I was reading some reviews on whatever the latest DBZ game is, and it's noted that this game has 160 characters and that earthlings have no chance to beat any alien guys even before factoring in character moves and whatnot. This got me thinking. A lot of fighters are going to the route of the RPG anyway, like Soul Calibur, to increase longevity. Well if you can level up your character obviously the game isn't balanced, but then it's not like anyone really believes your 60 characters in MvC2 or 100 characters (counting all the no names guys in the extra modes) in Soul Calibur can all be balanced. So why not start with a fighting game that is NOT balanced? Even Street Fighter has characters like Shin Akuma who is obviously not remotely balanced. In Battle Arena Toshinden, Sho has a recovery time so fast that he can roll out of what would normally be a guaranteed combo for anyone else.
Of course the game probably needs some context for character difference. If you take street fighter it makes sense the 4 boss characters should have superior stats. So let's say you're making Naruto the fighting game. Itachi should be a lot stronger than say, Naruto, who in term should be a lot stronger than some scrub ninja that has 10 seconds of airtime. For versus mode you could just have some builtin things to handicap everyone equally. Once you accept that characters are not supposed to be equal, then you can throw in those leveling up mechanisms that seems to find its way on most fighting games too for added longevity. Of course if you don't care about that you can just do the versus mode, but there seems to be a growing focus on how to drag out the single player mode longer, so why not?
Of course the game probably needs some context for character difference. If you take street fighter it makes sense the 4 boss characters should have superior stats. So let's say you're making Naruto the fighting game. Itachi should be a lot stronger than say, Naruto, who in term should be a lot stronger than some scrub ninja that has 10 seconds of airtime. For versus mode you could just have some builtin things to handicap everyone equally. Once you accept that characters are not supposed to be equal, then you can throw in those leveling up mechanisms that seems to find its way on most fighting games too for added longevity. Of course if you don't care about that you can just do the versus mode, but there seems to be a growing focus on how to drag out the single player mode longer, so why not?
