I was chatting with some bros on Facebook about the upcoming PC version of Killer Instinct that was announced at E3, and naturally whenever the topic of Killer Instinct arises, you have to talk about combos, and of course c-c-c-combo breakers.
I made a remark about how the reboot should allow for combo hit counter to exceed the three digit mark, as in the old Killer Instinct, the combo hit counter topped out at 99, regardless of how many hits you registered afterward. I was quickly shown a video clip of the 2013 version of Killer Instinct that I wasn’t even aware even existed, and how not only has the combo hit counter exceeded the three digit mark, it’s surpassed the four digit mark. The video is over 24 minutes long, and yep, the player in the video executes a combo that is 2,603 hits.
Two thousand, six hundred, and three hits.
Okay, not only is this fucking absurd, it’s fucking stupid. Combos are fucking stupid, and are completely grossly out of hand, and out of control in games.
I mean seriously, think about it; yes, it’s a video game, and yes there’s a degree of suspended belief we’re supposed to consider, but hitting an opponent over 2,000 times in succession, over the span of over 20 minutes? Uh yeah, I’d sure hope they’re out for the count after that much effort. But in that regard, so is the victor, after spending the last twenty minutes concentrating on repeating the same sequence of button presses for twenty fucking minutes.
I remember when the idea of combos were more or less discovered by accident, from players that exploited the Street Fighter programming to where you could chain together particular hits with special moves, to where the opponent couldn’t counter in between. And why wouldn’t they want to use such tactics; given the fact that two people pay money to play the game, nobody wants to lose to have to pay more money, they want to win, and ride their original token/quarter(s) as long as they can.
When it came to combos back then, Guile’s Four Fierce was pretty much the ultimate combo. If pulled off, it was a guaranteed dizzy, and executing it again would guarantee end the round, but you wouldn’t even get to the Sonic Boom part, because the damage values were so absurdly high back then, the round would already be over.
The point is, it was four hits, and it basically won you a fight, if you could hit it. Eventually in later Street Fighters, damage values dropped, and they introduced the first-ever hit counter. However, even then, a 4-5 hit combo was still the norm.
Eventually, Killer Instinct came out in 1994 and not only jumped the shark as far as combo hit counting was concerned, it took Fonzi, the shark, and the entire cast of Happy Days, put them all into a time capsule, and threw it counter clockwise, so that it could perpetually repeat in time all the times it jumped the shark. Combos that ranged from like nine hits to over 99 hits became the norm, and it basically became a game where it was that you knew how to execute combos of repeated monotonous button presses, or you wasted your money.
Unfortunately, combo hit counting became a cool thing, and it wasn’t long before the Mortal Kombat franchise hopped aboard, and introduced a combo system in MK3 that has continued to be the norm even to present time. Gone was repeating the sequence of Scorpion’s spear, uppercut, slide kick to easy victories, and now having to hit a guy 38 times in order to tick them down to low enough health to fatality them.
Naturally, the Street Fighter franchise joined the fray, and I still remember that Ken’s Shinryuken could register 16-18 hits if landed deep enough into the opponent’s sprite. Somehow, Ken’s back, trapezius, hamstring, triceps, calf and ankle all were allowed to register hits in the logistics of such a move landing that many hits.
Ultimately, I don’t really understand the fascination with hits throughout the evolution of fighting games. Ideally, my goal is simply to win by any means necessary, and at least back in the olden days of SFII, the more fierce punches and roundhouse kicks I landed, the quicker the opponent went down. I had no shame in forcing opponents to block a light punch in order to set them up for a cheap throw, as long as I won.
Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a fighting game that took into consideration that in a real-life fight, sometimes all it takes is a single, well-landed punch or kick, to end it? Like, the perfect storm of circumstances, positioning and strike thrown, knocks one person completely the fuck out instantaneously? I mean, I’d find that more realistic than when developers try to improve character designs and graphics to make them look more “real.”
But seriously, combos are so out of hand that they’re completely stupid now. How about some real innovation in gaming for the future?
