Why should I be sastisfied with something made out of pure whim, when the real thing is so much more diverse, logical, better and more entertain-ing? Fantasy fails because of the two amjor things it is made of:

-every fantasy is a derivative of already existing notions or experiences.

-every made up stuf is only limited to the extent the creator has any notion of. Hence, fantasy cannot exceed the limit offered by already established archetypes.

You cannotargue with this, it is a written fact of literacy, and basically, MK is the living proof for it. Derivate characters, derivate storyline, serivate speci-al moves (if you think Scoprions spear is one of the kind and was never done before, you are horribly mistaken).

Did MK1 - MK4 have fighting styles?

Obviously the styles aren't necessary. It's just if the developers want to include them or not.


You mean chain combos have been outdated by string combos? I thought both were the same thing except that in "strings" the opponent can block?

What's the big difference? My point is, let the gameplay have its features and all that, but the characters' movements and stances should be creative, not based on predictable movesets which we could be researched about prior. Where's the newness in that? Don't u want "newness" for MK8?

And, styles have specific attributes that can't make it do the game system itself. Whatever style a characters gets, they're just gonna be able to do one thing with them.... Perform combos.

My question to u is.... Considering that combos are the main things characters can do, do you want fighting styles to return, which you've seen a million times over and over, or totally new combos that aren't bound by anything and can be far more novel and surprising? And Chrome, what you're saying about fantasy is correct, but the format and style fantasies are delivered in can be as interesting as something never-before explored. So MK isn't appealing to you because it's fantasy-based? Even though it's derivative of certain things, the style of the fantasy is so flavorful and that's why MK is so popular. Fighting styles are restrictive and leave little or no room for spontaneous ideas.

You just said it...

Chain combos are guaranteed = Not very realistic as you would not stand there and take a 7 hit combo to the face without being able to block some of the hits. It's also too easy of a reward once you land a hit, just dial in the rest of the combo.

String combos are more realistic in that sense and it adds to the fact that you need to trick the opponent in to taking more hits. You have to try harder, think more when playing. It adds to the strategy of the game.

And it's not only chainging up the combos tricking the opponent. It's what comes off these techniques. You might trick your opponent in to taking some heavy damage, or a set up of some sort. A lot of stuff comes from it.

Oh okay.

String combos won't bother me in MK8. Returning fighting styles will.

fighting Styles/Weapons are better

Weapons, yes. Fighting styles, no.

Yes, I would like to see fighting styles and weapon styles return. If they return, it doesn't mean things are going to be the same, especially since the fighting system will be different.

Considering that there are various moves in each of the different styles, it doesn't necessarily lead to things being repetitive.

Even with made-up moves and stances, the characters still have boundaries in their gameplay styles, no more or less than they would if they used actual martial arts styles. The real boundaries lie within how much they are actually going to put into the mechanics and things like that.

I will agree about some styles not working on their own, particularly the grappling-only based styles. Yes, the face buttons can contain grapples, but there would be the issue of whether or not they should be blockable. Then again, perhaps the inclusion of throw escapes, something that MK's fighting systems have lacked, there wouldn't be that much of an issue.

Fighting styles don't necessarily leave little to no room for spontaneous ideas, especially since martial arts itself is a constantly evolving science. Some martial arts styles, such as Keysi (which was used in Batman Begins), encourages uniqueness and creativity.

If we are going to have some made up styles, at least base it on real martial arts. I'm talking about something along the lines of what the Tekken games do, namely combining two or more styles for some characters.

For a couple of examples, Ling Xiaoyu uses a combination of Hakke Sho (Ba Gua Zhang) and Hike Sho (Pi Gua Zhang). Paul Phoenix uses a combination of Judo, some form of Karate (likely to be Kyokushin), and in a smaller way, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (reason why I say this is because of the double-leg takedown and the 'ground and pound' moves he has).

So I think that it would be cool to see some characters, not all, have something like this, though I think some combinations would work better than others.

Now regarding the weapons, let's say there are two characters who use similar weapons. I'll use Scorpion and Kenshi as examples.

Scorpion wields a Ninja-To (also called Ninja Ken or Ninja Biken), which isn't supposed to be straight-bladed with a square hand-guard as the Ninja used curved swords. But anyway...Kenshi uses a Daito (long sword).

In MKDA, they both used a posture called Ura Gedan no Kamae. A simple solution here is that they can use different Kamae since the different Kenjutsu styles use several different Kamae.

We could see Scorpion using Seigan no Kamae as his posture, which is what Mitsurugi from the Soul Calibur series uses. Kenshi, on the other hand, could stick with using Ura Gedan no Kamae or he could use a different posture like Hasso no Kamae or Kasumi no Kamae.

Regarding the moves, those could easily be different, especially with the different styles of Kenjutsu.

Scorpion's sword style could be based off of the Kenjutsu techniques and methods from Togakure Ryu, a Ninjutsu tradition. Kenshi's sword style could be based off of the Kenjutsu techniques and methods from a style like Mugai Ryu.

So in conclusion, we can still see lots of surprises even with the inclusion of actual martial arts. It's all about how creative the people behind the games are and what boundaries they are going to set.

Okay, I see your point now.

Well then, if including fightings styles can be as surprising and novel as you say, then okay.

The thing is, what I like most about the MK3 fighting was that the combos looked and felt very fluid. Jade's Fan Zi combos and Bo Rai' Cho's drunk combos in MKD, for instance, do not feel fluid at all. They feel messy and clumsy, and I hate that.

If MK8 delivers something that feels both novel and fluid, then fighting styles are fine by me.

It's just that by the time MKA came out, I was sick of fighting styles, especially cuz Midway did so little to change them for MKA. Most of the combos were exactly the same. It felt extremely old and boring. If MK8 brings back fighting styles, I hope it doesn't feel that way again.

I know what you're saying regarding MKDA-MKA with the combos and stuff. The reason for this is what I had mentioned before in past threads, namely about the core design of the mechanics being poor.

I think that while the motion capturing itself is fine, the way they unnecessarily speed up the animations really hurts the games. The animations need to both look and feel fluid, otherwise, something is seriously wrong.

It's ironic that Fan Zi Quan (a.k.a. Ba Shan Fan) is really slow in MKD and MKA when in actuality, it uses very fast techniques, especially with the strikes.

I too was disappointed with the relative lack of change in terms of styles and their movesets. Again, this is the result of poor execution and bad mechanic design. If only the fighting mechanics had a good, solid foundation, I can assure you that even with the usage of martial arts styles, the gameplay will be much different (and better).

If they do bring back fighting styles, I hope they can add a lot more moves and combos per style as well as do a better job in terms of the accuracy. For example, none of the Ninjutsu styles use spinning back kicks but instead use kicks that are fairly simple, such as push kicks, front kicks, and stomp kicks.

And I wouldn't necessarily mind two characters having the same style if the stances and movesets are different enough from each other.

Baek Doo San and Hwoarang from the Tekken series both use Tae Kwon Do yet they use different stances, moves, and combos that are all pretty much used in Tae Kwon Do. So I think it can work for a lot of the styles.

Hwoarang uses Hwa rang Do as I recall. Then again, both Tae Kwan Do has alot in common with Hwarangs.

No. Hwoarang uses Tae Kwon Do. He's the student of Baek Doo San, remember?

Tae Kwon Do has NOTHING in common with the Hwarang. The ancient Korean warrior connection to styles like Tae Kwon Do was a myth created to give those styles that Korean identity and not link to any Japanese influence.

In actuality, Tae Kwon Do is most certainly derived from Shotokan. There was some article I read not too long ago in which this Korean martial arts grandmaster talked about his days of training and how the students weren't allowed to ask questions as to the teachers, it would be a sign of troublemaking. The grandmaster mentioned his interest in learning the histories of the arts he studied, something that wasn't talked about. In his research, he discovered the similarities to what he was learning to the different styles of Karate.

it is karate with leg emphasis afterall.

At least when I have to describe it to the least-comprehensives though.
Then what is hwa rang do? Hwarang did exist,a nd that automatically warrants some kind of art or culture about martial arts around them.

As far as I know, Hwarangdo is a modern Korean martial art. The name is given to make people think there's some connection to the Hwarang of ancient Korea. The people behind styles like these are pretty much amongst those who hide the fact that the modern Korean martial arts have had influence from Japanese martial arts.

But even with those that mention some influence from Japanese martial arts (e.g. influence of Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu in the creation of Hapkido), they claim that Daito Ryu was influenced from the teachings of Korean martial artists. What has to be kept in mind here is that any lineage before Sokaku Takeda in regards to Daito Ryu can't be verified and even places like koryu.com believe that it was founded by him in the 1890's, which is sometime after the Meiji Restoration.

Topics like this will hopefully help you understand what I mean:

http://martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49028

There weren't many variations of combos in UMK3 if you're talking about strings. You had barely any options. They were set in stone. The new fighting system should be hand to hand and weapon sort of like MK4 and MK7 but obviously there should be a vast move list and vast changes on the entire mechanics of the fighting engine. I always say bring back HP LP HK LK BLOCK and RUN. Just make it a totally next generation play style.

Okay then. As long the gameplay is novel and feels a lot better, I won't mind next-gen having fighting styles.

However, I still want the stances and movesets to fit the characters. For example, Kira's elegant and meditative-looking MKA fighting style did not fit her at all. The stance and moves didn't match with her personality and appearance which is are both grounded and savage-like.

So if fighting styles return, they should be assigned to the characters that they suit best: Elegant styles for elegant characters, ferocious styles for ferocious characters, tricky styles for tricky characters, etc. Do you know what I mean?

That didn't happen in MKA and it annoyed me.

Yes, I know what you're saying. I didn't like Yuan Yang Quan for Kira either, even though it did make her gameplay style better than it was in MKD. I don't know if I would call that stance meditative, but yeah, it's elegant-looking. The style is apparently rare and specializes in kicking techniques.

For Kira, I would rather see her use one of the Silat styles. Silat is a term used for various martial arts styles found mostly in Indonesia and Malaysia but can also be founded in places like the Philippines. Different Silat styles have different techniques and principles, so there'll be variations. However, I'm sure there are probably some similar attributes throughout the Silat styles. Personally, I'm not too familiar with Silat in general. I was thinking that maybe she could something like Silat Mubai, which is a very militaristic style of Silat mainly taught and used by Muslims. Some will refer to this style as "Muslim Silat", but there are other Silat styles associated with Muslims. Her knife-fighting techniques can be derived from whatever Silat style/styles she has been trained in.

One of my problems with MKDA-MKA was indeed some of the style choices for some of the characters, especially characters like Scorpion, who although is supposed to be from a Japanese Ninja clan, has not used ANY of the fighting styles used or closely associated with the Ninja, not even styles like Koto Ryu. I would rather see him with a made up style strongly based on styles like Koto Ryu (a Koppojutsu tradition) and Togakure Ryu (a Ninjutsu tradition).

Then we have characters like Kano, who use styles like Xing Yi and Aikido, both of which are more internal styles. The whole Ueshiba/Black Dragon thing is a mess and should be retconned out of the story. Although Xing Yi is direct, aggressive, and kind of militaristic, I just don't picture someone like him using it. Maybe someone like Reiko, yes...but not Kano.

For him, I would've rather see him using something like Shootfighting (modern Japanese style derived from Catch Wrestling, Boxing, and Muay Thai), San Shou (modern Chinese style that is sometimes and inaccurately referred to as "Chinese Kickboxing") or even Lethwei (Burmese Kickboxing).

I could go on and on, but it would get too long, and you probably wouldn't wanna read it all. But yeah, I see what you're saying here.

Well good. I'm glad we're both seeing it the same way.

How do you know a lot about fighting styles, though? Have video games like Virtua Fighter inspired a martial arts interest in you or do you freely go after such information?

I cannot speak for 7-th, but for me it is my life.

Aside this, people sdhould forget such desriptions as meditative, elegant,
brutal or awkward. Such descriptions are aloof and in truth have nothing to do with the martial art or the martial arts philosophy. They lead to wrong conclusions.

To be honest, it's real hard to say. Martial arts is definitely a big interest for me. Perhaps some fighting games have had some inspiration in my interest, but overall, I can't give a clear answer.

When it comes to my knowledge of different styles, it's a combination of reading, thinking, and asking questions. Compared to others, my knowledge is only very limited. Some will refer to me as an expert, but that's not accurate at all. For me to really gain expertise, I'd have to actually train in these styles for some time and to gain an understanding of them. As Bo' Rai Cho had told Shujinko, "Experience is the ultimate teacher.". Unfortunately, I would not be able to learn as many martial arts as the ones that I know of.

Oh okay.

I was just wondering.

Totally agree. They are really getting old.

I would like to see one fighting style. One stance, that doens't have to be related to that fighting style. I really think the characters lost something with that the last MK's. Remember the old sub zero, scorpion, raiden stances...they looked awesome to me.

Maybe they can have a set of moves took from different fighting styles, as long as the name tagging and switching is gone and a unique fighting stance is implementated.

Basicly more the old gameplay.

When you mean one fighting style, do you mean an actual martial arts style or something made up? If you're talking about an actual fighting style, why would you want the stance to not be related to the style?

Raiden's stance was cool. Sub-Zero's stance was ok. Scorpion's stance was silly.

When it comes to having fighting styles that involve different moves from different styles, I wouldn't mind that for particular characters. However, I would not like this to be for the majority of the roster.

As for having the old gameplay style back, I don't think it's a good idea as that would be taking a step backwards by going to an even more outdated gameplay style, one that isn't even that great to begin with.

A friend of mine bought MK2 online for the PS3, all weekend we have been playing the game till death, it were highly strategic tense battles.

Such simple gameplay, but still enjoyable after 15 years. I think the next MK needs a fighting system based on the old gameplay, perfect it and add sum new things like the juggle combo's they added in MK2.

I accept the the nowadays technology is way better than 10 or 15 years ago but I personnaly find the MK3-MK4 gameplay faster than the fighting styles from MKDA until MKA.

What midway should do is simple: Bring back the HP, LP, LK, and HK system but also keep the fighting styles system with the run button. And delete that stupid air kombat from MKA. The fighting styles have not been exploited enough. Take the Tekken games as example: Each character has his personnal style but this art is much more developped such as attacks we only can do when lying on the ground or sitting down.