What current fighting game is best to get into after playing Fantasy Strike?

I hated SF4 back when SF4 was the main thing for a whole variety of other reasons, though! ; )

(I really didn’t like how powerful the throw tech option select was for blocking, where you’d just crouch-block and hit LP+LK every time you got hit in a blockstring in case the opponent decided to sneak a throw in, which rendered normal throws more or less extinct. Also I wasn’t a huge fan of the quite long combos, many of which involved one-frame links, that were required to be even an intermediate-level player here in Japan.)

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Did you really need the one frame links that badly in sfiv though? I mean you weren’t exactly gonna be a top pro without them, but I recall seeing lots of high rankers avoid using them. Alex Valle is certainly no Daigo, but he ended up with a pretty respectable record without putting the extra HP in between his solar plexus into dp and such.

I know this might sound obvious, but if you get an opportunity to try any of these games without committing to buying, (maybe a really passionate fighting game friend) take it.
You might find yourself attracted to the game so much that you’ll want to learn it, and then it feels a lot less like a slog.

Funny story, I actually did mean to since I had the perfect oppurtunity to do so. I’m part of my province’s local smash community and we have our weeklies every tuesday at this electronic club in my city that is also frequented at the exact same time by the local fighting game group (we were originally a part of them before branching out due to how many of us only played smash). Having recently gotten a used Hori mini at a decent price I was looking forward to trying out some of the games they would bring after I finished being bodied in my smash bracket. Unfortunately, when I arrived the entrance was blocked off by a trio of moving trucks onto which all the assets of the lounge were being loaded onto and long story short the noght didn’t go how I planned so now I need to find a new way to try out these games.

It’s not like I’ve never played any of them though, I tried Street Fighter V at a monthly a while back and thought it was just alright, but with the new season starting relatively soon that opinion may quickly find itself to be outdated. I really didn’t feel like a lot of the changes from 4 were a net positive though, to be honest. I also got a chance to try Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 and I had quite a lot of fun with it, but I’m not sure if that’s the kind of game I can accurately judge after only playing once. I also tried MKXL and I justice 2, but I already mentioned my experience with them, so meh.

Right now it’s mostly between SFV and Guilty Gear for me. On one hand, I have a personal history with Street Fighter and it has the most robust competitive scene as well as cross platform play, a seemingly lower skill floor and is probably a fairly good thing to transition from Fantasy Strike into. On the other, Guilty Gear has way more style, way more mechanics, way more content, way more story, just more in general. I also hear it has one of the best tutorial modes in any fighting game, which could help mitigate the daunting complexity so I’m honestly not sure which one I would prefer. It’s a shame I don’t have a platform that can play the new Samurai Shodown V special remake, I was seriously hyped when I learned what it was like, but I guess it just isn’t meant to be.

Edit: So about that new Street Fighter season:

https://www.destructoid.com/street-fighter-v-arcade-edition-pops-up-in-store-listing-462325.phtml

Well… This changes things.

To be candid with you, both games are fun, if you have someone to play against regularly at a similar skill level to you.
Guilty Gear certainly requires more lab time, of course, and it’s definitely more technically intense, but I think it feels more satisfying to play.
So, my personal recommendation is choose the one you can play with people of your skill more easily.

Sadly that’s probably Street Fighter V, (because it has more people online (or did when I last played) although that also depends on where you live) but if you have a training partner for Guilty Gear I highly recommend it.

Ultimately, whatever you choose, it’s not like you can’t pick up the other one later.

Again, I understand as I complained about games that sometimes even give me nostalgia now.

That said, I’ve personally only heard “complains for a good game” about SFIV, but with SFV I know of people that didn’t like the game and even dropped it during season 2.

Maybe it’s just my personal experience, but I know the distinction. Still though, even long time fans of the fanchise I feel are very disappointed in SFV, much more than SFIV at least.

That doesn’t make it a bad game, as maybe disappointment in SFV being worse than SFIV made people louder. It does however make SFIV the better game.

Again though, I’m no SF player personally, so I go by ear.

Hmm, well as much as I’d like to get both that’s a pretty big investment of both money and time for an unemployed student. If I do get a job soon though, I’ll definitrly get both but for now I think the smart thing would be to wait for the new SFV game and judge it based on fan response before going one way or the other.

…I still might get Guilty Gear in though, just because I may be waiting a while for the new sfv.

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I’m not big in playing fighting games, but I hear Killer Instinct is an easy game to get into.

Hmm, you may be right but the heavy emphasis on combos and reduced emphasis on movement and reads that it seems to have don’t really seem like a good thing to transition to from Fantasy Strike. Plus the scene around it seems to have just died. I’m not sure why, but it went from being a headliner at tournaments to an obscure oddity. The fact that it has a weird LoL style pay model and xbox one exclusivity are also kind of a no-no for me personally :confused:

Meh, just a suggestion I get when I ask “What is an easy fighting game”. Also, you can get it on PC.

KI has relatively easy execution, and heavy emphasis on reads and mind games

The whole combo system itself contains multiple layers of mind games. Unlike other fighitng games, both players are active participants when a combo starts – it’s not just an execution test for the “active” player while the othrer one watches

There isn’t really any fault to be found with the pay model, either – you can either “just buy it” for a “normal” price, or can buy just characters you’re interested in and have it cheaper.

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Wait really? Holy crap I was always told that you had to purchase each character separately, but if you can just buy it as a full game then that changes everything. With two people having recommended it now I think I’m definitely going to have to check it out. If it really is the way you say it is then it sounds like a great pick for this thread. And I see its coming to steam soon so I’ll definitely be asking my local competitors about it.

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YOMI by Sirlin Games.

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Even though on higher levels this games are EXTREMELY hard and complicated, I would recomend Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator 2 and/or Blazblue Centralfiction.
They both have nice tutorials (guilty gear’s tutorial is really well done) and both have a “Stylish” control scheme, that let’s you do simple combos easily and doing specials with just a button and a direction (which comes handy to me cuz I don’t wanna spend hours memorizing moves), but it still lets you do the commands normally.
I know that the simple/stylish controls are often looked down on, but I feel that in these games they are perfect.

I would also recomend Soul Calibur, if it wasn’t dead.

Yeah, I do think I’m gonna go all in on GGXrdR2. I’m not 100% yet but I think once my local fgc brings its weeklies back I’m gonna start learning it.

That’s where I’ve ended up (so far), but man, the execution is tricky…

Right? I tried it once and hot damn was that complicated. I really want to play it but I think Im gonna find myself a coach before I consider playing competitively. A bit scrubby, sure, but I’d rather nto wait a year to get my first win.

Anime Fighters are probably the last ones the should be recommended in this thread for how high their execution barrier is. Just my 2 cent.

Yeah, if I had to give a recommendation for a more mainstream game to move on to, Street Fighter of some stripe seems the obvious choice, doesn’t it? If only because the execution barrier is much lower.

Oh absolutely. I think Samurai Showdown would also work because of its similar footsies focused gameplay and shorter number of buttons but I definitely plan on gettinf sfv arcade edition when that comes out.