You walk up to the machine, you put your quarter in, and you look your opponent in the eye knowing you’ll win. Your heart beat is going off the charts, your thinking of every possible option you can, and you don’t have room to make mistakes.
This is how i use to feel when i played fighting games when i was only 8 years old. I use to play Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 at the local mall and i would choose megaman, captain commando, and ryu and just hit all the buttons using hyper time and time again.
That’s not really the point in this post though my point is that this feeling is what brought me into fighting games in the first place. No other genre of game could make me feel so determined to beat my opponent and be called the “better player” which is clarified when you hear the words “K.O.”
Now i’m much older and just now getting into my local fighting game scene and SSF4 is my main fighter.
When i play SSF4 though i don’t experience any of that anymore though… it’s just sorta like a game of chess and i have to think out all my moves before the match even starts just about. I never really get mad,sad, or happy when i win a match i’m just slowly learning more and more to become the best player i possibly can. I’ve certainly gone far from just mashing buttons in marvel and beating teens at the mall. I just don’t know though…if i’m truly a better player because my desire to win isn’t important to me.
What’s important to me now is just playing smart but sometimes i feel like im holding my self back.
I guess what im asking is am i just wasting my time grinding ranked matched in SSF4 if i’m not putting every bit of my being foward for the win? i mean afterall isn’t that why we all play fighting games here?