For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don’t want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That’s ludicrous!
That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use “less” when they should use “fewer”
“Spectacle Fighter”.
In the late aughts, game critic Ben “Yathzee” Croshaw came up with that term to describe games like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, beat-em-up type games where the point is less “can you get through” and more “how high can you get that combo meter? How COOL can you make yourself look while beating up all these fodder enemies?”
A few years later the industry coalesced on an agreed-upon term for this subgenre – And called it “Character Action”.
Yathzee has just accepted defeat and uses the term everyone uses, he has to, he works in games media.
I refuse. Character Action is a dumb, DUMB term because every action game is a character action game, because there is ACTION and CHARACTERS in all of them.
Whereas “Spectacle Fighter” was perfectly descriptive of just WHAT made those games special. You are FIGHTING, and the objective is to LOOK SPECTACULAR.
If that’s not the perfect descriptor for God Hand, I don’t know what is.
Also where the fuck is a God Hand remaster/sequel while we’re on the subject?
God Hand
Oh man I emulated that a while back and it was good while I could get it to work, but yeah let’s get a remaster and a PC port
I haven’t heard that term before, but it’s way better than character action. Plus, it actually fits for games that use similar mechanics but are technically different genres, like ULTRAKILL.
Shady Knight too but that’s probably permabeta…
YES. The “spectacle-” particle should be used for a lot of game subgenres, to be honest.
So ULTRAKILL? Spectacle-Shooter. Sonic the Hedgehog? Spectacle-Platformer
Any title where the point is to be stylish and get a nice flowing combo going.
I will fight beside you on this hill with all my bitter rage
Would that make Batman Arkham series a spectacle fighter? Since you can get a massive combo and look really cool doing it.
Sure!
Genre labels are vibes based. I’d argue Arkham totally fits the spectacle fighter vibe.
IMHO, there has to be more incentive for the player. That’s a thing you can do, in Arkham, but it’s a thing you’re supposed to do in DMC. There’s the combo tracker pushing you, lot’s of flashy moves designed to help push the combo, and some moves that aren’t as good but exist to look cool while rotating through moves. It’s a matter of intent, not just if it is possible.
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense now.
