Fighting games are in what I still consider to be a niche in the video game market. Whilst everyone will be able to recognize the title of the most famous fighting games, I feel that many people will associate them with low level play (button mashing).
I hate this association. When I suggest playing fighting games such as Street Fighter to my friends, the majority will say no and shrug it off as a button mashing luck-fest and instead opt to play FIFA or a side scrolling beat 'em up.
To me, fighting games are about skill, knowledge and execution. In essence, winning a fighting game is about controlling space on the screen, forcing your opponent to make errors and then knowing how to correctly (or optimally) punish your opponent. It is real time chess, with the additional element of hand-to-eye co-ordination and execution of combos thrown into the mix.
Sega Mega Drive (1992)
The first fighting game I tried to play was Street Fighter 2: Championship Edition on the Sega Mega Drive (AKA Sega Genesis). I bought it second hand from a friend who was clearing out his video game collection in time for the new generation of consoles; as I got my Mega Drive very late in the consoles life, I snapped it up for a bargain price of ~£5. I bought the game at school, waited the entire day to just go home and boot it up.
Back then my brother and I would struggle to pull off Zangief's command grabs (performed by doing a complete 360degree motion on the directional pad (D-Pad), followed by a punch) and our thumbs would develop blisters only to be riveled years later from Mario Party.
Execution was the main issue we suffered from. Those of you who are old enough may remember the standard Mega Drive controllers only had 3 face buttons (A, B and C), and given that Street Fighter controls consist of light punch, medium punch, heavy punch, light kick, medium kick and heavy kick, there was a clear lack of buttons. The workaround (aside from spending additional money on a 6buttoned controller) was to press select to toggle between punches and kicks. This meant that doing combos, or even crouching medium kick into a hadouken was more difficult that originally intended; high level techniques such as using your chin to press select whilst performing the quater-circle-forward (QCF) motion on the D-Pad.
With the lack of buttons and the sheer difficulty of the game, we didn't play seriously. We beat the single player mode with several of the characters, and used to play verses occasionally, but that was about it. If we wanted to play a fighting game, our "go to" was the WWF Wrestlemania game simply because it was easier to control.
Nintendo 64 (1999)
Super Smash Bros. This is probably the game that really got me into fighting games. It was different from other games, whilst you dealt damage to your opponents by performing normal and special attacks, you didn't have a stamina bar and instead would have to be knocked off the stage. Whats more, it supported up to 4 players, had items and dynamic stages.
Smash Bros was, and unfortunately still is, one of the few games within the fighting game genre that my friends are willing to play. Unlike Street Fighter, you could enjoy the game and have some satisfaction in playing despite not having much exposure to it. Special moves don't require a strong of commands; instead just holding a direction then pressing the B button would unleash a fireball, neutral B could throw out a Falcon Punch and up and B would help you jump higher.
The basic mechanics are so simple that you can go from not knowing anything to have a decent understanding of the game within minutes of playing it. This makes it a great party game. But that is what Smash will always be to me. A party game.
Whilst Smash Bros is still played on a competitive level today, they do so by disabling all items, limiting stages to the static and mostly level ones and even banning characters from competing. Why? Because the game is not balanced.
- Items spawn randomly and can give one played an unfair advantage, easily swaying the tide of a game.
- Levels change, platforms move/vanish and additional elements such as wind are randomly introduced. Arguably the better player would accommodate for these changes, but in reality random factors shouldn't come into play in competitive games.
- Some characters are just outright more powerful than others. Some have better movesets, higher priority normals or just outright have more potential.
The trouble is that in removing all these factors, the game just isn't the same. It's a fun (and sometimes infuriating) party game, and a game I will only play when friends come around.
Gamecube (2002)
This period was some what special. I lived close to my high school, and in the later years, my friends and I would go to my house during lunch break to play video games when the weather was too poor to play football. Whilst Smash Bros Melee (2002) and Mario Kart Double Dash (2003) were the favorite games to play, for a while that changed.
My brother got Soul Caliber 2 (2002) for his birthday the year it was released. Having never owned a Playstation, Soul Caliber 2 was the first 3D fighter I had the chance to really play and get to grips with.
The graphics were stunning. The characters were interesting. There was a pretty fun single player mode. The mechanics of a 3D fighter were new and exciting; juggles, side steps, hops and parrying attacks. Thinking about it, I think it was the first game which introduced me to 'super' special attacks, and un-blockable attacks.
My friends would come over during lunch, and we would play winner stays on. This was a lot of fun for a while. Then I wanted to take the game to the next level. I picked "Yun Sung" as my main character, did some research on combos, went into training mode and put in some time to learn them.
Once I was confident that I could land them, I tried using them against my friends. I didn't take into account that my spacing and blocking game was terrible. I would go up against my friends, and lost to their button mashing - I hated the fact that they could and would pull off juggles by pure ignorance and luck. My friends ont he other hand thought it was hilarious. I could see the funny side, but I lost a lot of respect for that game because I just didn't understand how to reliably start a combo. He had terrible range, some trouble juggling and nothing really stood out for him.
Out of interest I've just looked at a tier list here, and found that Yun Sung is in fact one of the worst characters in the game, alongside the Gamecube exclusive Link. It's nice knowing that my doubt and frustrations were some what justified. Maybe I'd have liked it more if I'd have just chosen another character.
Capcom vs. SNK 2 (2002) was the other fighting game I got for the Gamecube. I didn't love the game, though it was fun. It suffered from similar controller flaws that I mentioned with SF2:CE earlier. The buttons were strange on the Gamecube, and the triggers acted as 'heavy' punch and kick. It did offer an easy input option where you could press the C-Stick in a direction to perform a special move which was okay for new players.
I generally like the Street Fighter games. I feel that they involve skill and the better player will predominantly win. The Capcom vs. SNK titles throw in a 3on3 into the mix. You pick three characters, and your opponent does the same. Once you defeat one character, the second comes in. This continues until one side has all of their characters defeated.
Games which force you to use multiple characters will always make me reluctant to play them. I can say that to this day, I've never mastered or even come close to mastering one character in any fighting game that I've played. I play a mediocre game at best. So then ask me to learn not one, but three characters, their moves, priorities, specials, combos, links and setups... I can't do it. It is a daunting task that just requires too much time investment for me to ever consider.
That being said, I could pick up most of the Shotokan style players and do well. My team was usually Ryu, Ken and Akuma, and I probably won more than I lost verses my friends. Because of this, my friends just refused to play against me, or would opt to play something else instead. Given the choice, they'd rather play Soul Caliber 2 and hit all the buttons on the controller in the hope they'd win, which they found out they couldn't do against me in Capcom vs SNK 2.
MAME (2004)
During college whilst I was studying for my A-levels, we had quite a few free periods during the course of a week. There were also usually free computers. This co-insided around the same time that the 'EVO Moment #37' came out from Evo2k4 in the Losers Bracket Finals of Street Fighter3: Third Strike [Ref].
To this day I still get goosebumps watching that video. After showing it to one of my friends, we started playing Street Fighter Alpha 3, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike and Street Fighter and even Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix through MAME.
It was fun. We were competitive, we could go home and practice, and we could play during the week without much hassle. In a few cases, we'd get thrown out of the computer rooms for shouting obscenities at one another or just screaming following a clutch victory. The majority of my friends didn't play, but that one rivalry was more than enough incentive to continue playing. It was just so fun.
We practiced combos, knew some basic match-up knowledge and how to punish (albeit poorly) unforced errors. There was some dirty play thrown in too, one example that stays in memory is where keyboards would lock up if several buttons are held; therefore upon unleashing a super, you could press and hold as many buttons on the keyboard as you could to prevent your opponents buttons from registering, leaving them unable to react.
MAME then transitioned into GGPO, which had the additional feature of amazing net code for online play. Our school sessions of SFA3 could continue remotely.
XBox 360 (2008)
I got my XBox 360 whilst I was living in Hong Kong. 2008 was a good year for fighting games with the announcement of Street Fighter 4 and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix. I bought both of these games as soon as they became available.
What I came to realise was a huge issue from my previous console fighting game experiences still plagued me. The XBox 360 controller just didn't allow em to enjoy playing fighting games. I actually prefered playing on my keyboard during my GGPO sessions then I did with a controller through the XBox 360. Shortly after I bought Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix from the Xbox Live Arcade store, I started looking for alternative controllers. This is where I found out that you can actually get arcade stick replicas for home use. I ordered a Hori EX 2, which had the added benefit of being compatible with my PC as well as the XBox 360, and got down to playing.
I play SSF2THDR almost every day until the release of SF4. I picked up Dhalsim, learnt how to play him semi effectively and had a lot of fun playing online.
Then came Street Fighter 4. This is, to this day, my favorite addition to the series. The graphics are awesome, the game feels great, the machanics are pretty cool. I somewhat disagree with the introduction of Ultra's, which become available when you take a certain threshold of damage, allowing for a comeback. But the Focus to absorb damage, almost replacing the 'parry' from SF3S, is a nice if oversimplified version which allows for additional combo options by Focus Attack Dash Canceling (FADC).
I even played Street Fighter 4 at the local arcades in Hong Kong. That's right, I'd spend additional money on the game despite owning it. It is that good.
I continued playing Dhalsim in Street Fighter 4, as the transition seemed pretty straight forward. His slides were not as strong, and the focus meant that throwing random limb attacks was even more risky, but the basics were the same.
On returning to England, my friend from college and I would have full days of playing, then getting food to eat.
Then along came Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I bought this game, as well as Marvel vs Capcom 2 on the XBox Live Arcade, with the intention to try and learn how to play. I'd seen videos from EVO and even stayed up watching the finals on the live stream, and it looks so fun. The game is over the top flashy, fast and busy. There is little down time where players are trying to land in a 'poke'. There is always something going on.
This might be where I fall out with the MvC series. There are a LOT of characters. You need a team of 3, and the length of the combos can be absurd. I will never ever feasibly be able to play any of the games in this series well, they just require too much time investment, and are notorious for game breaking bugs and character imbalance.
MvC3 is one of those games I love watching, but I just can't play.
There are other notable mentions of Soul Caliber 4, Mortal Kombat 9, Street Fighter x Tekken, Skullgirls and Injustice which have made this generation awesome for fughting games.
Today, 2013
I currently only play Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition v2012 despite having the majority of games mentioned above. The game stands up, has had several updates, and even has another update in the pipeline. I am still really bad at the game, but I really enjoy playing it.
Recently I got diagnosed with Stargadts disease which has a pretty big impact on my vision. I've almost finished my masters dissertation and have booked tickets to attend EVO2k13 to compete and spectate. I decided that having never competed in a tournament despite playing fighting games throughout my life, I should probably do it before my eyesight gets too bad where I am fighting my eyes rather than my opponents.
I have no visions of grandeur. I know that I will most likely lose both of my matches. I am a casual player at best, but I love the game. I have played and spectated it for years, my knowledge outweighs my skill and execution by a large margin and I need to sit down and really practice.
I've played with the idea of going to Dreamhack over in Sweden, and even local(ish) tournaments in Telford and London; but I never had anyone to go with and didn't like the idea of going alone. I invited a bunch of people to come to Vegas, all knowing of my condition and reasons for wanting to go, but no one would or could come - but this time I'm going. I'm going to EVO 2k13 to compete in my first competition, the biggest Street Fighter competition in the world and it is going to be awesome fun.
