Street Fighter II skills... Is age a factor?

[S3M]

Are the good old days of gaming, I can still remember the first day I ever saw Street Fighter 2. It was in an arcade in the Isle of White and me and my brother just saw a game you couldn't get anywhere near to it due to the crowds. Took us a couple of days to get a chance to play it.

Always like the original, I too had the Amiga version and at the time I was just glad to play it. (But it is a truly rubbish version)

By the time I'd got my SNES I had really loss interested in Street Fighter 2 truth be told, by turbo it was beginning to get old and by Super Turbo, you where just fed up with SF2 (A shame really as SSF2T, is one of the best beat'em ever made) the fact that games like X-Men: Children of the Atom were coming out at the same time didn't help it.

For me it wasn't until I spent two weeks in Spain playing Marvel Super Heroes Vs Street Fighter that I decided to get back into the swing of Street Fighter. Bought the Street Fighter Collection as soon as I got back and the rest as they say is history.

These days I'm luck to have practiced against a Street Fighter 2 champion, even if he does beat me almost every time.

I've been playing Street Fighter 2 HD on 360 as soon as I got my 360 hooked to live and if you haven't already I would recommend everyone here pick it up. And if anyone up for a Christmas bout over live let me know me know.

You can find my gamer tag in this thread http://ntsc-uk.domino.org/showthread.php?t=30426&page=21

I don't think age is a factor in who could you are, SF2 is one of those games as long as you keep playing it you'll just get better. But as soon as you stop playing it you lose your skills rather quickly.

[Shoju]

Did anyone play the other fighters that came along shortly afterwards like the Fatal Fury, Samurai Showdown or Mortal Kombat games?

After playing SF2 for years I needed a change of scenery and it wasn't until Super SF2 that Capcom finally introduced new characters and stages to SF. I really started getting into some of the other fighters, Fatal Fury 2 being a particular favourite. Turtles Tournament Fighters and Killer Instinct were other good ones that came out later.

I actually remember Fatal Fury 1 being the 1st major competitor to SF2 to reach the arcades. It got SNES and Megadrive ports. Fatal Fury 2 was a big step from it's prequel though.

Supposedly Fatal Fury Special and Samurai Showdown 2 were huge in Japan. Did they really challenge SF2's popularity over there?

[Kongster]

In 1994 I started playing KOF after getting a bit tired of one too many rehashes of SFII lol.

[nakamura]

Shoju I love TMNT Tournament Fighters. IMO the best non SF snes fighter. I also really enjoyed FF Special too.

[topper]

In 1994 I started playing KOF after getting a bit tired of one too many rehashes of SFII lol.

At least KoF never had many rehashes.

[Kongster]

Heh The point is, when KOF made it's debut in 1994 it felt like a breath of fresh air with the 3 VS 3 team battles, gameplay system and character designs (well, apart from the shoto clones lol). By 1994 people were eagerly awaiting SFIII, but instead we were on the 5th iteration of SFII.

[nakamura]

What i liked about KOF is the characters had a very 'normal' feel. They almost felt like normal people. Name like Robert and Andy always helped!!

Twas a great title too!

[Vince]

Did anyone play the other fighters that came along shortly afterwards like the Fatal Fury, Samurai Showdown or Mortal Kombat games?

I didn't play Mortal Kombat as i didn't like it but i did play Fatal Fury and i really got into Samurai Spirits, to the point that i bought a Neo Geo AES at the time to play it and the KOF games. SF was always more fun for me because other people played it, so i got decent multiplayer competition, but i actually think i prefered the SS and KOF games.

[Shoju]

Shoju I love TMNT Tournament Fighters. IMO the best non SF snes fighter. I also really enjoyed FF Special too.

It's a shame that Konami didn't continue to make fighters the way Capcom, SNK and Midway did.

[nakamura]

Absolutely. Konami got it spot on. Combo system, colision detection and great special moves. They could have used the engine to make something else. Even the music was great!

[randombs]

I've been playing SF since SF2 came out. It's a bit hazy, but it was either already in the arcade at the newsagent at the end of my road when we arrived, or it was there a little while later because I could've sworn we've been here since late 1990.

Anyway, back then I used to choose Dhalsim because of his long legs, and that got me through a few fights with my big bro until one fateful day I played against Ryu (cpu) and every time I did Dhalsim's hard kick he'd soft dragon punch my foot!

At that point I realised I'd have to up my game and start with the fireballers, and it wasn't long before we'd hear people pestering the owner about when he'd be getting SF3 (Champion Edition)! And then SF2CE arrived, and it had no sound for some reason, and yet he had the audacity to charge a whopping 30p per credit instead of 20p.

Around that time the arcades were frequented by the typical shady types, so I didn't go there often (a few years later, around the release of SSF2, the newsagent owner actually separated the arcade section from the rest of the shop to try and cut down on thieving and the like), but there were some people there who'd teach me the moves in exchange for giving them a credit or two, and that's how I learned almost all the SF moves. Not by looking in a book or magazine or even the instructions (SF wasn't out on SNES at that point), but through example.

The thing with me is, although I've had access to SF all these years, it doesn't necessarily show in my game, as most of my mates were no good at SF or just weren't interested in it, preferring Tekken, etc, so I've almost always played against the cpu and it's just not the same. I could finish SSF2 (level 8) on one credit at the local chip shop with Ken, but that was just through learning the patterns and countering them.

I was more-or-less content to just carry on like this and not seriously practice SF, but then came CvsSNK2 and SF2 anniversary on Xbox and suddenly I was being thrown back in the mix with people who were genuinely good and after a few weeks I was picking up moves and combos and putting them to use - I'd literally gone 15 years not doing any bigger combos than standing hard punch->dragon punch!

I'm still pretty rusty and, for the most part, if you played me you'd never think I'd been playing SF this long, but on the other hand there are a lot aspects of my game that come from just being familiar with the game - things like character spacing, knowing where someone's going to land, timings for moves, all those things are imprinted on my brain now, and they're really coming in handy now I've decided to flick up a gear.

The irony for SF was that, while we had online play to connect with players around the world, the lag disrupted your timings for certain moves and combos, so while you'd be learning at an accelerated rate, you'd have to adapt when you visit an arcade or play offline if you get really used to online play.

Having said that, thanks to the geniuses behind GGPO and 2DFreeplay on the PC (both use similar technologies that were designed from the ground-up to minimise/eliminate lag and 2DFreeplay's owner is a tournament player so knows what we like. WE ARE STATS WHORES AND PROUD OF IT!) and more recently HD remix employing similar coding to those, online gaming has become much more enjoyable for those of us who really do benefit from it due to the lack of available arcades/friends with SF skills!

I'd definitely recommend investing in HD Remix or downloading 2DF/GGPO (I prefer 2DF for the stats and the fact it supports almost any arcade game you can think of) and a decent stick/controller.

I'd also recommend getting someone (either online or one of your regular mates) to play against regularly. I always play phillai online and will only rarely play others, as we know each other and it's fun and genuinely rewarding trying to beat him even even though he's much better than me, and I'm still enough of a challenge for him not to get bored playing! It also means I don't have to worry about quitters, which can really ruin your rhythm if you're not careful.

The great thing about SF is that, just when you thought it's been rehashed and done to death and should be left to die while we concentrate on newer fighters, it suddenly gets a revival and we're back talking about it again. While I appreciate the other fighting games that are around, I've never been at a loss for people to talk about SF with. Everyone knows it, and it's also a great spectator game - get a couple of decent players together and it simply cannot be boring to watch.

In fact, if you're wondering whether to get back in again, I'd say watch a few videos on YouTube. That's what I did, and it really helps inject some enthusiasm into your blood

For example, surely you've seen this masterpiece by now:

[nakamura]

That video is the thing of legends.

[Shoju]

Ryan Hart did the same thing to Justin Wong when he came over for the Neo Empire event in Harrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xhyCJqFaRU

[randombs]

I went there, too, that was the Sunday but I went on Saturday, I was wishing I'd just gone both days, but it was stupidly hot over there and I wasn't sure if I felt up to going through it all again

One of my mates managed to half-parry Wong's Chun Li bit (the first seven hits). I played Wong, too, and failed miserably (a given, really), to the point where he almost perfected me one round but let me get a few hits in. Aww, ain't he sweet?

One of the other reasons I like the Daigo video is that's the same atmosphere surrounding the SSF2T finals at the Neo Empire/Battle of Destiny thing, we were going nuts just like they were, and it was a pretty religious experience

[Shoju]

I'm amazed at how Ryan Hart can play all these games at such a high level. SF3, KOF Tekken and VF. There all very different games and you don't see many top players from those games able to win tournaments at the other games.