AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I really hate how Zangief-type characters seem to consistently be low tier, since I find those characters the most fun.
Also, surely I can't be the only one who loves ending matches with either the most or least powerful attack.

If you want a game that doesn't rely on combos too much, you have SF2X (called Super Turbo in the US), Brawl and... Soul Calibur, somewhat, and even then only at low level. All other fighting games that don't rely on combos are terrible (quite a number of characters in Hisoutensoku rely on complicated combos despite the game's zoning nature).

It's really easy to explain: to make a character viable without relying on combos, you have to give it great damage outputs, great keepaway, or great mix-ups. And balancing these is extremely hard. It's really easy to make them either suck or be overpowered. Balancing a character that doesn't rely on combos is extremely hard, and it's obvious when you look at SF2X: characters like Sagat and Dhalsim with great keepaway, Claw with great mix-ups (all top tier) compared to Zangief with big damage grabs but few ways to land them, and Blanka with average mix-ups (both low tier).

The game was designed to give more importance to footsies, spacing, zoning, and it's the only one that managed to be successful at it without incorporating large combos to carry all the damage - simply because it was the first "real" fighting game and as such the developers weren't aware of the popularity combo would have when designing and developing the first versions of the game. This is why they designed the game around something else. When combos got popular (because of characters like Boxer, Chun-Li, Shotos, Guile... and because players saw them as a proof of your skills (combos are extremely hard to do in the SF2 series)), they tried to put characters that would rely more on combos to be effective, they ended up with Cammy (worst char in the game) and Fei-Long (not as bad but really not great).

SF2X doesn't rely much on combos for damage because they didn't think combos would be so popular, and after that every subsequent game thought in terms of combos when they thought of ways to give damage because a lot of players liked combos (good fighting games, of course, also thought in terms of footsies, mindgames, etc). To be honest, SF2X's relative balance (you can win with any character if you're really good, even against another really good opponent) comes from every character having at least one very powerful tool ("cheap" zoning, "cheap" throw loops...). Except Cammy. I still don't understand how Cammy players win tournaments.

Zangief is extremely good in SF4, but that's because he has tools beyond his command grabs.


About Soul Calibur III:
The game wasn't popular in the competitive community because of its lack of balance and some characters being very shallow. Of the newcomers, only Setsuka was a really complete and fresh character, while Tira had an incomplete moveset (Zasalamel as far as I know was complete but "average"). This was partly because of the Custom Styles of the character creation mode. These were numerous and took time to design, and that meant less time to balance the main characters (the Custom Styles sucked competitively, btw). This led to very questionable move changes/ new moves, resulting in a shallow and uninteresting metagame.
Namco understood it very well and removed Custom Styles from SC4 in order to balance the main cast more effectively (it mostly worked).

About Nightmare:
Plot-wise, Nightmare is just a creation of Inferno, as in Soul Edge's power coupled with Siegfried guilt and madness at having killed his own father, and didn't really exist as its own person. In Soul Calibur and Soul Calibur II, "Nightmare" is actually Siegfried's body possessed by Soul Edge. In SCII, Soul Edge slowly loses power, allowing Siegfried to break free of the sword's control. Then in SCIII, Zasalamel rebuilt Nightmare's armour for Soul Edge to inhabit and sacrificed people for their souls to fuel Soul Edge. Nightmare, as far as I'm aware, is always under direct control of Inferno. Inferno would inhabit Nightmare/ use Nightmare as its avatar but Nightmare isn't powerful enough to host Inferno's consciousness.
To be honest, I always liked Siegfried more than Nightmare and I'm glad they're separate characters. Sieg is the hero of the series, after all.

I dunno with the recent AE2012, but wasnt Zangief like top 10 for many people

Yeah something like that

After a fair bit of time with MvC3, I'm considering getting into fighting games more.

What are some good fighting games that are fairly fast paced?

Edit: like, faster than, say, SCIV, which I felt was kind of slow.

@Great Handsome Oppressor
Story-wise, yes I understand why they were separated, and in that sense, I thought it was a good move. I also prefer Siegfried as a character, though I like Nightmare in SC2 because you could tell that the parts of him that were still able to feel remorse were in constant turmoil with the bloodlust of Soul Edge. The only true reason I disliked the split was because their movesets were halved. Both characters retained moves that I really liked, but in the end Siegfried won out for me because he felt more technical and I just liked him more.

As a whole, I liked how they handled the story in SC2 a lot more. By not using the terrible fucking cutscenes that SC3 used, you were pretty much forced to read the character descriptions if you wanted to know about them. The little epilogue things at the end were a cool touch, and made beating arcade with each character worth it. The stories for each weapon you unlocked was also a cool touch to me because they were interesting and you could tell that some thought was put into them. The SC3 cutscenes were just awful looking and ugly and not interesting in the slightest. SCIV was better with the cutscenes (besides the opening which was garbage) but that god awful flowchart disappointed the fuck outta me after having enjoyed everything in SC2

Try the older MvC games or Skullgirls when it comes out

The only reason I like the newer Soulcaliburs is because whenever I play SC2 someone picks Raphael and easy-modes to victory.

Friend and I were playing SC2 once and i show him how cheap it is to use Queen's Guard and press forward-triangle constantly

Obviously I kick his booty like 4 times

So we go to play team battle and, as a joke, he tries to pick Raphael more than once

His reaction was to shout "WHY CAN'T I PICK RAPHAEL EIGHT TIMES!?!?!"

I thought Mech/Mecha Zangief was a MUGEN creation but apparently he's actually a legitimate Capcom universe character?

What is this madness?

Yeah, the older MvC games, and TvC. Also Hokuto no Ken or Sengoku Basara X (spoilers they're completely broken). And SCV will be faster, too.

Haha, yeah he's from the MvC series since Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter. You could do a Hyper that turned Zangief into Mech-Zangief.

I don't hate combos, I like watching a cool combo executed by a good player or discovering a new combo like anyone would, I just find them sort of... boring-ly executed a lot of the time. Even if a player has knowledge of how the game mechanics and the characters and their moves work, s/he will still need to learn all the best combos their character has in order to be effective, but most of the time there isn't much doubt whether or not one will succeed at learning them - integrating them into muscle memory just takes a lot of time. After that's done you'll be able to execute the exact same combo, with very little deviation, most of the time.

I just feel that in traditional fighters, keepaway/mixup-heavy characters just let me be more creative with my playstyle, and ultimately have more fun.

There are lot of different combos and variations, actually. Your basic bread'n'butter combo, your corner combo, your anti-air combo, combo'ing after a throw, off of a counter-hit, changing the end of your combo depending if you want more damage or better mix-ups afterwards, incorporating EX/ Super/ Ultra moves, going for a reset... Not to mention it also depends on which hit you began the combo with, at what distance, etc. It takes skill to recognize what combo you can do, and what combo you should do. It's not just auto-pilot.

Killer Instinct didn't really give you as a game player a whole lot of freedom with combos - you had to follow a very exact set of commands in order to perform a limited number of possible chain combos - it was more like learning a short piece of music (demanding very precise timing). I don't really find that kind of thing very enjoyable anymore.

I don't know if fighting games these days are little bit more lenient with the demands on a player for executing long combos - but usually when I play against a human opponent I'm not really looking to score long combos like that - I usually opt for playing mind games with my opponent instead.

I actually got into Fighting games more when MVC3 launched as well, thing is most other fighting games arent as fact as MVC because thats kind of its thing - Isn't Burazubrue kind of fast paced as well with all its weird moves (I can't say since I'm waiting for the new one to come out before I play it). SF and MK can sort of slow down real fast if someone decides to play it HADOUKENHADOUKENHADOUKENSHADOWCLONESHADOWCLONESHADOWTACKLEHATHATHATHAT.

Then again same could be said if someone plays zoning characters in MVC, but you get my drift