Reacting in Fighting Games
When citing reasons why they don’t (or can’t) play fighting games, reaction times come up a fair amount. It’s not tough to figure out why— when you first try a fighting game, it feels like there are a million different things happening all at once. Trying to react with intent and strategy to what your opponent is doing feels impossible. You can test your own reaction time here. I’ve done it a few times myself, and it’s pretty clear that I’m exceedingly average! I’m alright given that I’m in my thirties (which means I’m damn near dead, in fighting game years).
It’s important to recognize that you can’t really do much to improve your raw reaction times— it’s just something that’s more or less hardwired into your physiology, but this doesn't mean all hope is lost! Through experience and situational awareness, you can absolutely improve how you react to different scenarios. I'm working on a follow-up blog post that will have some practical tips on how to react to the unreactable in the next week or two. In the meantime, I hope the video turned out alright. Lastly, credit where credit is due: this video owes a huge debt to Michael "Kayin" O'Reilly for elegantly laying out these concepts in his blog post "Reaction Speeds in Gaming." This video wouldn't exist without it.