Play Fighting Games (or Don't)
Tuesday January 9, 2024
I have multiple documents on my computer saved in a variety of file formats that are all essentially the same thing. Me talking about how my Smash friends should play fighting games. I don’t think I’ve ever showed any of them anything that I’ve written, but that’s because I’m probably annoying enough verbally. They don’t need me handing out literature like a Jehovah’s witness. There’s one reason I even had hope in the first place, and that one reason is the core of all the stuff I wrote:
We play a modded version of Smash on tournament legal stages with the items off. We’re like one step away from just playing a regular 2D fighting game.
I always thought that was solid reasoning. Clearly it isn’t very solid because it convinced nobody. I think there is one core reason why most of them will never be convinced. It’s not like I said to each one of them “tell me in detail why these games don’t appeal to you”, because that would be weird. I’m making a pretty fat assumption here, and if one of my friends is reading this, they might think it’s weird that I’ve thought about this so much. Anyway, here it is:
They don’t want to learn, they want to play.
The complete unfamiliarity with 2D fighting games is what makes them so unappealing. As weird as a Gamecube controller is to someone who had a PS2, it’s not nearly as weird as an arcade stick. I started playing Third Strike because I thought to myself “I want to learn a 2D fighting game” knowing it was going to have an insanely steep learning curve. It’s no surprise that the only friends I was able to convince are also the ones that are the most into Smash. Most of my friends don’t even put the effort into “learning” Smash, so how the hell could I convince them to learn a different game? I don’t annoy them much anymore because I have accepted the way it is. I have other friends I play Third Strike with, and one friend that will pretty much play anything once The Rewald Cycle is complete.
I still do think they would have fun. I love watching shitty players figure out shitty strategies that work. I’m not saying they should play fighting games so I can double perfect them in Third Strike all day. I bought my cousin Street Fighter 6 for Christmas, knowing that there is a good chance it will collect dust. If Street Fighter 6 doesn’t work, nothing will. That’s fine. Here is a bonus voice message I found while writing this: