The Ben Ruiz Article Dump

[Golem]

After browsing his beat 'em up tag and reading most of the 29 articles within, here's what's salient. I also checked out some of his , and while they are neat, they don't apply much to what we're discussing.

History of beat em ups. He gives a basic classification of each era, but nothing concrete to go on from what I can tell. Shouty noted that TMNT was missing, and Fox asked why Dynasty Warriors wasn't on here if Devil May Cry was.
http://aztez.com/blog/2012/08/23/the-hi ... at-em-ups/

Here's something Shin Nekketsu Kouha doesn't have: mash flow. That is to say, pressing buttons in sequence to string along combos.
http://aztez.com/blog/2011/01/29/the-mash-flow/

Evaluating beat 'em ups. This has more to do with latter-day games in the ilk of Devil May Cry.
http://aztez.com/blog/2010/12/03/evalua ... at-em-ups/

Beat 'em up sheet music. I haven't read this yet, but it looks promising.
http://aztez.com/blog/2011/03/19/beat-e ... eet-music/

Skill divisions of players. Scrappers are button mashers, warriors learn basic means of expression, masters own an engine. I am definitely a scrapper (maybe a warrior if we're talking Sonic Heroes).
http://aztez.com/blog/2012/07/31/the-sk ... p-players/

Combat accessibility fork. The role of cancels in making a game accessible. Shin Nekketsu Kouha really only has one cancel--from a guard into a guard attack--right?
http://aztez.com/blog/2012/12/13/a-comb ... lity-fork/

Links to great articles about combat. I haven't read any of these so far.
http://aztez.com/blog/2012/12/26/links- ... re-combat/

Mechanic analysis in video form. Haven't watched these yet.
http://aztez.com/blog/2012/12/26/mechan ... ideo-form/

[Yourself]

I respect his attempt at a timeline but what's there isn't even a great synthesis. I have no idea why for instance Final Fight 3, SoR2, and Tower of Doom are in the First Age but AvP and Maximum Carnage are in the Second Age. It seems kinda like he was trying to divide based on when stuff like combo counters and complex special inputs became commonplace, but he didn't actually divide at that point. I just can't get a lot of information from what I'm looking at.

I don't super agree with everything he says about "mash flow". For instance, he says of super-traditional style flow "it is very important to note there was no interplay between the two basic flows, it just seemed like it because you could start one combo in the middle of the other." While the sum damage output and time taken for kick-kick-punch and punch-kick-kick may be the same, a combo's interplay is not expressly determined by sum qualities. In Double Dragon it is usually *better* to attack an enemy using punch-kick-kick because the punch is a quicker lead and the kicks leave the enemy stunned and ready for a grab. Does that not qualify as a combo?

Also, why do you say SNK doesn't have mash flow? His definition of mash flow is as a category. It clearly has Super-Traditional mash flow. Did you read that differently than I did?

To continue being a gigantic dick, his history isn't great. There are a lot more than two games that have implemented a super-flexible mash flow (though at least he did qualify with a "that I know of"). Sengoku 3, Lament of Innocence and No More Heroes just off the top of my head.

All of this writing is about combos, which are only one approach to (and one aspect of) combat. Not that there's anything indicating to the contrary. Just that it's an approach that doesn't work at all for a game like SNK.

[Golem]

I just meant the mash flow comment as tongue-in-cheek, since seeing a combo through to its end can be hard in Shin Nekketsu Kouha. Literally speaking, it would be inaccurate to say the game doesn't have mash flow.

Agreed that it doesn't have much to do with how to play Shin Nekketsu Kouha in specific, but it was interesting to read some well-articulated stuff about what one guy thinks beat-em-ups became. His combat analysis is worthwhile regardless. I also think some principles might be abstracted and applied to our game here, but I'm not super hopeful on that front.