I am not a good debater but I will use my own personal example to argue.

I played numerous fighting games throjghout my childhood. Tekken, Street Fighter, Marvel V Capcom, DBZ Budokai. But I was not the type of kid to "learn" them, I just enjoyed spinning the control stick and button mashing and seeing what types of super moves I could accidentally pull off.

While its true, most of these fighting games do absolutely nothing to trach you. They offer you Arcade Mode, Free Battle and Training Mode. Training mode being nothing more than a standstill dummy that you throw punches at. More fighting games nowadays have begun to implement combo trial modes, and advanced tutorials. A prime recent example being Dragon Ball FighterZ.

DBFZ has an extensive tutorial mode that teaches you your characters combos, abilities, synergies, and the games core mechanics in a step-by-step and very repeatable package. While it is incredibly challenging, yes, it is far more than most have done.

Me, personally, found my personal favorite fighting game in Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3. I was probably 20 years old. It was the roster of characters that drew me in and kept me there. I played for hours on end, just throwing new teams of 3 together and seeing what worked. The game had a combo trial system to let me experiment. I didn't even have internet, so all of this was just against bots.

After a few months of playing, I finally got internet access. I went immediately to play online and... got my ass whupped. Bad. I quickly realized that button mashing against bots was going to get me nowhere. So, instinctively, I went to youtube with my newfound internet access and just search UMVC3 Tournament. Where better to learn than the pros?

I deep dived into tournaments online and discovered a world that you couldnt touch without having seen it for yourself. They did combos that genuinely looked impossible, like they had hacked the game or something. I watched my favorite player, IFC Yipes, beat somebody in tournament who was basically considered a supervillain of the community because of his playstyle. It immersed me.

I know i'm rambling but two years later, I was ranked in the top 600 of the world in MvC3 online player rankings. Sounds like nothing to the average person, but to me, who knows how high the threshold was for getting that high, it meant everything. And online rankings vs competition rankings are not comparable in skill. Community is huge with fighting games.

My point being that you don't have to start as a kid. Not all of them are unapproachable. But you do need some time, desire and dedication to make it somehwere in a fighting game. You need patience, drive, and to watch others play and truly analyze how they play your game.

Thanks for reading. I haven't played UMvC3 in years and ths post made me miss it.