I recently loaded up Street Fighter Alpha 3 for the first time in at least 20 years and blew through it. Of course, Bison wiped the floor with me but I won every round up to him.
Of all video game bosses in existence, fighting game bosses are the most bullshit of them all. You typically have to find some way to cheese them to death before they do it to you.
Has anyone else had the experience of going back to a game you haven’t played in a long time and some lower level part of your brain just remembers all the controls? Like when you try and remember which key does what, you can’t, but then you start playing and your brain just does the thing.
I’m the opposite of this picture. It’s like I have to relearn the game each time and fluid play takes a long time to return.
Funnily enough my muscle memory persists to some degree though. So for instance if a particularly tough enemy is charging me I might push a specific key without actually knowing what it does. Afterwards I have to reason and rediscover what I was trying to accomplish and bind that action to the key I pressed.
I call it “The Muscle Zen”. You just gotta relax, trust yourself, your fingers know what to do.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengance is one for me. When I first fire up a playthrough, I’ll feel rusty as hell, but once that music starts kicking my brain, it’s like night and day.
Now here’s another funky bit. Sometimes taking a break from a game and coming back to it weeks, months or even years later will make it feel like you’ve never been better before. And the numbers or scores might validate it.
I’ve personally experienced this with:
QuakeWorld in the early 2000s, where my shaft hitscan rate went from low 20s to mid 30s and my movement control got even more fluid. Factor here might have been a PC upgrade
WoW around 2008 -> 2010 where I went from struggling in arena to hit the lowest rank to duelist. Factor here might have been my aging reflexes starting to compensate more strategy instead
Enter the Gungeon from 2013 -> 2015 where I was struggling to get past the first few biomes to maxing out the whole game and attempting streaks with 9 curse and turbo on. This definitely came after watching a few streamers trying to do speed runs and their movement and situational awareness of the mob patterns inspired me.
I’ve also revisited these games since, again, and definitely only gotten worse at them.
I have a bad habit of resubbing to wow every couple years for a bit, and yes I feel like Theoden king. My fingers start to remember their strength as soon as I lay my hands on the keyboard, it feels like returning to home. In no time we’re back spreading a little plague in raids, arena and bgs
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