So, in the past few weeks, I had started playing Skullgirls, and with that, some old interests began to spark towards the genre. The combos, the silly story, animation, and characters were fun, but there was something more to it for me. Fight after fight, character after character, I pushed one combo into the next against my opponents, rubbing my thumbs raw, stacking on it the frustration of getting every combo just right while trying to remember the exact special moves associated.
After winning with a handful of characters, I realized that hours had passed by, and I was quite satisfied with what I had been doing. I am not a great arcade fighter player, but there are times that it calls to me. Tuesday, I got sick from sinus infection, and I ate something that made me sick from the night before, so I returned home early from work, and there it was…Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition. I started this last year, and never finished it, but now…even after feeling bad, I couldn’t help myself. Seven to eight hours later, I had defeated the main story, unlocked multiple items, and won with multiple characters in the ladder matches. My thumbs, forearms, and wrists were so freaking sore, I had to switch between ice packs and heating pads. Then, I realized it…this is my “hardcore” love. It isn’t that I am good. It is that out of all my memories with games, 2d fighters have the strongest hold on me, whether frustrating, complicated, or just at times bad, I will play through all of it, and I always walk away with great satisfaction.
Others may be able to recall their steps in gaming back to platforming games (probably the most common) or something further back to atari games or just pong, and while I can recall these experiences, I will say that my hands…hell, my body… always called out to the 2d fighters. I vaguely remember Fighting Street when I was maybe four or five, and I remember it just being a two button arcade game. The buttons were big, padded, and rubber. You had to press really hard to get the functions to work. I was too young and weak, so all I did was jump around trying to dodge the moves of the AI bald guy of the time. My mom recalls me mimicking the movements by kicking out violently while playing. If you stood too close, you risked me accidently catching you in the shins. I never did it on purpose, but I was so excited, most of the muscles in my body would spazz into violent kicking and punching motions in no particular direction…I still occasionally do that and have to purposely think of anchoring my feet to the ground or things get broken. This particular action only sparks when playing 2d fighters, especially when they are frustrating. I would have been the perfect poster child for accidental violence thanks to video games, but I am just a spazz when I get excited in the right manner.
When I play fighting games
The experience with Fighting Street was really short lived, but it was Street Fighter II where I really began to emerge. This was the reason I went to Tilt. Ryu, the stoic warrior with little to say simply fought just to figure out why he had such a desire in the first place, and all the other characters in this world had stories that were just as simple, but fun and enjoyable. I would always run out of quarters before I could finish beating it in the arcade. Nevertheless, it eventually came out on SNES and all my quarter loss based vengeance was unleashed for hours and hours of facing the same 12 characters. No complicated tricks or stories, but just good ol’ beat’em up satisfaction. Nothing got me more excited than landing that direct Dragon Punch (which became two hits at point blank range) against M. Bison. The 16-bit music, the simple animation, and the high score. Fireball after ridiculous fireball. I chuckle at remembering when my dad thought Ryu and Ken were saying “bullshit” instead of “Hadouken”.
The trend would continue through all the Street Fighter upgrades (you know what I am talking about). I even remember multiple vacations where I discovered a SFII Turbo for the first time in a hotel in Atlanta. This was also the first time I swam in an indoor pool, but that arcade machine made it all the more memorable. I remember all my trips through Augusta and putting Ryu in orange and purple for the first time only to get the floor wiped with me by Cammy. That was Super Street Fighter. Gah, I loved it.
Then, there was that Mortal Kombat that frightened the hell out of me. My exposure to MK was seeing Scorpion burn up Sonya in the arcade at the Augusta mall. Eventually, I shook it off, and gave the game a shot. I had no idea what I was doing, but dammit, I had uppercut my way to victory. No fatalities obviously. As for home, I got the SNES version of MK, and I still loved it. Then, I remember Mortal Kombat II for the first time. I brought index cards and everything, ready to play. It was the week before Christmas, and I still lost pretty often, but I really do have fond memories.
Finally, back to the world of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and I did it…I actually beat the game in an arcade. That was a big deal back in the 90’s and some folks actually recognized me in a McDonald’s afterwards.
Then, it came…combos. While there were subtle touches of this in the world of SSFIIT, there wasn’t a commitment to the concept in the way we see today. There were so many incarnations where games tried to implement this and I only partially enjoyed the concept. Ultimate MKIII made it too much about memorization, and interupted the natural flow. Killer Instinct was a smash with me because it was intuitive, but I can’t pinpoint that memory in my head, but boy did I burn through it in the days of N64. That was probably my only good days of combos. So, I tried to carry the same interests into the 3d type fighters like Virtual Fighters and Tekken, but in the end, I continued being a novice in a lot of respects because the experience became more frustrating without the reward at the end.
The VS. by Capcom was fantastic as well, but again, combos. Since then, my passions scattered to the RTS, RPG, and FPS field. That is until a couple of weeks ago. Skullgirls, while simplistic, opened me back up to the world of 2d fighting, and the desire to learn combos and special moves all over again. My joints are sore from playing the games, but I gotta say…this is my genre. I may go to others briefly, but I will always return here. I will always look for the archetype character that has a projectile, an upward diagonal attack, and an attack that scatters halfway across the screen.
Maybe its the nostalgia, the escape, or just the simple enjoyment of overcoming that boss that really pisses me off…either way, this is my gamer genre to which I will always return with unhinged passion.
That is my story for this piece. See you on the other side, folks.
ROFL Rance 