works in teaching which grounded attacks hit aerial opponents
I agree. Red Earth needs to be brought back somehow, the concept is awesome and a great unique way to provide cool single player stuff in a fighting game
You heard it here folks, Red Earth is the Dark Souls of fighting games.
I get flashbacks thinking about the original three Mortal Kombat games’ singleplayers. That AI scares me
I'm kind of disappointed that Red Earth never popped off. It's a beautiful and creative game!!!!
I love single player in fighting games, but one thing I absolutely cannot stand is mandatory cheap bosses. Say, KoF style.
However, I'm totally fine with overpowered bosses as an extra optional challenge (like Blazblue's "unlimited" characters, for instance).
I wish more fighting games just gave AI unique defensive moves to regular characters designed to counter cheese. If there is an issue with the AI that is easily abused by the player, the developers should just give the AI a move to deal with that situation defensively. Like a teleport or a wall jump but on the players face instead.
Fighting games always struggle between being cheap versus being too easy. This idea may help.
the good thing with unlimited characters is that you can unlock them until CF so you can have busted matches with your friends instead of having a nerfed boss character
I think the idea of unlocking special moves in single player is brilliant, giving players one new mechanic to learn at a time really makes it easier to get into. If each fight that gives you a new move essentially forces you to use that move to win and then future bosses have it being used in certain telegraphed senarios. It would help you learn what each move is used for. Then in multiplayer, you'll go in with a basic idea of what buttons are used for what, it'll make getting into the mindgames much easier because you'll have a framework to go off of.
Im thinking the quintessential complex game that has a single player that teachs you basic mechanics and strategy so you at least have a basic idea of how to play in multiplayer is starcraft. Yeah single player won't teach you optimal build orders and baits and all that stuff, but at least you'll know and have practiced the mechanics of getting resources, constructing buildings and maneuvering units around.
Red Earth was pure bliss, but sadly it was damned for being a CPS3 game, which was not exactly a popular board on arcades, and pretty difficult to port too.
Thanks for spreading the word tho, more people need to try this game, it truly is something.
appreciated, i had very little knowledge of Red Earth but this got me very interested in trying it out...shame it doesn't really get any recognition or got any home ports
woah, this game you did show as example of how single player could be, I love it
untill now, the games which I enjoyed the single player content the most were Granblue Fantasy Versus' RPG Mode but it kinda feels a regular PvE\Beat-em-up game and not full fighting game, but it was pretty much fun, the bosses.
and Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend's arcade mode final boss(es), there are no super armor bosses there, but they are pretty op characters which I really love the fight, the 1st Blazblue (Calamity Trigger) is also kinda nice, but it's like Akuma, just an OP playable character, the other blazblue (not sure about cross tag) arcade mode just kinda exists, no memorable bosses or fights there.
and now I really want to try out this Red Earth, I really like the boss design shown in the video.
SF alpha3 world tour was so cool
Alex’s SFV Leo costume gave me hope for a Red earth remaster,but sadly I guess it will never come to pass,still sat here waiting for another Darkstalkers too while we’re at it
Yeah, quality Single Player in FGs has been something I've been super-vocal about for more than a decade now. My biggest issue with modern FG developers/Publishers is that they haven't figured out how critical this approach to Single Player in Fighting Games could/would be. Imagine something like Tekken Force (but, you know, GOOD, with more the quality of something like Ninja Gaiden) where bosses/minibosses can only be defeated by exploiting certain gimmicks fundamental to multiplayer FG psychology. Furthermore, solid SP serves as a distraction when people are frustrated by the process of learning/become good at the multiplayer aspect of the game.
I can only imagine the issue must be that the established FG developers/publishers outside WB/Netherrealms simply don't have the budgets to commit to something this expansive. It would essentially need two separate teams. But it would be well worth it. The MP side of things doesn't need NEARLY as much bloat and pizazz as the SP does in FGs, but devs/pubs take the ass-backwards approach nonetheless. 8 characters in a well-balanced FG with good core mechanics will take you a hell of a long way on the MP side of things.
I really need to play Red Earth. This game actually looks amazing.
VF4 and Tekken 5DR has a mode where you could experience some tournament-level simulation. Almost like Gran Turismo's Simulation Mode if you asked me :)
The ghost AI were also as challenging as medium to high-level players. In Tekken 5DR and 6 (PSP versions afaik), players can even share their ghosts and make some unique feel during ghost matches.
Also, the talk about single player fighting games as puzzles rather than pretend multiplayer vs mode is reminding me of a game where the fighting puzzle game was the main draw of the game and the multiplayer fighting was the side act. Punch-out for Wii.
Another series of games that does this absolutely beautiful are Touhou 7.5 Immaterial and Missing Power, 10.5 Scarlet Weather Wars, and 12.3 Hisoutensoku. The true final boss of 7.5 may be the greatest boss fight in any videogame. And oooooh man, the grandmother granddaughter fight in Hisoutensoku? Priceless!
I don't often play fighting games now, and haven't for about 20 years, but of the time I spent playing them single-player all I can remember now is when I was trying to complete Street Fighter II Turbo on the SNES on highest difficulty, without losing a round. I think I managed it once, after thousands of attempts. It was an arbitrary goal I had set for myself, and when I achieved it, the relief was overwhelming!
This game looks rad. I'd love to see a community-driven sequel/modernization.
Just yesterday I was reflecting on how the best way to do the story mode of a fighting game correctly is probably by doing something that isn't a series of 1v1 matches against AIs. PS2 era MK games did this right in my opinion through Konquest mode, particularly Deception and Armageddon
This will certainly be my favorite video about fighting games in 2020. Even if I never had a chance to play it, I've watched a sizeable amount of YT videos about it, and I've always thought that the Red Earth formula is way too underutilized in fighting games. Great video!
It doesn't even have to be something educational, just go nuts with single player content tbh. It's the same as with Tekken's side modes, just create something interesting that wouldn't be possible in a competitive 1v1 setting. When I play Story Mode I'm usually just reward hunting and enjoying the story anyways. It's nice to have something to set it apart from vsCPU.
The Samurai Showdown games can be pretty unsatisfying as a single-player experience.
I still enjoy it but I also accept that beyond level 6 they have perfect defence and the only way to score a heavy attack is to whiff punish or react.
so, now red earth is in the capcom fighting game collection
The way you explain it reminds me of two things, one is the DMC style gameplay, basically beat em ups. I remember a lot of beat em ups in the mid nineties (Mostly arcades, like Sengoku 3 or Guardians (Denjin Makai 2) they have a lot of fighting game combo systems while still being a beat em up in it's basic logic. DMC seems to the same basic logic but in a 3D space.
The stuff you've been doing on your channel these last 6 months or so has been incredible
Love your videos and I love that you use metal for your backing tracks. Red Earth goes great with some 'Atlantean Kodex' or 'Eternal Champion' or 'Ancient Empire' or maybe some '3 Inches of Blood'. Thanks for another killer video!
I had heard of Red Earth before but never knew a lot about it. This is exactly what I think fighting game accessibility should look like. Rather than making combos and special moves easier, developers should be focused on teaching through gameplay.
Beat em ups ARE single player fighting games. Spacing, hitboxes, frame data, combos, invincibility frames, are all present in games like streets of Rage 4
The problem is that traditionally they were always underwhelming and very shallow in combat mechanics. Not all beat'n ups are like Battle Circuit or SoR4. And the lack of 1v1 situations is also a big issue.
I personally find the Thems FightinHerds story mode to be the best version of this.
Yeah but there's only like 4 boss fights right now. I don't think it's enough content to warrant a whole video about it.
@@b1gk1d91 wasn't saying there should be.
Best video you've ever made... Or at least my favorite. You tackled a real, relevant fighting game problem in a simple but elaborate way.
Keep up the good work and play Metamoqester Oni Ninja Master. It is like Red Earth, but I prefer that game.
I was wondering if anyone else had heard of Metamoqester. o: Good stuff!
Konami also has an older game (from 1993) called Monster Maulers (Kyukyoku Sentai Dadandarn). Just three player characters, but wild bosses and a Time Bokan-inspired antagonist. A couple of the bosses are even straight out of shmups - the Moai statues from Gradius, and the Brain Golem that served as Salamander's first boss. The game ran on the Mystic Warriors architecture, which also gave us the crazy-looking beat-em-up Violent Storm.
@@Sandokiri I wish the boss rush genre took off. The games lack replay value, so that is probably why people never stick with them.
I think the Touhou fighting games, like Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, kinda do this as well, but in a more traditional way. In SWR specifically, all characters are playable, but once you defeat them in story mode, instead of getting knocked out, they'll activate spell cards, that will require you to have specific reactions to them, maybe not exactly being the Dark Souls of fighting games, like Red Earth, but certainly in a way in which you won't just have to deal with the AI being flawed or not using the game mechanics properly.
"it's like a puzzle, trying to figure out how to counter this giant boss and its patterns and rhythms" oh, so punch-out. you're saying Arcade Mode opponents should be more like Punch-Out stages, rather than being playable characters that are puppeted by a CPU that increases its likelihood of input-reading each of your attacks everytime you use it... if it weren't for the Shadow Lab AI in Killer Instinct, i'd say thats definitely the best path yeah, agreed
Granblue Vs' side scrolling beat-em-up single player was one of the more enjoyable single player modes I've touched in a fighting game in a while, just wished it was a little bit longer and more fleshed out.
Thanks for showing off some Red Earth, the boys and I are always really happy when we see people creating content about it. ~ The Kenji player getting smoked by the Tessa player at 2:50
I find it kinda weird the big raid bosses of GranBlue Fantasy Versus as well as most of the boss fights in RPG mode aren't really mentioned here. It's probably the game that tries the HARDEST in a decade to give the single player experience something different and parts of it are QUITE challenging even as a competitive player.
One way to improve the single player experience in fighting games is to offer alternate modes that go back to the roots of the genre, like including a beat-em-up mode. Street Fighter has heavy ties to Final Fight, and Smash has already done this by making Brawl's story mode similar to a Kirby game (which itself was a platformer that took inspiration from fighting games). 3D fighters have ties to action genres such as hack-and-slash, if one were to make a vs. mode in games like Devil May Cry or Kingdom Hearts, it'd likely play like an arena fighter. Heck, the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm games are arena fighters with beat-em-up elements in some of their story modes. Bosses and AI are definitely key, but there is much more that could be done for a fun single player, or even co-op experience.
This is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels. Stoner doom riffs and real excellent theory and knowledge. What the hell else could I want?
The unfortunate part of fighting game bosses is typically they're meant to be quarter eaters in the arcades. So they're not meant to educate, they're meant to beat the player down repeatedly and get them pumping quarters into the machine because you've "almost won" by the time you see them.
soul caliber's "chronicles of the sword" was pretty good, IMHO
Great vid, awesome music in the background as usual. Good stuff my man
I think Boss fights in fighting games being unreasonable difficult (hyper armor, tons of health, just doing way more damage than your character can) was really just the arcade design philosophy of quarter checks. "Okay, you made it to this point of the game, do you have enough quarters to proceed?" Now that fighting games aren't confined to the arcade, I had never really thought of those boss fights potentially serving any other purpose. And now I want to see more of them, since single player modes really ought to serve as teaching tools for a competitive fighter.
I’ll try Red Earth again after this
Super Smash Bros. used to be really good with this up to brawl since the single player modes often asked you to master parts of each characters moveset in some creative way in order to get better times or pass them. For example, in Melee, Young Link has a target test that immediately starts you off in an enclosed area that you can't double jump and up-b over in order to show you that young link can wall jump.
This is done because it would be a natural assumption to think that he couldn't since regular link can't wall jump. This along with a couple of other subtle learning cues like teaching you that the boomerang can go through walls on the return are important mechanics inherent to the character your playing as that feeds into the main meat of the game which is it's multiplayer and standard vs. mode and it's something that I really miss from modern day smash since they only really tell you these things through text boxes now.
This is actually amazing. It'd be high effort, but a really good idea! I hope we see more single-player like this in the future!
Awesome video breakdown!! ^_^
Mortal Kombat Deception and Armageddon have the greatest single player campaigns of literally any other fighting game.
Konquest mode was the most GENIUS way for players to have a fully functional, badass RPG and Beat-Em Up games that give you a feel for the gameplay, mechanics and especially the story.
I want, no, NEED fighting games to be like that again. Imagine Street Fighter 6 having this massive open world explorative RPG.
Or imagine Tekken 8 having an extremely revamped Triple A version of Tekken Force mode.
With how videogames are becoming more digital, this is absolutely possible. The games will be massive 150+ gb files. But having these gigantic campaign modes would make it more than worth it.
I'd absolutely drop $80 for Street Fighter 6 to have an RPG or Beat Em Up campaign mode!
What is your scanlines settings please ? It looks gorgeous!
Speaking of "levelling up fighters", I loved Street Fighter Alpha 3's "World Tour Mode". It was a wierd yet enjoyable addition to the game.
Yup, I remember Soul Calibur 1 and 3 having modes like that as well
I'm honestly surprised you mentioned Them's Fightin' Herds briefly but not mention its story mode, which I think is one of the best fighting game single player modes out there, having more generic enemies as characters with specific fighting styles that require understanding of different strategies to overcome, platforming sections that teach you the nuance of different movement techniques, and the main boss fights with the other playable characters include special third phases that further encourage use of different tools. And there's different difficulty levels so even beginners can progress without problems. Sure, the game has an incredible in-depth tutorial that teaches you literally everything you can possibly know about the mechanics, but the developers also know that a lot of people will go straight to story mode first and designed it accordingly.
I only learned about Red Earth recently, but ever since I've been itching to play it. Oddly enough, the way you described that one boss sounds eerily similar to my experience fighting Valgas in Power Stone, one of my all time favs.
However, I feel like I do a bad job explaining how he's different from the typical cheap Akira/Rugal sort of boss or how he changed the way I played. I mean, okay, I get it, I wasn't even trying to compare that to playing against a real person, I'm just trying to say that Valgas basically drew the line between fighting games and everything else, if that makes any sense.
Before that, I was only fortunate enough to occasionally dabble in maybe a couple of fighting games, a few wrestling games and a handful of beat-em-ups when I visited a friend or during the rare arcade stop. It's kinda hard to understate what a revelation it was when things finally clicked and I started playing the whole game in a new, more effective way, to the point that even hard mode became a joke. (It's probably worth noting that adding an entire third dimension to any game inherently makes everything exponentially more complex, which in this case might have had the side effect of transforming an otherwise typical cheap boss into something somewhat more nuanced.)
I may not be the best Power Stone player in the world, but at least it feels like I'm on an even playing field, which I personally think is the biggest barrier new players face when going into a fighting game. Even if in reality Valgas isn't actually comparable to this Red Sun boss, the apparent parallels nonetheless just make me want to play Red Sun that much more.
(Also, is it just me, or is the line between fighting games and boss rush games less than clear? How come games like this and the first entries in the Street Fighter and Fatal Fury franchises are considered fighters but then games like Mega Man: the Power Battle is considered a boss rush game? Hell, for that matter, why didn't Capcom ever just make a straight up Mega Man fighter? They were already churning out fighters like there was no tomorrow, the Mega Man Multiverse was a perfect fit and there's really no higher fan service for the Blue Bomber Brigade than letting them play as the various robot masters/mavericks/etc.)
This video was excellent might take notes on a good story mode for sure thanks pal I really need it even tho I like fighting game stories but this video just did on how to improve story modes in future fighting games
I love the video! Do you think you could change up the music you use? Pretty much every video you make has this exact track throughout. Maybe you can use music from fighting games? I know other channels use music from sf3.
@theoryfighter NO. DO NOT CHANGE YOUR FUCKING BADASS METAL BACKGROUND TRACK! That musical phrase represents THEORY FIGHTER. I think the content intertwines with the music, to makes something distinctly THEORY FIGHTER. I love that music, it’s iconic! Just personal taste =]
@@KingCuba using other Metal tracks is also possible! I enjoy the Metal vibe and use my own original 8 bit Metal in all of my videos! 🤘😆
Mortal Kombat 9's story mode was such a step backwards from the single player modes in fighting games that came before it, and people hold it in high regard. I feel that fighting games should have a adventure mode, beat em' up, or RPG as a story mode. Tekken had Tekken Force. Soul Calibur 3 had Chronicles of The Sword. Them's Fightin' Herds had a RPG adventure mode. Mortal Kombat games had the Konquest mode. Super Smash Bros Brawl had Subspace Emissary. These modes can be done in fighting games with no problem. Instead of scrapping these kinds of modes, developers should improve them. I think a reason why these types of single player modes are a rarity or aren't included in modern fighting games is because these games are made with the competitive/pro player in mind, which is disappointing.
I have never heard of non-combo hit armor. That sounds amazing !
You need to look into Them's Fightin' Herds. Specifically the game mode they have called "The Salt Mines." I think it's one of the best new game mode ideas for a fighting game ever
You have to load older emulated games that were made in the 1990's to even get a tutorial mode with a null AFK opponent to practice combos with.
I remember absolutely _LOVING_ the single player stuff in Eternal Champions for the mega drive (genesis). Such an incredibly underrated fighting game. For Sega everyone just thinks of Virtua Fighter, but eternal champions proved they had a lot more variety than you'd think. Eternal champions had all these cool training modes where you fought little drones and stuff. It probably didn't help in the slightest at making you better at the game. But for 7 year old me it was the funnest thing in the world. And still is really fun, I still play it
It's like Street Fighter mixed with mortwk kombat. Cos it's a street fighter-esque game but it had fatalities and so on. I life the pixel art in it. And the premise, of every champion fighter from over history is time travelled to the same spot to fight each other in a tournament, it's really fun. So you've got like a futuristic man, a cave man, etc.
But yeah all the single player modes, the training things, etc, they were so fun. Again they didn't make you better at the game. But they were just basically added content. It's just there to be played, it's not there to make you better at the main game
Tricking a player into learning by playing the game is not only a great way to teach a concept, but also generally a great way to get people to love learning.
This reminds me of when I got Persona 4 Arena (vanilla, not Ultimax) and decided to play the game in Score Attack mode. It's oddly similar to what you're talking about, but with normal characters instead. I ended up learning a lot from that game because Score Attack forced me to use its mechacnics to its fullest (I never beat that mode btw, it's way too hard lol).
It's not a perfect solution by any stretch of the imagination, but this is a very interesting take on what you're suggesting in this video...
I think the most fun I’ve had with any Street Fighter single player mode was World Tour mode on the PS1 version of Alpha 3.
As for mini games Tekken 3 was amazing with Tekken force and Tekken ball. Rival Schools also had those weird mini games I loved, too.
I'm a bronzie in SFV, but I remember it was so satisfying doing my first ever online read. This guy kept neutral jumping on every wake-up, so I was Alex and did an anti-air before even seeing the neutral jump and sure enough he got sucked into my Alex anti-air knee animation. So satisfying.
I really enjoy Red Earth’s single player. It’s so great to finally have a home console release outside of MAME.
The most fun arcade mode I've ever played is unironically Footsies Rollback Edition
Fighting games have a lot to improve and work on both modes, expecially now with this pandemic we can see and experience more how this genre suffer when game don't have the proper rollback netcode and the single player mode feels lacking quantity and quality.
This just reminds me of Soul Caliber: Lost Swords.
... I didn't *want* to be reminded of that sadness. Great video though
You should take a look at the single player Boss-Rush mode in Fantasy Strike! They also have daily challenges and other things to keep single player mode interesting! Great video! 😁👍
I just want to praise the scanlines shader that you use on your videos!
The games look perfect!
Are you using Retroarch? If yes, do you mind sharing the shaders details?
So I'm just using the FBA emulator packaged with Fightcade, a tone of settings to play around with in there.
Super well done video. I'm planning a fighting game currently and this is going to be helpful for planning the single player
I was right!
I'm working on a fighting game project of my own (kind of a simultaneous-turn-based fighting game) and designing interesting single player has been a bit tricky. One of the things I definitely want to do is put in some kind of tutorial/puzzle mode where the AI will behave in a semi-predictable manner and you have to exploit a specific mechanic like frame advantage or oki to get out of the situation.
It's tricky to strike a balance between subtle teaching which tries to "inception" learning into the player's head and overtly lecturing away about a concept, since either extreme can be totally lost on a new player. They might easily clear a mini game where they learn spacing and anti airs by smashing crates, then hop into a real match and blindly start jumping/mashing buttons. Red Earth seems like it could teach someone a thing or two if they have the wherewithal to really learn the boss fights.
Having a fun single player experience is so important in other genres of competitive games for exactly these reasons and if more fighters were like this one, it might help fighting games as a whole become less niche
Also I just looked it up and this game isnt available on steam or GOG which makes me pretty sad ;-;
You've gotta reference the footage from the video in the description or something!
AI is definitely a hard topic to discuss, but its funnily enough one of the ways Footsies innovates upon fighting games. Having different AI behavior profiles gives players something to adapt to, even if its not as good as playing humans. I wonder if other developers have considered this?
Honestly I've only just found your channel and I subbed simply because you actually knew red earth existed. Back when I was a teenager I've always found this game fascinating at my local arcades. It wasn't popular however unfortunately.