Saturday 13 January, 2007

Managed to save it!

It was brought to my attention that some explanation is required in my further logs for this game. Guilty Gear: The Midnight Carnival XX Slash is the third revision of the Guilty Gear XX fighting game series. Being such, there will be a need to explain certain moves and conditions and how they are performed. Let me attempt to clarify. I will be using numpad notation for unnamed moves (from the 1p (left) side of the screen. This notation references the numbers of the numpad as if they were directions on the D-pad (e.g. 6 is right, 5 is neutral, 9 is the diagonal up/right, etc.)) I will also be using the following button notation: P K S H and D. P being punch, K being kick, S being slash, H being hard slash, and D being dust. While this may not be the most descriptive method for people who are unfamiliar with the game, a proper rundown of every move and move property for every character would require easily 100 pages of text, not including the situational reasoning for which each move may/should be used. I will, however, do my best to clarify and describe as many particularly important scenarios as possible. If you have any questions, please comment with them, and I will be happy to answer.

Anyway, today I had a fun time introducing two of my friends to the game. Both of them being Street Fighter 3rd Strike players, they became relatively proficient relatively quickly. It's actually quite surprising how well one can successfully learn a new fighter once becoming knowledged in a staple of the genre, even though said games are quite different.

I'm afraid to admit I've never played any of the guilty gears yet :(. They look really pretty though. I'm curious, how intuitive are the combos? The biggest thing tend to notice in fighting games is how natural or how unnatural the various moves feel. I don't nessecarily mean simple either...it's more of an aesthetic question.

Also, I noticed Jim's comment about level design, and on the surface I'll agree that fighting games don't generally have much in the way of levels. It's basically: y > floor, left wall < you < right wall. Or else: fix it so it's true.

However, let me rephrase the question:

Let's say we define a level as the obstacles you face between the start and finish of a contiguous block of the game. In this case: a round.

And instead of defining a level as a set of walls and enemies and obstacles, we define the level as the dynamic of fighting against each opponent.

This presents a number of questions:

For example, how do the levels change as you progress? Does the difficulty of each battle build a crescendo of challenge similar to the progressive tile-fields of a platform game like mario? To what extent does each opponent have their own "feel?" Obviously every opponent has different moves and combos, but how does the implementation of those moves effect the experience of playing against them. Often there are differences in power, agility, etc. Also, do you feel like you are playing against the same AI in different clothes with different equipment, or do the characters feel like separate entities?

If you were given the job of making the next Guilty Gear, what's the first thing you would change? Perhaps add or remove a character? Change the musical score? Add more or less complicated combos? What would you fight to keep the same if someone else asked to change it?

Crap! I lost my long-winded reply in the Crown power outage this morning. >;(

Ok so "level" design. The first "level" of Arcade mode has you up against 7 random characters, 1 destined battle, and then 2 boss battles. The first 7 are standard "difficulty gets harder each level" fare, and the destined battle is as hard as the computer is willing to go without cheating. The last two boss battles are against I-No, who is a guitar playing witch, and Holy Order Sol, who is a take on what Sol was like 100 or so years before the events in this game.

As for the difference between the way each character plays, I think David Sirlin, lead producer for Capcom Classics Colleciton (PS2/Xbox), Capcom Classics Collection: Remixed (PSP), Capcom Classics Collection 2 (PS2/Xbox), SEGA Genesis Collection (PS2/Xbox), and winner of several national Street Fighter tournaments, said it best: "Each character in Guilty Gear XX plays very differently. I think it’s easy to just read over that sentence, so I want to make it clear: compared to other fighting games, Guilty Gear XX has significantly more diversity in the gameplay each character allows than any other fighting game I have ever played, and that is saying a lot." For a better, more in-depth rundown of the GG fighting system, head to http://www.sirlin.net/archive/game-balance-part-2-a-detailed-example/ for a nice summary. I'm still finding it a bit difficult to define "Levels" as gameplay, since as soon as we start playing the game in its intended mode (2P) instead of arcade mode (1P), all the "Level design" stuff evaporates and you are left with finely crafted gameplay, your opponent, and your wits. Levels are gone. The crescendo of difficulty is gone. Progression is no longer acknowledged by the game, but can only be seen upon close examination of yourself.