In other words, should we as players worry about whether the characters or tactics we employ are fair? Should we worry about “breaking” the game or creating situations that are too disadvantageous to opponents?

My viewpoint is that nothing is cheap. Or rather, that players shouldn’t worry about it one way or the other. Cheating is bad form in real life because real life only gives us one physics engine to play in and one set of laws to obey. If someone wins through a loophole, everyone else has to suffer and there’s really no escape. That’s why “cheap” tactics carry such a bad vibe on an almost subconscious level.

However with fighting games, the Capcom community alone has access to over half a dozen classic titles that have been tested rigorously by the tournament scene and proven to be competitively viable. In other words, there’s no reason to hold back. If it turns out that Super Street Fighter IV is garbage, we don’t have to keep playing it. Of course i’m hoping that it’s a great game and that it fixes all of SF4’s problems without introducing any new ones. But if it disappoints me, it’s not the end of the world.

What this means is we don’t have to handle these games with kid gloves. Pick the character you feel is strongest and give it your best shot. If you break the game, then it wasn’t worth playing to begin with. And however long it takes you to reach this conclusion, you’ll have gained a wealth of knowledge and skill along the way that will transfer over to almost any other fighting game.

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Today i’d like explore a phenomenon that has become something of an alarming fascination among the fighting game community: tiering and ranking characters. When a new game comes out, everyone picks their favorite character and arrives at a certain style of play which seems to produce competitive success. Then someone hosts a gathering or tournament, and these differing styles clash. Immediately everyone witnesses the crowning of a particular approach as “the way the game is supposed to be played.”

Based on this information (and countless contests of Forum Theory Fighter), the community drafts a list of character rankings grouped by dominance. These tiers are built from the top down, starting from the character who best embodies “the way the game is supposed to be played.”

If the community decides that the game is based on Low Fierce, then (CvS2) Sagat and Blanka find themselves at the top. If the community decides that the game is based on AHVB, then (MvC2) Cable finds himself at the top. If the community decides that the game is based on Back+Fierce, then (3S) Chun Li finds herself at the top. Everyone else’s worth is determined by how well they can cope with the kings (or queens) of the hill.

Now it’s very easy to get tricked into a desperate situation where conventional wisdom forces you to give up on your perferred character. The trouble is, if that character speaks to you then you could be giving up on a massive opportunity to carve out your own niche. Why downgrade to conventional knowledge when it goes against your play style and your instincts? It’s always going to feel slightly awkward.

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There’s no arguing that SF4 has revitalized the fighting game tournament scene in a big way. It’s great seeing long-standing series such as ECC and MWC revitalized after struggling over the past few years. And it’s funny seeing first-time organizers hosting inaugural events, only to get rocked for underestimating the draw of SF4. You could tell your friends you’re holding a mini-tourney at your house and there’d be 128 people waiting in your driveway when you got home.

However, the prevalence of online play has made it common for people to play competitively for an entire year without ever considering attending a single tournament. A lot of newcomers don’t realize how different the tournament mindset can be. Even ignoring the online lag factor, playing against faceless challengers from the comfort of your own home is nothing like playing against someone face-to-face with everyone watching. There’s no end to the stories of players beating opponents handily in casual play half an hour before a tournament only to get eliminated by that same guy a couple of hours later.

Tournament play is fundamentally different from casual play. This doesn’t mean that beating someone in casual play means nothing and beating someone in tournament play means everything. Certainly if you beat Rob Ingrim (CaliSean) five times in a row in casual play, that’s something to feel proud about. But it does not mean you will beat him in a tournament. Rob happens to be a much better tournament player than he is a casual player. He adopts a different, more effective style when playing in a tournament, and he knows how to take advantage of your tournament pressures and fears that aren’t there when you’re playing casually and nothing is at stake.

Make no mistake, there will be pressure. The guy you’re about to play drove all the way from his house to the tournament, put down his entry fee, and waited (im)patiently for his turn to play. He has no intention of losing his matches and going home knowing that he wasted three hours and ten bucks to play four games. He’s bringing his A-game and he’s done hiding all his dirty tricks. There’s no time to warm up. You have to be ready when the first round starts. Your friends will be cheering for you. Your rivals will be watching your every move, trying to find weaknesses in your game in case they face you later on. It’s an entirely different experience from casuals.

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Since the widespread success of SF4, a lot of newcomers have been asking whether it’s too late to learn how to play. After all, some of us have been playing fighting games in one form or another for decades. One guy even asked if a new player who’s still struggling with quarter-circle special moves “in his middle forties” should give up hope.

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is no.

The mistake everyone makes is thinking that Street Fighter is about super moves and fancy combos. That’s never been the core of Street Fighter, not even in the titles dominated by Custom Combos. At the end of the day, SF is about finding one character who makes sense to you, figuring out something new about them every day, going out of your way to find quality competion, understanding why they’re beating you, taking apart their patterns, figuring out how to counter each and every tactic, and (re)combining everything you’ve learned into a cohesive gameplan.

You don’t need to be a combo master or a fighting game historian to do any of this. All you need is determination, focus, an open mind, and a little bit of humility. Believe it or not, you can win almost any match using only normal moves, throws, and a solid defense. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with losing as long as you walk away having gained (aka learned) something. On the other hand if you walk away frustrated, then you’ve wasted an opportunity to analyze a formidable opponent or a difficult character matchup.

 

Of course, the magic ingredient is practice. Theory Fighter helps but there’s no substitute for twenty matches against the best player you can find. Nobody’s saying you have to play five hours a day, every day. But however much time you can spare, make sure you’re getting the most out of it. After a play session against a challenging opponent, try to remember which tactics gave you trouble and take notes.

If you can’t figure out an immediate solution to a threat, then plan on spending a little time in Training Mode finding the best counter. “Best” means the most reliable, most damaging, and safest one you can find (prioritized in that order). Nearly all recent fighting games allow you to record and replay training dummy actions, which is a convenient tool for finding ways to deal with a specific attack. Investing fifteen minutes here can save you from hours of headaches in match play.

Remember, the real “depth” of (good) fighting games is that any given problem has several solutions. Whatever your individual skill level may be, you can always find an answer that works for you.

The good news is, once you get good at (any) Street Fighter you’ll always be less than a week away from being good at any fighting or action game. It’s hard to find a genre that demands a more intense variety of skills from players. You’re expected to have excellent hand-eye coordination, fast reaction times, sharp puzzle-solving skills, the ability to frequently improvise under pressure, and a solid grasp of strategic planning. While it’s almost impossible to become a top player across multiple game genres, it’s much easier to jump from intermediate status in fighting games to intermediate status in any other kind of game than vice versa.

Fighting games are the Hyperbolic Time Chamber of the video game world.