Triscy Rants: Fighting Games

I just feel a need to rant every now and then. Everybody seems to, and those who don’t, well I don’t know anybody of the sort. Everything in life can be something we rant about. For me, I rant when every small thing around me builds up. Normally I vent in person to a relative who’s willing to listen. Other times I rant to internet friends.

Here, I’m ranting to whoever comes and reads this. This isn’t an article with a focal point. This isn’t a Shelf Life with a single game in mind. This is just me ranting because I’m bored in the middle of the night, typing up whatever comes to mind.

Right now I feel like talking about one thing; fighting games. I love ‘em and I hate ‘em, and it’s incredibly frustrating for me. Earlier tonight I was watching a stream on the GDi twitch channel. Chingy was playing Persona 4 Arena. The stream was fun, and I loved seeing Chingy get wrecked repeatedly by some of the folks who dropped by his lobby.

I couldn’t join on account of not owning Persona 4 Arena. I could have borrowed my brother’s copy, but he has it on Playstation 3 instead while Chingy and the lot were on 360. But would I join if I had it? I can’t really say. If I had, I wouldn’t stick around long. Fighting games are fun to watch, but I just hate playing them so much.

Yes, I hate playing fighting games. My copy of Soul Calibur V has spent many an hour just taunting me, waiting for me to just punch a hole through my TV. At that point, my TV would probably mock me as well by refusing to break and instead just leaving me with a bruised knuckle or something of the sort.

Fighting games mean a few things when I think about them. The first thought is generally one of two things, with the first being my brother. My brother loves fighting games. He plays a lot of them and occasionally tries to get me to play. Alongside my brother, I often think of Evo first and foremost after having watched numerous streams during the tournament.

The second thing I think of when it comes to fighting games, though, are the very reasons why I don’t play them. I think of combo memorization, having to walk backwards to block, and reflex time. All of these things I hate with a passion.

Combo memorization? I don’t like combo memorization at all. Looking through the often clunky-feeling lists of possible attacks just makes me want to stick the game to the wall with a staple gun. It drives me mad how people can memorize these combos and special attacks. Am I getting something wrong? Is memorization not a part of the whole deal? Do I just suck at button mashing properly, or learning on the fly? Whatever it actually is, I just can’t handle it.

Backing up to block. I’m pretty sure I’d be alone on this if I walked into a room of people who actually like fighting games, but I’d rather lose some attacks in my set for the sake of a button to block so I at least know when I’m actually blocking. I can never tell if I’m jamming the stick far enough in the proper direction to stop my enemies from getting through me. Couple this with some attacks forcing me to crouch as well to block and I often fling my controller halfway across the room.

Blocking also leads into the third issue, and might as well be the same thing; reaction time. I do not have split second reaction time, and more than half the time I always feel like there was no possible way for me to avoid that 23 hit combo that decimated half my health bar. I don’t know how to read enemies, and I don’t know how the hell they can read me. It’s even worse with AI at times, because I know that they’re hard coded to predict my weaknesses at higher levels.

With all this in mind, I’m that guy who only buys the Soul Calibur series for the sake of the story(which SCV’s story was a disappointment for me) and making pretty characters that I’ll never think about again afterwards and that weren’t really that unique to begin with.

I feel I will be forever labelled a button masher. Either that, or I’ll never be labelled because I’m always just watching the fights instead of being in them. Regardless, I look forward to the next Evo.

I always root for the characters I think look the coolest.