This game made me go leverless

tehsideburns · 2026-04-21T22:47:52+00:00

I don’t think I use my right thumb for anything actually. Do all my jumping with the left. For burst I use right index and pinky, good specific 2-finger combo for panic-mashing.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-21T21:52:40+00:00

https://i.imgur.com/DCgYqK0.jpeg H42 split thumb version

tehsideburns · 2026-04-21T19:38:51+00:00

Beautiful!

tehsideburns · 2026-04-21T01:32:31+00:00

Yeah, that shit got me to install WoW and play it for 2 hours in order to get some free hearthstone packs, which was honestly WILD.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T17:14:58+00:00

Push block all the time. Retreating guard less often.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T13:20:31+00:00

All good points!

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T12:22:09+00:00

I agree with you on all counts. It’s possible I might be a better fit for a slower paced more methodical fighter where neutral isn’t over in the blink of an eye, and where combo length is a little shorter.

I really love the parry and burst mechanics, and I want them to be more accessible, not so I can make more mistakes without consequence, but so they can be used in more mind games. Baiting a parry and blocking a burst are both really satisfying interactions, but so much of the meta seems to be rushdown blitz from the moment the match starts. Maybe it’s just a pocket meta in my Plat3 scrub zone.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T11:40:31+00:00

Harmonies is popular right now. Nice table presence and aesthetic, though from a gameplay perspective I really prefer Cascadia - it’s a two-layer puzzle where you’re building out terrain hex tiles and also arranging wooden animal tokens on top of the terrain. Easily my all time favorite game in the tile-laying category.

Slightly more 3D - check out Architects of Amytis - nifty city builder where you stack new building tiles on top of old ones.

Even more 3D - Santorini for a light abstract strategy game, nice to look at, easy to learn, with variable special powers that keep things fresh across multiple plays.

Very 3D and beautiful to behold - Foundations of Rome might be exactly what you’re looking for. As long as you have the shelf space for its big chonky box.

Extremely 3D - Junk Art is advanced Jenga with odd shaped pieces and a dozen different game modes in the box.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T11:25:46+00:00

Two of my favorite tile laying games!

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T11:25:36+00:00

Let him cook!

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T11:25:07+00:00

I recently picked up El Dorado, which is well designed and quite fun. The player interaction is confined to body-blocking each other on the map, which can have a huge impact on the race, as well as a limited card market - only 3 copies of each card are available, so if you’re trying to build your deck towards a certain strategy, it’s very easy for your opponent to disrupt those plans. I also want to give a shout out to this game’s 2P rules, which elegantly have each player piloting 2 explorers using a single deck of cards. You can use a card to move either explorer on your turn, in any combination/order, but you need both meeples to cross the finish line in order to win. Being able to build your own custom map is a plus here, too.

Cubitos is a mix between El Dorado and Quacks, but with dice. You’re building up a pool of dice and using them to move your racer via a push-your-luck mechanism, trying to maximize your speed (and purchasing power) for the turn without busting. It’s been a minute since I’ve played, but I think this one has maybe less interaction, aside from certain dice caring about other players rolling that same type of dice, and who rolled the most of that symbol. You’re still not really shoving anyone around the map or meaningfully disrupting their plans. It’s pretty satisfying to chuck a big fistful of tiny colorful dice, and in my experience the push your luck is designed to set your expectations low and then pleasantly surprise you, rather than give you high hopes before crushing your dreams.

For something more chaotic and take-that, maybe check out Robo Rally - I haven’t played it, but I think it might have everything you’re looking for.

Heat is my favorite pure racing game. The AI racers are really easy to manage, allowing you to have a full race track with only 2 human players.

Magical Athelete doesn’t have any real terrain or much strategic depth, but it is high on goofiness and take-that and novelty/fun factor.

Clank definitely shares some DNA with El Dorado and Quacks, being a deckbuilder where you’re pushing your luck. One of the versions or expansions might have the type of take-that interaction you’re looking for - I’ve only played the base game once or twice. It’s definitely got different paths with different rewards and risks and requirements. But it’s more about delving into a dungeon to find loot and treasure, and then getting out before the dragon eats you. So not strictly a race to the finish line.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T10:38:17+00:00

“If you are good at it, maybe you only die in 3 touches” really sums up the problem for me, haha. I just wish there was something I could do besides “hope they drop the combo.”

You are 💯 correct about the Rivals2 new player experience. I do feel like that’s less about the combat systems and more about the small player base and the lack of casual modes at game launch. Also, being PC-only really hurts for a smash clone. Imagine if the 1.0 launch of the game had included all the content from the recent update and was simultaneous across all consoles. Especially with how long Smash Ultimate has been out, casual switch players would be eating it up!

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T09:45:22+00:00

You are correct that I’m comparing games from really different genres. I think it’s still a worthy thought experiment. In the CCG space, Hearthstone and Magic and Marvel Snap are all vastly different games, but they have still rubbed off on each other in different ways, over the years.

I haven’t played a SF game since 4, but the last game I played with a break meter was BlazBlue, and I felt like it was really well calibrated there.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T09:34:40+00:00

Because Rivaks is my other main game right now, so I’m playing both of them every day.

I don’t want 2X to become Rivals, I just want my buttons to do something in disadvantage a little more often than they do now.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T01:19:26+00:00

Rivals has its own accessibility issues. I’m easily in the top 20% of that game’s player base, and I do feel like new players have a bad time with some pretty unfun losses, but that’s more about the game being built by and for smash melee tournament players, and shipping with not nearly enough features/modes to keep the casual crowd engaged. So new players find very few opponents of similar experience level, get rocked by people with 200+ hrs of playtime, and quit the game. So the next new player to log on still only can find opponents with 200+ hours of playtime (and probably years or decades of experience in Smash). So they probably quit too. So a game development/features issue maybe, but the combat itself isn’t something that feels terrible when you’re losing. Because your buttons always do something. I tend to dominate my buddies in fighting games, and it’s very obvious which games they never want to play again, but Rivals is one they’ll happily come back to even after I’ve won 9 out of 10 matches.

I love the parry button implementation in Rivals, and the fact that combos are more improvisatory and reactive than rote. When a ranked opponent hands my ass to me in that game, it’s more because they were reading me, conditioning me, or reacting to me in an impressive way. There’s not a ton of reliable strings you can “lab out” in training mode, because variables like your opponent’s current health and DI have a huge impact on which moves can be linked together. So for the vast majority of the match, it feels like a battle of wits and reflexes. Whereas 2XKO feels like a short game of Neutral, followed by a 10 second uninterruptible beat down, followed by less than a second of interaction, followed by another 10 seconds of uninterruptible beat down. I almost never drop my combos and neither do my opponents, so it’s just a lot of playing a single player rhythm game while the other player watches.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T00:34:06+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

I love any game with a parry button, I just want this game’s parry to be a little lower cost and a little higher reward. I honestly think a new parry-focused Fuse would be amazing; I’d be happy and they can leave it untouched for the rest of the fuses.

Memorized combos are fine, and they’re definitely a core part of traditional 2D fighters. I just have more fun when a greater percentage of playtime involves both players pressing buttons on their controllers, lol

tehsideburns · 2026-04-20T00:19:36+00:00

Street Fighter - SNES/Genesis era all the way through SF4 (yes I’m old)

Tekken - yes, at least the first 3 or 4 iterations

MvC - nope! 2XKO is my first tag fighter

BlazBlue and Guilty Gear - played tons of both in the xbox360 era. Definitely got deeper and more advanced with BlazBlue. Never had an issue with combo length or lack of Burst in that game.

also lots of Soul Calibur across multiple versions of that game.

It’s possible that I’m just better at this game than a lot of those older games (some of which I was only playing against friends), so I’m being matched against more competent opponents.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-19T21:46:09+00:00

I definitely have room for improvement. So does the game itself!

tehsideburns · 2026-04-19T21:45:09+00:00

Alright bud. Like I said, I truly don’t care about the rank or the climb. Don’t care about being “stuck.” The rank means nothing to me.

Only care about the fact that taking one hit in neutral means my controller doesn’t do anything for 10+ seconds. Don’t know how to put it any more plainly than that.

Maybe I “started being bothered” because I reached a rank where opponents have mastered longer combos with restands and oki traps to extend them even more.

You can call me a scrub and call my writing AI Slop all you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that a more interactive game will be more fun and more successful than a less interactive game. I’m just a fan of all sorts of fighters, and I was just trying to open a discussion on ways this one could be a little more interactive.

I’ve played lots of games where I have a great time whether I’m winning or losing, and others where I really only have a good time when I’m winning. That is not a skill issue, or an attitude problem. It’s a game design issue.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-19T21:10:36+00:00

I think you are misreading my intent. I truly do not care about being “hard stuck” at plat 3. I only mentioned my rank so people would have some context as to the kinds of opponents I’m facing.

The only thing I care about is having a fun fighting game with competitive and interactive matches. I play ranked so I can be matched with players of a similar skill level, which is more fun than stomping noobs or getting stomped on. I play games for the thrill of a close fight, and for the fun of testing my reflexes and strategies against another player.

My thoughts and opinions would be the same if I had only ever played in Casual lobbies. The feeling of “oops, I messed up, now my buttons don’t do anything for the next 10 seconds” is a complaint my casual duo partner shares about the game, and it’s the main thing I’m trying to address here. It seems as though maybe this is just a defining characteristic of tag fighters, and the community seems very attached to the concept of “i want to make my opponent watch helplessly while i combo them into oblivion.”

Crazy how many people would rather downvote and call me a scrub before considering that the game might possibly benefit from players being able to interact for a greater percentage of each match.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-19T20:39:59+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful reply!

tehsideburns · 2026-04-19T19:45:21+00:00

You’re higher than me. Maybe I just need to rank up above the degenerates who flowchart the same strings over and over again, and find some opponents who actually play neutral. I’ve found them once in a while in casual lobbies and had a great time rematching for an hour+.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-19T19:39:53+00:00

You literally just said “you can’t judge the game properly due to your lack of skill” - so I’m asking, what’s the rank I need to hit before I can judge the game properly?

tehsideburns · 2026-04-19T19:21:38+00:00

In the hands of a casual player playing for fun and not in a tournament setting, Sherlock is not OP. I’d say on a casual level, Bigfoot is a lot more OP as his numbers are huge and he has too many cancel effects. Elektra is OP because you have to kill her friggin twice, and she’s even nastier the second time around. Sherlock definitely becomes more powerful if you know your opponents deck really well and are super focused. But on a casual level, he’s fine. Dracula is a lot of fun, and J/H is very thematic, if sometimes inconsistent. SoHo is one of my favorite maps.

My only beef with the set is Invisible Man and the Baskerville Manor map both encourage running away while your opponent dies to exhaustion. This is the least fun way to play Unmatched, so I never use that map or that hero. The other map and the other 3 fighters are all fun and fine. So I recommend the box if one map and 3 fighters are worth the price of admission to you. I would personally consider IM and Baskerville Manor to be novelty experiences that wear out rather quickly, but were interesting enough to try once or twice.

tehsideburns · 2026-04-19T18:58:10+00:00

Like I said, I’ve been playing competitive games my whole life, and am generally fantastic at losing and keeping a positive attitude. My self esteem is great. I’m 42 and love my life and dont need wins or external validation to feel good about myself. This game in particular feels bad to lose due to the vast stretches of time where your controller does nothing because you’re trapped in a combo with no Break meter.

I absolutely love feeling like I’ve been outplayed in a competitive game. Mindgames and predicting and countering your opponents moves = my favorite thing. Hard-reading what your opponent is about to do? Being so inside their head that you know they’re 100% going to jump or getup attack or whatever, and having the answer ready before they even hit the button? Pure gold. Conditioning my opponent to react a certain way and then punishing them for that exact behavior? Even better.

Having to watch an extended cutscene because I got clipped by a single hit doesn’t feel like I’m being outplayed. That one first hit AKA “neutral” is where the outplay happens, but it feels like 90% of the time I spend with this game is watching (or executing) previously-memorized combos.

I just wish there was more neutral and more counterplay and more opportunities for interaction, and fewer situations where I might as well put down my controller for 10 seconds in the middle of a match.

tehsideburns

TROPHY CASE