I saw this trailer live when it debuted during The Game Awards and I know I'm late as hell sharing it here. By now, most people already have Sephiroth in their hands, but it's a cool addition nonetheless. I thought it was a nice touch that they gave Cloud his variation of Omnislash from Advent Children to use as a Final Smash against his primary antagonist.
I was sorting through my various bookmarks saved when I reinstalled Chrome and Opera on my laptop after having to replace the hard drive and noticed that I had a bunch of these fan-made games compiled that I was either keeping tabs on their development progress or had them bookmarked to try out for myself whenever I got a chance.
Before I get into any legal trouble for bringing awareness to this games on this blog, I don't endorse piracy, but that's your own choice if you seek out these games for your own profit or personal gain. I don't gain any profit nor benefit for shedding light about these labors of love from my fellow gamers. I just want to enlighten my readers on some of these excellent byproducts out there.
AM2R is an action-adventure game developed by Argentinian programmer Milton Guasti and released in August 2016 for Windows. It is an unofficial remake of the 1991 Game Boy game Metroid II: Return of Samus in the style of Metroid: Zero Mission.
I personally consider AM2R the definitive Metroid II: Return of Samus remake and the main reason Nintendo got off their asses to do Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3DS. You can still find copies of this online floating around, but Nintendo has done one hell of a job hounding every website and host client to take down the files. This is the only game on this list that I personally had a chance to review in-depth actually.
I personally think that if you're a Metroid fan in any capacity that you should go out of your way to play this "remake" of sorts. DoctorM64's work on this game landed him a job with Moon Studios (creators of Ori and the Blind Forest) and he definitely deserved it with the impressive visual resume he displayed his talents within this fan-made game.
bWWd, a name that you're going to hear about again throughout this post, developed this fan-made game in the same vein of classic 2D beat 'em ups, but with the look and feel of the Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power cartoon series.
bWWd is still doing regular bug fixes and adding additional characters as of this posting.
Before Dragon Ball FighterZ was a gleam in the eye of Arc System Works, there was this game that essentially took everything that players loved about traditional '90s era 2D fighters (namely Capcom) and developed this game to satisfy that craving for something different than what was being offered from the tired and true Budokai series. This game came out in 2014 and still stands as the prime example of what could be done with the DBZ license if passionate fans were behind it.
Fast forward to the beginning of 2018 and we got that with Dragon Ball FighterZ. Hell, Arc System Works need to be thanking these guys (Z2 and the community effort behind this game) as far as I'm concerned.
For those wondering, this game was made out of the MUGEN engine and isn't the only one of it's kind as there's a Naruto game floating around in the same vein as this too.
This is a strange twist on Mega Man's iconic gameplay. This game takes everything that we love about Mega Man and turns into a 2D beat 'em up set in the Mega Man X timeline - specifically after the controversial Command Mission video game. The game is still pretty early in development, but I personally love what I'm seeing so far. You can follow it's ongoing progress in development over on it's Twitter account.
Mega Man 2.5D is an unofficial fan-made game created by Peter Sjöstrand and Edgar Cebolledo.
The project began in 2009 as an animated mockup. Due to the positive response to it, development began on an actual playable version. The main aspect that sets the game apart from other Mega Man games is the Co-op Mode, which has two players fight side by side in order to get through the game. Another thing that's different in Mega Man 2.5D is the use of changing camera perspectives, which is featured heavily in the single-player mode of the game. Because of these game mechanics, Mega Man 2.5D features separate level designs for its co-op and single-player modes.
The idea is to have Mega Man 2.5D be a "greatest hits" type game that brings back stages and bosses from various Mega Man games, while at the same time putting a new spin on them.
This game was created by MegaPhilX as a pseudo-sequel to Mega Man 9 as a bridge between the classic Mega Man series and Mega Man X series. In development, the legitimate Mega Man 10 was announced by Capcom, so a lot of things in-game had to be changed as a result. One funny thing to point out is that Capcom accidentally used some screenshots and media from this game for the marketing for Mega Man 10 in some media outlets, thinking it was the same game.
Zero appears in this game as the final boss as the "Z-Prototype" and is actually playable in an alternate adventure. The plot is similar to Mega Man 10's Roboenza viral outbreak spreading across Dr. Wily's Robot Masters, forcing Dr. Light and Dr. Wily to join forces to develop a cure. This virus is more akin to the Maverick Virus that is commonly known in the X series that causes Reploids to develop violent tendencies and go maverick.
I kept tabs on this game as I personally thought this was an excellent way to explore and bridge the lore for the classic and X series - something that Capcom themselves hasn't done to this day outside of sprinkling breadcrumbs throughout the later entries of the X series prior to Inafune's departure from the company.
Mega Man X: Corrupted is an unofficial, fan-made game by John K. Bacchus (also known as JKB) coded in AS3 using Flex compiler on Flash Develop. The game is modeled after the MMX series' features and gameplay, in the graphic style of the SNES Mega Man X games, with a non-linear interconnected environment, and skill trees to enhance characters and weapons.
Unlike standard MM and MMX titles with boss selection, the game uses a non-linear structure similar to the ones in MMZ1 or ZX games, effectively referred to as the Final Four Effect.
After completing the intro stage, you start in the hunter base and are tasked with stopping the eight Mavericks, but with your current equipment you can only reach three. Upon each of their defeat either you gain a weapon that allows you to travel somewhere new, or the Maverick's destruction causes something to change in the world and grant new places to explore. Examples of such would be Force Starfish, who gives you a weapon that can break hard blocks and crystals, and Sparking Scorpio, who relinquishes his energy back to the power plant so all its devices can function. The world is non-linear and many paths are dependent on the defeat of certain bosses.
The Mega Man X: Corrupted Mavericks don't just wait in their boss room for you to come kill them. They have agendas, and they want to make your life miserable. Each and every Maverick has a mission he's on for the first half of the game, and if you don't go after them, they succeed in carrying it out. One example is Warfare Milodon, who has taken over the weapons factory for the purpose of creating new and powerful mechaniloids for his force, and if he's not one of the first four bosses you defeat, he completes his research and elite enemies start appearing in the world, and Milodon himself gains a powerful new attack. This is the case for all of the last four Mavericks remaining, and all have some effect that makes the world harder and their boss fight harder. When in Sigma Class (Σ Class) all effects are active at once.
The Final Four Effects are :
Warfare Milodon - Upgrades the standard enemies, making them stronger and giving them a red paint job similar to Milodon's. Certain enemies also get new special attacks.
Sparking Scorpio - Adds the black out effect on certain areas from some of the stages, reducing visibility. Certain Buster projectiles can produce a light source for a very short amount of time.
Crystal Rafflar - Creates crystal vines on certain stages, restricting the player's movement and reflecting X's buster shots. Some vines also include insta-death spikes.
Plasma Puffer - Corrupts some of the enemies, making them drop poisonous LE/WE/1-UP after they explode. If the player picks up one of the poisonous capsules his LE/WE/Lives will be reduced. The poisonous capsules can also be destroyed by shooting/slashing them.
Force Starfish - Upgrades the mini-bosses (and the Sentinel enemy), making them stronger, upgrading their attacks or even giving them new ones. They also receive a golden-yellow paint job, similar to that of Starfish's.
Warp Vulpex - Creates vortexes in certain areas of the map that will spawn random corrupted enemies.
Hurricane Hoatzin - Creates a storm effect on some of the map's areas that pushes the player back when moving. It also spawns a new type of enemy across the map - the Storm Balloon.
Neurohack Mosquito - Spreads infectious mosquitoes everywhere on the map that will infect a random enemy on sight, increasing their reaction time, health, and damage. They are immune to status effects while infected.
Very little has been revealed about the story, though JKB has confirmed that the game will take place as an alternate time line after Mega Man X5, thus Axl will not make an appearance.
Sadly, this fan-made game has been development for a VERY long time now and the last time I've checked since back in March of this year, there's no release date. JKBGames has been burning the midnight oil with video updates of his progress here and there on his YouTube channel though.
Mushroom Kingdom Fusion (Formerly known as Super Mario MF, then Super Mario Fusion) is a fan game created by Fusion Team. The main engine of the game is based off of Mario, but with many other characters playable including Sonic and Tails. It is a crossover of many video games.
On March 10, 2015, this game has been cancelled due to development issues, but as of 2017, the game has been scrapped completely due to Nintendo's numerous copyright strikes. That being said, there's still some playable builds of this floating around the 'Net, sporting over 50 levels and playable characters. There's a wealth of people still wanting to make this fan game a reality with playable patches and updates to the original demo/build, releasing as recently as May 2019.
I wouldn't mind giving this a shot over those insane Mario Maker levels that you have to be god-tier good at Mario games to beat.
Pokémon Uranium is a fan-made game based on the Pokémon series. The game was in development for nine years, and used the RPG Maker XP engine. The game adds 150 new fan-made species of Pokémon, along with a new region. Similar to the official games, Uranium contains both online trading and online battling.
I'm not even hardcore into Pokemon (not anymore anyway...), yet I've heard about this one. Nintendo has been notorious about shutting down any site that hosts download files for this game, so you're on your own to fish up a copy. Boy, people think Nintendo are on the nuts of the emulation folks as of late, but that doesn't have nothing on how bad they have been hounding the guys who made this game.
This entry looks and plays like a sequel to the SNES/Sega Genesis original Power Rangers video games set in the Mighty Morphin' era of the franchise with sound clips and audio cues from the show.
This was released back on July 24, 2014 by Merso-X, who is getting pretty popular in this article at this point. The update to that initial release, dubbed Beats of Power - Special Edition, released February 25, 2017 as a PC only update that added 4-player local co-op, additional enemies, along with various bug fixes.
Merso-X has a sequel in development, dubbed Beats of Power 2, focusing exclusively on the Power Rangers Zeo series.
Power Rangers Zeo: Beats of Power 2 (WIP)
YouTube Channel(Merso-X's work on this game and others in development)
I know someone's going to be mad as hell at the lack of Tanya in this...
A sequel is being developed but rendered in the same visual style as the original Mortal Kombat games. I would love to know how they are animating this without the original cast, unless they are just using the stock footage from the first few seasons. So far this looks awesome.
This sequel is currently in development by Merso-X, who recently finished working on another noteworthy entry at the bottom of this list.
After the lackluster reception of Brawl and then Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS, fans got together and developed this title as a proper return to form in the vein of the beloved Melee from back on Gamecube, except with the enhancements to the game brought in with Brawl. This game was so beloved by fans that it became a tournament standard in some major competitive scenes until the almighty (or rather notorious) Nintendo stepped in.
In a bizarre way, I feel that this game is entirely responsible for Smash Ultimate having as many characters that it did along with Nintendo going out of their way to please their player base.
For those worried about possibly damaging their Wii/Wii U's attempting to install and/or run this fan-made game can rest assured that there are plenty of ways to play this legally without tampering with your console.
Out of all of the fan-made games on this list, I believe that this is most recognizable (or rather most popular) one in terms availability and accessibility.
Sonic: After the Sequel is a 2013 platform video game created by Brazilian student Felipe Daneluz (LakeFeperd). It is an unofficial game based on the Sonic the Hedgehog series and set between the official games Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Daneluz's second Sonic game, it follows Sonic: Before the Sequel, which set between the original Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Like its predecessor, After the Sequel stars Sonic the Hedgehog and his sidekick Tails in a quest to retrieve the Chaos Emeralds from Doctor Eggman.
After the Sequel was inspired by Sonic Heroes and other games both inside and outside the Sonic series, and it was developed with Sonic Worlds, an engine based in Multimedia Fusion 2 that reduces the amount of computer programming involved in game creation. It was released as a free download for Microsoft Windows personal computers on June 15, 2013. The game was very well received by video game journalists, who lauded its preservation of retro Sonic gameplay and its eclectic, 1990s-style soundtrack. The trilogy of Before the Sequel, After the Sequel, and their successor Sonic: Chrono Adventure performed unusually well for fangames, having been downloaded 120,000 times by March 2014.
Sonic: Project Hero (WIP)
I saw a bit of footage of this game in action and I thought it looked amazing to say that I'm not even too crazy about Sonic's 3D outings if I'm perfectly honest. It seems like that a lot of the mechanics from previous games were implemented here to please old and newer Sonic fans.
Super Thundercats: The Lost Eye of Thundera
Super Thundercats: The Lost Eye of Thundera is a remake of the 1987 game. It features updated graphics and music, smoother gameplay, stages featuring the Thundertank, and a much needed final confrontation against Mumm-Ra (the original game ends abruptly after completing the last stage).
Another fangame made by the infamous Merso-X. This guy is racking up one hell of an impressive resume with these games based off beloved children's properties. This game however, I wouldn't be putting up to the top of my list of achievements as the original 1987 game wasn't much to write home about anyway, let alone worth making a remake for.
TMNT Rescue-Palooza
Made by the same team that made the He-Man & She-Ra game mentioned earlier on this list. If you love and devour all things TMNT (namely the 1989 animated series) then this game is for you. Much like the He-Man and She-Ra game, just about every TMNT character imaginable is in this game in some capacity, whether playable, as bosses, or for cameos. Definitely a love letter by fans of the series.
(Laughs) April O'Neil is even here in all of her yellow jumpsuit glory.
The title released June 13, 2019 by none other than Merso-X with help from bWWd, who worked on the previously mentioned He-Man & She-Ra game.
The top question that I keep getting since Ultra Street Fighter IV has dropped in the post-Evolution 2K14 gaming landscape is, "Why haven't you bothered to pick up the game?" On top of that, I keep getting the other question, "Do you still play fighters anymore?"
To answer both questions, I'm going to take the time out of my evening and go in-depth on why I'm personally on hiatus.
I'm COMPLETELY burnt out on the genre.
After roughly 400+ hours total on ALL previous versions of Street Fighter IV since the initial launch, I'm done for the time being. I don't have it in me to grind my way up to B+ rank again on Ranked Matches when it took me about a year or two to do so in Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition version 2012. I'm positive that I have hit my plateau with that character (Chun-Li) and despite her balance changes/tweaks in the newest iteration of the game, I doubt I'm going to do much better. I'm not a "pro gamer" and I'm not in the grind to attend tournaments regularly. Lastly and more importantly, I'm not being paid to keep wasting so much time on this single game.
I haven't watched a single tournament stream, Cross Counter videos, nor Wednesday Night Fights/The Runback broadcast since Evolution. To be quite honest, I haven't had the desire to even care. When I was still playing the game regularly, I would check Eventhubs and Shoryuken for news on a daily basis. Currently, I barely pay attention to either site, but I still get news tidbits on my Facebook news feed. Previously, I would be excited to check out a new combo video or tutorial.
Nowadays, I get the feeling of "meh" off almost every new video. No disrespect to the players or the games themselves, but I'm positive that I'm burnt out on this genre for the time being.
Almost ALL of my close friends have moved on...
My friends who I used to regularly spar matches with in Endless Battle at every opportunity we were all online on Xbox Live have moved onto other things in gaming or in life in general - getting married, busy with school/college, moving onto different genres (Call of Duty, Madden, MMORPGs, etc.), or just moving onto a different console (PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One, etc.) than I own (Xbox 360).
The simple solution would be to find new friends and I honestly tried that over the past few years.
Despite being an introverted person (I can easily admit that I'm not the guy who races out excited to meet new people as I have a hard time trusting people to begin with, but that's a story for another day...), I branched out and joined a few fighting game communities. I joined and I'm still a member of Facebook groups oriented towards the characters I main in Street Fighter IV, namely Chun-Li and Rose, but I haven't read nor posted anything in those groups in months. Before that, I was part of the local fighting game community in my home state, but I didn't stick with that as everyone was more preoccupied with either arguing with each other or self-promoting themselves as the "best" when I was under the impression the group should have been about pulling together as a community and helping each other out. That way the community levels up and gets better as whole instead of this one versus everyone mentality that the group had. Apparently, I was wrong. I thanked the admins for their time and quietly walked away from the group. People from that said community still send me event requests and what-not, but I kindly decline to each and every single of one of them. Even doing that got me bad blood with other players who see it as an insult that I'm not "contributing" to the community by playing in every little tournament or attending every event that pops up. It got to the point where I had to curse people out and explain to them that "You nor these games pay my bills, so get off my case."
It reminded me of a situation in a particular professional wrestling discussion group that I'm currently in. There weren't enough people striving for the better of the group and the community as a whole than the majority of people bringing the group down with negativity. Whether your intentions are pure or not, there's no "I" in team. One person can't bear that burden all on their own. For a LONG time, I felt like that had to continue contributing to this genre as one of the "little guys" who understands the struggle to be "not quite" a pro or godlike at these games. Now I see that I don't owe these people anything really. I should be playing these games for MY own entertainment. If people see my gameplay videos or like having games against me online, cool - that's a bonus, but I'm done trying to please people.
Then don't get me started on the people I know online personally who say I should be playing this game or that game because what fighting game I'm currently playing sucks. I had a personal falling out with one friend in particular that he was butthurt that I would only play my fighters on Xbox 360 (despite the fact that use a converter for playing in tournaments when they have the said games on PS3) while he played exclusively on PlayStation 3 and despised anything and everything made by Capcom and Namco-Bandai. Buddy, it's not my fault that you don't know there's other fighting games other than Injustice and Mortal Kombat 9... Protip: Calling the game I'm playing hot garbage isn't going to make me too keen to try out whatever you're trying to sell me into playing.
Allow me to run down my general experience with most fighting games with a quick Cliff Notes' guide:
Arc System Works
Guilty Gear series: Played the hell out of Guilty Gear XX on PlayStation 2 in college, but that was mostly solo play since most people there were into either Tekken or CVS2. Xrd looks okay, but doubt I'm going to be racing out to the store to buy it.
Persona 4: Arena series: Never got into the Persona gaming franchise at all (I plan to eventually...), but the characters do look cool. Haven't played this series at ALL.
BlazBlue series: I gave the original game a shot, but took it back shortly after getting frustrated trying to learn it. I've had friends at anime conventions drag me into trying the newer versions, but I'm still not that keen on playing it seriously.
Capcom
Street Fighter series: Played the original SFII briefly on Sega Genesis, didn't come back to the series until the Alpha series on the original PlayStation. I played Alpha 3 and Street Fighter EX+a more than anything else prior to Street Fighter IV. Unlike most hardcore Street Fighter fans, I can count on one hand how many times I've played Third Strike or Street Fighter III series in general, so go ahead and flame me for that.
Darkstalkers series: Much like the Vs. series, I only played this exclusively in arcades in my hometown. Barely anyone played it so I was left fighting against the lone AI. I know I suck at it, but I love Capcom's character designs for this game too much to let that deter me.
Vs. series: Played just about everything from X-Men: Children of the Atom to Marvel vs. Capcom 2 back in the arcades in my hometown. MvC2 in my area was mostly zoning with projectiles. All of this flying around and everywhere across the screen is COMPLETELY over my head in these newer games. Plus, let's factor in that I lost my "twitch" reactions, thanks to my college years of alcohol and smoking during the height of popularity of Halo 1 and 2. The Vs. series lost me completely after my frustration with Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I love the characters, but it's a game designed to piss you off at every level. For those wondering, I've played CVS2 even less times than I have touched Third Strike. I have NO shame admitting that I will always be a Namco guy over Capcom.
Lab Zero
Skullgirls: I had the demo for Xbox 360 while one of my good friends gifted me the full game on Steam. Once I get a gaming PC built, I'm going to put some time into this game. Much like DarkStalkers, I absolutely LOVE the character designs for this game.
Namco-Bandai
Soul Blade/Soul Calibur series: I think I have had said it back on the original Method to Madness blog, but I'll say it again - my first love of fighting games on the competitive scene was in Soul Calibur II. I attended my first tournament in this game and the first second game took REALLY serious on a competitive level. It's a damn shame that my enthusiasm with this series went out of the window after Soul Calibur IV and V were HUGE disappointments for me personally.
Tekken series: The first Tekken title that I played was Tekken 2 that came with my original PlayStation on a demo disk. I begged my dad to buy me the retail release shortly afterwards. That was the first fighting game that I sat down for hours, learning combos, moves, and experimenting. Like most fans, I loved the boom period of this series around the launch of Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag Tournament, but I fell out of the series when the system changes came around Tekken 4 that were adopted from Dead or Alive. I played Tekken 5 BRIEFLY when visiting friends in college, but I jumped back into the mix for Tekken 6 off and on.
Urban Reign: This was made in the style of Fighting Force from Eidos with a bit of flair from Final Fight/Streets of Rage in 3D. With over 40+ playable characters and some guest stars from Tekken (Paul Phoenix and Marshall Law), I convinced a few of my close friends to play this with me from time to time. It was simple enough to pick up but had enough depth to keep you playing for the long haul. To this day, I still hope and pray that Namco would consider a sequel to this game.
Shonen Jump-based anime fighters (Naruto, Dragonball, One Piece, Bleach, etc.): Oh, anime fighters... the bastard stepchildren of the fighting game genre... I've lost count of how many of these games I've played over the years, but I know for sure that I love the amount of dedication and love is put into this games' narratives to hold true to the source material. Let's not forget accessibility too. If there's anything I can't stand about the FGC at times, it's this so-called elitist attitude that nothing can't be regarded as a fighting game unless it has complicated inputs and one-frame links.
Nintendo
Super Smash Bros. series: Unlike most people, I DID consider this game to be a fighting game. I've attended plenty of anime conventions where people took this game FAR more seriously than anything with Marvel or Street Fighter in the title. I gotta admit that I played more Brawl than Melee though, but I can see why the pros stick with that game over Brawl though.
NetherRealms (formerly Midway)
Injustice: Gods Among Us: After that disaster that was Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, I was glad to see that DC Comics' heroes have proper representation in the fighting game genre, much like Marvel Comics' has their own heroes and villains. I rented this about for a week or two upon launch and QUICKLY grew bored with it. After playing SF4 prior, the animations were really clunky and distracting to me.
Mortal Kombat series: While I played the previous entries briefly with friends over the years, MK Trilogy was the first MK title I actually owned on the original PlayStation. After enjoying Mortal Kombat 4 in arcades, I got that as well, but I fell out of MK completely until their "final" title, Armageddon. I ended up REALLY liking that game, but next to NO ONE I knew played it. After that I stopped caring about Mortal Kombat. I only recently picked up MK9 on 360 after it was discounted on Xbox Live. That title left me feeling rather underwhelmed as well after I had SEVERAL people over-hype that game up.
SNK Playmore
Fatal Fury/King of Fighters series: I played the original Fatal Fury when I discovered the world of emulation in high school, but I played KOF '95 via demo disks for the original PlayStation until I acquired a full retail disk. KOF '99 got a lot of time between my close friends and I in high school for a while, but we quickly went back to Soul Calibur II. I've played the demo for KOF13, but I doubt I would pick up that game anytime soon or ever. The last KOF title I remember owning was 2002/2003 back on PlayStation 2.
Samurai Showdown, Garou: Mark of Wolves, etc.: I remember playing those games sparingly between time on MvC2, Soul Calibur/Blade, Darkstalkers, and Mortal Kombat 4 in arcades.
Tecmo/Team Ninja
Dead or Alive series: Out of ALL of the games that my older brother had on our import Dreamcast when he came back from Korea, I think I only played this ONCE and really didn't care for it. Out of most 3D fighters I'm going to hold Tekken higher than anything else.
Other misc. fighters:
Virtual On series: Another non-traditional fighter, but I enjoyed the competitive aspect of it back in arcades and both the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast ports. Good Lord, the fucking PlayStation 2 sequel was horrible though. I was bummed out that many people didn't play the PSN/XBLA re-release of Ontario Tangram though.
Anarchy Reigns/Max Anarchy: I really had high hopes for this game, but not many people picked it up nor gave it a chance like I did. Platinum Games are definitely my favorite gaming developers in the industry right now and I wish more people got behind this concept instead of allowing it to fall flat into the ground.
Ehrgeiz: Much like many Final Fantasy fans at the time, I played this mainly just to play as the folks from Final Fantasy VII in a fighting game. My best bud had a copy of the PlayStation port, but I preferred the arcade cabinet's setup over the PSX pad layout.
Battle Arena Toshinden series: While I have a love/hate relationship with the PlayStation titles in this series, I played the hell out of the Gameboy port with friends in high school. This was one of the few portable games that wasn't Pokemon that we managed to have mini-tournaments in.
Killer Instinct series: One of my friends growing up had the original for SNES while I played the sequel in arcades off and on. From what I have played of the newest iteration on Xbox One, it reminds me a lot of Street Fighter IV, so I'm sure I would enjoy it if I took the time to learn the game.
This wasn't overnight process either. My spirits were renewed when Tekken Tag Tournament 2 arrived and my close friends had all agreed to form a team on the World Tekken Federation community system, but it ended up with me doing the bulk of the work as I had more matches played and more experience earned for the team than ANYONE else on the team. Nothing against my friends, but if I'm going at this literally solo, then I'm better off not even being on a team. I left the team and only played Tekken Tag Tournament 2 out of my own personal enjoyment. I'm not a great player in that game by any stretch, but the lack of players to practice with locally, combined the frustrations with actually learning the game caused me to fall back into my comfort zone with Street Fighter IV.
I chronicled my journey to B+ rank with Chun-Li on this blog's Facebook page on social media over the past year. That felt like a crowning achievement and personal milestone, but I didn't necessarily feel like "celebrating" when I should have. It merely felt like a reward for my countless hours of online play. With Ultra Street Fighter IV set to release that following week, I made up my mind then and there that I wasn't going to waste my time grinding to this point yet again.
Keep in mind that I already did the level grind from D to B rank in both Super Street Fighter IV AND Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition after the online rankings were reset. To do this feat again, it felt like I was putting myself through the personal Hell that is the hit-or-miss online community of the FGC all over again.
Furthermore, I finally came to grips to the reality...
I have lost my passion for this genre...
Nothing on the market right now really wants to draw me back in. The spark is gone. Sure, the Omega Mode changes to characters for Street Fighter IV sound cool, but I remember in the back of my head that the people I have to play or experiment with those said changes in-game are little to none.
The Mortal Kombat X trailers haven't done anything at all for me as I personally think the game looks like a hi-res version of Mortal Kombat 9. Killer Instinct Season 2 looks cool, but that's not enough to make me run out and purchase a Xbox One just for that. While I'm more inclined to purchase a Wii U in the near-future, I'm not running out for the new Super Smash Bros. like everyone else. Namco's Tekken 7 and Pokken (Pokemon-oriented fighter) are intriguing but not blowing my mind with excitement like they would have a year or two ago.
Everytime I see a new fighter, I get feeling of dread. Dread of having to going through the frustration and trials of learning characters, more dread of being pissed off at myself for not picking up said-characters, and it just gives me a headache thinking about it.
The irony of me not liking the "learning process" is pretty funny though.
A few weeks ago, I found myself discussing fighting games with one of my fellow fanatics of wrestling and he was talking about he was struggling how to do Super and Ultra Combos with charge characters in Street Fighter IV. I casually gave him a technique that I was doing out of habit to help myself and now the guy looks up to me as a mentor to help him learn stuff for the game that he was having trouble with. I don't feel like I'm qualified to be teaching ANYONE. That's why I gave up the Chun-Li Guide project I started on Google Documents back in 2012. It's still there if you want to reference it, but I'm sure that information is completely outdated now in Ultra Street Fighter IV. Consider that my humble gift to my fellow Chun-Li players as I'm sure there's more people who could benefit with all of that information in one place instead of scattered across the 'Net.
Regardless, I felt sorry for the guy and leave my door open for him to instant message me with questions from time to time. If I'm not playing, I guess it's the least I could do for those who are still passionate about the genre. No need for me to drag them down with me.
(Laughs) I guess...
All hope is NOT lost...
My friends, I think we need some time apart... I'm sure you'll be fine without me for a while.
I'm positive that I'm not going to give up fighters for good, but I think my time of playing these games trying to impress people are over. I'm a slightly above-average Joe in this genre, and I'm perfectly fine with that.
I just need a break... I'm sure that I will come back to see my old friends from this genre again sooner or later, but I have a whopping number of games on my always increasing gaming backlog to tackle. I've neglected FAR too many games in the last console generation of gaming and it's about time that I take the time and enjoy those said games and a bit more of life in general.
