Rhythm Fighting Game
This post is really more a spitball of ideas I’ve had for a dream fighting game for years now. But basically…
Fighting to the Beat
There’s a really good video essay about Jackie Chan that talked about how his fights have a certain rhythm to them. How each hit happens on a specific beat, and each hit creates a sort of melody. As someone who’s also been obsessed with martial arts and fighting technique lately, I really like that idea.
I would love to have a fighting game where you are given an incentivize to time your hits to the background music! Imagine a game where you could do combos and high-stake fights like in those martial arts movies! There could be different fighters and stages for different genres of music, like:
Hip-Hop, Rock & Roll, Phonk, Bebop, Rap, etc, etc
You could have it so everytime you perform 2 or more hits to the beat in the background, the more power the hit has, or the less lag behind a move, giving you more of an opportunity to perform a move on the next beat. Then, the music could get faster and faster, until you’d need TAS-level inputs to keep a combo going!
Of course, there’d also be a chance for the other player to counter the attack by dodging or blocking to the beat also. It’s a very complex concept, but I feel that, if done well, could be incredibly addicting and fun to pull off!
There could be moves or actions that you need to do inputs for on specific beats too… that’d be a great way to make the player feel truly in control. It could be a really good balance between the intuitiveness of Smash Bros. and the combos of Street Fighter and Soul Caliber!!
Community Mods
A great part about a game like this would be that rhythm games like DDR have extensive histories of mods. It could be really easy for a community of modders to add their own stages/songs to the game, and you could suddenly have your characters fighting to your favorite song. Having characters fight to Tequila would be hilarious
Character Stories
In an interview about Super Smash Bros. Melee, Masahiro Sakurai (the director and creator of Smash Bros. and Kirby) talked about how he went about designing the characters Marth and Roy, the two swordsmen characters. He talked about how, since Marth was the more experienced fighter, he wanted Marth to be elegant and quick. Meanwhile, Roy, the less experienced fighter, would be a bit more brutish but fiery and powerful. Refined and quick versus unrefined but powerful…
Combining this with how minimal a lot of single-player modes in fighting games are usually lack-luster, I feel like this is a great opportunity. What if you could unlock different versions of characters through the story mode? All characters at the start of the game are in their ‘novice’ state, but still perfectly usable! However, the more of the story-mode you play, the more refined and different the characters could get in terms of movesets.
I don’t know, this is a pretty abstract idea. But I just love the idea of getting to see different ‘flavors’ of your characters in an actually fun single-player mode. The story could be interweaving between the entire cast, and there’d be all sorts of endings!
Minigames
Another benefit to having rhythm play such a huge role in a fighting game? Minigame ideas are right there!
1) A reaction-timing training game akin to Rhythm Fever’s Karate Man minigame
2) Challenge mode, where you can only do hits or attacks on certain beats to a song
3) A ‘battle of the bands’ mode where characters fight purely through band rivalries, that’d be really fun for some 4-player action
4) Like the beat on time challenge, but for certain buttons/combos
5) The Whitney Houston challenge as a game
6) Reaction test, just see if you can win against the opponent by pressing a button first
That’s just a few simple ones, but you could probably think of several more
Customization
This one’s simple, I want the ability to map controller inputs and to have the frame buffer be customizable too. The larger your frame buffer, the more gracious for fighting, but will also leave you unable to continue combos that get to certain low frame-windows!
Final Thoughts
I just wanted to write a post about an idea that’s been in my heart for years. Who knows? Maybe some day it’ll come true, or the right people will see this post and think “i’d love to help make this!” Who knows where life leads you?
I’ve also been very focused on my fitness and health lately, just this morning I was able to do 10 pull ups! I feel myself getting stronger again, and that feels great. Also, even though it’s only been a week, I’ve already completely finished the original DragonBall manga!! It turns out I’m a huge manga fan, which makes sense when I think about how obsessed with Calvin and Hobbes I was as a kid. It’s basically the same thing, but with cooler pictures and panels… I’m surprised with how long it’s taken me to get into it.
Now I’m reading Vagabond, and have also been studying Buddhism lately. Vagabond is… truly something else, if you haven’t read it yet.
That’s all for today, until next time!
“Invincible… it’s merely a word. To be ‘invincible.’ The more you think about it… the more you squint your eyes in desperation to see… the more obscured the answer becomes. If something’s too obscure to see… the try closing your eyes. Well…? Do you see how infinite you are?” Takehiko Inoue