Getting into the FGC

Games like SF4 and UMvC3 rely very heavily on spacing, footsies, frame traps, option selects, and shield mix ups.

Branching out to other games gives you a lot of "fundamental" experience that can translate back to Melee, or any other fighting.

I honestly feel like my 5 years of playing other fighting games outside of Melee helped me to become a fighting game player in general, and I've noticed that things I never thought about while playing Melee back in our Save Point days, are things that I think about almost all of the time now, regardless of the game I'm playing.

So all in all I feel like each fighting game teaches you something different, in one way or another.

Honestly, I couldn't answer that question. I know there's still a strong following for BlazBlue, and I also know that MvC and Street Fighter are going strong. I personally believe a game like MvC or SF will outlive a lot of the "anime" fighting games for the simple fact that Capcom is specifically sponsoring those games, and they have always been the top games at world events like Evo.

Martin Wong is actually gonna be getting a BlazBlue set up soon, and I'm gonna venture into the game for awhile. You should too! And if you ever wanna get into MvC or SF, I can help you out. I honestly think you'd love Marvel, a lot of top Mahvel players were Smashers at one point in their career, most notably Chris G.

In terms of longevity, ArcSys games tend to be supported for a long time. The problem with their games (and to a lesser extent, SF4) is that they'll release a whole new version every year or so. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, 12 characters in the game. Then they released BB: Continuum Shift which added I think 2 new characters, then Continuum Shift EXTEND which added in the 4 DLC characters from Continuum Shift. After that came BB: ChronoPhantasma with four more characters and in a few months we're going to get ChronoPhantasma Extend with another 4 characters. That's 5 games to buy if you're buying them as they come out, with more in the future.

So the question isn't necessarily how long will the game last, but how many times are you willing to buy the goddamn thing? Now ArcSys may slow down a bit with the BB releases considering they're also working on Person 4 Arena and trying to revive Guilty Gear, but given their track record with GG, which started in 2000 with intermittent releases leading up all the way to later this year, I think you'll be set with the game's lifetime.

Street Fighter 4 isn't going anywhere, it's pretty much the best fighting game of all time. Street Fighter 5 is probably going to be a joke but I'd be happy to eat my words on that.

Gameplay-wise, BlazBlue is a ton of fun. Every character has a unique mechanic and I love that, but it's a little too combo heavy for me to really excel at. You've probably noticed that I'm not a technical player so it's hard to do well unless you can hit-confirm into these huge combos, but another reason I like BB is the Burst system, wherein you can break out of combos by using your little Burst meter thing. Then there's the Negative State for backing away too much and the Guard Break-Thing which stuns you if you block too many attacks. BlazBlue is cool.


Seriously though dude, just play Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike. It's great. You ever see Evo Moment #37? Best thing to ever happen in a fighting game ever. It stands to reason that for the best thing to ever happen in a fighting game, it has to come from the best fighting game ever, right? Of course it does, of course that stands to reason. To say otherwise would just be foolish.