Let me start by saying, I generally suck at fighting games. Whether it’s learning the many move sets, or trying to figure them out without having to look them up. I remember during the 16-bit era fighting games were all the rage. Finally a console could match up to a similar quality you found in an Arcade cabinet. Some of the first games that I can remember playing with my Brothers and friends were the Street Fighter 4 Championship edition and Primal Rage on the Sega Genesis and Mortal Kombat 2 on the SNES.
On Street Fighter 2 I tended to Gravitate toward the Characters that were nimble or had great reach. That meant that I used Sagat, Vega and of course I spammed Dhalsim like crazy. That’s ok though typically my little brother would pick Blanka and sit in the corner using his electric move defensively every time I pressed the attack. While back then I would scream “Cheater!” and how cheap he was for using it. I see now that he was young and the idea of memorizing moves was not common for either of us. Primal Rage, God help us was an even bigger mess and resulted in a large sum of button mashing and trying to hit the Cave men running around in the background. Neither of us had a single move we knew outside of striking back and forth.
After that I took somewhat of a long hiatus from fighting games, I remember going to a friend’s house who had gotten a PS1 for Christmas and the game Tekken. I was blown away by the Graphics and the attention to detail in the game. Also it seemed to have a wide variety of character types, even some with weapons! And while I was no better at this game than one in the past, it felt different like you didn’t have to know Special moves if you figured out how to chain combos and dodge/block. This game I could actually stay somewhat competitive with.
A few years later another friend of mine received a Sega Dreamcast for his birthday along with two Arcade style fighting games Soul Caliber and Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. Soul Caliber I throughly enjoyed, it had a similar play style to Tekken combined with a focus on using weapons rather than fists and feet. And while I wasn’t good enough to beat my friend, I still really enjoyed it. Marvel vs. Capcom on the other hand I really loved, it had the best cast of characters ever in a fighting game as far as Im concerned. However…I was absolutely horrid at it. I had a hard time beating the CPU most of the time. My friend Chris however was the master of fighting games, he could pop off every move for every character at a moment’s notice. So where did I go wrong, why is it I could just never get the hang of it? For me it came down to a few things I think,
- I always played the Aggressor, let’s just say I never knew which button was block.
- I never stuck with a character long enough to learn their strengths and weaknesses and how to cater to those.
- I got discouraged if I couldn’t pick a controller up and dominate out of the gate, like I could with RTS’s and Shooters.
The last few years I’ve played a lot more fighting games and have discovered that many of them very much now cater to folks that maybe are a lot like me and can’t help but do the things I said above. So these are the games over the years that I’ve played, bought or revisited that are very accessible for fans at any Skill level.
1)Super Smash Brothers (WII)- While not a traditional fighting game, Smash bros brings a lot to the table. It’s the third installment to the series and had the best cast of character’s to date. The Object is to knock your opponent off the screen or at least do enough damage so that something in the environment does. I had a great time playing the Single player or better yet some couch Coop.
2) Mortal Kombat 9(PS3) Nether Realms did a fantastic job of so many things on this game. It went back to its 2d roots of course using 3D rendering on characters as well as the environments. It was much easier to pull off the unique moves and very easy to perform your fatalities and they were quite imaginative. The X ray mode was pretty a slick addition as well.
3)Injustice :Gods among Us(PS3)(excited for Injustice2)- I am a hug Comic fan, so when I heard that a game featuring the core Heroes and Villians was coming, and that it was made by Netherrealms I was all in. To date it’s the best Single player story in a fighting game that Ive played.I Can’t wait to play Injustice 2.
Outside of the Injustice 2 game I’m really excited to play the new remake of Street Fighter 2 on the Nintendo Switch.
