Since I started watching people play the pixel art Street Fighter games, and dabbling in them myself, I have grown incredibly fond of them. A lot of the love has gone to 3rd Strike, but since playing through the Alpha 2 arcade mode and messing around in Alpha 3’s practice mode, I now seek out these games and if YouTube drops me a random recommendation of a tournament stream, I’m down to watch it. High level 3rd Strike is an absolute joy (even under the scourge of Chun and Yun) and while it is my favourite, the Alpha games are similarly fun to watch. The characters, the animations, the game play – it’s all so good. Lately though, I’ve found myself falling in love with the stages in these games.
The pixel art in the pre-2.5D era Street Fighters is something to be admired. It’s downright beautiful. And there are so many little details to notice. For this post, I am going to be focusing on the 3rd Strike stages because it’s my favourite Street Fighter games, the verticality of the stages and that I can practice on 3rd Strike. That last point is important, owing to playing these games on the 30th Anniversary Edition. All these games (the Alpha series and Street Fighter 3 series) have wonderful stages, and I would like to do other posts in the future focusing on those.
If you go into the various modes on the 30th Anniversary Edition, you get different screens. On Arcade Mode and Verus Mode, you get all of this:
All the games
On the Practice Mode screen, you get this:
Not all of the games
Having to go into Versus Mode to look at the stages is frustrating. In large part because in the 30th Anniversary Edition, versus mode does not have the option of a one-off fight against the AI. It’s for two players. I either have to hook up a second controller, or let the timer run out on the character select screen. Not a world ender, but enough of annoyance that it’s a bother. On any other fighting game I have play/am playing, I can go to versus and fight the AI in one fight. It would be nice here. Arcade mode is more of a bother because the input reading AI won’t give me a moment to myself to look at the stages. Plus, arcade mode has pre-selected stages – there is no guarantee I can get the stage I want to look at. Not the most critical complaint, but it does bug me.
Now that the moaning is out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. To fully admire the pixel art stages of 3rd Strike, a few things are needed. Certain characters must be picked, and then certain supers. For this purpose, I roll with Gouki (read: Akuma) and his Tatsu super. Other characters who work for artistic admiration are Ryu using the Shinshoryuken, and Hugo wielding his Gigas Breaker. Akuma’s Tatsu super does send him skyrocketing though and has him hanging in the air for quite a while. As cool as this super looks though, in the game it’s not that great. While it does the most damage of Gouki’s supers, it’s incredibly hard to combo into. Gouki’s Fireball super is the much superior choice. But for stage admiration, the Tatsu super reigns supreme.
Up, up and away
What can be seen on the screen is wonderful enough. However, input two quarter circle forwards and kick, suddenly whole new parts of stages can be seen. And they are glorious. So much more exceptional pixel art to be seen. Some folks worked incredibly hard to craft it, and there is a good chance it could go unnoticed for 30, 40, 50 + matches. In my experience the Alpha series doesn’t have this verticality in its stages (characters just go off screen) – still has wondrous pixel art, it’s just that there is more of it in 3rd Strike. Two examples are Dudley’s stage and Remy’s stage. Dudley’s stage is a lovingly rendered street in London. Going vertical reveals all the tall building’s stretching skywards, just as lovingly rendered. Remy’s stage already has night club full of moving parts but up top there’s a glorious moon that might never be seen.
3rd Strike also has a lot of little moving parts that are incredibly fun to spot. Chun Li’s stage is a brilliant example. There is a little sparrow that hops across the central table. To the left there is a table that can be broken – no extra damage but it does look like a neat Jackie Chan fight scene when it does give way. And to the right there is a bamboo pole with a red sheet atop it. If there is enough corner pressure first the sheet will rip in two, then the bamboo will break.
Table breaking
Red cloth and bamboo breaking in sequence
Little sparrow on the table. Also, the utensils move whenever a character hits the ground
There are a few other stages with little details like that. Gouki’s Hollow – already a favourite – has an owl on a branch that will blink intermittently. Makoto’s Dojo – the stage I go and practice on most of the time – has a persimmon tree that when someone gets knocked down near it, drops fruit. And there is a basket of swept up leaves that jostles similarly. Ibuki’s stage – incredibly chill with the music and the evening sky – has a dragonfly skimming around and when someone gets knocked down near the trees, snakes tumble down and slither off screen. It’s all so wonderful.
I wish there was a mode where I could strip away all the UI, the characters and just admire the stages as is. Honestly, they are some of the most wonderful examples of pixel art that exist, and they do deserve to be acknowledged. They are one the reasons I love to watch and play the games.
Notes and Asides:
A website that is a massive help with looking at the stages is the Fighter’s Generation. It’s an incredible website. Basically, a comprehensive reference of fighting games. Tons of character art and animation, descriptions and reviews of fighting games and a whole load of stage art. It’s a wonderful place to be. Here’s the link to the 3rd Strike Stages, all animated.
Speaking of 3rd Strike supers, one of the negative things I will say about the game is that there a whole bunch of cool supers that will never be used, simply because other supers are way better. Or some supers look cool but aren’t that good in practice. Taking Yun as an example, his other two supers are pretty cool combos. But you’d never use them over Gen Ei Jin – it’s simply too good. There are a few characters like that – Ken, Chun Li, Urien, Gouki (as mentioned above) all have cool supers, but one reigns above all others. Doesn’t hurt the game overall, but it’s still a shame some cool supers just never get seen.
Damn he’s good
One last thing. When talking about supers earlier and going vertical, I mentioned Hugo and Gigas Breaker. I find that super incredibly hard to do – it’s two full circle inputs. I have to mash it out and I often miss it. And that’s just in practice. This is a great opportunity to talk about Hayao, the legendary Hugo player from 3rd Strike. He just hits Gigas Breaker after Gigas Breaker, often instantly after a parry or just casually fitting it into a gap. It’s truly magnificent to see.
Hayao wearing a cool T-shirt. And styling against Deshiken, the god of Ken.
Hyper Light Drifter: As part of the drive to finish games I already own as opposed to constantly buying new ones, Hyper Light Drifter was a game that desperately needed a return. I only gave it an hour and a half of time the first time around before leaving in boredom/frustration/whatever excuse I made back then.
It’s a good job that second chances are a thing because Hyper Light Drifter deserved one. In fact, it’s a game that’s right up my alley. A world ripe for exploration, a lovely combat system and one of those mysterious stories that’s told through non-conventional means. One or two frustrations aside, Hyper Light Drifter is a fantastic game.
Story wise, it one of those stories where I’m not fully sure about what’s happening but I wanted to find out. More about the story, more about the world and the people that inhabit it. The main thing I was aware of throughout the story was the player character was suffering through some sort of ailment and pushed through in search of a cure or perhaps redemption. Along the way he/she meets NPC’s and the like, and this I’m in love with. Hyper Light Drifter has no dialogue and minor characters communicate with noises while major characters communicate with pictures. This contributes to the game’s effusive nature, but it inspires in a way that words struggle with. One NPC’s pictures showed an atrocity and subsequent enslavement and that got me so riled up that not only did I not die from that point onward in that particular zone, I beat the boss in a single attempt. It’s rare for a game to instil that sort of fire, and to do it without cutscenes or dialogue felt like an amazing achievement.
Speaking of zones, the game is split into four separate ones, linked together by a hub world. From the beginning of the game three zones are open to be explored right away in any order and that freedom is a nice thing to have. Plus, you get to refine combat skills before you head off to the final region, so this works on multiple levels. The game world is brought to life with some beautiful pixel art. The world is littered with the corpses and wreckages of robots and titanic beings, derelict temples and villages, truly giving the world a palpable sense of abandonment and decay, now taken over by bandits, mercenaries and ne’er do wells. Each zone feels different, ranging from mountains to crystal forests, with deserts and aquatics completing the world. As such, the zones don’t feel repetitive, each one feeling new and fresh upon entering them. Complementing this is the enemy variety. Barring one or two generic types each zone has its own foes which helps so much with world building and variety. These four zones are linked by a hub town, with shops for upgrades (detailed later) and just like the zones, this is a place that’s full of character, and some small challenges that are unlocked as the game advances.
Speaking of enemies, they must be dealt with. And Hyper Light Drifter gives the player a superlative combat system. It’s gloriously fluid and based around dashing and dodging and then attacking with a sword, complemented by a gun. At first I struggled with it, and that in part led to the long hiatus with the game. But on my return I stuck with and lo and behold, its every bit as good as people have said. When in a groove, that feeling slipping between projectiles and melee attacks, slicing enemies apart with quick, precise sword flourishes and finishing off the straggler with a well-timed gun shot is hard to beat. It’s pretty damn euphoric. A note about the guns. While you may think one could just stand aside and shoot everything, that doesn’t work. Once depleted of ammo, the gun needs to charged up by hitting things with the sword. It’s a lovely way of encouraging aggression in the combat.
Just a note on the guns. The starter is a basic pistol, but throughout the game world other guns are located. Some are rewards for beating bosses, and some are hidden in the environment. There are lasers, shot guns and other various ways of dispensing hot lead.
The combat is augmented by various abilities and upgrades that can be purchased in the hub world shops in exchange for things called gear bits, located throughout the game world. Four gear bits make up one upgrade token with can by dash upgrades, sword upgrades and more ammo for guns. Also, there is a bomb weapon that can be bought, and upgrades to health packs. The bomb does a large amount of damage in an area of effect but takes a long time to cool down, and the player character starts off with 3 health slots, upgradeable up to 5. I found myself using the dash attack and the charged sword swipe a lot. Getting the first attack allowed me to set the tone on the combat, and the timing a charged swipe to hit at the right moment just felt incredibly satisfying.
The other things to be collected are modules. Each area has 8, but only 4 are needed from each area to unlock the final boss. The bonus ones unlock doors which contain extra gear bits and some difficult challenges involving dashes and the like. I suck at these, but apparently there are some nice new outfits at the end of them.
Speaking of bosses, great combat systems normally have boss fights with which to test the combat on. The boss fights in Hyper Light Drifter are good. Not great. There’s no Ludwig here, nothing like Darkeater Midir. But what is here is fun to fight, have some cool attack patterns to learn and are designed very well, in keeping with the artwork standard on the NPC’s and other characters. There are five main bosses with some side bosses hidden amongst the game. This dude with the scythe was great fun to fight, and I enjoyed running into that dude. Although there are two fights that do something I don’t like in a boss fight. They summon common variety mooks into the fight, and no, no, don’t do that. The boss fight should be against unique enemies or a unique mechanic. If I wanted to keep fighting regular enemies, I’d just hang around outside of the boss arena fighting them.
There are some extra frustrations here. Nothing game breaking, but enough to slightly irritate. Exploring and finding things is pretty great, particularly when it gives you a platform that encourages a risky dash to get a reward. It’s less fun when you must poke every part of a wall to find a hole. In fact, there is a sense of collectable fatigue. There’s a lot of stuff to find, so much so I burned out and just went to the final boss. I can still go and find it at my own leisure, but I think I’m content with what I’ve done. And as beautiful as the artwork, sometimes it’s a little too crowded. There were times when what I assumed was a background detail was something that I could get stuck on. Ganking followed. It was frustrating. The check pointing varied between great and why. Sometimes it felt utterly right, and on other occasions it left me in dire straits. One left me with two health before a very tough gauntlet. It got a little frustrating.
Those issues aside, Hyper Light Drifter nailed what it set out to do. Which is nice.
Oh, before I forget. The soundtrack is great. Synth heavy, and very much reminds me of Blade Runner, which is always a good thing.
Nioh: Main game missions are all wrapped up and the real ending has been unlocked. As has the DLC, which I shall be embarking on next.
Reflecting on Nioh so far, I’ve been thinking about its relationship to the Souls series. Nioh is a Soulslike, but as a Soulslike it has a different focus to Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Nioh is more focused on the mechanical, technical details. I’m going to admit here that I do prefer Souls and Bloodborne for this, but if you are a purely mechanics focused video game enthusiast you’ll probably get more out of Nioh.
Souls has far more stock in level design, lore and enemy variety. Nioh aims for depth and complexity in its combat first and foremost. I will fully admit that I don’t get the most out of Nioh’s combat, mainly due to how simple I am. I’m not a great stance changer, I often forget about the skill trees, my use of magic is limited to the Sloth Talisman and my Ki pulsing is inconsistently good. When I sort through loot drops for weaponry I’m at the point where I’m simply looking for more damage and side bonuses be damned. But the games still playable, and fun regardless. Nioh has lots of systems that breed complexity while Souls and Bloodborne has simplicity leading to depth which I do prefer because as I mentioned, I’m simple. R1’s, L1’s and R2’s (and some L2’s) that can be chained in various ways and no skill trees. I dig that.
Balancing this out is Souls and Bloodborne having exemplary level design and world building. Nioh opts for missions as opposed to an interlinked world, and it works for Nioh but I do me a linked up world with strong lore and background details. This includes enemy variety and placement. In From Software’s game’s enemies are linked to areas and say, if you think of Brain Suckers that’s Upper Cathedral Ward. If you think of Snake Men, in Dark Souls I that’s Sen’s Fortress and in Dark Souls III that’s Archdragon Peak. I love that. That helps massively with world building and lore as things feel consistent, while in Nioh if I think of a Tengu or an Amrita Fiend, there’s no connection. They’re just there, just wandering around for the sake of it. I miss that feeling in Nioh.
In terms of level design, From are the masters and while I don’t think Nioh is as bad as some people say, the level design has that thoroughly okay vibe. Where it falters is memorability. Nioh has the loops and shortcuts but it also has a lot of corridors and caverns and as environments they aren’t memorable. They are easy to get lost in, they all look similar and Yokai enemies disappear when the die, so you don’t have the Souls thing, or Doom thing where a trail of corpses lets you know where you’ve already explored. If Nioh had less of those, the level design would be stronger. Though I will say the Ninja house level and the final mission with the floating castle where pretty awesome.
Getting back to Nioh’s strengths, it’s the combat. The stances each change how a weapon handles and the closest thing in a Souls game would in fact be Bloodborne with its transforming weapons. In addition, each weapon has a skill tree full of different moves ranging from melee swings to grapples. Nioh has bows and rifles, and the rifles divide even more into muskets and hand cannons. Each weapon that drops has various side bonuses, which lead to great build diversity and endless min maxing opportunities. In the hands of somebody skilled enough, there’s so much to enjoy here and experiment with.
That’s the crux of it. If you dig mechanics and min maxing, you’ll be happier than a pig in shit with Nioh. If you like combat as part of a well-built world then Dark Souls and Bloodborne will be for you. Both series are pretty great though, but each has its strengths in different places.
Dark Souls III: Speaking of From Software, it seems that as one From title slumbers another one must rise. With Bloodborne back on the back burner, Dark Souls III makes a return with the Great Club.
It has been very nice to get back to pure strength weapons. Many of my previous runs have been dexterity based, so I felt a return to the big strong poise boys was due. And by god did I forget how satisfying the big weapons are. Also, just how damn easy they make the early game. And late game. This is particularly true with the Great Club because while all major strength weapons get hyper armour and poise the Great Club (and by extension the Great Hammers in general) generate ridiculous amounts of hyper armour and poise. It’s a glorious experience smashing through a Millwood Knight. In Carthus, one R1 knocks a skeleton to bits and the second one cleans up. You’ll never get bled out in Carthus while carrying a big strong beating stick.
That’s just the R1’s. The R2 is a massive baseball swing, both charged and uncharged. Its sort of attack that if you swing it in Lothric, you’re going to hit someone in the Painted World. Mighty powerful to. I must state just how little a weapon of this power weighs. Tipping the scales at a flat 12, it doesn’t take much to carry it around. For a weapon that’s early game, doesn’t take much to two hand and does absurd damage with a heavy gem infusion, it doesn’t get much better than the Great Club.
Oh, the weapon art (War Cry) has its own multi hit R2 combo, which is lovely for smashing things and if somebody wants to try and block it, breaks guard as well. To be fair, every attack on this can snap a guard to pieces. If you have a medium shield don’t stand there blocking. Please don’t.
In addition, I just dig the ridiculousness of carrying it around. In this world of gods and their weapons smelted and crafted from rare and precious metals, here’s an ashen one just swinging around a big bit of a tree. And murdering said gods with that big bit of a tree.
PVP is a different story. You must be judicious because big swings while powerful can be dodged and leave you right open for back stabs. Incredibly open for back stabs. So just be careful and try to mix things up with R1’s and R2’s. Also, carry a secondary weapon like a heavy long sword. Helps a lot when faced with a quicker enemy. But I’ve taken my lumps and I’ve been hitting people more with the big swings, and they are satisfying. Big strong weapons. Big strong sweaty weapons are awesome.
As for the fashion, I like the look of the Tengu’s in Nioh so I’m going for that. I know Tengu’s don’t carry great big sticks, but this just a merging of the urge to carry a great big stick and to look like a giant raven. I’m happy with the coming together.
Video Games And Things I Write About Them 