This post is going to be a pseudo-response to three different things as well as my general perception on genres and why I think they're important. The first is a video by Mark Brown on the topic of a Soulslike Genre, the second is a Podcast answering questions on the channel MatthewMatosis Extra, and the third is a series of comments on a video by Mother's Basement about fighting games and specifically, the comments getting angry about Jeff saying that Smash Bros. is not a series of fighting games. It's also worth noting that two of the three videos I'm responding to were released today so if you want to see them, they should be pretty easy to look up.
Okay so, first things first, what is a genre? A genre, to me, is a single word, phrase, term, or title that has certain facets attached to it that denote what you're going to expect if you interact with something that falls within it. For example, if I were to say I want to play a Musou, Dynasty Warriors, Onechanbara, Sengoku Basara, and Senran Kagura would be games you could guess I want to play right now and your answer would not be unreasonable.
Genres are important for two reasons, one from a consumer standpoint and the other from a developer standpoint. From a consumer standpoint, it gives you an idea of what kind of games you'll like or dislike. While games within any given genre can be radically different from each other it's safe to say that, if you like Ninja Gaiden, you will probably like Bayonetta for more than one reason.
On the other hand, from a developer standpoint, genres give us structure to work with that will allow us a better idea of what we want to make than if we were to start with a blank page. For example, without Banjo Kazooie detailing how an open world platformer could work, Jak & Daxter may not exist. Likewise, Banjo Kazooie may not exist if it weren't for the idea of a 3D Metroidvania with the primary focus of platforming.
With these in mind, it's safe to say that knowing what falls into any given genre is good to know just so you don't get confused about why you like or dislike a game if somebody says it falls into a particular genre that you like or dislike.
Genres are important because they allow us to distinguish some games from others in ways that allow us to figure out what we like. For example, if I were to ask you what your favorite genre of games is and you were to say Action, that tells me nothing. Even ignoring the fact that some people are still unclear on what an action game even is, Action can still accommodate Action Adventure, Action Platformer, Action RPG, Musou, Character Action, Beat'em Up, Hack'n Slash, and so on and so forth.
Because of that, when someone says "Smash Bros. is not a fighting game" that's not necessarily an attack on the Smash games. Saying Smash isn't a Fighting game is not saying that it's a bad game in general, just that its qualities may not lineup completely with what qualifies as a fighting game.
When I talk to my brother about what he calls Smash, he refers to it as a Brawler, and this is a pretty decent distinction. When we think of Fighting games, we think of one-on-one or Team Battles fought one character at a time within the confines of an arena that can only be navigated one or two axes at a time, Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom, and Tekken all cover those qualifiers even if they're all radically different from each other from a design standpoint.
Whereas Smash doesn't. Smash has one-on-one and team battles but it's built primarily for free-for-all battle royales and a large number of players fighting at the same time, and while you can only nagivate at one or two axes at a time, that's primarily because there is no Z axis to begin with. If there were, Smash would probably allow you to use it to its fullest. Likewise, Dissidia and Dissidia Duodecim are mostly One-on-One but the areas can be navigated in pretty much any direction you want with a plethora of platforming and mobility mechanics, something that a fighting game would generally not require due to the lack of level design aspects that would necessitate it, and Dissidia NT is built with 3-v-3 Team Battles now so it doesn't even have the 1-v-1 qualifier anymore.
This is a problem with comparing Budokai 3 to Budokai Tenkaichi 3 in terms of Dragon Ball games. While you can argue about which is better as a game (Budokai 3) the fact is that they're not really in the same genre. Budokai 3 is a fighting game for the most part and BT3 is a Brawler. At least, if we go by the qualifiers I've listed today.
In that same vein, saying that Portal is not a First Person Shooter because it lacks conventional gun mechanics and is much more about puzzle solving is not in any way saying that Portal is a bad game, just that it doesn't have all the qualities necessary to call it a shooter.
However, there's also the issue of developers making games that don't fit nicely into an existing genre. The Dark Souls games and Bloodborne have Action, have RPG elements, have some non-linearity to them, and have a plethora of weapons but they are often referred to as Soulsborne or Soulslike because they're distinct from normal Action RPG's is fair.
Likewise, as Joseph Anderson has stated, Bethesda are terrible at making Open World games, they're terrible at making shooters, and they're terrible at making RPG's but they're great at making Bethesda games. He's not saying these games are bad necessarily but, to him, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, and Fallout 4 don't achieve the criteria to be good among any of those genres but, if you just want to play a Bethesda game, they're unlikely to disappoint you.
So what does this mean? Well, some people may think that I think Genres are very important and they wouldn't be wrong but there's a catch. You want to have qualifiers for what genre your game falls into for structural purposes but you don't want to have too many of those qualifiers make it into your game. If you want to make a game in a particular genre then that's fine but you want to restrict the number of qualifiers you meet so you can make your own spin on that genre.
By saying everything in a genre has to be exactly the same, we're saying that genres are not allowed to grow and that games are not allowed to innovate, which is not a good thing. At some point, we want to have unique experiences and not be stuck playing the exact same game over and over again. As much as I love Jak & Daxter, Devil May Cry, and DBZ: Budokai, I'd be lying if I said I'd be unaffected at all if those were the only games I was allowed to play.
So just keep that in mind, use genres to figure out what you like and what you want to make but only meet the minimum number of important qualifiers so you can make your own unique game and give it its own identity.
That's all for now, have a wonderful day.
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