This simplified control also damages the basic gameplay elements that we have come to accustom ourselves with. Moves that need to be charged (such as Guile’s Sonic Boom) no longer need to be charged, you can just flick your stick to the right and voila, Sonic-a Boom! Remember all those times you got pissed off at the arcade when the computer would walk forward and toss a sonic boom at you? Well now you can plot your revenge on the game’s AI. Of course this new system of performing moves basically turns this game into a game that is more fit for a toddler rather than a hard-nosed veteran. Remember when people used to give you props because you could perform a spinning pile driver with Zangief? Well those days are long gone. Simply push right on the C stick and you too can be spinning pile drivered by your newborn nephew.
The fun doesn’t end there though; the kicks and punches are mapped to the L and R buttons by default. The intensity of the move depends on how hard you press the button down, the harder the press the more powerful the move. Of course if you’ve held the GameCube controller in your hands you’ll realize that those aren’t exactly the most responsive buttons on the controller. Can you imagine trying to pull off Chun-Li’s rapid kick maneuver or Blanka’s electric shock move? You can’t, because it’s impossible to do! Instead, Capcom wants you to use the C stick to do the move, don’t want you stressing yourself now.
You might be wondering why Capcom decided to simplify their control scheme and I didn’t really quite understand it until I played the game for myself. It’s simple; the GameCube controller is NOT capable of handling complex maneuvers and now that I think about it, neither is any other pad that is currently in development. The d-pad is simply too tiny and too inept to handle any sort of precision handling, it’s basically there for aesthetics are far as I’m concerned. Instead, you’ll be controller your character’s movements via the analog stick and that too is far inferior to anything on the PS2 or the Dreamcast. It’s too muddled and sluggish to allow for any sort of accurate movements, you’ll probably have a hard time pulling of a fireball with it, I know I did.
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