Fighting games are a really cool hobby. I find them very much akin to real life martial arts: a one on one competition, no holds barred, where only your skill and your knowledge of yourself and, perhaps, of your opponent, are the only things that matter. Of course, fighting games are less physically demanding than, say, tae-kwon-do, krav maga, karate, etc, but the similarities are there, especially from an e-spectator’s POV, and you’re watching high level games of both “genres”. Truly masterful.
As far as I see it, fighting games are composed of three parts: body, mind and heart. Although different, they all complement each other.
Body refers to the execution, which is what you do with your hands and/or fingers (depending on the controller used). This can be trained by simply playing. You could reach top level execution by spending two hours a day, each day, on training mod, just practicing the motions, the movements and the combos. However, you won’t get very far just by doing this.
Mind refers to the knowledge you have of the game, whether it’s frame data (the numbers that accompany each and every basic, special and super move) or just match up knowledge (you don’t play the same way against a guy who want to get close and grab you than some who wants to keep you far away). This can be trained by both playing and studying. Unlike the body, however, this requires to play against actual people, as you don’t really acquire this knowledge by playing against a dummy. There’s also the fact that most old games have their frame data hidden, so you have to go out of your way to learn it. At the same time, the mind is useless if you don’t have the execution.
Finally, the heart, which, perhaps the most illogical part, refers to the hunches or "reads" you get when playing against someone. For example:
“I know the opposite player will try to grab me now, so if I jump, I can punish them.”
“I know the opposite player will hit me with an overhead attack, so I’m going to block high.”
“I know the opposite player is going to bait my grab, so I will do an attack that reaches and punishes.”
And so on, and so on.
The heart cannot be trained, as it’s mostly instinct. Experience that you acquire through the years can enhance it, but at the end of the day, you’re just “gambling”, so to speak. As a result, this might seem useless, but what separates a good player from a great player, most of the times, is that instinct kicking in.
Daigo Umehara, one of the greatest fighting game players (at least in Street Fighter), is a great example of body, mind and heart in fighting games.
Most modern fighting games, such as The King of Fighters XV, Guilty Gear -STRIVE- and Tekken 8 have made countless efforts to make the games more accessible to the general public. Whether it’s by making execution easier (because, let’s face it, some older fighting games control like garbage, due to a lack of buffering on the inputs), giving more tools the player (with better training modes, and even showing you the frame data or the hitboxes) or just by streamlining everything (which reduces the mental charge that the game provides, giving a bigger place to those heart based plays). This simplification of the genre, however, usually comes at the cost of “freedom” and “expression”. I’ll give some examples so you understand what I mean.
Jin Kazama as he appears in Tekken 8
– In Tekken 7, Jin was probably the character with the highest skill ceiling, because of his intense execution and defined strengths and weaknesses. In Tekken 8, perhaps as an intention to make a beginner friendly character in a franchise without barely any of them, Jin Kazama was simplified, at the cost of his identity and what made him unique, making him an all rounder with no weaknesses. To be fair, every character is a victim of this, but I feel like in Jin’s case, it’s more extreme. A lot of combos feel samey across most characters, even if the sequence of inputs is different.
– Guilty Gear -STRIVE- lost the depth that was present in Xrd Rev 2 or XX Accent Core +R, which both were very mechanically complex games. Some mechanics were outright removed, while others were changed so drastically that they feel like something completely different. Lots of characters were redesigned, for the better or for the worse, further cementing this loss of identity.
– Street Figther 6 (and V, but nobody cares about V either way) ditched the tight links (which is the act of hitting your opponent at the right time to continue a combo) that were present in Street Fighter IV. While this made the game easier, it’s also the biggest example of removal of player expression in a fighting game ever. Personally I’m partial to it. On the one hand, tight links feel horrible to do, but at the same time are very rewarding to pull off, so the act of learning it’s also a benefit in and of itself.
There are many more examples of this, of course, but these are the ones that stick to me the most. Now, I’m not against against simplification itself, but when you sacrifice depth for that, it risks ruining the identity of the franchise, and the alienation of veterans.
Luckily for oldhead fighting game fans, there’s a game that managed to do the simplification in fighting games way before any other game without sacrificing said depth.
Meet Akatsuki Blitzkampf.
Goes hard.
In terms of notoriety, ABK, as its commonly known, is very niche, even amongst the FGC. It has a fairly small playerbase, as noted by the Fightcade lobby, but the few that are present are very passionate about it. There’s 5 games in the franchise: Akatsuki Shishei Ichigou, which is pretty much a prototype for the later games and is very broken; Akatsuki Blitzkampf, released for computers in 2007; Akatsuki Blitzkampf Ausf Achse, an arcade only update; EN-Eins Perfektewelt, a sequel; and its update: Anastasis. Except for Akatsuki Blitzkampf, none of these games got an international release. So as to not make this article too long, I’ll focus on Ausf Achse.
Akatsuki Blitzkampf Ausf Achse, as I already mentioned, is the first update to the first actual videogame in the series. It’s actually set in current millennium, but it has a distinct World War II feel to it, perhaps because of some of the characters in the cast. A frozen submarine emerges from the Arctic Ocean, carrying a powerful weapon called Blitz Motor. A soldier called Akatsuki is also inside it, and has survived for years encased in the ice. Now that he is back, he continues to carry out his orders: take the Blitz Motor and, were it to fall into the wrong hands, destroy it. In the meantime, several organizations (although one of them eerily resembles the Nazi empire, the game nor the developers glorify it) want the Blitz Motor to gain absolute power. Definitely a unique premise amongst fighting games, which usually involve some kind of tournament set by an organization.
Compared to other fighting games of the time, the cast is actually quite small. You have Akatsuki, the previously mentioned soldier, who utilizes the Blitz Motor to enhance his power; Mycale, a little girl possessed by an evil deity (I think? I don’t know Japanese); Sai, a Chinese (actually British) secret agent from a secret organization who wears sunglasses and has evil eyes that can kill someone; Fritz, an elderly military surgeon turned samurai; Kanae, an ex lieutenant in an intelligence department; Marilyn Sue, femme fatale and Chinese assassin; Wei, another Chinese assassin, from the same organization as Marilyn; Adler, a researcher and commanding officer of one of the organizations; Elektrosoldat, one of many clones of Adler; Anonym, a gun wielding nun; Murakumo, the main antagonist and World War II veteran; Perfecti, the incarnation of the deity that possesses the little girl (this one was added in the Ausf Achse update) and last but not least: Blitztank, a literal tank, albeit autonomous. While the characters don’t have the visual flare of, say, Guilty Gear, they are all very unique and recognizable, and this is enhanced by the visual style used, with dim colors and lots of shadows. This, in turn, also plays on the idea of simplicity that ABK embraces. Each one of them also has their own unique theme song (and all of them rock) and stage, fitting their design and personality.
Me and the boys.
Now, presentation is important, but we are here for the gameplay, right? And that’s where ABK shines.
The game uses a 3 button layout, which is smaller than most popular fighting games, which tend to use 4 or 6 buttons. A for light attacks, B for medium attacks, and C for heavy attacks. Most characters can chain these buttons one after another, allowing you to create simple but serviceable combos. A+B is how you grab in this game, provided you are close enough to the opponent, and can be done in the air. B+C is the gamer’s signature Reflector, which is a parry that can block anything, but has a lot of end lag. This parry is easy in execution, especially in comparison to Street Fighter 3rd Strike’s more complex parry, where you just have to press 2 buttons at the same time and you can use them while blocking, but there’s plenty of depth on it. After parrying an attack, your character will do an automatic follow up, provided you didn’t press any button. If your opponent know this, they can do an attack that’s invincible on the right circumstances and punish you for your parry, but if you know that, you can not do the follow up, bait them and punish; or you can bait your opponent into doing a Reflector, not attack them and punish their recovery. There’s also the fact that Reflectors lose to grabs, which adds yet another layer to the parry game.
Some of everything I’ve just said may have flown over your head, but this little interaction has so many mind games into it that it’s honestly quite incredible.
Gameplay footage of Ausf Achse. To the left, Sai doing a little trolling
By far, what exemplifies the simplicity of the game the most is the character’s move list. Every character has 3 normals, a crouching and jumping variation of them, one or two command normals that are done by pressing a direction and a button, three specials and a super. All of the specials are done with a quarter circle (which is, in my opinion, the most simple and basic motion one can do in a fighting game), with a charge or by pressing down twice. That’s it. It doesn’t get much complex than that. By pressing B and C while doing an special, you do an stronger version of that move with different properties at the cost of meter. On the topic of meter, once you have 3 bars (the maximum), press A+B+C at the same time to do your super, which is very powerful but consumes those bars of meter.
If you combine these sparse movelists with the fact that there are only 13 characters, you’ll quickly find the game is actually very easy to learn, or at least much more manageable than other fighting games, that have a million more mechanics and/or more characters. Despite everything, ABK does not sacrifice depth in order to achieve that simplicity, because the system mechanics allow for a lot and, even with small movesets, one can create unique combos, different from other players. Hell, all characters feel very different despite the fact that some of them share a similar gameplan.
… Of course, all of this refers to the act of playing against other people. Playing against the computer is very different, and most of the time it’s programmed to cheat you, especially as you beat opponents. As a result you have to usually cheese your way out to victory.
Got your attention? Great, because I have some good news. The game is available for free through Fightcade, with rollback netcode (in layman’s terms: it’s good netcode and what should be the standard), and all you need is a PC that can be turned on and off! Isn’t it great? Go play Akatsuki Blitzkampf Ausf Achse. It’s good!
Pros
- + Simple control scheme that's easy to learn
- + Cast of characters that's charismatic and also easy to learn
- + Unique and striking visuals
- + Badass OST
- + Literally spawned Blitztank
- + It's free! (Kind of)
Cons
- - Playerbase is quite small, so it's hard to find matches
- - Single player content is scarce
- - Training mode is limited and doesn't have recording functions
- - Available only in Japanese
10
Gameplay
While this isn't the peak of the genre, all of the qualities I've listed make for very endearing gameplay.
8
Graphics
Sprites are well animated and expressive. Art style is cool and unique. Backgrounds are memorable, especially accompanied by their tracks.
5
Story
What little story you get is surprisingly alright if you know Japanese. Some characters are not as interesting as others, personality wise, and as a result their arcade stories can be more lackluster.
8
Sound
Again, not the peak of the genre, but there's not a single song that you could call bad.
10
Replayability
It's a fighting game, duh. These games are infinitely replayable.
8.6
out of 10
Overall
Akatsuki Blitzkampf Ausf Achse is one of the most unique fighting games out there, thanks to its unique approach to simplicity and accessibility that no other fighting game has managed to replicate even to this day. Although not very populated, the fanbase is extremely dedicated, and holds tournaments even today. It has even made an appearance in some big events!
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