Light & Heavy Attacks in Action Games

[vanguard333]

18 hours ago, Magical CC said:

Heavy attacks are definitely realistic in hand to hand combat. In martial arts like Muay Thai, Karate, boxing or taekwondo, a light jab or teep can only do so much. Without proper power behind the hits, you can hardly bring down your opponent. That is the whole point of light&heavy and combo systems in fighting games. 

True. Though most games in which I've seen it aren't using hand-to-hand combat, but armed combat. 

 

[Zera]

http://critical-gaming.com/blog/2011/1/11/appraising-the-art-of-combat-pt1.html

[vanguard333]

On ‎2018‎-‎09‎-‎11 at 11:00 PM, Hawkwing said:

Oh wow. I have not played an action game in some time! I've forgotten how ridiculous those look now.

Seriously, thought, what are they doing when they just stand there, and then swing? Charging up attacks doesn't work like that in real life, and the only excuse I can think of where that would make sense is if magic was involved, but it usually isn't.

I have no clue. At least in Ocarina of Time, Link holding spin attack doesn't actually charge it until you get the magic meter. How is it that a puzzle-solving action-adventure from the 90s understood, "charging an attack makes no sense unless magic", yet not even most modern games (or even most more modern Zelda games for that matter) can't seem to understand that?

[Hawkwing]

35 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

I have no clue. At least in Ocarina of Time, Link holding spin attack doesn't actually charge it until you get the magic meter. How is it that a puzzle-solving action-adventure from the 90s understood, "charging an attack makes no sense unless magic", yet not even most modern games (or even most more modern Zelda games for that matter) can't seem to understand that?

Ya got me. It helps that Link could still move when charging the spin attack, and he isn't standing there like an idiot trying to "charge" his attack. I can understand hitting harder instead of faster, but it still shouldn't take that long.

...

I mentioned two games earlier that actually handled heavy attacks cleverly, but the Thief games and Sword of the Samuria (which I mentioned earlier, but I'd like to summarize it in less words) almost seem like deconstructions of the concept.

The charge time in the latter doesn't take long, it's simply an attack with more strength behind it instead of something fancy, and it's pretty obvious what you're doing, with the AI on higher difficulties approaching you reluctantly, and even then they try to move erratically to get you to waste your swing, or they try to attack first.

While in the thief games, the entire point is to avoid combat because the protagonist is weak, so the small charge time is simply an "attack hard instead of fast" deal that actually makes some sense. It helps that you can move while charging, so you can kill an unsuspecting enemy (which is stupid because the blackjack exists, as it can knock out any one wearing a helmet immediately and is nonlethal to boot) by sneaking up behind them. Garret also lacks finesse in his attacks, while almost every other enemy in the game does, so it's pretty easy to be torn to shreds by even a low-level guard.