2017-05-06 02:37:27

Hi, folks.
Long story short: I was a competitive fighting games player until I got blind when I was 19-years old in end 2000. My favorite titles were back in the days SF Alpha 3, Tekken 3 and Tag Tournament, The King of Fighters from 97 to 2000 and Mortal Kombat 2 (never really liked 3, UMK3 and 4).

Well, now I am blind and so I read many people here posting about playing mainstream fighting games on PS and PC, and I would really, really love to give it a try. So here I am with some questions for you wise blackbelts:

1. Is it (enphasis) REALLY (ends enphasis) playable? I mean, there are essentially two kinds of players in fighting games, the ones who know what they are doing and the button smashers who repeat the same one or two moves again and again and sometimes end up winning a round or match. No problem at all with the second kind of player, word, games should be for fun, but I used to have fun being the other kind. So, honestly, I can spend some hours in training modes, but will I eventually be really knowing what's going on on the screen in order to react appropriately? I need to talk to great players here lol

2. Where to start? Which games are best for a blind player to master? Menus are not a biiig problem, as I can easely ask for visual assistance, I am concerned more about gameplay, for me right now it seems very difficult to determine wheter my opponent is standind, crouching or jumping towards or away from me. So, for mercy of a poor newbie, please, show me the way smile

thanks a lot

2017-05-06 03:21:16

If you were really a competetive player, you'll have a hard time finding people on a similar level you are here, I'm thinking. there are only a few people here who spend the majority of their time on fighting games and play at a higher level, myself included, and among that group, fewer still have actually been competetive players. but here's my take on both your questions.

1. Yes, it is possible to be good without simply mashing buttons... and yes, it is eventually possible to tell via both audio, and using your spacial sense, to tell whether an opponent is far or close, whether they are coming in towards you and how to react. Crouching or standing is something that you likely won't be able to tell... since no game has any audible way of telling you that.

2. What games to start with is too vague of a question, really... because any fighting game works to start with. That's purely up to you and what your interests are, and any generation of fighting games will work. Without knowing those, it's hard to recommend games, since fighting games are all different by nature.

Discord: clemchowder633

2017-05-06 03:33:43

Hey, I said I was a competitive player, I never said I was a good competitive player lol

But knowing that it is actually possible to locate yourself in the scene and react properly is already a great first step. If there are no titles with easier gameplay for blind players, I think I'll start with Street Fighter V.

2017-05-06 03:37:12

Street Fighter V is a good one especially if you were an Alpha fan, which I was as well! And there's no game that makes it particularly harder or easier to play as a fighting game player who is blind, though some people find it harder to keep track of fast paced games such as Marvel Vs. capcom 3, Guilty Gear, or any similar ones. Especially now, fighting games almost all have audio that is in stereo which is relative to where you are, so you can tell if you're on the left or right side, etc, though some games still don't have this due to gameplay being prioritized over audio design.

Discord: clemchowder633

2017-05-06 04:05:36

Forgot to ask... which platform are you playing on?

Discord: clemchowder633

2017-05-06 04:28:09

HI Vcapparica.
I've played a lot of fighting games over the years. I've never been able to tell where my enemy is, this is mostly because TV speakers are very low quality. But you can still play a lot of good ones and do pretty well.
My favorites are all the mortal kombat games, clay fighter 63-1/3, ready to rumbble 1 and 2, most street fighter games, tekken 2, 3, 4, and 5, BlazBlu games (haven't gotten to those ones yet), super smash bros for the nintendo 64 and game cube. You might have noticed some of these games are ancient, but I couldn't resist mentioning them because their a blast! I haven't played on a console in a while because I moved, and somebody wrapped a whole bunch of cables and wires together and just threw them into a box. So now I don't know which cord goes to what. I have to buy new cables to hook up my systems.
Hth.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-05-06 15:55:06

The Blazblue games only catch my interest briefly... it's the same for all the games. Not entirely sure why... they just don't grab me personally. Tekken and SF though, that's different! Killer Instinct is a game I love, as well.

Discord: clemchowder633

2017-05-07 09:19:05 (edited by pulseman45 2017-05-09 08:55:15)

I have been playing a lot of fighting games since I was a kid, my first one being Soul Blade on the PS1. I am not a competitive player, but spamming moves over and over again doesn't bring me much fun nonetheless.
I have been playing a lot of Blazblue recently, which does have audio cues for when a character crouches or stands, but I believe this is the same sound effect and it is so low and short you can't really distinguish it in the frenetic action. Also, another annoying thing is that the console version of Blazblue CentralFiction doesn't have audio panning for sound effects during fights whereas the arcade version has it (it's very narrow, though). So, even though I like this game a lot, I wouldn't really recommand it. They should really bring a patch which adds that  feature, I am sure they can.
On another note, and even though I didn't play it, you may want to try Killer Instinct, as the sound design is really good. There are even blind players on Youtube explaining in detail how they play it.
Edit: I watched a video of the steam version of BBCF that was released recently, and as I thought the panning of the arcade version is present. The contrary wouldn't have been easy to excuse considering how small the difference between the TypeX² arcade hardware and a regular PC is.
Still, it is as narrow as the arcade version if not more, so in the end it may not help that much.

2017-05-09 19:32:06

I'm running on PC/Steam. I'll try Killer Instinct and MK also.

2017-05-12 02:08:21

Killer Instinct is only available through the Xbox store on either Windows 10, or an XBox One.
MK is on steam.

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Kong!