2297: Fighting Rhythm

I’ve been giving Dead or Alive 5 Last Round a bit of a go. Dead or Alive has been probably my favourite fighting game series since its second installment on Dreamcast, although I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been particularly amazing at it. The wonderfully assorted characters and the satisfying fighting action meant it didn’t matter all that much, though; I just enjoyed the spectacle of the game, since it’s always been quite a looker, and the PlayStation 4 incarnation of Dead or Alive 5 is no exception.

What I surprised myself with earlier today was how much I actually managed to get “in the zone” and feel like I was getting a much better grip on the button combinations necessary to fight effectively rather than just mashing the punch and kick buttons and directions randomly and/or instinctively. I deliberately invested some time in the game’s training mode — by far the most in-depth, helpful and well-designed training mode I’ve seen in a fighting game — and came away with a somewhat better understanding of many of the mechanics as well as knowledge of at least a couple of basic combos. Doubtless not quite enough to make me competitive online, of course, but a start, at least.

When I was focusing on correctly performing these combos in the training mode, I found myself focusing and concentrating on the movements of my fingers in much the same way one does when playing a musical instrument. Speed and accuracy is key in both instances, and you won’t truly master either until you have the necessary movements well and truly ingrained in your muscle memory. Music is perhaps a bit different in that performing a piece usually involves doing the same movements at the same time each time you play it, whereas a fighting game involves making use of various combos — musical phrases, if you will — according to the situation in which you find yourself. In some regards, then, it can probably be likened to an improvisatory performance; the cues are just visual rather than a chord sequence.

I’ve never been that good at improvisation, tending to fall back on a few reliable things that I know. In music, it’s things like the blues scale; in fighting games, it’s the few combos I know — inevitably the most simple ones. To step up your game in either field, you need to expand your repertoire: learn new phrases, be able to perform them on command, commit them to memory, then know the best circumstances in which to use them. It’s something that takes practice, and something that not everyone will have the patience for.

I’ve shied away from many modern fighting games simply because their mechanics and systems seem so obtuse, with meters all over the screen and all manner of peculiar terminology flying around. Dead or Alive, meanwhile, has always felt like a relatively pure and easy to understand experience, and after my experiences today I find myself feeling a little more confident that I might actually be able to learn the game beyond button-mashing. Whether or not that ends up being the case remains to be seen, but in the meantime, I have one hell of a pretty game to look at.

(Also, Marie Rose best girl. Now I know, people. Now I know. Bakabakabakabaaaakaaaa!)