Streets of Rage

Combat System Design for Action Games: Key Concepts and Styles

This analysis establishes a framework for understanding real-time melee combat systems in action games, positioning gameplay systems as a level of analysis between broad, game-wide concepts and narrow single-title studies.

• The framework positions real-time melee combat as a middle level of analysis between broad game-wide concepts and narrow single-title studies, and is deliberately restricted to real-time melee, excluding turn-based and auto-battler combat.
• Combat is built from movesets, timing, and frame-based windows, with core vocabulary including startup, active, and recovery frames, cancels, combos, and punishes, and collisions resolved through hitboxes and hurtboxes.
• The report defines 'operational challenge' as the product of operational complexity and action precision, encompassing move, chain, and spatial precision.