Things I've learned from Street Fighter

I can't claim to be a fan of the fighting genre, my first experience was back in the 90s with Street Fighter 2 on the Nintendo. My brother and I would mess around as kids, randomly shooting fireballs, neither of us even knew how to pull off a shoryuken. In the end the match usually dissolves into a using crouching heavy kicks, you are a smaller target, deal quite a bit of damage and is really simple to pull off.

I saw SF4 out in the arcades when it first came out and the thing that caught my eye was the graphics of course. There have been Street Fighter games in between, but none in such fluid animation in 3d before. I of course watched as old vets and new players put in their coins, entering the a world of as dedicated gamers as they come. Soon enough, I joined the fray, hardly lasting 30 seconds against any player. Eventually I caved in and spent the full amount on a brand new PS3 Street Fighter 4. Here my journey begun.

Here's what I've learned from Street Fighter,

1) Players are among the most hardcore in the world, along side RTS players, Fighters requires the most technical expertise, discipline, mind games and practice for solo players. There are literally thousands of variations on combos, the risk/return ratio on 5% of the health bar. Technical moves put into muscle memory after continuous repetition ensures that it comes out
under high pressure tournaments. Mind games, nerves of steel are also required.

2) It' is not a casual game by any means although it may appear to be. Dave Sirlin has posted quite a comprehensive list of why. But as a new player into the genre, it marks a fresh start as others too throng to the game.

3) Basics 101, range, power and speed. Light moves are faster, less powerful and have less range, Heavy moves are the opposite.

4) Hit boxes, your character is a giant box, not too glamorous, but it helps when you realise that performing uneccesary moves causes your 'hittable' area to move closer to a counter-attack.

5) Frames, startup and recovery, you take time to perform moves and to recover from moves, do it at the wrong instant and you'll be left vulnerable.

6) Layers, there are 3 basic layers, crouching, standing and jumping. Each attack affects the layer adjacent to it, it's like rock paper and scissors here.

7) Mix ups the art of confusing your enemy, turtling opponent? Attack from the air, from below, bait them by throwing an empty punch just out of reach, throw them when they block. Offensive opponent? Wait for your moment and counter attack or simply bait for a barrage of your own. Mixing up your strategies throws people off and any confusion gained at the start ensures a victory for later rounds.

8) The game is people, most of the time, moves have to be executed before the opponent has even made a move, guess correctly and you win and people are predictable some times. So you don't have to be a technical expert to win matches, using bread and butter moves can win matches most of the time. On the other hand, expect weird stuff to happen, moves that you haven't figured out how to escape yet. Moves scrubs never learn to counter and call cheap.

9) Not to mention stuff too advanced for my feeble mind, like frame counting (memorising the entire list of frames required for each move, using simple addition and subtraction when ever a move is performed). Piano method (knowing how the game accepts commands and rolling your fingers across the buttons). Negative edge (holding a button and letting go to perform a move rather than tapping it) and memorizing 10 hit comobs.

Like I said, SF4 is not a casual game, people have played for a decade of this will beat you, but each generation has their own heroes, are you ready to start your journey to mastery?