In video games, much as in life, problems can come flying at you quickly. In life they tend to be things like broken appliances or your pet puking on the carpet. In games they tend to be a little more fantastical, like evil aliens running towards you or some supervillain’s henchmen trying to hit you with a hammer. When that happens, you need some way to turn the tables, a method to avoid or mitigate damage and regain the upper hand. You need a good counter mechanic.
A good counter mechanic is key in making gameplay feel good and rewarding, and a bad one can seriously hinder a game. While many variations of the counter have been around since the earliest days of gaming, my attention was first drawn to them in a game series that has been hugely influential in the last decade: the Batman: Arkham series. While subsequent games branched it out, the whole series is built on the core fighting system 2009’s Batman: Arkham Asylum built. Attacks are mapped to a single button, with moves to stun enemies and dodges mapped to two others. The idea is to let players move like the Batman in the comics and shows does, athletically moving from henchmen to henchmen in order to take them all down. But these bad guys won’t just take it lying down, and they’ll try to interrupt with their own attacks. That leads to the counter button. An icon appears over their head, and when you press the button you interrupt their attack to do some damage of your own and keep your own attacks going.
The Arkham series got everything right about the mechanic. It’s easy to understand and intuitive to do, making it a natural technique to learn. It’s not too weak as to be pointless or too powerful to the point of feeling cheap. And the animations are top notch, with Batman knocking aside kicks or interrupting with elbows in a way that feels weighty but smooth.
The counter is not just for the action-adventure games, either. Fighting games are built on counters, with some of the best series like Mortal Kombat thriving off the moves you can do in order to punish opponents. Since the fighting is more mechanically complex in these games so are the counters, but the good ones still feel attainable to learn. More RPG like games can have them too, with various commands or skills setting up weaknesses or mitigating damage in the turn-based scenarios. Even sports games should keep this in mind, as the mechanics for an interception in Madden or a block in NBA 2k are “countering” an opponent’s goals.
With all of this explained, let me give you some examples from games I’ve played. The Assassin’s Creed series has been a very mixed bags. The most recent games have counters that don’t feel strong enough, and many of the older games have bad animations with enemies and playable characters alike rag-dolling all over. Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s is good, with a nice meaty swing of Cloud’s sword giving decent damage and looking cool. Blocking in NBA 2k has been bad forever, with the ball just sort of running into the blocker, but interceptions in Madden are incredibly satisfying once you get good at it. The entire Dark Souls franchise is built around hefty combat, and mastering the timing of the parries and counters in it is one of the best parts.
The next few games I want are still a ways off in the future, so that gives these studios plenty of time to ensure they have good counters. If they don’t, I will grumble on Twitter and you’ll all be reminded of how right I am.