I saw your rant about Strive and I hate to say, there are times that I feel like I'm in the same boat. I still absolutely love GG, especially the effect that it seems to have had on the FG community as of recent years by inspiring developers into experimenting more on what can be done to evolve the genre. That being said, Ishiwatari jumped the gun by stripping GG into its basic components just because he was afraid of frightening off the casual gamers.
If there's one thing I've learned it's this: Casual gamers will ALWAYS be casual. There is no changing that facet of gaming.
If you aren't good at a specific game or game genre, unless you decide to change your mind and put in the effort, you never will.
Fighting Games aren't a Religion... despite what others will tell you... but they are something that you practice by playing.
I didn't get in to GG because it was complex... I got in to GG because it had something in it FOR me to enjoy. The music, the technology, the world building, the characters...
Even if a game is complicated, and hard to learn... one thing I've learned after all the years of playing these games is... you don't NEED to learn everything all at once. There's no rushing this.
One day; five minutes pushing buttons learning a special move or a combo... another day; watching sprite animations and observing the timing of some moves.
All it really boils down to is five minutes of DOING SOMETHING. Something fun, something random...
And that isn't exclusive to fighting games, either... that's true of many games out there.
Game developers often have this paranoid mindset that they absolutely have to SELL their product and PUSH it out... but if your product is already SELLING... why change what's GOOD?
What makes a game like Guilty Gear better than Street Fighter?
For me... it wasn't the community... it was the developers.
The developers had fresh ideas... they were willing to take a risk and experiment with crazy concepts... they did new stuff ALL the TIME.
Guilty Gear Isuka is still ahead of its time with a ton of ideas it did...
Same could ALSO be said of Guilty Gear 2 Overture... despite what everyone else will say.
Others might say Street Fighter EX 3 was the best SF game in history... or Fighting EX Layer... or whatever else out there you obsess over.
Games like BlazBlue, Melty Blood, Arcana Heart, Skullgirls, Umineko, even Under Night In-Birth... they experiment with a TON of fresh ideas and concepts and bring out so much freedom that it's almost overwhelming.
But nonetheless... it is FREEDOM.
When players are given the freedom to express themselves while they play a game... it changes the entire pace of a battle.
It isn't just about Rock, Paper, or Scissors... it's about Earth, Ice, Fire, Wind, Lighting, Water, Ki... or whatever other elements you can think of on the fly.
"But this character plays exactly like THAT character... it's not new" I hear someone say in the back.
Maybe it's not NEW... but they have their own twists... and players will play the characters they enjoy on their own terms...
Even if a game has so much freedom that the balance is broken... I still think the game is still fun.
Balance is only significant when players insist on competing with RULES... but if there are no rules... there's more freedom.
But, even if a game has the options to be unbalanced... just as you have options to toggle boss characters "on" and "off".... you have the options to play in a "balanced" or "unbalanced" environment.
And that's REALLY what it ALL boils down to: OPTIONS.
Just as Kum Haehyun is a TUNER and can change the very nature of reality with the power of Tuning... Options give the player FREEDOM to CHOOSE...
I said it before, I'll say it AGAIN: the more Options Guilty Gear has... the MORE FUN IT WILL BE.
And, if you have plans on making your own fighting game... you best take this advice to heart as well!
