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A Real Boxer's Guide to Street Fighter Video Games

Like learning to throw a real punch, this new book teaches you to virtual fight with Blanka or Ryu.
Image: Gamescore Blog/Flickr

As a kid, even though I spent an absurd amount of time in arcades, I ironically first played Street Fighter II at a daytime tennis camp. While I really liked playing Street Fighter, I wasn’t able to play it very often. There were no councilors ensuring everyone got equal time. If you lost, you stopped playing. And, in my case, if you lost a lot you wouldn’t be invited up to bat at all. Even so, I thought Blanka looked neato.

When it comes to Street Fighter or other 2D fighting games, rookies can barely chip the armor of Goro, Galactus, Seth and other final bosses, never mind beating other human players who know exactly what they're doing. Patrick Miller, writer, Street Fighter competitor and teacher, thinks we can get better by training like it’s a real fight. In fact, he's a former boxing coach turned Street Fighter enthusiast.

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From Masher to Master: The Educated Video Game Enthusiast’s Fighting Game Primer is a new, free eBook from Miller on how to stop sucking at Street Fighter. Explaining that, “at any given moment in Street Fighter II, I could conceivably perform upwards of 35-40 different actions,” Miller’s book can help you figure out which of those maneuvers are appropriate and when.

Like any UFC fighting coach, Miller prescribes the training methods and combos you use to beat your opponent and become a champion. Though maybe you’re a Dan Hibiki right now, with the proper guidance from Miller's book you’ll be a Chun-Li in no time.

Nowadays, as video games become more competitive, training for digital fights is actually becoming a thing. Between Starcraft and Halo pros, video games are beginning to have the same disciplined strategy and training as mixed martial arts or boxing.

And fighting games can be real tough love, too. There’s a lot to adore: the spectacle, the speed, the strategy, but for the average players there is so much to process and internalize that their sessions usually devolve into a failing, button-mashing frenzy or a repetition of that one combo you mistakenly came across.

I spoke to Patrick on his way back from Vegas, having just attended the annual fighting game tournament to end all tournaments, Evo. We talked Street Fighter and the secrets to becoming a real 2D fighting game champion.

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Motherboard: When you first encountered fighting games, what spoke to you about them?
Patrick Miller: I first encountered fighting games with Street Fighter II, as most people of my generation did. It was probably the most successful game of its kind, a breakaway hit in arcades. It was cool because it was new, it kicked off that genre of fighting games that really dominated. That was the prestige genre for a while, the chosen game. I was six when the original came out, and I wasn’t that good at it. I moved on to other things and I rediscovered them in high school.

Do you like all fighting games, or is there something special about the ones Capcom makes?
I love all fighting games. You give me a fighting game and I will play the heck out of it. If you make me choose between a lower tier not-so-great fighting game and a Call of Duty, something world-class in its genre, I’ll probably still choose the fighting game.

You’d choose ClayFighter over Bioshock?
Yeah. Actually, I have in fact done that. I haven’t finished Bioshock, but you give me ClayFighter and a room of people to play with, and I’ll break the shit out of that game. But, Street Fighter is special to me. I think that series is the core of fighting games. It is the game that defined the genre. From a design perspective, there are a lot of elements that go into that game which contain the guts. There is something special to me about that. You can be good at any fighting game, and that’s great, but I will have utmost respect for you if I can tell you’re good at Street Fighter.

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Your book seems to imply that the best way to master most fighting games is to start with Street Fighter.
As a community of practice, we’re trying to figure out how to be good at these games. Maybe you spend a lot of time practicing in training mode, or practicing in set ups. Maybe there isn’t a best way, but it takes a lot of time, you have to play a lot of people. It’s not like games in general emphasize your ability to teach other people. A few years after getting into Street Fighter, I got into Brazilian Jujitsu and the interesting thing about those combat sports is part of learning and to be better at the sport is to learn how to teach. Simultaneously, as you’re learning, you’re teaching those who know even less.

Fighting games have that, certainly, we push each other to get better, but we don’t necessarily go out of our way to learn how to be better teachers. I started early with Capcom vs. SNK, and I got my ass beat for a very long time, but I noticed I got a lot better after I took a week or two out to play Super Street Fighter II Turbo. It goes back to basics, it made me learn what the fundamentals of what fighting games are, in an environment, a game where there are no shortcuts, there aren’t even that many options. In Capcom vs. SNK 2, if Ryu throws a fireball at me, depending on what character I play I could have dozens of different ways to deal with it. Ryu throws a fireball at me in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, I could jump, I could throw a fireball back, and all characters have at least one or two other options. It’s a lot more simplified. That’s why I based the book around Ryu in Super Turbo, because like I said before the Street Fighter II series is the genesis of where all fighting games sprang. You can start with this and apply the skill set to whatever fighting game you want to learn.

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Street Fighter is special to me. I think that series is the core of fighting games. It is the game that defined the genre. 

Teaching makes you a better player yourself, and you mention not being the greatest player yourself, so was that an incentive to put this book together?
Totally. I believe I don’t truly understand something unless I can teach it myself. I actively compete, and I put words to the things that I’m learning in hopes that I can teach someone else. I consider teaching and competition a virtuous cycle. I would love to win Evo, but competition is what validates your teaching.

You say Street Fighter II is the genesis of fighting games, and with many other genres they’ve evolved in very obvious ways over the decades, yet while there have been technical advancements for fighting games they’ve more or less kept the same structure. Why is that?
That’s a good question, I think if you look at video games in general we’re bad at innovating from scratch. You can say similar things about Super Mario World, we still play lots of 2D platformers. There’s a lot to be found that’s compelling in Street Fighter, the basic elements that you’re playing with, but by no means is it the only successful or good model for fighting games. Smash Bros. for example, no fixed health bars, you have a percentage. You don’t have fixed knock-backs. I think it did some really great stuff, and hasn’t seen many successful imitators, like PlayStation All-Stars. PlayStation All-Stars? I feel like I’m missing a word in there.

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I used to be a video host for MLG, and there were a lot of coaches for first–person shooters, but it sounds like there isn’t anyone taking that role within fighting games.
We don’t have a tradition of coaching, certainly not the extent of analysts and coaches you see in League of Legends. In fighting games, it’s not really there yet. It’s coming. Evo 2012 championships, there was Infiltration, and he had his buddy Laugh. Laugh would place highly in tournaments, he wouldn’t do as well as Infiltration but you’d always seem him standing there with a notebook, and they’d talk, confer about these matches to make sure he has his head on straight. You’ll also see a lot of coaching happen during the match itself.

In your book you have 11 key tips, and “don’t jump” really hit home for me. What’s the most common mistake among new players?
I mean, if there’s one thing I can tell anybody to make their Street Fighter game better, it’s don’t jump. Specifically don’t jump forward.

Aw crap.
That’s almost like, a point of maturity. You’ve ascended from scrubs to promising beginner if you know you shouldn’t be jumping, because jumping is bad. Every player in the game has something they can do if someone jumps right at them. It’s exposing you to a situation where you’re banking on your opponent not hitting that anti-air move in time. If your reaction and your game knowledge is on-point, then in theory no one should be able to jump. And if they do jump in on you, you should punish them with a Dragon Punch or a super. It’s the equivalent to being in a ring with someone, and you just ran straight at them. I used to be a boxing coach, and when you go to get your license, one of the rules that USA Boxing gives you is that fundamentally, boxing is about not getting hit.

You have to get good at losing. You have to learn how to take things away from a loss, and you have to learn not to get so salty that you just quit forever. This is not a typical experience for video games. Fighting games keep you honest, you can only be as powerful as the people around you let you be.

Did any of your coaching experience spill over into writing this book? 
I think so, certainly in the homework section. That is the kind of thing that I tried to work with the kids I was teaching. Setting up drills, trying to identify what it is that makes someone good at something. What does it mean to acquire a skill, how can we make it that you execute the right specific moves in the proper situation. A lot of that applies to Street Fighter as well.

Are scrubs really such an epidemic?
They used to be. It’s not too bad a problem now. Remember earlier when I said competition is the only way to validate information?  In the early days of Street Fighter, when Usenet was the only place people were talking about Street Fighter in a remotely organised fashion, it was super easy for anyone to say they beat everyone at their arcade, in their city. It was so easy to talk shit. There wasn’t this infrastructure to tie things together, there weren’t video sharing services. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll have a business trip into this guy’s town and you can pop by and body him on the way.

That seems dedicated.
That’s actually how people did it back then. You’d have set-up grudge matches of just two guys meeting in an arcade, one from California the other Chicago. Losing in fighting games is a really miserable experience. You have to get good at losing. You have to learn how to take things away from a loss, and you have to learn not to get so salty that you just quit forever. This is not a typical experience for video games. Fighting games keep you honest, you can only be as powerful as the people around you let you be.