Horrendous control systems

[wyo]

I'm sorry but the control system of NAM-1975 is horrendous. Completely unnatural, like jerking off with the wrong hand.

Smash TV on the Genesis could be safely deleted from existence. Why wouldn't you play the SNES version? 4>3. Arcade version is too much joystick action.

Neo Geo fighters vs Capcom. 6>4 buttons every time, come on!

Shooters with no autofire. GTFO with that torture.

Driving games with more than 2 gears. Low, high, that's it, max. 1 is usually fine, accelerate and brake.

Pressing up to jump. No.

 

[StevenK]

Trigger on top of the stick, like any old home computer joystick

 

[evil wasabi]

I'm sorry but the control system of NAM-1975 is horrendous. Completely unnatural, like jerking off with the wrong hand.

Smash TV on the Genesis could be safely deleted from existence. Why wouldn't you play the SNES version? 4>3. Arcade version is too much joystick action.

Neo Geo fighters vs Capcom. 6>4 buttons every time, come on!

Shooters with no autofire. GTFO with that torture.

Driving games with more than 2 gears. Low, high, that's it, max. 1 is usually fine, accelerate and brake.

Pressing up to jump. No.

6 button fighters, where people didn’t bother with the middle buttons until developer designed combos forced them to?

up to jump? Works in fighters. Up is just a button on a control pad. Think about Megaman, where the up button is virtually useless.

 

[SignOfGoob]

I thought this was going to be about Resident Evil.

I disagree on nearly every point you made, some of which were kinda dumb IMHO. Why would a driving game have more than two gears? I don’t know, because all cars do? And if you prefer any fighting game where jump is a button you are nuts.

 

[wyo]

Up to jump is best for fighters. Sorry, should have clarified. I was thinking of platformers.

 

[Gremlin]

Only two gears?? Just pick automatic you dumpling

 

[evil wasabi]

Up to jump is best for fighters. Sorry, should have clarified. I was thinking of platformers.

Platformers like Metal Slug?

 

[HeavyMachineGoob]

I've always felt 6 buttons for fighting games was needlessly overcomplicated and excessive. You only need 4 buttons, at most they're your high and low punch/kick. Heck, some Neo Geo fighters have fewer than 4 attacking buttons and they still work fine.

 

[evil wasabi]

I've always felt 6 buttons for fighting games was needlessly overcomplicated and excessive. You only need 4 buttons, at most they're your high and low punch/kick. Heck, some Neo Geo fighters have fewer than 4 attacking buttons and they still work fine.

Mortal Kombat 2 agrees

(miss me with that block button)

 

[SpamYouToDeath]

I'm sorry but the control system of NAM-1975 is horrendous. Completely unnatural, like jerking off with the wrong hand.

fuck you

 

[prof]

The Genesis port of Smash allows a 2 controller configuration as an option. So you can use 2 arcade sticks if you choose which is the ideal way to play the game. Incidentally, this is also an option for Robotron which is on some arcade compilation cart for the system.

That said, if using 1 standard controller, the SNES game plays much better obviously. It also looks better as well. But I had to throw that out there because it is an option, and it works pretty well if you've got the sticks.

 

[prof]

I've always felt 6 buttons for fighting games was needlessly overcomplicated and excessive. You only need 4 buttons, at most they're your high and low punch/kick. Heck, some Neo Geo fighters have fewer than 4 attacking buttons and they still work fine.

I don't disagree. Back to block is better than a dedicated button, and high-low kick/punch is a great natural set up. But there are a number of Neo fighters which use multi-button combinations beyond the standard 4 buttons. And that kind of sucks. It can even make change the way I hold the stick for certain games.

 

[HeavyMachineGoob]

I don't disagree. Back to block is better than a dedicated button, and high-low kick/punch is a great natural set up. But there are a number of Neo fighters which use multi-button combinations beyond the standard 4 buttons. And that kind of sucks. It can even make change the way I hold the stick for certain games.

For the games that have a "tap for weak attack" and "hold for strong attack", I suspect it was designed around the idea of hitting the buttons harder for stronger attacks, something common with younger arcade players. Or just the developers wishing they had 6 buttons because the market leader had 6 buttons.

I still stand by my opinion though, just because Street Fighter II was the market leader doesn't mean it did everything right. 4 button or fewer competitors play just fine.

 

[wyo]

Platformers like Metal Slug?

Yes, though I will say Metal Slug would have benefitted from a button to hold the shot direction, like Contra 3.

 

[evil wasabi]

So all platformers should be Contra 3? Idk. I don’t think MS is hurt at all by the control scheme. Simplicity is a good thing.

 

[Ajax]

What's wrong with Nam 1975? I always thought the controls felt pretty intuitive. Obviously, an input method for your character, and a separate input to aim your weapon would probably be ideal, but the way they made it work on a plain old, regular ass joystick is, to me, pretty impressive.

Metal Slug 3 is hurt by being the arcade action equivalent of a Tolstoy novel. The controls are fine though.

 

[sylvie]

Block button especially in the middle of the 'X' formation on Mortal Kombat panels. Run button is even more unnatural feeling which is a shame. I would like to play a UMK3 where double-tapping directional button activates Run, and tapping/holding back activates Block, even if it makes the game too easy.

6 action buttons in fighters is a pain in the dick, mainly because of the compatibility issues for console ports but also because its too much shit for my bimbo brain to remember

 

[evil wasabi]

I think MS3 was supposed to be a swan song. Otherwise totally agree that it was too long, and by the last level, too hard.

comparatively MS1 I can reach the 4th stage without dying, and feel I could conceivably 1cc if I wanted to put in the time.

 

[Ajax]

Yeah, that's the vibe of the game, isn't it? I think MS1 is the best one, which is a little depressing.

One thing I do agree with - all STGs should have autofire. Playing something older (Mahou Daisakusen immediately comes to mind) in its original form that doesn't have it is really tough, especially after playing the PS4 port. The original feels like a damn workout.

 

[famicommander]

In Sonic and the Secret Rings you have to grind experience in order to raise your level high enough to purchase upgrades from the game's store system to make the controls actually work.

The actual control scheme itself is pretty stupid -- Sonic runs automatically and you tilt the Wii remote (held sideways like an NES controller) to make him go left or right, tilt it backwards to stop. That's dumb enough, but when you start the game the jumping and the turning are super floaty and unresponsive. Once you've played it for a couple hours you can unlock controls that actually function (ie you buy permanent speed boosts, permanent control improvements, better jumping, etc), but are still more annoying than just letting you use the gamepad.

The game actually reviewed pretty well at the time, mostly because it came out right after Sonic '06 and wasn't nearly as horrible as that game. The formula they started in this one would eventually be refined into what we saw in Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations, but first we'd get the shitty Sonic and the Black Knight and the mediocre Sonic Unleashed as half-steps along that road.

 

[norton9478]

Space Duel

 

[SignOfGoob]

When a fighter is very focused on ground game basics, such as Street Fighter III, having six buttons makes sense. At the same time though KOF will often uses as many attacks and just have them as “command moves”, like Kyo’s DF D in 98. Those cancel instead of link though…either way, I play both games as well as Fatal Fury 1 and they all work great. Tekken got it wrong, sucks.

Mortal Kombat sucks. Not because it had a block button but because it’s gross carny trash.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

What's wrong with Nam 1975? I always thought the controls felt pretty intuitive. Obviously, an input method for your character, and a separate input to aim your weapon would probably be ideal, but the way they made it work on a plain old, regular ass joystick is, to me, pretty impressive.

Metal Slug 3 is hurt by being the arcade action equivalent of a Tolstoy novel. The controls are fine though.

Nam is perfectly fine and an upgrade on TAD Corp. shooters, Wyo is a ghey confirmed. Moving a fast cursor and a slow character at the same time is a very smart design for the genre, and from the character moving slow, it naturally follows that the roll move and invincibility frames will increase mobility and emphasize positioning and timing dodges, making it complete as a core game mechanic. I don't think having dual stick movement + aiming would be an improvement at all for the mini-sub-genre.

Also on the topic of Smash TV, even the NES port lets you use two controlers for a dual stick setup and you hold the pads like a wiimote, with left being up. It's pretty cool. The "Forgotten Worlds" strategy for the home ports of having a rotate left and rotate right buttons is incredibly substandard IMO. Caliber .50 on the genny does the same thing but thankfully you can choose the second best control scheme in the options menu: dpad moves character and aims, holding fire locks aim into place allowing you to move freely.

 

[Azathoth]

6 button fighters, where people didn’t bother with the middle buttons until developer designed combos forced them to?

I especially hated console exclusive 6-button fighters that had unintuitive button combo moves that required playing a regular control pad piano-style. There's no reason a move should be X + Z on a Genny pad, especially if the game was built from the ground up for the system.

Caliber .50 on the genny does the same thing but thankfully you can choose the second best control scheme in the options menu: dpad moves character and aims, holding fire locks aim into place allowing you to move freely.

I thought this was a good implementation too. I also thought the control scheme for Sega's Ninja Princess (aka The Ninja on SMS) was decent; one button fires whatever direction you're facing and the other button fires straight up regardless of your orientation.

 

[Atro]

I thought this was going to be about Resident Evil.

I disagree on nearly every point you made, some of which were kinda dumb IMHO. Why would a driving game have more than two gears? I don’t know, because all cars do? And if you prefer any fighting game where jump is a button you are nuts.

Well, with the forced future of EV cars, gears wont exist anymore. We'll see how driving games will go with that