Super Street Fighter IV, or: How I....

Super Street Fighter IV, or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the fight
 
As a boy, my first console was the Sega Genesis (or Mega Drive, depending on where you are). I was quite young at the time, and as a result my father and I played a lot of the games there together, if possible. We fell in love with games like Battletoads & Double Dragon and Streets of Rage that allowed us to team up and whup up on some bad guys. As a result, we ended up shying away from the straight-up fighting games that were around, the biggest example being Mortal Kombat II. After all of our adventures of battling together, we just didn’t want to turn on each other. So, those games just weren’t around, and I was okay with that. My next console was an N64, and that was really where I cut my teeth on competitive multiplayer. Goldeneye made me loathe screen-watchers, and Super Smash Bros. was just plain nuts. But still, the true fighting games eluded me. Oh sure, we’d rent one for a weekend, but none of us would know any combos and really couldn’t be bothered to learn them. As we moved on in years, I stuck with that shooter style of multiplayer, hopping on board with games like Halo and Call of Duty. Looking back on it, it’s not like there were really a ton of fighting games to be had in those days anyway. The one exception is that I stuck with the Smash Bros. franchise, loving the simplicity of it all. There were no double fireball motions being thrown in those games, you just needed a direction and a button and you could have a blast. 

That attitude went on up until this winter. Myself and my three closest friends all got together at my friend’s place down in Ohio, and I arrived to see two of them going at it in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. The four of us proceeded to trade of controllers over the course of an hour or so, and we had a blast doing it. I suddenly realized that I could get behind this whole 1 on 1 fighting deal. I studied up on some basic combos and special moves, and it felt great to improve, but after that week it didn’t really cross my mind to do more. Several months later, I realized that Super Street Fighter IV was coming out for $40. Add to that the fact that Gamestop was giving 20% off at the time, and I was sold. The very first night that I played, there were a bunch of people that got on and played, so after maybe an hour of practice I was in the thick of it. I got to see two of the best players I’ve met go at it several times over the night, and took a couple of shots myself. And you know what? I held my own. My first night, and I was winning a couple of rounds! I thought I must’ve been some sort of prodigy. But really, the game is just that accessible. If you put a small amount of time learning how to do some fairly basic moves, you can hold your own against most people.