AI Tactics

Will Age of the Beast have smart enemy AI tactics like the Streets of Rage series did?  What I'm referring to is the "always going around you" Z-axis tricks that the enemies in the series usually employed.

I've studied enemy behaviour in the Streets of Rage quite thoroughly before I implemented them in Beats of Rage, and I can tell you that (most) enemies in the Streets of Rage series really aren't very smart at all. But of course the addition of a few simple and well-chosen tactics does add variety and forces the player to think before they act (contrary to some modern fighting games where button mashing gets you all the way through). Rest assured I've spent a good deal of thought on enemy behaviour in Age of the Beast as well.

I just thought of one more thing.  Beats of Rage is amazing, but one annoying tendency of the engine (OpenBOR inherits it) is that enemies tend to walk offscreen and stay there for as long as they want.  I'm not saying that enemies shouldn't be able to go offscreen (that would be stupid) but that their AIs should "prefer" to stay onscreen.

Will Age of the Beast fix this problem?

Sure, it's one of the most obvious shortcomings in Beats of Rage.

Yay!

In Bare Knuckle/Streets of rage when your facing an enemy they'll stay away when you turn your back on them they suddenly charge you like a madman. That's when B+C comes in.

I'm sure the AIs in Age of the Beast won't be that easily fooled.

At the time I posted that, I was forgetting that SOR often prevented the player from using that to their advantage by making the player fight a few enemies at a time.