Street Fighter 6’s modern controls are a blessing, says I, a filthy casual

destructoid.com:

One of the most significant and recognizable changes in my gaming habits over the past 30 years has been my slow retreat from the fighting game genre. Mind you, I was never really into the FGC, having participated in one entire tournament in my life when I was very young. But like many of those who came of age during the original console wars, Street Fighter II and its various iterations integrated itself into my life, my leisure time, and my many playground conversations with friends. We shared strategies, talked up our favorite characters (Cammy here), and convinced each other that the lies of secret characters we heard from the older kids were totally true but we just weren’t skilled enough to access them.

I spent many of my school years attempting to get good at Street Fighter, Tekken, and TMNT Tournament Fighters. I never really did, maxing out at what I’d label “adequate.” And I was fine with adequate, really. That was a decent middle ground for somebody who knew the controls and some combos but didn’t have the time to fully sink his teeth in.

To actually maintain my adequate level, I’d have to play with some regularity. But as I traded velcro shoes and Mead Peechee folders for dorm rooms and an eventual career, I discovered I no longer had the time to actually learn how to play a game. I didn’t have it in me to spend weekends remastering a six-button control scheme while learning intricate new combos and often confusing specials. I needed games to come ready to play for me, where everything I needed to know could be picked up in a matter of minutes rather than a matter of days. I guess that’s why I played a lot of Mortal Kombat in those years.

It was pretty easy for me to forget about fighters in the aughts as the