AEW Fight Forever (and other AEW video games)

[SirEdger]

I honestly thought Paul Wight was unlockable directly in the store so good to know.

[sek69]

I'm not going to pretend a lot of the content isn't thin (the CAW system is pretty limited at the moment), but all I wanted was a game that controls like No Mercy with updated graphics and that's what I got. I got an N64 back in the day just to play Virtual Pro Wrestling/WCW vs nWo/Wrestlemania/No Mercy 

They've already indicated that the game will be getting tons of updates, so there's every reason to believe it will only get better from here. 

[sek69]

So I ran through the Road to Elite mode with Miro and it was alright, it was a nice touch having local food options everywhere you went. Also if you're wondering, yes the fries on salad they show for Pittsburgh is very much a real thing here. 

[strobogo]

It's definitely closer to the WM x8/XIX side of things than Day of Reckoning. A good base with room for improvement. All the No Mercy talk was a bit overblown, as it is much closer to the Gamecube games, which were a mix of the N64 and Smackdown games.

[The Man in Blak]

Eh, I still see No Mercy as a closer point of comparison, due to the momentum system. You're not wrong that WM X8/XIX is basically No Mercy sped up so, in terms of sheer speed, Fight Forever has a cadence that's closer to those games. But the key difference is that X8/XIX ditches the momentum system for a Street Fighter-esque "super" meter - IIRC, you don't lose meter when you get hit in X8/XIX and you can actually build up meter with strikes. As such, I always felt more inclined to just brawl into a finisher in X8/XIX; with the AKI games, in contrast, you could still lean on strikes as your bread-and-butter offense, but you absolutely had to mix them up with grapples to keep your opponent off-balance and minimize the odds for counters.

I do think that Day of Reckoning 2 gets overlooked in the pantheon of wrestling games, though. I would have really liked to have seen Fight Forever carry over its resthold/submission choice system for holds, since submissions are noticeably underpowered (just as they were in No Mercy). And there were really cool options for CAW in DoR2 as well, especially for entrance crafting.

[Migs]

1 hour ago, strobogo said:

It's definitely closer to the WM x8/XIX side of things than Day of Reckoning. A good base with room for improvement. All the No Mercy talk was a bit overblown, as it is much closer to the Gamecube games, which were a mix of the N64 and Smackdown games.

I LOVED Day of Reckoning, so if the Gamecube games are a good comparison, that bodes well for me.

[Big Pete]

Wrestlemania XIX also had a momentum metre which would be colour graded similar to the AKI games. It worked alongside the 'super' metre and would appear above the wrestler's name on the hud with a colour coded indicator that was similar to AKI games (aka if you were struggling you'd be dark blue, if you were on fire, the name would be fire red).

Fight Forever ditches the super metre, but the momentum system is very similar to the GameCube style games and doesn't dictate gameplay as much as the AKI games. Interestingly as well, Fight Forever doesn't regenerate health either. In AKI games, the health system was similar to a fighter where you'd inflict temporary and permanent damage which you could refill by staying on your feet. I think that's why matches are always pretty short and rarely feel as gruelling or tense as a AKI style match.

The striking system reminds me a lot of Def Jam in terms of how fluid it is. If you go back and play those games, you'll notice how strikingly similar the pacing is to Fight Forever. Since that's the closest we got to a modern No Mercy, it's fair to say that was always going to be a natural evolution. Granted, Def Jam was intended to be more of a fighting game where you KO your opponent, so the planned WCW game may not have been THAT fast.

It's definitely not a $90 game and if it's anything like the 2K games, it should go on special relatively quickly. I expect it to be discounted quickly, so for $20 you'd have a rock solid wrestling game.

However as an AKI purist, this isn't the game I've been longing for. It's a fine throwback to the SYM era of Yukes and there are some options I like. Namely, the ability to have music while the match is playing - if this can be modded being able to include the DOR soundtrack and old AKI tracks would be sweet. However there's a lot of core components missing and it's pretty bare bones for what it is.

[C.S.]

2 hours ago, Big Pete said:

It's definitely not a $90 game

Nowhere is charging $90 for it, are they?

It's $60 for the base game (either physical or digital). I paid $70 and change for the Elite Edition (digital). 

Whether that's worth it is its own debate, but it's definitely not $90 that I can see - unless, maybe, you mean outside the U.S.? Then I don't know.

[Big Pete]

4 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Nowhere is charging $90 for it, are they?

It's $60 for the base game (either physical or digital). I paid $70 and change for the Elite Edition (digital). 

Whether that's worth it is its own debate, but it's definitely not $90 that I can see - unless, maybe, you mean outside the U.S.? Then I don't know.

AUD.

Whatever the currency, you're not getting value for money.

[sek69]

It's probably not worth 60 USD at its current state,  but I'm sure there will be sales after a couple weeks and also probably have more content added as well. 

...and dang, Ozzies get boned with the cost of games. 

[C.S.]

On 7/3/2023 at 5:46 PM, Big Pete said:

Whatever the currency, you're not getting value for money.

That's entirely subjective.

I wanted a fun game with old school pick-up-and-play gameplay that wasn't the dire dogshit WWE 2K has been feeding us with a shovel for years, and I got that.

Does that mean there's not room for improvement? Of course not. CAW is awful, even by the standards of 20 years ago. I'm not as hard on Road to Elite as most people are, but I never put much stock into thinking it would be anything special in the first place. It's a fun diversion. What I do hate is grinding to unlock a bunch of wrestlers - and whatever else - that should have been playable right out of the gate. 

Fight Forever isn't perfect, but at least it's not boring like almost every WWE game over the past decade has been. WWE 2K22 was briefly on PS+ Extra, and I loathed it with the intensity of a thousand suns. Broken, unintuitive, completely irritating in just about every way. I believe there's a trial for WWE 2K23 now, but I don't care enough to bother.

@The Man in Blak's post covers the pros and cons of Fight Forever nicely.

[strobogo]

The only wrestler you really have to grind for is Owen. The other unlockables are beaten in RTE (Big Show, Brodie) or easily purchased in the shop after a few matches (Cody, Aubrey).

[C.S.]

2 hours ago, strobogo said:

The only wrestler you really have to grind for is Owen. The other unlockables are beaten in RTE (Big Show, Brodie) or easily purchased in the shop after a few matches (Cody, Aubrey).

I'm almost at the end with Eddie Kingston in RTE, and I haven't gotten a chance at unlocking either Show or Brodie. Maybe I lost the wrong matches or picked the wrong options? Who knows.

Also, if you don't beat Show in three minutes (not sure about Brodie), you're fucked because the game auto-saves after that, and you have to start all over again.

That's pretty annoying. If I'm wrong, and I hope I am, please help a good brother out.

The Owen grind feels quasi-disrespectful, even though it wasn't intended that way. 

Cody and Aubrey, thankfully, are easy to get - as you said (I already have both).

[strobogo]

I think for both Brodie and Big Show you need to lose every match. For Brodie, eventually the Dark Order asks you to join and through that you can unlock him. For Big Show you do have to beat him but you can cheese it with a count out pretty easily.

[Big Pete]

7 hours ago, C.S. said:

That's entirely subjective.

I wanted a fun game with old school pick-up-and-play gameplay that wasn't the dire dogshit WWE 2K has been feeding us with a shovel for years, and I got that.

My issue with that is that you can emulate that and have that experience at a fraction of the price. Fight Forever doesn't really offer much else and there's no way in good conscience I could recommend paying AAA prices, especially when this game will likely be discounted in the not too distant future.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad there's an alternative to the sim style of game and I'm a fan of that era of Pro Wrestling game. However, the game isn't really bringing much else to the table that those games didn't already bring. In fact, it incorporates a lot of those 'dire dogshit' gameplay elements those later 2K games had.

I'm hopeful the game will pull a No Man Sky and will eventually be fine-tuned into the ultimate throwback game. However, I expect by the time that comes, the base game will be heavily discounted and all the money will be tied into DLC packs - which is fine because that's commonplace in the fighting game genre.

[The Man in Blak]

I ended up unlocking Brodie and Big Show on my second RTE run-through on Easy -- since I was more familiar with the game at that point, I was basically hit the ground running and won the World Championship right upfront. If you can stay undefeated from there, I hit the Dark Order branch shortly after that (with Brodie) and then I eventually hit the "challenge" branch where you end up having to win gauntlet matches against three guys; Big Show was the first one out in a "monster" gauntlet and, IIRC, that's how I ended up unlocking him.

For Owen, I read somewhere that it takes something like 100 exhibition matches to unlock him, which is ridiculous. I already had the store completely bought out by the time I finished up my review playtime, but I wasn't going to spend another twenty hours grinding out exhibitions just for that.

[Mr Wrestling 2000]

Ive been playing since launch on ps4. I dont feel the n64 aki games comparison, i still play on a monthly basis and they felt way more solid. Someone upthread said it but its very much the gamecube/ps2 yukes games. Which i liked but no where near as much as the older ones. I never liked how easily you could interrupt strikes and moves, and the way some of the grapples kinda sucked you together would throw off my n64 instincts. This engine feels like that but they have the def jam strikes and match speed incorporated. The momentum bar in this more like Def Jam than any wrestling games. In the n64 ones the momentum was if i have it you dont in this both of you can be very high momentum. Taunting outside builds meter in this instead of draining it, your a button weak grapples were unreversable but didnt build your momentum. In this you dont lose meter very easily unless your opponent is running wild. I was stuck offline until yesterday due to the ps4 crashing issues. So i was focused on the single player stuff. I played through R2E 1 once with a caw and done a month or so with 2 Yuka and Christian. The dialogue changes based on who you are, the intro was very different when i was Christian. You have a funny talk about an old man gimmick battle royal with Tony and then the cut scene is Tony announcing your signing not the Bucks. I wonder who else has the really deep custom dialogue. 

The CAW is totally fine for me but i was never one to engage with the more fiddly parts of it. I made 4 Bears (Brown, Black, Polar, and Hulk) and a Piccolo. Im going to work on making a Riki Chosu or Jumbo next to play ranked with. The worst part of the experience is picking moves, its 2023 how the hell is there no groupings, or jumping by letter, or just making the scroll faster. Its brutal and i cant seem to figure out if i can just just copy move sets or if there is included ones.

the online now that i have it is the most fun ive had playing games 1on1 since sc2. There is a horrible false counter glitch that is infuriating if it triggers on a special and the momentum bar just lies to you sometimes. Some of the wrestler abilities are brutal and need to be limited to 1 a match (roll out WTF!) or changed slightly. Like the absorbing punch one on the giants, you have to do too much damage to break it. When those are not an issue the game is incredible.  I love loading up some randos caw and having a really fun back and forth match, maybe kickout of a signature, maybe do some sweet dives. Then after the match i pick my enemy up and shake their hand.

This game was meant for my tastes in wrestling games, something i can just pickup and play for an hour and have dozens of fun matches that are all extremely satisfying. Now that the network stuff is fixed and i can play with my ps4 friends im only going to have more fun.

[C.S.]

10 hours ago, Mr Wrestling 2000 said:

just making the scroll faster.

I can help with this, at least.

Left and right on the d-pad (the arrows, not the sticks) will make scrolling much faster.

[Mr Wrestling 2000]

that does make it was faster thanks!

[strobogo]

Couple of ideas that should be easy to update:

Allow at least color editing for gear of the AEW roster. So much of the roster is out of date in appearance due to how long it kept getting delayed, at least being able to manually update would be nice.

Allow editing of stats 

Allow some of the arenas used in mini games to be used in create an arena 

Actually show the branching paths in RTE like No Mercy

Fix table stability so they don't collapse if someone breathes near them

[Alucard]

On 7/10/2023 at 10:00 AM, strobogo said:

Allow at least color editing for gear of the AEW roster. So much of the roster is out of date in appearance due to how long it kept getting delayed, at least being able to manually update would be nice.

Something I thought for sure would be a no brainer and I also thought they said would be in early on, especially with all the comparisons to the n64 games. I mean even WCW REVENGE let you change all the colors. 

[C.S.]

I'm arguing with an idiot on another message board who claims WWE 2K20 (a broken, buggy, indefensible, irredeemable disaster of a game) is better than AEW Fight Forever. If someone wants to say they prefer 2K22 or 23, that's at least a reasonable take, but 2K20 was a catastrophe. His big response: the eyeroll emoji.  

Exchanges like this make me glad that PWO exists.

Things can get heated here, but it's respectful and intelligent for the most part.

[strobogo]

Fuck you, pal 

[The Thread Killer]

9 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Exchanges like this make me glad that PWO exists.

Things can get heated here, but it's respectful and intelligent for the most part.

Hey did you know Mauro Ranallo was in Creed III? I was watching it at like three in the morning, and as soon as I saw him, I had two thoughts:

”Oh Lord please no” and “Hey I wonder if @C.S. saw this, or if he is more like CM Punk and has never seen a Rocky movie.”

[C.S.]

3 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

Hey did you know Mauro Ranallo was in Creed III? I was watching it at like three in the morning, and as soon as I saw him, I had two thoughts:

”Oh Lord please no” and “Hey I wonder if @C.S. saw this, or if he is more like CM Punk and has never seen a Rocky movie.”

Oh wow, I had no idea. What an awesome accolade for the greatest voice of our generation. I still have no idea why AEW hasn't scooped him up.

Anyway, I've seen every "Rocky" - except, ironically, the one with Hulk Hogan in it - but I've yet to watch any of the "Creed" movies.

Eventually, I'm going to binge them all - including the completely unexpected recent director's cut of "Rocky IV."

  

3 hours ago, strobogo said:

Fuck you, pal 

LOL. Are you making a joke, or are you the dipshit from the other board? I called him "pal" too.  

If you're said dipshit, PM me.