The Unimportance of Combos in Fighting Games
(Adapted from a SonicFox post thread on X)
Combos are not the most important thing in 99% of fighting games.
More importantly, when learning a fighting game, combos are not the first thing that should be learned.
Learning how to navigate the neutral game is vastly more important than learning combos.
The mainstream gaming audience always thinks of fighting games as just, “Oh, do this awesome combo!” when, in reality, there's much more going on under the hood.
Here's a good list of things to understand in any given fighting game, in order of importance:
- General Gameplay Mechanics
- Character Archetype
- Neutral
- Punishment
- Combos
Most people start with learning combos, and will often stop their learning there, as well. When the time comes for a “combos first” player to take their game to the next level, they most likely won't understand how to get there naturally, let alone quickly and efficiently.
When learning a fighting game, often the most important thing to understand is how to even hit your opponent, understand why they would get hit, and, when the time comes, to make that hit count (with combos).
There is an entire encyclopedia's worth of things to know about fighting game fundamentals and you have to understand all of it in order to become a great player.
Combos are cool and all, but learning them first and then expecting to be good is like trying to drive a car without first reading the driver's manual: You’re inevitably going to hit a wall.
When the day comes that mainstream audiences start seeing fighting games as consisting of things like footsies, spacing, reads, and mind games (and not just combos), it will be a day worthy of celebration.
The application of fundamentals is part of what makes fighting games so interesting to play, although everyone would agree that it's always fun to see cool combos every now and again. Just keep your priories straight when actually learning how to play fighting games and you'll be good.
Sources
– AndyLO2's video on the subject
Andy's video is well worth a watch if you want to see the method applied to an actual game (in this case, Street Fighter 6). He also links some great videos on understanding footsies, which I also recommend watching (turns out, it's not just using your character's good pokes at mid-range to look like you know what you're doing).
– SonicFox's original post on X
Some of the replies to the posts in the thread have some interesting things that could be gleaned, as well (i.e. someone mentioning that Kazunoko won several DBFZ tournaments while only using BnB combos, and SonicFox echoed back by saying that he did the same thing with UNIST [do bear in mind that the original post is from 2020-11-16]).
Also included in this blog post (directly below) is a word-for-word transcript of SonicFox's original post thread, in case the original is ever lost (curse words censored by yours truly :P).
Original Thread
Post 1
PSA since it’s always in my mind.
Combos are NOT the most important thing in 99% of fighting games.
And more importantly, combos don’t come first when learning a fighting game usually.
Post 2
Neutral >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Combos
Lotsa mainstream always think fighting games is just “ohhh do this awesome combo” when there is like, SOOOOOOOO much more important stuff to fighting games.
Post 3
My order of importance ladder in terms of necessity to understand always goes:
General Gameplay Mechanics Character Archetype Neutral Punishment Combos
Most people only start and often stop at combos, and never understand how to get to that next step quickly and efficiently.
Post 4
The most important thing is understand how to even HIT your opponent, understand WHY they would get hit, and when the time comes, to make that hit COUNT (combos).
Fighting game fundamentals is it’s own entire encyclopedia of s*** to know too, and you HAVE to understand all of it
Post 5
Especially if you’re trying to get even remotely ~decent~ at a game. Combos are cool and all, but learning them first and then trying to expect to be good is like getting in a car and trying to drive without reading the manual. You’re inevitably gonna hit a wall!
Post 6
When mainstream starts seeing fighting games as like footsies spacing reads and mindgames over just combos, I’ll be f***ing ecstatic LMAO
Fundamentals to me are what make fighting games so interesting ~
But cool combos are sick too every now and again 😉
Post 7
Disclaimer: I find combos to be the funnest things about fighting games too.
If a fighting game has like no combos or no “sauce” to them, I can’t play it for very long without getting bored lmao.
It’s why I personally don’t play Samurai Shodown 💀💀