What Makes a Good Combat System?

Player: * presses punch button * Batman: * backflips through a window, calls an Uber, drives several blocks and punches some random criminal *

I work in the industry, designing combat for AAA titles and you're right on the money. I think that one key aspect that you overlooked is enemy defenses as a very important pillar of a fun combat experience. Believe it or not it has more impact than the enemy attcks as it ties directly into the satisfaction of gameplay. You glossed a bit over it with the hyperarmor. The enemy needs means to avoid damage, not all of the enemies of course, as this tied to their design (i.e. a shambling zombie or a mindless brute cares little about defense) but enemies feel more satisfying to defeat if they also narrowly avoid player's attack and on ocassion counter back, punishing stun-lock spam. (hyper armor is not an elegant solution) The closer to the player's own ability to block/parry, the better it feels for the player as the understanding of what happened is crystal clear and that alleviates frustration and confusion. On the other end of the spectrum, highly evasive opponents are annoying and frustrating to fight as a player. If you need to make a highly defensive character it is worth considering the environment as a potential tool to allow the player to break defenses, increase the recovery frames on the lengthy enemy dodge animations, avoid lenghty backwards dodges backwards as to allow the player to close in during the window of opportunity of the recovery with a gap closer. TLDR: Enemy defensive moves (dodges, parries, disengages, not static blocking) are also a key ingredient to make the fight more satisfying and make the enemy look clever.

"Swinging a giant sword in Monster Hunter" proceeds to show the second smallest weapon in the game

Just saying, Super Smash Brothers does an interesting thing in that attacks get weaker every time you use them (this is called staling), unless you use some other attacks to reset it. I think a combat system with a much more exaggerated staling mechanic could lead to a very interesting game where you can use one move over and over again, but you're heavily encouraged to mix things up to be more effective.

You didn't play a clip of Optimus turning into a vehicle and ramming a Decepticon when you said "hit like a truck". Absolutely unwatchable 99.9999999/100 Awesome video, very well made and informative

"hit like a truck" joke but not showing Optimus Prime do a truck tackle, for shame.

While he did mention a lot of visual tricks to make conbat feel "crunchy" and visceral, I'm surprised he never explicitly mentioned screen shake. That's a huge part of what makes attacks feel weighty, and nearly every clip in the video features screen shake in one way or another. It definitely gives off a lot of feedback with each attack, and combining that with hitstop and some nice sound effects like he said will ultimately make each strike feel heavy and extremely satisfying!

Fun fact: Assassin's Creed 2 improved on the combat system later in the game by introducing enemies (in armor) that you couldn't parry until you weakened them with regular attacks. They also had some quicker, stronger attacks that you had to block or dodge, which gave you a little window to weaken them. Get a few good hits in, and you can parry and insta-kill them now.

That breakdown of a 'satisfying impact' into frames was a really cool and clear way of portraying how that works, it's not something I have ever really thought specifically about before so it was really useful info!

On top of making consistently good content, I applaud you for recommending the videos of other YouTubers as well. Not enough people do that.

Imagine if he made this vid after Sekiro came out.

15:50 Me 2 seconds after my parents leave me home alone.

I’m actually working on a fight scene in an animation, so this video, especially the Resident Evil Punch Analysis was extremely helpful.

Oh damn, this video is one of those I'll rewatch a hundred times because it is so well made, researched and atop of that entertaining… Dammit Mark, why is your content so good?

"we don't want the player to aggressively chew through enemies without ever thinking about defense" - So many games to list, so little time...

This video makes me appreciate just how dynamic Super Smash Bros is as a fighting game. It's got quick moves, highly useful but not OP shielding and blocking, but most importantly, health being directly related to how far you get launched, which makes you consider the environment and what direction you're fighting in.

Hyper Light Drifter has one of my favorite combat systems. The push and pull from firing off your gun before darting in for melee hits to recharge your gun was super satisfying. The attacks are all well telegraphed and require specific timing to dodge which is really good. The sound effects are also top notch.

16:34 "God Hand", I loved this game, the combat system is one of the best i have ever seen. The player could costomize every hit on the combos, was insane. Great video, as always. I am a brazilian fan and i plan on studying game design, and your videos always inspire me.

The original Bushido Blade is my favorite system so far. You had a high stance, a middle stance, and a low stance, and a high attack, a medium attack, and a low attack that each did something different in each of the different stances and also each did something different in each stance moving forward, running, moving backwards, and dodging. There were parries and counters, but everything came from the basic three stances and three strikes. It was very simple, but became deeply complex. Very satisfying

Good stuff. Thanks for this.