Best sword-fighting implementation?

[nurtsi]

There have been loads of games involving melee combat with swords. I've always felt that the implementation in every game has been lacking. Sword-fighting in games rarely "feels" right or very satisfying.

Typically the implementation is that you push a button and an animation is chosen to be played out (sometimes randomly from a set of animations to make it look less boring). There's a hit check (is your selected target close enough or are there any hittable objects inside an arc in front of you). If the attack is a hit, some hit points are subtracted and people die if the hit points reach zero. Hitting someone in the hand is the same as cutting at the neck. There is no feel of mass or impact to the swing, the blade will travel through multiple opponents, walls, etc. without any effect on the predefined animation. Also the silly "running around your opponent in circles trying to stab him in the back" that we're very familiar with most MMORPGs is something that is just stupid if you compare it to real sword-fighting. I guess the main reason is that you can usually run through your oppenent (and not with the sword).

The only different implementation that I remember now is Die by the Sword where you actually controlled the sword arm with your mouse. You could hack off limbs and other cool bits as there were no predefined attack animations so you could basically choreograph your own moves. It has been a long time since I last played the game, but I remember that the combat was kind of hard with lots of mouse-waving. And it didn't usually look like what you'd expect sword-fighting to look like.

What do you think has been the best implementation of sword-fighting (or melee in general) in games? Or just different from the usual push-a-button implementation. If you remember another game that did it differently, how did it work and if it didn't, why?

[Malakili]

I really enjoyed Jedi Knight 2 lightsaber play.  Not really authentic, but it felt good.  There were some basic "moves" you could do, and some stances to switch between.  Simply but effective.

[carnifex27]

If you want interesting and "real" feeling melee combat you should probably check out mount and blade.  You have 4 basic types of attack depending on how you move the mouse before holding the RMB. One is a thrust and the rest are slashes (up-down, left-right and right-left).  I know your weapon recoils off shields and parries (shields cover all attacks but take damage to the shield, parries are good against one direction) giving your opponent a free attack.  I don't remember if it recoils off of walls, but I'd be pretty surprised if it didn't.

It's far from perfect and nothing like fencing or movie sword-fighting, but it's the first thing I think of when someones talking about realistic melee in a video game.  There is a demo for it on steam if you want to check it out.  Just start the game, go straight to the closest city and enter the arena battles for a bit to experience it better than I can describe.

[Goreschach]

Bushido Blade.

[Mrbloodworth]

Bushido Blade.

Yeah, no.


I really really enjoy the system in Assassins creed 2.

[Rendakor]

Bushido Blade certainly handled damage well: strikes to center mass or the head were kills, leg blows would slow movement, arm strikes would hinder the ability to attack, block, etc. There was no health bar or HP pool, you simply scored a fatal strike to kill. Other than that it was a standard fighting game.

The sword-fighting game in Wii Sports Resort controls pretty well; you move the Wiimote as your sword, and with the Wii Motion Plus it's actually pretty responsive. Slashing with the Wiimote slashes in the appropriate direction, holding it up blocks, etc. There isn't much depth to it, as it's simply one game in a package, but that idea fully fleshed out would be very nice. Damage was handled poorly, which is to say not at all; successful strikes knock the target back a bit, with the eventual goal of knocking the target off of a platform.

[Malakili]

The sword-fighting game in Wii Sports Resort controls pretty well; you move the Wiimote as your sword, and with the Wii Motion Plus it's actually pretty responsive. Slashing with the Wiimote slashes in the appropriate direction, holding it up blocks, etc. There isn't much depth to it, as it's simply one game in a package, but that idea fully fleshed out would be very nice. Damage was handled poorly, which is to say not at all; successful strikes knock the target back a bit, with the eventual goal of knocking the target off of a platform.

The main problem with wiimote/any sword fighting that involves swinging things, is that most people suck really hard at sword fighting and just sort of end up flailing their sticks around until they win or lose.

[Samwise]

I think the main problem is that a wiimote-type controller can model the motion of a sword swinging through the air, but not the tactile feedback you'd get from actually hitting something.  Hence the flailing.

[Goreschach]

It's not just the lack of feedback from collision. Realistic swordfighting typically didn't have very much crossing of swords like you see on tv. The real problem is that when you're holding a wand you're accelerating almost no mass other than your arm. This means that with a wand you'd actually perform better by just holding your arm out, thrusting and articulating with the wrist. Ironically, these kinds of motion control games tend to be based around longswords and stuff like that, because of game tradition or the cool factor, when they'd actually be much better suited to simulating fencing.

[Rendakor]

Sorry, didn't mean to shit up the thread with Wii nonsense, it was just a game I thought of that did sword fighting pretty well recently.

[UnSub]

Die By The Sword was too hard to play with a mouse - I stuck to keypad and generally ran in circles around my target, swinging wildly. Eventually I'd get them on the backhand.

[Lantyssa]

I really enjoyed Jedi Knight 2 lightsaber play.  Not really authentic, but it felt good.  There were some basic "moves" you could do, and some stances to switch between.  Simply but effective.

I think it's still my favorite control scheme to this day.

[Typhon]

Die By The Sword was too hard to play with a mouse - I stuck to keypad and generally ran in circles around my target, swinging wildly. Eventually I'd get them on the backhand.

It was hard, but every now and then you'd do everything right and lop someone's head off.  I think if they had had more money to bake it a bit more they could have made it easier and kept that level of control/immersion.

I loved how he'd talk when there were kobolds around, "c'mere little fella"

[Sheepherder]

It's not just the lack of feedback from collision. Realistic swordfighting typically didn't have very much crossing of swords like you see on tv.

The large cruciform hilt, parrying hooks on large two-handed swords, the basket hilt, the katzbalger S-shaped hilt, the main gauche.  People have pretty consistently been worried about an opponents sword sliding along their own blade throughout the centuries.  Wonder why.

[Samwise]

Oo, has anyone mentioned fighting games yet?  The old Barbarian Swordfighter game was pretty good; you had eight different attacks and each attack could be blocked by a couple of the others in a logical sort of way.  Soul Calibur would be a more modern (and button-mashy) example.

[Ingmar]

I'm a fan of Mount & Blade personally, especially the way it meshes it with mounted combat. The inertia of the horse, the bonus damage you get based on how fast you're going, etc., makes it feel "realistic" to me even though I have no idea how realistic it actually is.

[RobinDeBanque]

Implementing sword combat realistically is challenging in several ways. One is that to display the damage a sword does truthfully will sicken many people, as the injuries can be horrendous. Another is the range of possible moves you can perform. Yet another is response time: some weapons move slower than some players have the patience for. Then there's the element of grappling, which is always a favourite tactic against armoured opponents, but is hard to implement well. Then there's audience expectations, which tend to not match what a realistic swordfight would look like. And there's the duration of the fight: Many fights would be 1 hit kills, which may be suitable in some games but not in others.

Opponent AI is also an issue, especially when fighting multiple opponents, i.e. having opponents move like trained soldiers.

Lastly, if you have a movement input device like the wii controller, there's always going to be the issue of missing feedback from blocks, hits, etc.

All in all it's hard to do it realistically. But it's still possible to make it fun, challenging and to have some semblance of the feel of swordplay and the tactics you would employ. I like both bushido blades and soulcalibur, for different reasons.

[UnSub]

Oo, has anyone mentioned fighting games yet?  The old Barbarian Swordfighter game was pretty good; you had eight different attacks and each attack could be blocked by a couple of the others in a logical sort of way. 

The one where one of the moves was a spinning neck strike that could decapitate the opponent in one hit? Then a lizard guy would come by, drag the body off and kick the head off screen?

[Ironwood]

Yeah.  And that Governor from California did the sound effects.

(Really.)

[Samwise]

I did not know that Arnie did the voicework on that, but that sounds plausible.  And yeah, that's the game.  I dug up an emulated (Atari ST) version a little while back and was pleased to find that I still remembered the cheesy tactics from when I used to play it 20 years ago.

[DraconianOne]

Yeah.  And that Governor from California did the sound effects.

(Really.)

...

What?

If it's the old Palace game with Maria Whitaker and the guy who went on to be Wolf in Gladiators then yeah, I remember the game but remember nothing about Arnie in the marketing.

[Minvaren]

Oo, has anyone mentioned fighting games yet?  The old Barbarian Swordfighter game was pretty good; you had eight different attacks and each attack could be blocked by a couple of the others in a logical sort of way. 

The one where one of the moves was a spinning neck strike that could decapitate the opponent in one hit? Then a lizard guy would come by, drag the body off and kick the head off screen?

With the Vincent Price laugh when you actually connected with that strike.  Ah, fond memories.

[UnSub]

Barbarian - C64 version

Barbarian - Amiga version

Still kinda holds up; from the days when games could last 10 minutes and be considered good value. 

[Sky]

Soul Calibur 2. For unarmed combat, Oni.

[Typhon]

Soul Calibur 2. For unarmed combat, Oni.

So funny you should mention Oni because I was thinking about that recently: 1) the melee combat was pure joy 2) the mutant brain said only one thing, "Rrrrrrrr!!", which makes me laugh to this day.

[Sky]

If your monks played like Oni, your warriors played like SC2, your thieves played like Garrett, and your mages cast like Sacrifice, you would have the most awesome game ever made.