shoryuken!

Call it a sign of aging, but I just don't have the patience to learn to be good at fighting games anymore. I've noticed overall that the level of difficulty I'm willing to put up with has been dropping, but this is the first time that an entire genre has been so out of my league.

What happened was, I rented Street Fighter 4. I have fond memories of playing SF 2 in arcades when I was younger, and even a bit on XBox Live Arcade when Super Street Fighter 2 came out a couple of years ago, but this was an absolute travesty. It was embarassing, I had to take the difficulty setting down to easiest before I could even get past the final boss. I used to be able to beat M. Bison in the arcade, given a few quarters.

I can't blame the game, even though popular opinion about Seth, the final boss, is that he's full of cheap, unblockable moves. I simply don't want to take the time to practice the new focus attacks or ultra combos. I rely on my history with the series and fall back on playing exactly the way I used to, using the same characters as ever. This is why I never even bothered to try playing online, it would be an exercise in frustration.

The whole time I was banging my head against the game, I was thinking that I could be playing something else. Fighting games shouldn't be that hard for me to give up, I haven't really been a huge fan in several years. I think the last one I really played seriously was Tekken 3. So far I'm still good to get headshots in FPS games, or grind for levels in RPG's.
As far as fighting games go, I guess I'll just sit back and remember the glory days.