Fighting games are the head-to-head competitive video games played by cool people worldwide. Other people can put it so much more eloquently than I:
Essentially, fighting games pit players directly against each other in a contest of skill, dexterity, and psychology. You can think of it as a high-speed chess match played with asymmetrical pieces. To win, you will need to thoroughly understand what your fighter is capable of, and figure out the most effective ways to apply that against the player you're facing. This simple dynamic is the genesis of countless emergent strategies, and a deeper understanding of fighting game fundamentals often allows for a deeper appreciation of fighting games in general.
Fighting games, far more than any other genre in gaming, are driven by an extremely dedicated community of fans who take it upon themselves to ensure the longevity of their scene. The tournaments that form the backbone of the fighting game scene are, by and large, run by fans, for fans. This year's annual Evolution tournament (often known simply as "Evo") in Vegas was attended by top players from around the U.S., Japan, Korea, U.K., France, China, Mexico, and beyond; it received media coverage from G4, GameSpot, and Destructoid, drew over 2 million unique viewers via live streams of the matches, and played host to new announcements from Capcom and Namco's top producers. Evo was not created by Capcom or Namco to publicize their games; it's not run by GameStop or some "e-sports" league that intends to televise it for profit; it was organized by a small group of guys who simply love fighting games. This is a small, tightly-knit community that paradoxically spans the entire globe, and few people can really say that about their hobbies.
Unlike so much of what had come before, playing serious Streetfighter required putting part of yourself, and your self-respect, on the line. SF had a second joystick, and meant it. Its two-player mode wasn't two guys alternating turns, scoring points against some common computer foe. Streetfighter invited you to stick it to the guy standing next to you. End his turn by beating him off the machine, take his money, and make him pay for the chance to question you again. Being in the arcade at all was admitting you cared, and Streetfighter was the king of the arcade. The game is simply too complex to be played at a high level dismissively. By stepping up, you were saying something- admitting the investment in time and effort it took you to get to this level. That was fundamentally incompatible with casually laughing off a loss, claiming this was "just a game", and everyone there knew it. Walking away from the all-too-human being that just handed you your ass was also a lot harder than walking away from third place on a high-score list. Especially when this punk might even be laughing at you (and if it was me, he was).
Serious Streetfighter was a personal thing. Playing serious SF meant playing in the arcade, and arcades are (or at least used to be, pre-Disnification) shady places, filled with shady characters. Going to the arcade meant taking a trip, the entire purpose of which was picking fights with these people. It's you versus someone else, one on one. You don't have a team to lean on, where the brilliant performance of a Michael Jordan can gloss over the brick you just laid. You are the team- it's you on the line, with no one to back you up, no one to help you out, and nobody else to blame when you lose. You stand there together until someone is the unequivocal loser. You play through the smoke, music, lights, and the veiled (or not-so-veiled) hatred of everyone around you. You take all the glory for every win, the full shame behind every loss.
Ask a thousand people this question, and you'll get 89 different answers. Here are some of them:
Hit the other guy until he dies. Block everything. Throw the other guy until he dies. Get a life lead and then run away. Combo the other guy until he dies. Pick the best character. Pick the character you are most comfortable with. Memorize this chart of frame data.Realistically, there is almost no limit to how good you can be. Throw
your first shoryuken, and you can be best of your siblings. Learn how to
do combos, and be the best among your friends. Learn to
control the fight and win a local tournament. Understand a game
inside out, win a bigger tournament. The sky's the limit.
My advice for just starting out? Here are a couple things that I think will benefit you greatly:
Something always beats something else. It's like a more nuanced rock-paper-scissors. In Street Fighter, a good poke beats throw attempts. Shoryukens beat pokes. Blocking beats Shoryukens. Throwing beats blocking. Of course, moves usually have more than one purpose and have different payoffs. Use this knowledge to mindgame your opponent!
Every move has three phases: startup, active, and recovery. If you're in an in-close situation, a move with slow startup will be beaten by a faster move. If you block a move that has a long recovery time, you can get free hits. Pokes with fast recovery are great for harassing opponents. Etc. You don't need to memorize a bunch of frame data; you can get to know how moves work intuitively really quickly.
Evaluate why you lose a match: If you're good at this, your ability will rise very quickly, especially with a wealth of good online play in many games. Some things to look for: taking needless risks, not knowing how to counter a certain move or tactic, input error. Many games save replays now, and they're a valuable tool.
Practice mode: Practice modes are great, and brilliant stuff at every level of play, from babby nub to world champ, is discovered and perfected here. I've often wondered what I could do to beat X while playing online, or just get a crazy idea, and rush over to practice mode and see if it works. And the next time that situation happens, I
**** the other guy
up.
My rule of thumb for mastering moves and combos is: if you can do it about half the time, you can
use it in a match. If you can do it ten times in a row without messing up, you can count on it in a match. If you can do it 30 times in a row, you will realistically never mess up in a match. Just because you can do that fancy combo once in training mode doesn't mean you can land it with confidence in a real match. You need to practice it and become confident!