The same thing happened to me in June, I discovered BlazBlue and was like wow, this game is amazing, I have to learn to play fighters... So from someone about half a year ahead of you, here's the kind of advice you'll be looking for.
- Do it! It's like learning to ride a bike, you'll suffer and be near the point of tears, then one day, all of sudden, it'll click and you'll be on top of the world!
- It took a professional player sitting down with me for two hours online and repeating the same attack over and over until I figured out what to do and when... THE key thing with fighters is this: There are times when you
absolutely, under no circumstances must not press a button, and
there are times when you absolutely have to press a button (attack) ; pressing a button when you should be blocking is the quickest way to get thrashed, while just blocking when you should be attacking is the quickest way to get put in a corner or mixed up and then thrashed
- It's not about combos! A pro player can beat you or me down in no time using just one button. Why? Because he's mastered two things:
spacing (making sure the distance between yourself and your opponent is such that it is to your advantage and not his) and
frame data (knowing how quickly your different attacks come out/how long you'll have to recover from them). This is basically what it all comes down to, get this down and you can drop combos left and right and you'll still be in with a chance.
- Get a game with a good tutorial mode. Skullgirls is excellent I hear, and I was very happy with BlazBlue. I love how the combos it gives you to practice have a show option where you can see the computer doing it, it really helps get the timing down.
- And most importantly... James Chen, this guy is awesome, he's a fighting game commentator who's made a series of YouTube videos that are really for people like you and me who know nothing about fighting games but want to learn. There's a lot of stuff out there that claims to be for beginners, but I've found this is the only thing that truly is. It's exactly what you're looking for (it's ongoing, so subscribe to the channel for new videos!):
http://youtu.be/ppHIh59xzpohttp://youtu.be/CfEDDH8c9hohttp://youtu.be/vdJ2_lB9OME