Fighting games as a single player challenge

[BIL]

Spoiler

"One more push, Sagat!" "YOU DID THIS TO ME RYU"

[WelshMegalodon]

Spoiler

Fighting Street is a decent port, possibly better than the game deserves. Everything feels a bit slower, but the visuals are quite close by 1988 standards and the sound effects might actually be arcade-perfect (it is, after all, a CD game). The arranged soundtrack is surprisingly good as well.

Gameplay is hampered by there only being two buttons available instead of six, though it honestly makes less of a difference than one might think. The special moves may also be harder to pull off here than they are in the arcade version, but they're still doable - not that it's an issue with Easy Specials on...

While the Hadouken, Shoryuken, and Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku are "hidden", I wholeheartedly believe that the game expects you to know them after a certain point, though I have to admit I'm not sure when that point is. At least Garou Densetu had the decency to teach you your special moves in between matches (though it noticeably omits the most overpowered one, leaving the player to discover it for himself.)

Bonus: arcade Street Fighter and its broken AI, courtesy of Zeusdaz
More broken AI
Even more broken AI

[WelshMegalodon]

Back in 2019, I discovered that AI opponents in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior were always fought in one of four orders (though I somehow failed to notice that two of them are just the other two in reverse).

Does anyone know which of the CPS1 games features the progression Jonny2x4 outlined in this post?

Actually, the CPS1 entries of Street Fighter II does enforce a certain order to the opponents you face. It usually goes Japan (Ryu and E. Honda) -> Brazil (Blanka) -> U.S.A. (Guile and Ken) -> China (Chun-Li) -> U.S.S.R. (Zangief) -> India (Dhalsim). It was only with the CPS2 entries, when they added the four new fighters, that they made it more random.

[Sima Tuna]

The best single-player fighting games tend to be home console ports/conversions which include extra modes. Some of my favorites of these for single play are:

King of Fighters XI (ps2)
King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match
Virtua Fighter 4 Evo
Tekken 6 (psp or xbox 360, both are great)
Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX (psp)
Dead or Alive 3

I have so many hours in Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX on my psp. Same for Tekken 6 PSP. What's really nice is when a fighting game has a single-player endless mode. Tekken 6 has this. You can fight endlessly against the cpu, and after every match, you're given a choice of 3 cpu opponents to choose for the next match. It displays their AI rank (belt level) as well as the character they picked. So you can duck obnoxious enemies like Roger if you're not feeling the matchup.

My issue with playing the pure arcade versions of fighting games is they usually don't have a mode select option. Let alone a vs cpu endless mode. I do not enjoy fighting boss characters and do not want to play arcade modes that lead to them. Boss characters in fighting games are notoriously obnoxious.

Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter and Tekken all tend to pack a good amount of modes, assuming you purchase the appropriate game in the series. I learned too late that some of the Virtua Fighter 5 releases didn't include extra modes, and I would have been better off grabbing the initial release. Womp womp. With the Dead or Alive games, they descended into pay-for-tittay costume shenanigans, so I think you're best-off to play Dead or Alive 3. Tekken 6 had shit netcode but godlike single-player options, so that's my preference for when I feel in the mood to chain electrics.

[Leandro]

Back in 2019, I discovered that AI opponents in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior were always fought in one of four orders (though I somehow failed to notice that two of them are just the other two in reverse).

Does anyone know which of the CPS1 games features the progression Jonny2x4 outlined in this post?

Actually, the CPS1 entries of Street Fighter II does enforce a certain order to the opponents you face. It usually goes Japan (Ryu and E. Honda) -> Brazil (Blanka) -> U.S.A. (Guile and Ken) -> China (Chun-Li) -> U.S.S.R. (Zangief) -> India (Dhalsim). It was only with the CPS2 entries, when they added the four new fighters, that they made it more random.

IIRC, all of the CPS1 games. The order is always like that, it's only the starting opponent that is random. Which means, if you start in China, the last fight before Boxer will be Ken.

Enviado de meu 2201116SG usando o Tapatalk

[WelshMegalodon]

Further research on my part (i. e. watching some Youtube 1CCs and playing a few credits of Dash and Hyper Fighting) confirms that you and Jonny2x4 are indeed correct... if we are discussing Dash and Hyper Fighting. The World Warrior seems to randomly choose between the four progressions I listed in the linked post, with Ryu taking the place of whoever you're using if you aren't using him.

[Klatrymadon]

Glad to see there's something here on this topic! I was having a blast revisiting Tekken 3 last night, unlocking the characters again and doing some Time Attack runs (aiming for ~1 min with Paul), and it occurred to me I rarely hear of anyone engaging with FGs at this level any more, although I'm sure there must be others who play them the same way. I assume it's partly a generational thing; outside annual visits to arcades, my introduction to the genre was with the SNES ports of SF2, which I'd play largely by myself. I only had the opportunity to play against friends every once in a while, and I don't think we had any notion at the time that anyone did so in a serious, competitive way. My later engagement with the Tekken and Soul Edge/Calibur games, with their very robust 1P experiences, only deepened this now aberrant approach to the genre. While there isn't very much for a competitive player to learn by playing through an arcade mode (and I've definitely seen many making the argument that they're a waste of time/development resources), I've always found 'gaming' the AI in fighting games to be just as rewarding as doing the same in any other arcade game or modern action game, where it's often equally 'dumb' and manipulable in its own way. As with other arcade games, my idea of approaching FGs 'seriously' is usually to practice for a 1CC or to improve my score, heh. Playing casually, then, is largely about enjoying the sprite work, animations, backgrounds and music, etc. I'll play online occasionally and relish the opportunity to sit down at a cab with anybody, but I'm always just messing around. I really love just ripping through arcade modes, though - I even sourced the deluxe edition of The Rumble Fish 2 for PS4 just to have the entirely offline port of the original. Are there any other dinosaurs of this dying breed on the forum?

[Lemnear]

I play some fighting games and only in single player mode because usually the ones i like aren't played online anymore [Yuki Enterprise/EXAMU] (and/or i'm not that good for a competitive online enviroment)
But my training in Tekken 3 was perfect for beating random people in the only arcade-pub here [8-0].

[Klatrymadon]

Nice one! That's another point - a lot of my favourite games were never really taken up by the FGC as competitively viable ones, and have no presence on Fightcade or similar. If you can point me towards a Bloody Roar scene I'd love to see it!

[sunnshiner]

Playing casually, then, is largely about enjoying the sprite work, animations, backgrounds and music, etc...

Are there any other dinosaurs of this dying breed on the forum?

Hello, fellow dinosaur here.

I'm too old and shit to ever be 'good' at fighting games but I do enjoy them in single player mode for the same reasons you mentioned there. Same with shmups, I suppose. If I get a bit further the next time I play, great, if not, it's not a big deal.

[velo]

I don't think anybody mentioned Monster Maulers, Konami's fighting game that is entirely fights vs CPU opponents. There's a 2-player mode, but it's coop. There's at least one other game like that, but somebody else will have to remember the name for me.