"Transcending the Retro Brawler Combat System"
Author: Jonathan Rivero
Posted on 09/20/2024

The Problem

The only time I thought about Brawlers was Mortal Kombat, but the moment I was introduced into this idea of making a modern Retro Brawler that follows more inline of River City Girls 2 or Streets of Rage 4 specifically their combat I was up for a challenge.  I knew that in making a Satisfying Combat System involved a lot of Research and Creative thinking, but that was the struggle for me. I particularly was struggling to figure out how I could implement a satisfying Interaction like The player attack The enemies in satisfying ways to give more of that replay ability. The reason I struggle with this is because I'm normally familiar with fluid motion and fast paced combat, but for Retro Brawlers instance, the Movement feels stiff (specifically for Streets of Rage & Mortal Kombat), & It would be best to try and keep it intact to that style especially for how the Level is design, where I wouldn't want the Combat areas to be too wild like per say the Free Flow Combat system from Batman Arkham Franchise or Insomniac's Spider-Man games.

The Solution

Talking with my Teammates and Team Lead for any ideas of what I could do for The Player Combat System that can transcend the Retro Brawler genre.  For which in this case, I first looked at one of the games that inspired Bleeding Edge Brawl which is  Streets of Rage 4 , I took more appreciate into it's combat style, but still wasn't a fan of it's locomotion and movement, as it generally felt annoying to be  try and hit something, but just can't hit anything at all, unless I'm really close to them. But when the Player engages with the enemies I started to get a kick out of it especially the bosses. But the only thing missing from the Streets of Rage combat is a true defense mechanism that applies to all Playable Characters. Therefore, I started to looked at other Games I've played recently for their combat system like the two Recent God of War Games & Soulsborne franchise specifically Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice for it's intense Combat Style, and I thought of it in a 2.5D Setting and of course without swords and it's just your fists and strong legs.  I went for a two types of defense system, one which is a simple block that negates all damage & a Parry which inflicts something that will be added later called a Dazed system (Similar to the Poise System in Elden Ring). 

In Conclusion what I have is not final it's still all a work in progress, but as I was testing The Combat flow, I was having a good time with the feel of the Player Interactions as they attack the enemy, especially the parries. It's still not perfect, but in the next build I'll continue to tune it and add in more attack features to add more to this combat system, and I will also make sure to keep in tight connections with the AI Programmer to ensure we meet this goal of having a satisfying combat system.

Final Result

Thanks for Reading & I hope you find my thought helpful to your Game Design/Programming skills when it comes to designing games you are not familiar with!