Fighting Games 101: Character Selection

About a year and a half ago, I thought I was awesome and an expert at fighting games when Street Fighter 4 came out. After all, I had played nearly all the previous games and except for a few people I thought that I was king of Third Strike. How could I possible suck at Street Fighter 4? Well, surprise, surprise, I did, big time. After continuous losses and great amounts of frustration, I wondered 'why was that?' Because I wasn't using strategy or even trying to understand how this particular game worked differently from previous titles in the series.
Despite popular belief, fighting games aren't just about fast reflexes and quick button mashing. There is a surprising amount of strategy to fighting games as well as patience in learning what there is to know about them.

Fast forward to present day and even with all my learning and research, I still can't say I'm completely professional. I still get mad at "BS" wins and even when I do win, when fighting someone that uses a strategy that more or less nullifies the character I'm using, I get frustrated. That said, I can proudly say that I have become wiser in the way of fighting games. Some of my friends mention that they want to get better as well so I figure I'd write out a simple beginner's guide to fighting games in general.

In this series, I'll be referencing several fighting game franchises, including but not limited to Street Fighter, BlazBlue, and Guilty Gear. Also note that this guide is mainly for 2D fighting games, so if you want tips how to get good at Tekken or Soul Calibur. Sorry. Can't help ya.

Step 1: Picking a Character
While it is good to try and sample multiple characters in a game, it's always wiser to focus on one character you want to learn. You've probably heard the saying 'Jack of all Trades, master of none'. Well that applies here too. If you scatter around too much and never take the time to pick a character you enjoy, then it'll be difficult to truly get the most from your game.

This is NOT to be confused with, however, only playing one character and one character only. Not only does this get boring when playing others, but it limits your learning potential even more than playing multiple characters randomly.

One particular anecdote comes from Street Fighter 4, where I was very excited to play Sakura and I decided to mainly play her, not interested in any of the other characters because A) I wanted to avoid the shoto characters like Ryu and Ken that everyone flocked to, and B) Sakura was a character I really liked. Even in the face constant defeat, I wanted to get better with her, but because I forced myself to only play as her, I never got much better.

Eventually, I decided to just sort of screw around with other characters. I began to enjoy Honda, once I learned about his Oichi throw and his strong stamina and strength, but I began to really shine when I picked up Chun Li, wanting to do her target combo juggle. Once I learned that, I learned ways to combo into her juggle, and once I learned that, I learned some of her other basic combos. Before I knew it, I was giving people who would continuously beat me down a run for their money. Granted, I still lost the majority of the time, but it was progress. After becoming fairly good with Chun Li, I even went back to Sakura and felt like I did alot better with the character than I would if I stayed with her.

The moral is: if things aren't necessarily going your way with one character, experiment. Just because you're bad with one character does not mean you'll be bad at another. It's all about preference, but there are major steps when learning a character...

Next time, we'll delve deep into the tactics and lessons behind learning a fighting game.