How Guilty Gear: Strive Taught Me To Appreciate Fighting Games

Fighting games are tough. It’s no secret that they can be one of the hardest games for new players to get into. I spent years loving the crazy characters of Street Fighter, the gruesome aesthetic of Mortal Kombat and the stylish combos of Tekken, but I couldn’t work out how to pull them off. I still remember playing Street Fighter 2 at a friend’s house at age 8 or 9 both of us mashing the controllers until something cool happened, of course the first time we threw a fireball or landed a dragon punch we had no idea what we pressed nor how to decipher…