Platform Fighters, Arena Fighters, Party Fighters... Let's pick a name and stick with it.

Paul Soth

As you painfully know, there are plenty of people who keep calling PSASBR a "Smash Clone." While that is true to an extent, it's a rather sloppy term. Putting aside any possible negative implications that such a term could carry, it also ignores the fact that there are a number of other games that have the same kind of gameplay. Hell, I have a stack of such games on my desk right now. It is clear that there is a nameless sub-genre of fighters that separate themselves from traditional fighting games by using these following mechanics and characteristics:

• Multi-Player
• Simplified controls
• Individual playfields have different features, layouts and even hazards
• Power-Ups and useable items
• Matches are score-based, as opposed to round-based.

Aside from Smash and All-Stars, other games like this include:

• Power Stone 2
• Jump Super Stars
• Jump Ultimate Stars
• DreamMix TV World Fighters
• Guilty Gear Dust Strikers
• Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL
• Anarchy Reigns

...and perhaps others that I don't know about. Point is that there are a number of games that are like Smash and there is no doubt that there will be more in the future. Thing is, we can't just keep calling them "Smash Clones." I mean, people stopped using the term "Doom Clone" for first person shooters by 1996, and can you imagine if you were playing a KoF game and someone walked up and called it a "Street Fighter Clone?"

So a simple, clear term is needed. The problem is that there has yet to be one that has taken hold. I've seen them called arena fighters, party fighters, brawlers... I've personally used the term "platform fighter" since they incorporate many of the elements of platformers, but that's just me.

So let's pick a term and stick with it, just for the sake of convenience and the benefit of future game developers. Suggestions?

MrRoboto

Anarchy Reigns....... Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL..........
I........... .

Adelheid

Platform Fighter is a cool term, I support it

CrimsonMoonMist

I've always called them Party Fighters,
though it does sound kind of negative now that I'm thinking about it.

KumaOso

Platform fighter as a party fighter, just by the name, could apply to any "noncompetitive" fighting game like the Naruto fighters. Platform fighter would tell you that while it's a fighting game, the mobility is that of a platformer.

d3v

Platform Fighter sounds like a pretty accurate description.

Whitney's Miltank

I'd call Photo Dojo a party fighter.

tataki

If you can't do something well, don't do it. Stick with "Smash clones" as long you don't have the proper knowledge to accurately define genres -- a task that no one on this site, and on the internet as a whole, is able to handle yet.

Anarchy Reigns is a 3D action game while Smash clones are 2D action games, so your list is whack.

After that I'd say the number one defining feature of these sub sub genres is the camera angle and how the controls interact with it. Every other feature you mentioned is irrelevant. (A Smash clone with one opponent, a flat stage and no pickup items is still a Smash clone.)

In the 3D action game Power Stone, if you press a direction on the controller, your character will turn around and face in that direction. But in the 3D action game Tekken 5, the character's direction is locked which allows for more a complicated control scheme i.e. having more moves. We call the latter "3D fighting game". Smash, compared to SF is the same deal just in 2D. You press backwards and the character turns around, while in SF the direction is locked, allowing for a different control scheme, and we call the latter "2D fighting game".

Paul Soth

So your whole counter-argument comes down to the complexity of control schemes and camera angles. I have to disagree. To me, a fighting game is defined by the gameplay focused on close combat between the players and victory defined by defeating your opponent. Close combat in this case meaning a primary focus on hand-to-hand or melee weapons, as opposed to shooters, which focus primarily on ranged forms of attack.

Anarchy Reigns is a 3D action game while Smash clones are 2D action games, so your list is whack.

Aside from the fact that one game uses a 3d environment and the other uses a 2d environment, the core fundamental gameplay mechanics are the same between the two. The biggest difference that Anarchy Reigns has over Smash and Power Stone is that it uses a dedicated over-the-shoulder camera for each player, as opposed to all players using the same camera. I do admit that this factor can be a subject of debate.

We know that these games are not the same as SF, KoF, MK, Tekken, VF, etc.. But by the very basic definition, they are fighters. But they are different enough to earn their own category, to separate them from standard fighting games.

My whole point is that we need a better name then "Smash clone" when talking about these kind of games.

Hood57

Why can't we keep calling them "games my nieces play?"

JohnGrimm

I've been using the term Versus Platformer. That's just me.

p.m novaroad pilot

Why dont you just call it a fighter
you act like the term is the crown key of olympia or some shit

its people you punch you kick you use special moves you knock down their vitality and you ko them

especially considering melee
people have who have time to over consider the following sound like bigoted pompous idiots

JohnGrimm

p.m novaroad pilot, post: 7973868, member: 50848 wrote:

Why dont you just call it a fighter

Because I don't think they are.

p.m novaroad pilot, post: 7973868, member: 50848 wrote:

you act like the term is the crown key of olympia or some shit

If the term is NOT a big deal and doesn't matter, why is it so important for them to be called fighters?

Mr. X

JohnGrimm, post: 7973940, member: 12087 wrote:

If the term is NOT a big deal and doesn't matter, why is it so important for them to be called fighters?

You've been arguing against calling it a "fighter" just as long.

JohnGrimm

Mr. X, post: 7973984, member: 7367 wrote:

You've been arguing against calling it a "fighter" just as long.

The difference being I never told people to stop disagreeing with me by trying to cover it up by saying the issue is unimportant. We all know the issue isn't important, but that doesn't mean we should just never talk about it. All I really got from the post I quoted was "Shut up and agree with me or you're elitist and dumb."

Ben Perkins

Wow this is going EXACTLY as I expected. Why do we keep doing this?

p.m novaroad pilot

JohnGrimm, post: 7973998, member: 12087 wrote:

The difference being I never told people to stop disagreeing with me by trying to cover it up by saying the issue is unimportant. We all know the issue isn't important, but that doesn't mean we should just never talk about it. All I really got from the post I quoted was "Shut up and agree with me or you're elitist and dumb."

nah
my thing is this
it has like 99% of the elements of a fighter
so to me (this goes specifically for melee the other stuff i couldnt care less about even though i play those games)
i would call it a fighter
i wouldnt call it a party game cause to me playing sonic shuffle, mario party, wario ware
those are party games
you get stars, precious stones, coins/points from mini games
the objective is clear
then you see melee in the standard that is usually played at tournaments
i would call it a fighter

to me all the dumbass effort over the years to try and separate it just speaks to a underlying complex of
"yeah we are the real dudes! we are fgc and even though we hate on each other and we meat ride our own shit and if its not our game then the scene is ass"
we still got enough time to discriminate on these games over here

to me it feel like some corny this is the boys treehouse shit
but yall aint got the rights to shit

it should be called a fighter

people wanna call it something else to add that little aside, that little asterisk like we on that exclusive shit

its a personal complex issue

Papinguim

JohnGrimm, post: 7973940, member: 12087 wrote:

Because I don't think they are.


If the term is NOT a big deal and doesn't matter, why is it so important for them to be called fighters?

How the heck is Smash not a fighter?

JohnGrimm

p.m novaroad pilot, post: 7974057, member: 50848 wrote:

snip

Okay, so my problem with your post (besides the over use of the return key) is that because it is a game about combat and is played in tournaments, it's a fighting game. In which case, I'm going to start a competitive Call of Duty league where the only weapon allowed is knives, and I'm going to call it a fighting game.

Here's the deal basically, I don't call Smash a party game, but just because it has players attacking each other doesn't make it a fighting game. Another thing is that something doesn't have to be called a fighting game to be competitive. There are tons of other genres that are competitive that aren't called fighting games. Hell, Pokemon is incredibly competitive and everyone calls that a kid game too. I don't see a problem with some people calling Smash a different genre but still acknowledging how competitive and tournament viable the game is. It's got nothing to do with a negative connotation or shitting on the game, it's just the simple fact of the matter that when you say fighting game, one doesn't generally go to Smash first, and there's a reason for that, because it's so far different from the fighting game genre.

JohnGrimm

Papinguim, post: 7974102, member: 79162 wrote:

How the heck is Smash not a fighter?

Because all of the core designs of the game and the mechanics differ greatly from those of fighting games? Main focus of platforming, shields that protect you from all sides, stages that vary greatly and affect how you play the game, free roam movement that doesn't lock you to your opponent, no lifebars, analog directional inputs that affect the strength of your attack, so on and so forth. Don't get me wrong, as I mentioned in my last post, this doesn't make Smash not a competitive game or not tournament viable, it just to me differs it so much from the fighting game genre that I can't agree to put it in the same category. Also, before it even comes up, the term Nontraditional Fighter is stupid and makes no sense and I hope to god people don't take that term seriously. The term by definition is an oxymoron, you're saying it's a fighting game that doesn't play like fighting games.

The Martian

Does it really even matter?

And when has anyone ever even called AR a "Smash Clone"?

p.m novaroad pilot

JohnGrimm, post: 7974113, member: 12087 wrote:

Okay, so my problem with your post (besides the over use of the return key) is that because it is a game about combat and is played in tournaments, it's a fighting game. In which case, I'm going to start a competitive Call of Duty league where the only weapon allowed is knives, and I'm going to call it a fighting game.

Here's the deal basically, I don't call Smash a party game, but just because it has players attacking each other doesn't make it a fighting game. Another thing is that something doesn't have to be called a fighting game to be competitive. There are tons of other genres that are competitive that aren't called fighting games. Hell, Pokemon is incredibly competitive and everyone calls that a kid game too. I don't see a problem with some people calling Smash a different genre but still acknowledging how competitive and tournament viable the game is. It's got nothing to do with a negative connotation or shitting on the game, it's just the simple fact of the matter that when you say fighting game, one doesn't generally go to Smash first, and there's a reason for that, because it's so far different from the fighting game genre.

it doesnt have to be the first thing you go to
as long as its acknowledged

i call a spade a spade
i dont care if the picture on the back is of a gundam because it the exclusive gundam set or its got a power rangers pictures on the back because its a custom power rangers set of cards
the meaning and the content remain the same

its sad because you dont even realize you are disparaging the game by not calling it a fighter


if you made a call a duty game with only knives (which wouldnt be good and lame)
i would call it a fighter in that context


but at that point and using that analogy
you just being willfully ignorant

you are purposefully ignoring the techniques l cancelling, the nature and evolution of the meta game
the tier placements over the years
the scene itself
the objective to ko the opponent through damaging the vitality bar aka the percent bar


you lack alot of evidence to the contrary
the only thing you would have to rebuttal (which is a flawed argument in itself)
is that melee has items
the tournaments and community/players dont see it that way
they dont play it that way
they play it in the context of it being a fighter


so if it walks like a duck, it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck
then it isnt a fucking mongoose

melee is a fighter

Mr. X

"What you call a cat is different than what I call a cat"

JohnGrimm

p.m novaroad pilot, post: 7974183, member: 50848 wrote:

you are purposefully ignoring the techniques l cancelling, the nature and evolution of the meta game
the tier placements over the years
the scene itself
the objective to ko the opponent through damaging the vitality bar aka the percent bar

I'm not ignoring anything. None of these matter in terms of what genre the game is in. All competitive games have advanced techniques, evolving meta, a scene, and if there's more than one playable character/gun/loadout, there's a tier list. These are not things that are exclusive to fighting games, they are inherent in all competitive games just by the nature of these concepts. What determines a genre is how the game is played, what the goal is, the mechanics, you know, the actual DESIGN choices of the game. I would say that Smash is more about platforming than it is fighting, because the goal of the game is to stay on the stage.

You mention the percent bar being a life bar. This isn't true. The only thing the percent bar changes is how far you go flying when you get it, it will never be the reason you die. You die because you went too far off the stage, this can happen at 0% life just as much as it can happen at 300% life. You do not die when you reach 100% damage, you're still fighting. In this, I would say that Smash is more about the platforming aspect than it is the fighting, because you can't lose by taking damage, however you can lose by falling off the stage, so platforming from a game goal perspective is more important.

p.m novaroad pilot, post: 7974183, member: 50848 wrote:

you lack alot of evidence to the contrary
the only thing you would have to rebuttal (which is a flawed argument in itself)
is that melee has items
the tournaments and community/players dont see it that way
they dont play it that way
they play it in the context of it being a fighter

Your evidence of Smash being a fighter has been nothing but "There's people punching each other, it's a fighting game," which is a nonargument. Combat does not make something a fighter, it makes something have combat. On top of that, I never brought up items once, so now you're providing a strawman argument and ignoring what I'm saying. I'm well aware tournament players turn items off, good for them, items don't determine genre either and anyone who says otherwise is a troll no matter what side of the argument they're on. I say Smash isn't a fighting game because of how the game is designed. If you don't agree with me that's fine and dandy, everyone is entitled to their opinions. I would just hope that you are mature enough to actually reason what I'm saying and have an adult conversation with me instead of this ridiculous name calling and saying nothing other than "It's a fighter because I say it is."

oldschool_BR

How should we call a PvP platformer??? We wonder! Really! How should we ever call a PvP platform game? Dayummm... I've got no idea how to call a PvP platformer.

tataki, post: 7973340, member: 4806 wrote:

If you can't do something well, don't do it. Stick with "Smash clones" as long you don't have the proper knowledge to accurately define genres -- a task that no one on this site, and on the internet as a whole, is able to handle yet.

I've just did it. I'm the best!

p.m novaroad pilot

JohnGrimm, post: 7974228, member: 12087 wrote:

I'm not ignoring anything. None of these matter in terms of what genre the game is in. All competitive games have advanced techniques, evolving meta, a scene, and if there's more than one playable character/gun/loadout, there's a tier list. These are not things that are exclusive to fighting games, they are inherent in all competitive games just by the nature of these concepts. What determines a genre is how the game is played, what the goal is, the mechanics, you know, the actual DESIGN choices of the game. I would say that Smash is more about platforming than it is fighting, because the goal of the game is to stay on the stage.

You mention the percent bar being a life bar. This isn't true. The only thing the percent bar changes is how far you go flying when you get it, it will never be the reason you die. You die because you went too far off the stage, this can happen at 0% life just as much as it can happen at 300% life. You do not die when you reach 100% damage, you're still fighting. In this, I would say that Smash is more about the platforming aspect than it is the fighting, because you can't lose by taking damage, however you can lose by falling off the stage, so platforming from a game goal perspective is more important.


Your evidence of Smash being a fighter has been nothing but "There's people punching each other, it's a fighting game," which is a nonargument. Combat does not make something a fighter, it makes something have combat. On top of that, I never brought up items once, so now you're providing a strawman argument and ignoring what I'm saying. I'm well aware tournament players turn items off, good for them, items don't determine genre either and anyone who says otherwise is a troll no matter what side of the argument they're on. I say Smash isn't a fighting game because of how the game is designed. If you don't agree with me that's fine and dandy, everyone is entitled to their opinions. I would just hope that you are mature enough to actually reason what I'm saying and have an adult conversation with me instead of this ridiculous name calling and saying nothing other than "It's a fighter because I say it is."

1st of all
i didnt strawman you
i gave a format of what could be injected into the conversation with a popular argument
i never said directly that you gave that argument
although maybe i shouldve left it out since you didnt defend you position that good
or worded it differently to explain the design of the game
now that thats out the way

you do die when you reach a certain percent
there are guaranteed setups i.e from grabs where you die lol and this happens with the different weight classes and other specifics (which im not going into) so yes it is the reason you die
lets put it this way
you arent surviving against the top players at over 350%
there is frame data to defend and punish certain things

you dont die in tournament setting because of the platforming
you die because of your opponent
these all facts

you are ignoring the context that the community and its players project onto its ruleset when they play these tournaments/matches
and the games design has very little to do with that since the game was designed to be ambiguous

and for all your bloviating about what isnt a fighting game
you havent gave a good definition of what is a fighting game

now heres the impasse
i said in one of my earlier posts
that smash has 99% of fighting game elements

I have a feeling i know what your small difference in criteria is going to be
i wont strawman you
but if it is what i think it is
then...
lol

Darklightjg1

Versus Action

p.m novaroad pilot

I look at things in context
I'm sure when a nigga first did the shoulder lean or the stanky leg it was seen as some dumb retarded shit
But they meant for it to be a dance
It's seen in the clubs ( not much anymore ) Played on the song

There fore its a dance

Letters are symbols they were first ambiguous but we categorized/compartementilized them to mean something
The design of smash is ambiguous but the community and it's players molded and developed it to play a certain way and in that context
It's a fighter

SSJ_Sonikku

I like Platform Fighter myself.  Games like Smash and whatnot have properties of Platformers, but are confined in the form of a fighting game.

Hanzo_Hasashi

OP add to that list TMNT: Smash Up

Doopliss

I'll start calling them platform fighters., more accurate than arena fighters. Party fighters just has a negative tone to it which it doesn't deserve.

p.m novaroad pilot said:

Why dont you just call it a fighter
you act like the term is the crown key of olympia or some shit

its people you punch you kick you use special moves you knock down their vitality and you ko them

especially considering melee
people have who have time to over consider the following sound like bigoted pompous idiots

Some people don't want smash placed in the same group as SF, GG etc, and therefore they claim that they are not fghters at all. This ticks off the opposing side since they are clearly games where you fight other people, and therefore they are fighting games. Defining their own subgenre solves both of these issues, because they'll still be a subgenre within the fighting genre, but clearly different from traditional fighters.

rogueyoshi

the official name for the genre is already VS Action, but honestly i think the games deserve the title of fighting games more than most (controversial, i know)

yoh001

Naruto: Clash of Ninja (Series)

Rumble Fighter.

Iduno

Ditch the fighter part and just call 'em platform games or party games.