Video Game / Broken In The Balance

Broken in the Balance is a Fighting Game that was made by a group called Twrware. It mostly consists of a few Street Fighter characters, characters from older SNK games, and Anime characters. It runs off a modified M.U.G.E.N engine, with extra features such as Online Play and Stage Zooming. The games characters was edited in such a way that all of them, when they come into battle, are completely balanced, for the most part. (hence the title) It can be found, along with more info on it, at BITB TwrWare Page . The game is generally good, however the AI, and skilled players, can really be a pain in the rear.

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Broken in the Balance contains examples of:

• Combos: There are lots of combos, all beautiful, some not even anticipated by the Devs. It is also possible to preform bound combos from the Tekken series.
  • Averted when you come across characters who can deal few combos, but just being able to pull them off is amazing.
• Combo Breaker: With lots of combos, there needs to be a combo breaker system. Fortunately, most characters can break a combo by using a bit of their super meter. The few that do not have one however, are a bit at ease, seeing as the game automatically drops "cheap" combos.
  • Try pulling off the same uppercut three times, and watch it suddenly miss. But try pulling it off twice, add a jab or two, and do the uppercut again, works.
    • Even with the above.. the combos will gradually deal less damage if spam is detected. Either way, those infinites are not happening.
• Fake Difficulty: Although the game is considered "Balanced", most of the characters have relentless skills and tactics that can remind most gamers of Quarter Munchers back in older arcade games.
• Finishing Move: The latest Nightly (beta) build of the game features finishing moves that have to be preformed right when the opponent is KO'ed. No, they are not gruesome fatalities either.
• Hitbox Dissonance: ANY character in the game that uses swords.
  • In much earlier versions, there was a character called Code Blue, which had a hitbox that was slightly behind her entire body, causing many attacks from opponents to "miss" and overhead hits from behind to actually hit her from a distance.
    • Akuma's hurtbox disappears when he preforms certain moves.
• Idle Animation: Some characters when standing still will sometimes preform a automatic taunt or say something.
• Immune to Flinching: Improperly made patches for characters can cause characters to simply "walk forward" into attacks and not flinch at all, while taking damage.
  • The Twrmois character has a move that renders him flinch resistant for a short period of time. Damage is still taken however.
• Lag Cancel: Some characters have the ability to cancel out of their standing attacks and preform a super, or cancel a super into another super, provided that they have the super meter for it. That's super.
  • In earlier versions, jabs could cancel into themselves, allowing players to deal 30 hit combos in the corner to a poor foe. The damage output was rather low however.
• Launcher Move: Every character in the game has one, and is usually the start of most combos.
• Multiplayer Difficulty Spike: Going against the computer with some characters, it can be rather easy to beat them, as they can be predictable. In Multiplayer matches however, all characters have at least 3 moves that the CPU WILL NEVER USE which can really surprise players when they see them in a match.
  • The easiest way to explain this is, imagine you never seen Akuma's Raging Demon and suddenly in a game it is coming towards you.
• Nintendo Hard: Some characters when the AI handles them, have predefined combos and ways to counter attack. Jump in the air? Expect the computer to grab or knock you out of it. Super Meter at Maximum? The CPU will be prepared to avoid it and not get in the most dangerous spot possible.
  • The computer attempts to play in the way that it will train you to be prepared to beat humans in Versus Mode. However, it can actually 1-Up you by a inch of health in most battles if you keep rematching it over and over again. Keep on trying to beat the same character and it will eventually preform a Finishing Move. Think of it as a fighting game mentor who's getting annoyed at your failed attempts to beat it.
    • It gets worse when the computer begins to Perfect you.
• SNK Boss: In more earlier versions, the game contained a hidden boss which was a woman with a sword who had no name whatsoever. Based on that description, you'd think that the battle would be easy to slightly challenging, but it is far worse than that. The sword has EXTREME range and a hitbox slightly larger than said range, and she can break combos at will and counters 95% of heavy attacks. She can, however be defeated by patiently dodging and launching projectiles frequently.
  • Karou, in modern updates, while not a boss actually fits this description. His combos actually increase in damage the longer they are, has a upward spinning uppercut that counts as multiple hits, and when it is hit from the beginning, can remove 45% of health, and has a Super which involves him launching a large spire of fire toward his opponent with his sword, which not only deals 55% damage, it stuns the opponent for 10 seconds!! Combined with the before mentioned Uppercut, this can cause a round to end in a matter of seconds. Because the character is slow and hard to handle, he is not banned from Tournament Play.
    • Neku hugely fits this description, as he can use attacks from the far left or right of the screen, regenerate health, and not die easily. For this, he is banned in all public and private tournaments, has had petitions made to remove him from the game, and players who use him are not respected.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Remember how earlier we mentioned that this was a MUGEN game? MUGEN has had debug buttons that can effect the game in "cheating" ways, such as players dying with the press of the F1 key. In online matches, this was a complete mess in the private beta, so this was removed almost instantly in a later patch.
• Power Equals Rarity: Harder to use characters seem to be able to pull off the most damage, whiff attacks, and, in the hands of a experience player, can pull off perfect victories with ease.