The only fighting game I can actually say I have PLAYED is super smash bros (all the way through brawl).
I tried to pick up the soul series at sc4, and then again at sc5, but mostly only frustration came from it.
Currently I am looking into SF since it looks to be more simple/friendly as well as very entertaining. My main issue with fighting games, however, is knowing where to start and choosing a character to stick with.
If anyone could point me to a couple guides/topics of very basic and essential information I MUST know in order to play (no frame data please) that would be wonderful.
Also, any help choosing a character would be great. In ssbros I used to play fox, followed by young link, falco, and sheik on melee. For brawl I dropped young link, kept with falco, and switched to playing mostly zelda (sheik lacked the punch he had in melee). Not entirely sure what that says about my favored playstyle, if anything, but I enjoyed juggling quite a bit. I’d love any tips of characters that are good for beginners and/or you think would fit me.
Yes, I have played the Zelda franchise, I just find it slightly awkward to refer to Zelda as a she when she is disguised as a man… Now that I write that it sounds even more awkward to refer to her as a he… Anyways…
I am aware of the abundance of guides, and that makes it harder imo. There is just so much information out there I don’t know what I actually need to know from the get-go and what I can leave for later…
As I mentioned before I am quite the newbie in the fighting genre, and having only played one fighting game (not even sure whether ssb really counts) I have no idea how to transition into a new game. Tbh I don’t even remember how the process was to get into ssb, it was such a long time ago…
…SC is about as basic a fighting game engine as there is. In terms of depth of game play, there’s literally nothing to it. I find it to be am extremely accessible game. Didn’t they just rerelease SC2? That would be a good start to the 3d fighting games. Though I would suggest Tekken 2 as a better reference point for a beginner. For 2d engines, I would look at Samurai Shodown 2 or super street fighter 2. Those games are old, but still playable, and offer up many opportunities to learn some more advanced game play techniques without flooding you with all of the crap that later games offer.
James Chen has done amazing work with the first attack (and lv3 focus for the advanced stuff, shoutouts to @Ultradavid and his match analysis) tutorials and providing a ton of information for new and established players. Definately watch these and see if it doesn’t help.
Thank you very much! I’ve watched the first part of the video, going to check the rest of the channel
I am impressed as to how much of what he talked about actually applies to me, this is probably the level of simplicity I need.
As for the character selection (not sure whether ultrachen will mention it further on or not) is it important at the beginning? Should I keep away from certain characters or can I pick anything?
Crouch teching, bro. Use it, learn it, abuse it, love it. Until you start fighting people who frametrap, anyways, but that’s when things start to get interesting.
There are characters in most games that have very few gimmicks and basically force you to learn some fundamentals. If they don’t feel right for you, the correct character is whatever will make you stick with the game. With more complicated characters you just have to consciously not abuse certain options too much and focus on the basics, because some stuff that isn’t very good works against beginners way more than it should.
I have been watching some videos and reading quite a bit, but people seem to have pretty different opinions as to when it comes to choosing your first character…
Some say start with a shoto-type cahracter (usually ryu/ken). Some people say pick top tier characters to help with motivation (easier to get wins) others say pick low tier so that you work for your wins and learn more…
I have also read that I should probably keep distance from certain characters at the start, but even that seems to change from person to person… The descriptions in the wikis make it sound like every character is tough to learn, apart from maybe fei long and ryu…
From a design perspective I have so far picked guy, dudley, el fuerte, juri, sakura, and makoto out of the bunch. Now from what I see it seems to be the general consensus that el fuerte is not a good idea for a beginner, and makoto seems to have a similar standing… Are there any recommendations regarding these characters? Should I just start with something like ryu and then transfer to sakura, for example? Also if anyone could briefly describe how they are supposed to be played, that would be very helpful.
Picking a character with a basic playstyle that relies more on their normals rather than longer combos or gimmicks is probably the best characters for new players to learn with, that way you learn fundamentals like footsies and antiairing which go a long way. That’s why a lot of people recommend characters like Ryu, Guile, and Balrog.
Picking top tier when you’re at beginner level doesn’t really matter at all, you’re at a level where you’re just learning the game and other people on your level are too so it’s not like people are going to be playing the characters correctly. Don’t really mind the tier lists right now.
IMO, go with the recommended “forced to learn fundamentals” types, then if none of those click, just what feels fun to you. Having a character that makes you stick with the game is the most important thing. Apart from that, it’s just about learning to use the character’s buttons properly. The comfort move concept from James Chen’s video above is amazing for that.
Episode 1 of Airdash Academy is a nice shortcut, IMO, to get you to pick more effective comfort moves from the get-go.
The info packet in my signature also has a ton of useful information, even though a lot of it is KOF13-centric, you can just skip that and look at the SF4-oriented resources which there are a lot of too.
Juri can definately be a good beginner character (I’m totally not biased! >.> ) as she’s very solid though lacking a meterless reversal (which can be good as you’ll be forced to learn to block). That said she has to work a bit harder to get the win and the store mechanic can be intimidating until you get used to it.
I’d suggest not picking Dudley if your intent is to learn fundamentals however (It’s not his strongest point and he has a few gimmicky tools he can abuse, especially online) unless you’re dead-set on the character… in which case go for it.
Vega can also serve as a decent starter character if you’re comfortable playing charge characters and don’t fall into the same “I’m only going to do izuna drop because it works online lol” trap a lot of online vegas do.
Dictator(M.Bison), Akuma, Claw(Vega) and Juri don’t exactly force you to be fundamental - they all have some gimmick moves you can abuse against other newbies endlessly - but they can and at higher level have to be played in a fundamentals-heavy way.
If you don’t mind the extra work and you find Juri fun, you absolutely can learn fundamentals with her, just don’t abuse divekicks online. Focus on using fireballs and normals correctly and you’ll do good.
IIRC, as far as antiairing goes, Juri is the type of character that has many usable antiairs, but they’re pretty specific in what they work against, so go to the Juri subforum and ask them to give you some basic antiair plan. The point is not to be optimal, the point is to have an AA game to begin with.
