I have to disagree with the idea that a move, performed repeatedly/spam, should be rewarded in any game, or held up as good design. It's not good design. Tic tac toe is solvable because a set of moves can be played such that the game becomes unsatisfying to play and predictable. If you port that concept over to a fighting game, you can get a similar outcome; however, that's not to say that either game cannot be played. Just saying that they become less interesting.
Back and forth is important in all competition. If a game lacks --you know, competing players, then it will eventually become boring. The tension between competitors is what makes people want to watch competition. Tension comes in the major sports in the form of changing possession. Consider what pro football or pro basketball games would be like if they played by playground "make-it-take-it" rules. Who would want to watch the same team score, retain possession and keep doing it over and over again, until they lose possession? Scores would have the potential to get out of hand too fast, and parity would be unattainable.
Most 2d fighters maintain this concept of parity by forcing projectiles and other moves to have trading properties, thus blunting spam advantage, and forcing players to take turns and abide by a sort of pseudo change of possession. Player A has ways to nullify or blunt player B's offense and vice versa, with neither player controlling all or most of the space for an extended period of time. That concept and parrying are the most commonsense, dynamic ways of ensuring that the boring aspect of lame style or conversely the overpowering aspect of rushdown doesn't dominate the flow/tension of a fighting game.
I mean, there's a reason boxing doesn't allow infinite "hugging" or UFC doesn't allow you to protect guard forever, without working, because anything else has the potential to reduce games to Divekick or Tic tac toe over an extended time, where the first hit/score gains an unfair advantage, and strategy becomes less important.
. Once with Kitana, once by mistake with Baraka of all people...<3.
