the good, the bad, and the ugly...of fighting stances

[pragmatic insanester]

in most 2d fighters, before the action starts, the warriors will have some motion or pose they enact. some seem like that would be useful and benefit the user in some kind of move. other types seem like it would put you against the odds. lastly, some fighting stances are just plain weird or retarded, and were probably only put there for amusement or no martial art foresight by the programmers.


ante up the links or pics!

[GarrettCRW]

Let me be the first to state my approval for the fighting stance(s) of Chun Li/Ivy/Sonya Blade/insert your favorite female character here.

[Slimedog]

Generally the prefight animations simply reinforce the attitude and personality of the character. Since there isn't a lot of story or depth of personality to most fighting games, the prefight animation is about all the fleshing out that most of these guys get.

[Snapple]

In Fighters Megamix, one of the characters is a giant panda balloon. He has no fighting stance. All of his moves are literally his entire body turning while he's floating, so that he "kicks" and "punches" and whatnot. But his body never actually moves. Same "stance" the whole time, if you will. It looks really funny.

Oh, and you can't have this topic without Voldo from Soul Calibur. He has the weirdest fighting stances, and usually he ends up turning himself around and tries to fight backwards. Very frsutrating if you don't know how to turn him back around.

[Alucard]

Yeah, Voldo does have a wierd fighting stance(s). He is a very hard character to deal with.

[Chuplayer]

In Fighters Megamix, one of the characters is a giant panda balloon. He has no fighting stance. All of his moves are literally his entire body turning while he's floating, so that he "kicks" and "punches" and whatnot. But his body never actually moves. Same "stance" the whole time, if you will. It looks really funny.

Yeah. That thing was in Fighting Vipers, too. Really weird.

As for my main contribution, I can only say one thing: "Me Bouncy!"

[pragmatic insanester]

i actually use some of the same moves in real life fights as voldo - though i'm nowhere near as fast or flexible. back on subject:

doctor b. from tekken 3 - good. the fall from being hit during a fight is a good chunk of where the damage comes from.

[spider-man]

I like angel's pose before a fight (the finger-devil horns). Although not useful, it looks cool. Also, K' prefight stance is also one of my favs (simple, but gives him an air of power/coolness ).

[emumuumuucowgomoo]

Scorpion from MK1 and 2 (dunno about UMK) had a really dumb stance. I know this isn't what you meant by "pose" but it's what I thought of when clicking the topic. Anyway, the way he holds his arm makes me think he'd lose circulation after about a minute.

Same with King, from CvS. At least I think it's him/her/that androngynous he/she thing. One knee up, kinda like Joe, hands all up over its face.


As far as cool ones.... umm.. either Morrigan or Felicia comes in as a nun, then whips it off and is scantily clad. That's hot, though if it's Felecia the end result isn't (Felecia, gah, "OH ALL THE OTAKU WILL SWOON FOR HER AFTER ALL SHE IS A CAT + GIRL HOW CUTE!!! KAWAII!!!"). And God Rugal has a kickass opener when you face him in CvS2.

And any fighter with hoes surrounding him (Angore (or Andore?) from SF3, Hagger from Slammasters, etc) is pimping, therefore kewliez. I wanna be a pimp when I grow up.