Footsies, footsies, footsies - if you spend any time at all in the FGC, you'll hear everybody going on about this thing called "footsies." But we're not talking about pedal foreplay. In the FGC, footsies is the art of approaching the enemy on the ground without getting socked in the mouth. If you wanna block with your face or if you're a scrub who only knows how to jump in, then you don't need to worry about footsies - or, for that matter, winning. Otherwise, you need to have footsies.
The only problem is that fighting games are THE WORST for teaching you how to play footsies. Fighting games are good for teaching execution, and they're good for teaching mind games, but footsies? Nope nope nope! You can't learn footsies at the same time that you're trying to pull off that swag combo. Plus, most modern fighting games have comeback mechanics that reward you for NOT playing footsies: "Oops, I have no footsies! Oops, I got smacked around in the neutral! But hey, now I've got V-trigger, time for my 85% Aegis-setup comeback!" So if you really want to learn footsies, for the love of god, DO NOT PLAY FIGHTING GAMES. Instead, play Dark Souls.
In that video, starting around the 14:00 mark, you'll hear Super Couch Fighters cohost Brett Bayonne attempt to teach footsies to a let's-player, demonstrating in the process why Dark Souls is the perfect environment for breaking people of their terrible neutral game. When you play Dark Souls, it's impossible to worry about execution: literally you have one button. Dark Souls also nullifies the temptation to jump in by making it impossible to jump. Best of all, Dark Souls wants you to lose, so it doesn't give you shit for a comeback mechanic. You don't have X-factor, you don't have meter, you don't have rage, you don't have Infinity gems, and you can't clash. You can get health back, but guess what? If you suck so much that a normal enemy can get you down to low health, healing is just gonna make the ass-whooping last longer.
Fighting games let you cheese your way to victory even if you suck at footsies. But the only way to win at Dark Souls is to GIT GUD: you have to have spacing, timing, patience, and humility, all of the things that go into a solid footsies game. Will you have fun learning that way? Well, no. I mean, it's not called "Fun Souls." But that shit will give you feet of fucking steel.
The only problem is that fighting games are THE WORST for teaching you how to play footsies. Fighting games are good for teaching execution, and they're good for teaching mind games, but footsies? Nope nope nope! You can't learn footsies at the same time that you're trying to pull off that swag combo. Plus, most modern fighting games have comeback mechanics that reward you for NOT playing footsies: "Oops, I have no footsies! Oops, I got smacked around in the neutral! But hey, now I've got V-trigger, time for my 85% Aegis-setup comeback!" So if you really want to learn footsies, for the love of god, DO NOT PLAY FIGHTING GAMES. Instead, play Dark Souls.
In that video, starting around the 14:00 mark, you'll hear Super Couch Fighters cohost Brett Bayonne attempt to teach footsies to a let's-player, demonstrating in the process why Dark Souls is the perfect environment for breaking people of their terrible neutral game. When you play Dark Souls, it's impossible to worry about execution: literally you have one button. Dark Souls also nullifies the temptation to jump in by making it impossible to jump. Best of all, Dark Souls wants you to lose, so it doesn't give you shit for a comeback mechanic. You don't have X-factor, you don't have meter, you don't have rage, you don't have Infinity gems, and you can't clash. You can get health back, but guess what? If you suck so much that a normal enemy can get you down to low health, healing is just gonna make the ass-whooping last longer.
Fighting games let you cheese your way to victory even if you suck at footsies. But the only way to win at Dark Souls is to GIT GUD: you have to have spacing, timing, patience, and humility, all of the things that go into a solid footsies game. Will you have fun learning that way? Well, no. I mean, it's not called "Fun Souls." But that shit will give you feet of fucking steel.
Or you can read the classic Maj's Footsies Handbook: http://sonichurricane.com/?page_id=1702 :)
ReplyDeleteDamn - that shit is extremely extensive.
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