Console gaming for the next generation

The rise of the console RTS and why developers can't seem to grow balls and throw in the keyboard and mouse that we all know they need.

Author: Draenor

Last night something occured to me while I was playing ranked game after ranked game of Soul Calibur IV.

Now, I don't like to throw out accusations that things are overpowered...I'll hop on board certain ones that are glaringly obvious such as the rogue problem in WoW right now, the M-16 in Call of Duty 4, and a few others...but there are three characters in this game that are blatantly overpowered:

Mitsurugi, Kilek, Cervantes

Now, one of the biggest ways to tell if something is overpowered is to look at the people who play said thing.  The pattern that I have noticed with players of these three characters?  None of them select their character until you have already selected yours, and even then, a large number of them like to wait until there is only one second left on the timer.  Why do they do this?  Well, it gives people less time to just disconnect from the game for one, secondly, it means that their opponent won't choose an equally overpowered character in kind.

What exactly is wrong with these three characters you ask?  I'll tell you:  They are too friendly to move spamming button mashers.

Now I know a lot of people who play Soul Calibur are thinking "if you think that button masher characters are overpowered, then why not include Raphael?"  Well, Raphael and Maxi are both generally played by button mashers, this is true...BUT These characters don't include moves that sweep and strike both low and high with basic combos, THAT is the difference.

To begin with, let's talk about Kiliek, because I think that he is the least broken of these three characters...Kilek is, quite simply a pain in the ass to fight because his range is so ridiculous.  Many Kilek players will stand at range spamming the same two or three moves because they know that it's impossible for you to get close...Why can't you just side step an attack and move in? Because of sweeping strikes.  Now luckily some characters have one or two attacks that can outrange Kilek.  Algol and Ivy come to mind here...I would include Cervantes and others with long ranged charge attacks, but the problem there is that those are charge up moves, and easily avoided by anybody with more than four brain cells.

Next up is Mitsurugi...Mitsurugi is a guy with quite a few multihit combos that can be spammed at great speed...Not such a problem, except that fighting back requires more precise timing than any other character in the game (minus Cervantes, more on that later)  The real problem with Mitsurugi though is one of the same things that makes Kilek so unstopable:  The basic sweeping combo.  Mitsurugi posesses a combo that entails a long range sweeping attack that cannot be avoided by side stepping, and requires that a player crouch and guard in order to block...Of course, the attack is so fast that no person could reasonably be expected to ever block it with any real consistency in a fight.  Additionally, Mitsurugi's recoil from being blocked is so fast that any button masher will quickly be spamming a different combo as soon as the attack is guarded against...This is a problem because Mitsurugi seems to have faster guard recoil than other players, and as anyone but the quickest characters, he is extremely difficult to counter attack...If you can't counter attack a button masher, you really don't have very much defense against him.  A kick will generally do the job, but kicking combos tend to be low damage, and if you're lucky enough to actually land a hit on Mitsurugi, it shouldn't have to be one of the weakest attacks in the game.

Cervantes...Oh boy...what ISN'T wrong with Cervantes?  He's too damn fast for how strong his attacks are, he has too many spammable power moves that get him out of range regardless of whether or not they are guarded against, and well...he just doesn't really have any discernable weaknesses to speak of.  A character with this kind of speed should not be killing people for a quarter of their life bar in the opening three seconds of a fight.  One power move of Cervantes' in particular has me scractching my head...that is, his flying dive move...Where even if the attack misses, Cervantes lands BEHIND the enemy, and always is able to get an attack off first, regardless of whether or not the defending player uses his fastest attack, he simply will not get the attack in...This means that Cervantes is not punished for making huge mistakes that would have other characters lying on the floor in a puddle of their own misery.  I cannot think of even one other attack that is this powerful and involves this little risk to use...Hell, even Siegfried's ridiculously powerful strikes come with the risk that they will be sidestepped...There has to be risk versus reward with every attack in a fighting game, and with Cervantes, there really is none. 

This is not a rant to get these characters fixed, as I know that they will probably remain the same for the rest of time...my intiial point was that people who play these characters need to stop being so cheesey and just man up and select the character that you intend to use at the outset, rather than wait because you know that your character is cheap.  So why did I put the reasons that things are overpowered?  Because this is how I percieve the game after over one hundred ranked matches, with these characters.  My opinions here are based upon a great deal of play time.  I have to give a reason why these characters are overpowered if I'm going to say that they are, right?  The thing is, I don't care that people use these characters...hell, I use the M-16 in Call of Duty...it's just a matter of the courtesy to not try to pull the wool over your opponent's eyes by waiting for them to select their character first, to fake like you're going to pick a different character, or to let the time limit run down.

Be kind, pick your overpowered character fast so that I can make fun of you in a private chat with my friends before the match starts.