Crunching Numbers and Skulls ~ Fighting Game Theory #1 - Practical Application of Pandora's Box - Street Fighter x Tekken

So it's early yet for Street Fighter X Tekken but already you see some people, not all, being dismissive of the recently announced Pandora Mode.  This all or nothing gamble might be sparred the negative stigmatism of  the "comeback mechanic", but it pains me to see such a powerful tool dismissed out of hand as being useless.

But why does this matter? A fair question and one I fear many of you might be wondering right now.  Well here's the problem; the people you see making these kinds of comments are the exact same people you play when you  go online.  What good is any of this, the modern online driven resurgence of the genre, if the level of the average player is at such a poor state that they can't even see the uses of major game systems, never mind the  more subtle ones.

This is a genre that struggles to bring in new blood because the games are guilty of the crime of having tremendous depth of game play and the crime of purity of game play. The sum total of the "game play arc" of  a fighting game, that is to say the sum total of "playing one full game of Street Fighter", for instance, is just the span of two or three ninety nine second rounds, to generalize of course, this is so brief that there's  honestly no room for the gradual introduction and explanation of game mechanics you find in all other genres.

In other games we have the course of many many hours in which to introduce to players every single little detail, from walking to jumping, attacking with one press of the button to what will happen if you hit attack three times in a row. Even  opening menu screens.  Game devs hand hold people through every step of the process because they generally have the freedom of time and pacing at their disposal in which to do so.  There's no schedule for a single player  game really. Not one so tight you can't take the time to tell people how to play it when truly necessary.

You cold have ducked...

But where do you do these things in a fighting game? Back in the day it was an impossibility, the best you would get were SNK style quick tutorials when you started your game, beyond that you had to deal with two unrelated human beings who have both paid good money to play your game.  Right now.  There's no place in such a scenario to be able to determine each players ability and knowledge before hand and give a quick heads up to player 2 on how to Alpha Counter,  something Player 1 doesn't want to see because he's already learned that mechanic ages ago.  You might tell Kratos how to jump at first, but you don't do it before the last boss fight.

But nowadays companies have begun to realize  the potential of the ability modern home consoles have at delivering much deeper amounts of superfluous surrounding content, such as deeper game play tutorials, without bogging down the inherent short form purity of the fight.  As well perhaps the need to deliver on that potential in order to entice new players.

Look, I realize that not everybody needs to have everything told to them in advance, but I feel sometimes people have a tendency to forget that life moves on while they're getting older. When guys like me were young we had to  learn the hard way. That's how it was. But now every other kind of videogame takes the time to explain every last command to players, so to kids that grew up with not just SF4 being their first Street Fighter but the  PS3/360 being their first console, I think its not unfair to humor them the only thing they've ever known for the good of the genre.

How many of you know people who have, ahem, "Tried those kinds of games, but always get their ass kicked right away, so its no fun and they don't like them"? And that one has nothing to do with just the younger  generation gamers.  Putting aside any of my or your or their phillisophical differences over the How or Why of what makes playing a certain game appealing to a person in the first place, I for one remember seeing the  genre all but dead for a very long time, if you get what I'm saying, and I don't want that to happen again.

So consider this a public service.

Ok, so now that I've further established the stereotype that fighting game fans are elitist snobs, I think we can be done with this garbage for today and get on with the fun stuff! Game play mechanics and how to make  effective use of them. This is not a combo guide or intended to be a how to of specific character setups, it should be taken simply as what it is, simple game play theory you might be able to apply on the fly to your own  characters and tactical play styles during your many many fights. Don't forget that even the basic concept of "Block enemy attacks" is just a simple game play theory in and of itself and the rabbit hole goes so much  deeper then that.

Pandora Mode also makes you mean and purple

So what exactly is Pandora Mode? Good question. Simple answer too. When your active character reaches 25% health their lifebar will begin to flash indicating that Pandora Mode may be activated with the command Down, Down  and both Medium Attacks. This will KO your active character and bring in your second fighter now boosted with unlimited Super Meter. The down side? This mode last eight seconds and then you die, loosing the round if you  couldn't finish your opponent off in time.

Pandora mode is an all or nothing gamble, if you activate it you better be absolutely certain you can deliver the knock out blow, otherwise you've effectively slit your own wrist. Now the issue this brings up in the  minds of many a player is fair enough; "What if I don't kill them in time?" Well you lose. But just because you couldn't figure out the full potential of Focus Attacks in SF4 out at first, did you give up on using them  at all? If the answer is yes then I'm glad you're reading this actually. While the down side is clear the potential to win a match should absolutely not be overlooked. You may scoff at eight seconds but  really when you break it down it only takes a fraction of that time between the point where a character is active, and still has a chance to win, and when they're on the ground for good. It really just takes that one speck of damage.

The power of Pandora isn't that it makes you the all power Super Fireball Spammer, it's that it gives you one precious chance to change a situation from one out of your favor into one in your favor. Almost as if you  could force your opponent to make that one crucial mistake, the one that affords you the "lucky win", but you can make it happen by instantly changing the battlefields landscape in your favor.

Realistically in an eight second period of time you're only really going to be able to use one or two super moves in any meaningful way to begin with. The actual strength here is that it gives you access to a super move  <I>when you need it</I>, without having to worry about meter management. Your ability to plumb that infinite meter pool to preform long flashy combos featuring multiple EX and Super attacks doesn't mean much if you can't  initiate said combo inside the eight seconds.

Surprise FAB?

There are a lot of grappler characters, and semi grapplers like Abel and Marduk, in this game. Grapplers are a character archetype that typically rely on using very powerful and unblockable throw attacks in  order to deal the majority of their damage. Ideally. You can play any character any way you like of course, each just has their strengths in different leanings then each other.  Now if you pair this playstyle with a different  character type you can get lots of fun results. Typically people will play more defensively and try to stay further away from grappler types, because the inability to block throw moves requires a different strategy then when  facing character who need to almost exclusively land clean hits to win by.  By activating Pandora Mode as a counter to an aggressive opponent, who perhaps has gotten to close your Dhalsim, your opponent is suddenly finding himself face to face with a Zangief with a full super meter that wasn't there before.  Basically you used Pandora Mode to suddenly take a defensively disadvantageous position for yourself, Dhalsim being a character whose strengths lend to a more distanced game, and alter it so that it's suddenly you're opponent who finds themselves woefully out of position against Zangief, a close quarters king.  There, simply put, might not be anything they can do to avoid an unblockable move like Zangiefs Final Atomic Buster at that point.

This method of situational reversal should wind up being incredibly useful if kept in the back of your mind, as it has potential far beyond simply setting up unavoidable throws. All characters can benefit from being  able to change the situation on the fly.

Take parry's and counter attacks. Heihachi has already been shown to have a powerful Counter Special. That is a special command attack that is non-offensive but instead will negate and reverse certain incoming attacks that  "hit" the character while it's active. Though such moves typically have small windows of active state so as to not make them to powerful by ease of use.  By activating Pandora with your point fighter you would be able to  effectively bring your second character into the "line of fire" of an attack the opponent has already committed to, allowing you to then simply activate your counter move and do some damage.

Again the application of even just this is pretty varied. A character like Cammy, by use of her CQC move, a full on Super Move variant of a counter attack, could be thrown  into onrushing attacks in return  for a quick large damage return if well executed.  If you'll allow me to get super theoretical for a second, by contrast the "Parry" abilities of the as yet unannounced Tekken character Jin Kazama, but a character we can assume will be in  the game due to his popularity and high profile as part of the Tekken IP, would instead have to follow up the Parry his Pandora enabled him to land with manual hits. But if he plays anything like his Tekken 6 version,  and Capcom keeps saying they want to get the Tekken cast playing like Tekken characters, then he should be able to convert huge damage from such a parry, now with the added benefits of EX move and Supers to further extend these pary based turn overs into more damaging Pandora specific combos.

Though I must admit there I'm not too familiar with the Tekken game systems, the Parry's I speak of might actually be a universal system in Tekken 6, so it doesn't apply directly to SFxT, but you get the idea at least.  If nothing else Heihachi's confirmed in game counters are worth the Pandora activation, since, when all is said and done, sometimes you only need that little speck of damage to win the round.

T-Rex calls winner

Also while I'm downplaying the raw power of an infinite super meter, it is worth nothing that yes, infinite meter does allow for Pandora Mode specific combos since tactical meter management is thrown out the window.


And of course what will doubtlessly become the flashiest way to finish your opponents off in SFxT, you could always just activate Pandora Mode in the middle of a Juggle Combo; for example after you hit your opponent  with a special that causes Wall Bounce, or even after the games universal Light, Medium, Strong, Strong tag juggle launcher.  Just activate Pandora Mode while your foe is helplessly falling through the air, then  complete the now powered up combo for the KO and victory before they land and get a chance to evade you.  If Pandora activation resets hit degradation, an invisible game mechanic that makes it harder to continue juggle combos the longer they go on, then the combo  extension potential here is even greater and should make finishing off an opponent in eight seconds, if not a breeze, definitely manageable.

Of course, I remind you ladies and gentlemen, that all depends on the fine tuning of the system when the games ships, but that's why this is a Game Theory article and not a game guide. If there's one thing I want you to  take away from this it's the idea that you should stop and consider the full extent of the tools you have available. Yes certain moves are obviously more powerful then others, but even a characters best attack  has its weaknesses and their weakest attack it uses. Knowing that one in a million opportunity when you see it, or better yet being able to create it on your own, and being able to implement that otherwise perceived useless move or ability effectively, you're going to be that much stronger a competitor then a player who dismisses these less consistently useful moves entirely and limits themselves to simply the best handful of attacks and strategies they're currently aware of.  Pandora Mode, with its massive downside potential to cost you the game, is doubly indicative of this ideology.

Don't just dismiss Pandora Mode as a last ditch eight second powerup. By sheer conceit of the mechanic if you ever let Pandora Mode be active for the full eight second timer, well you're simply not doing it right.  That's on you the player, not the game.

FACE~!

I'd also like to take a quick second to commend Capcom for making the effort to seemingly integrate e a gameplay mechanic in one of their fighting games into some kind of plot. They really don't need to do that to make the game  itself "good" nor has anyone ever complained that a weird game mechanic was unjustified by the narative.  At least not in Street Fighter.  I however take it as a sign of good faith, much as I did their recent Street Fighter 3:TS Online Edition reissue's online suite of features. This is a genre that has been slow to take advantage of home  console potential over the years, but its also a genre that was really waiting for this era's level of online functionality before it really even had a chance at resurgence.  It's no shock to me that the genre lost all  steam when arcades died and has only now regained it with the birth of the online era.  So to see Capcom making progressive choices with their games instead of playing it safe, which I honestly feel was the smart move  when creating Street Fighter 4, as some people are criticle of them doing makes me a happy gamer.  I feel I've seen the direct positive result first hand these last couple years.  They're trying people, what more can you ask?


And speaking of fun new gameplay systems I very much look forward to covering  Street Fighter x Tekken's other funky system, the Gem System,` in the future, so look forward to it.