One big difference between Trance and Pep is that Pep persists between battles. And I think that change alone makes it massively more beneficial to have. You don't get that downer feeling from getting pepped right at the end of a fight. And ending a fight with Pep allows you to strategize a little more with your next fight.
@@adrianwoodruff1885Yes, and there are skills, passive skills, and items that increase your pep meter or instantly put a character in a pep state. I fully disagree that it's difficult to strategize around like FFIX's trance. I was able to easily strategize around pep during my playthrough of DQ11S.
The game does also straight up tell you that if a character is in the reserve party, they don't lose Pep, again giving you a viable strategy - if you don't want to waste a character's Pepped turns waiting for another character to Pep Up so you can use a combination attack, just put em in the reserves for a bit, and use a different character.
@@americanducklingwhich is useful for exp farming because when one of the three members you need for the metal enemies summoning move gets it, you can just store them until the others get it as well
My favorite super moves are team super moves. It's always so cool, fun and/or heartwarming to see allies and even rivals work together and combine their techniques to one effective, powerful attack
The original Bravely Default does a great job with this as each party member has their own unique musical theme that plays for about a minute after using their move, which coincides with a customizable buff that lasted for the music’s duration. Then the portion of the final boss theme where the heroes make a comeback includes snippets of each of their themes back to back.
@@blackjacksetzer7748 Batsu's was hype. It changed to one of 3 variants depending on who your teammate was as well so it works really well for representing Rival Schools and adding alot of character to everyone
The F-Zero 99 Skyway is brilliant for addressing a ton of problems racing games commonly run into, and helps a ton in keeping the game engaging even for players of a more middling skill level. Although it's probably in large part born of necessity with so many racers on the track, and it definitely works better because of there being so many, it clearly works well! It's a mechanic that inherently favours players in or behind the pack, the places you normally NEVER want to be in a racing game. It's stronger the further behind you are, creating a rubberband dynamic that helps ensure you're never truly out of the race until you've crashed or ranked out, but it's also not mindlessly strong. In using it, you're presented with a dilemma, where you can use it earlier to start building meter up again sooner but might find it a bit weak, or you try to hold it for a bigger payoff, at the risk of getting fewer and being effectively locked out of your Boost for the duration as well! It's a very *skillful* comeback mechanic, and it doesn't interfere with other racers, either, so it's relatively unintrusive to your opponents. While there are places where it is arguably *too* strong, it's still a remarkably successful mechanic that in my opinion makes the game far more interesting than it would've been otherwise. It helps make the game feel much more inclusive and unpredictable, without feeling like you just get cheated out of wins for no reason... like with a certain blue, spiky, flying turtle shell...
It's also a metaphor for trickle down economics, the privilege of wealth, and the crabs in a bucket mentality present within the working class! and also a really fun game!
Adding more to Splatoon, if you die, you lose meter towards your special! There are gear abilities that lessen the amount you lose of your meter when you die, as well as an ability that charges your special meter faster! It's very customizable!
This becomes more interesting when you have to balance what abilities you take, because having a slot of special saver means one less slot for a different ability like swim speed or ink resistance.
In S3, there's also a special called tacticooler, that gives many buffs to everyone in the team grabbing the drink. Two of these buffs are 59 (the max) ability points of Special Saver and Active Quick Respawn. The former means you don't lose a single percent of Special Meter, and the latter makes you respawn incredibly faster (Quick Respawn does have a condition (die without getting a kill (assists don't count)) but that condition is always considered as "completed" or "active" during the tacticooler's effects)
One other thing, in the Ranked Modes, there's a catchup mechanic were the losing team gains a passive generation to their Special guage, giving them the opportunity to make game changing plays with their specials.
The closest thing to a supermove ULTRAKILL has is the Railcannon, which doesn't feel like a supermove, just a powerful normal attack on a cooldown, but what I find most interesting is the Supermove that _isn't_ in ULTRAKILL, the Blackhole Cannon, which can be found unfinished in the credits level alongside Hakita's explanation of why he cut the weapon, and how a sometimes the best way to implement a supermove is to not implement one at all.
I think the fact you start with the cannon available rather than needed to charge it makes it feel fundamentally different. Not to say it isn't incredibly potent and satisfying but, it recharges passively.
The fact is also, in ultrakill, for you to actually get "Supermove" utility with any of the Rails, you need to pair it with another weapon. Ultraricoshots with the electric, Screwdriver parries, malicious core nukes, etc. All of these WOULD be supermoves, if they were their own weapon, but needing to combo them in a way that's consistent with the rest of the game's trickshots makes them feel different.
I've actually never heard anyone talk about this so I'm unsure what the distribution is of opinions on it (I personally mildly dislike it but don't mind), I kinda wonder what ppl think of it broadly
@@uncroppedsoop For me it kinda depends on the genre, if it's like a Jujutsu Kaisen or Bleach where they all already do crazy shit shouting the name of the attack doesn't seem much crazier. But if it's something more realistic like a police show and you hear them shouting *GUN ATTACK! BANG! BANG! BANG!* it's going to feel a little absurd.
The Summons in the Golden Sun series are a really cool set of super moves that didn't get touched on here. To do a Summon you have to use Djinn abilities, which can be anything from nullifying damage or revving a party member to slowing all enemies or making an elemental attack. But the Djinn also give your characters better stats, and having different combinations of Djinn equipped gives your characters more powerful classes and new sets of spells that you can use that you can temporarily lose when you use a Djinn in battle. The Summons themselves cost more Djinn for more powerful summons, and afterwards free up your Djinn to go back to your party members and also increase the summoner's elemental power for whichever Summon was just used by an amount that increases by the power of the Summon. It's more than a little abusable, since unset Djinn carry over between battles so you can start a boss fight with your 4 best Summons for ridiculous damage and a power boost, but the element of risk for having significantly lowered stats at high levels makes it a balancing act. And the fact that Djinn are all rewards from completing puzzles in the world helps push the exploration element of the game.
My favorite super move in a game personally is the Awakened Kinsect Attack from Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak The insect glaive is a weapon that relies on collecting buffs using a giant bug that sits on your arm most of the time called a kinsect. You have to aim it at different parts of the monster to get the different buffs, and getting all three can really be a challenge sometimes as the zones you need to hit tend to be quite small and the monster tends to move a lot. Awakened Kinsect Attack is a skill that consumes all three of these buffs early to deal one medium damage hit, forcing you to collect them all again. You then automatically collect the buff from whatever part the awakened kinsect attack hit, dash towards the monster, and mark it while jumping up and away. The mark causes your kinsect to automatically hone in on the part you just hit, making it more annoying to collect the other two buffs. However, it does have two great use cases. For one, the damage isn't affected by the remaining duration of the buffs, making it great to use once they're about to run out. Second, once you've gotten good at collecting the buffs, you can use the attack faster than the gauge you need to use it can recharge, resulting in passable damage numbers and a playstyle that I personally have had a lot of fun with.
@@Brass319Personally the most super move is Super Amped Element Discharge with Charge Blade. You need to do a specific combo, have your phials ready, for that big lightning hit.
@@a-listgamer7873 Not really. Here's how to perform an SAED listed in steps according to the meta: - use charged rising slash once - charge your phials - cancel a normal amped element discharge with the guard button - use charged rising slash once - charge your phials - block an attack, preferably using the counter morph slash guard point, and then press both attack buttons at once - repeat steps 4-6 indefinitely. you don't really charge it up or expend anything. If you want, there's even a switch skill for unleashing damage boosted aerial SAEDs on demand consistently. It feels a little too... convenient for me to call it a super move in good faith. I just generally don't like it anyways due to how stationary the monster needs to be to actually deal damage with the phial explosions. Many people say charge blade is the most complex weapon, I say it's simultaneously the most convoluted. Very big difference.
DQ 11 can *technically* be strategized with pep, but it isn't fun and usually not optimal. If you have more the 4 party members, you can switch out a pepped character to save their amped state through multiple battles (almost required for those sidequests that have you perform a pep-power). MC also learns a spell/ability that lets him pep himself up on demand.
Withdrawing characters from combat encourages using different teams and you need to be adaptable to use the mechanic well. The problem is still the randomness of pep ups activating I do like the control you have over which pep ups have activated though.
@@baterraoraa4846 When you upgraded your pep up chance in the skill tree, you're going to pep up more frequently. In boss battle, it's almost guaranteed that most of your characters will be pepped up. Also, the trigger for them are usually tied up to what your characters should do in their role. Like Veronica will pep up more if she's doing magic, Eric if he steals something, etc. with the common trigger being getting hit, dealing damage, or just a couple of turn passed in the battle. So, if your characters don't pep up frequently, maybe you're not using them correctly.
meh, I still prefer the tension mechanic. It still had an element of randomness to it (as you could auto-tension randomly after certain things happened and the amount of tension you got when tensioning could also randomly be higher if certain conditions were met before using tension), but you also had a minimum amount of predictability. Also IMO the only real flaw FF9 ever had was not letting you control the Trance activation. OR if they intended it to be random, do away with the meter entirely and have it work like FF8 limit-breaks with them being more likely to fire at lower HP but can fire randomly at any time. 9 basically combines the worst aspects of both 7 and 8's systems. While 10 combines the best aspects and also makes them more flexible by letting you customize your over-drive triggers later on.
@@ZanathKariashi Tension is good since it works both on damage output and healing capability. Though it's a gamble against some bosses since Disruptive Wave will just cancel out all your tension. Pep Up is called In The Zone in Japanese, is kinda closely related to their culture. Like when you're gambling and feeling lucky, they say "I'm in the zone". So in short, Pep Up is supposed to make you feel like "it's getting good". Yes, it's less strategic. But still fun for me nevertheless. What I like about Pep Up is that it boosts different stats for each characters, while Tension is just the same boost for everyone.
@@DesignDocSeconded. Easy way to give it a hook would be to let you play as some of the old classics, who probably have more character than Little Mac now. Perhaps there could be a plot where the WVBA is taken over by a bunch of nasty heel Boxers and Mac and his old pals have to regain their stardom.
In addition to Anti-Sora, KH2 also balances drives via the interaction with party members. Wisdom form enhances Sora's magic, so he fuses with Donald and therefore loses that party member's magic attacks. Valor form is the same but for melee damage, and Goofy disappears. The other forms are all arounders, and they require both teammates to activate. It's also pretty unique in that it's a super system that you can progress. You unlock new, better drive forms by utilizing the ones you already have. This helps balance the Anti-Sora disincentive, and is overall pretty unique as far as super systems go!
I would also like to point out that managing Anti form is *super easy barely an inconvenience* if you know the game so for speedrunners, and true™ gamers you can just ignore the mechanic.
@@Jigen_IsshikiThe issue only really comes up on higher difficulties, since it completely strips you of defensive options and enemies pretty much oneshot you. But yeah, for basic press X to win gameplay it's a straight upgrade.
What's really intriguing is how drive forms level up with usage (or at least with conditions that tend to coincide with using them often) and then reward their movement abilities even out of drive (even if communicated poorly by the game). That's a great reason to use them regularly and not be tooo stingy in saving them for bosses and tough fights.
It doesn't come until very late game, Sora's Final Form actually decreases the Anti-Sora Form gauge so you should never be proc it once you get to that point.
Surprised you didn't mention how X-Factor in MvC3 had a few outlandish outliers like Phoenix turning into Dark Phoenix at X-Factor 3 and is fundamentally an "I Win" button.
That opens up room for the discussion around how metas shape around very powerful options like that. A good number of characters have had options found by players that are designed to stop Phoenix in her tracks, like X-Factor cancelling the blockstun of her activation and using an anti-air throw to secure an easy kill, or performing what's known as a "Double TAC" to essentially force the Phoenix player to lose a bar of meter and kill her after denying her the resources required for Dark Phoenix. There's also the fact that teams with Phoenix usually need to be built around her, relying on characters that can build a lot of meter but don't tend to spend it much themselves.
A common complaint you touched in with kindom hearts is how long a once cool supermove cinematic can be. We all like seeing them the first time, not so much the 20th time. Pokemon Masters has a nice option with its sync moves to have the animation on, off, or play once a day per unique character. I like that last option since you still see the animatio without getting in the way when retrying fights.
@@WhiteFangofWar Summons in particular. One reason I didn't use KotR that much. And then you have Eden... Limit Breaks mostly only if you can do them more often, like FF8, since otherwise they're not that frequent.
quick note for Dragon Quest XI, pep's do have items that instantly put your party in the pep state, and makes the endgame fights much easier. The items also allow you to strategize around them, just only if you have farmed the items (pep pops iirc) and the power they put out is impactful as well at that point.
I think one super move system that was overlooked are strategic reward supers. The Persona series uses all out attacks as a powerful, but not broken, reward for knocking down every enemy. P5R really made it easy with the one more system, but I think the extra flashy attack as a reward for capitalizing enemy weakness is great. The showtime attacks and the other iteration of character specific random attacks keep things interesting, but it’s always nice finishing a fight with a cool splash screen in P5R.
? The 1 More system has been in there since P3, not to mention it's essentially just a simpler version of the Mainline SMT's Press Turn system, just phrased differently (You get an extra turn, as opposed to you only consume half a turn)
Jak 2 has super attacks for the Dark form, you gain them through the metal head collectibles. Also, saving Dark Jak and it's supers for the more enemy-dense ambushes makes it a lot more worthwhile than just popping it whenever.
Additionally, a lot of combat scenarios in jak 2 are entirely situational. So DD turning into dark jak during slums shootout mission without using dark bomb is just asking to get riddled with bullets. A lot of people really didn’t understand the combat for the game at all (like jak being able to combo from melee to gunshot instantly) because the game does a bad job informing the player about it.
Was just about to say this! It DOES eventually have some really great rewarding super-esque moves once upgraded. Heck even going into a second stage of the evolution with the giant Jak! I was a lil offended when this was brushed over lol
Yep it's mostly meant to be used strategically, there's times it's invaluable. Same with the drive form in KH2 when it misfires, it's not always what you want but can be utilised as a potent combat ability in some situations.
If you take suggestions, could you do a video on desert levels? So, SO many games just go with either the standard barren wastes or egyptian ruins/temple with no modifications, so it would be nice to see some examples with some creativity.
Believe it or not, we started making a Desert Levels video this month, then switched to Super Moves. I'd be very surprised if we haven't completed a Desert Levels ep by this time next year.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had better get a mention here. This is a world where the continents that people live on are living titans, and the "desert level" exists because one of the titans is dying which creates a political climate that causes multiple nations to be on the brink of a world war. @@DesignDoc
One of my favorite examples is the djinn system in Golden Sun. You can use your djinnis for some of the most powerful attacks in the game, but doing so will significantly depower your characters making you a lot more vulnerable until the djinnis recharge.
CrossCode is quite basic in its super move system, the Combat Arts, but that doesn't stop it from being very enjoyable to use. It uses a simple system of points, called System Points, that accumulate during combat ( outside combat, it slowly returns to a default value, of 1-4 SPs depending on your advancement in the story ), affected by your actions ( mostly attacking, attacking is what will give you your SP ) and your Focus stat, that you can spend for your special moves, at a rate of 1 SP for a level 1 one, 3 SP for a level 2 and 6 SP for a level 3. Arguably, only the level 3 ones count as super moves, the other being far less flashy and more general combat tools to put in your combos than big ultimate attacks like the level 3 are, with how fast it is possible to gain SPs when playing aggressively, and for level 2 and 3 ones you need to reach a certain point in the story before being able to unlock them in the skill tree, so they aren't available from the start ( not like the starter 4 SP would allow you to use level 3 ones, mind you ) Their force is in the sheer variety of them, with a total of 92 spread over 4 types ( melee, throw, dash and guard ) and 5 elemental modes ( heat, cold, wave, shock and neutral, though neutral only has level 1 and 2 ones, and all other elements have one type where they only have one level 1 and one level 2, two types where they have 2 of each level, and one type where they have 2 level 1, 2 level 2 and 1 level 3, and when there are multiple of a same level and type you can only have 1 equipped at the same time, though outside of combat switching to the other is quick. Neutral forces you to select by type, other elements allow the arts to be selected individually ) They're quite nice, going from things like a small AOE explosion around yourself with some knockback ( Proximity Blast, a level 1 Guard art for Neutral ) to a parry that traps the ennemy in a deadly aerial combo you end with a downwards laser ( Ignite Embers a level 3 Guard art for Heat ), or from a small rapid-fire of your basic ranged attack ( Bullet Rain, level 1 Neutral Throw art ) to a super-fast projectile ( manifested by time slowing down during the charge and firing ) that can bounce up to 3 times and getting stronger each time ( Ether Snipe, level 3 Wave Throw art ), with some pretty impressive spectacle for a game with only 2D graphics
I also like that every combat art takes a few seconds at most, are cancellable at any time, and they never disrupt the flow of the fight. I didn't use them much at the middle game because I was still mastering the basic combat, but integrating arts into combat elevated the whole system for me dramatically.
CrossCode's combat is so good that it surprised me how much you can make a build centered around blocking for the most part. Though i wished the "spike armor thing" that reflects blocked damage back to enemies, worked on all enemies. I was one step away from having a complete goofy looking shield build.
5:15 Something I want to add to the Splatoon implementation of the meter is that painting over enemy ink charges your special. So if you are a weapon that paints a lot like a Bloblobber or a Dread Wringer and just attack randomly you can end up helping the other team charge their special faster by giving them a lot of ink to paint over.
Interestingly, Anti-Form was my favorite form due to how fast and strong it was. Sure you can't heal but as long as you don't get hit, it was pretty good. I always wanted a way to guarantee Anti-Form transformation. Best you got was one of the Keyblades that gave you a 50/50 chance to activate it.
I believe you can force it by having one of your party members be fainted when you use a drive with two become one. Could be wrong though, watch bizkiz047's kh2 fm guides about keyblades/drive forms
In regards to Metroid Prime 3's Hyper Mode: The *really* funny thing about the system is that, because taking damage while Overloaded builds up Phazon, you're actually incentivized to *take* as much damage as possible so you can keep shooting. It's a wonky system. I love the vibes of it, but it's *completely* unbalanced for sure.
Having this one meter serve too many purposes, and the gameplay consequences that arise, remind me of SM64 using the health meter as a breath timer. Why does jumping into water fully heal Mario? Why is Samus smashing her own face? It's fine... but weird...
I think it's a nice touch that the corruption encourages you to play even *more* fast and loose with the risk of dying. The risk might not seem that big, but that has more to do with the generally low difficulty of the game. Imo this mechanic really gets to shine on the aptly named Hypermode difficulty where you're essentially forced to use it on the regular to get through and managing your health around it becomes increasingly vital to living. Add to that the fact that Enemies can enter hypermode themselves, which at this difficulty means they pose a massive threat of an instakill in hyper and huge damage if you're in base, you better have planned out your resources so they don't catch you in a bad spot in a group fight.
@@marzipancutter8144 Ill second this. Base and hard mode Metroid Prime 3 is indeed on the easy side, but Hypermode really turns it into a whole different game with an emphasis on resource management and squezing every second out of your Hypermode. And the final boss is also incredibly intense at this difficulty.
@@jordanp4987 One of my favourite games this year. Long been a fan of From Software's outings, but it was my first foray into Armored Core. Meant there was some stuff I needed to learn, mostly to not get stuck with one build and instead tailor a load out to the mission. After I learned that the difficulty was high, but fair, with a handful of places where I needed a few tries and a new load out to see it through. But overall a great experience.
This subject reminds me of a design shift I noted in the Mortal Kombat games when they first introduced the X-Ray moves (I can't remember if it was 9 or 10 offhand). When they first showed up, it was part of a gauge meter with 3 bars that had differing costs for boosting your specials, activating a combo breaker, or use a full gauge for a super move that you just need to land that first hit for massive damage. The very next game, they kept the move (changing it to either Lethal Blow or Fatal Blow) and instead tied it to a fighter's health. I'd wager they noticed people weren't using their gauge except for super moves, meaning few people were bothering with combo breakers or special move enhancements, because why use them when you can bide a little time and unleash a super move that takes off a third of your opponents health without needing combo timing? So it instead became a catch-up mechanic where it's normally only usable when your health drops below 20% I believe. You're not going to get your health back, but both parties know that once one side is low on health, that super move becomes a threat, either bringing your opponent down to an equally weak state (and threatening their own Blow), or finishing the round/match then and there for a comeback. By moving when and how the super move becomes available, they made the power gauge useful for its other abilities.
Actually it was the opposite. In MK9, there is no reason at all to pick X Rays over Combo Breakers, especially since mixups were so potent and damage so high already. Unless it killed for the last round, saving your bar for combo breakers or meter burn was always better.
nah it was the opposite, no one used xrays in MK9 or MKX, ex moves and breakers are just more useful and important to have over them; saving meter to use it was basically handicapping yourself
I just love super moves that serve a gameplay function first, I mean I like a nice cool animation but boy do they get tiring when you see it match after match. I prefer when games keep it snappy and save the cinematics for rarer scenarios like instant kills.
The Trance / Pep mechanics sound pretty interesting, I think if implemented a bit differently could make for a really cool mechanic to strategize battles around. Perhaps in a werewolf-themed turn-based RPG you have your super metre which is automatically activated like Trance / Pep, and when activated you transform and have really powerful attacks & defense, but you also have less control, so you'll need to be careful about exactly when it's activated. Different moves could increase the metre by different percentages, and then you could also have spells & items which decrease the metre so you can really try and plan around when the transformation happens instead of it being seemingly random like in the examples you mentioned.
My favorite super move in a fighting game has to be Shiki Tohno's arc drive from Melty Blood Type Lumina, or as some call it, the "Nanaya Install." It's a pretty typical damaging super move, but it comes with an added benefit- after use, you're put into an install state where you gain new moves, specifically from a fan favorite character who's not in the game, Nanaya Shiki. The moves themselves are great for combo extensions, mix-ups, even movement, and it's basically Shiki's win condition. The best part however is that if you land the move as the final blow of a round, you get the Nanaya Install moves for the entire next round from the start. In a game where meter is often times much better spent on EX moves or regen, it really incentives smart and considered play, while also feeling almost liberating when you land it.
One super move system i like is in “omori” where when you take damage, you get 1 energy, and you can use 3 to do a follow up attack after a normal (each character has 3 corresponding with another party member), but if you get attacked 10 times, and get 10 energy, Omori can use “release energy!!!!” And do a cool attack that looks awesome and feels great, dealing 300-2,500 damage depending on your follow up level.
The turn-based RPG series "Golden Sun" has one of the best super systems & it's even mixed with the class system. As you explore, you collect djinni & assign zero or more of them to each party member (evenly distributed). Each djinn can be in a "Set", "Standby", or "Rest" state. "Set" boosts the character's stats and affects their class/spells. Each djinn also has a free spell it can use, but doing so shifts it from "Set" to "Standby" (lowering stats & maybe changing class). Up to 4 "Standby" djinni on the same character can be shifted to "Rest" to cast a free, massively powerful "summon" that damages all enemies. Each turn, 1 "Rest" djinn on each character is randomly shifted back to "Set". There are so many decisions to make: do you stick to only casting small summons to minimize how long your characters are weaker or take the plunge and play defense for a while? Do you spread djinni out so that each character has a free healing or crowd control spell, or do you stick djinn to specific characters to prevent their class from shifting and get more reliability as summons are cast? Or do avoid using djinn altogether to have high stat characters with reliable, powerful spells (but which consume finite magic resources)?
One thing I really like about NEO TWEWY’s Groove system is the synergy between its Mashup (elemental super attacks with their own unique effects) and Killer Remixes (allows you to finally ascend to 300% Groove and unleash a series of multi-colored energy beams that bombard the area and juggles multiple enemies in its wake). With the right set-up, Mashups can become potentially more damaging than Killer Remixes, especially when you use them in combination with your pins. And you can build up more Groove during them, which allows you to just keep dishing them out whenever you want. On the flip-side, Killer Remixes become far less powerful on higher difficulties BUT they allow you to get a free full heal AND refill all of your pins. Which pretty much eliminates the need for healing pins entirely and in turn allows you to just go nuts with your pin builds. The thing about Mashups is that you need to think of them as an extra pin move to combo with, which can be utilized as you wish, instead of an ultimate as most Mashups need you to set them up first (enemy position, stunning enemies first, gather them in one place, etc) in order to fully take advantage of them. I’ve seen so many people needlessly save them up when Mashups by themselves can provide tons of Beatdrop opportunities for you to take advantage of and get Groove back to unleash them back-to-back. Depth to me is when you have multiple options and have to consider which options are the best for a given situation, and have to weigh the pros and cons of each option, which in turn leads to different playstyles and solutions. In that regard, NEO TWEWY actually does this quite well. There were a lot of times in my playthroughs where I had to consider what pins would work best with one another as well having to decide on-the-fly whether to use a Mashup now in order to do damage and build up more Groove now or save it up for a Killer Remix and blast the round away for a full health restore, which could potentially leave me at a disadvantage in later rounds against certain types of enemies that my pins would have a hard time with. It also helps that you don’t gain health back throughout rounds to make the decision-making more palpable.
Not to mention how Mashups are elemental, and so some are much better in certain encounters with specific elemental weaknesses. There were a few fights where my strategy landed on chaining a lot of fire or gravity mashups in a row. Also since you build them by comboing different characters, a lot of deciding on pin builds becomes not just what individual pins are the best but whether they combo well or what elements you might need for a given mashup.
Personally, the last game I played with this was the Tales of Series, specifically Vesperia. there, you will unlock a Burst Gauge at a certain point of the story, which can be used to modify your stats some, gain some extra benefits, and use Burst Artes: quick powered up moves that can do a decent hit following a basic Arte. Later down the line, you gain an upgrade to your Burst Gauge, letting you collect 2 levels, which can be upgraded to 3 and 4 when you get the supplies to do so, each one giving you even more benefits like no MP use or invulnerability (oh, and they stack). Now, another mechanic in Vesperia is Skills learned from weapons, and this is where I bring up the Special Skill. With this equipped, using a level 3+ Burst Gauge can place you in a different situation, for using a more advanced Arte in this state and a different button input grants you the character's Mystic Arte: A much more powerful move with movements that resonate more with the character using it. And that's not the end. In New Game+, when a character meets certain circumstances (like using a move x amount of times in the game's log) in Burst Gauge 4 and both attack buttons, they will use an even HIGHER Mystic Arte with ridiculous power and flashy as hell animations. Can you enable the Ai to use these by saying, "When the meter is at 3, you can activate it," but its the AI, so it won't always aim to use them.
I'm huge on Vesperia because of the fighting system - I like the idea of basic attacks + base lv skills + adv lv skills + Burst Arte + Mystic, it makes it feel so rewarding to be able to pull off a long stream of damage, or to just activate lv 4 and pop out your Mystic during a "oh shit" moment. The benefits of stacking levels of Overlimit and aiming for delayed gratification for better buffs is a great addition to these kinds of systems, like the stars in Punch Out being able to OHKO an enemy. I think the added complexity of levels of moves will always make for a better system, and levels of Supers (I always called them Ults? idk) is just like *chef's kiss* for the games that put thought and care into it. While by the end of the game it's like... just Overlimit lv 3 and 4 for the sake of Mystic Artes, I love how the Burst Artes even change between the levels, it almost makes me miss using lower levels just to admire the depth put in to them. Which is also probably why I find the newer games less enjoyable, they tend to not need as much build up or have, in my opinion, a flatter system of rewards even if there's tiers of Supers/Burste Artes or whatever.
Actually for .hack// I believe aside from maybe The Wave, Data Drain is optional. A suggested way of handling the post-game super dungeon in Quarantine is to just kill some of the enemies normally. Enemies have like, 100x the HP, but they DO have finite HP. Making a wrong turn is no longer run ending, and it can delay the Data Drain penalties to lower floors.
The issue I remember having when moving from .hack//infection to .hack//mutation (waaayyyy back when I played them) was specifically that one of the very first story dungeons had basically ALL infected enemies you either had to grind down, or data drain. The single dungeon could push you from 0-100% in one go. Don't think I ever actually got past it at the time.
@@WeskAlberI pretty sure it wasn't that, I only made it through the first game in the series. Since I got stuck on the second, I never played the third. Of course, it was a really long time ago, so maybe I'm misremembering. But the huge difficulty spike going into the second game really stuck with me.
Would've loved a bit covering Dragon Install from guilty gear. A super form lasting less than 10 seconds, leaves you stunned when it's over, and makes your special moves cartoonishly busted while it's active, and it has a cool theme song
I liked the super moves that were only available at low health in games like Real Bout: Fatal Fury and the first 3 King of Fighters. The thing about them is that in theory you could spam them, but considering you're in low health and some of them leave you defenseless it makes you think twice before performing them
Probably my favorite super move system is Chrono Trigger because it really forces you to think of who you want in your party, what moves work the best against a boss, and what items to give to who you need the most. Every character has their own strength and weaknesses and it’s fun to mix and match, keeping it fresh.
As far as I remember, you could unlock additional dark Jak abilities over the game in Jak 2. The problem is that you went from being too weak to maybe too powerful. But I guess that’s a fair reward for progression and a proper power fantasy.
19:39 okay but, (correct me if I'm wrong) they ONLY put the option to turn off amusement reactions in CRITICAL MODE, something you DO NOT UNLOCK until AFTER your first playthrough! My first playthrough, I just never touched my triangle button because of how obnoxious they were, and I'm not skilled enough to play in critical :(
surprised I haven't seen anyone talking about omori. There's a surprising amount of strategic depth to omori, I don't think there's any follow-up I wouldn't consider useless and (as with the rest of the combat system) also adds extra layers of narrative depth through character interactions. Also the big release energy attack has such a cute animation
An interesting one is the Vector Cannon of Zone of the Enders. A mech sized kamehameha with a 15 second charge up. Once you unlock it you can use it whenever, but every time you do you have to stop flying and sit still for 15 seconds while it does it’s big charge up sequence, then stay there while you fire. This in a game where most enemies fly around like coked up moths. So it’s balanced such that it’s damned hard to set up to use, but has very high payoff. The charging sequence and flashy visuals definitely make it satisfying to use, and the unwieldiness weirdly complements that I think. It makes it feel like it’s too big and overpowering to even be practical against regular enemies, like hitting trying to hit a fly with an rpg
One of my favorite "super moves" in a game is Cassette Beast's Fusion system. Amazing story relevance aside, Fusion is a meter filled by being hit, hitting enemies with type-effective attacks, and several other things. When the meter is full, you and your partner can fuse, increasing your stats, giving you access to each others moves, and doubling your AP gain, allowing you to use your most powerful attacks more often. You also gain the ability to use Fusion Power, a special attack that uses all your AP, but does a ton of damage and applies a status. It also adds killer vocals to the music. Fusions are not invincible however, and status effects still work on them. They can still be sent to sleep, have their ap drained, and 3 stacks of resonance kill them all the same. When fused, you need to keep this in mind. The biggest downside of fusion is you only get one action, compared to the two you get when unfused, so each move has to have more weight behind it.
I'm actually very surprised that dot hack was mentioned here, because I think it's a pretty obscure series. Gu had the awakening system where you build up a morale meter by doing things such as performing favored actions by characters (for example, if you combo an enemy with silabus), healing party members, and performing rengekis. It's kinda easy to fill up but the specials are all unique and very fun to use
Ever since Sonic 2, going Super has been the Sonic franchise's version of this. It thoroughly enhances your moveset by upping your speed and giving you limited invincibility (you can still drown, fall down a bottomless pit, get squished, or time out if the timer hits ten minutes), but there are three small caveats that make it a bit more balanced. First, you have to unlock the form by completing seven stages of a minigame to collect the seven Chaos Emeralds to even have access to the super form in the first place. A lot of games also limit it to only a specific character being able to harness the emeralds, too, though they've started to change that as of late. Second, you have to build up a meter of sorts by collecting at least fifty rings before you can trigger it. This wouldn't be all that notable were it not for the fact that on taking a single hit, you lose all (or at least a lot of) your rings, meaning that playing well is still encouraged, which leads to the next point... Third, being in the Super form drains your rings over time. Run out of rings, and you drop back down to your base form, though any items you collected during or before Super mode are given back to you once it deactivates. That third caveat encourages you to play well even despite you being pretty much invincible while in Super Form, because if you dilly-dally too much, you'll lose the form and be technically on one HP until you get some rings again.
@@riluna3695 Or that, yeah. There *is* a limit to how high you can jump even in super form, after all. I was more referring to obstacles you'd encounter in more modern games. Because if it's a death-causing pit, it's typically always a bottomless one nowadays.
The best part of a good super move is when you have your own power up music. Bravely default is a great example of such. You just get instant dopamine when the super themes starts and the final boss’s track actively includes each character’s super theme displaying the finale with a battle of the musics themselves.
in the trails of cold steel series, you have what’s known as an s-craft. s-crafts are basically super moves that can be used if the character has 100+cp(craft points). you can earn craft points by doing any kind of attack, but you earn the most by attacking normally. and for some characters, if they have 200cp (which is the max) their s-craft becomes a different, more powerful one. on the flip side, special enemies can use their own s-craft, and you won’t know they’re going to use it until it’s their turn
One of the things I like about Brawl's system is that the Smash Ball creates a point of interest in the middle of the match. It's a mad scramble, sure, but that's part of the fun--it draws everyone toward the same spot, encouraging aggressive play. The fact that you can literally beat the Smash Ball back out of someone who has it adds another layer of risk/reward--especially since the amount of effort it takes to knock someone out of that super mode corresponds to the amount of damage they did to the Smash Ball. You _could_ gank the ball by diving in at the last second--but you'd better make the most of it, because if your opponent rallies and counterattacks, you can lose the advantage just as quickly as you gained it. It's hectic, but it's hectic _because_ it creates a bunch of interesting split-second decisions for everyone involved.
Another, more personal example: I have a mod I'm working on for Doom 2, inspired by games like Risk of Rain. Part of my plan for characters is that each character has a Super Weapon--a BFG, or something similar. Where the other guns use various kinds of color-coded ammo that can be found in levels, the Super Weapons use a special ammo type that is charged up _whenever you pick up other kinds of ammo._ This is tuned so that filling up your other ammo supplies only gives about 50% of your Super Weapon's ammo capacity, so optimal play revolves around juggling _all_ of your weapons--if you neglect part of your arsenal, and its ammo supply stays full, that means you can't pick up any more of that type of ammo...which means you're missing out on BFG ammo.
I can’t describe how good the Burst attacks from Gravity Circuit are to do them Justice. Every one of them is tailored to work in many different situations. Weather you need a good movement option, or just straight up damage, a lot of them will just work.
One thing I really liked (and hated a bit) about Kingdom Hearts 2 is that the ultimate drive form is locked by a story point ( pretty normal since it's a "final" form) but can happen randomly when you trigger any of the other forms, pretty cool to perform a normal drive form and seeing Sora in his new attire for the first time (way less fun when you try to farm for it, or when it appear after the point of no return.)
Should probably mention for KH2 that final form eliminates all the risk of anti form, which is probably fine given it’s supposed to represent the mastery of it
I think a good move similar to a super is persona all out attacks (specifically p5 cuz thats all ik) where your rewarded for successfully knocking down every enemy and now you get to blast high damage to the enemy, its just broken op where it won't eat most of an enemy health bar but its still powerful enough to kill weak enemies and pack enough of a punch, and theres still stronger moves if set up right
24:52 jigglypuff actually can work out well with good usage to my knowledge, have them fly to below the stage on most stages and let them rip. rosa's actually does insane damage, you just have to get your opponent(s) into the star. since when is ice climbers final smash particularly bad? covers a big space with lots of power and has options for the ice climbers to either help get enemies into the iceberg or to just become completely invincible during it.
I'm pretty surprised the S-Craft and S-Break system from the trails series isn't on here. It evolved from a really big punch, with exceptions like healing and protecting your party, to game breaking strategies in later installments like reflecting, delaying or canceling enemy attacks, and creating full protection for everyone in the party. They even upgraded to a mechanic where all party members in the field and reserves either attack, use spells, or heal.
One game series which does super moves really well is the Kiseki (Trails) series. Where, the super moves all have either a very powerful attack, a strong utility or something more unique at the cost of delaying a character's next turn by a large amount. But the most powerful function of the supers are their ability to interrupt the turn order at any time and allow you to steal turn bonuses or interrupt chains of enemy attacks. It's actually a pretty important part of the combat system because of this, especially when there are characters that can grant 2 hits of invincibility or total party healing/reviving and buffing.
There's also some super moves that are give i-frames, typically paired with some amount of damage, which acts as either a really long dodge or an extra one for games where you have to spend time recovering dodges. It's a get-out-of-jail free card, typically gated by cooldowns, either directly or indirectly, so you do want to hold on to it until you need it.
Atlas Fallen builds super moves and risk-reward so deeply into the fabric of the game, it's the basic combat mechanic. The meter in Atlas Fallen actually builds by dealing damage and decreases over time, and it increases both the damage you deal and the damage you take. That also causes your equipped essence stones to trigger per tier of the meter, with stronger ones tied to the higher level - so you have to build up to the biggest, flashiest, riskiest tier to use all the equipment you get in the game. Tier 3 has wide sweeps and brutal strikes, but it tends to be slower too. Personally, I love it. I think they nailed the feel of combat. The system is basically "design your own super meter", and it scales proportionally to the natural aggression of your playstyle and how good you are at keeping up pressure. That and the Monster Hunter part breaking minigame in combat makes things pretty interesting.
One (or two) that I thought of is the ionic abilities from inFAMOUS 2, and the Karmic bomb from Second Son. With the ionic abilities, you have to absorb energy from certain defeated enemies, but there’s a chance of that. I don’t know what the chance drop is. In Second Som, if you do certain things related to your karma, you fill a meter that allows you to do a super powerful move related to the powers. I don’t remember how the good karma depletes, but for evil karma, it depletes after a certain amount of time. While typing that out, I remembered the onimusha form from the Onimusha games. After absorbing a certain amount of specific souls, you can go into a super form. In Onimusha 2 it happens automatically after getting five purple souls, but in 3 you can activate it when you want. However, the purple souls don’t drop as often as you want, especially so when in a boss fight.
22:57 I assure you at you are not the only one that is really happy with F-Zero 99. Now granted I actually didn't grow up playing those games. I grew up in the '90s and I played a lot of SNES and then 64. My family was fortunate enough to also have a Genesis and a PS1 back then too, but I didn't play an F-ZERO game until maximum velocity on the GBA. Then I later played the best game in the series F-ZERO GX on the GameCube which by the way I played both of these games when they were new. I didn't play F-ZERO on SNES or F-Zero X for the N64 until I don't know like a decade and a half later or two when I download them to my Wii. Of course I can play them now on my switch though. So even though I didn't have much experience playing the first two games of the series it was really cool to see on the news tab to the left on the standby screen for the switch that this game became available and I haven't gotten to play it every day but I try to play it whenever I get the chance to be on my switch anyway
One of my favorite recent takes on Super Moves comes from Fate/Samurai Remnant. The main player character Iori has a standard super move style attack, but what’s more interesting is the secondary ‘transformation’ function. The focus of the game is facing supernatural threats, and showing just how difficult it is for humans to handle it. You can face off with human foes just fine, but monsters have much higher defense and some won’t even flinch until you take out a massive shield they have up. The fights are daunting… until you call on your own supernatural help, giving the player control over a new character who can cut through monsters and enemy spirits like butter. You aren’t helpless against monsters and the like… but calling on your Heroic Spirit partner sure does make it a lot easier. In short, you temporarily turn the game from a character action game where the enemies can two-hit you to death, into a Warriors/Musou game where you’re able to plow through enemies like a god.
I doubt it barely even counts but Team Fortress 2's Medic has the ÜberCharge, which builds up a bar while healing you're teammates. Once the bar is filled, you can activate your ÜberCharge to make you and whoever you're healing completely invulnerable for 8 seconds (shorter if you constantly switch teammates) for that push to win the game or to make a comeback.
Going Über isn't the only thing that TF2's medic can do with the charges. Depending on which medigun he has equipped, you can guarantee critical hits with the Kritzkrieg, do the invincibility thing as you said with the stock medigun, grant resistance to damage types with the Vaccinator, or heal up teammates pretty much instantly with the Quick Fix.
You can strategize with DQXI Pepped Up mechanics. First, when your character pepped up, they stay pepped up even when the battle ends, or when they're switched to reserve. You can see if the pep power is going to end when the light on character icon is blinking. So, if you want to do specific pep combo to complete quest, just pep your characters up then bench them out of main party. Later, you can even manipulate the pep up by using certain items to either pep up 1 character or the whole main party. Also the hero has certain skill where he can just straight up force himself to pep up. So yeah, it's very much unlike FFIX.
I've been wondering about this for one of the games I want to make. I think I'll incorporate it into the combat chip system(final name pending). In low, med, and high power settings. Low being mostly just the cost of using the chip, med being enough to disable the weapon, and high to actually destroy the weapon. At first, I was thinking this is too far. But then I remembered already having a plan for a chip that can equip a different weapon. It would be expensive to use, but could theoretically be sustainable between dives.
One that came to my mind were the dark chips in MegaMan battle network - super strong chips that pop up when you’re taking a lot of hits (thematically MegaMan is getting desperate), but the cost is a dark MegaMan can spawn on the other side and start attacking you or you might lose control of MegaMan (he’s glitching or something). Also, you lose 1 HP permanently every time you use one.
My favorite super moves are the ones from destiny, because wether you are playing alone or in a team they (usually) feel great to use, they give you that "superhero" feeling for just the seconds it last, and when everyone in the team activates their super to kill a boss in a dungeon or a raid it's just **chef kiss**
I really don't like how you portrayed Jak 2's dark jak form. You completely skipped on how you unlock actually cool super moves later in the game with collectables. One is a giant slam that shoots a shockwave around jak that instakills nearly every enemy but ends dark jak early. Another is an attack that arcs electricity around jak for 5 seconds or so and does huge damage to all in the radius. Not to mention Jak 3's light jak form and expanded dark jak moveset.
Another example of a really neat super form I think comes from Darkest Dungeon's Flagellant character. In DD, your characters build up stress from various sources, and managing stress is a major part of the game. If a character gets too much stress, they'll have a mental break down and become "Afflicted", causing them a major change in their stats(usually for the worse) and they might begin to act out, hurting allies, refusing heals or buffs from allies, and if not skipping their turn, they'll take it themselves and do a random action instead of letting you pick. The exact type of actions, how they act out, and what stat changes they get depend on which Affliction they get, like an abusive hero will berate the party far more causing even more stress, whereas a paranoid one will refuse far more types of help, and a masochistic hero is more likely to expose themselves to damage and refuse healing, even when they're about to die. But the Flagellant is different. He doesn't gain a random Affliction, instead always gaining the same one, Rapturous. While Rapturous, he gains a one of the strongest attack boosts in the game, as well as a huge speed boost almost ensuring he will go first during a turn, the only stat he loses is dodge, which he's an extremely durable damage sponge anyways. Unlike most other afflictions, he's very unlikely to stress the party out, and though he still does act out in a number of ways, outside of refusing healing or attacking an ally, his act-outs tend to be him just doing what you already want him to do in the first place like attack enemies and stay in the frontline of a fight. Considering he has some extremely high damage output already, he gets stronger at lower HP, and his best moves heal him meaning so you can still reliably heal him when needed, that large damage and speed boost are seriously worth considering. He even has multiple skills that let him gain stress, whether giving himself a large burst during a camping break or transferring an ally's stress to himself, meaning you can trigger Rapturous quite reliably if you want to. So he becomes an absolute powerhouse that can steamroll almost anything that is able to bleed while keeping himself alive no matter how risky things seem, but you can't always control him properly and like the Ancestor warns, "How quickly the tide turns". So Is that trade off worth it? During a mission, if an ally is going to break down, is it worth it to transfer that stress over to the Flagellant since his Affliction is very consistent compared to the others. Or if your Flag is about to break down, do you make use of your very valuable turns to try to reduce his stress or do you let him turn Rapturous in order to more quickly clear the mission? He's a really interesting character that plays around with the two main mechanics of the game, stress and Death's Door, in really interesting ways. I find it rather sad that DD2 took all the complexity out of dealing with stress, leaving the Flagellant as technically having "unique mechanics" with his Toxic affliction, but rather than something that you can intentionally plan a strategy around like Rapturous, Toxic is just "make a terrible situation slightly less bad".
19:50 You mentioned super-moves as a catchup, and I was just thinking Advance Wars! In Dual Strike, they're so OP that the dominant strategy is to intentionally send your units into suicidal engagements to build up charge quicker so you get an instant win.
Fight n rage (a beat ‘em up game) does this cool thing where supers are more so combo extensions than a fatal attack. The gauge for a super fills up over an uninfluenced set of time. If you’re gauge isn’t filled you can expend a portion of your hp to use one. The game becomes a mix of skill and strategy as you decide the best instances to offer up health to take care of a horde of enemies or wait a bit to potentially extend your run.
I like trance in FF9, heh. It felt more narrative-oriented than most limit break systems do to me (particularly the change in the character's visual design - The idealized version of themselves), though that might just be because of the way the game introduces it with Vivi getting trance at a plot significant point. Yes, it's annoying when it occurs in a random battle just before a boss fight, but the character-specific trance commands but also being able to just ignore trance (for most characters) and play them how you'd play them normally was also neat. FFX and the ability to change what powers up the limit break meter was also fun. I think for RPGs a combination of the two would be my ideal... And _maybe_ the ability to choose when to enter into it, but I'm a potion hoarder, if that was provided I'd only ever use it in boss fights. Which is the other issue with cost based supers. If the cost is too high relative to it's cost, that thing is going to wind up never getting used (I think TVTropes calls stuff that falls into that Awesome But Impractical?) (And thanks for reminding me that I need to find time to playtest a TTRPG I've got ready to start playtesting)
Yeah, I like trance as well, but I do wish it was bit more controllable. It also unfortunately highlights what i would consider the only major flaw with FF9, which is the combat speed being a little slow. Easily my favorite FF other than tactics.
It isn't helped that Zidane gets a couple of plot-mandated trances that you're incentivized to completely throw in the garbage, because priority 1 for every boss fight is to steal their entire steal table to get a bunch of gear that is above your current level.
@@kevingriffith6011 still useful since Trance-Steal is an extra 30% success chance over normal and stacks with all the other theft buffs. Trance during Beatrice fights is the only way I ever reliably got all her items without save-scumming since her battles are on a strict time-limit.
It's also worth noting in regards to KH2's drive system that when you fight organization members, you already have a 25% chance of getting anti, even if you've not used drives leading up to any of the fights. Still not as bad as getting a literal game over in .hack, but still makes the drive forms almost more trouble than they're worth.
I'm currently making a fighting card game where the super card starts at the bottom of the deck. As you work through your deck and put your used cards at the bottom of it, the closer you get to the super card. Hopefully this means playing well and doing long combos means you use up more cards and get to you super quicker. To balance this, if you get hit, you get a skill point which lets you do multiple things to gain the advantage.
Shoutouts to Capcom vs SNK 2 and the insanity that are Grooves. On another note, one of my favorite super move systems in jRPGs come from Etrian Odyssey 2/ Untold 2/Nexus with the Force System. If your Force gauge is full, you can pop your Force Boost, which gives you an edge based on your class for 3 turns. If you let the 3 turns pass, it's back to building the gauge again, or, you can pop your Force Break at any point during the boost for a 1 time super move, at which point you're completely out of Force abilities until you return to town to rest. The key thing is that when you first start your exploration, you begin with your gauge full, and you can Boost and Break in the same turn, giving you ample flexibility to plan around it. An example is the Protector, the token tank class. Force Boosts make their protection skills even more effective, which is simple but effective, but the Force Break completely nullifies ALL incoming damage the turn you pop it. It makes for an interesting push and pull depending on the player's expertise. Some players will depend on the Boost, while others will learn patterns to know when to Break. It's probably the best system in the series, and it's no wonder it returned for Nexus, where it was even retrofitted for new classes to great effect for the most part.
Man, I always viewed Metroid Prime 3 as a fun and great game. But that's because my younger, less experienced mind always forgot Hypermode was a thing. I rarely used it, just using it when it was required and randomly every now and then. Heck, I tried to challenge myself by using basic firing mode for as long as I could and not relying on charge beam damage. I remember taking down Rundas (Yes, I know...) with standard fire and not using hyper mode or charge beam. I didn't even use missiles. I had such a great time when I was young playing that game. I never even thought about how one could abuse hypermode and make the game trivial. Looking back now, they probably should have went with something different. Like needing to take a certain amount of damage before being able to activate it. Or needing to gather enough Phazon before being able to enter that mode. That being said, great video. I genuinely enjoyed watching it.
Trails in the Sky, and the rest of the series. You need 100 CP to cast ultimate and will consume your entire guage when you do (max of 200). Thing is, your skills all cost CP as well. It is often better to use CP for your skills rather than ultimate. You will be stuck using basic attacks for a while if you run out. Your ultimate can be used to disrupt turn order though, and steal powerful on turn bonuses. It's important to strategize. Finally CP is built by taking hits, doing damage, or some support skills (also boosted by gear).
One example that really sticks in my mind is the Ubercharge in TF2. Someone playing the medic class can build the meter by healing other players, once the meter is full the medic can trigger the Ubercharge at any time which grants a few seconds of complete invincibility for both the medic and whoever they are healing. This can serve to augment an attack, punch through a defensive line, clear out a large group, or whatever else you can use that invincibility for. You can even get an achievement for activating the Ubercharge less than a second before you or who you are healing is hit by a critical rocket. I know because I have it.
Oh I have seen you comment about sagat before. Yeah in sf2 super the super combos were basically crazy buff specials or a combo of them, ie tiger genocide.
Elsword proposes a different system for the meter, it's an MMO where you can upgrade your equipment, the materials for said equipment can be converted into fuel that's needed to use the "Hyperactive Skills" It's a way to give high-level players who have upgraded their equipment extensively a reason to keep farming and an out for desperate players who thought they'll hang on to them to upgrade an equipment later
The sort-of survival horror game Galerians has an instance of this that I really like. You have a meter that slowly builds up on its own. When it's full, any attempt to attack turns you into a moving instant death zone for anything that isn't a boss. The problem is that to survive using it, you need to use a specialized item that is only found in limited amounts in the game. There's enough wiggle room that you can plan out using this super move in difficult rooms, but you can't just sit there and build it up for every encounter. It adds some urgency to the game while also letting you do some cool stuff. I think it's fun.
One thing I've thought about with the "limit break" type moves in one of my projects is to lean into utility over power. Magic spells will commonly do only one element or be focused on support/debuff, but the limit breaks (currently) can be dual element or do damage _and_ debuff. There's also the Persona-inspired system of stunning enemies with their weaknesses - certain especially dangerous enemies are not affected by this, but _are_ stunned by the limit breaks. (I also love the mention of KH3's Attraction Flow here. I had much more fun with KH3's combat in my playthroughs where I turned it off...)
Love the Skyway/Super Boost in F-Zero 99. Feels like the most fair super move in any game I've played. Love the balance it finds between your skill and placement in the race to determine when you get it and how effective it is when you use it. I've ridden it before all the way to 1st place (sometimes right up to the Finish Line), but it still feels earned. Moreover I've never really been ticked off when someone passes me using it before either because I know they had to pay their dues behind me in order to build that thing. It's great stuff.
I liked you bringing up the Mario Tennis game. I loved the one on gamecube and I think it did the system way better. It still had a super move, but the super moves were unique per character (so competitively there probably were optimal characters). The super moves weren't a guaranteed point in the match, but they usually did give you the upper hand. And if your opponent had a super move too, they could use that to counter (especially because all characters had an "offensive" and "defensive" super move). If they used a super move in counter to yours, that would usually cancel out the negative effects yours could have inflicted (koopa, for instance, coated the ball in water which slowed you down if you hit it back, and it was also a lob shot so you had to get really close to the net to return it). I think they did the "tennis but with super moves" way better. It was flavorful in a Nintendo way because everyone had a unique ability. The balance was probably off but for casual play as younger me it was very enjoyable and the game was still very much beatable with any character. And the abilities were a meter build-up mechanic (hidden in the gamecube version but apparently visible in the wii version of the game) so you did have to play to charge them up. Overall it felt fairly balanced to me and made the super moves satisfying to use without trivializing the rest of the gameplay like those mega mushrooms seem to do.
I know this channel loves Skies of Arcadia and I always loved the system it had for supers! The shared super bar and the diversity of super attacks made for some interesting gameplay. Some are cheap enough to pull off every turn, some require setup and survival. There are defensive ones, different kinds of offensive ones and occasional support ones and some of the battles really make you weigh the options between using a stronger character's super, or reserving their action for something important and having a weaker character use theirs to keep the pressure on. Plus, in the latter part of the game, you get the option to fill out the whole bar for an incredibly powerful, but incredibly costly team super (one of which you can tailor to be a combination of offensive/defensive/support). Sometimes it was a little unbalanced, and at certain points in the game, you can pull off real high impact supers every single turn, but it's a lot of fun, and I think it has a lot of room to be tweaked and iterated on.
It's funny what you said about the KH drive forms, because I think anti-form got away with it for sheer cool factor! Sometimes I would deliberately try to get it because it was so satisfying to play!
My friends and I have recently taken to a custom rule set we made in Smash Ultimate where we play random characters as a team vs a team of an equal number of random level 9 coms, items are enabled with high item frequency and only Smash Balls and Fake Smash Balls enabled, 3 stock, 10 minutes. It is complete and utter chaos, and loads of fun.
I'm glad you addressed the attraction attacks of KH3. That was perhaps the biggest reason I just couldn't get into the game. I don't like playing a game that essentially rewards me for nothing. I would have liked it much more if it required a function like the summons or limits in the previous game.
FF7's Limit system is a little different from Trance or Pep. Limit Break replaces your Attack command, but you can hold onto it as long as you want if you use magic or other actions instead. So you can save your limit for a boss if you want. You also gain limit from being hit, which makes it a good comeback mechanic when a boss chops off half your health.
I'd say that nowadays, the idea of competitive players "rallying against X-Factor" isn't really a thing, as most just accept it as part of the game and play around it. That was more of a thing early in the game's life when a lot of people were coming over from other games. All that aside, this is a great video!
One of my favorite Super systems appears in the card game Yomi, where your combo and access to super moves is based on having more cards. And hand size is improved by blocking. If you block and your opponent doesn't grapple and throw you, you get your block card back, essentially increasing your hand size by 1. If you block and your opponent attacks into it, you get to draw a bonus card on top of that. This makes for a rhythm of play: trying to pierce the enemy's guard, block the enemy's attacks to build up "meter" in the form of a big hand, and land a huge combo or super to crush them. Honestly I wish more fighting games gave a lot of meter for successful blocking.
Power Budget is also a topic i kinda missed here. It's often considered in competetive multiplayer like League of Legends. Some Champions have poor ultimates but powerfull basic skills (Aurelion Sol). All there power budget was used up for his other skills, so his ultimate Skills kinda doesn't feel super at all.
Metroid prime 3's hypermode could pretty easily have been made much riskier if the longer you are in overload, the faster the meter fills, especially if the rate at which it increases is somewhat random.
Something that comes to mind for supers is Trove. Combat, being almost exclusively PvE, is focused on managing your Ultimates, a special move unique to your class that generally does tons of damage (and in some cases does things like healing you). The Lunar Lancer's ultimate is so far my favorite among ultimates I don't understand. Unlike other classes, which normally just have a cooldown on their ultimates with no real drawbacks (generally resulting in combat being centered around spamming these things), its ultimate is charged by doing a ton of damage, sort of like a rage meter. When fully charged, you can transform to swap out all your moves from fast, low damage strikes focused on mobility, ninja style, to heavy-hitting attacks focused on blindly rushing the enemy, juggernaut style. Each ability used drains increasing amounts of power, though, so if you summon a giant damage AoE you're gonna be reverting back a fair bit quicker than if you're just throwing or swinging your polearm(?) around. Just don't stay too long once Lunarform runs out, you're very squishy compared to other melee classes.
Great vid. I was delighted at the surprise Soulcalibur mention, but I was puzzled why you didn't talk about SCIV, V, or VI (the games that have actual Supers in them). Heck, even Soul Blade had a Super meter.
10:23 part of me considers Anti-form "badly designed" just because of how cool it looks. Its NOT supposed to be something you go into but it looks so cool and unique most people wish they could use it Manually whenever they wanted. Megaman X command mission also had an interesting way of using supers, in that it was basically the risk reward for the character, AND their identity. Every turn, your WE gauge fills up for that character by 25%, and with at least 50, you can do their character specific move. However, you also have 2 side weapons which use WE and are basically your only options for abilities besides your basic attack and using items. The game is pretty much built on saving the meter and figuring out if the super or Side weapons are more important. Characters can also have quite a variety of things to use as well. A game with a similar mechanic was Blue Reflection, but to put it briefly, you can both use it AND fill it up without issue, AND still get a massive super at the end of combat after only eating one attack from the enemy, maybe.
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Would you consider the rings that power sonics super sonic form a super move?
Can you consider making a video on rhythm based combat
@@nathanhynes1937 We have a Rhythm games episode that features a section on Hi-Fi rush.
@@DesignDoc wow ok you replied thanks so much merry Christmas 🎄!!!!
One big difference between Trance and Pep is that Pep persists between battles. And I think that change alone makes it massively more beneficial to have. You don't get that downer feeling from getting pepped right at the end of a fight. And ending a fight with Pep allows you to strategize a little more with your next fight.
So it's possible to grind for Pep just before a boss.
@@adrianwoodruff1885Yes, and there are skills, passive skills, and items that increase your pep meter or instantly put a character in a pep state. I fully disagree that it's difficult to strategize around like FFIX's trance. I was able to easily strategize around pep during my playthrough of DQ11S.
yeah, i actually used an item that peps up a character instantly so i could farm xp
The game does also straight up tell you that if a character is in the reserve party, they don't lose Pep, again giving you a viable strategy - if you don't want to waste a character's Pepped turns waiting for another character to Pep Up so you can use a combination attack, just put em in the reserves for a bit, and use a different character.
@@americanducklingwhich is useful for exp farming because when one of the three members you need for the metal enemies summoning move gets it, you can just store them until the others get it as well
My favorite super moves are team super moves. It's always so cool, fun and/or heartwarming to see allies and even rivals work together and combine their techniques to one effective, powerful attack
one of the best examples for me is batsu in tatsunoko vs capcom, even more emotional if your partner was ko first
The original Bravely Default does a great job with this as each party member has their own unique musical theme that plays for about a minute after using their move, which coincides with a customizable buff that lasted for the music’s duration. Then the portion of the final boss theme where the heroes make a comeback includes snippets of each of their themes back to back.
@@blackjacksetzer7748 Batsu's was hype. It changed to one of 3 variants depending on who your teammate was as well so it works really well for representing Rival Schools and adding alot of character to everyone
Me too! I really like it when it plays into attack synergies and/or showcases relationship dynamics.
The tag team attacks in Yakuza: Like a Dragon!
The F-Zero 99 Skyway is brilliant for addressing a ton of problems racing games commonly run into, and helps a ton in keeping the game engaging even for players of a more middling skill level. Although it's probably in large part born of necessity with so many racers on the track, and it definitely works better because of there being so many, it clearly works well!
It's a mechanic that inherently favours players in or behind the pack, the places you normally NEVER want to be in a racing game. It's stronger the further behind you are, creating a rubberband dynamic that helps ensure you're never truly out of the race until you've crashed or ranked out, but it's also not mindlessly strong. In using it, you're presented with a dilemma, where you can use it earlier to start building meter up again sooner but might find it a bit weak, or you try to hold it for a bigger payoff, at the risk of getting fewer and being effectively locked out of your Boost for the duration as well!
It's a very *skillful* comeback mechanic, and it doesn't interfere with other racers, either, so it's relatively unintrusive to your opponents. While there are places where it is arguably *too* strong, it's still a remarkably successful mechanic that in my opinion makes the game far more interesting than it would've been otherwise. It helps make the game feel much more inclusive and unpredictable, without feeling like you just get cheated out of wins for no reason... like with a certain blue, spiky, flying turtle shell...
It's also a metaphor for trickle down economics, the privilege of wealth, and the crabs in a bucket mentality present within the working class!
and also a really fun game!
Fr
Adding more to Splatoon, if you die, you lose meter towards your special! There are gear abilities that lessen the amount you lose of your meter when you die, as well as an ability that charges your special meter faster! It's very customizable!
This becomes more interesting when you have to balance what abilities you take, because having a slot of special saver means one less slot for a different ability like swim speed or ink resistance.
In S3, there's also a special called tacticooler, that gives many buffs to everyone in the team grabbing the drink.
Two of these buffs are 59 (the max) ability points of Special Saver and Active Quick Respawn.
The former means you don't lose a single percent of Special Meter, and the latter makes you respawn incredibly faster (Quick Respawn does have a condition (die without getting a kill (assists don't count)) but that condition is always considered as "completed" or "active" during the tacticooler's effects)
Modern Warfare 2 has customizable super moves. They're just called killstreaks.
!
One other thing, in the Ranked Modes, there's a catchup mechanic were the losing team gains a passive generation to their Special guage, giving them the opportunity to make game changing plays with their specials.
The closest thing to a supermove ULTRAKILL has is the Railcannon, which doesn't feel like a supermove, just a powerful normal attack on a cooldown, but what I find most interesting is the Supermove that _isn't_ in ULTRAKILL, the Blackhole Cannon, which can be found unfinished in the credits level alongside Hakita's explanation of why he cut the weapon, and how a sometimes the best way to implement a supermove is to not implement one at all.
If you combine the shotgun core with the malicious railcannon you get a *real* supermove, a huge explosion
I think the fact you start with the cannon available rather than needed to charge it makes it feel fundamentally different. Not to say it isn't incredibly potent and satisfying but, it recharges passively.
The fact is also, in ultrakill, for you to actually get "Supermove" utility with any of the Rails, you need to pair it with another weapon. Ultraricoshots with the electric, Screwdriver parries, malicious core nukes, etc. All of these WOULD be supermoves, if they were their own weapon, but needing to combo them in a way that's consistent with the rest of the game's trickshots makes them feel different.
"I CAN'T CONTROL IT!" Into Dark pheonix level 3 x-factor killing a team in 10 seconds is hilarious in retrospect.
Vanilla MvC3 was a time
People played that game competitively for money.
Coolness of a move instantly increases by 5 points when it's name is shouted by the character performing it.
BIONIC.... AAAAAAAAAA-
all great fighters call out their finishing moves
I've actually never heard anyone talk about this so I'm unsure what the distribution is of opinions on it (I personally mildly dislike it but don't mind), I kinda wonder what ppl think of it broadly
@@uncroppedsoop For me it kinda depends on the genre, if it's like a Jujutsu Kaisen or Bleach where they all already do crazy shit shouting the name of the attack doesn't seem much crazier. But if it's something more realistic like a police show and you hear them shouting *GUN ATTACK! BANG! BANG! BANG!* it's going to feel a little absurd.
Gomu gomu nooo
The Summons in the Golden Sun series are a really cool set of super moves that didn't get touched on here. To do a Summon you have to use Djinn abilities, which can be anything from nullifying damage or revving a party member to slowing all enemies or making an elemental attack. But the Djinn also give your characters better stats, and having different combinations of Djinn equipped gives your characters more powerful classes and new sets of spells that you can use that you can temporarily lose when you use a Djinn in battle.
The Summons themselves cost more Djinn for more powerful summons, and afterwards free up your Djinn to go back to your party members and also increase the summoner's elemental power for whichever Summon was just used by an amount that increases by the power of the Summon. It's more than a little abusable, since unset Djinn carry over between battles so you can start a boss fight with your 4 best Summons for ridiculous damage and a power boost, but the element of risk for having significantly lowered stats at high levels makes it a balancing act. And the fact that Djinn are all rewards from completing puzzles in the world helps push the exploration element of the game.
My favorite super move in a game personally is the Awakened Kinsect Attack from Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak
The insect glaive is a weapon that relies on collecting buffs using a giant bug that sits on your arm most of the time called a kinsect. You have to aim it at different parts of the monster to get the different buffs, and getting all three can really be a challenge sometimes as the zones you need to hit tend to be quite small and the monster tends to move a lot. Awakened Kinsect Attack is a skill that consumes all three of these buffs early to deal one medium damage hit, forcing you to collect them all again. You then automatically collect the buff from whatever part the awakened kinsect attack hit, dash towards the monster, and mark it while jumping up and away. The mark causes your kinsect to automatically hone in on the part you just hit, making it more annoying to collect the other two buffs. However, it does have two great use cases. For one, the damage isn't affected by the remaining duration of the buffs, making it great to use once they're about to run out. Second, once you've gotten good at collecting the buffs, you can use the attack faster than the gauge you need to use it can recharge, resulting in passable damage numbers and a playstyle that I personally have had a lot of fun with.
@@Brass319Personally the most super move is Super Amped Element Discharge with Charge Blade. You need to do a specific combo, have your phials ready, for that big lightning hit.
@@a-listgamer7873 Not really. Here's how to perform an SAED listed in steps according to the meta:
- use charged rising slash once
- charge your phials
- cancel a normal amped element discharge with the guard button
- use charged rising slash once
- charge your phials
- block an attack, preferably using the counter morph slash guard point, and then press both attack buttons at once
- repeat steps 4-6 indefinitely.
you don't really charge it up or expend anything. If you want, there's even a switch skill for unleashing damage boosted aerial SAEDs on demand consistently. It feels a little too... convenient for me to call it a super move in good faith. I just generally don't like it anyways due to how stationary the monster needs to be to actually deal damage with the phial explosions. Many people say charge blade is the most complex weapon, I say it's simultaneously the most convoluted. Very big difference.
Judgement had the coolest animation in my head.
DQ 11 can *technically* be strategized with pep, but it isn't fun and usually not optimal. If you have more the 4 party members, you can switch out a pepped character to save their amped state through multiple battles (almost required for those sidequests that have you perform a pep-power). MC also learns a spell/ability that lets him pep himself up on demand.
Withdrawing characters from combat encourages using different teams and you need to be adaptable to use the mechanic well. The problem is still the randomness of pep ups activating
I do like the control you have over which pep ups have activated though.
@@baterraoraa4846 When you upgraded your pep up chance in the skill tree, you're going to pep up more frequently. In boss battle, it's almost guaranteed that most of your characters will be pepped up. Also, the trigger for them are usually tied up to what your characters should do in their role. Like Veronica will pep up more if she's doing magic, Eric if he steals something, etc. with the common trigger being getting hit, dealing damage, or just a couple of turn passed in the battle. So, if your characters don't pep up frequently, maybe you're not using them correctly.
meh, I still prefer the tension mechanic. It still had an element of randomness to it (as you could auto-tension randomly after certain things happened and the amount of tension you got when tensioning could also randomly be higher if certain conditions were met before using tension), but you also had a minimum amount of predictability.
Also IMO the only real flaw FF9 ever had was not letting you control the Trance activation. OR if they intended it to be random, do away with the meter entirely and have it work like FF8 limit-breaks with them being more likely to fire at lower HP but can fire randomly at any time.
9 basically combines the worst aspects of both 7 and 8's systems. While 10 combines the best aspects and also makes them more flexible by letting you customize your over-drive triggers later on.
@@ZanathKariashi Tension is good since it works both on damage output and healing capability. Though it's a gamble against some bosses since Disruptive Wave will just cancel out all your tension.
Pep Up is called In The Zone in Japanese, is kinda closely related to their culture. Like when you're gambling and feeling lucky, they say "I'm in the zone". So in short, Pep Up is supposed to make you feel like "it's getting good". Yes, it's less strategic. But still fun for me nevertheless. What I like about Pep Up is that it boosts different stats for each characters, while Tension is just the same boost for everyone.
I've put hundreds of hours into speedrunning Punch-Out Wii and seeing it get talked about like this is goated
We're about due for a new one, I'd say
@@DesignDocSeconded. Easy way to give it a hook would be to let you play as some of the old classics, who probably have more character than Little Mac now. Perhaps there could be a plot where the WVBA is taken over by a bunch of nasty heel Boxers and Mac and his old pals have to regain their stardom.
@@DesignDoc Yup
@@DesignDocwell there is this indie game called big boy boxing. There’s a alpha demo on steam and a full sage demo on sage 23.
In addition to Anti-Sora, KH2 also balances drives via the interaction with party members. Wisdom form enhances Sora's magic, so he fuses with Donald and therefore loses that party member's magic attacks. Valor form is the same but for melee damage, and Goofy disappears. The other forms are all arounders, and they require both teammates to activate.
It's also pretty unique in that it's a super system that you can progress. You unlock new, better drive forms by utilizing the ones you already have. This helps balance the Anti-Sora disincentive, and is overall pretty unique as far as super systems go!
I would also like to point out that managing Anti form is *super easy barely an inconvenience* if you know the game so for speedrunners, and true™ gamers you can just ignore the mechanic.
I actually enjoyed the Anti-Form. I saw it as a buff over base Sora.
@@Jigen_IsshikiThe issue only really comes up on higher difficulties, since it completely strips you of defensive options and enemies pretty much oneshot you. But yeah, for basic press X to win gameplay it's a straight upgrade.
What's really intriguing is how drive forms level up with usage (or at least with conditions that tend to coincide with using them often) and then reward their movement abilities even out of drive (even if communicated poorly by the game).
That's a great reason to use them regularly and not be tooo stingy in saving them for bosses and tough fights.
It doesn't come until very late game, Sora's Final Form actually decreases the Anti-Sora Form gauge so you should never be proc it once you get to that point.
Surprised you didn't mention how X-Factor in MvC3 had a few outlandish outliers like Phoenix turning into Dark Phoenix at X-Factor 3 and is fundamentally an "I Win" button.
That opens up room for the discussion around how metas shape around very powerful options like that. A good number of characters have had options found by players that are designed to stop Phoenix in her tracks, like X-Factor cancelling the blockstun of her activation and using an anti-air throw to secure an easy kill, or performing what's known as a "Double TAC" to essentially force the Phoenix player to lose a bar of meter and kill her after denying her the resources required for Dark Phoenix. There's also the fact that teams with Phoenix usually need to be built around her, relying on characters that can build a lot of meter but don't tend to spend it much themselves.
A common complaint you touched in with kindom hearts is how long a once cool supermove cinematic can be. We all like seeing them the first time, not so much the 20th time. Pokemon Masters has a nice option with its sync moves to have the animation on, off, or play once a day per unique character. I like that last option since you still see the animatio without getting in the way when retrying fights.
I'd say a better option would be to have the long, flashy animation but give the option to skip it
Final Fantasy used to (and arguably still does) have the same problem with Summon and Limit Break animations taking too long.
@@WhiteFangofWar Summons in particular. One reason I didn't use KotR that much. And then you have Eden... Limit Breaks mostly only if you can do them more often, like FF8, since otherwise they're not that frequent.
fr fr, it's great that some games allow you to see a shorter or skippable cutscene, like in Scarlet Nexus. Don't play that game tho
quick note for Dragon Quest XI, pep's do have items that instantly put your party in the pep state, and makes the endgame fights much easier. The items also allow you to strategize around them, just only if you have farmed the items (pep pops iirc) and the power they put out is impactful as well at that point.
The Hero also has a power that let's them put anyone including themself into pep for about 25mp.
I think one super move system that was overlooked are strategic reward supers. The Persona series uses all out attacks as a powerful, but not broken, reward for knocking down every enemy. P5R really made it easy with the one more system, but I think the extra flashy attack as a reward for capitalizing enemy weakness is great. The showtime attacks and the other iteration of character specific random attacks keep things interesting, but it’s always nice finishing a fight with a cool splash screen in P5R.
? The 1 More system has been in there since P3, not to mention it's essentially just a simpler version of the Mainline SMT's Press Turn system, just phrased differently (You get an extra turn, as opposed to you only consume half a turn)
Jak 2 has super attacks for the Dark form, you gain them through the metal head collectibles. Also, saving Dark Jak and it's supers for the more enemy-dense ambushes makes it a lot more worthwhile than just popping it whenever.
Additionally, a lot of combat scenarios in jak 2 are entirely situational. So DD turning into dark jak during slums shootout mission without using dark bomb is just asking to get riddled with bullets. A lot of people really didn’t understand the combat for the game at all (like jak being able to combo from melee to gunshot instantly) because the game does a bad job informing the player about it.
@@majormelthesackboy Yea, it takes until Jak 3 for them to tell you your full move list. And even then, it's in a pause menu-only controls section
Was just about to say this! It DOES eventually have some really great rewarding super-esque moves once upgraded. Heck even going into a second stage of the evolution with the giant Jak! I was a lil offended when this was brushed over lol
Yep it's mostly meant to be used strategically, there's times it's invaluable. Same with the drive form in KH2 when it misfires, it's not always what you want but can be utilised as a potent combat ability in some situations.
If you take suggestions, could you do a video on desert levels? So, SO many games just go with either the standard barren wastes or egyptian ruins/temple with no modifications, so it would be nice to see some examples with some creativity.
Believe it or not, we started making a Desert Levels video this month, then switched to Super Moves. I'd be very surprised if we haven't completed a Desert Levels ep by this time next year.
I love Nier Automata’s because of how it is actually fun to navigate and feels like an actual expansive desert.
@@Mordalon It's also fun to slide down the sand dunes.
@@Knuckx117 movement in the desert definitely is one of the biggest thing that makes it fun to traverse, so satisfying
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had better get a mention here. This is a world where the continents that people live on are living titans, and the "desert level" exists because one of the titans is dying which creates a political climate that causes multiple nations to be on the brink of a world war. @@DesignDoc
One of my favorite examples is the djinn system in Golden Sun. You can use your djinnis for some of the most powerful attacks in the game, but doing so will significantly depower your characters making you a lot more vulnerable until the djinnis recharge.
9:33 Jak 2's supers are the special attacks you can do WHILE in dark form, like dark bomb.
CrossCode is quite basic in its super move system, the Combat Arts, but that doesn't stop it from being very enjoyable to use.
It uses a simple system of points, called System Points, that accumulate during combat ( outside combat, it slowly returns to a default value, of 1-4 SPs depending on your advancement in the story ), affected by your actions ( mostly attacking, attacking is what will give you your SP ) and your Focus stat, that you can spend for your special moves, at a rate of 1 SP for a level 1 one, 3 SP for a level 2 and 6 SP for a level 3.
Arguably, only the level 3 ones count as super moves, the other being far less flashy and more general combat tools to put in your combos than big ultimate attacks like the level 3 are, with how fast it is possible to gain SPs when playing aggressively, and for level 2 and 3 ones you need to reach a certain point in the story before being able to unlock them in the skill tree, so they aren't available from the start ( not like the starter 4 SP would allow you to use level 3 ones, mind you )
Their force is in the sheer variety of them, with a total of 92 spread over 4 types ( melee, throw, dash and guard ) and 5 elemental modes ( heat, cold, wave, shock and neutral, though neutral only has level 1 and 2 ones, and all other elements have one type where they only have one level 1 and one level 2, two types where they have 2 of each level, and one type where they have 2 level 1, 2 level 2 and 1 level 3, and when there are multiple of a same level and type you can only have 1 equipped at the same time, though outside of combat switching to the other is quick. Neutral forces you to select by type, other elements allow the arts to be selected individually )
They're quite nice, going from things like a small AOE explosion around yourself with some knockback ( Proximity Blast, a level 1 Guard art for Neutral ) to a parry that traps the ennemy in a deadly aerial combo you end with a downwards laser ( Ignite Embers a level 3 Guard art for Heat ), or from a small rapid-fire of your basic ranged attack ( Bullet Rain, level 1 Neutral Throw art ) to a super-fast projectile ( manifested by time slowing down during the charge and firing ) that can bounce up to 3 times and getting stronger each time ( Ether Snipe, level 3 Wave Throw art ), with some pretty impressive spectacle for a game with only 2D graphics
I also like that every combat art takes a few seconds at most, are cancellable at any time, and they never disrupt the flow of the fight. I didn't use them much at the middle game because I was still mastering the basic combat, but integrating arts into combat elevated the whole system for me dramatically.
CrossCode's combat is so good that it surprised me how much you can make a build centered around blocking for the most part.
Though i wished the "spike armor thing" that reflects blocked damage back to enemies, worked on all enemies.
I was one step away from having a complete goofy looking shield build.
cross code mention
5:15 Something I want to add to the Splatoon implementation of the meter is that painting over enemy ink charges your special. So if you are a weapon that paints a lot like a Bloblobber or a Dread Wringer and just attack randomly you can end up helping the other team charge their special faster by giving them a lot of ink to paint over.
Interestingly, Anti-Form was my favorite form due to how fast and strong it was. Sure you can't heal but as long as you don't get hit, it was pretty good. I always wanted a way to guarantee Anti-Form transformation. Best you got was one of the Keyblades that gave you a 50/50 chance to activate it.
I believe you can force it by having one of your party members be fainted when you use a drive with two become one.
Could be wrong though, watch bizkiz047's kh2 fm guides about keyblades/drive forms
And to be fair, the other side of that coin flip was the boss-obliterating final form
In regards to Metroid Prime 3's Hyper Mode: The *really* funny thing about the system is that, because taking damage while Overloaded builds up Phazon, you're actually incentivized to *take* as much damage as possible so you can keep shooting. It's a wonky system. I love the vibes of it, but it's *completely* unbalanced for sure.
Having this one meter serve too many purposes, and the gameplay consequences that arise, remind me of SM64 using the health meter as a breath timer. Why does jumping into water fully heal Mario? Why is Samus smashing her own face? It's fine... but weird...
I think it's a nice touch that the corruption encourages you to play even *more* fast and loose with the risk of dying. The risk might not seem that big, but that has more to do with the generally low difficulty of the game. Imo this mechanic really gets to shine on the aptly named Hypermode difficulty where you're essentially forced to use it on the regular to get through and managing your health around it becomes increasingly vital to living. Add to that the fact that Enemies can enter hypermode themselves, which at this difficulty means they pose a massive threat of an instakill in hyper and huge damage if you're in base, you better have planned out your resources so they don't catch you in a bad spot in a group fight.
@@marzipancutter8144 Ill second this. Base and hard mode Metroid Prime 3 is indeed on the easy side, but Hypermode really turns it into a whole different game with an emphasis on resource management and squezing every second out of your Hypermode. And the final boss is also incredibly intense at this difficulty.
@@TheTriforceDragon What do you think of AC6?
@@jordanp4987 One of my favourite games this year.
Long been a fan of From Software's outings, but it was my first foray into Armored Core. Meant there was some stuff I needed to learn, mostly to not get stuck with one build and instead tailor a load out to the mission.
After I learned that the difficulty was high, but fair, with a handful of places where I needed a few tries and a new load out to see it through.
But overall a great experience.
My dads super move is switching from the leather to the buckle of the belt
When the belt hits the lower back instead of the cheeks 💀
Ah yes, the buckle install
Yay, unresolved daddy issues!
Ah the classic ⬇️↘️➡️⬇️↘️➡️+BELT combo
Your dad must be using ↙️➡️↘️⬇️↙️⬅️↘️+LP•HP
This subject reminds me of a design shift I noted in the Mortal Kombat games when they first introduced the X-Ray moves (I can't remember if it was 9 or 10 offhand). When they first showed up, it was part of a gauge meter with 3 bars that had differing costs for boosting your specials, activating a combo breaker, or use a full gauge for a super move that you just need to land that first hit for massive damage. The very next game, they kept the move (changing it to either Lethal Blow or Fatal Blow) and instead tied it to a fighter's health. I'd wager they noticed people weren't using their gauge except for super moves, meaning few people were bothering with combo breakers or special move enhancements, because why use them when you can bide a little time and unleash a super move that takes off a third of your opponents health without needing combo timing? So it instead became a catch-up mechanic where it's normally only usable when your health drops below 20% I believe. You're not going to get your health back, but both parties know that once one side is low on health, that super move becomes a threat, either bringing your opponent down to an equally weak state (and threatening their own Blow), or finishing the round/match then and there for a comeback. By moving when and how the super move becomes available, they made the power gauge useful for its other abilities.
Actually it was the opposite. In MK9, there is no reason at all to pick X Rays over Combo Breakers, especially since mixups were so potent and damage so high already. Unless it killed for the last round, saving your bar for combo breakers or meter burn was always better.
nah it was the opposite, no one used xrays in MK9 or MKX, ex moves and breakers are just more useful and important to have over them; saving meter to use it was basically handicapping yourself
I just love super moves that serve a gameplay function first, I mean I like a nice cool animation but boy do they get tiring when you see it match after match. I prefer when games keep it snappy and save the cinematics for rarer scenarios like instant kills.
The Trance / Pep mechanics sound pretty interesting, I think if implemented a bit differently could make for a really cool mechanic to strategize battles around.
Perhaps in a werewolf-themed turn-based RPG you have your super metre which is automatically activated like Trance / Pep, and when activated you transform and have really powerful attacks & defense, but you also have less control, so you'll need to be careful about exactly when it's activated. Different moves could increase the metre by different percentages, and then you could also have spells & items which decrease the metre so you can really try and plan around when the transformation happens instead of it being seemingly random like in the examples you mentioned.
My favorite super move in a fighting game has to be Shiki Tohno's arc drive from Melty Blood Type Lumina, or as some call it, the "Nanaya Install." It's a pretty typical damaging super move, but it comes with an added benefit- after use, you're put into an install state where you gain new moves, specifically from a fan favorite character who's not in the game, Nanaya Shiki. The moves themselves are great for combo extensions, mix-ups, even movement, and it's basically Shiki's win condition. The best part however is that if you land the move as the final blow of a round, you get the Nanaya Install moves for the entire next round from the start. In a game where meter is often times much better spent on EX moves or regen, it really incentives smart and considered play, while also feeling almost liberating when you land it.
One super move system i like is in “omori” where when you take damage, you get 1 energy, and you can use 3 to do a follow up attack after a normal (each character has 3 corresponding with another party member), but if you get attacked 10 times, and get 10 energy, Omori can use “release energy!!!!” And do a cool attack that looks awesome and feels great, dealing 300-2,500 damage depending on your follow up level.
The turn-based RPG series "Golden Sun" has one of the best super systems & it's even mixed with the class system. As you explore, you collect djinni & assign zero or more of them to each party member (evenly distributed). Each djinn can be in a "Set", "Standby", or "Rest" state. "Set" boosts the character's stats and affects their class/spells. Each djinn also has a free spell it can use, but doing so shifts it from "Set" to "Standby" (lowering stats & maybe changing class). Up to 4 "Standby" djinni on the same character can be shifted to "Rest" to cast a free, massively powerful "summon" that damages all enemies. Each turn, 1 "Rest" djinn on each character is randomly shifted back to "Set".
There are so many decisions to make: do you stick to only casting small summons to minimize how long your characters are weaker or take the plunge and play defense for a while? Do you spread djinni out so that each character has a free healing or crowd control spell, or do you stick djinn to specific characters to prevent their class from shifting and get more reliability as summons are cast? Or do avoid using djinn altogether to have high stat characters with reliable, powerful spells (but which consume finite magic resources)?
One thing I really like about NEO TWEWY’s Groove system is the synergy between its Mashup (elemental super attacks with their own unique effects) and Killer Remixes (allows you to finally ascend to 300% Groove and unleash a series of multi-colored energy beams that bombard the area and juggles multiple enemies in its wake). With the right set-up, Mashups can become potentially more damaging than Killer Remixes, especially when you use them in combination with your pins. And you can build up more Groove during them, which allows you to just keep dishing them out whenever you want. On the flip-side, Killer Remixes become far less powerful on higher difficulties BUT they allow you to get a free full heal AND refill all of your pins. Which pretty much eliminates the need for healing pins entirely and in turn allows you to just go nuts with your pin builds.
The thing about Mashups is that you need to think of them as an extra pin move to combo with, which can be utilized as you wish, instead of an ultimate as most Mashups need you to set them up first (enemy position, stunning enemies first, gather them in one place, etc) in order to fully take advantage of them. I’ve seen so many people needlessly save them up when Mashups by themselves can provide tons of Beatdrop opportunities for you to take advantage of and get Groove back to unleash them back-to-back.
Depth to me is when you have multiple options and have to consider which options are the best for a given situation, and have to weigh the pros and cons of each option, which in turn leads to different playstyles and solutions. In that regard, NEO TWEWY actually does this quite well. There were a lot of times in my playthroughs where I had to consider what pins would work best with one another as well having to decide on-the-fly whether to use a Mashup now in order to do damage and build up more Groove now or save it up for a Killer Remix and blast the round away for a full health restore, which could potentially leave me at a disadvantage in later rounds against certain types of enemies that my pins would have a hard time with. It also helps that you don’t gain health back throughout rounds to make the decision-making more palpable.
Not to mention how Mashups are elemental, and so some are much better in certain encounters with specific elemental weaknesses. There were a few fights where my strategy landed on chaining a lot of fire or gravity mashups in a row. Also since you build them by comboing different characters, a lot of deciding on pin builds becomes not just what individual pins are the best but whether they combo well or what elements you might need for a given mashup.
Like Dot Hack's Data Drain, Breath of Fire V had the D-Counter. They got around the softlock issue by making the game a proto rougelite.
Personally, the last game I played with this was the Tales of Series, specifically Vesperia. there, you will unlock a Burst Gauge at a certain point of the story, which can be used to modify your stats some, gain some extra benefits, and use Burst Artes: quick powered up moves that can do a decent hit following a basic Arte. Later down the line, you gain an upgrade to your Burst Gauge, letting you collect 2 levels, which can be upgraded to 3 and 4 when you get the supplies to do so, each one giving you even more benefits like no MP use or invulnerability (oh, and they stack).
Now, another mechanic in Vesperia is Skills learned from weapons, and this is where I bring up the Special Skill. With this equipped, using a level 3+ Burst Gauge can place you in a different situation, for using a more advanced Arte in this state and a different button input grants you the character's Mystic Arte: A much more powerful move with movements that resonate more with the character using it. And that's not the end. In New Game+, when a character meets certain circumstances (like using a move x amount of times in the game's log) in Burst Gauge 4 and both attack buttons, they will use an even HIGHER Mystic Arte with ridiculous power and flashy as hell animations.
Can you enable the Ai to use these by saying, "When the meter is at 3, you can activate it," but its the AI, so it won't always aim to use them.
I'm huge on Vesperia because of the fighting system - I like the idea of basic attacks + base lv skills + adv lv skills + Burst Arte + Mystic, it makes it feel so rewarding to be able to pull off a long stream of damage, or to just activate lv 4 and pop out your Mystic during a "oh shit" moment. The benefits of stacking levels of Overlimit and aiming for delayed gratification for better buffs is a great addition to these kinds of systems, like the stars in Punch Out being able to OHKO an enemy.
I think the added complexity of levels of moves will always make for a better system, and levels of Supers (I always called them Ults? idk) is just like *chef's kiss* for the games that put thought and care into it. While by the end of the game it's like... just Overlimit lv 3 and 4 for the sake of Mystic Artes, I love how the Burst Artes even change between the levels, it almost makes me miss using lower levels just to admire the depth put in to them. Which is also probably why I find the newer games less enjoyable, they tend to not need as much build up or have, in my opinion, a flatter system of rewards even if there's tiers of Supers/Burste Artes or whatever.
Actually for .hack// I believe aside from maybe The Wave, Data Drain is optional. A suggested way of handling the post-game super dungeon in Quarantine is to just kill some of the enemies normally. Enemies have like, 100x the HP, but they DO have finite HP.
Making a wrong turn is no longer run ending, and it can delay the Data Drain penalties to lower floors.
The issue I remember having when moving from .hack//infection to .hack//mutation (waaayyyy back when I played them) was specifically that one of the very first story dungeons had basically ALL infected enemies you either had to grind down, or data drain. The single dungeon could push you from 0-100% in one go. Don't think I ever actually got past it at the time.
@@Tigersight0 I do not remember that. What you are describing just sounds like the post-game Quarantine dungeon.
@@WeskAlberI pretty sure it wasn't that, I only made it through the first game in the series. Since I got stuck on the second, I never played the third.
Of course, it was a really long time ago, so maybe I'm misremembering. But the huge difficulty spike going into the second game really stuck with me.
Would've loved a bit covering Dragon Install from guilty gear. A super form lasting less than 10 seconds, leaves you stunned when it's over, and makes your special moves cartoonishly busted while it's active, and it has a cool theme song
That is bullshit- *BLAZING*
READY OR!!!
TIME TO REALIZE
Honestly bro, it was the first ever special mode super in fighting games, it literally made the term “install super”
based lupin cagliostro pfp talking about the goat of fighting games
Your channel has been a great inspiration for a first-time Game Designer like me. Thank you very much for your work!
I liked the super moves that were only available at low health in games like Real Bout: Fatal Fury and the first 3 King of Fighters. The thing about them is that in theory you could spam them, but considering you're in low health and some of them leave you defenseless it makes you think twice before performing them
Probably my favorite super move system is Chrono Trigger because it really forces you to think of who you want in your party, what moves work the best against a boss, and what items to give to who you need the most. Every character has their own strength and weaknesses and it’s fun to mix and match, keeping it fresh.
9:07. Yes, let's not mention the Ground Slam or the AoE Dark Thunder Shock that helps in a bind.
As far as I remember, you could unlock additional dark Jak abilities over the game in Jak 2. The problem is that you went from being too weak to maybe too powerful. But I guess that’s a fair reward for progression and a proper power fantasy.
Was wondering if anyone caught that he missed the overpowered upgrades Dark Jak gets.
I wish you would have mentioned the Roulette Moves from God Hand. That’s an interesting system for super attacks
19:39 okay but, (correct me if I'm wrong) they ONLY put the option to turn off amusement reactions in CRITICAL MODE, something you DO NOT UNLOCK until AFTER your first playthrough! My first playthrough, I just never touched my triangle button because of how obnoxious they were, and I'm not skilled enough to play in critical :(
surprised I haven't seen anyone talking about omori. There's a surprising amount of strategic depth to omori, I don't think there's any follow-up I wouldn't consider useless and (as with the rest of the combat system) also adds extra layers of narrative depth through character interactions. Also the big release energy attack has such a cute animation
An interesting one is the Vector Cannon of Zone of the Enders. A mech sized kamehameha with a 15 second charge up.
Once you unlock it you can use it whenever, but every time you do you have to stop flying and sit still for 15 seconds while it does it’s big charge up sequence, then stay there while you fire. This in a game where most enemies fly around like coked up moths. So it’s balanced such that it’s damned hard to set up to use, but has very high payoff.
The charging sequence and flashy visuals definitely make it satisfying to use, and the unwieldiness weirdly complements that I think. It makes it feel like it’s too big and overpowering to even be practical against regular enemies, like hitting trying to hit a fly with an rpg
One of my favorite "super moves" in a game is Cassette Beast's Fusion system. Amazing story relevance aside, Fusion is a meter filled by being hit, hitting enemies with type-effective attacks, and several other things. When the meter is full, you and your partner can fuse, increasing your stats, giving you access to each others moves, and doubling your AP gain, allowing you to use your most powerful attacks more often. You also gain the ability to use Fusion Power, a special attack that uses all your AP, but does a ton of damage and applies a status. It also adds killer vocals to the music. Fusions are not invincible however, and status effects still work on them. They can still be sent to sleep, have their ap drained, and 3 stacks of resonance kill them all the same. When fused, you need to keep this in mind. The biggest downside of fusion is you only get one action, compared to the two you get when unfused, so each move has to have more weight behind it.
Cassette Beasts mention!!!!!!!!!
I'm actually very surprised that dot hack was mentioned here, because I think it's a pretty obscure series. Gu had the awakening system where you build up a morale meter by doing things such as performing favored actions by characters (for example, if you combo an enemy with silabus), healing party members, and performing rengekis. It's kinda easy to fill up but the specials are all unique and very fun to use
Ever since Sonic 2, going Super has been the Sonic franchise's version of this. It thoroughly enhances your moveset by upping your speed and giving you limited invincibility (you can still drown, fall down a bottomless pit, get squished, or time out if the timer hits ten minutes), but there are three small caveats that make it a bit more balanced.
First, you have to unlock the form by completing seven stages of a minigame to collect the seven Chaos Emeralds to even have access to the super form in the first place. A lot of games also limit it to only a specific character being able to harness the emeralds, too, though they've started to change that as of late.
Second, you have to build up a meter of sorts by collecting at least fifty rings before you can trigger it. This wouldn't be all that notable were it not for the fact that on taking a single hit, you lose all (or at least a lot of) your rings, meaning that playing well is still encouraged, which leads to the next point...
Third, being in the Super form drains your rings over time. Run out of rings, and you drop back down to your base form, though any items you collected during or before Super mode are given back to you once it deactivates.
That third caveat encourages you to play well even despite you being pretty much invincible while in Super Form, because if you dilly-dally too much, you'll lose the form and be technically on one HP until you get some rings again.
"(you can still drown, *fall down a bottomless pit,* get squished)"
Or worse, fall down a NON-bottomless pit.
@@riluna3695 Or that, yeah. There *is* a limit to how high you can jump even in super form, after all. I was more referring to obstacles you'd encounter in more modern games. Because if it's a death-causing pit, it's typically always a bottomless one nowadays.
The best part of a good super move is when you have your own power up music. Bravely default is a great example of such. You just get instant dopamine when the super themes starts and the final boss’s track actively includes each character’s super theme displaying the finale with a battle of the musics themselves.
in the trails of cold steel series, you have what’s known as an s-craft. s-crafts are basically super moves that can be used if the character has 100+cp(craft points). you can earn craft points by doing any kind of attack, but you earn the most by attacking normally. and for some characters, if they have 200cp (which is the max) their s-craft becomes a different, more powerful one. on the flip side, special enemies can use their own s-craft, and you won’t know they’re going to use it until it’s their turn
One of the things I like about Brawl's system is that the Smash Ball creates a point of interest in the middle of the match. It's a mad scramble, sure, but that's part of the fun--it draws everyone toward the same spot, encouraging aggressive play. The fact that you can literally beat the Smash Ball back out of someone who has it adds another layer of risk/reward--especially since the amount of effort it takes to knock someone out of that super mode corresponds to the amount of damage they did to the Smash Ball. You _could_ gank the ball by diving in at the last second--but you'd better make the most of it, because if your opponent rallies and counterattacks, you can lose the advantage just as quickly as you gained it. It's hectic, but it's hectic _because_ it creates a bunch of interesting split-second decisions for everyone involved.
Another, more personal example: I have a mod I'm working on for Doom 2, inspired by games like Risk of Rain. Part of my plan for characters is that each character has a Super Weapon--a BFG, or something similar. Where the other guns use various kinds of color-coded ammo that can be found in levels, the Super Weapons use a special ammo type that is charged up _whenever you pick up other kinds of ammo._
This is tuned so that filling up your other ammo supplies only gives about 50% of your Super Weapon's ammo capacity, so optimal play revolves around juggling _all_ of your weapons--if you neglect part of your arsenal, and its ammo supply stays full, that means you can't pick up any more of that type of ammo...which means you're missing out on BFG ammo.
I NEVER THOUGHT ID SEE ENCHANTED ARMS EVER SINCE I PLAYED IT ON THE XBOX360, THIS IS AWESOME
I can’t describe how good the Burst attacks from Gravity Circuit are to do them Justice. Every one of them is tailored to work in many different situations. Weather you need a good movement option, or just straight up damage, a lot of them will just work.
One thing I really liked (and hated a bit) about Kingdom Hearts 2 is that the ultimate drive form is locked by a story point ( pretty normal since it's a "final" form) but can happen randomly when you trigger any of the other forms, pretty cool to perform a normal drive form and seeing Sora in his new attire for the first time (way less fun when you try to farm for it, or when it appear after the point of no return.)
Should probably mention for KH2 that final form eliminates all the risk of anti form, which is probably fine given it’s supposed to represent the mastery of it
I think a good move similar to a super is persona all out attacks (specifically p5 cuz thats all ik) where your rewarded for successfully knocking down every enemy and now you get to blast high damage to the enemy, its just broken op where it won't eat most of an enemy health bar but its still powerful enough to kill weak enemies and pack enough of a punch, and theres still stronger moves if set up right
24:52 jigglypuff actually can work out well with good usage to my knowledge, have them fly to below the stage on most stages and let them rip. rosa's actually does insane damage, you just have to get your opponent(s) into the star. since when is ice climbers final smash particularly bad? covers a big space with lots of power and has options for the ice climbers to either help get enemies into the iceberg or to just become completely invincible during it.
I'm pretty surprised the S-Craft and S-Break system from the trails series isn't on here. It evolved from a really big punch, with exceptions like healing and protecting your party, to game breaking strategies in later installments like reflecting, delaying or canceling enemy attacks, and creating full protection for everyone in the party. They even upgraded to a mechanic where all party members in the field and reserves either attack, use spells, or heal.
One game series which does super moves really well is the Kiseki (Trails) series. Where, the super moves all have either a very powerful attack, a strong utility or something more unique at the cost of delaying a character's next turn by a large amount. But the most powerful function of the supers are their ability to interrupt the turn order at any time and allow you to steal turn bonuses or interrupt chains of enemy attacks. It's actually a pretty important part of the combat system because of this, especially when there are characters that can grant 2 hits of invincibility or total party healing/reviving and buffing.
There's also some super moves that are give i-frames, typically paired with some amount of damage, which acts as either a really long dodge or an extra one for games where you have to spend time recovering dodges. It's a get-out-of-jail free card, typically gated by cooldowns, either directly or indirectly, so you do want to hold on to it until you need it.
Atlas Fallen builds super moves and risk-reward so deeply into the fabric of the game, it's the basic combat mechanic. The meter in Atlas Fallen actually builds by dealing damage and decreases over time, and it increases both the damage you deal and the damage you take. That also causes your equipped essence stones to trigger per tier of the meter, with stronger ones tied to the higher level - so you have to build up to the biggest, flashiest, riskiest tier to use all the equipment you get in the game. Tier 3 has wide sweeps and brutal strikes, but it tends to be slower too.
Personally, I love it. I think they nailed the feel of combat. The system is basically "design your own super meter", and it scales proportionally to the natural aggression of your playstyle and how good you are at keeping up pressure. That and the Monster Hunter part breaking minigame in combat makes things pretty interesting.
One (or two) that I thought of is the ionic abilities from inFAMOUS 2, and the Karmic bomb from Second Son. With the ionic abilities, you have to absorb energy from certain defeated enemies, but there’s a chance of that. I don’t know what the chance drop is. In Second Som, if you do certain things related to your karma, you fill a meter that allows you to do a super powerful move related to the powers. I don’t remember how the good karma depletes, but for evil karma, it depletes after a certain amount of time.
While typing that out, I remembered the onimusha form from the Onimusha games. After absorbing a certain amount of specific souls, you can go into a super form. In Onimusha 2 it happens automatically after getting five purple souls, but in 3 you can activate it when you want. However, the purple souls don’t drop as often as you want, especially so when in a boss fight.
22:57 I assure you at you are not the only one that is really happy with F-Zero 99. Now granted I actually didn't grow up playing those games. I grew up in the '90s and I played a lot of SNES and then 64. My family was fortunate enough to also have a Genesis and a PS1 back then too, but I didn't play an F-ZERO game until maximum velocity on the GBA. Then I later played the best game in the series F-ZERO GX on the GameCube which by the way I played both of these games when they were new. I didn't play F-ZERO on SNES or F-Zero X for the N64 until I don't know like a decade and a half later or two when I download them to my Wii. Of course I can play them now on my switch though.
So even though I didn't have much experience playing the first two games of the series it was really cool to see on the news tab to the left on the standby screen for the switch that this game became available and I haven't gotten to play it every day but I try to play it whenever I get the chance to be on my switch anyway
One of my favorite recent takes on Super Moves comes from Fate/Samurai Remnant. The main player character Iori has a standard super move style attack, but what’s more interesting is the secondary ‘transformation’ function.
The focus of the game is facing supernatural threats, and showing just how difficult it is for humans to handle it. You can face off with human foes just fine, but monsters have much higher defense and some won’t even flinch until you take out a massive shield they have up. The fights are daunting… until you call on your own supernatural help, giving the player control over a new character who can cut through monsters and enemy spirits like butter. You aren’t helpless against monsters and the like… but calling on your Heroic Spirit partner sure does make it a lot easier.
In short, you temporarily turn the game from a character action game where the enemies can two-hit you to death, into a Warriors/Musou game where you’re able to plow through enemies like a god.
I doubt it barely even counts but Team Fortress 2's Medic has the ÜberCharge, which builds up a bar while healing you're teammates. Once the bar is filled, you can activate your ÜberCharge to make you and whoever you're healing completely invulnerable for 8 seconds (shorter if you constantly switch teammates) for that push to win the game or to make a comeback.
Going Über isn't the only thing that TF2's medic can do with the charges. Depending on which medigun he has equipped, you can guarantee critical hits with the Kritzkrieg, do the invincibility thing as you said with the stock medigun, grant resistance to damage types with the Vaccinator, or heal up teammates pretty much instantly with the Quick Fix.
You can strategize with DQXI Pepped Up mechanics. First, when your character pepped up, they stay pepped up even when the battle ends, or when they're switched to reserve. You can see if the pep power is going to end when the light on character icon is blinking. So, if you want to do specific pep combo to complete quest, just pep your characters up then bench them out of main party. Later, you can even manipulate the pep up by using certain items to either pep up 1 character or the whole main party. Also the hero has certain skill where he can just straight up force himself to pep up. So yeah, it's very much unlike FFIX.
I've been wondering about this for one of the games I want to make. I think I'll incorporate it into the combat chip system(final name pending). In low, med, and high power settings. Low being mostly just the cost of using the chip, med being enough to disable the weapon, and high to actually destroy the weapon.
At first, I was thinking this is too far. But then I remembered already having a plan for a chip that can equip a different weapon. It would be expensive to use, but could theoretically be sustainable between dives.
One that came to my mind were the dark chips in MegaMan battle network - super strong chips that pop up when you’re taking a lot of hits (thematically MegaMan is getting desperate), but the cost is a dark MegaMan can spawn on the other side and start attacking you or you might lose control of MegaMan (he’s glitching or something). Also, you lose 1 HP permanently every time you use one.
My favorite super moves are the ones from destiny, because wether you are playing alone or in a team they (usually) feel great to use, they give you that "superhero" feeling for just the seconds it last, and when everyone in the team activates their super to kill a boss in a dungeon or a raid it's just **chef kiss**
I really don't like how you portrayed Jak 2's dark jak form. You completely skipped on how you unlock actually cool super moves later in the game with collectables. One is a giant slam that shoots a shockwave around jak that instakills nearly every enemy but ends dark jak early. Another is an attack that arcs electricity around jak for 5 seconds or so and does huge damage to all in the radius.
Not to mention Jak 3's light jak form and expanded dark jak moveset.
Another example of a really neat super form I think comes from Darkest Dungeon's Flagellant character. In DD, your characters build up stress from various sources, and managing stress is a major part of the game. If a character gets too much stress, they'll have a mental break down and become "Afflicted", causing them a major change in their stats(usually for the worse) and they might begin to act out, hurting allies, refusing heals or buffs from allies, and if not skipping their turn, they'll take it themselves and do a random action instead of letting you pick. The exact type of actions, how they act out, and what stat changes they get depend on which Affliction they get, like an abusive hero will berate the party far more causing even more stress, whereas a paranoid one will refuse far more types of help, and a masochistic hero is more likely to expose themselves to damage and refuse healing, even when they're about to die.
But the Flagellant is different. He doesn't gain a random Affliction, instead always gaining the same one, Rapturous. While Rapturous, he gains a one of the strongest attack boosts in the game, as well as a huge speed boost almost ensuring he will go first during a turn, the only stat he loses is dodge, which he's an extremely durable damage sponge anyways. Unlike most other afflictions, he's very unlikely to stress the party out, and though he still does act out in a number of ways, outside of refusing healing or attacking an ally, his act-outs tend to be him just doing what you already want him to do in the first place like attack enemies and stay in the frontline of a fight. Considering he has some extremely high damage output already, he gets stronger at lower HP, and his best moves heal him meaning so you can still reliably heal him when needed, that large damage and speed boost are seriously worth considering. He even has multiple skills that let him gain stress, whether giving himself a large burst during a camping break or transferring an ally's stress to himself, meaning you can trigger Rapturous quite reliably if you want to.
So he becomes an absolute powerhouse that can steamroll almost anything that is able to bleed while keeping himself alive no matter how risky things seem, but you can't always control him properly and like the Ancestor warns, "How quickly the tide turns". So Is that trade off worth it? During a mission, if an ally is going to break down, is it worth it to transfer that stress over to the Flagellant since his Affliction is very consistent compared to the others. Or if your Flag is about to break down, do you make use of your very valuable turns to try to reduce his stress or do you let him turn Rapturous in order to more quickly clear the mission?
He's a really interesting character that plays around with the two main mechanics of the game, stress and Death's Door, in really interesting ways. I find it rather sad that DD2 took all the complexity out of dealing with stress, leaving the Flagellant as technically having "unique mechanics" with his Toxic affliction, but rather than something that you can intentionally plan a strategy around like Rapturous, Toxic is just "make a terrible situation slightly less bad".
19:50 You mentioned super-moves as a catchup, and I was just thinking Advance Wars! In Dual Strike, they're so OP that the dominant strategy is to intentionally send your units into suicidal engagements to build up charge quicker so you get an instant win.
Fight n rage (a beat ‘em up game) does this cool thing where supers are more so combo extensions than a fatal attack. The gauge for a super fills up over an uninfluenced set of time. If you’re gauge isn’t filled you can expend a portion of your hp to use one. The game becomes a mix of skill and strategy as you decide the best instances to offer up health to take care of a horde of enemies or wait a bit to potentially extend your run.
I like trance in FF9, heh. It felt more narrative-oriented than most limit break systems do to me (particularly the change in the character's visual design - The idealized version of themselves), though that might just be because of the way the game introduces it with Vivi getting trance at a plot significant point. Yes, it's annoying when it occurs in a random battle just before a boss fight, but the character-specific trance commands but also being able to just ignore trance (for most characters) and play them how you'd play them normally was also neat.
FFX and the ability to change what powers up the limit break meter was also fun. I think for RPGs a combination of the two would be my ideal... And _maybe_ the ability to choose when to enter into it, but I'm a potion hoarder, if that was provided I'd only ever use it in boss fights. Which is the other issue with cost based supers. If the cost is too high relative to it's cost, that thing is going to wind up never getting used (I think TVTropes calls stuff that falls into that Awesome But Impractical?)
(And thanks for reminding me that I need to find time to playtest a TTRPG I've got ready to start playtesting)
Yeah, I like trance as well, but I do wish it was bit more controllable. It also unfortunately highlights what i would consider the only major flaw with FF9, which is the combat speed being a little slow. Easily my favorite FF other than tactics.
It isn't helped that Zidane gets a couple of plot-mandated trances that you're incentivized to completely throw in the garbage, because priority 1 for every boss fight is to steal their entire steal table to get a bunch of gear that is above your current level.
That... certainly does not help either.@@kevingriffith6011
@@kevingriffith6011 still useful since Trance-Steal is an extra 30% success chance over normal and stacks with all the other theft buffs. Trance during Beatrice fights is the only way I ever reliably got all her items without save-scumming since her battles are on a strict time-limit.
It's also worth noting in regards to KH2's drive system that when you fight organization members, you already have a 25% chance of getting anti, even if you've not used drives leading up to any of the fights. Still not as bad as getting a literal game over in .hack, but still makes the drive forms almost more trouble than they're worth.
I'm currently making a fighting card game where the super card starts at the bottom of the deck. As you work through your deck and put your used cards at the bottom of it, the closer you get to the super card. Hopefully this means playing well and doing long combos means you use up more cards and get to you super quicker.
To balance this, if you get hit, you get a skill point which lets you do multiple things to gain the advantage.
Shoutouts to Capcom vs SNK 2 and the insanity that are Grooves.
On another note, one of my favorite super move systems in jRPGs come from Etrian Odyssey 2/ Untold 2/Nexus with the Force System. If your Force gauge is full, you can pop your Force Boost, which gives you an edge based on your class for 3 turns. If you let the 3 turns pass, it's back to building the gauge again, or, you can pop your Force Break at any point during the boost for a 1 time super move, at which point you're completely out of Force abilities until you return to town to rest. The key thing is that when you first start your exploration, you begin with your gauge full, and you can Boost and Break in the same turn, giving you ample flexibility to plan around it.
An example is the Protector, the token tank class. Force Boosts make their protection skills even more effective, which is simple but effective, but the Force Break completely nullifies ALL incoming damage the turn you pop it. It makes for an interesting push and pull depending on the player's expertise. Some players will depend on the Boost, while others will learn patterns to know when to Break.
It's probably the best system in the series, and it's no wonder it returned for Nexus, where it was even retrofitted for new classes to great effect for the most part.
Man, I always viewed Metroid Prime 3 as a fun and great game. But that's because my younger, less experienced mind always forgot Hypermode was a thing. I rarely used it, just using it when it was required and randomly every now and then. Heck, I tried to challenge myself by using basic firing mode for as long as I could and not relying on charge beam damage. I remember taking down Rundas (Yes, I know...) with standard fire and not using hyper mode or charge beam. I didn't even use missiles. I had such a great time when I was young playing that game. I never even thought about how one could abuse hypermode and make the game trivial. Looking back now, they probably should have went with something different. Like needing to take a certain amount of damage before being able to activate it. Or needing to gather enough Phazon before being able to enter that mode.
That being said, great video. I genuinely enjoyed watching it.
Trails in the Sky, and the rest of the series.
You need 100 CP to cast ultimate and will consume your entire guage when you do (max of 200). Thing is, your skills all cost CP as well. It is often better to use CP for your skills rather than ultimate. You will be stuck using basic attacks for a while if you run out. Your ultimate can be used to disrupt turn order though, and steal powerful on turn bonuses. It's important to strategize. Finally CP is built by taking hits, doing damage, or some support skills (also boosted by gear).
I appreciate the work on narration. Less slurring and more annunciating makes the videos exponentially better.
One example that really sticks in my mind is the Ubercharge in TF2. Someone playing the medic class can build the meter by healing other players, once the meter is full the medic can trigger the Ubercharge at any time which grants a few seconds of complete invincibility for both the medic and whoever they are healing. This can serve to augment an attack, punch through a defensive line, clear out a large group, or whatever else you can use that invincibility for. You can even get an achievement for activating the Ubercharge less than a second before you or who you are healing is hit by a critical rocket. I know because I have it.
Easy execution, and nice graphical flare. my fave super move is tiger/tiger uppercut. Similar to the classic shoryken/hadokens but a little flashier
Oh I have seen you comment about sagat before. Yeah in sf2 super the super combos were basically crazy buff specials or a combo of them, ie tiger genocide.
Elsword proposes a different system for the meter, it's an MMO where you can upgrade your equipment, the materials for said equipment can be converted into fuel that's needed to use the "Hyperactive Skills"
It's a way to give high-level players who have upgraded their equipment extensively a reason to keep farming and an out for desperate players who thought they'll hang on to them to upgrade an equipment later
The sort-of survival horror game Galerians has an instance of this that I really like. You have a meter that slowly builds up on its own. When it's full, any attempt to attack turns you into a moving instant death zone for anything that isn't a boss. The problem is that to survive using it, you need to use a specialized item that is only found in limited amounts in the game. There's enough wiggle room that you can plan out using this super move in difficult rooms, but you can't just sit there and build it up for every encounter. It adds some urgency to the game while also letting you do some cool stuff. I think it's fun.
One thing I've thought about with the "limit break" type moves in one of my projects is to lean into utility over power. Magic spells will commonly do only one element or be focused on support/debuff, but the limit breaks (currently) can be dual element or do damage _and_ debuff.
There's also the Persona-inspired system of stunning enemies with their weaknesses - certain especially dangerous enemies are not affected by this, but _are_ stunned by the limit breaks.
(I also love the mention of KH3's Attraction Flow here. I had much more fun with KH3's combat in my playthroughs where I turned it off...)
Love the Skyway/Super Boost in F-Zero 99. Feels like the most fair super move in any game I've played. Love the balance it finds between your skill and placement in the race to determine when you get it and how effective it is when you use it. I've ridden it before all the way to 1st place (sometimes right up to the Finish Line), but it still feels earned. Moreover I've never really been ticked off when someone passes me using it before either because I know they had to pay their dues behind me in order to build that thing. It's great stuff.
I liked you bringing up the Mario Tennis game. I loved the one on gamecube and I think it did the system way better. It still had a super move, but the super moves were unique per character (so competitively there probably were optimal characters). The super moves weren't a guaranteed point in the match, but they usually did give you the upper hand. And if your opponent had a super move too, they could use that to counter (especially because all characters had an "offensive" and "defensive" super move). If they used a super move in counter to yours, that would usually cancel out the negative effects yours could have inflicted (koopa, for instance, coated the ball in water which slowed you down if you hit it back, and it was also a lob shot so you had to get really close to the net to return it). I think they did the "tennis but with super moves" way better. It was flavorful in a Nintendo way because everyone had a unique ability. The balance was probably off but for casual play as younger me it was very enjoyable and the game was still very much beatable with any character. And the abilities were a meter build-up mechanic (hidden in the gamecube version but apparently visible in the wii version of the game) so you did have to play to charge them up. Overall it felt fairly balanced to me and made the super moves satisfying to use without trivializing the rest of the gameplay like those mega mushrooms seem to do.
I know this channel loves Skies of Arcadia and I always loved the system it had for supers! The shared super bar and the diversity of super attacks made for some interesting gameplay. Some are cheap enough to pull off every turn, some require setup and survival. There are defensive ones, different kinds of offensive ones and occasional support ones and some of the battles really make you weigh the options between using a stronger character's super, or reserving their action for something important and having a weaker character use theirs to keep the pressure on. Plus, in the latter part of the game, you get the option to fill out the whole bar for an incredibly powerful, but incredibly costly team super (one of which you can tailor to be a combination of offensive/defensive/support).
Sometimes it was a little unbalanced, and at certain points in the game, you can pull off real high impact supers every single turn, but it's a lot of fun, and I think it has a lot of room to be tweaked and iterated on.
It's funny what you said about the KH drive forms, because I think anti-form got away with it for sheer cool factor! Sometimes I would deliberately try to get it because it was so satisfying to play!
My friends and I have recently taken to a custom rule set we made in Smash Ultimate where we play random characters as a team vs a team of an equal number of random level 9 coms, items are enabled with high item frequency and only Smash Balls and Fake Smash Balls enabled, 3 stock, 10 minutes. It is complete and utter chaos, and loads of fun.
I'm glad you addressed the attraction attacks of KH3. That was perhaps the biggest reason I just couldn't get into the game. I don't like playing a game that essentially rewards me for nothing. I would have liked it much more if it required a function like the summons or limits in the previous game.
FF7's Limit system is a little different from Trance or Pep. Limit Break replaces your Attack command, but you can hold onto it as long as you want if you use magic or other actions instead. So you can save your limit for a boss if you want. You also gain limit from being hit, which makes it a good comeback mechanic when a boss chops off half your health.
I'd say that nowadays, the idea of competitive players "rallying against X-Factor" isn't really a thing, as most just accept it as part of the game and play around it. That was more of a thing early in the game's life when a lot of people were coming over from other games. All that aside, this is a great video!
One of my favorite Super systems appears in the card game Yomi, where your combo and access to super moves is based on having more cards. And hand size is improved by blocking. If you block and your opponent doesn't grapple and throw you, you get your block card back, essentially increasing your hand size by 1. If you block and your opponent attacks into it, you get to draw a bonus card on top of that. This makes for a rhythm of play: trying to pierce the enemy's guard, block the enemy's attacks to build up "meter" in the form of a big hand, and land a huge combo or super to crush them.
Honestly I wish more fighting games gave a lot of meter for successful blocking.
Power Budget is also a topic i kinda missed here. It's often considered in competetive multiplayer like League of Legends. Some Champions have poor ultimates but powerfull basic skills (Aurelion Sol). All there power budget was used up for his other skills, so his ultimate Skills kinda doesn't feel super at all.
Metroid prime 3's hypermode could pretty easily have been made much riskier if the longer you are in overload, the faster the meter fills, especially if the rate at which it increases is somewhat random.
Something that comes to mind for supers is Trove. Combat, being almost exclusively PvE, is focused on managing your Ultimates, a special move unique to your class that generally does tons of damage (and in some cases does things like healing you).
The Lunar Lancer's ultimate is so far my favorite among ultimates I don't understand. Unlike other classes, which normally just have a cooldown on their ultimates with no real drawbacks (generally resulting in combat being centered around spamming these things), its ultimate is charged by doing a ton of damage, sort of like a rage meter. When fully charged, you can transform to swap out all your moves from fast, low damage strikes focused on mobility, ninja style, to heavy-hitting attacks focused on blindly rushing the enemy, juggernaut style. Each ability used drains increasing amounts of power, though, so if you summon a giant damage AoE you're gonna be reverting back a fair bit quicker than if you're just throwing or swinging your polearm(?) around. Just don't stay too long once Lunarform runs out, you're very squishy compared to other melee classes.
Great vid. I was delighted at the surprise Soulcalibur mention, but I was puzzled why you didn't talk about SCIV, V, or VI (the games that have actual Supers in them). Heck, even Soul Blade had a Super meter.
10:23 part of me considers Anti-form "badly designed" just because of how cool it looks. Its NOT supposed to be something you go into but it looks so cool and unique most people wish they could use it Manually whenever they wanted.
Megaman X command mission also had an interesting way of using supers, in that it was basically the risk reward for the character, AND their identity. Every turn, your WE gauge fills up for that character by 25%, and with at least 50, you can do their character specific move. However, you also have 2 side weapons which use WE and are basically your only options for abilities besides your basic attack and using items. The game is pretty much built on saving the meter and figuring out if the super or Side weapons are more important. Characters can also have quite a variety of things to use as well.
A game with a similar mechanic was Blue Reflection, but to put it briefly, you can both use it AND fill it up without issue, AND still get a massive super at the end of combat after only eating one attack from the enemy, maybe.
In Miitopia’s switch port the supers (Horseplay/Horse whispering) are completely random and that’s just hilarious