My (live-in) girlfriend recently made me a deal: If I learn how to cook, she will learn how to play Street Fighter. For each time she gets me to help her prepare a meal, I get to sit her down in front of an arcade stick.
She isn’t a stranger to video games–she played a whole lot of Halo, burns hours upon end with online Flash games, and regularly joins in when my friends are over playing Rock Band or Guitar Hero–but she’s never really played a fighting game. I want to teach her how to play in the most effective and most entertaining way so that she can learn to be a fun, yet competitive, opponent.
How can I ease her in to Street Fighter while preventing her from picking up bad habits, helping her to learn quickly, yet (most important of all) keeping her interested and avoiding frustrating her to the point where she gives up?
What game should I start with?
Should I concentrate her on a certain type of character first, or show her each style right off the bat (shoto, charge, grapple, etc.?)
Should I stress that she master normals before even touching on specials, or show her everything and let her find what she’s comfortable with on her own?
My main concern is that she has fun. I’ve noticed that players will only get better if they really want to, and I have to build that desire to improve from nothing. How should I do this? What’s your experience with teaching new players?
Throw in a bet that you’ll do something she really likes that you’d never do if she ever beats you two straight.
As for teaching, show her flowchart stuff, then show her combos. I think you gotta learn a scrubby style before you become better, so teach her how to be a scrub. Low forward, low RH/throw with Chun or something. Then teach her some basic Chun keepout. I’m assuming she’ll gravitate to ST Chun.
STHD remix might be best choice to start with- as SFII basics can get you a long way, not as much in 3S.
If you want to start her on Street Fighter, start with the classics. Go with Super Street Fighter 2, it’s basic and yet complex. No supers with tech throws or anything!
First and foremost, teach her a character similar to her play styles to other games. Since she plays other competitive games, give her the tiers of each character as well. You have to limit your time to how long you’re going to spend teaching her too. Everyone has a limit and it’s limit only increases when they’re having fun. So let her beat on you and don’t show off too much, just real basic things. Use the things only she can use, don’t show off the fanciness since you’re forcing her to play when you cook the meals.
K I just have a quick question, why the fuck do u want your girlfriend to play fighting games? Is it in hopes she will out place you in tournaments? Or do you just need a sparing partner and your little brother is too good?
I just never understood this so she’s teaching you how to cook and for that you are punishing her by teaching her something she probably has no interest in. Her playing rockband and fucking Wii tenis doesn’t count as playing video games. Those are the games my friend who play beer pong play. They require nothing…
Dude, you forgot the more important part. She COOKS. I don’t care how busted a chick is, if she cooks for me… God dude… :lovin:
Also, cooking is the bomb. If nothing else, request to start with things you already like to eat. If you like steak (What man doesn’t?), try starting with steaks. Shit’s easy, and teaches alot of basics real fast.
Game choice -> ST. Games like GGAC, MvC2, CvS2, KOF, etc, are all fun and have tons of interesting characters but for people who are new to fighting games they’re hard to learn execution-wise and in terms of strategies.
Character choice -> show her at least a few different characters, some basic tactics, combos, etc, then let her choose whatever character she finds interesting.
Learning the game -> teach her which options she has depending on the situation. Example:
What to do when…
… you’re up close
… you’re at mid range
… you’re far away
… somebody jumps at you
… you knock somebody down
… you get knocked down
Execution - move things around - don’t focus on one thing until she gets it especially if its getting frustrating. move on to something else and go back to it some other time.
teach specials but try to get into the basics first - so that when she gets flustered she doesn’t resort to just throwing fireballs.
let her pick her character based on whatever criteria she wants. If shes really starting from nothing you should be able to pick up her character well enough to teach her basics within a day (even if its someone you don’t use) especially if you have access to SRK. Don’t force her to play your characters because you know them better.
Spacing is hard to teach. someone with no fighting game knowledge your going to have to deal with it and try to work it in after some of the more basic stuff.
Be happy when she does something good, winning a match, preforming a special intentionally, just let her know shes improving and be happy.
girls don’t know matchups. they haven’t been playing against gief or ryu since 92.
You are going to have to realize that going into it she is going to play everyone relatively the same way until she has a good grasp of attack range/speed/priority.
Back in the day, I taught one of my girlfriends how to play Killer Instinct. She eventually got good enough to beat almost anyone at the arcades we went to. It was a long, but very rewarding journey. It was really fun to watch this tiny girl beat the bejezus outta randoms at the arcades. So, my first word of advice is to stick with it. It’ll take a while!
For game/character, I’d start her out on ST/Remix with Chun Li. The game has all the essentials without crazy-ass custom combos and shit. Charge characters are’t execution heavy, so that’ll help. Plus, if she gets in trouble walk forward mash MP is a legit tactic. So, having an easy out helps.
I’d teach her all the basics in the beginning. Moves, throws, when to block, etc. Don’t worry about fancy stuff like stored super or reversals until she gets better. Start her out with basic zoning, pressure patterns, and tick throws. Getting her to embrace tick throws with Chun from the beginning will help a lot.
Hmm…aside from that, I’d say scale your play down to her level. Always make it seem like a good fight, but pressure her just a bit. Let her win about half the times, but occasionally play in a way to remind her that she still sucks. That was the trick for me. If you womp her she won’t have fun. If you go too easy, you won’t have fun and she won’t get better. So, keep it mostly even, but just slightly in your favor.
That’s what I did with my friends and those PS2 naruto games and they never liked the game because of it.
To teach games there has to be a desire to learn. People have to think a game is fun before they learn more about it. If you make it like school and explain tactics and advanced moves the first time they play, they’ll probably just get overwhelmed and bored and not like the game because it appears to require reading a textbook before playing.
Best thing is to just sit down and play.
Also try not to be “that guy”. Let her win a couple as she gets the controls and moves down so that she feels a sense of accomplishment and improvement.
You learn cooking and she’ll do something for you in return and you pick her playing SF? I love my SF2 but I can think of a lot of things I have more fun doing with my wife than teaching her SF2 (she only likes 3D fighting games anyway, LOL).
To be honest, I really don’t see the point in teaching someone who probably doesn’t have the drive to learn. I don’t even care anymore if a girl says anything indicating she knows about a fighting game. That don’t mean shit. It’s usually just an illusion used to attract males. If she isn’t already playing/learning them on a regular basis before I meet her, ESPECIALLY at a post-high school age… I don’t think it’s worth wasting the time.
But if you’re still determined to do this, at least make it interesting. Something that’ll make her go ‘WTF areyouserious?’
…do the lazy college professor approach:
Just buy some old fighting game strategy guides (which will act as her textbooks) and tell her something like she has to complete the moves on Pages 56-59 by Friday.
She’ll then have a test the following Friday: Just make it a one round match between you(or one of your fighting gamer friends) and her.
Her test score will be the percentage of your life-bar she can get down in a single round.
This method should actually reveal her desire to learn. If she fails…expel her immediately.
…Also, tell her that she must wear a school-girl outfit at all times when class is in session. What you two do in between study-sessions is between you and her. I won’t tell. :tup:
