Fighting Games: A Social Tool

Hello. This is Oraaaaaa. With the Nintendo Switch out, I am amazed at the innovation of technology over the last few years. The days of the Nintendo DS being archaic is looming, and when I notice it, I will also be out of date and soon to expire. While I can still catch up to technology, I thought I could write my experience of playing games in college.

Even though the Nintendo Switch has not been out for even a week, there have been a plethora of announcements of games that will be compatible for it. Out of the mass of game titles announced, one that stood out to me was “Ultra Street Fighter 2”. This is because through fighting games such as the Street Fighter series, I have made friends in high school and have gotten along with people in college.

This is a video of another student in Grinnell College and me playing Street Fighter 5, a fighting game that we played on PC. We often play on Friday or Saturday for 2~3 hours. To some, this may sound boring, doing the same thing over and over again for 3 hours; however, what makes fighting games interesting is that both of our movements keep changing slowly throughout the time we played against each other. Initially, both of us started by using ordinary attack styles of the characters we were using. By fighting multiple times, we started seeing a pattern in each of our fighting patterns. In many of the matches, including the match shown in the video, many moves that we noticed the other was unfamiliar with was used more frequently than other conventional moves. One move that you can see me, the character with the white clothes, use is the rolling attack. From earlier games, I noticed that my opponent kept blocking and did not have a good counter to this attack, so I started using this move more frequently. By playing with the same people more often, the predictions become more complex, which makes all matches look completely different.

To sum up, even in college, I continue to play fighting games and make friends in college through fighting games. The one on one battle helps getting to know the other player be easier while also making predictions an extremely important aspect needed to win. Even games, which are generally thought to be unsociable activity can be used to make friends. I hope you give fighting games a chance to show the intricate mind games that can occur within a 5 minute timeframe.