№ 31: Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (1996, Capcom) — Arcade Apocalypse Ochimonogatari
Channel: bedsores
Date: 2023-08-31

lys has friends! really! honest! plus: incorrect assumptions about basic meta, envisioning italian ryu, and abridged commentated sets of SPF over fightcade! streamed 8/23/23

character-unique drop tables are a failed experiment. when a fighting game player has many possible basic choice flavors moment to moment - punch, kick, grab, block, jump, run, weak, strong - each choice gains a *grain* based on the chosen character. thus a player's entire 'grain of play' erupts dynamically in a conversation with their character. but in the ultra-simplified milieu of puzzle games, the player has so few basic choice flavors - stack a block, or don't - that the player develops an entire grain of play arises from their intense, obsessive iteration on how to make that single basic choice. players don't *need* a drop table to make this magic happen. and as it happens, it's hard to design balanced and distinct drop tables for vs puzzle games. the result is a one-dimensional tier list of which are good and which are bad, with little room for playstyle to affect the results except ath the highest levels of sophistication. maybe i need to play the rebalance hack better to judge this, but as it stands, i think the drop tables are the silliest and most unnecessary part of SPF2T. here's the kicker: *even just different music, block textures, and voice lines would be enough to make people choose a favorite character!* ask any mario maker player.

SPF2T makes a subtle, fascinating design design: the large power gems themselves. it is necessary for a color-matching stacker to have a chaining method that looks exciting, and SPF2T certainly adds the game-slowing glass-breaking effect while the chain is happening. but the power gems are stored power pre-combo which nevertheless take over the board aesthetically. it feels great to make a single big block, smooth and unsullied, that will be the genesis of a later attack. in other words, SPF2T pushes the aesthetic beauty of the chain backwards in time to before you even launch it. it fits a basic human instinct to find and make patterns, so that brain can go "mm yes good."

i'm glad we got fightcade working for this game! i'm hoping the series will continue to include vs play with real people, as time and popularity of game allow. it cemented the thrill in me. i do however dislike the drop table focus, as i do on the slowness of play resultant from catalyst pieces being necesssary to sieze moments, and only one piece preview to see them coming. it limits the strategic flow of the game, although i could see a stochastic method that assumes any number of pieces being possible. ah well. 8.5/10, really good

art of me by Minasheep! (https://twitter.com/lammyheaven, https://twitch.tv/minasheep) next up is № 32: Calcune (1996, Yuvo). i hope you'll join us!