This is serving as a preface to a series of articles about how to understand and play fighting games. I absolutely love playing fighting games; they are my favorite genre to play through. There's a certain rush that overcomes me whenever I'm watching or executing a stylish combo. My blood gets pumping getting into tough matches against people of similar skill and battling it out. I always leave a match tingling and hungry for more.

I understand, playing a fighting game is hard and most of the time, they're played in a casual setting among friends where understanding the game's deeper mechanics and frame data are left to the side. The coolest looking or the comic relief characters are picked and button mashing ensues. In other situations, there's a group of friends who have that one friend who actually is very adept at fighting games and playing with him means no one is going to have a good time playing with him.

The next thing is that some get a game and jump online to play multiplayer and then get bodied. Its disheartening to watch the character you play get stomped on over and over and over again; hearing them scream in pain and fall to the ground broken and defeated. Then the game spells it out for you in huge letters: YOU LOSE and deep in our hearts we want to win.

This guide is to help move past that feeling and keep persevering. It's gonna hurt and suck but the time spent learning and achieving goals within a fighting are well worth it. In some cases, this helps open new friendships with other players looking to better themselves, if you're looking for competitive players. But enough, for now, this is only a taste of the things to come. Be on the lookout for the new series!