Opinion: Why Fighting Games are Simple, Actually

November 25, 2024 - Published

Fighting games are very well-known for being some of the most complicated games on the market. However, with my time conceptualizing and creating DracoFighter, there was one big thought on my mind: fighting games are not only simpler than people think, they are the MOST simple PvP genre. After finishing and publishing the game just a few years ago, have my thoughts on the subject changed?

#1: Why Fighting Games are Complicated

OK, so let's not lie to ourselves here. The indisputable truth is that most fighting games that exist right now on the market are unbelievably difficult and complicated. There has been a general trend of simplifying mechanics, but that has only meant simplifying something that's already been incredibly complicated. 

Tekken 8, a game that made many inputs much easier for beginners, still has characters that have 100-200 attacks in their command list, which all have unique offensive and defensive properties that can essentially be used at any moment of the game. Street Fighter 6, despite being made easier for beginners through options like the Modern input system, still has 2 meters, Drive Rush, a parry system, several types of attack cancels (Special, Super, Drive), and character-specific mechanics that need to be learned individually whether you are playing as them or against them.

Maybe it sounds like I'm cherry-picking, sure, but fighting games require a level of homework that most people aren't prepared for. I have fought actual people that will lose an entire round to me spamming grab in SF6 just because they were never told how to actually counter it -- the counter is easy, sure, but it's still one knowledge check in a sea of other knowledge checks. 

Even if you know pressing grab beats other grabs, do they beat command grabs? How can you tell a command grab is different from a normal grab? Even if you know you can jump over command grabs, how do you break out of aerial grabs? Can you get grab someone during hitstun? Which options are countered by grabs? Can grab go through attacks? These are all questions that a beginner has to learn before they can fully participate in the game, and it will take hours for a mechanic that is, relatively speaking, VERY simple for fighting games. This isn't even getting into subjects like how players who haven't practiced combos are at a distinct disadvantage, or how more obscure mechanics like projectile-immune attacks exist with no visual indicators.

So, what do I mean fighting games are simple?

#2: Why Fighting Games are Fun

If you ask 10 different fighting game players why they find fighting games fun, you'll probably get 10 slightly different answers. However, if you asked 10 different fighting game players if they find it more fun to fight a CPU or a human being, I would bet that the large majority would choose the human being. Why is this? It's because fundamentally, fighting games are about outplaying a human opponent.

You could make a CPU as difficult or advanced as you want, but it will never be as interesting, because you are not outplaying a human opponent. Even though fighting games have all these cool bells and whistles like combos, movement systems, unique mechanics, etc., the endgoal for all of these mechanics, the thing that makes them good or bad in a fighting game is whether it makes it more interesting to play against a human opponent.

I enjoy playing fighting games because I like to get into people's heads. It's fun to play against people you don't know, and to try to figure out their gameplan while they try to figure out yours. It's fun to see both of your strategies evolve in real-time, and to correctly predict your opponent predicting you. Even if fighting game players say their enjoyment comes from the combos, game-feel, and creating things like character set-play, all of these things would become stale if there wasn't a human opponent on the other end that was adapting and changing their strategies. Instead of playing mindgames with an opponent, it just becomes figuring out a solution to a problem, like deciding which piece fits in the square hole. 

If a fighting game made a really really cool, complicated, expressive combo system, but there's no "outplaying," then they didn't make a good fighting game, they just made a good beat-em-up. If a fighting game made the most sick-looking movement options where they could be chained together freely and intuitively, but they didn't create interesting interactions with the opponent, then they didn't make a good fighting game, they just made a good platformer.

Why do I mention this? Because, fundamentally, all the complexity in fighting games aren't essential to the genre. They're icing on the cake, sauce for the chicken nuggets. They add flavor, and they're great, but ultimately they're not necessary. You can have a fighting game without combos, without complicated mechanics, and it'd still be a fighting game -- with the potential of being a good fighting game, too.

#3: Why Fighting Games are Simple

Even though most fighting games on the market are incredibly complicated, not all of them are.

Nidhogg is a fighting game with 1 character that has less than 10 moves. Tough Love Arena doesn't have a jump button, Nair only has one attack, and Divekick doesn't even let you walk! While these have varying amounts of fame, they've all been very well-received, and they're all undeniably fighting games. They'll probably never hit mainstream because they're not "normal" fighting games, but they prove that fighting games don't need to be complicated.

While they might not be the most simple PvP genre out of all video game genres, I would say the fundamental concept of fighting games is certainly up there. MOBAs fundamentally require a level of complexity between the map and characters to be engaging. Card games need a level of fluency for deck-building and a large number of mechanics to be interesting. FPS games require a level of familiarity with 3D controls that a surprising number of people are not actually practiced in, and a level of precision that can discourage new players (I stopped playing Valorant because everyone could headshot me week 1!). 

However, the only thing fighting games need to be interesting and fun is a single character and a single attack, because it is the real-life people piloting the characters that makes things interesting, using our built-in knowledge of the real world. And I think that's beautiful!

As much as I try not to use my own game for examples to prove a point (it's too obscure and introduces bias), DracoFighter really has solidified my own opinions on simplicity. I've given DracoFighter to my little cousins, literal children who had never played a traditional fighting game before, and from their gameplay I could see that they intuitively understood and developed concepts like managing space, creating timing mixups, and more -- things that people will make 20min guides on Youtube for! I do hope to see more fighting games lower the barrier of entry, because as it is right now, fighting games take waaay too long before you get to the actual fun part, in my opinion.

• Vecderg