Fireballs, Beams, Projectiles in Fighting Games - Part 1

 It's been a while since I've posted anything on here. I've been thinking a lot about this subject, though, and I think this information can help a lot of new and intermediate level players.

Fireballs, Beams, and Projectiles are some of the most important aspects of 2D fighting games. They can be used for a variety of purposes. The most obvious reason projectiles are used is to zone and do damage from far away. However, there is much more to projectiles than one may initially think.

In Street Fighter, for example, the characters that have fireballs are far-and-away the most played characters in this game. For most new players, fireballs allow the opportunity to gain a few wins without actually learning any combos. Fireballs and projectiles are also awesome and dominate your friends who don't understand what QCF-Punch means (If you don't, it means quarter circle forward punch.) As you advance in your fighting game playing, projectiles and fireballs begin to mean zoning, space control, damage, chip-damage, set-ups, pressure, traps, and much more.

I'll start out with the most basic idea of projectiles and fireballs: zoning. Zoning is keeping the opponent at a distance and controlling the space in between your characters in order to minimize close combat. Some characters excel at zoning and it is actually the optimal way to play the characters. Some people may see this as cheap, but projectiles are a problem for even the top players and if you are going to play the game you need to know how to properly deal with them. It may be frustrating for your rush down character or grappler character to get in on a zoner, but it is incredibly possible in most games to get past fireballs and punish them.

Going a little bit deeper into the mental game the fighting genre we can see that projectiles act as a constant threat. This might seem obvious to some, but not everyone thinks of the deeper aspects of fighting games this way. If a player knows their opponent can use a projectile or has thrown one out, it forces them into making a decision. By default, it limits their decision making process. They may have had a battle plan from the get-go, but you are now forcing their hand. This goes for every attack you throw out, but projectiles are generally much more safe than other attacks. Projectiles often reach full screen, too. This means that no matter where the opponent is, a character with projectiles can still hit them. There is no safe zone where you can rest on your laurels against these projectiles. This need for constant mental awareness of the projectiles is why the threat aspect is so powerful and why projectiles are so effective and strong.

I'm going to leave part 1 here and I will discuss more fireball tactics and such in part 2.