Post
by Cold Skin » Fri Jan 12, 2018 3:49 pm
I'll speak from the point of view of someone who absolutely doesn't care for fighting games gameplay.
The promising content, the mesmerizing graphics and the incredible overall presentation: that's what makes me terribly excited to play this game.
I've never cared for the gameplay of fighting games, just fighting the rounds quickly to get to the next thing.
I've played hours of some Soul Calibur, had many Tekken games, played Street Fighter IV, had both Injustice, had some Mortal Kombat games and my objective was usually to enjoy the universe, go through the story and/or unlock endings, possibly unlock costumes and characters...
And even knowing that this sort of gameplay is not my thing, I can appreciate how incredibly deep it is for those willing to master it, I can appreciate why there are official, very serious, professional e-sports competitions for fighting games like Fighterz and not for arena games Xenoverse (those professional e-sports competions are a fact that really speaks for itself when it comes to the depth of the gameplay and cannot be denied).
Anyway, let's go back to the graphics: not much to say, it's closer to the anime than any DB game has ever been, and here's hope that Xenoverse learns from it and offers us a Xenoverse 3 with a few graphical choices borrowed from Fighterz. Now everyone has seen what it's like when it's done right and how impressive it is to watch at every second - including developers, so let's hope they think "wow, let's do something a bit similar since it looks so good".
Now for the promising content: we have what I wanted most of all when I learned about the game, a story mode. It looks really interesting, with a bit of strategy / planning between fights that keep things fresh, different versions of the events, a story set during the Super era that looks intriguing and Shueisha and Toei backing them up to tell them "Freezer would say something more like that" or "Goku wouldn't react like that". It's going to be an enjoyable story mode, I think. Unlocking new colors with the arcade mode should be interesting too, as well as finding all the possible secret scenes rendering reproductions of existing moments with those astonishing graphics and animations.
And finally, the thing that I think should inspire all games: the presentation. A real, astonishing care given to the intros, outros, to the point of even creating special ones for unique sets of opponents (special intros and Dramatic Finishes)... The shot where all members of the team stand side by side on the victory screen and the speech line is adapted to whoever is on the team. The special attacks, of course.
You know, before Fighterz, I was already impressed and extremely appealed by the Injustice games for the presentation, where they took care of having much more than the character doing a pose and saying something: you could see real, carefully designed sequences for intros / victories / supreme attacks as well as dialogues that adapted to the characters present on the scene. It was going the extra mile for the presentation.
And that's one of the most appealing things I feel for Fighterz, that sense that the developers really went the extra mile for the presentation, with all moves and scenes designed around something existing and making you go "wow, so cool!!". That attention to every little small detail, that intent not to go the easy route but really work to make the result very unique and special and not overly basic and simplisitic and more or less "copy-pasted" all over the place, this is an example to follow for other games!
So yeah, again, to recap: the inspiring amount of work on the presentation, the perfectly-mimicked and appealing graphics and the content that seems amazingly rich and interesting to discover for hours.
And since I like Xenoverse games too, I hope the "XV" games take notes to improve even further, with more anime-mimicking graphics and animations, care for the presentation beyond the "your character stands there and waits during the intro / victory screen" and more content beyond the repetitive parallel missions (with perhaps a simpler but more intriguing main story that doesn't repeat the previous episode for 3/4 of it).
Xenoverse and Xenoverse 2 were enjoyable, but not "WOW!!" like this Fighterz, so Xenoverse 3 could be impressive if they learn a few lessons on the presentation and content from Fighterz, and why shouldn't they?
I think Fighterz will not only be an amazing and very exciting game in and out of itself, but also potentially influence the Xenoverse series to improve more than it would have done without it, give that series ideas it wouldn't have had.
I think Fighterz is truly inspiring. Hence the general excitement.