Let's You and Me Fight (Again)

I mentioned this in my last article about my sweet new SuperStation One, but I've gotten back into fighting games in a fairly big way recently. This is not unusual, I am always messing around with fighting games in one way or another here and there, and I have a pretty long history of them which I think I went over in the first of the "Let's You and Me Fight" articles I wrote over a decade ago on this very website. Boy, the passage of time sure is something, huh? This most recent spate of interest, however, is significant for two reasons:

1. Normally, I don't play anything in the summer that involves putting a big heavy controller on my lap, because I get all sweaty. This is even more true since I moved to a country that doesn't really do the whole air conditioning thing, even though climate change is increasingly roasting our asses. It's a different kind of sweaty gameplay than you'd think of when you hear the term, because my version of sweaty gameplay involves my balls sticking to my leg.

The appearance of a MiSTer in my house is probably one of the big reasons for it, if I'm being honest - the novelty of running near-arcade perfect emulation of SFA3 is a huge plus - but if I am being honest, the main motivator did not in fact come from this at all. It came from the usual place: yuri anime.

No wait come back I swear-

I just want to talk to you about fighting games

Young Ladies and their Fighting Games

So a while back (I can't remember exactly when) I started reading a HOT NEW MANGA SERIES called Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games, about some girls at a prestigious academy who do, in fact, play fighting games but they have to do it on the sly because Video Games Are Forbidden. They play a sort of Guilty Gear stand-in game, the girls might be yearning for each other, you know the drill. What I liked the most about the series was that it is a pretty solid introduction to fighting game mechanics and terminology which is, you know, I think that's fun! I think it is fun that the author clearly has either done their research or is in fact a fighting game sicko themselves, in the way that I like reading basically anything where it is clear the author is indulging in a special interest. It also was something of a hit - big enough that there was a live-action adaptation out years ago which swapped the manga's fighting game out for Street Fighter V (that's how you know it was a while ago, because SF6 has been around for A While Now) which I also thought was fun. I never sat down with that one, but I probably should at some point?

Anyway the scans dried up on me when it got a proper English release and unfortunately did so at a time when I was a little Cash Poor (getting English translations of manga in Germany always costs a little more, and there's no German translation for me to grab instead), so I kinda just accepted I would have to get back to it At Some Point, what with One Thing and Another I more or less forgot about it. Then an anime adaptation got announced which would be using Street Fighter 6 for this current season, and I was like "oh I remember this" and decided to watch it and pretty much immediately after watching the first episode I texted my brother saying "damn I should play more Street Fighter."

So I did! I did just that! Unsurprisingly, (as with basically every fucking time I boot up Street Fighter 6) I found myself thinking "hey this game fucking rocks," because the game fucking rocks. You'd think at this point I would learn my lesson, but I am a Slow Learner as it turns out. Then I just kinda started bouncing around the various fighting games I have copies of laying around (again, the SuperStation plays a big role here), and now here we are. Blame my love of stories with girls yearning after each other and also Street Fighter 6.

At any rate, I figured I would dust off this old series and do a little jawing about the fighting games I've been playing lately. In the interest of keeping focused, today I am just gonna talk about the Street Fighter games I've been playing recently, and also leave out the Street Fighter II I've been playing because I have... I think that might be its own post, I don't know.

Anyway, we'll do this in chronological order, which means it's time to talk about my (probably) favorite Street Fighter first!

Street Fighter Alpha 2

One day you will come to SF6, Sakura, I believe in you

Now let's get one thing straight: I came to this one pretty late in life. I think, though I am not 100% certain, that I encountered an Alpha 3 cabinet as a Youth in a Garden City, SC arcade, but that might be my old man mind playing tricks on me. I worked backwards to it from Street Fighter IV - once I'd settled on Sakura as a main, I decided to go back to her first appearance. I don't remember what verision I played first, but it was probably using Fightcade (I've messed around with the SNES and Saturn ports of it since then). Turned out the game kicked ass! When I finally headed to the Galloping Ghost for the first time, imagine my delight at finding a Zero 2 cabinet there! I spent a lot of time on that one, even if I did tend to get cooked about three or four matches into arcade mode. When I pulled all the arcade cores down on my MiSTer, it was the first one I tested (followed closely by Robotron). There's just something about the vibes of this game, man!

Yeah fuck you Rolento eat my butt

The mechanics are advanced enough to have fun shit like air blocking and cool supers and new fighters like Sakura, who is great! She's missing her air tatsu ability (that doesn't show up until Alpha 3), but she's still got good tools.

I've spent a lot of time sitting in arcade mode on my MiSTer the last week. I'm working my way to the end of the game, although what I've gotten fond of doing is just seeing how far I can get on a single credit. Sometimes I even manage to convince someone to get on Fightcade and Fight for Real, which is always a good time. I could play in Street Fighter 30th Anniversary edition as well, but that only lets you play Alpha 3 online which, I mean, Alpha 3 is also pretty good but I want to play Alpha 2, damn it! Why are you weird about this shit, Capcom?

Chun-Li's Alpha costume is my favorite Chun-Li costume. I will not be taking questions at this time.

Anyway I haven't cleared this and probably never will, I will just keep going in and having a good time and sometimes fighting other people. The world is full of delights, and this is one of them! I fuckin' love this one! I did not take a picture of the last high score I got, but I assure you it was not very high. I think I actually game-overed on Chun-Li up there, so that's how high I got while taking screenshots for this article at least. A whopping(?) 186,500 points. Oooh, so impressive! I've played a weird amount of this on the SNES core on my Analogue Pocket? That's gross, I should be ashamed.

Justice is important when you are (checks notes) participating in illegal street fighting tournaments instead of going to school

Might as well talk about the other one of these while I'm at it, huh?

Street Fighter Alpha 3

See I was taking like computer screenshots here so these are bigger. Look, it's my first day on the job here okay?

This is the one with the crazy fuckin' announcer, in case you were wondering. He encourages you to just GO FOR IT, MAAAAAN and will also inform you that you must COME ON, FACE IT STRAIGHT! It's great! I play less of this one than Alpha 2 for the simple reason that it has a few too many mechanics for my taste. So much so that I just play A-Sim instead of engaging with the custom combo modes or any of that stuff. I do like the extra juice Sakura gets - I love her air tatsu in particular which I abuse regularly. It will not (or should not) surprise you to find out I played a lot of this one at Galloping Ghost as well.

Guy is fuckin' terrifying to me. I hate fighting him! It's a bad time!

I think the arcade mode is harder too - that might just be the fact that I spend more time with Alpha 2, but I stand by it. I will also stand by it being pretty fun! Sakura's theme is better in Alpha 2 (Capcom agrees, because that is the one they brought back in IV and V), but the music still owns. I don't really have a lot to say about this one! It's got some cool extra stuff but like I said, I think there's too much extra stuff. I think Alpha 2 has the right amount of mechanics and they didn't really need to add the other isms.

Also, I think the character portraits are less cool than the ones in Alpha 2. It feels important to say that.

Speaking of cool character art....

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

Look at this cool fuckin' custom intro!

This is written from the comfortable knowledge that Tominaga won the 3rd Strike tournament at CEO, which I think is very cool. I have a soft spot for Makoto! She was the first SFIV character I tried to learn until I was like "I have no idea what I am doing" and switched to Elena for a bit before settling on Sakura (the same thing happened the first time I played 3rd Strike, where I once again tried her out and then ended up switching to Elena).

I've been trying to pick Makoto back up through a strategy of "playing a lot of arcade mode in Fightcade because the CPS3 core for the MiSTer is still behind a Patreon paywall and I simply am subscribed to Too Many Damn Patreons already." I could also play the extremely good Iron Galaxy port I've got on the PS3, or the 30th Anniversary edition version on my PC or Switch, or... you know what I've got options, that's the point I'm making here. For now I tend to just use Fightcade and call it a day.

Makoto advances... MENACINGLY

3rd Strike has the reputation of being unappreciated in its time, and for all I know that's correct - I have a vague memory of seeing 3rd Strike somewhere and thinking "where are the Street Fighter characters" so I was part of the problem. It also happens to kick an enormous amount of ass, and I have a great time every time I boot it up. I love the animation and I also really like the systems - EX moves and picking a super is something that (probably because of SFIV) just Makes Sense to me in a Street Fighter. Everything feels super-responsive and the ceiling for execution is Hell of High, which if you are like me means you will never run out of new shit to learn because your execution level is Hell of Low.

If I had one real complaint, it would be with the parry system. I like it in theory, but in practice I basically only ever successfully parry by accident - and when that happens I am inevitably caught flat-footed and fail to capitalize on the opportunit completley. That's something that Practice could mend, I am sure. Of all the Street Fighter games I play, I think I'm probably the worst at this one? That's a shame, because it is probably in my top three Street Fighters! The music remains unmatched, and while I know everyone was bent out of shape about the old guard not being in the game (beyond Ken, Ryu, and Chun-Li, of course) I really like the cast!

Except for Alex. Fuck that guy.

Makoto is fun to play they should put her in Street Fighter 6

Street Fighter 6

Aw yeah this one is That Good Shit

This is my reaction in real life when I encounter an Akuma

This isn't a Ranking of Street Fighters by any means, mostly because that would involve a lot more work on my part, but boy is Street Fighter 6 really fucking good. I have, as I mentioned, mostly been fighting bots - you can see there I've hit MASTER RANK, which sounds impressive but you can't rank down in the bot-fighting mode. I love fighting bots that are at least theoretically drawing on Actual Player Data - the record will show I was a huge fan of the Shadow Fighter mode in Killer Instinct - because it feels more rewarding than fighting an AI that is, most likely, programmed to cheat like in... well, like in all the arcade Street Fighter games I've also been playing.

The other games I've been playing also lack Juri, who is great and also really fuckin' launched Akuma into the stratosphere here.

It feels rewarding to beat a bot in Master Rank, because there's some person out there that bot is based on who can actually pull off those goddamn combos that keep pushing my shit in. Part of me wishes that you could still get ranked down, but another larger part of me likes the fact that there's basically zero stakes which is how I like my fighting games to be, at least when I am playing against a computer. Put a real life person next to me (or connect us through the magic of the internet) and I feel like the stakes are automatic!

Anyway, I remain one of Street Fighter V's stubborn defenders (it has its charm I swear) but lord does Street Fighter 6 blow it out of the fucking water. Really it blows USFIV out of the fuckin' water too in my opinion, although that may partially be down to the netcode being like a billion times better.

Juri's win pose reminds me of this stock photo of a white lady eating salad and laughing that I kept seeing for a while in like... 2014 or thereabouts and frankly, I think that is funny as hell. Just replace her lollipop with a fork full of greens and you're 99% of the way there!

This is my go-to game when I boot my PC up and don't know what I want to do these days, especially because (again) it's zero stakes against bots and if I really want to fight people I've got options. Mostly I hang out with some people on discord I can harass for fights but they are all extremely good at the video game Street Fighter 6 so I try not to bother them much. I also fight my brother, who is more on my level (and importantly, because we've been fighting each other a long time in various games, we remain pretty evenly matched in spite of the fact I am way more of a sicko about this shit these days than he is).

It helps the game feels extremely nice and responsive, and while I do think Drive Rushes are... fine, I guess? A little overpowered? I'm not big on them, I think I liked V-skills better is the thing. I am terrible at reacting to them (I am sure it is not true but I feel like Juri's takes so damn long to come out people have forever to counter me, whereas other characters' come out lightning fast. This is absolutely not the case I am sure). I do appreciate them being a useful way to sometimes get out of a bad situation (or cause someone to be put into a bad situation).

Pictured: Me, being put into a bad situation. I only just picked Cammy up again a couple months ago - she was my main for a long time in SFV, but I went all-in on Juri in SF6. Yes, I bought her third outfit because of the fuckin' yuri anime. Leave me alone.

I think the thing that always held me back - even in Street Fighter V, which remains (for now) the fighting game I've got the most hours logged in on Steam, is that I just don't have the mindset required to go sit in training mode practicing combos and setting up specific situations to get in and out of. This is what people who play fighting games seriously do, and I did, for a while, fancy myself as someone who was if not serious at least willing to attempt to be serious at fighting games so I spent a lot of time with a wiki page of combos open on one screen and training mode open on the other. I'm more of a "learn by doing" guy which works okay for a lot of things but I do think there's probably wisdom in sitting in a training mode if you are being really serious about this stuff.

Fortunately, the way they've set up the bot fights in SF6 lets you either fight random characters or specific ones - and even more granularly, specific control styles, which is neat! The damage output of moves in Modern is different than Classic, so if you really wanted to get into the weeds, you can! I think that's neat! I do take advantage of this from time to time, specifically after I spend hours getting my shit rocked by my Internet Pals and need to practice against their characters so the next time I will... I mean still get my shit rocked but maybe a little less.

Juri's divekick is one of those moves that I get anti-aired out of what feels like 90% of the time but BOY IS IT SATISFYING WHEN IT HITS

I could play this game all day (I have, indeed, done just that on several occasions quite recently) and not get sick of it. I know that's not saying anything special, but I'm always surprised these days when I end up just sitting with a game for hours (especially a game that I get my ass kicked in pretty frequently). With Street Fighter 6, being able to get in and out of fighting so quickly - and get through a match so quickly, even - which can be a two-edged sword, because when I get tilted I can just really mash that button and get back in to make sure you get to 0-15 as fast as humanly possible.

Anyway, Street Fighter 6 is good and you should play it. That's my hot take. Please look forward to the next installment of Let's You and Me Fight in 2037, where I talk about Darkstalkers 3, which will definitely exist by then.