I'm still working out exactly how I'm going to build the combat system, but I most definitely want to expand it beyond the simple punch / kick mechanic of the old school games. I'm hoping to do this by stringing together combinations based on different attack button sequences, making use of blocking / countering / throwing, using the shoulder buttons to allow for alternative attacks, power-up modes where the entire characters attack style changes to something more powerful and interesting, etc...

I still want it to have that button masher feel, because I personally feel like that's what the genre calls for... push buttons and just have fun. But, I want to reward more experience players with more finely tuned controls so if they want to go for the combo that requires precise timing, they can do so. Right now I'm studying Street Fighter x Tekken at a frame-level to figure out how I'm going to implement my own system. So, I'm definitely taking the combat seriously and trying to make it better than the old-school games.

http://www.eventhubs.com/guides/2011...rategy-guides/

If anyone has ideas, suggestions, feedback, etc... for what they would like from a modern beat-em-up, please feel free to share. I'm still in the design phase so I'm open to suggestion.