Topic: Fighting games without combos?

So recently Injustice: Gods Among Us came out, and it looks pretty sweet, but I have one problem; button combos. I hate button combos. I fail to see the point of having to enter what are essentially cheat codes to use your moves. Having to enter a 7 button combo that requires you to be a certain distance away while pausing in between certain button presses does not seem skill based to me. If you don't know the codes, you don't win. That's it.

I love fighting games, at least the idea of them, but I can't play any of them because I just can't get into that style of gameplay. I like the style Smash Bros. has, where each move is assigned to a direction+button system, and you create your own combos by stringing together moves with the correct timing. My question is, are there any other games like this? I want a fighting game that's simple, that doesn't have ridiculous button combos, and is at least decent. Any suggestions?

Injustice doesn't have ridiculous combos...

and you create your own combos by stringing together moves with the correct timing.

This is what combos ARE.

Perhaps not "ridiculous", but it still has some pretty long ones. Maybe not by fighting game standards, but I still don't want to press a combination of more than 5 buttons just do a single move. I'm more or less asking for games that do away with that altogether. I recall hearing of one at one point, but I can't recall what it was.

EDIT: You're misunderstanding. I don't like the button inputs. I don't like entering strings of buttons just to do one thing. Like I said, they feel like I'm inputting cheat codes just to play the game, and I can't get used to it. I'm asking if anyone knows of any games that do away with that, or at least simplify it substantially.

You don't press more then 5 buttons to do a single move. Heck most combos are only 3-5 moves. (Unless you use the wall bounce cancels or other objects to extend it). Actually I don't think there are any fighting games where you have to input 5 things to do a move. It usually means your doing 5 attacks one after another. I will just copy this here from another forum.

You would be better off praticing and getting better at your combos rather than deeming the entire concept as an insurmountable task you'll never be able to equate to just because you're brand new to the game.

No fighting game is something you learn in a weekend and you're good to go at high level. No matter which game you like it takes a lot of effort. In fact combos are the simplest part of most games even MvC3.

That being said maybe after years of playing you still prefer games with minimal combos and to that I would suggest some of the older games like pre ST SF2 but, even in old games the few combos there are can be even more critical to learn because they can do so much damage or stun or something similar that it's game changing if you get a single hit. Even then it comes down to finding competition.

Only combo I remember is Sabin from Final Fantasy III (US). Right Dpad half circle left Dpad I think.

TMNT Smash up is like Smash Bros... but not very good. Smash is the only type of game you will find that's worth playing. Injustice is really noob friendly. I don't even like fighting games (or good at them) but I am having a blast with it.

I get what you mean. Memory based movesets aren't really my thing either.
Injustice has moves that look like this:
→A →B ←Y
Tekken moves would be:Edit, here wait up... I didn't know how to make combos using letters and figures. This is how they look in the moveset guide.
ooo☆ooooo★oooooo★o
o★oo☆oo☆oo☆oo☆oo☆o
ooo☆ooooo☆oooooo☆o
All in all, Smash is my go to game, with Tekken second for more realistic hand to hand. Injustice is fun, but I don't have money to buy it right now and the weapon based combat isn't really my thing, so Tekken is fine for me. Also, the moves in Injustice seem too scaled down for how crazy of moves the characters could pull off in a bigger arena. You are fighting in a street, then all of a sudden, a huge move takes you to the other side of the world and back. That's very unlikely, and there's no reason to be fighting in such a small space if you have crazy super powers.
I have way more trouble memorizing different directions + buttons simultaneously vs. just a mixture of buttons in one direction with few characters requiring different directional input during combos.
Each button represents a limb(Y=left arm, X= right arm, B= left leg, A= right leg) in Tekken, while Injustice you have to remember what button does hand to hand and what buttons do a weapon or super power.

Okay, I'll concede that maybe I'm exaggerating and most fighting games only have like 3 button combos. And yeah, if I practice with a single character I might be alright. In Killer Instinct on SNES I became decent with Cinder, but I still just don't care for that style. Even with 3 button combos, it feels counter intuitive to me. I would rather have projectiles be mapped to a single button rather than having to press, say, backward forward kick or something.

Yeah, I played Smash Up. It was alright I guess. I don't really mean that EXACT type of game though (the platformer-ish fighter). Just a normal 2D fighter would be fine, but with simplified controls. I understand button combos are the norm now and almost every game is like that, but there's gotta at least be one.

Yeah, that one is Smash Bros. The thing is though there's too many attacks that they can't all be mapped to one button on the map. Though in Injustice there are some characters that can shoot projectiles with only one button. Like Green Arrow.

I heard Blaz Blue 2 and MVC3 both have "Simple modes", but I hear they also limit you substantially. And I get that removing button combos lessens the number of moves available, but a game designed around that concept is kind of what I'm looking for.

SNK VS Capcom 2 on Gamecube.

It has an alternate control method (E.O. for Easy Operation), that maps special combos to simple configurations (similar to smash, where it's just one button + moving the d-pad in a particular direction).

Also, Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition (3DS) allows you to map combos to the touch screen, so you can execute them with a simple push.

I've never played Blaz Blue. MvC3 is pretty good, but I don't think the moves are that easy to do even in that game. Once I see the movelist with countless commands, I will try to find the basic ones and try to find a pattern that fits my style, and sometimes I can't find a pattern to make playing a game worth it. It isn't fun to see all the moves, and you'll only be able to do half of the moves. Then if you try to figure out how to make the other moves effective, the other ones you knew well before just get forgotten. Obviously Smash Bros. isn't too complicated, and a fighting game is a fighting game in the end.
Tekken is basically dancing with 95% of moves you can actually do in real life. They are all realistic for the most part, but I've come to like Tekken more than even the new Mortal Kombat. The graphics and sound are better in Tekken IMO, too.
Rambling over.

This is what I'm talking about. I feel like it's more intuitive and fun if I were to do a special move like that, by pressing a button combined with a direction, then following that up with some punches and kicks. I don't understand why it's so taboo to want a game like that. I've been looking it up, and every forum post I've seen of someone asking the same question is responded to by people either saying "Yeah, I agree but I don't know any games like that." or fighting game fans getting angry and saying "You just suck at it and you shouldn't play it."

I don't want to not play fighting games. I love the way they look and feel, but the overly complex controls alienate me.

Actually, it's called Capcom VS SNK 2 EO. The Gamecube & Xbox versions have the EO control method, while the PS2 version doesn't (it just goes by Capcom VS SNK 2, on PS2).

Also, it's simpler than I first mentioned. You just have to move the analog stick in a particular direction to do a combo (not a single button press necessary).

I've always vastly preferred move-entry to sequential combos... But I'm honestly not a big fighting game player.

I haven't seen a game with a more intuitive set of move input than the Streetfighter-esque, quarter/half circle moves. Mortal Kombat (and I'd assume Injustice, given Boon's involvement) will probably be replete with "up, down, up, left, down, left, up, 12 punch buttons" moves that have plagued them for 2 decades now.

I will say that when you remove combo-based moves, you end up with a Smash Bros / PS All Stars type system which, while accessible, doesn't lend itself well to high-level play and isn't rewarding. People that get into 2d fighters really, REALLY get into 2d fighters, and love memorizing input moves, combos, invulnerability frames/timing, and all that super-micro stuff that sends us normal types running for the hills.

Really though you are kinda asking "I like platformers but I don't like jumping". You're alienating yourself by saying it's complicated. It's not. In Injustice you can do moves with a button and a direction. The special moves are just two directions and a button. Don't over complicate it. [quote]
by pressing a button combined with a direction, then following that up with some punches and kicks[/img] This is what you do in Injustice, but the opposite. Do some punches and kicks and then follow it up with a special movie. Injustice is only 3 buttons. Light, Medium and Hard with an trait button that differs between characters (like throwing Arrows with Green Arrow or powering yourself up with Venom as Bane). You can press a direction and press a button to do a move Forward Button. but is doing one more direction really that much for you? Back Forward Button. Look at the moves here.
I am telling you won't find a simpler traditional fighter.

I don't have any personal suggestions that haven't already been mentioned as far as party games or casual fighters for you, but thought I'd chime in regards to CvS2:EO and why you shouldn't bother with it.

It's been a long time, but from what I remember, CvS2:EO, besides simplifying special moves, also removed the built in delays that would have otherwise helped to keep matches at least a bit more on the balanced side and actually competitive.

Simplifying is one thing, but they just made that game all wrong. In EO mode, you're just playing with a whole different set of rules than everyone and everything else and that makes EO mode not worth playing. You won't learn anything from it and at least with SSB, set up in a specific way, you can at least learn timing even when the move set is simplified.

I can even recall a time when no one (online or in person) would even want to play with you if you were using CvS2's scrub mode.

Here's a list I found of other party and/or casual fighting games similar to and including SSB.

wow... I take back some of what I said - those aren't nearly as MK-ey looking as I expected.

Does it play like that MK vs. DC Heroes game? I didn't like the button-mashy stuff (falling over the edge of a map / spamming buttons, etc.)

There's always Urban Champion if combos aren't your thing.

I haven't played it myself, but Power Stone is supposed to be a good party fighter in the vein of Smash Bros. Other than that, I really can't think of any fighting games that don't have combos. Combos are pretty essential to the fighting genre, so you'd probably be best just trying to find a game with simpler combos like Injustice.