By Justin Wong of Evil Geniuses
Everyone knows me as a player who enjoys playing multiple fighting games. I enjoy playing so many because I grew up loving how mechanics, engines, and how character design worked in fighting games. Currently, I’m really only playing Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Ultra Street Fighter IV. However, I am waiting for Mortal Kombat X, which will be my third game. I want to talk about the pros and cons of playing multiple fighting games at the same time at a competitive level.
Pros:
1. Less down time at tournaments. If you play multiple fighting games, it can help you kill time and your hands will never be too cold while you wait for stage 2 of a tournament.
2. Make more friends with the other community. Not everyone will play multiple fighting games so this can help you branch out in terms of making new friends.
3. More stream time. The more you are on stream; the more people will remember WHO YOU ARE.
4. Learn different strategies and incorporate them into other fighting games. This can give you ideas on more of an eccentric style and can make your main character/team stand out more.
Cons:
1. Staying on top of the game. It’s really hard to juggle and master multiple games at once just because of how tough the competition is these days.
2. Mixing up your controls. You might have an accidental execution input, which can cost you in advancing to the next level of the tournament.
3. Combo error. You might play the same character in both games, which can influence you to execute the wrong combos (USF4+SFXT) (UMVC3+MVC2)
Now I will talk about how playing UMVC3 and USF4 has helped me become a better player in these particular games. Playing Marvel helped my Ultra game by making me better at evading my opponent’s attack. I use a lot more focus back dashes, which enables me to control the ground more because blocking is very hard in Marvel. I personally think if you want to become good at Marvel, you have to be good at dodging and evading, hence the Bullet Hell of Morridoom. Now, there is no Morridoom in Ultra, but it helps me understand how to fight very aggressive characters like Yun, Cammy, Rufus, Abel, Fuerte, etc. Because of Marvel, I never let my opponent bully me in terms of rush down.
How did Ultra help my Marvel game? I believe that Ultra helped my train of thought. It made me understand about how to make people kill themselves in Marvel. When I play Ultra, if you play lame, you can make players make offensive mistakes. I took this same strategy and I applied it to Marvel. How? Perfect example is when I play Storm. I will stay in the air and float my way down while the opponent comes at me and that is why I counter attack and punish them for their attempts of trying to make a “One Player Game”. This also applies when people try to rush down my anchor Akuma, which is why my success rate for making comebacks with him is HUGE.
It is very hard to play multiple games in the end, but it’s also fun and challenging. If you are a hardcore/competitive fighting gamer who has a passion in the fighting game genre, give every game a chance! Thanks for reading this and hope to see you at future tournaments!!!
Follow Justin on twitter @JWonggg