What makes a particular fighting game a great game?

[Mr Bakaboy]

This is a question I have been pondering for some time now. How is a particular fighting game considered great and another shitty? Is has been proven balance, and all characters being viable does not make a great game. So how do you classify a great game?

For me I came up with categories it has to fit into to make it great.

Cool Factor Game:  This means when you first started playing it you have this feeling of this game in general is just plain cool. Maybe it's the way they look, maybe it's the way the moves look, but something about the games look makes you want to play it immediately.

Cool Factor Character: This is the same thing but more centralized. A game can look cool, but if you can't find one character that speaks to you with the way he throws out moves, then it can kill the game.

Play Control Game: This is how the game feels in general. How accessible is it to you. Can you preform what you want to preform in the game? Is there a small ceiling for learning or can you spend years playing the game and still find yourself learning something new? Most of the time from what I hear this is what makes or breaks the game.

Play Control Character: Again Same thing just more centralized. If you can't find a specific character you like play control wise, the game is going to be short lived. No matter how good the play control is in the game. You have to be able to latch on to at least 1 character.

Story and Bosses: Although the story in most fighting game is laughable at best it still needs to give you either a story that you like or bosses that are cool. If you get both, then all the better. If you get neither though it's hard to get yourself to play the game over and over again.

Those are the categories I thought of. To show examples I took 2 games that propelled me into liking the fighting games I like.

Street Fighter 2 The World Warrior: This game has many incarnations, but the original was what made me really get into fighting games in general. I was lucky to be able to play it when it first came out. The characters looked like nothing I've ever seen. Fireball projectiles, Spinning Piledrivers, Stretching Limbs this game was amazing to play and watch. I fell in love with Ryu but couldn't play him for crap. Luckily Chun Li was easy to get into and Guile was a 2nd character you could play without knowing any specials. The one thing about Street Fighter II WW was it was made to use characters without knowing specials and still have a chance at winning. Compared to how future games go that is very rare to see in fighters. Once I played for a while I learned to like it more and more as I figured out Ryu and many of the other characters. To this very day, 20-21 years later I still find myself going back to it on Supercade and getting a match or 2 in online.

King of Fighters 96 I played 95 but at the time found it to have a strict play control style with supers that some seemed next to impossible to do. When KOF 96 came out all that was thrown out the window. Now I can play a game that had many characters I found cool before but now were fun to use. The KOF style itself was already interesting to me. 3 on 3 battles were something I've never seen before and they had characters I loved from past SNK games. The new graphics seemed an improvement over 95 and really made the game feel smoother in a certain way. The music for most of the characters was amazing and it's still a soundtrack I like to listen to. The biggest thing that REALLY made me feel in love with KOF '96 was the bosses. 1st you get the boss team in Geese Howard, Wolfgang Krauser, and Mr. Big. That was cool enough, but they each get their own boss music on a floating stage that was pretty cool. After them you get Chizuru and she was fun to play. The is she coming at you or is it her shadow was nothing I've ever seen before. And if that wasn't enough you get Goenitz at the end just his looks was cool enough but the hurricane pillars out of nowhere and sheer violent moves when he did fight you at close range makes him one of the most loved SNK bosses of all time. I think this is the one fighting game I actually prefer to play through arcade mode almost more then playing someone else. That's an amazing accomplishment for a fighting game.

[Saitsuofleaves]

Two words.

Personal opinion.  That's what makes something great or not.  It's all up to you.

[desmond_kof]

Two words.

Personal opinion.  That's what makes something great or not.  It's all up to you.

Amen.

[Mr Bakaboy]

Two words.

Personal opinion.  That's what makes something great or not.  It's all up to you.

Obviously every person here has a different opinion on what games THEY think are the best. I'm not trying to come up with what games are the best, That's a rant waiting to happen.  However I do want to know what do people look at to make them say that fighting game is great. What are the qualifications? What I said? Competition? Number of Characters? Balance? What are your general qualifications?

[Saitsuofleaves]

I have no personal qualifications.  Personally I'll play anything no matter the number of characters, competition or anything.  I really have no personal conditions for greatness as it's a flawed way to look at FGs.

[Proto Cloud]

In my opinion it's community, of course personal opinion is king, but I've always noticed that the quality of the community is more often than not proportional to how good the game is. Of course, you gotta put in various variables into the equation, but it's never proven me wrong. The community is a window into what kind of game you're expecting to get. The most obvious examples are DOA and SC. They perfectly portray what kind of person would like such drivel.

As for personal criteria, it's control, fun factor, strategic elements, characters and visual design.

[solidshark]

Two words.

Personal opinion.  That's what makes something great or not.  It's all up to you.

Mostly this, put a few additional things I can't think of at the moment.

[Stone Drum]

Of course what makes a game great is personal opinion.  That is implied in the topic.  What the OP is asking is what things do you look for in a fighter, or another way of looking at it is for what reasons do you love x game and dislike y game. 

[BioBooster]

One thing I like in fgs is unique properties to chrs which adds more depth to play.

Arcsys who have done mainly non-team fighters do a great job with this in adding unique systems to chrs providing a lot to master. Almost everything they have done fits the bill - GG,BB,HNK,P4U.

MOTW was quite good in a different sense where you had chrs with dash vs hop, dong hwan w super jump, some chrs had extra SDMs etc. which made everyone unique.

It's good to see chrs with variability in gameplay outside of specials properties. That said, everything is quite standard in terms of systems for XIII, but they have done very well in providing variation there (wouldn't mind seeing a bit more though). That said, I'm happy they went standard health and variable guard meter with this game.

[Maker]

I have to say this because its something i didn't expect to happen.

I have always been a SNK fan but a casual guy in that regard. I picked up KoF XIII on a whim and played it for a week or so and just got burnt out... input hell etc:.

So here i am now close to July 4th holidays taking the time to post on Dream Cancel a site i didn't know about till a few days ago. And already have found helpful posters, organized forums and amazing links and help that i didn't know existed. Why?

I realized im not challenged in my life anymore. Gaming was always my ball breaker, i like the games to be difficult, it brings satisfaction to everyone that enjoys a hard fight when you win or loose and can say you enjoyed it because of how hard it was to get there.

KoF XIII and to a lesser extent Gears of War 3 have been the only games to FORCE me to change what i do, how i think and how dedicated i am in a very long time. I never expected to latch on to this game because of the input timing and barrier as i am only passable at Blazblue. But coming back and finding that Duo Lon is very much a favorite followed pretty close by Terry and now King of all characters. I've got a nice feel for hte game and it has again FORCED me to be hard on myself again. I needed that hard kick in the groin to get motivated to do something.

[kessy]

Personal opinion is the main thing, for example tank trouble is the game I'll enjoy always.