It’s like chess, but cool
Lately I’ve being watching a lot of Street Fighter videos and annoying a lot of people telling how awesome they are.
First things first, I was a more than bad Street Fighter II player, I’ve never played any of the Street Fighter Alpha (I was playing Tekken 2) and got I little encounter during some summer holidays with Street Fighter III. I’ve recently come back to the sweet embrace of SF thanks to the fourth installment on the xbox 360. What I wanted to say with all of this, it’s that I’m not, and never being, a decent Street Fighter player, and most of the things I know about the series came from reading and watching other people play. And I love it.
Every Street Fighter introduces and changes some new elements into the gameplay, but they’re not piled onto each new game, this means that some things that were present in the Alpha series where remove on SF III, where new features were added. The same way SF IV have “lost” a lot of things SF III had against new and shiny things. So in every Street Fighter game you have to “re-learn” not only the the character’s special moves but also the very basics of the game.
What every game have in common since Super Street Fighter II is they’ve become more and more tactical. Fast thinking, good reflexes and the other obvious characteristics that made a good player are still there, of course, but there’s much more.
I know how to play chess (ok, not even near, I know the basic: the pieces movements, few apertures, maybe some sort of “tricks” I’ve memorizes). Essentially you know everything you need to know to play chess versus anybody in say, 20 minutes; that doesn’t meant you don’t get your ass kicked in 5, but with exactly the same moves you managed 20 minutes ago.
What you do in chess all the time it’s more or less try to put your opponent in some position: you attack, defend, advance or retreat just trying to get you opponent to some position you can knock him down. Just like Street Fighter.
You learn the basics of Street Fighter pretty damn fast and play right away with your friends. With practice you’ll become faster and more accurate, and possibly you could mange to learn some “tricks” along the way. You could stay at this level forever and have fun.
As with chess, watching a “professional” Street Fighter player doesn’t turn from some sort no-sense-punches-and-kicks-with-some-fireballs-and-shit to a beautiful spectacle overnight.
This is the most famous Street Fighter combat of all the time: Ken it’s played by a Japanese guy called Daigo (probably the best Street Fighter player in the world) and Chun-Li is managed by Justin (an amazing USA player and some sort of Daigo nemesis). 3 rounds. Less than 3 minutes of tricks, attacks, defenses, tactic and strategy. And with less than 30 seconds to end the match and Daigo at one hit to be defeated one of the most beautiful moments a gaming competition has brought. A little of reading is needed to understand what has happend (look for “Super Art” and “parry”), and it deserves every minute you spend on it.
