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In the last few years, I've been a lot more attracted to fighting games. I blame it on a certain friend on a bus, introducing me to Blazblue.
Fighting games are probably the purest form of competionn in video games. Two people, picking potentially two very different characters, compete on a test of knowledge, skill, reactions, luck, mindgames, and risk. There will always be something that you could have done differently. There will be always something that could have made you lose, or something that may have squeaked out a win.
It's not an exaggeration to say that the feeling of winning a close battle is nothing short of addictive.
Fighting games are super different in how they 'feel'. For example Lethal League has a completely different gameplay style and feeling to Guilty Gear, yet it's thrown under a list of 'fighting games'. That's what makes fighting games so interesting to me.
What the hell am I going to get into next?
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Fighting games are scary. So I've got a 4 step process for getting into a fighting game.
It's step 0 because before everything else, you should have a grasp on this.
'Numpad' notation is a near universal way that fighting game players notate their combos and moves. It uses a numpad on a standard keyboard to describe direction. i.e 8 is up, 4 is left, 6 is right, 2 is crouch.
It seems daunting, but it's super easy to learn. Much easier than a real language or a conlang.
http://www.dustloop.com/wiki/index.php/Notation
I'm serious. Get a friend who knows little to nothing at all about how the game works and play it together. As you both get better, you'll push each other to the point where each match is a tense battle.
After matches, let them know what they were doing wrong from your perspective. If you just spammed a move and won, tell them how to beat that move. If you continuously punished an 'unsafe on block' move, let them know it's not good to just throw that out willy nilly.
Now, getting a friend to play a completely random game or indeed getting a friend at all with you might be a bit hard. I believe it's essential for long term enjoyment of fighting games that you have your friends join in. Otherwise you'll have to either find someone random in the community or just always play online.
Pick something that's easy to learn. I recommend BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, Dragonball FighterZ, or Guilty Gear Strive. Or just pick a random game and just go.
There's no real 'first' fighting game I could recommend. I started with BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle but that doesn't mean that you have to start with it.
Play it for a few hours. Go through the tutorials, play a few matches against the AI, play a few matches against your friend. Pick different characters and find out which one sticks with you.
If you're not feeling it, keep at it. Fighting games are super different in how they feel and it can take some time to get into the motions.
So you've found a game that clicks? Right, start learning it. There's a lot of mechanics in fighting games, and while a lot of them a copied from others, there can be some very unique mechanics, so learn the universal stuff. Throws, movement options, universal overheads, etc.
Using YouTube and fan created websites is a good starting point. If you're game is created by ArcSys, there's a website called 'Dustloop' which has an in-depth database on all characters in those games, and all of their moves, some combos, and strategy.
Pick up to three characters that you really like, and learn them. Go through YouTube videos about them, memorize just two combos for them (a corner combo and a midscreen combo) and then just keep practising.
I can only tell you to keep going and not to give up. I didn't get BlazBlue CrossTag Battle for almost 20 hours. But then, everything started to click.
+ Every character has their own gimmick, which means that every character is unique.
+ I've heard the story is good.
+ Getting rollback soon!
- Due to the uniqueness of the characters, its extremely complex, you're not hitting 'Random' on this one.
- Online is mostly dead (might be changed after rollback)
- Mains: Ragna the Bloodedge
I've played this 'just' enough to understand that it's way above my head at the moment. BlazBlue Centralfiction is an extremely dense 1v1 fighting game, with a lot of characters and all of them being extremely unique, as well a lot of mechanics. This is probably not the one to start off with if you're getting into fighting games, but it has a cult following and getting rollback soon means that online will be way more playable.
+ BlazBlue but without the extreme complexity
+ Includes RWBY characters, if you're into that
+ Super fun
+ I BURN! CAN'T HOLD ME DOWN! YOU'RE NOT STOPPING ME!
+ Also getting rollback soon!
- Some characters are just busted
- Some character combinations are busted
- Online is also mostly dead
- Mains: Neo/Adachi is a fun one, but I also play Ruby/Adachi, Ruby/Yang, and Ruby/Ragna.
My first fighting game I actually tried to get half-way good at, BBTAG is 2vs2 tag fighter, featuring characters from BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night in Birth, and RWBY (as well as a few others via DLC). It's fast paced, chaotic, and extremely fun. Story's alright and now has rollback for those online players. Just be prepared for a bit of the 'oh that's broken' experience.
+ It's an actual, honest-to-god, balanced fighting game with DB characters
+ Simple to pickup and play, with near universal control schemes
+ Looks absolutely stunning
+ Recently got a new character!
- The new character is broken.
- Combos can be extremely long
- Story is eeehhhh
- No rollback
- Mains: I have 3 main teams. Zamasu/Frieza/Goku Black (known as the useless squad before season 4), Android 21/Android 18/Yamcha (just my first team I mashed together), and Videl/Captain Ginyu/Hit (team purple).
My go-to, especially on the bus with a friend. A 3v3 tag fighter, DBFZ is insanely fun and easy to get into. This isn't Budokai or Tenkaichi, this is a damn fine fighting game. It looks insane with beautiful cel shaded graphics, exemplified by the Level 3 cinematic supers. The combos mainly take place in the air and unfortunately can last for ages. (Looking at you S Broly mains)
Although the new character of Labcoat 21 has arrived to kinda break the balance of the game, it's still supremely fun, easy to play, and worthy of an install on my Switch.
+ A lot of Single-Player content
+ A beginner-friendly battle system
+ Looks gorgeous
+ Has ProZD as a character voice
- No rollback
- lmao who even plays this any more?
- Mains: Belial, Gran, Avatar Belial, Seox
I wonder why ArcSys thought that a gacha game, only popular in Japan, was a good choice to turn into a fighting game? Well, they did it, and it's great! A 1v1 fighter, it uses a 'cooldown' system for special moves, where the light and medium versions of special moves have little to no cooldown, but the heavy versions do a very powerful version of the move, but then you cannot use that move for much longer.
The game also looks incredible, sort of a mix between the Guilty Gear Strive style, and the more cel shaded style of DBFZ. The ultimate moves (called Skybound Arts) are breathtaking, and I have a distinct love for the intros. Each character has a completely unique intro with every other character in the game, for both sides. It's insane and I wish every game had something like that.
The game also includes a side scrolling beat 'em up single player story mode! This is the only game I can recommend for dedicated single player only. Alas, due to it being more popular in Japan than the West, this game doesn't really have a following, and not a lot of players are still holding a candle for this one.
+ It's recent, so it's being updated frequently and played a lot
+ A good jumping on point for Guilty Gear as a whole
+ Looks great
+ Baiken is here
+ Rollback
- A bit of downgrade, complexity-wise, from other GG titles
- It's lacking a bit of 'flair' of other ArcSys titles
- Non-existent Single Player content
- Mains: Baiken, Ky
I'd heard of the Guilty Gear series, but I never got into it (mainly because I was too busy with Dragonball FighterZ), but I picked up Strive last year and I've been heavily enjoying it. A 1v1 fighting game from the very beginning, Guilty Gear has been rocking out for years.
ArcSys have gone with a completely new art style, being a little more soft on the linework but it still looks incredible, again the supers are really standout. The game itself is less complex than other fighting games I've listed, so it's a good point to start, if it's not the most deepest thing in the world.
While I can't put my finger on it, there seems to be 'something' missing from Guilty Gear Strive which I felt was there when I played GG: Rev2 and other ArcSys fighting games. Eh, I don't really mind, it's super fun and a good choice for a game that is still played and updated.
+ Completely different from other fighting games
+ Banging soundtrack
+ Extremely simple to get into and a near limitless skill ceiling
- Can be laggy (characters sometimes do death sounds but they're still alive)
- Mains: Switch
While not a traditional fighting game by any stretch, Lethal League Blaze is one of my favourite fighting games. You hit a ball around, trying to hit the other player with it to kill them(in the original LL it was 1 hit kills, in Blaze, there's a health bar).
Games are incredibly quick, with the ball often becoming unreactive at high speeds, relying on the player's understanding of the angles that the ball can take in order to hit it back at their opponent. You can hit the ball, bunt it to slow it down, or grab it to throw the ball insanely quick for a second.
Each character, while having their own special moves, also has their own movement abilities, and angles where they hit the ball, making every character unique.
+ Player choice is insane
+ Play as many cute girls and (some) boys
+ Still being updated with new characters
+ How is this game still alive?!
- Online is a bit laggy (it's rollback tho)
- You'll be judged because of the characters
- Mains: Valentine/Filia
The game that should have blown up 10 years ago, but never did, Skullgirls is a fighting game with a lot of interesting mechanics to increase player choice. For example, you can play with a team of 1, 2, or 3 characters, the lower characters you have, the more damage and health you have. You can also pick almost any move a character can use to be your characters assists, allowing for a huge variety of playstyles. With the varied soundtrack and gorgeous hand drawn animation, you've got yourself a great package... just be prepared to see some panty shots and some disapproving looks from others.
+ It's Tekken.
- Story is actually super garbage
- Mains: Sergei Dragunov
Tekken 5 was probably my first fighting game I ever played. Despite me knowing little about actually playing a fighting game, I still picked Hwoarang and just mashed X. Now when I played Tekken 7, I found Hwoarang to be a little technical now that I knew what I was doing, so I moved to everyone's favourite Russian and command grabbed everyone to death.
A 1v1 3D fighter, Tekken employs side stepping to dodge attacks, as well at the traditional high/low attacks, Tekken also adding 'mids' to this, attacks that you have to block high. Tekken is a game of memorizing extremely long command lists and combos for extremely varied situations. Everyone has a huge command list, often filled with very situational moves which you are forced to either ignore or learn the hyper specific moments when they're actually useful.
If that sounds like you, go play some Tekken (though I'm not sure when Tekken 8 is coming out as it's been a while since the last DLC).
+ Ponies that ain't super cringe.
+ Single player content, always welcome
+ Tara Strong VA
+ Lmao, this has rollback but FighterZ doesn't?
+ Actually a great tutorial (it goes through frame data!)
- Ponies, you will be judged
- 7 character roster and they're not super deep either
- Mains: Tianhuo (Arizona and Oleander have caught my eye)
Them's Fighting Herds is a fighting game everyone expected to be trash, but then had the audacity to be good. A 1v1 fighting game, TFH's characters are quadrupedal, drawing inspiration from characters from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Apart from the character designs, the fighting game is fairly standard. High/low attacks, grabs, super meter; you've seen it before. Each character, however, has a 'magic' meter, a resource for character specific special moves which acts differently for each character. For example, Tianhuo charges magic overtime, while Oleander has to spend time reading a book to charge it. The fighting is also really snappy, it's really hard to explain but it just feels good to hit things in this game.
Only issue is that the character roster is super limited and the characters aren't even 'that' deep anyway. Here's hoping they add a little more variety.
+ A super neat parry system, where you can parry while in hitstun.
+ Actions feel like they have weight and hurt a bunch
+ It's not about the girls, it's actually about how insane it is
- You'll be judged for playing it, regardless of what it actually is
+ Probably one of the only JoJo fighting games around with an online community
- Lots of unbalanced, broken things (unlike unblockable oki)
+ Maid characters super cute
+ "Hit 'em with the Melty Blood mixup" has become ingrained into my vocabulary.
- Boring character designs (I don't care how 'intentional' it is)
- Shield clashes are fun at first but can lead to some boring moments
- Tutorial is too dense if you do it all at once.
+ You can choose between Japanese and English for each character individually THANK YOU
+ You can play as Phoenix Wright
- Extremely busted
- Have fun not doing things as you get ToD'ed.
Here's a short list of the games I've heard of that are coming out soon, announced with no release date, or are already out this year that I haven't played, ordered in how interested I am in them.
DNF Duel
JoJo's Bizzare Adventure - All Star Battle R
Project L
Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax (PC release)
King of Fighters XV
Street Fighter 6
Capcom Fighting Collection
The many company-based Smash clones coming out, if you're into that sort of thing
I used some fighting game terms in this little write up, so here's a list of terms I used to sort any confusion.
A full set of fighting game terms can be found here:
- ArcSys
Short for Arc System Works, creator or a lot of popular fighting games. Dragonball FighterZ, Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, etc.
- Assist
Used in 2v2 and 3v3 fighters. You call a teammate in to do an attack and then leave.
- Blockstun
The 'stun' inflicted on a character when they block a move.
- <charactername>/<character name>/<character name>
This is the usual notation for explaining your teams in tag based fighters. Usually denotes also where the character is on your team. For example, Zamasu/Frieza/Goku Black would be a team of three, where Zamasu would be the first character out, Frieza second, and Goku Black being the last character.
- Corner
The very far edges of the screen in a fighting game. Most fighting games have a wall, where your characters cannot go past. If one character is against the wall and the other character is pressing them against it, we call this 'cornered'.
- Frame Data
Essentially, the 'frames' that make up each individual move, split into three phases. Startup (how long it takes for a move to start), active (when the move has started and can hit the opponent) and recovery (how long after that move can you do another move). Way too dense to cover here.
- Hitstun
The 'stun' inflicted on a character when they are hit by a move.
- Main
Refers to your 'main' character, i.e the character you've put the most time into. Sometimes used in a derogatory way, eg "UI Goku mains are all the same."
- Midscreen
Generally refers to anywhere on the screen that isn't in the corner.
- Mixup
A general fighting game term for either forcing your opponent to react or guess how to block. For example, you have to block 'high' to block overhead and jumping attacks and block 'low' to block low attacks.
- "Melty Blood Mix"
My own term for just mixing someone up by just jumping straight up and hitting them with a high overhead or landing and hitting them low.
Came from Melty Blood Type Lumina where the characters I played never seemed to have overhead attacks so jump attacks were generally the only highs I could use.
- Oki
Short for Okizeme. Essentially, it's the moves you do once you've knocked your opponent down to try and hit them as soon as they get up.
- Rollback
A style of netcode, generally better for online play than the usual delay based systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netcode#Rollback
- Safe/Unsafe on block
If a move is unable to be punished if it is blocked, we call it a safe on block move. Conversely, if a move can be punished when it is blocked, we call it an unsafe on block move.
- Spamming
Constantly using one move to kill your opponent, usually a projectile. There is nothing wrong with spamming the same move, as it is up to the opponent to figure out how to get past and approach.
- Touch of Death (TOD)
A term used for a combo that will kill your opponent from full life. Often requires extreme amount of resources and setup to pull off.
- Unblockable
A move that cannot be blocked. Generally caused by hitting the opponent both high and low at the same time. Sometimes a move can just be 'unblockable' by design. Some moves can be 'air unblockable', meaning they cannot be blocked while in the air.