I can’t say for everyone, maybe some of you just gradually improved and there was never any significant points where you really felt like you turned a corner and became better, but for me there was a clear point. As such I thought it might be interesting to hear people share their stories on when things first started to click for them, whether it was in HD Remix as it was for me or the original ST. It might also help beginner players who feel stuck hear some stories of how people were able to get over that hump.
In my case I’d played Street Fighter before HD Remix, as a kid I’d played the original in arcades and Super SF2 on my genesis years ago but I was never anything more then casual. Back then my favorite characters were Cammy and Ryu because I could actually pull off cannon drill and hadoken, but not much else, plus I just thought they were cool.
Fast forward many years to recently when HD Remix released. I’d never played the original ST, so concepts like supers and throw softening were new to me to begin with but even more so it quickly became apparent to me that the game’s high level of play had evolved well beyond punch, kick, and occasionally fireball I did with friends as a kid. Still I was interested in being a part of this crazy fighting world so rather then shy away from the game or always select the “random” button for character selection as I’ve done in most other fighting games I’ve played over the years I decided I would pick one character and learn them inside and out. Seeing both that Ryu seemed to be overly popular now, and that several of Cammy’s moves were now the fireball motion that I was actually capable of performing with any consistency I quickly chose her as my main. I trained with her, went through arcade mode with her many many times until I could do every one of her moves outside of cannon spike with near perfect consistency.
Then I went online.
I wouldn’t call it a bad experience, I never really got overly frustrated, but it was clear early on I was out matched by 75% of the people I played. My first day online found me with a 5-15 record, and one of those wins came when my opponent who was up 2-1 disconnected, another when, desiring to shake things up to break my losing streak funk, I gave up on Cammy for a game and picked (then won with) Chun li.
The next day I began to look for tips online and found a little trick called a cross up. Previously knocking an opponent down meant nothing to me, I just waited till they got back up and we went back at it, but now I started training myself to use these opportunities to perform cross ups and really put the pressure on. Further still I began to go into training with the hit boxes on and really examine where my hitboxes extended to. I learned that certain light attack hit boxes of Cammy’s extended farther then I realized and that her spinning back fist could be done from such a range that I could hit them just before they could sweep me as they’d been doing.
I took my new found tactics online… and saw NO improvement! When I stopped for the night I was 4-14 on the day, an actually lower winning percentage! But something was different. I was almost never getting 3-0’d as I had been before, almost every match seemed to see me fall behind 2-0, then I’d start to get a better feel for the match up and win either one or two games before losing just barely 3-1/3-2. The results didn’t show it but some how I really felt like I was SO close.
And so that night before calling it a night and going to bed I signed in for a few more matches. I finished that night 5-0! And most of the matches weren’t even close, I was winning 3-0 in most of them. You’d think that’d make it easier to sleep but it didn’t, I wanted to keep playing, I’d tasted success and it was sweet.
The following day my success continued, I went 10-2! The previous night wasn’t just a fluke. I had turned a corner. The cross ups and more aggressive play had helped, but the biggest thing was experience. I had learned what did and didn’t work in most of Cammy’s match ups. For new players I can’t emphasize this enough, don’t just be frustrated by losses, learn from them. Keep trying different things, you’d be surprised how often something as simple as spamming a standing medium kick, or using a jumping medium punch instead of a jumping medium kick can completely turn a match up around.
Since then I’ve been continuing to work on improving. I can now cannon spike (thrust kick) pretty much 90% of the time I want to. I can now almost always use the right cannon drill for the distance I’m at so that its safe on block. I now use my cannonball throw (hooligan throw) much more wisesly and as such it almost never fails to connect when I do. I only use my cannon spin (spinning backfist) in a few match ups but in those match ups I have the range down so that I know where to position myself to use it to punish fireballs on reaction. I still can’t do my spin drive smasher with the consistency I’d like but I’m getting better at knowing when to use it (hurray for invulnerability) and slowly getting more consistent with its activation. I’m still working on getting wake up cannon spikes to come out consistently but even when I don’t I’m getting out of wake up traps that I used to never get out of. Conversely I’m almost always landing cross ups on waking up opponents and outside of them being in the corner I almost never get hit by their wake up shoryukens.
My win percentage has completely flip-flopped, instead of coming in expecting to lose and every once in a while stealing a win, I’m now coming in expecting to win and every once in a while suffering a close loss. I’m hardly a great player, but as the record now shows, I’m now better then most, something in those first 30 or so games online I was truly beginning to doubt would ever happen.
So that’s my story of how I turned the first corner in my striving to be a decent STR player. I’m proof positive that you can come into this game a terrible player and yet evolve into something some what respectable with a little practice, patience, and persistence. I’d be interested to hear if anyone else had a story of their own.