I’ve always loved fighting games. Some of my earliest memories are of my sister’s Nina repeatedly beating my Yoshimitsu in Tekken 4, wondering when he’ll even use his sword; or spamming Link’s Up-Special in Super Smash Bros. Melee all the way through Adventure Mode. I stuck with these series, using my beloved blue rat in Brawl and trying to figure out how to do Yoshimitsu’s “funny helicopter move” in Tekken 6. Eventually, I branched out to others games too, from anime fighters like BlazBlue to team fighters like Marvel vs. Capcom. It’s safe to say that the genre has always been one of my favorites.
Despite this, I wasn’t very good at them. It took me until Street Fighter IV to realize that blocking was an option in most of these games, and that you can consistently Shoryuken if you don’t just wiggle the analog stick and pray. Even then, everything just felt like a fight with the controller. I’d buy new fighting games as they released – and even bought a fight stick – but I’d be too intimidated by their complexity and never-ending move lists. By the time I was willing to try, the rest of the community had moved onto the next game, leaving me with no one to test myself against other than the AI. I did get some experience from learning Super Smash Bros. with friends, and this did teach me some of the fundamentals, but I still wasn’t ready for the confusing world of quarter-circles and frame data in the more traditional fighting games.
That was until Tekken 8.
I played one or two games, and I fell in love all over again. Something finally clicked. I wanted to give the time to learning how to improve. I wanted to feel like I’m actually playing without randomly hitting buttons. I wanted to learn the funny helicopter move.
Now that I’m at a point where I’m slowly getting past this barrier, I want to try and encourage others too. Fighting games don’t have to be daunting, and the reward for pushing onwards is massive. All you’ve got to do is find a reason to keep going.
For me, my initial reason to improve came from watching the anime-esque fights from competitive players. I saw all these clips from tournaments and was desperate for even an ounce of control over my characters as they had. “Your Only Move Is Hustle,” made this feeling even stronger, solidifying that peak fighting gameplay should just look sick; and it can, if you take the time to learn. Knowing that this was the reward helped me to push forward.
I’ve also found that fighting games are quite meditative. Sure, the initial learning process can be lengthy and difficult, and it can be easy to take parts of it too seriously, but you eventually reach a state where it genuinely feels like you are one with the game. I’d only ever really felt this with games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater before, where the world around you melts away and your only restrictions are your own limits. With the high skill ceiling of fighting games, it’s a climb to get to this point, but it offers full immersion like nothing else.
Character customization is another huge draw. This is slowly becoming a staple of many fighting games and can be a great reason to get into the genre. Some games are more limited, either offering palette swaps or generic costume pieces to mix and match, but some can give players full control. The perfect example of this is Street Fighter 6, giving players fine control over their avatar’s face shape, body type, and clothes. Seeing Ronald McDonald do a Spinning Bird Kick or a bargain bin Michael Myers training with Zangief are truly sights to behold.
Even in games without customization options, you aren’t always limited to the standard look of the base roster, thanks to mods. One of the only reasons a friend of mine even tried Dragon Ball FighterZ was to replace Broly with Marge Simpson. Even if the comedic side of customization isn’t your thing, you’re bound to find a bunch of alternative costumes and character swaps that better suit your style. There are some issues with mods and talks of bans, but in games where mods are client-side, this is mostly a non-issue. Research how mods are handled for the game you’re interested in first, and you should be fine.
I think your character is important too – beyond just their outfit – and I think this relates to the immersion mentioned earlier. Video games in general contain some of my favorite characters in fiction, but I feel a closeness with who I play. I’ve barely seen any of Earthbound beyond the first 10 minutes and haven’t really played a new Pokémon game since Sun, and yet Ness and Jigglypuff resonate with me more than characters from more story-driven games. Since picking up Tekken 8, I’ve hit that point with Yoshimitsu; feeling a stronger kinship now than when I played casually. If you like to connect with the games you play and the characters in them, fighting games are a great tool for this.
One of the best reasons I’ve found to stick with fighting games by far, though, is to spend time playing them with friends. I think what makes fighting games so daunting is feeling like you have to keep learning, putting in the work, and competing, when really, you can just play for fun. When you’re all roughly evenly matched, that’s when the friendly rivalries start to develop. Plus, since the atmosphere is fairly casual, you all start taking more risks. It doesn’t matter if you lose, so everyone goes for the more impressive strategies, the ones that you can’t even be mad losing to. This more casual environment gets you feeling more comfortable playing and acts as a great way to ease you into the game and will keep you coming back.
I love fighting games a lot, more now than ever. I’m nowhere near the best, and I don’t really intend to be. With fighting games, I just want to get as far as I can and enjoy the genre to its fullest. Being able to see all my hard work pay off feels amazing. I’m glad I stuck with them.
To be honest, you should too. There’s so much that fighting games can offer that no other genre really can. Whether you want to test your might competitively or just use them as a way to unwind, I cannot recommend these types of games enough. You never know, maybe you can finally learn how to do the funny helicopter move.