Soul Calibur VS. Dead or Alive

[Kei]

Me and Jazzy have been having a little debate over which fighting game series is superior... Soul Calibur or Dead or Alive. I say SC, he says DOA. Ergo, I decided to make a poll to see what the people here at Haruhi think. Vote away!

[Kagami]

Neither. Street Fighter 4 is the buzz, not DOA or this soul calibur crap...

...actually no. I hate fighting games, and after playing all versions and whatnot, SF4 takes the cake for the worst fighting game ever. If that is possible.

[Yuuki]

soul calibur...

[Joel]

Tekken is easily the best fighting game. I don't think much to either SC or DOA. Out of the two I'd say SC but neither are very balanced. SC is basically, whoever picks the guy with the longer sword wins. It doesn't work. DOA just lost my interest when I played as a girl. It was just rediculous really. concerning Street Fighter, it's a very good game. Capcom really haven't moved on from SF2 though. Ever since that every game's been living in the shadow of it. SF4 is just SF2 in 3D essentially. But yeah, my favourite fighting game's Tekken.

[Taiga]

Actually... for the sake of the arguement this should just be SC II vs DOA Ultimate 2
Both being the pinacle of each series balancing-wise.

DOA 2 also has far superior graphics to DOA 3 as it was remade a while after 3 was released. Second DOA game made for xbox. Original 1+2 were arcade only.

[Kei]

SC is basically, whoever picks the guy with the longer sword wins. It doesn't work.

Wut? It's nothing like that. If power is based on sword length, then why can Taki consistently beat Siegfried, or Setsuna beat Astaroth?

[Joel]

SC is basically, whoever picks the guy with the longer sword wins. It doesn't work.

Wut? It's nothing like that. If power is based on sword length, then why can Taki consistently beat Siegfried, or Setsuna beat Astaroth?

That isn't how it is for me. I can only win if I pick someone like Siegfried. It depends how you play it really. I couldn't get to grips with the controls at all (I like my block as back rather than a face button) so generally used the length of the sword as a way of blocking. Hit them before they can get close enough and such. There are plenty of other problems I have with it as well though (jumping and crouching being one...). I'm just going by my very short and unskilled experience with the game.

[Stilts]

SC is basically, whoever picks the guy with the longer sword wins. It doesn't work.

Wut? It's nothing like that. If power is based on sword length, then why can Taki consistently beat Siegfried, or Setsuna beat Astaroth?

That isn't how it is for me. I can only win if I pick someone like Siegfried. It depends how you play it really. I couldn't get to grips with the controls at all (I like my block as back rather than a face button) so generally used the length of the sword as a way of blocking. Hit them before they can get close enough and such. There are plenty of other problems I have with it as well though (jumping and crouching being one...). I'm just going by my very short and unskilled experience with the game.

See, I used to play Talim in Soul Calibur II. She had the shortest reach in the game (unless you count Heihachi, I guess, but he was only in the PS2 version), but I would routinely beat the big, lumbering dudes like Astaroth and Nightmare. Why? A combination of two defensive maneuvers: guard impacting and Talim's special dodge moves.

The problem with the guys who have big swords is that their attacks are REALLY easy to guard impact. Whereas characters like Talim hit really fast once they get within range, making it difficult for the opponent to guard impact you back. Also, SCII Talim has useful position moves that, while they don't hit anything, allow me to quickly spin around an opponent to dodge a vertical attack and immediately counter-attack, backflip away to give myself some space if I'm in danger, or frontflip forward to close the gap. The group of friends I would play SCII with would use Seong Mina, Mitsurugi, Taki, Ivy, Raphael and Nightmare (I was the only one who used Talim), and it was pretty much anyone's guess who would win in any given match. That said, SCIII had some serious balance issues, and SCIV only made those worse. Choosing Talim in SCIV is kinda like getting ready for battle by breaking your own kneecaps.

I'll admit that the only DOA I've played is DOA 4 (I don't really know which games DOA fans consider "the best"), but I have spent quite a few hours with it. It seemed like the safest and easiest way of defeating your opponent was by using counters, which meant that any character without a movelist that had a decent mixup of low, medium, and high hits would be at a disadvantage. Maybe someone who's more knowledgeable about the system could explain DOA balance theory.

[Taiga]

Also a Talim guy here.

I'll admit that the only DOA I've played is DOA 4 (I don't really know which games DOA fans consider "the best"), but I have spent quite a few hours with it. It seemed like the safest and easiest way of defeating your opponent was by using counters, which meant that any character without a movelist that had a decent mixup of low, medium, and high hits would be at a disadvantage. Maybe someone who's more knowledgeable about the system could explain DOA balance theory.

As I said previous, DOA 2 is by far the most balanced. When I played 4 I hated it for quite a while, after so long of playing 2. I also disliked 3.

each characters has 6 series's of attacks. high, middle and low, each then in kicks and hand strikes. That's fairly simple. Faster characters do less damage than slower characters. The countering is all the same speed and works on the six types of basic attack positions, but they'll also catch most specials.

The special attacks and combos are. more or less. constant, damagewise, for each character.

For instance Kasumi has a special attach where she jumps up and stamps repeatedly on the opponent's head. This does the same amount of damage as The purple chick (who's name escapes me)'s flying corkscrew kick.

This all only really varies for those with more robust styles (Helena has a low stance, Hayabusa a handstand stance and The purple chick a backwards stance). The more technical attacks are more interesting in looks more than anything else.

The slower characters also have a nore powerful downward strike for downed opponents.

The real fun of DOA, however, is it's multi-tiered stages which will change the tide of a battle in a heartbeat. they also can't KO you, so a comeback is always a possibility. Most of the arenas are infinite in the tiers, also. Dead Or Alive 3 had the most impressive arenas for this. DRops in 4 and 2 just were's as cool.

[Kagami]

bloody hell...this has got to be one of the most seriously taken threads in this site...everyone has dedicated so much effort into discussing what they like about fighting games, and I guess you gotta respect that.

But why like fighting games? Unless you have a good friend sitting next to you the games have zero plot and highly repetitive. Also, after learning the combo moves, said friend usually just button mashes and great, K.O in his favour. That is good for about 5 minutes, certainly not hours of dedicated gameplay.

Some people play on the arcades, with the joysticks and whatnot, and I can see that its a status thing to be really good at tekken such that you can beat all your challengers etc, but unless you have a joystick unit thing at home then the controls are completely different, and there goes your $1

On the other hand, I will happily spend many hours playing Gran Turismo, which also is pretty repetitive...

[AzgalathQ]

I like Soul Calibur best. (I'm the Mitsurugi player Stilts was talking about.) As with all fighting games, when you get two people who are equally good at the game... you get an epic match.

I'd like to say, though, that I also like Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the first two Street Fighter games, and Dragonball Z: Budokai 3. I would pay to play in an arcade, but I haven't found any arcades in my area with any good fighting games. I would really like to find some place to play MvC2... maybe I should just get an Xbox 360 or a PS3 so I can download it and play it online... Then again, you kinda need money for that...

[lazysunside]

i'm a Raphael guy. And the best in my whole school. (the second best is a Taiwanese guy who play Taki). I say Soul calibur is the best. It is true that the power is base on the weapon but not because of how large and how powerful it is, as long the wepaon can damage the user, he or she would have been dead cuz of wounds.

[Taiga]

Have any of you lot even PLAYED DOA? =|

[Joel]

Have any of you lot even PLAYED DOA? =|

Yes... I played the first one for Playstation. Was pretty fun. Every character seemed to play exactly the same though... And the whole bouncy boobs thing was kinda creepy. They somehow reached their legs at points. It was rediculous.

[Taiga]

Then you don't count D:

The only one I'd consider good is DOA Ultimate 2

Which I'd say trumps every other fighting game of that gen.

DOA 4 was rather a letdown, sadly.

[Kei]

If DOA has only produced one good game, you can't really tout the merits of the series. Soul Calibur, on the other hand, has consistently produced excellent games ever since Soul Calibur II. Despite the balance issues of the later games, they were still fun and graphically amazing... Plus SCIV let you play as Yoda and Darth Vader.

[Taiga]

Actually... I've never talked of the series in general. Only ever of that one game.

I'd have created a DOA Ultimate 2 vs (insert whatever the latest SC was before this console gen)

[Kei]

SC would have still won.

[Kagami]

you'd of thought all darth vader would of needed to do for a K.O was a big force push or just stab them with the lightsaber...but noooooo its gotta be balanced

[Taiga]

Ryoko...

DOA Ultimate 2 is also live enabled and the XBOX is backwards compatible for it. We can play vs if you get live sorted =p

[lazysunside]

Darth and Yoda in the game is for Americans, i don't wanna see them in my game, their appearance in the game make it look bad.

[Joel]

Darth and Yoda in the game is for Americans, i don't wanna see them in my game, their appearance in the game make it look bad.

Thier appearence in the game was actually the only saving grace it had. If it wasn't for them it would have easily just been thrown on the average fighters pile with KOF and such others. I must say Yoda was broken though. You couldn't throw him and about half the other character's attacks didn't work on him. They did save the game though and generate at least half its sales...