Hey guys, I don't play very many fighting games but I think I want to start playing them more often. I've played some Street Fighter games and misc other fighting games in the past but always just casually and never trying to beat them. The only fighting games I've played a lot have been the Soul Calibur/Blade games.
So I'm wondering for a guy like me, what would be a good game to pick up and try and beat to get more serious about fighting games? Any system era is fine by me. Of course cheaper games wouldn't hurt either.
EDIT: dang, just realized I posted this in the wrong forum. Mods, feel free to move this post...
The games that got me into fighting games were Street Fighter IV and Tekken 6. I found they were both so well-made that they weren't too intimidating. SFIV especially has been made to be really beginner friendly on the lower difficulties. There are a lot of easy attacks to pull off that will slowly get you into the harder stuff. Plus it's a lot slower than, say, the VS. series, so it's less daunting. Tekken I liked because it just felt a lot different from any other fighter I'd played before. It was the one that really got me into fighters. The whole system is completely different from SF. It's all about combinations of the four face buttons, with each button aligned to one limb. So it's a little easier to grasp how it works when you're starting out. I found SF hard at the beginning because of the quarter-circles and everything, and getting the timing just right. There's a lot less of that in Tekken. And Tekken 6 is just so smooth that it works really well. I haven't played much of Tekken 5 (on PS2), but I've heard it's pretty much just as well-made as 6 if not better for it's era. It's probably cheaper, though I think 6 has dropped pretty low in price these days anyways.
I would probably recommend the original "Street Fighter II: The World Warrior" to start with. Mainly because the gameplay is very slow yet methodical.
Once you learn a few of the characters and how to calculate your moves, then I'd suggest moving up to "Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting" or "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" and adjusting your level of speed and difficulty accordingly.
"Welcome to the circus of values!"
Currently Playing: Crysis (360), Destiny demo (PS3), Roadblasters (MAME)
I recommend you Super Smash Bros Brawl. It's not only a great fighter, but it also has very easy to learn controls, where you just push a button and a direction to make an attack.
It's also readily availble, has a lively competitive scene and it's controllish gameplay without many combos focuses on aproaching and not being hit, a key thing to learn.
Other than that, yeah Street Fighter IV is solid
Looking for a cool game? Find it in my blog! Latest post: Often, games must be difficult http://eriktwice.com/
Tatsunoko vs Capcom and Marvel vs Capcom 3 are games you should check out for a fighting game newbie. On both of the games, they practically oversimplifyed the controls so anyone could pick up and play. Although not my cup of tea, it may be right down your alley.
swiftzx wrote:Tatsunoko vs Capcom and Marvel vs Capcom 3 are games you should check out for a fighting game newbie. On both of the games, they practically oversimplifyed the controls so anyone could pick up and play. Although not my cup of tea, it may be right down your alley.
I agree, both are a great starting ground and have a lot of people online right now. On the other side of the genre are games like Blazblue or Virtua Fighter that take a LOT of practice.
Dead or Alive - whatever latest one your hardware can handle. Try a few characters until you find one you're comfortable with. The eye candy is excellent and the variety of playstyles the characters offer makes it accessible no matter what fighting game you've gotten used to. It's fun playing 2 player while drinking tho I hear if you're serious about it there's a lot of strategy involved when playing competitively.
Super Street Fighter IV might be a good place to start purely because it's Challenge mode will give you a good grounding in how combos work. Plus there's a huge community out there on the SRK forums that have practically mapped out every single nuance in the entire game.
As a theatre major in college, they started our formal acting training with Shakespeare. It seemed intimidating at the time because the language is archaic and difficult to parse, but once you nail down exactly what it is you're saying, it's quite simple. Characters in Shakespeare are pretty much emotionally transparent. Unlike real people, they always say exactly what's on their minds. They don't have layers of deception (or self-deception) to take into account. It teaches an actor to express a character's intentions simply and honestly.
And that's why you should start with Street Fighter II. It doesn't have the layers of fighting game mechanics that have been bolted onto the genre over the years. It's just two dudes on a two-dimensional plane, punching, kicking and jumping at each other. The special moves are the only things you have to "learn." But it's such a well-balanced game, and the characters' basic moves are so intuitive, that all of the mechanics of fighting games we know today (combos, juggles, etc.) sprung organically from SFII's basic template. And if you ask me, there's never been a better cast of fighting game characters than the twelve World Warriors in SFII Turbo.
HD Remix (on XBLA and PSN) is probably the best modern rendition of the SFII family of games, barring a straight-up emulation of the original arcade version of SFII Turbo. I'd also recommend the original SF Alpha (PSN). It's got a small cast, a great art style, and gameplay that's a bit more defensive (air blocking is nice!), so you can take your time a bit and plan your next move. And it had not yet accrued all the excess that the Alpha series would later become known for (huge cast of unbalanced characters, different gameplay styles/modes, different super combo meters, etc.).
If you liked the Soul series, definitely check out Samurai Shodown I or II. It's got a slower, more methodical pace, closer to Soul Edge/Blade than Soul Calibur, but it's a wonderful weapons-based fighter that's very intuitive. All of the characters' basic moves just "make sense," if you get what I mean. They're available in several different Neo Geo compilations, or as standalone downloads on PSN/XBLA.
"Oh, no, not in Utica, no. It's an Albany expression."
