Is super smash bros. a fighting game

[thecrimsonflash]

so here is a question that has been known to destroy friendships and start online wars is super smash bros. a fighting game

[metalsnowman3]

What else is it? Just because it isn't a fighter like Street fighter or MVC doesn't make it not a fighting game. What really starts the flames is like if it should be at evo or not.

Edited August 28, 2014 by metalsnowman3

[CT075]

what kind of shitty friends do you have that this kind of question destroyed your friendship??

[Alertcircuit]

Since it doesn't have health bars like 99% of fighting games I see where this debate comes from but I would say it is.

[thecrimsonflash]

I never said that it ruined my friendship that was just me making a joke about how serious people are with these things

[Tryhard]

Yeah, but I think it's a lot different from the "traditional" fighting games.

[Tables]

What else is it? Just because it isn't a 2d fighter like Street fighter or MVC doesn't make it not a fighting game. What really starts the flames is like if it should be at evo or not.

Pretty much this. Does 'fighting game' have a formal definition? If this isn't a fighting game, what do you categorise it as? It's not a traditional fighter, but that doesn't make it not a fighting game.

[Original Alear]

It's a fighting game. Maybe a subgenre at best, along with power stone, the playstation smash-like, and a few other games that I know of.

What else is it? Just because it isn't a 2d fighter like Street fighter or MVC doesn't make it not a fighting game. What really starts the flames is like if it should be at evo or not.

Isn't Smash a 2d game? I mean there's rolling and air dodges which I guess could be said to take you in a third dimension...

Edited August 28, 2014 by SeverIan

[metalsnowman3]

I don't know why I added 2d, lol you can ignore that and I'll edit it.

[HK Motendra]

I'd like to think that Smash is more of a fighting-party kind of game. Yeah there undoubtedly fighting in it, but its also meant to be fun and group friendly. *shrugs* But that's just me though

[LeaderR Elliot]

I remember people saying it was a party game. Don't quote me on that though

[Roivann]

Well, define "fighting game". Is it a game where you fight? In that case, it applies to a lot of games. Does a fighting game have to be 1v1? Then sorry, Street Fighter x Tekken. Does a fighting game have to have health bars? There's plenty of DBZ fighting games that use a power balance system. Point is, there's no strict set of rules that defines what is and isn't a fighting game. There's an episode of Fighterpedia about this very subject that I think is very interesting.

[PKL]

It can be both a fighting game and a party game. /thread

[Anacybele]

Sakurai himself calls the series a party game. But I disagree with that, it's a fighting game, clearly. You have characters duking it out with one another on some kind of battlefield. Thus, it's a fighting game. It's a little different from most fighting games, but it's still a fighting game.

[Comet]

It's in the fighting genre. Even if you call it a party game, what do you do in it? FIGHT.

[bookofholsety]

of course it isn't, because obviously the part where its characters do nothing but fight each other over and over is just a colossal elaborate hoax! obviously super smash bros is really a complicated cooking simulator and we're all just distracted by illusions of something that doesn't actually exist in it

obviously

seriously, how is this even up for debate? the very idea of claiming ssb to be anything but a fighting game is just absurd

[deleted35362]

it's a fighting game because it's focused on combat without stage progression. sonic battle is a fighting game, custom robo is a fighting game but a subgenre...if there was stage progression in smash bros then it would become a beat em up game. i guess some people could argue that smash bros brawl is half a beat-em up half fighter because it has subspace emissary, but that's it really.

[Roivann]

It's in the fighting genre. Even if you call it a party game, what do you do in it? FIGHT.

That applies to a lot of games though. Hell, that applies to several Mario Party minigames.

[Redwall]

I imagine some of the first complaints that come to mind about Smash not being a "real" fighting game are that the directional-influence mechanic precludes long flashy combos, and that the mobility options trivialize the game in some (vague, undefined) way. But seeing as fighting games are, at their core, strategy games with dexterity requirements, DI arguably enriches the game by allowing for player-player interaction in the midst of a combo (unlike in a lot of other fighting games where the defender is stuck in any properly executed combo if no Burst is available). Added mobility options allow for, among other things, more attack angles and such, which are nice.

The execution barrier is also lower in Smash than in Street Fighter, but I mean, who cares?

[Rehab]

Smash (competitive) players and fighting game (AKA "fighter") (or maybe that's just 2D fighting games, whatever) players have a long, storied history of getting pissy at each other over nomenclature, recognition and petty distinctions, such that to me, the mere act of calling smash a fighting game on some level seems deliberately provocative

(yes I do know how melodramatic that sounds, thanks for asking)

[spoiler="FUCK YOU => NOFUCKYOUUUU"]

"The fuck are you talking about calling it a fighting game? It's clearly a different genre!" => "You fight people in it! What more do you want?"

"It's marketed as a party game, its gameplay is centered around completely different core concepts, and both its developer and publisher fucking hates you guys trying to take it serious!" => "The players define a game, not its marketing, and we have fun playing it this way! And it's not like everybody who plays [insert household name fighter here] takes it seriously!"

"Its default setting is items-on, and look at all the crazy stages! It's clearly not supposed to be competitive!" => "You can obviously turn them off, and there are more reliable alternatives within the game!"

"The game is designed to have them on, and to be played as a free-for-all!" => "There's a wealth of competitive depth to be derived from 1v1 battles without them!"

"Yeah right, the amount and quality of that 'depth' is shallow as fuck!" => "We have a relatively huge (for grassroots) competitive community that would beg to differ! Come beat us at our game, then, if it's so easy!" => "WHY WOULD WE WANT TO DO THAT? IT'S ASS! And it's not like we have to prove shit about our games, which are self-evidently far better!" => "YOU'RE ass, and that's debatable!"

[a whole other line of quarreling begins, and continues roughly until the sea reclaims everything]

[seriously, I've seen multiple forum threads go for dozens of pages]

"None of that even matters, the people in your community are so famously ass that you could never be respectable!" => "WHAT?! Who are you to talk? Your community is roughly the most ass possible!"

"WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE? You're a bunch of children, begging for our approval and throwing fits when that doesn't get it!" => "Oh, who needs your stinkin approval anyway!"

"Thank. GOD they've left!" => "...You are wrong about our game though!"

"ARRRRRGH" => "ARRRRRGH"

[it never ends] [Editor's note: not sure if these kinds of topics have actually disappeared in large part on, like, SRK and SWF, and/or if Melee being at EVO and that Nintendo-hosted tournament? and whatever other recent happenings+the healiing salve of time have normalized thinking of Smash as a fighting game, such that it actually has ended] [but it really does go on quite aways]

[also, this doesn't account for the not-insignificant number of people who enjoy both on roughly the same level, but anyway]

My own perspective is that most of the people who play smash competitively are simply the ones who play it more than anybody else, and enjoy playing it against other people who play it to roughly the same degree. Intrinsically tied to this is that they enjoy getting better at the game, and, of course, playing with others who have the same goal. What exactly I decide to call that, and therefore smash, depends at some point less on the game itself, and more on whom I'm discussing it with. I feel like I might be seeing more media refer to the series as a "fighting game" when talking about it as time goes on, though, so.

That's all on a conceptual level, anyway. The full breadth of (competitive) smash player culture comprises a slightly different beast, with even more heads and idiosyncrasies. (as does fighter player culture)

In a final analysis:

Edited September 3, 2014 by Rehab