STEAL THIS IDEA, part XI

     I've played several fighting games before and one thing they all have in common is a timer. Each round/match has a time limit. If you don't knock out/kill your opponent before the timer runs out, then the winner goes to the one with the most energy/life remaining. That's fine and all, but what bugs me is that this rule also applies to the final fight.

Timed out? I guess my dreams of conquest are over...

     That guy, Zankuro, a demon samurai warrior, will permit you to defeat him simply because sixty seconds have elapsed. How honorable...but also, how stupid. He's the BAD guy, right? M. Bison, who is trying to take over the world and Shao Kahn, who is trying to rule two dimensions, also possess this bizarre honor code. I could see maybe the non-decisive rounds being able to end by time out. After all, that's how the game's been played up until this point. It would make sense. Even the sub-bosses leading up to the final fight would be fine. After all, we can assume that they were "dealt with" by their leader for their failure.

Is M. Bison making a jerking off gesture?

     But what if, in a decisive round, when the timer elapses...the game continues?

     Believe me, when you get to these rounds, they're tense. Victory against these brutes can only come from both a patient offense and an especially patient defense, but sometimes it's not enough and the timer is your only ally. Your stress builds up; you're ultra-tense watching in your peripheral vision the timer. Five... Four... Three... Two... One... and because  you're ahead, you breathe a sigh of relief. It feels like a cheap victory, but it was a victory nonetheless. At that moment, you relax the controls and loosen up.

     Now imagine the game continuing. Maybe the boss taunts you if he speaks or simply laughs as the game continues and he (almost certainly) beats your ass into next week perhaps even with a super-duper special move he was saving for just such an emergency.

Is that your best?

     It would be awesome, and (for the first time at least) you'd never see it coming.

DISCLAIMER: To anyone reading this, you are welcome to not only use, but claim this idea as your own without giving credit to me. I sometimes have ideas, but I do not have the skills needed to express them. It is more important to me to see these ideas done than to receive recognition for them. That being said, giving me a mention anyway would make me giddy. If this idea has in fact already been done, then I strongly suggest you not actually steal it (at least not without major revisions) :-)