I UNDERSTAND STREET FIGHTER!
So today I have had a relevation of sorts, if I can call it that. While spending more time enjoying the newly released Street Fighter 4, something in my brain clicked and I suddenly understood why so many gamers spend hours upon hours trying to master every specific move of every fighter and spend years mastering when to use such moves in battle. It's a revelation that as never hit me before, and I have spent time playing a Street Fighter game before even if that was a good many years ago. It came while in an intense battle between Abel (me) and Rufus (CPU), I shan't say I'm an average Street Fighter gamer simply because it's been so long since I last experienced the franchise and I might even call myself a newbie partly because I'm looking to understand the fighting mechanics more then I wanted to as a kid. So it was in the middle of this fight that I suddenly understood why the Street Fighter series is beloved by so many gamers. It offers a fighting system that is simply more thrilling, challenging and rewarding then anything else on the market. Soul Calibur might have swords but it don't have focus attacks, because I'm starting to appriate what it's all about and why Jeff, Brad and Vinny love to speak about the series with such passion. I don't want to admit that I required the series to go current generation with all it's beauitful artistic graphics for me to realise such a thing, but if I'm honest with you dear reader that does seem to be the case.
Reading this some folks might not understand where I'm coming from, for them Street Fighter might be some odd franchise that they'll never truly understand and might even hate for it's complexitiy. But those that do understand what the franchise is all about will hopefully understand what I'm trying to say. I find myself getting excited when I pull off the perfect Focus Attack or when I Dragon Punch my way to victory, it reminds me happily of my days spend in the arcade playing one of the many versions of Street Fighter 2. Part of this understanding comes from my time with some of the new faces of Street Fighter, most importantly Abel and Rufus who I'm having a blast playing with at the moment. I'm not sure if it's simply because these characters feel like they have been built with years of understanding character design by the developers or if I simply feel more connected to them being new cast members themselves. Abel is a fantastic new character and personally one of my favourites whiles Rufus is a perfect Street Fighter character, stupid and odd looking but could easily kick anyones ass in the heat of battle.
At the moment I'm spending a lot of time between the arcade mode, challenge mode and of course the training mode taking my time to practice and understand how to become a respectable Street Fighter player, I'm only just realising how important defence and patience is in Street Fighter. I know I'll never become good enough to beat many people online but I want to provide folks with a worthy fight along the way. Speaking of which I finally pulled off a Ultra Combo which I have since found out is poorly explained in the challenge mode, here I was press medium kick three times instead of pressing all kick buttons on the Xbox 360 Controller (which by the way, is not the best for such a game, though I'm not sure I'm ready to pick up an expensive joystick yet). Ultra Combos are indeed a beautiful thing, though I honestly can't see myself pulling to many off in the heat of battle unless my opponent is dazed. That's it really, I will probably write more on my Street Fighter 4 experience soon enough and will eventually spend some time getting my backside handed to me online, if I do ever meet you online please be gentle.
Thanks for Reading,
Joseph Bayliss (TrueEnglishGent)
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