Are tag fighters destined to be difficult to learn?
Written by Michael Hillus
(i've been writing this since 2024-09-12, so i had no idea that akshon esports would make a video on this, lol)
ever since the dawn of Marvel vs Capcom 2, tag team fighting games have been a proving ground of creativity. hundreds of team compositions, assist calls, combo routes, and pro players making names for themselves. and ever since the dawn of Marvel vs Capcom 3, new players have been asking themselves...
"what the fuck is this bullshit???"
with each new game, developers attempt to simplify the system mechanics and provide more learning material/resources to help new players thrive, ensuring pro players that depth will not be compromised. yet with every new game, new players are left to rot (except for like Power Rangers or games that are fun by themselves), and pro players leave the games themselves to rot, too.
so what exactly does a tag fighter need to thrive? what makes games like DBFZ or Power Rangers BFTG popular amongst casual gamers, and gives pro players a reason to continue forth?
first and foremost, these kinds of tag fighters entice players with a pre-existing IP and characters they already know and love. this gives them a reason to stick around, and an incentive to get better with goku, jason, etc.
second, players should be able to understand exactly what characters/assists are capable of doing. none of this "a-b-c" or "recommended assist" nonsense - if you pick a character, you should be able to understand what you want to do and what their assists are capable of. admittedly, this is something i haven't seen very much of, outside of maybe marvel 3, but it's important to mention nonetheless.
the game should have clear visual feedback and tell the player what they're doing. "crossover assist!", or "counter!", or "danger!", anything like that. good tutorials and in-game pop-ups can help serve this extremely well if you know what you're doing. skullgirls almost, almost gets there! but it's so far off because of how much reading there is to do.
the game speed shouldn't be super fast! marvel vs capcom 3 is one of the most notable games like this, it's got such a high skill ceiling solely because of its speed:
there's a bunch of stuff players can do at any given time, so player speed shouldn't be blistering fast. keep it kinda quick, but players should still be able to understand what's going on.
finally, the control scheme should not be a factor in which difficulty is derived from. plinkdashing, a lack of input buffer, complicated motion inputs, etc. are an example of what this entails. instead, a player should not be limited by how well they can control their character, but by the decisions they make to control their character.
generally speaking i don't expect everyone to agree with this list, but overall this should serve well for any aspiring game devs who wish to make a tag fighter the likes of which no one has ever seen before. too many tag fighters have come into existence and died out; let's hope the next one sticks around!