Renowned Japanese fighting games player Daigo ‘The Beast’ Umehara comments about the broken nature of classic titles in the genre, describing the mechanics and exploits as ‘unbelievably broken!’
A recent reaction to a fan comment has spurred discussion online after Daigo exclaimed ‘no way’ to a request to play Capcom vs SNK 2 due to how unbalanced it was.
Daigo is considered by many to be one of the all-time greats in the fighting game esports scene, with recent Street Fighter 6 (SF6) champion MenaRD challenging him, calling him ‘the best ever.’
In a video on his YouTube channel called “Daigo explains the ridiculous balance of old fighting games, Daigo admitted he has ‘zero interest’ in playing older titles much to the disappointment of fans.
During a stream, he breaks down infamous mechanics such as roll cancel and why they are a necessary evil for games like Capcom vs SNK 2.
Daigo said: “For me, I know different people have different opinions, but I think it’s better to keep rolling cancel (RC) in the game. Otherwise, some characters are too strong and some are too weak.”
Daigo Says Certain Exploits Make Older Games “Boring”
The Groove system was also brought up during the Capcom vs SNK 2 discussion. Players choose a Groove, which provides various gameplay mechanics that can enhance their characters’ abilities or give them unique advantages during a match.
Daigo highlighted how certain grooves require RC to compete with other more dominant picks.
“So C-Groove, A-Groove, and N-Groove have RC,” Daigo said, “S-Groove has dodge, you can dodge a move and attack. There’s P-Groove, and K-Groove has ‘Just Defend.’
“So only three grooves can use RC, that is C, A and N. And C and N are weaker than K even with RC. If there is no RC, then K is way better than A. But because there’s RC, A is stronger than K.
“So if you try to ban RC, you just pick K-Groove and that’s it.”
Daigo is not the only one who refuses to see retro titles with rose-tinted glasses. YouTuber Qaptain 12 Million commented online that old fighting games lacked ‘any sense of balance and are all broken.’
Qaptain said: “Most of the cast will typically be broken in a bad way. Two out of 30 characters will be overwhelmingly dominant over the rest of the cast in ways that are inexplicably good for a plethora of reasons.
“Usually a combination of mistakes in programming, exploits within the game engine, a lack of foresight and/or balancing decisions with repercussions that are impossible to understand due to the limitations of QA testing at the time.”
