Fighting games are one of the greatest video game journeys you can take, and a couple pointers go a long way to get one started without any hassle.
After discussing my first steps in fighting games and the way it helped me in my previous article, I want to spend more time talking about early steps and clearing up misconceptions that might be stopping people from taking steps forward. While there’s a level of understanding that I have towards people’s hesitancy to play in genres of games, a lot of it is from misconceptions referring to fighting games that I hope to clear up. If you or a friend is curious about fighting games but needs just a little push to get started, this should hopefully help.
One note I want to immediately put out there is a common sentiment I’ve heard and felt myself looking at fighting games from the outside: they’re too hard. The long intricate combos and the difficult nature that leaves you losing all your matches without even getting a hit—I’ve been there, trust me. My very first experience with a fighting game was “Melty Blood: Actress Again” which is a brutal anime fighter with little room for error, leaving me losing to simple gimmicks from my brother who was more experienced than me. I barely had the drive to get back into another one until a bit of a better experience in the future with “Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r].” The issue here is less that the games are difficult and more-so with the fundamental structure that makes the game require a level baseline understanding to begin. This baseline, however, isn’t difficult to learn—it’s simply different.
This is something I’d relate to transferable skill—every fighting game has a list of baseline mechanics and systems that players interact with. This includes the simple systems of blocking, attack hitstun and blockstun, and the neutral game that leads to advantaged and disadvantaged states. These systems are not entirely universal—games like “Tekken 8” have no hitstop and I’m sure an argument can be made that “x fighting game doesn’t really have a neutral,” but I note that all fighting games at least attempt to conform to these rules. While some skills aren’t transferable—such as 3D fighters to 2D fighters sharing less similarities—a major amount of this is something that comes up through when picking up a fighting game with prior experience. A great video from commentator and creator Sajam highlights how learning fighting games isn’t necessarily harder than other games, including how the perception is what majorly causes fighting games to appear harder. In order to come into fighting games with little to no prior experience, you have to understand that you’ll feel out of your depth in the same way that a new shooter player may have to learn to shoot and move at the same time. If you’d like to hear more, Sajam made a second video on the topic.
Another thing to mention in case it feels like another barrier is controllers or peripherals that you feel like you need in order to start playing a fighting game. This is largely due to the popularity of fightsticks or hitboxes, controllers designed almost solely for fighting games and often used by people who are serious. I’d like to quickly refute this feeling by exploring the insane amount of silly custom controllers that players use and succeed with—the peripherals that are brought along are only limited by fairness, but this also means that using keyboards or standard pads are more than enough to begin your journey. You can see some of these at Evo 2023 in this video that were found on site, including my brother’s controller features at 11:23 (he somehow did not get pulled over by TSA with it). As someone who’s moved through plenty of controllers during my time playing fighting games, your muscle memory might not stay flawless on new controllers but your awareness and aptitude will make it simple enough to adapt to new peripherals. The only important thing is making sure your internet is solid, hopefully looking to use a wired connection or at least stick to people in your region with a game using rollback netcode.
So, let’s now say that you’re at least somewhat convinced. If you’re willing to accept that you’ll have to learn these skills from the ground up, what should you do to truly begin? There’s a lot of resources that can help you along to find first steps, and the first I’d like to highlight is the above creator Sajam and his work in general knowledge such as his video about finding the fun in fighting games. The Sajam Slam events are particularly useful for newer players, showing creators getting into fighting games at different levels of experience with the help of high level coaches with a lot of footage on how these creators learned and adapted and persevered in their matches.
A powerful video to help you with some of this is Polygon’s video “[How to get started with Fighting Games and have a Nice Time]”def9 in which Pat Gill highlights his own journey into fighting games much like how I have here. His work was one of the first examples I’d seen a year ago that made me want to make my own plea to introduce new people to fighting games, especially in how his journey related to my own at the time. He also mentioned two incredibly important resources I also wish to highlight in this article. One of the greatest videos on the topic also comes from Core-A Gaming, specifically his analysis on why button mashing doesn’t work that ends up going into a lot of the simple mechanics that can feel obvious to some but incredibly useful as a first look at fighting games. This is one of the reasons I discuss universal mechanics—things like whiff punishes and frame traps are almost entirely universal in a way that more time spent in the genre will assist in helping you with specific games. Pairing this with the Fighting Game Glossary is a great way to jump into content about fighting games with the ability to always search terms that are used and get some background on it.
Moving on, I’d like to give you some options for the first game to start with. The answer to this question is, in truth, the game that you are the most interested in. As Pat Gill mentioned in his own video, you’ll have the most fun with whatever game you’re the most interested in and find the most joy learning it. Even so, I’d like to give some options to check out and give yourself some places to start looking and finding a place. The most obvious is “Street Fighter 6” which is one of the most popular games of the time with great tutorials and an amazing story mode to help you learn. An established game with a lot of other new players is a great way to find people at your level that you can spar with and learn with. Other games with very different styles include “Tekken 8” and “Mortal Kombat 1,” games I don’t personally play but I recognize are important in creating different experiences for other players. Some great examples that I personally vouch for are anime fighters which are often much more fast paced and chaotic, especially my all time favorite fighting game of all time which is “Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes.” While I know that game is more of an acquired taste and doesn’t have as much of a new player base, some great entry points are the more grounded anime fighters such as “Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising” and “Guilty Gear -Strive-” that have great onboarding and a lot of new players to learn alongside. If you’re interested in getting into a new game, yesterday was the release of “Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves” and could be a good time to get into a new game with other new players.
I illustrate this to you because the audience of a game may make it easier or harder to get into it: As I noted with Under Night In-Birth II, the audience of the game is incredibly experienced for the most part and it’ll be harder to find people of lower skill level. Smaller audiences can also increase queue times and latency, but smaller fighting games can still provide unique experiences that are always worth chasing. Take your time to look around and find the game that clicks, and make sure to do the same with a character. With every step you take in this way, the amount of time you spend to choose is worth it as long as you end up choosing something. These steps are never permanent, but they do require you to at least take them in order to proceed.
This is the final point I want to highlight—your journey starts whenever you wish and at whatever pace you desire, but there is no ending to it. Street Fighter 6 follows this idea in their campaign—what true strength really is. All fighting game players follow their journey in order to find that strength in whatever way they understand, working to improve and get better as they approach the best they can be. That journey may lead to silver in ranked matches, and it may lead you to the main stage of the biggest global tournament. Even so, nobody’s journey truly ends because there’s no limit to our strength and performance in these games. Everyone has the freedom to stop where they want to, but everyone also can push endlessly towards perfection and strength in whatever way they choose. You don’t have to decide where you’re going or for how long, but just know that you’re never limited. Stepping into fighting games may not even be the journey of strength for you that it was for me, especially if you just want to casually enjoy playing a character you love in a game you enjoy. Even so, you’re going to be searching for that strength in other ways that are uniquely your own. No matter how it is that you interact with these games, I hope that you begin so you may have the same joy that I do.
And if you do begin, I hope to see you on the other side of a stage one day.