Why is learning more than 1 fighting game bad?

While I see your point and agree with you that you should show up early and get casual time in, if you love the game and you are serious about your hobby you would own it and the system, or in the very least have access to it. Since you can buy a used PS3 or Xbox360 for about $100 and a used copy of almost any tournament game for less than $20 dollars, so $300+ isnt quite accurate in our situation.

360 yes, but I haven’t even seen a used PS3 on sale for $100, and I’ve been looking. Unless you’re talking about craigslist or something.

it should get easier now with PS4 out. If you have speedway gas stations in your area sign up for their point program. you can trade your points in for PSN and XBL cards and I think even Gamestop cards. When I know I’m going to spend money on games I will usually purchase gamestop/xbl/psn gift cards at speedway which builds up points that I will later spend on more cards. I have to buy gas anyway, why not earn free games

So you don’t know where I can get a PS3 areound $100? I’ve looked, there’s nothing at the moment. Maybe in 6 months, not now.

I don’t know where Speedway is, but I don’t know of any places here in CO that do that.

I find it interesting that the best of the best players tend to play more than 1 game well. Some examples-

Daigo- Street Fighter, Vampire Savior, Guilty Gear

Fuudo- Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter,

Justin Wong- Street Fighter Game, Marvel vs Capcom 2 & 3, Killer Instinct, Numerous Fighting games

Xiaohai- Street Fighter, Various King of Fighters Games, Various Chinese Fighting Games

Ryan Hart- Tekken, Virtua Fighter, King of Fighter, Street Fighter

ChrisG- Every 2D Game.

Tokido- Every game.

Fundamentals do carry over between fighting games but you need good fundamentals first .

Good points. However, I think it’s entirely possible that some people need to dedicate more of their attention to something in order to really progress. Those people you listed might be very quick to pick up on the subtle nuances that take most people forever to learn. Maybe learning one game actually made them better in another, that’s possible, but that still wouldn’t necessarily apply to everyone else. Or maybe everyone just needs to train their brain to learn faster, which I don’t even know if that’s possible, it’s just a thought.

This is all pretty interesting to me, because I’d love to learn multiple fighting games at one time, but all I’m experiencing is that it slows my progress.

It’s just easier to become a top player in multiple games when you’re already a top player in one. It’s not a useful comparison for us noobs

at least we noobs have the luxury to reject a fighter we dont like (ahem…SF4). those players dont!

Daigo originally played the Fatal Fury games cause he didnt have to wait in line to play it like everyone else playing SF. So I think a key to him getting so good was he could play more than others in another game and so he had a lot of experience when he made the switch to other SF games. What character(s) did he play in it? That could also help him in getting great experience as he played.

Daigo plays mostly Jedah and Bishamon in VSav. If you want to find his old match vids, you have to search for “Umehara”.

btw I don’t know why I read your post as saying Darkstalkers, did you ninja edit it or something?

Daigo and the rest also play CvsSNK2
not surprisingly, with Capcom characters…

he reached the singles final

most the cvs2 top tier were capcom characters so thats part of it too

I am top tier in SFIV because I am totally focused on it. To be top tier is to be totally devoted to one game at a time. The reason you could not find me on PSN is because I am too high in rank for you to be able to experience my existence.

I have played SFIV for 4 straight years almost everyday for hours on end a day. I have become so good, I am close to unbeatable.

And to stay on topic, yeah, it’s not a very good idea to play too many games at once because you will not attain a high level of skill since you are not focused on one game.

you can’t assume that because a top player plays multiple games now means they played multiple games at the start. So many people who are on top today started in arcades which i don’t remember anyone but extra casual players who played every game in the arcade.

Once you understand how to learn a fighting game it gets easier.

The process for me is usually.

read about the game’s “system” (is it 1v1? 3v3? how is meter spent in this game? what tools does the attacker have? what tools does the defender have? how does the movement work? etc.)

Afterwards If the game is already out I’ll look for some tourney footage. while I don’t know specifics of the game I can still look at how the players are thinking and how they work within the game’s system. I can get a basic understanding of how the characters are designed as well and how they contrast one another. playstyle wise

afterwards if I make the commitment and say hey this is a game I want to play in tournament and be effective in, I’ll start with a character, learn what their tools are, come up with a basic gameplan, and start learning the characters matchups.

The matchups part is what takes the longest time to do.

Most of the time people cant transition from game to game because they get frustrated that something that is super effective in one game isn’t effective in another game. I watched the MK community go absolutely ballistic because most anti airs were more effective done pre emptively in IGAU. In MK they were much more consistent on reaction.

Its all about studying how the game works first. figuring out the system and then using a strategy designed for THAT system.