I used to think fighting games were terrible. I grew up playing videogames and definitely played a lot of different fighting games throughout those years, but they were never my favorites. They were kind of just something I played because they were there and I wanted to play games no matter what they were. I never actually had any one favorite game genre so if something like Killer Instinct or Mortal Kombat caught my eye, I would play it regardless of my general feelings for those types of games. I remember playing some version of Street Fighter Alpha whenever we visited my uncle’s house just because it was one of the few games he had on his PlayStation. The closest I came to really liking any fighting game when I was a kid was Soul Calibur II. That was probably the first fighting game that I actually tried to learn to play properly. That little stint didn’t go on for very long, but it was the first time I saw that there was more to fighting games than just mashing whatever buttons seemed to work.

One of my friends that I met through another hobby of mine, was really into fighting games unlike me. It was actually one of his passions — I found out he used to play Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike with his older brother all the time from his childhood onward. He was also into other games like Dota (even before Valve snatched it up, when it was just a Warcraft III mod) and his passion for those games ended up being pretty infectious. It was not long after I met him that I started to become interested in the intricacies of fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom and Street Fighter. At the time, I mostly played games on my PlayStation Portable and so I picked up Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes. I believe this game was a bit more of a simplified version of the typical Marvel vs. Capcom games, which was probably for the best as I later realized I was not into the craziness that is Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

It would still be a couple of years before I decided to take on fighting games seriously. Once I had realized what my tastes were in fighting games, I picked up an arcade stick and started playing 3rd Strike along with Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (which was my favorite at the time) and Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. Street Fighter IV would soon go on to be my main game as I realized there wasn’t much of a community for 3rd Strike or Jojo’s except for those who were already exceptionally skilled in them. With the latest Street Fighter as my game of choice, I remembered those times playing Street Fighter Alpha at my uncle’s place, and that made me really want to play Vega. The Spanish ninja was always my favorite just because he looked so cool. He was insane, but at least he looked cool. That is where I ended up having a dilemma because I felt, if I want to get into this game properly, should I not start learning the basics with either Ryu or Ken? Vega is a charge character where you have to hold down a direction (to charge it) then press a different direction plus an attack button for his special moves — this was not something I ever had any experience with. It felt like playing Ryu or Ken would be the way to go and that is exactly what I did. I tried learning the fundamentals through Ryu and Ken but it never really felt quite right. There is something to be said for approaching a task the “right” way and learning it in a way that resonates with you on a more natural level. Learning to play Street Fighter with Ryu is considered by many to be the “right” way to start off but it is certainly not the only way. I talked to my friend about this and, for him, if I liked Vega, I should just go for it.

There was a lot of life events that ended up getting in my way of learning of Street Fighter IV. Whenever I came back to it, though, I took a lot of beatings with Vega. The learning process ended up being fairly slow. I would only play the game seriously for relatively short periods of time to what you actually needed to become competent. This was also the time that I was introduced to the more competitive side of fighting games. My friend often went to compete at the Wednesday Night Fights and Thursday Night Runback events at the Super Arcade in Walnut, California. I went with him a few times as this seemed like a pretty cool opportunity to hang out with him and also see what serious play for these types of games looked like in person. I did not recognize most of them at the time, but a lot of strong, competition-level players went to hone their skills there. Marvel vs. Capcom 3 seemed to be the game of choice for most of the players so I did not get to see much high-level Street Fighter IV play. It was interesting, nonetheless, and I did get to check out other stuff such as competitive King of Fighters matches and there was even a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure cabinet that I got to play on! These were some of the coolest memories for me — being able to see passionate, high level players duke it out against each other is amazing. This is especially so considering that these were not competitions on the level of Evo, the world fighting game championships, where everything is on the line.

My friend happened to know the mastermind behind Skullgirls, this new, unreleased fighting game (at the time), pretty well. He and his brother were often going to Mike Zaimont’s place to test Skullgirls and give feedback on whatever the current build was. Consequently, my friend was one of the better Skullgirls players and, later on, he even placed highly at a Skullgirls side tournament held at Evo. I remember getting to meet Zaimont at one of the Super Arcade events which was pretty cool. With Street Fighter not being much of a focus, I did not really have anything to do and Mike offered to play against me on the awesome Street Fighter IV cabinet they had set up at the arcade. I, of course, told him that I was not any good and he reassured me that he sucks at the game. Relativity can be pretty important, though. Zaimont probably was not good compared to some others but, unlike me, his fundamentals were solid. He picked E. Honda, the gigantic sumo wrestler, and I obviously went for Vega which, in contrast to Honda, seemed to be a wimpy, fiddly fighter. At least, in my hands he seemed that way. I was run over pretty quickly and felt fairly embarrassed that I was not able to put up much of a fight. I think this was when I truly understood how far behind I was in comparison to the people who took these games seriously. As much as I wanted to get better, life and other interests would end up intervening in that plan for a while.

A new version of Street Fighter IV entitled “Ultra Street Fighter IV” is what would push me past the basic beginner’s stage and into a realm where I was not just learning Street Fighter, but playing it as well. I started to feel like I understood the fundamental concepts and needed to learn how to apply them better. Vega was not a hugely combo-reliant character — getting big damage from each hit was secondary to out-poking your opponent with normal moves and more hit-and-run tactics than anything else. Since I was not very good in my execution of complex sequences, anyway, I just focused on those specific aspects of Vega. I never actually felt that I had a complete handle on the character through my time with Street Fighter IV, though. This was magnified by the fact that Street Fighter V would be released soon and I really had only just started to feel like I knew what I was doing with Vega. Previews of the new game showed that Vega had become an almost entirely different character. He had some of the same moves but also lots of new ones and he was not even a charge character anymore. The thing that initially turned me away from him had actually become something I embraced wholeheartedly and even preferred by that time.

I started to win a lot more games against people I played online during this period. I could sometimes feel flashes of excellent fundamentals in my play but I would often default to more risky, gimmicky playstyles. Street Fighter IV was a lot more complex and technical than it appeared to be at first glance. Even just doing basic combos required a lot of skill to pull off consistently. The only game during my time with Street Fighter, that I felt I could pull off high-damage combos with was Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. That game sadly never gained much traction as a popular, competitive title though. This often left me feeling very lacking in my technical skills. This, I believe, is why I played Vega more as a slippery foe going crazy around the screen rather than a patient ninja waiting for the right moment to strike. With Street Fighter V just around the corner, I wanted to get back to playing with a more solid game plan — I wanted to outplay my opponent more than surprise them. Vega looked to have changed a lot in the upcoming game, but Street Fighter V still looked more appealing to me than it’s predecessor ever did. I was never a fan of the way Street Fighter IV’s graphics looked. It did not look very cool and somehow just felt a bit unpolished even though it was a big step for the franchise at the time. This is why games like 3rd Strike and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure or even Tatsunoko vs. Capcom are what I consider my favorite fighting games from that period. I might not have been an expert at them, but their style made them fun to play and look at.

Guile and Cody seemed to be two characters that could do a lot for improving the way I played. I often opted to run away with Vega than try to weather the storm when I was being pressured by the opponent. This was where Guile came in as he is known for his amazing defense and options when the opponent tries to take their offense right to his face. Cody, on the other hand, had a lot more solid, technical offensive options I could focus on. Unfortunately, I never reached the same level of competency with these characters as I had with Vega, however small that was. Playing these characters did open me up to trying some of the other cast members of Street Fighter though, like Sakura and Cammy. This would help a lot when I would eventually transition into Street Fighter V.

At the tail end of my Street Fighter IV experiences, I revisited Street Fighter Alpha 3. I worked out that this was probably the Street Fighter I played at my uncle’s place all those years ago. I was moving so I did not have my arcade stick and instead had to deal with playing on the PlayStation DualShock 3 game pad. It was a bit tough to adjust but it helped sharpen up my execution. The experience came in handy for when it came time to try out the Street Fighter V betas since you either needed a Dualshock 4 or a PS4 compatible arcade stick, of which I only had the DS4 available to me. My Street Fighter IV play dropped off quite a bit during this period as I came to really enjoy the newer game and realized how much it resonated with me. The graphics, mechanics, and general gameplay all seemed so much better than in Street Fighter IV — it gave me that same feeling I had when playing Jojo’s or 3rd Strike. I did not want to return to Street Fighter IV though I did still have some short sessions with it. Whenever I got my hands on the beta for the new game, I noticed I was trying out a lot more different types of characters than I did when I played its predecessor. It seemed like every character was fresh and exciting — I really wanted to experiment with each of them. The possibilities felt a lot more open than they were before.

When Street Fighter V finally released, I had three arcade sticks and a fighting-game-specific pad. They all served me well but I had decided that I was going to stick it out with the DualShock 4 despite having less experience with it. A lot of people make a big deal about the controller you use in fighting games — maybe even more so than in any other genre of video games. For me, some of my favorite pro players used game pads as opposed to arcade sticks, so it did not seem like there was any barrier to entry if you used a certain controller or not. I liked the idea of not requiring a specific controller for the game (it would be easier to replace) as well as my weapon of choice being much more portable than your typical arcade stick. Regardless of my thinking, it required some work to just get basic movement and special moves down. Street Fighter V is very lenient on the inputs it accepts to activate special moves along with just general execution so, while it was tough at first, I quickly overcame that and was able to get into the meat of the game. This leniency really helped me to get an understanding of how each character worked and quickly decide whether certain characters fit my playstyle or not.

My decision for this new Street Fighter was that I wanted to play characters that had very solid, fundamental options to deal with opponents. I did not want to end up hopping around and trying to “steal” the game from my opponent by being more clever or unpredictable. Sure, sometimes a more unique approach is required to defeat an opponent, but I did not want to always rely on shenanigans to win a match. The first couple of weeks or so with Street Fighter V had me acclimating to the new game and experimenting a lot. At first, Karin seemed to fit my desired playstyle the most. It felt like she relied on turning pokes into big damage and things like spacing or reading the opponent were important to her gameplay. I found out very quickly, though, that some of her combos require more precision than I could muster having only just converted to a new controller. It was very depressing knowing what I should be doing in certain situations and not being able to execute my plan. I started thinking about what my options were — whether I should just stick it out playing Karin or move on to a different character. This is when I remembered trying out R. Mika quite a bit during the Street Fighter V betas. Mika was a grappler that seemed to have decent mid-range options. She wanted to get in close but she could also poke and prod the opponent a bit while approaching. The mix-ups she has available to her were very compelling but I found it pretty hard to actually get in on my opponents while using her. I knew there were some people that were having success with Mika at the time but it also seemed like the general consensus was that playing her was too much of a guessing game. I eventually settled on Cammy and that’s when things started to work out. In Street Fighter IV I had wanted to try out Cammy but my unfamiliarity with a quarter-circle-based rushdown style made that pretty hard. Now that I was over that hump, Cammy seemed to give a lot of great options especially for the new, more solid style of gameplay that I wanted to master. With some practice, I was finally able to play Street Fighter more confidently.

Although I can safely say that Street Fighter V is now one of my favorite games to play, I never lived and breathed fighting games until now. I have played a lot of others games since the release of the latest Street Fighter, but none of them have me thinking about them and wanting to come back to them as much as Street Fighter V does. One of the coolest things about Street Fighter is that, when you play different characters, it can feel like completely new sets of games. There’s very different strategies and goals for winning matches depending on the character you pick. The depth in these games is amazing but they also do not require as much time and commitment as compared to other competitive games. A match of Street Fighter usually only takes a couple of minutes and can sometimes end in seconds. There are few other games with the competitive depth and time requirements that the Street Fighter games have. These qualities really spur Street Fighter forward as one of the more interesting video game series that have been able to bring people back to it time and again. Whether it has been from a drive to have fun or to compete at the highest levels on a global stage, Street Fighter has turned a lot of people like me into world warriors.