Killer Instinct for SNES. My friend and I had a competition to find out who could memorize the longest combo.
What was the first fighting game you tried to get good at?
- Thread starter Yurei
- Start date
VF2 on Saturn. Figured I could concentrate on one character.
I printed out a FAQ on one just Wolf and I had to reload the paper.
I tried.
I printed out a FAQ on one just Wolf and I had to reload the paper.
I tried.
Street Fighter V but I dropped it pretty early on. I meshed well with SF6 though and I've stuck with that so far.
Street Fighter 1, arcade.
For consoles, Street Fighter 2, SNES.
Throw in competitive friend/ stranger play, it was pure obsession.
For consoles, Street Fighter 2, SNES.
Throw in competitive friend/ stranger play, it was pure obsession.
I remember up until somewhere during sfiv, I only used to use heavy punch and heavy kick for normals. They did the most damage right? Why even bother with the others lol
The only time I ever used lights was in air to air situations as I noticed they seemed to hit first. What a concept huh.
So yeh, SFIV was when I tried to actually understand properly. I still remember learning about special cancelling and it was as if a whole new world had just opened up.
The only time I ever used lights was in air to air situations as I noticed they seemed to hit first. What a concept huh.
So yeh, SFIV was when I tried to actually understand properly. I still remember learning about special cancelling and it was as if a whole new world had just opened up.
Street Fighter 2: World Warrior.
The local corner store got a machine in and all we could do that summer was throw quarters at it. Once the trash talking began, I was HOOKED.
Been playing fighting games ever since.
The local corner store got a machine in and all we could do that summer was throw quarters at it. Once the trash talking began, I was HOOKED.
Been playing fighting games ever since.
Yeah in the 90s in the homes and arcades I played these games people just spammed the fuck out of 1-2 moves for the character they liked. Not very strategic or skillful back then but it was all we knew.
It was not that much different when MK2 took over.
SF4 having good enough online play + me being 18 when it released was the perfect time for me to drive around to local events and some longer distance ones. I may have tried to get better at fighting games before that, but I didn't have a real opportunity to gauge my progress against the larger community until SF4.
One Must Fall 2097
I have combos is that game. Actual combos found through trial and error. Even some tailored to the specific combinations of character stats and robot upgrades in Tournament Mode.
Though, to be fair, some of the combos are pretty nuts in that game, not for length but in a "Wait, you can combo Sweep into Roundhuose?!" kind of way. Yes, the Jaguar with some degree of Leg Speed upgrades can combo Sweep (Down+Back+Kick) into Roundhouse (Back+Kick). Or throw -> jab -> air throw. That is a simple one, but it does a ton of damage. Like 50% in normal settings.
I have combos is that game. Actual combos found through trial and error. Even some tailored to the specific combinations of character stats and robot upgrades in Tournament Mode.
Though, to be fair, some of the combos are pretty nuts in that game, not for length but in a "Wait, you can combo Sweep into Roundhuose?!" kind of way. Yes, the Jaguar with some degree of Leg Speed upgrades can combo Sweep (Down+Back+Kick) into Roundhouse (Back+Kick). Or throw -> jab -> air throw. That is a simple one, but it does a ton of damage. Like 50% in normal settings.
I've mentioned before my brothers are a decade older than me and we were poor so couldn't get new consoles right away so the first two fighting games I played was when I was like two years old or younger when my brothers would put the controller in my hand to play with them and the games were Street Fighter 2 and Eternal Champions (I used to be scared of Blanka back then).
As for the first fighters I tried to play competitively with friends? I don't know of a singular title but it would have been between Soul Calibur, Bloody Roar or Melee (as you said that counts). As for competitively within the FGC it was the Tekken series, I even travelled to some events to compete but I wasn't very good and life got in the way etc etc so I never really followed it up and competitive Tekken in 2024 is absolutely nuts
Despite talking mainly about 3D fighters (as that's what my friend group gravitated towards) I do absolutely love 2D fighters as you've probably seen me talk about in numerous threads but in terms of being competitive? I suck at 2D fighters
As for the first fighters I tried to play competitively with friends? I don't know of a singular title but it would have been between Soul Calibur, Bloody Roar or Melee (as you said that counts). As for competitively within the FGC it was the Tekken series, I even travelled to some events to compete but I wasn't very good and life got in the way etc etc so I never really followed it up and competitive Tekken in 2024 is absolutely nuts
Despite talking mainly about 3D fighters (as that's what my friend group gravitated towards) I do absolutely love 2D fighters as you've probably seen me talk about in numerous threads but in terms of being competitive? I suck at 2D fighters
First and only one for me is probably Smash Bros. Never really got into anything too competitive, but I got pretty absorbed in online matches with Brawl and SSB4. I did get pretty decent in Smash with a few characters, but I'd never consider myself amazing or anything.
It was Melee. Wavedashing, SHFFLing, edgehogging, shines, chain grabs, off-stage game… I was in deep.
I got way better than my friends, but nowhere near tournament-level good.
I got way better than my friends, but nowhere near tournament-level good.
Played CvS2 for ages against a friend that was way better than me and learnt a lot during that time.
I think a lot people that get really stressed by these games or dont play online might have missed the experience of actually having to play against the person right next to you, either in an arcade or console.
After constantly being told "don't jump!", not listening then ending up on the other end of many hundreds of dragon punches you learn a few things.
I think a lot people that get really stressed by these games or dont play online might have missed the experience of actually having to play against the person right next to you, either in an arcade or console.
After constantly being told "don't jump!", not listening then ending up on the other end of many hundreds of dragon punches you learn a few things.
- Rookies jump too much try to build an offense without it.
- It's not that deep don't get stressed by the game. Just learn and get better.
- The only real learning happens against other human opponents, you can learn execution without them but you'll learn a lot of bad habits along the way.
Last edited:
Street Fighter II. Pretty much Capcom fighters in the arcade.
And I did get good. And I stayed good through MvC2/CvS2. Didn't ever formally compete at anything, but you'd be hard pressed to beat me at at arcade or consoles. Was even the "final boss" for a few fighting game contests at my workplace. My practice used to just be Shin Gouki on the hardest setting in CvS2. Used to stay on and just train for over an hour at a time sometimes. God that was fun.
Having said that, I was never any good at MK 2 or 3 past the first few rounds, even though I tried and loved every second of it if only for the sound design. Same with 3D fighters. Just couldn't get into 'em. And for some reason, SNK fighters. I LOVED them, but just never got any good. Oh well.
And I did get good. And I stayed good through MvC2/CvS2. Didn't ever formally compete at anything, but you'd be hard pressed to beat me at at arcade or consoles. Was even the "final boss" for a few fighting game contests at my workplace. My practice used to just be Shin Gouki on the hardest setting in CvS2. Used to stay on and just train for over an hour at a time sometimes. God that was fun.
Having said that, I was never any good at MK 2 or 3 past the first few rounds, even though I tried and loved every second of it if only for the sound design. Same with 3D fighters. Just couldn't get into 'em. And for some reason, SNK fighters. I LOVED them, but just never got any good. Oh well.
Been playing fighting games since SFII, but I didn't actually start truly learning until SFIV came out and ever since then I've just been playing every single fighting game I could get my hands on
SFIV, MvC3, and the online edition of SFIII: Third Strike.
I'd never been into fighting games really, and I've certainly never been good at any of them. But I had a group of friends who were all really into those games for a while, so I'd end up joining them and just chatting while playing matches together. One of them did actually try and teach me a bunch of fighting game basics to try and help me a bit.
I'd never been into fighting games really, and I've certainly never been good at any of them. But I had a group of friends who were all really into those games for a while, so I'd end up joining them and just chatting while playing matches together. One of them did actually try and teach me a bunch of fighting game basics to try and help me a bit.
Super Street Fighter 2
My dad played tons of SF2/2 Turbo with us and realized I'd taken to them real good and used to parade me around to his friends and our family members houses to beat up people in SSF2. Later told me he used to be betting people and getting free money lol. specifically from his army buddies
Marvel vs Capcom in the Arcade was the first time I started entering tournaments locally at our arcade.
SFIV was when I first tried traveling for play and took some big L's looool
My dad played tons of SF2/2 Turbo with us and realized I'd taken to them real good and used to parade me around to his friends and our family members houses to beat up people in SSF2. Later told me he used to be betting people and getting free money lol. specifically from his army buddies
Marvel vs Capcom in the Arcade was the first time I started entering tournaments locally at our arcade.
SFIV was when I first tried traveling for play and took some big L's looool
Guilty Gear Strive was the first time I actually spent time practicing and playing allot of online.
Street Fighter 2 on the SNES for me was my first fighting game. Loved trying to learn the moves for all the characters and I probably played through arcade mode countless times.
King of Fighters 96. Before that I was a typical "smash my face into the controls and hope for the best " player.
Street Fighter 1. I was a wee lad and it was an arcade machine in the base bowling alley in the Philippines, right next to Bionic Commando. First real fighting game, as it were.
First one I tried to get good at was Fatal Fury on the SNES.
First one I've put real time into was Street Fighter 6, which I'm taking a break from for the time being. At least ranked gameplay.
First one I tried to get good at was Fatal Fury on the SNES.
First one I've put real time into was Street Fighter 6, which I'm taking a break from for the time being. At least ranked gameplay.
I can't remember if it was Melee with my 4 best friends or Soul Calibur 2 with my older brother. I tried to actively improve by just playing against each other constantly and learning their habits and trying to figure out what attacks were the "fastest" or seemed like they had more priority than others. I never attended a local or entered a tournament for either though. It was an effort solely dedicated to being better than my friends/older brother lol. They would talk SO much shit when they'd win, there was no better motivator.
But fighting games didn't really seriously click for me until Super Street Fighter IV. I skipped out on vanilla SF4 because I was intrigued, but not all that interested (and poor lmao). What pulled me in was the combination of Team Spooky streams, the old Fighting Game Weekly heads at GAF including Markman and the IRC channel, and Evo. That created the interest and excitement to get the game. Seth Killian's Domination 101 on the now dead SRK Forums (RIP), tons of up and coming content creators at the time like Vesper Arcade putting out educational videos, again the old heads at the old place, and the entertaining videos like Excellent Adventures all helped me in actually getting better. I remember the (at the time) free Cross Counter Guide to Beating Your Friends pdf was very helpful in enabling me to do exactly that lol.
I discovered how much fun just the process of improving was as well, regardless of the actual match results. Being able to point at specific parts of my gameplay and say with confidence "I've gotten a lot better at this" or eventually being able to look at old replays and being able to see how far I've come were great feelings.
It was a shame though because once I did start to improve by learning outside of our matches together, my friends eventually stopped playing all together. They weren't as interested in the process of improving as I was, which was a really lonely feeling for me. Losses came harder to them, they only wanted to win. But time spent getting better could be instead used for something else, like playing ball. Which I get and is totally fair and valid tbh. I actually intentionally never tried to improve much in Smash in the hopes we could at least continue playing that together.
Although the online play was pretty terrible at the time, I was still too bad myself to have my gameplay impacted in any serious way short of the very worst underwater connections lol. So I had that at least.
Edit: I found out that SuperCombo archives old SRK forum posts for anyone interested in reading Seth Killian's Domination 101: https://archive.supercombo.gg/c/evo-championship-series/domination-101/8 . Fair warning these articles are absolutely products of their time. Here's a favorite of mine that's basically Seth ranting while still being helpful lol https://archive.supercombo.gg/t/you-can-lead-a-scrub-to-water-but-you-cant-make-em-think/89175
But fighting games didn't really seriously click for me until Super Street Fighter IV. I skipped out on vanilla SF4 because I was intrigued, but not all that interested (and poor lmao). What pulled me in was the combination of Team Spooky streams, the old Fighting Game Weekly heads at GAF including Markman and the IRC channel, and Evo. That created the interest and excitement to get the game. Seth Killian's Domination 101 on the now dead SRK Forums (RIP), tons of up and coming content creators at the time like Vesper Arcade putting out educational videos, again the old heads at the old place, and the entertaining videos like Excellent Adventures all helped me in actually getting better. I remember the (at the time) free Cross Counter Guide to Beating Your Friends pdf was very helpful in enabling me to do exactly that lol.
I discovered how much fun just the process of improving was as well, regardless of the actual match results. Being able to point at specific parts of my gameplay and say with confidence "I've gotten a lot better at this" or eventually being able to look at old replays and being able to see how far I've come were great feelings.
It was a shame though because once I did start to improve by learning outside of our matches together, my friends eventually stopped playing all together. They weren't as interested in the process of improving as I was, which was a really lonely feeling for me. Losses came harder to them, they only wanted to win. But time spent getting better could be instead used for something else, like playing ball. Which I get and is totally fair and valid tbh. I actually intentionally never tried to improve much in Smash in the hopes we could at least continue playing that together.
Although the online play was pretty terrible at the time, I was still too bad myself to have my gameplay impacted in any serious way short of the very worst underwater connections lol. So I had that at least.
Edit: I found out that SuperCombo archives old SRK forum posts for anyone interested in reading Seth Killian's Domination 101: https://archive.supercombo.gg/c/evo-championship-series/domination-101/8 . Fair warning these articles are absolutely products of their time. Here's a favorite of mine that's basically Seth ranting while still being helpful lol https://archive.supercombo.gg/t/you-can-lead-a-scrub-to-water-but-you-cant-make-em-think/89175
Last edited:
I forget which I bought first, but it was either Tatsunoku vs Capcom, or Guilty Gear Accent Core+. I actually tried to learn the mechanics and spent a lot of time practicing combos. Prior to that, I usually just did raw super, or spammed the same attack over and over again in Soul Calibur.
this goes so hard lmao
the hater energy as a younger sibling is just too powerful
OP
OP
I had a friend from highschool that beat my ass so bad in UMvC3 that I swore off the whole game because of it. Just couldn't handle getting juggled for 30 seconds.
Hopefully with the collection coming out I can gain some appreciation of the franchise after all these years.
I think probably Mortal Kombat 2 on the SNES. I played Street Fighter 2 on the Genesis earlier, but I remember kind of flailing around and mashing buttons. Mortal Kombat 2 was the first one where I at least tried to learn full movesets, put together real strategies and care about trying to beat my friends.
And then Tekken 4 was the first game a tried to take one step further and actually watch footage, read Tekken Zaibatsu, play at arcades and eventually get into the tournament scene.
And then Tekken 4 was the first game a tried to take one step further and actually watch footage, read Tekken Zaibatsu, play at arcades and eventually get into the tournament scene.
Soulcalibur VI
I certainly tried with others and in early SCs was facing Ultra Hard CPU and stuff like that. But this was the first time I was playing against real people, watching tutorial videos, learning frame data, etc.
I don't think I actually got good in comparison to the player base, but I am very confident I could handily dog walk the majority of gamers. Previously I'd get "good" at a fighting game and still lose to a friend button mashing.
Tekken 7 was next and more recently Tekken 8, though for some reason I lost motivation around the time of the first patch. May go back to it at some point.
I certainly tried with others and in early SCs was facing Ultra Hard CPU and stuff like that. But this was the first time I was playing against real people, watching tutorial videos, learning frame data, etc.
I don't think I actually got good in comparison to the player base, but I am very confident I could handily dog walk the majority of gamers. Previously I'd get "good" at a fighting game and still lose to a friend button mashing.
Tekken 7 was next and more recently Tekken 8, though for some reason I lost motivation around the time of the first patch. May go back to it at some point.
I guess Street Fighter 2 against my cousins and uncles.
But really it was CvS2/MvC2/3rd Strike once I was old enough to drive myself to the arcade.
But really it was CvS2/MvC2/3rd Strike once I was old enough to drive myself to the arcade.
Tekken 8.
My first fighting game must have been that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament thing on my pirate 8-bit console. Loved Tekken 1, 3, 4, 5 but only played them super casually vs buddies at home.
But ya, Tekken 8 has been fun and it's been cool to finally have a 1on1 challenge - my last proper one was SC:BW (I was absolute top tier in non-Korea back in the day). My goal is to get Tekken King ranking, I think anything beyond that requires too much talent/time, I am Fujin rank right now so the road ahead is still pretty long.
My first fighting game must have been that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament thing on my pirate 8-bit console. Loved Tekken 1, 3, 4, 5 but only played them super casually vs buddies at home.
But ya, Tekken 8 has been fun and it's been cool to finally have a 1on1 challenge - my last proper one was SC:BW (I was absolute top tier in non-Korea back in the day). My goal is to get Tekken King ranking, I think anything beyond that requires too much talent/time, I am Fujin rank right now so the road ahead is still pretty long.
When I was a kid I played lots of fighters on PS1. Tekken + Tekken 2, Mortal Kombat 3 and 4 (I think), Bloody Roar, Battle Arena Toshinden 1-3, Soul Calibur, etc. Tekken 2 or BAT3 are probably the ones I first made a real effort with, but I was just a kid so I'd have to say MK9 on PS3 would better fit the bill given I had been out of the fighting game genre ever since the PS1 by the time I decided I wanted back in. Put in a lot of time in every mode to get better online and just came up against Scorpion spammers, but it was good fun playing against friends.
After that it was Smash Bros WiiU. Took me a very long time to adjust as I had never played anything like it before and the friends I played it with had been playing since Melee so I had quite a way to go to get near them in any match. Still remember the first time I felt like I could actually give them both a good fight and managed to beat them both. Still wasn't ever at their level (I struggled to get back into it when it released on Switch, which is a shame given how many new characters it got), but at that point it was a lot of fun.
After that it was Smash Bros WiiU. Took me a very long time to adjust as I had never played anything like it before and the friends I played it with had been playing since Melee so I had quite a way to go to get near them in any match. Still remember the first time I felt like I could actually give them both a good fight and managed to beat them both. Still wasn't ever at their level (I struggled to get back into it when it released on Switch, which is a shame given how many new characters it got), but at that point it was a lot of fun.
Last edited:
Tekken 5. I mostly played fighters with my brother so I wasn't concerned with being great in them, as long as I was able to win matches I was cool. I was usually able to beat everything normally. Once I went to my local arcade tho, seeing them bust out combos and have move lists, once the T5 previews starting to come out online with combos of each character, that's when I switched over. People were just way more advanced so I wanted to take it seriously.
