Fighting Games: How To Win

Like a defibrillator shock to the chest, Street Fighter 4 revived a fading genre. Three years on from its launch, fighting games are still enjoying a new lease of life, with most of the major franchises releasing several new titles to varied success. They haven't experienced a boom like this since the heady golden years of the early to mid nineties, when arcades had to draft in extra machines just to accommodate the demand for Street Fighter 2. My fight stick has been getting a lot of use recently, and I for one am hoping the genre isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

Quarter circle forward, punch. Standard.

In the 1990’s, fighting games were synonymous with arcades. On the flip side of this though, when the popularity of arcades began to decline due to the rise of the home console, fighters fell out of grace with all but the most hardcore of players. But though interest dwindled, the games continued to evolve and gather critical acclaim, while dozens of new franchises were born. Some lived on and made the successful jump to console, whilst others floundered and disappeared into obscurity. When the arcades began to empty, the appeal of fighting games all but dried up, and the market that had once been ripe was now over-saturated and unable to draw the interest it once did. 

Online connectivity options for consoles have been one of the catalysts for the genre’s recent revival. They’ve made it easier to find, fight and contend for top scores with others, scratching that itch that competitive fighting games fans had been missing in the absence of the old arcade crowds. 

SF4 was the first numbered entry to the Street Fighter franchise since 1999, and it not only brought the series back on form, but made it more accessible to new audiences than it had ever been. Elsewhere, other fighting game franchises were stepping up too. Tekken 5 was good where 4 had wobbled, and 6 was let down by the technology rather than the game itself, with laggy multiplayer and ridiculous load times killing player’s blood lust mid-bout. Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe was a bizarre but enjoyable team-up, and the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot was a considerable critical success. 

Soul Calibur 5, on the other hand, is an interesting case study; it sold a staggering one million fewer copies than SC4. A possible explanation for this could be the rather brave - or misguided - decision to move the series’ continuity forward 17 years and replace staple characters with younger interlopers that were similar, but not quite the same. If your preferred combatant was one of those removed, like Taki or Seong Mi-na, you were put at a distinct disadvantage against players whose favourites were retained, such as Ivy, Maxi, and Siegfried. 

A tacky Taki trainee

 This is, in essence, one of the genre’s major issues, and why it may well be doomed to perpetually fight its own nature.  How can you alter a formula or shake up a series when there are long-term fans invested in particular characters, who have spent years - even decades - learning them? Ryu hasn’t changed in 25 years. And he can’t – because to change his Move-Set is to undo the work of Ryu fanatics that now know how to use him in any given situation to turn a battle in their favour. Ryu is Ryu because of Tatsumaki Senpukyaku and Hadouken. Take those away and he’s just another guy in a gi.

Part of the reason fighting games are so loved by their hardcore fanbase is that element of learning - of having to work hard to memorise and perfect your timing and manoeuvres in order to win. Anyone can play, but to be the best takes time, effort and a lot of practice. This is both the genre’s major pull and its main deterrent. Its core complexity is off-putting to casual players, and its long history and high standing amongst serious gamers can be intimidating to newcomers who still need to learn the ropes. 

DOA: combining mastology with matches since 1996

But more recent fighting games have begun to combat this. Developers are learning that Move Lists are all well and good for veterans, but casual or occasional players have no intention of even looking at these complicated equations, let alone taking the time to practice and memorise them. Move Lists simply aren’t fun; they make the fighting feel like hard work when button bashing can seem just as effective. Thus, tutorials and training modes are becoming a more organic and above all more enjoyable part of the experience, rather than a tacked on afterthought. Street Fighter X Tekken had the irrepressible Dan Hibiki take fighters though their paces early on, whilst Tekken Tag Tournament 2’s Fight Lab not only walks newbie players through the basic moves, but teaches them how to apply these to battle scenarios to gain mastery over their real life opponents. It’s this show, not tell approach that will mould flirters into fighters in the long run.

Incentive other than online play is a crucial draw that some fighting game franchises have lost sight of. Personally, I’d like to see more love put into individual character ending movies. Sure, the world doesn’t NEED to see Kasumi’s dreams of being a mermaid or Ling Xiouyu’s theme park owning fantasies or Yoshimitsu fleeing from a giant lab rat, but ending movie galleries and unlockable characters grant replayability and the incentive to master more characters in single player modes. Not only that, but they’re a fun respite and reward after slogging through to the end and overcoming often infuriating end bosses. They’re much more likely to hook new fans than ill-judged modes like the tedious Scenario Campaign in Tekken 6. 

Not only do Tekken characters offer variety, they boast more complex relationships than Corrie

I suppose a cynic could say that the reason fighting games are struggling to find their place is that they are just out-dated; a product of an era in gaming that is now long behind us.  Are they even worth playing any more?

Street Fighter X Tekken is a lesson in how to do it right, with workable learning curves, varied characters and great online options. It perfected basic fighting game mechanics whilst introducing dynamic new elements like the tag function, and remained accessible despite requiring the level of technical skill that serious fighting gamers demand. Simply put, you can play and enjoy it whatever your aptitude, but with patience and practice, SFxT rewards you with impressively rich gameplay. No wonder then that it has quickly taken a place in many eSports tournaments.

I can think of few experiences in gaming more fun, exciting or compelling than sitting down with a friend and going toe to toe in a few rounds of your favourite fighter. There is a level of nuance and skill involved in fighting games that you just don’t find anywhere else in gaming.

Taste my Iron Fist.

Being a good fighting gamer is tantamount to being a black belt in real life. It may not be physically demanding, but the mental battle and subsequent emotional payoff is, I imagine, pretty similar. It’s probably one of the reasons that fighting games can be as fun to spectate as they are to play. Watching a few videos from tournaments like EVO prove as much; seeing two skilled players spar in SFxT is like watching two people play the most exciting game of chess ever, and even non-gamers can appreciate the tenseness of a close match. 

And there’s never been a better time to be a fighting game fan, with a huge amount of variety currently on the market, and even more to look forward to, with Dead Or Alive 5, TTT2 and perhaps even something new from Capcom just around the corner.

They may have taken a shoryuken to the chin, but fighting games have picked themselves up, braced for round two and are still in the ring and swinging. Let’s hope they don’t suffer another K.O.