Let's find out whether PSASBR is a rip-off or not.

[JWeinCom]

kupomogli said:

JWeinCom said:

 

And aside from both involving monster taming, Shin Megami and Smash share very little in terms of gameplay.  I'm not sure exactly which Shin Megami game introduced monster collecting, but the earliest I could think of was Devil Children which kind of ummmm... sucked...

You didn't really "collect" but the NES Digital Devil Story game, the first game released in the series allowed you to talk to enemies and recruit them.  The game was released a little over nine years before Pokemon, and the monster recruiting has been a staple for most games in the series since then.  Progress through the game, talk to new monsters, recruit them for help, fuse them to create other monsters, etc.  In the earlier games, the monsters didn't gain levels so you had to either fuse them for a more powerful monster or talk to a newer more powerful monster.  The point is is that you were recruiting and using monsters in order to progress through the game.  Pokemon isn't anything different except that you use only monsters, it's got the "gotta catch 'em all" aspect to it, the graphical style, and it's also a competitive versus style game. 

Playstation All Stars is similar in that respect.  The graphics and style of game are just like Super Smash Bros, so it's indeed a ripoff, but it's still its own game.

I only played Demikids so myu knowledge of the series is a bit sketchy, but from what I played it was only similar to Pokemon in the vaguest sense.  You did collect monsters, but that's about where the similarities ended.  Battles were standard party based affairs rather than the 1 on 1 of Pokemon, they fused instead of evolved, and you selected attacks from an ever growing list rather than the four move limit in Smash Bros.  Nothing like HMs to my recollection, and you battled random monsters and not other trainers.  No gyms, no badges, different art style, different presentation.  

The point is, you can make two different games about monster collecting, and not have the games be rip offs.  You can make two different four player fighters.  Nobody would call Powerstone a Smash Bros rip off.  You can even have two differnt crossover fighters like Dissidia and Smash.  In the case of PASBR, Sony simply takes way too much from their source and adds too little of their own to be classified as anything but a rip off.  And if people are fine with that, that's their business.  I'm not Nintendo's lawyer or anything.  

 

arcane_chaos said:

JWeinCom said:

arcane_chaos said:

JWeinCom said:

arcane_chaos said:
I wouldn't go as far as a rip-off because Sony hasn't really taken anything from Nintendo(let me explain)

I define a rip-off as a game that steals from another franchise from characters/character models/story/world design

in PSABR I don't see any red capped-looking plumber, some brown-colored looking ape, or some green capped warrior, and as of yet I haven't seen any map that looks like anything from the SSB world

I would definitely call it a copy-cat game, what Nintendo did with SSB hasn't been dove into, I didn't hear all this outcry(somewhat) when S-E did "Dissidia" or when NB did "Tales of VS." true there fighting style is way different then SSB or PSASBR, but they had the same goal in mind: to give their fans somewhat for a what-if scenario of seeing the most noticeable characters of their franchise to fight along side or against each other.

PSASBR seems like it will have more than just one mode, so that might be something Superbot is doing to further distance themselves apart and give their fans more to look forward to.

So... it doesn't count if you rip off game mechanics?  Your definition is incredibly narrow.

As for Dissidia, there was no outcry because it was not even the slightest bit similar to Smash Bros.  Nobody is claiming that Nintendo has the sole rights to make a crossover fighter.  They weren't the first and they won't be the last.  The big difference is that Square didn't take Brawl's mechanics and swap Mario for Cloud.  They created a unique fighting engine that made sense considering their franchises heritage, implemented their own visual style, and shifted the emphasis of the fighting franchise to accomodate story.

Oh, and Smash Brothers has way more than one mode.  I think it has like, the most modes of just about any fighter O_o...

and thus is why I call it a copy-cat game; we can't call every game the emulates another gameplay mechanics as a rip-off...should we critize every game that copied Mario, Halo: combat evolved, God of war(or DMC for that matter) or Uncharted 2's(or Gears of War) mechanics? I'm not saying PSASBA is some newly creative IP, but it will do enough that it can seperate itself from the competition.

and as I said in my previous post, Dissidia's gemaplay is vastly different from SSB, I was just stating that Sony has the same concept in mind; of giving their fans a little fanservice, is it that bad that they copied SSB's gameplay?

It really depends on the case.  Let's take Uncharted 2 and Gears of War.  They obviously take Gears of War's cover based combat system, but that's about where the similarities end.  Unhcarted 2 features an entirely different aesthetic, an emphasis on exploration, and many different mechanics (i.e. not being a team based affair).  So that's not a ripoff.

In the case of ASBR, they took just about everything wholesale from Smash, down to the airdodge mechanics and art style.  Aside from KOing people via super moves, people seem to struggle to find any differences.

If Sony wants to give fan service, that's great.  But they could do so creatively.  Take Smash Bros itself for instance.  If Nintendo just made a Street Fighter clone with Kirby and Mario, would the series be what it is today?  Instead, they made their own unique take on the 2-D fighter and created the most successful fighting franchise out there.

why I think PSASBR, it getting the rip-off tag is clearly because the what nintendo has created hasn't really been explored: theies no deny that Sony copied Nintendo's battle system, but then what makes Street Fighter/Tekken/Mortal/Blazblue so different from each other? all basically have: light/medium/heavy hit/block but the buttons are somewhat changed,(albeit Tekken moves in a 3 demensional space) or the standard L1 R1 to shoot or O to chrouch/hold to prone formual that has been ABUSED this gen.

I think are line of what a rip-off means come from are own understanding of the word, you can call PSASBR a rip-off and it will affect me none, and I will respect your opinion.

I'm not all that familar with Blazblue or tekken, but let's take Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter 2.

One thing that immediately distinguishes MK is its graphical style.  Whereas SF2 is traditional sprites, MK used mocap and photorealistic (for the time) aesthetics.  They also emphasized blood and violence.

In MK 1-3, each character shares the same basic set of moves, with a few specials to differentiate.  Back and low kick will always do the same sweep, whereas down and hp will always do an uppercut.  Street Fighter 2 gives each character a wide variety of moves.  With Dhalsim down heavy punch will do a stretchy arm attack, E Honda will sweep the groung, and dhalsim will uppercut.  In addition the physics in general are way different.  Hitstun in early MK games were pretty much non existent which limited the potential of true combos.  You could heavy punch for an eternity until your opponent decided to put up their guard (which has a dedicated button).  In comparison, Street Fighter 2 had high hitstun which made a variety of combos possible.  In general, MK is a really stiff game compared to Street Fighter with fewer moves that can cancel into one another and so forth.

Another difference is the special move system.  MK focussed on tapping motions (i.e. right right kick for Liu Kang's flying kick) while Street Fighter utilized fluid motions (i.e. down forward punch for Hadokens).

Oh and fatalities.

So, from physics, to visuals, to controls, and even down to the sounds of the game, their are a whole lot of difference between the two games.  It's similar to the situation with Shin Megami Tensai and Pokemon.  Both games are about beating an opponent in a one on one battle, but within that framework, the games show more similarities than differences.  In the case of Smash Brothers vs PSABR, I find that the similarities far outweigh the differences, as Kantor does a pretty good job of pointing out.