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What's a good fighting game to start out with?

Skunkers said:
Eh, as a high-level Tekken player, I would say it's fairly beginner friendly. The jump from being a beginner to an intermediate player is gargantuan though.
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As someone who has been trying to become intermediate at it for a year, i can agree with this.

Tekken is easy to get into, but hard to become proficient enough in to take on experienced folks. But there's a large community so you can always find folks of your own level. I sort of feel the same about SF4.

komarkaze said:
Playing against AI wasn't beneficial to me. The only way to play better was against human competition. And not being afraid of losing. I lost 20 matches online before I won my first one. And then lost 15 more, won one, lose 10, won one. In one to two months, I went from terrible to decent and it felt earned.
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This too. Definitely play against people, whether offline or on. You'll lose but you'll learn.
 
Any really. They are different enough to be considered an own game to everyone that picks one up. If you're the big shit in SF, you'll still get owned like a total newb in Guilty Gear or Mortal Kombat. There are "similar" games that may help you with other games. E.g. (spiritual) successors of the same series. SF 2 > 4, MK > Injustice, Tekken > TT, GG > BB...

The thing you need the most are: Fun and Dedication. Just pick a game you WANT to play. You need to have a natural thrive to become good in it on your own, and not just because "I need to get better with fighting games".
 
Deft Beck said:
I don't know which characters I'm interested in. In most games, there are just too many.
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Hmm...okay.The easiest way to have an idea where to start is simply knowing what you tend to enjoy doing the most. Whether its staying away from folks and making them deal with a lot of projectiles, or trying to overwhelm them with in your face offense.

Some folks excel in an "in and out" style of play of rush in, try to start your combo, if it didn't work, leave.

Other folks want to go for that one big damage move over and over to turn it around and prefer characters who grapple, or who have "armor" to wade through attacks and hit folks hard.

Others like to jump around a lot and approach like mad from the air...those sorts of players tend to enjoy folks with a lot of air mobility or moves that hit so deep that they actually reach behind their opponents body which forces them to have to block by pressing towards you instead of away from you because the game will see the attacks coming from behind them since so much of it is behind their body (thats called a crossup).

Others tend to like tactics where they put attacks out that force opponents to block them and then go for other attacks either high or low, while the opponent is blocking the first one. This sort of love of strategic confusing of your opponent is called "mixups" because it makes them get mixed up as to whether to block high or low or even whether to block towards you or away from you if you teleport or something.

People like all kinds of ways of playing. Recognizing what you tend to go for the most will help you decide who you'd probably like to play as. Figure out what game you want to try and what strategies you tend to abuse and we can help lead you towards cast in its roster you'd probably enjoy.
 
Since you're a beginner, you need to learn fundamentals. And to learn fundamentals, nothing better than the birthplace of them all. If you got PS360, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (I know) could be a fun dabble. Deep fighting game distilled to the basics. Also, boss music and characters design.

Just don't expect a lot of animation frames. =p
 
Just pick up Street Fighter IV (the newest version, of course). You'll have the most competition in all skill levels and the game is relatively easy to learn while having a great amount of depth should you decide to really sink your teeth into it.

If you want something less traditional Skullgirls and Persona 4 Arena have good tutorials and are more movement/combo based than SF4 which appeals to a lot of people. Skullgirls will be free on PS+ later this month so if you have a subscription there is no reason to not try it out.

If you want something 3D I'd say Tekken is probably the way to go, though I'm not a huge fan. I prefer Soul Calibur 5 or Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate but the communities for those aren't exactly booming.

Really, just play whatever appeals to you. People will try to discourage you from playing "harder" fighters like Marvel vs. Capcom or Virtua Fighter but to be honest everyone has to start somewhere. The first fighting game series I played seriously were Darkstalkers and X-Men vs. Street Fighter, which are somewhat non-traditional choices but the characters appealed to me so I stuck it out despite them being streets ahead of casual SF2 in complexity, which was my entire pedigree beforehand. Try not to think of a game as being hard, or characters being bad, or whatever. Just play what your heart tells you and save the metagaming for when you have the context to understand it.
 
SF4 - after ChrisG killed MvC3 this defaulted back to being the hotness. Big community, lots of characters, pretty simple to play, tutorials everywhere.
MvC3 - great game, lots of fun, but the community sort of dissipated after ChrisG broke the game and there will likely never be another one.
Tekken - one of the most complex fighting games around, if you like it then go for it, but it ain't easy by any means
Skullgirls - unless you think playing fighting games is the same as talking about your favorite fanart then stay away. It's a fun game but you won't be learning much about fighting games.
Persona - one of my favorite fighting games. Simple and balanced. Plus there's a new one coming so there'll be a healthy player base
Blaz blue - people love it, I think it's gotten progressively worse as time has gone on. Slow, completely broken/unbalanced, they keep trying to add and change mechanics for no reason.
Guilty Gear - king of anime fighting games. Does everything right, but is probably too hard to begin with and the community is tiny as can be (at least until the new one)
Smash - is a competitive platformer, not a fighting game. If you want to get good at fighting games there is nothing learned in smash that could be carried over to other games.

Deft Beck said:
I don't know which characters I'm interested in. In most games, there are just too many.
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It can be overwhelming, but if you really can't decide then just go for the age-old strategy of picking someone who looks cool and messing around with them for a while. If they click, they click, if not, you move on. Elizabeth in P4A is one of my favorite fighting game characters of all time, a character has never felt so right to me before, and I just picked her cause I liked the way she looked.
 
I honestly think the best way to pick up a fighting game would be to find a friend who is about at your skill level and is also interested in getting better at fighting games, grab Street Fighter IV and just play together a bunch.

Together you will grow and the desire to best him will lead to you both constantly learning new techniques and strategies, coming to a better understanding of the game fairly organically.

Now I know that is not possible for everyone but I honestly found with almost any competitive one on one game this is the best way. Online matchmaking never seems to effectively match you with similarly skilled players and can really put you off a game. That said don't ignore the benefits of fighting other people cause that can really be an eye opener to different strategies and approaches.
 
Deft Beck said:
I think I would go for Street Fighter, Tekken or Skullgirls. The last one seems best because the number of characters is less overwhelming.

I don't know which characters I'm interested in. In most games, there are just too many.
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Yeah, it's incredibly hard for me to limit my character choice to 1-3 characters.

Tekken: Find about 5 or so safe moves, avoid using slow moves because it's easy to punish them, and don't be afraid to sidestep or grab. You can get pretty far knowing just that as a beginner. The combo system is simple and easy to perform. For most characters, the only difficult part is knowing how to maximize your damage based on your position. Learning how to properly move around is like an added layer of depth that you can avoid, but it's something that's useful later on.

Street Fighter: I'm not a big SF player, but knowing your anti-air options is one of the most useful things to know. You'll often fight people who constantly jump.

Skullgirls: This game is pretty tricky. Majority of this game comes down to knowing how to do combos and resets. To me, the neutral game always felt limited compared to MVC (mostly because there's few projectiles, little to no movement options, and weaker special moves and supers). As a beginner, I can tell you'll be frustrated by the resets because there's no hitstun after the combo is dropped. However, they did add in another mechanic to make the follow-up combo to the reset shorter. It's been awhile since I played this, so maybe the game changed for the better. It was still fun to play even though it's not exactly the game I was looking for.
 
Persona 4 or Marvel 3. Both are very easy to initially pick up and get your feet wet with, and the moment when you realize that the training wheels will no longer cut it is very apparent, which eases you into learning more damaging combos and better positioning. Those two are probably the easiest fighting games for people who aren't into fighting games to actually play, even though they look confusing at a glance.

I wouldn't recommend skullgirls as a beginners game. I love that game to death, but that game is made by Marvel 2 fans, for Marvel 2 fans and gets complex very very quickly.
 
Go for Super Street Fighter IV: AE. IMHO not only the best fighting game out there, also with huge community online at all skill levels so you are not at risk of going online and only finding a deserted place with half a dozen pros that still play like in other less popular games. Ranked matches will pit you against players of similar rank so you'll usually have a chance.

Pick Ryu to start with. He is rewarding to play for starters and has incredible potential for improvement over time.

I wouldn't recommend KOFXIII or Marvel. KOF has the team aspect to master on top of the basics. And Marvel has teams, switching, graphics are messy and gameplay is fast paced and very combo focused (those type of combos that once connect, you're dead), I would stay away from it.

With SFIV:AE you can focus better on the fundamentals of a 1 x 1.
 
NutJobJim said:
Killer Instinct.
Has an amazing dojo mode for training, is a lot of fun for people of all skill levels, is well balanced, lots of depth and beautiful to look at.

Killer Instinct is the fucking shit.
Shame more people aren't playing it due to the whole X1 hatred thing...
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And so it is settled.
 
Mr Fahrenheit said:
Tekken - one of the most complex fighting games around, if you like it then go for it, but it ain't easy by any means
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The combo system in Tekken is easier to learn than most other fighters, IMO. Because the most combos are juggles, it is all a matter of figuring out which strings and moves you can do before the character drops out of the combo. Street Fighter combos are much more cryptic by comparison in that you need to know which moves will link together, the timing of those links, how to use FADC and EX moves in combos, etc.

This may be the only mechanic where it is simpler though.
 
The easiest, most intuitive, yet deep fighting game is Soulcalibur. The only thing that's hard to understand is what Namco's..."strategy" is as it pertains to the series.
 
Killer Instinct really does sound like exactly what you are looking for. Oh well. I hope you enjoy whatever you wind up choosing. Just remember, you don't have to be the best to still have fun at fighting games.
 
i may be swaying a lil off topic... but is it normal for my thumb to kill after playing 10 matches in KI or any fighting game? i legit can't play the game because it feels like i'm getting a blister after a few matches.
 
I'd recommend Dead or Alive for beginners. The game is very forgiving in terms of execution, and even low level play looks dynamic and exciting. Don't start out playing as Akira though, lol.

Juan Pelota said:
i may be swaying a lil off topic... but is it normal for my thumb to kill after playing 10 matches in KI or any fighting game? i legit can't play the game because it feels like i'm getting a blister after a few matches.
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That's probably because the Xbox One's d-pad is a piece of shit...
 
I kinda disagree with the Street Fighter IV recommendation. People claim it's easy to get into, but it has fairly weird and obscure inputs for anyone who hasn't grown up on a diet of Street Fighter and other Capcom fighters, and it has apparently gotten worse in that regard than the older SFs. I find the mechanics hard to figure out exactly - e.g. what move will beat what move seems fuzzy and has to be learned per character matchup, so in SF there seems to be quite a bit of "playing against the character" as opposed to "playing against the player".

I haven't played the newer Soul Caliburs, but the first games in the series were really approachable. The system was easy to figure out and inputs were simple. I doubt they have gone very far from that in the later installments.

Virtua Fighter is a great fit for a methodical and patient newbie. It kicks your ass at first while you internalize the characteristics of basic attacks and movement, but no other game has such a clean, learnable, non-random feeling system. You can always figure out exactly what happened, how many frames of advantage/disadvantage you had, and what you should have done in a situation. Your core skills translate pretty well between characters. Once you get the hang of it, you can win games with just punch, low punch, elbow/knee and throw using a VF character you've never played; you can really fight the player instead of the character. Movelists are scary long, but a couple of key moves (the above, plus a few good moves depending on the character) will get you far. Inputs for moves are generally not hard at all, but beyond beginner/intermediate stage, VF starts rewarding mechanics a lot - you can always use more inputs to move more fluidly and to defend more effectively. Some characters are not recommended for a beginner because you have to use stances etc. with them; I'd suggest someone like Aoi, Lion, Vanessa (has two stances, but can stay in either one permanently) or maybe Goh.
 
IDEALY,

ck3MdEz.gif

Super Gem Fighters Mini Mix / Pocket Fighter

But capcom hates that game and it is hard to play this on a non emulator these days =/


Skullgirls tutorial then
 
I'd vote either Dead or Alive or Soul Calibur. Street Fighter IV is AMAZING but there are a TON of very skilled players online and it may be hard to jump right in...
 
Smooth Operator said:
I'm sorry, but i think you don't know what you are talking about. And no, a fightstick is not a must. Go on Youtube and look for some Alioune's videos.
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When a thread pops up asking what type of game you wish you would be better at it's mostly a fighting games thread with half of the posts saying Street Fighter.

Trust me, many many people find the SF series hard to get into. You may be good but for most people i'd say it's definitly not a beginners game like let's say Injustice.
 
Persona 4 Arena - The inputs for special attacks are simplified compared to most fighting games, and it's easy to learn a few bread and butter combos for at least most of the cast, though obviously the really good combos will be more difficult (and situational). But that's not something you need to worry about as you're starting out. Also, another nice thing is Ultimax is releasing soon, so there will be more beginners online for you to play against as you're learning the game.

Skullgirls - SG has a fantastic tutorial that will teach you pretty much everything you need to get started, and is just overall a really fun game.

Street Fighter IV - This is a difficult game to actually learn, but it's also one of the easier fighting games to pick up and have fun with right away, IMO.
 
Sn4ke_911 said:
When a thread pops up asking what type of game you wish you would be better at it's mostly a fighting games thread with half of the posts saying Street Fighter.

Trust me, many many people find the SF series hard to get into. You may be good but for most people i'd say it's definitly not a beginners game like let's say Injustice.
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Yea I also disagree with Street Fighter being very beginner friendly. Inputs are far more demanding than stuff like NetherRealm's games, and it's almost impossible to not continuously run into people that have been playing Street Fighter for almost a long as they've been able to walk. Street Fighter's noob tier is equivalent to many other franchise's intermediate.

A lot of the gameplay mechanics are also completely invisible (although this is quite a common issue with 2D fighters), so it's often very difficult to understand how to overcome certain scenarios even when they've been used to beat you countless times. You either have someone tell you, or you read up, or you go through LONG sessions of trial and error.
 
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom on Wii is very beginner friendly. Many of the characters have similar input methods and most don't have any crazy three circle rotation moves. Skullgirls is fairly easy to get into as well.

But yeah, Smash is the king of this. I would love to see a traditional 2D fighter attempt Smash's control scheme.
 
SF4 is NOT a good beginners game. If you have no idea how to play fighters at all, SF will be a frustrating experience. Far from impossible, but if you want an easy time and want to genuinely enjoy learning a fighter, SF4 should probably be your second or third game after you've acquainted yourself with basic fighting game mechanics.
 
Persona 4 Arena
Persona 4 Arena
Persona 4 Arena

P4A is by far the fighting game with the lowest barrier to entry. It's a four button fighter, with two buttons dedicated to your fighter's light and heavy attacks, and the other two for your persona's light and heavy attacks. It's very easy to wrap your head around when and in what situations you'd want your fight or your persona to be attacking, and whether they use fast light attacks or big heavy attacks. Everything has a much more distinct use than in a six button fighter, where new players are often at a loss about if they should be using punches vs kicks, or when mediums come into play. All of the special moves for every fighter is some variation of quarter-circle-forward/back and a button. Very simple, no dragon punches or 360s required. Teching (having your character get back up from a knock down faster) is as easy as holding a button, no specific timing required.

There are a lot of little touches that helps the game's playability. There are icons that appear when you get hit by a low attack or an overhead attack. It's handy feedback that lets you know right away how your enemy got through in cases where in other games you'd probably be wondering "I was blocking! How did that get through?!". With Persona, you'll know right away. Much of Persona's mechanics are very visible, which helps you learn by doing.

Most importantly there's the auto-combo feature. If you land a hit with A and keep hitting A, you'll automatically start a combo that (if you have enough meter) will end in a super. While it's not the most efficient use of meter, it does something very, very important: it allows new players to punish. In other games there is a skill gap between being completely new to a game and being experienced enough that you know each character's combos with a light attack starter, which you would use to punish an opponent who risked a big slow attack that you successfully blocked or avoided. When players are in that skill gap, they got nothing to threaten their opponents with when they throw out punishable moves, so they get away with murder. In persona, everyone has the ability to punish mistakes from day one.
 
Virtua Fighter is very user friendly. All scrubs should start there. Think of it as a gateway drug.


Avoid Tekken to start. It has a lot of nuances that don't really translate into other 3D fighters. Tekken is what you graduate into.
 
Street street fighter 4, or better yet ultra street fighter 4 when it releases

P4 Arena, or better yet P4 arena ultimax suplex hold when that comes out

Smash bros, or better yet Smash 4 when that come out on wii u and 3ds

I would also say tekken and soul calibur, I find those games are fun for people even when they do know nothing

Camp Lo said:
Avoid Tekken to start. It has a lot of nuances that don't really translate into other 3D fighters. Tekken is what you graduate into.
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I would say the opposite of this.

My first fighting games was tekkens.

Maybe its just me.
 
I just wanted to say that the best thing you can do is find other people who play. The fighting game community is really tight knit but it really embraces newcomers. You should really go and seek out other players, especially ones that are better than you. These people will drive you and improve you. When I first went to a weekly I remember being stonewalled by a very defensive player. I spent the next week practicing against his character. I was compelled to come back and beat that. People will throw around a lot of frame data discussion too and that will also give you a really good foundation just by engaging in the banter.
 
A fighting game is good when you can have fun even when you don't learn absurdly-complicated button sequences. I just want to press buttons and see things get KO
 
emb said:
Smash Bros. (especially Melee) is easy to ease into if you think that counts. Based on the arcade stick part, I'm guessing no.
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Agreed w/ this if you don't take the elitist route and say Smash isn't a "real fighter", but I'd say Brawl over Melee. Melee is much faster-paced so it might be too fast for a beginner; also it doesn't have things like the Final Smash, and arguably has a better balanced cast and requires more technical ability (wavedashing, for instance, absent in Brawl).

Play Brawl to ease you into Smash, then when you're good enough switch over to Melee.

Outside of that....Blazblue has a great training mode from what I remember, and in a way SSFIV is "easy" to get into. Altho imho, if you want to get pro-level in SFIV, you have to do a lot of one-frame links and FADCs, and you know how online connections can be at times :S. I'd personally choose SFIII over IV for a lot of reasons but at the very least it might be slightly easier to get into if you ignore parries for a while.

ComputerMKII said:
A fighting game is good when you can have fun even when you don't learn absurdly-complicated button sequences. I just want to press buttons and see things get KO
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There is a fighting game for you then; it is called RPG x3

Camp Lo said:
Virtua Fighter is very user friendly. All scrubs should start there. Think of it as a gateway drug.


Avoid Tekken to start. It has a lot of nuances that don't really translate into other 3D fighters. Tekken is what you graduate into.
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Isn't it universally believed to be the opposite? Tekken is easier to get into, VF is much more technical?

I mainly play Tekken but have played VF1 and 4 in the past; I think it's something about the button setup that actually makes it seem more complicated.

OP if you're still looking and considering 3D fighters, DOA might be a good choice. Same principles as VF but much less technical.
 
Smash is the easy answer, so I'll say something else.

Mortal Kombat '11
The inputs in the game are forgiving so you don't have to be perfect, and that's great for beginners. There's also plenty of depth and room for you to grow. After that you can advance to the more strict capcom fighters and KOFs
 
jhmtehgamr20xx said:
Agreed w/ this if you don't take the elitist route and say Smash isn't a "real fighter", but I'd say Brawl over Melee. Melee is much faster-paced so it might be too fast for a beginner; also it doesn't have things like the Final Smash, and arguably has a better balanced cast and requires more technical ability (wavedashing, for instance, absent in Brawl).

Play Brawl to ease you into Smash, then when you're good enough switch over to Melee.
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Going to disagree with this. Brawl's mechanics are so simple and different it's very hard to pick up Melee after it. Brawl also isn't much of a fighting game sadly... Essentially all the depth was removed from it... But really Smash at its core is a very simple game but has tons of hidden depth so playing melee to start with won't be overwhelming at all. The need for wavedashing is also often highly overstated with only a few characters getting one they can use well and even then you can go without it

Actually Project M is perhaps the perfect starting zone to pick up smash
 
Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown.

It's a work of art and singlehandedly drew me back in to the genre. Easily accessible yet very deep.
 
jhmtehgamr20xx said:
Isn't it universally believed to be the opposite? Tekken is easier to get into, VF is much more technical?

I mainly play Tekken but have played VF1 and 4 in the past; I think it's something about the button setup that actually makes it seem more complicated.

OP if you're still looking and considering 3D fighters, DOA might be a good choice. Same principles as VF but much less technical.
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No, VF is easier to get into than Tekken. Punch, Kick, Guard; you can mash out wins, Tekken isn't that fluid across all the characters.
 
Anura said:
Going to disagree with this. Brawl's mechanics are so simple and different it's very hard to pick up Melee after it. Brawl also isn't much of a fighting game sadly... Essentially all the depth was removed from it... But really Smash at its core is a very simple game but has tons of hidden depth so playing melee to start with won't be overwhelming at all. The need for wavedashing is also often highly overstated with only a few characters getting one they can use well and even then you can go without it

Actually Project M is perhaps the perfect starting zone to pick up smash
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I haven't played Project M but you might be right about that being the best starting zone. But the OP may not be playing on a computer, just on the original hardware :S

The big reason I'd say Brawl first, Melee l8r is partly exactly what you said; when I used to play Melee w/ my friends they'd always kick my ass hard, but for w/e reason Brawl seemed to level the playing field. In hindsight, it was a combination of it being slower and "removing depth" they couldn't use/exploit that did the trick. But I eventually got tired of Brawl's slow, floaty-like controls and roster imbalance, and went back to Melee, where experience w/ other fighters probably helped in massively being better in that game.

So that suggestion comes from personal experience, but they might still be better w/ Brawl for now because it lacks the speed and depth of Melee.

Camp Lo said:
No, VF is easier to get into than Tekken. Punch, Kick, Guard; you can mash out wins, Tekken isn't that fluid across all the characters.
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Again, not from my experience. You can spam attacks in Tekken b/c each button is mapped to a limb, and the way stuff like grabs work there is closer to 2D games. In fact it's probably the fact it shares some basis w/ stuff like SF why it seems easier for me to get into.

Meanwhile in VF, you can't spam attacks as a n00b b/c there's only three buttons, so you have to use a lot of attacks w/ specific directional presses and timing, and there is the ring-out stuff. It's also just much more technical in the end and even w/ both at pro-level you can see the difference in amount of technical skill required in Tekken vs. Virtua Fighter (altho the gulf isn't really that wide).
 
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