CRES's Thoughts On: Rising Thunder or It Took People This Long to Realize That Complex Command Inputs Might Be Off Putting to Those Who Want to Get Into Fighting Games!?

And Winner of Most Generic Name Ever goes to:

Once again not much is going on, and I REALLY should like write these on Saturday evenings so that they are ready for Sunday morning. But anyway, very recently a game that is currently in development has caught my attention and that game is Rising Thunder. Yes yes, the name is perhaps the least informative and generic name you could have for a game. Seriously, with a name like Rising Thunder this game could be ANYTHING. And yes, the screenshot above is telling you everything we know about the plot to this game, a bunch of robots fighting each other. You'd think there would be more games that is just robots killing one another, but hey. However, what interested me in this game isn't the laughably unoriginal (yet surprisingly unused) name or the completely stock (and again surprising uncommon) concept of robots fighting each other, nor was it the fact that it is being developed by a team of  Pro Fighting Game players and the founders of the EVO fighting game tournament. No, it's the fact that some one other than Smash Bros. got the idea to make a deep fighting game WITHOUT Quarter Circles, Shoryukens, or 360 movement for special moves.

The sequel to Dive-Kick, Dive-Punch

Rising Thunder's control scheme seems standard at first. Each robot has a light, medium, and heavy attack and can jump, dash, backstep, and combo these attacks together. What gets interesting is that each robot has only three specials, and these specials are solely executed with a dedicated button for each special. You don't Quarter circle Down-to-Forward and attack to throw a projectile, all you need is to push one button and there you go. Throws and the character's Super attack are also dedicated buttons rather than hitting multiple buttons at once. However, there is a catch. See each special also has a cool down that you must wait before being able to use that special again. Some cool downs are very fast while others are actually incredibly slow, making spamming attacks harder and wiffing all the more punishing. However, since this game is going to be played mostly online, you can only see YOUR OWN cool down gauge and your special Kinetic gauge (which can be used to cancel combos or to break your opponent's combo but only ONE or the OTHER). That also brings me to another part that's interesting about this game, it is going to be a Free-to-Play online fighter for the PC. The only purchases planned for the game is going to be cosmetic stuff.

"Corkscrew punch!"

Currently the game is in it's Alpha and that means it's pretty bare bones for anything other than the actual fights. There is only one completed background, currently only six robots, and there is only two modes: Training and Ranked Matches. However, that being said the game looks great. The background looks a little bland, but the graphics look great, and each robot has a very unique design that sets them apart from the rest of the cast (though I'm amazed at how much of a Gundam the Chinese robot is). It also seems like there is going to be a LOT of customization for each robot in terms of specials, as it looks like all three specials and their super can be swapped out for different variations (much like Smash 4) though only a few have any kind of customization at the moment.

I've never been that big into fighting games, mainly because I could never get that far up the steep learning curve for them. However, Rising Thunder is attempting to eliminate that initial curve and give new players the tools to help them get into the game. Until they get bodied by someone who knows what they are doing. But hey a Free-to-Play Fighter that anyone can play and is actually good is a win in my book.

If you are interested here is a link to their main page: http://risingthunder.com/

Until next time.

-CRES, It looks like he is trying to apologize.