It's Critter Time!

The Oxford English Dictionary defines fighting games as Cool, Dope and chiefly, Hip.

I've always been fascinated with fighting games, however having grown up a PC gamer the picks were slim, and chance to learn stick inputs slimmer (though I'll go bat for One Must Fall 2027 any time!), however I've put more of an effort to get better at them lately, starting with Pokken and then moving on to Tekken 7 (and now 8).



Am I any good? Heck no, but I'm having fun. The proliferation of leverless controllers has really helped me, because I am absolutely terrible with stick inputs.

So come nerd out about your faves, show us your stick, heck, maybe find some new rivals!

Fighting games are something I’d really love to try and get at least decent at

But my severe social anxiety bleeds into even online gaming which puts a hamper on that

I have a SnackBox leverless controller though, I love that itty bitty thing

Finally someone made a fighting games thread!

I love fighting games so much, it's my favorite genre. I bounce a lot between games, which translates into having good fundementals but I lack game-specific expertise. I played Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat 3 as a kid on consoles, but since PC had slim pickings, the first game I really got into was Guilty Gear X on the PC. The first fighting game I got good at was BlazBlue.

But I've played so many of them and there's so many good ones to choose from!

If you want to play something on PC these days, you can find anime and 3D and traditional fighting games. If you want to dig through the oldies, Fightcade is a treasure trove (I personally always recommend Toy Fighter).

I've been on a BlazBlue Centralfiction binge lately, and it seems a lot of people are talking about BB, but I'm also itching to try out the characters in Strive that I missed out on.

And remember, if you want to play a fighting game, you just need to convince 2 other people and you have a mini scene ready.

EcoHound wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:07 pm Fighting games are something I’d really love to try and get at least decent at

But my severe social anxiety bleeds into even online gaming which puts a hamper on that

I have a SnackBox leverless controller though, I love that itty bitty thing

Oh, that thing looks adorable!

I have two controllers, I started with a tiny knock-off with keyboard keys that I'm actually quite fond of, and then once I decided that, yeah, I do want to play more Tekken actually, I got a Haute Pad M Ultra. They both run the open source GP2040-CE firmware, so hopefully they have a long life of support ahead of them.

Enbyeon wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:33 pm Finally someone made a fighting games thread!

I love fighting games so much, it's my favorite genre. I bounce a lot between games, which translates into having good fundementals but I lack game-specific expertise. I played Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat 3 as a kid on consoles, but since PC had slim pickings, the first game I really got into was Guilty Gear X on the PC. The first fighting game I got good at was BlazBlue.

But I've played so many of them and there's so many good ones to choose from!

If you want to play something on PC these days, you can find anime and 3D and traditional fighting games. If you want to dig through the oldies, Fightcade is a treasure trove (I personally always recommend Toy Fighter).

I've been on a BlazBlue Centralfiction binge lately, and it seems a lot of people are talking about BB, but I'm also itching to try out the characters in Strive that I missed out on.

And remember, if you want to play a fighting game, you just need to convince 2 other people and you have a mini scene ready.

How do you recommend a beginner to start getting good?

Enbyeon wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:33 pmAnd remember, if you want to play a fighting game, you just need to convince 2 other people and you have a mini scene ready.

I was just lamenting this two weeks ago when trying to find more people to play with. With the death of FA's forums, furry has kind of lost a town square, a central place where you can meet and talk to people who aren't in your immediate circle (or your circle's circle).
There is no place where you can go, say "hey, I'm interested in X, who's with me!" and have interested strangers bop in.

Sure, there's Discord and social media, but none of them are really fit for purpose. Discord is a chatroom (no one uses threads...) where your message will reach only that server's population, and even then only those that are looking at that room before your message scrolls off it.
And social media is just talking to people who are already paying attention to you.

So hey. If anyone else plays Tekken and wants to crush a scrub King...

Weasel wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:34 pm I have two controllers, I started with a tiny knock-off with keyboard keys that I'm actually quite fond of, and then once I decided that, yeah, I do want to play more Tekken actually, I got a Haute Pad M Ultra. They both run the open source GP2040-CE firmware, so hopefully they have a long life of support ahead of them.

Hidden text.

I have a Haute42 B16 and I absolutely adore the thing. Recently modded mine with MX Brown switches and art and it feels really good.

It's actually kind of funny because I'm primarily a grappler player and was able to get 360s out on almost any controller no problem. But now, I gotta retrain my brain for doing them now with the leverless.

Yeah I really love fighters, but social anxiety to the point I dont really feel comfy even asking people for games means a LOT of my playtime ends up labbing and in arcade mode, lmao.

Im ESPECIALLY a fan of fighters that initially seem kinda basic, but are actually so layered in the amount of smaller interactions that can stack up to the point the skill ceiling is astronomical.

Oh hello Weasel...

I've been learning Tekken 8 alongside the OP, but my true love is 2D fighters, particularly the King of Fighters series on the Neo-Geo, along with Street Fighter III Third Strike.

I'm a definite arcade stick devotee. I've been tempted to try leverless controllers, but now that I've learnt how to use a traditional stick, it feels comfortable and I don't currently want to spend the time in re-learning how to control.

Sadly the city we both live in doesn't really seem to have an FGC, so finding others to throw down with has been a bit difficult.

I'd really love if we ended up scheduling something here - it'd be great to hop into a lobby with some other fluffs for an evening.

Ah forgot to mention

Games I’m interesting in getting decent in
Guilty Gear Strive (Ky)
Tekken 8 (Reina)

However I have absolutely zero fundamentals…

Reina is such a fun character, I love everything about her design.

Still something of a very casual/novice fighter, but what Enby said is so true: we ended up getting into them for real exactly because two other friends wanted to play SF6 at the same time. We haven't really messed around with any one thing too much yet, but Virtua Fighter has been a very fast and unexpected favorite. Would love to spend more time with the Samshos too. Have spent a pretty good amount of time with Strive so that we have at least the basics down good (May... beloved May). Slower games might be more for us. That said it's always worth trying something out, and the only person we need to beat..... is ourselves.

Shoutouts to another of our admins Lolo de Puzlo also since we've gotten to sample a bunch of stuff on the Saturday streams. Some of them have even been better than Shura no Mon

Would play whatever with whoever.

EdenCoven wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 4:25 pm Still something of a very casual/novice fighter, but what Enby said is so true: we ended up getting into them for real exactly because two other friends wanted to play SF6 at the same time. We haven't really messed around with any one thing too much yet, but Virtua Fighter has been a very fast and unexpected favorite. Would love to spend more time with the Samshos too. Have spent a pretty good amount of time with Strive so that we have at least the basics down good (May... beloved May). Slower games might be more for us. That said it's always worth trying something out, and the only person we need to beat..... is ourselves.

Shoutouts to another of our admins Lolo de Puzlo also since we've gotten to sample a bunch of stuff on the Saturday streams. Some of them have even been better than Shura no Mon

Would play whatever with whoever.

Many games better than Shura no Mon, but certainly not as memorable.

Beancatte wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:53 pm Yeah I really love fighters, but social anxiety to the point I dont really feel comfy even asking people for games means a LOT of my playtime ends up labbing and in arcade mode, lmao.

oh you too huh lmao

i keep buying fighting games and i keep being too chickenshit to actually play games with anyone or online and so i just. stop playing them

also not helping matters is the fact the only games i was even slightly competent at are killer instinct or DOA and like. only about 17 people on earth play those games

Quick, Jennifer, light the Fox Signal, another Killer Instinct enjoyer has been found!

I love fightgames.
The last I got was VF5 on steam.

50 or so hours of it, mainly playing Jeffry online.
I am not good at it but goddamn it is fun

SF6 Marisa main
Guilty Gear Faust main

I hate that I am too good at the games I like to play meatspace friends, but usually not good enough to do well online lol

Oh man fighting games are one of those genres that I love to play casually but are absolute trashcan garbage at in any "real" setting (aka vs other players)

We had Street Fighter II Turbo (not super turbo) on my family's old SNES which is what got me into it, and then Super Smash Bros on N64 and Melee on Gamecube. I also remember playing Tekken 3 the brief time we had a playstation. I remember Super/Ultra Street Fighter 4 was the first fighting game I actually started like, trying to get good at. I mained Guy at first but also enjoyed playing Dudley, and eventually wanted to learn Gouken. Then I got the X360 Third Strike remaster and saw Q and it was over for me. I never played online in that one though because even I knew that Q was low tier and I wasn't anywhere near good enough to compete seriously with him. SFV came out and I originally wanted to play Charlie but I ended up surprisingly liking Vega a lot too, though I never really took it as seriously as I did USF4.

Nowadays in general I don't really have the free time to play all the games I want, but I still hold onto a bunch of fighting games in the hopes that the spark will strike and I'll want to pursue it more. I've been really enjoying SF6's story mode and how customizable your avatar character is, I tried out Killer Instinct and would be interested in trying it out more but the flashy fighting style feels daunting to me. My housemate got me to buy Guilty Gear Strive and BlazBlue Centralfiction, but I haven't really gotten into those as much. I bought DragonBall FighterZ and am really interested in trying to learn it, but I have yet to even play the story mode so we'll see lmfao.

These are the fighties I've got:

I've never put in the time to get anything close to good at 'em, and honestly can't spare the time required to practice but I still love playing fighting games casually with folks. Third Strike is such a blast, SoulCalibur rules and I wanna put more time into it, and Them's Fightin' Herds is just about the only modern fighter I've put any time into... So many modern ones have gotten so complicated. - Finn (fae/she)

P.S. A forum-wide fight night would be rad. Especially if it's just a grab bag of random games, love doing that.

I love playing Big Guys in Fighting games, even when they're not considered high tier or whatever lol. I feel like I've been playing as Zangief for literally my entire life.

i tend to gravitate to rushdown characters but only because that means i'm allowed to press as many buttons as i can as fast as possible

Moot wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 6:00 pm i tend to gravitate to rushdown characters but only because that means i'm allowed to press as many buttons as i can as fast as possible

yinglet style behaviour

Lolo De Puzlo wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:48 pm I have a Haute42 B16 and I absolutely adore the thing. Recently modded mine with MX Brown switches and art and it feels really good.

Really gotta get some stickers on mine, though I did make the buttons match my sona's paw.
I messed around with a whole bunch of fighting games as a kid, but just never once thought to like, "learn" them in any meaningful way, instead mashing or spamming uppercuts or whatever with a million continues until I'd luck into beating an arcade mode. Despite this my brother (who also didn't get particularly deep into any of them) and I wound up with a ton of games. SF2 Snes, Mortal Kombat 1-3, a bunch of Tekkens fsr?

When Smash Bros. Brawl was new my friend group in college played it all the time, but it was still very much us just goofing around doing 3 or 4 player matches depending on who was around and embracing the chaos of a lot of items. Which was definitely a very fun way to play but now I feel like it's the equivalent of having a piano and only other poking keys one at a time. It'll make a pleasant noise but you're missing out on a lot!!

I've got a friend who's been big into Street Fighter since 4, and when my partner and I played 6 when it was brand new at his place, my partner who had dabbled in Dragon Ball Fighterz picked it up. I joined them figuring since it was so new to everyone I'd be able to enjoy it without getting completely steamrolled and that in a few weeks they'd be so far ahead with their "practicing combos" that I'd just stop playing since I didn't want the game to be work.

Turns out that didn't happen! I realized I could improve at my own pace, and just the sheer repetition would be enough that I when we do first to 20s it's usually like 20-17 with either one of us on top. He had a hand me down stick from said friend and switched to a leverless and asked if I wanted one so I got my own (was using a gamepad before).

Now I've gone from Iron 1 up to Diamond 4 as Lily and it's been a blast. It's given me and my partner a game we can play together regularly, and something we can enjoy with friends. We've got a little Telegram group mostly for SF6 and arranging fights with one another and some cool people showed up from it.

It would be a lot of fun to play with folks here too! Y'all should be posting your names so we can all throw down!!

https://www.streetfighter.com/6/buckler ... 2531364579

I LOVE FIGHTIES!!!

(also do vs puzzlers count? Columns 3 has what is basically a punch button)

I used to resent them for a while (due to "good locally, bad online") but came around to the power of Losing Is Fun; for that matter playing Rivals of Aether helped open up one of my deepest friendships, so I do think of the social aspects fondly.

These days I don't play so much (just don't have Spoons i guess); for SF6 and GGST in particular, I play on PS, and it's a little awkward finding the Right Time to play because I can't easily commit to paying subscriptions. (Maybe I should plan some sessions with my friends though? If I can't be spontaneous...)

On PC I don't play much for different reasons (Laptop is not very strong) but it can still handle some pure-2D fighters, so I can be a little more spontaneous there. My steam profile is here for game-browsing purposes, keeping a list manually would probably be inefficient :P

honorary mention to my grappler sona Sud who is a dishwasher protogen. he was made for an FG concept I had and is a sona now. he is why I took interest in grapplers (I'm usually rushdown-leaning)

I used to use a HORI Fighting Commander (been using them since the second iteration) but the OCTA isn't that good (the Xbox one at least) and the old ones are harder to get, so fixing/replacing them is a nightmare. I love the d-pad, but the face buttons are pretty low quality.
I'm now trying to learn the padbox. I'm forcing myself to use it for everything outside of serious BB matches. It's been difficult, but I think it will pay off in the long run.

Ja'aran wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 5:29 pm I love playing Big Guys in Fighting games, even when they're not considered high tier or whatever lol. I feel like I've been playing as Zangief for literally my entire life.

Hidden text.

Oh hey, fellow chunky grappler enjoyer! I don't play SF6, however I have been absolutely adoring listening to what a menace modern controls Gief is.

And I'll echo what some other folks have said, I would absolutely be down for forum fight nights- group up, pick a few games and get matches going.
I imagine timezones make cross-continent games unlikely except on weekends, but hey, you never know.