Old Game Review: Ninjas and Superspies (TM)

[Judging__Eagle]

It's mostly that "counters" are actually really hard to know how to use; and people who have entire suites of counters at their disposal are more dangerous than people who only know strikes. Striking is for lower skill Martial Artists; while Counters are for higher skill ones.

Sambo is also a martial art built on dumpster-diving through entire branches of martial arts; picking out specific techniques from one martial art, and discarding the rest.

If it was RPS; I'd supposed one might see things as being Krav Maga < Sambo < Mua Thai < Krav Maga.

Where KM bootstraps civilians into being soldier-grade martial artists. Sambo turns soldiers into optimized martial artists. Mua Thai is meant to counter polished martial arts; but might not be as good versus amateurs using Krav Maga.

Of course; that's not how it will ever play out. Bruce Lee or Royler Gracie still have a 50/50 chance of winning/losing against anyone else on Earth; because fights are totally unpredictable, and the more you know about martial arts and fighting; the less you'll feel confident in your ability. Which is part Dunning-Kruger effect; but also part of the pragmatism that creates martial arts in the first place. Combat is super unpredictable, which is why people made martial arts in the first place; in order to have a few tools they can practice 10,000 times in order to be able to rely on them instinctively.

Also, I have no idea where that whirling dervish move Zangief is doing is supposed to be. The move is horrible in so many ways. Way too much rotational forces on the knees. Slow, telegraphed attacks which waste energy. To top it off, none of those strikes have the characters real power behind them. A punch should be a foot to knuckles effort that isn't celebrated, but snaps out and back like an eyeblink. That a D&D Monk gets +1 extra attack is nice, but in real life a fit human with MA training can deliver 6 attacks in seconds while also walking around their target.
Slow haymakers aren't of value at all, if you are going to still bother with punches that is.

[Koumei]

It's a fucking lariat/clothesline. Are you next going to explain why a hurricane kick is a bad idea because people can't actually hover like that, or how the psycho crusher is stupid because people don't rely on having an energy field?

[Berkserker]

Obviously the spinning clothesline is there to avoid the Sonic Boom. (Did it still do that after SF2?) And if the kicks don't just linger there in midair, well, how the hell else is Chun Li giong to show off her legs. Why would you deny her that JE, she worked hard for those legs. XD

I can see your point about KM, but it goes back to Army Combatives and the issues there. Done right, maybe it'd work like that? I'm not sold.

Regarding Sambo, I don't know enough to really say anything, but I'll note that you do get hits on articles and stuff if you google "MMA fighters who use sambo". I think that's significant, throwing everything in a giant blender the way MMA does cuts out the chaff until only good stuff is left. It's really a sport itself built around cherrypicking the best of everything. The really early UFCs were peculiarly brutal in this respect.

[talozin]

For quite a few years, arguably the single most feared man in MMA was a pudgy Russian dude who also happened to be a multiple-time Sambo world champion, although it's worth asking which way the arrow of causation points in this particular case.

[hyzmarca]

The harsh reality is that a fight you don't start doesn't begin with each person in their corner and a ringing bell. It starts because someone sucker punches you or grabs you. Yes, there are scenarios where conflict starts with someone threatening you, but that shouldn't be a fight because you should run the fuck away unless they have a gun in which case you should give them the money out of your wallet.

Generally speaking, it usually begins with an angry person yelling at you. And then shit escalates.

Generally speaking, people don't just randomly punch complete strangers in the street. Either there is an argument, or a preexisting conflict.

That's not to say that it never happens. There are people who just like to beat random strangers up for fun. It's just that these people are exceedingly rare.

In most fights, you can generally be away that shit is going to start. You might not always be sure of the direction it'll come from, but it's rarely out of the blue.

Please, don't fuck books.

You're not the boss of me.

It's good advice. It's not particularly fun and you end up with very embarrassing papercuts.

[sendaz]

Please, don't fuck books.

You're not the boss of me.

It's good advice. It's not particularly fun and you end up with very embarrassing papercuts.

Or at least choose the right kind of books built for it.

[Whipstitch]

Sambo is judo & jujutsu based and pretty much has nothing to do with good ol' Geef aside from being Russian.

[Berkserker]

For quite a few years, arguably the single most feared man in MMA was a pudgy Russian dude who also happened to be a multiple-time Sambo world champion, although it's worth asking which way the arrow of causation points in this particular case.

Consider me edumacated. Thanks! I know I flitter in and out of interests, but missing that's a bit ridiculous.

[ETortoise]

Fedor was a combat Sambo champion before he entered MMA.

Sambo was developed for the red army, primarily from a judo base. This was in the early part of the twentieth century so judo looked different than it does now. Since then Sambo moved along its own track, or rather tracks. There are two branches of Sambo, sport and combat. Sport Sambo was the competition form of Sambo while combat Sambo was what was taught to the military. (Incidentally once communism ended military units got to choose their own training so Sambo, Systema, and even Tae Kwon Do can be said to be legitimate Russian military styles.) Sport Sambo is a wrestling competition where you can win by throwing someone on their back or by getting a (very fast) armlock or leglock, chokes are illegal. Eventually they started holding combat Sambo tournaments. Combat Sambo is basically MMA while wearing a jacket and shoes.

Stylistically Sambo is known for leglocls and dynamic, rolling subs. Also Sambo practicioners who cross-train tend to classify what they're doing as adding to their skill at Sambo. As my old coach put it, a BJJ practicioner who takes Muay Thai thinks of themselves as exactly that while a Sambo stylist who trains Muay Thai "puts it in their Sambo bag."

[Judging__Eagle]

Mostly the whole "put it in their Sambo bag" likely has to do with the fact that Sambo is a "dumpster diving" based martial art in the first place; and any core Sambo technique may be the only thing taken out of an entire martial art that the original developers studied in Sambo's creation.

As for double lariats, it occupies an "uncanny valley", and thus looks really stupid. That's why I say it looks bad. It looks really, really, stupid. Even when I was first watching it in the 90's; I thought that, and a few other SF moves looked stupid. I didn't realize why I felt they were stupid until after I learned more about weight lifting, human anatomy, tearing my own knee slightly, having my brother tear out his own knee (severely), and MMA, that can I understand enough to explain why I feel it looks so stupid.

It's not supernatural enough to say "oh; cool FX"; and not plausible enough to make one think "ouch, that's got to hurt". All that I think about is how funny he looks, spinning around, ripping his knees apart, trying to deliver an attack that could never work outside of a video game.

If he was delivering a believable (for his muscularity) super-fast lariat that even "fast" characters would be unlikely to block; that would be also good. Bigger people, especially weightlifters; are fast. Their workouts build their fast twitch muscles to degrees that even videogames and tabletop games aren't willing to grant to actually supernatural monk-type characters. Think of jumping of 4' high while standing in place; delivering punches at a rate of 1/second while also strafing the punching bag/sparring partner. Bigger people; are fast. Hilariously; it's actually skinnier people and smaller people who are "slower". Most of what people ever assume about physiques capabilities is likely wrong, mostly because those assumptions come from poorly thought out narratives in fiction. Skinny people aren't less flexible; and "musclebound" individuals only got that way due to steroids (actually muscular people are: faster, more agile, and more flexible than those who don't weight lift).

It's when a person who has the muscularity to snap fast; but doesn't. The bulk to tear out their knees if they spun around like that; and do it anyway. As well as using an attack that they can't direct; Zangief isn't actually looking where those lariats are swinging; meaning they'll almost always miss; that this particular maneuver bores me the same way that people saying "Fighters are better than Wizards at level 1" also bores me.

If it's supposed to be an "impossible" a maneuver as supernatural as a Sonic Boom or Hadoken; then it's failing to do so, and just looks like a badly thought out mundane attack that doesn't fit the physique of the user. I'd actually prefer is Zangief would call it a Sikorsky Lariat; and have their arms turn into the rotor blades of a Sikorsky helicopter that spin and hit people. A much more awesome thing.


The strawman argument that I'd be opposed to martial characters having supernatural attacks is illogical. I've both, never held that position; and my write-ups for martial class in D20 were lambasted on these boards for including such abilities in the first place.

The really sad thing is that there actually are real life things in martial arts that seem supernatural (or at least are considered universally impressive displays of acrobatics, focus, strength, speed); and none of those are even bothered with in anything pretending to show martial arts. When was the last time you had a game show how Dog style relies on your enemies low opinion of you, being part of how it was supposed to work (or even Dog style at all). How about a Drunken style that wasn't about erratic movements, instead of numerically powering up by consuming booze? How about good old fashioned liver strikes? Lots of martial arts games like to fap on and on about how "headshots" are critical places; but don't give equal weight to the effect of punching someone hard in the liver does to them (granted; many people MMA competitors didn't know much about it for a long time either; and it's hilarious to watch the looks on their faces when they get livershot; totally startled and surprised that they had a vulnerability there in the first place). In fact; even if you know you're watching a video of a livershot (to the left side of the torso); you'll likely miss it, and have to rewind to note when it happened. [Note: Bas Ruten ruptured Jason DeLucia's liver in this bout; liver shots are bad because most people don't know what happened to them, and that it's about as bad as having "the spins" after being "dinged" in the head (i.e. concussions)]

Which is probably why I prefer the abstraction of "Combat" in After Sundown. Overly detailed systems miss the forest to examine trees; and fail to demonstrate even trees correctly. Additionally a crude simulation of a larger whole is easier to process, than a crude simulation of individual components.

The main reason for my reading this thread was mostly to figure out if there's anything good from Rifts martial arts that could be used to develop the "complicated" combat system Frank has mentioned After Sundown would "need" to have if it was ever to be a "fantasy heartbreaker". Of course, Rifts being Rifts; there isn't. Which means going back to the "Grapple > Block > Hit > Stance; +-Tool" rock-paper-scissors idea involving pre-turn bidding of actions, and hoping your choice trumps your opponents.

[erik]

That's a lot of wordsperg Eagle, but I'll fixate on this.

The main reason for my reading this thread was mostly to figure out if there's anything good from Rifts martial arts

[Koumei]

If he was delivering a believable (for his muscularity) super-fast lariat that even "fast" characters would be unlikely to block; that would be also good.

That is an acceptable viewpoint. Heck, wrestling characters in other games like Skullgirls (or fuck, the other wrestling Street Fighter character, Rainbow Mika) use running lariats (where the actual clothesline bit is thrown at the last moment like a punch rather than running up, arm extended), that look decent. Zangief was made back in the day where combatants were big moving hitboxes and thus "doing my attack animation" turns your entire sprite into a deadly weapon.

The rotorblades thing would be awesome.

So while it's unfortunate that you expected anything good from RIFTS (TM), even from their "infinite monkeys with typewriters" approach, I can accept your opposition to The People's Lariat.