by Ack Mon Jun 10, 2013 10:56 am
Perhaps what I'm going to say may sound a little odd to these guys, but I would argue you start with World Heroes.
World Heroes features a very simple, streamlined fighting system. There are no counters, no supers, no combos. Instead, fights revolve around learning to use your specials and being able to identify the best places to move in for a hit. These are skills that are vital to learn when picking up the basics of the genre. World Heroes is a game purely about the basics. It's an excellent place to pick up on concepts such as chipping, anti-air moves to beat aerial foes, and capitalizing on opponents who have missed with their specials and are briefly left with their guard down. And learning about one's opponent is easy due to the limited move sets of each character.
Once you have these bare minimum requirements done, moving into things like Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters, or Street Fighter will be easier, because they all utilize these skills at their core. In these games, you can then start to learn about supers, combos, and counters. I'd also start studying on throws at this level.
From there, there's a variety of ways to progress, based on your interests and what you'd like to explore. Want to fight with swords in a counter-heavy environment, waiting for your opponent to misstep so you can punish them severely? Samurai Shodown or The Last Blade. Want to fight with a team to take down other teams of opponents by utilizing each of your characters' skills to support one another? King of Fighters or the Vs. series. Want to focus entirely on fighting boss-style creatures? Red Earth. Want dozens of special moves, counters, supers, massive combos, and punishing difficulty? WeaponLord. And so on and so forth.