Skullgirls New Player’s Tips

Skullgirls New Player’s Tips by Jason

#1 Learn to Pushblock. 
Pushblock is performed by pressing two punch buttons while you are stuck in blockstun, and it is your new best friend. Unlike some other fighting games, most characters in this game have plenty of ways to maintain pressure indefinitly until you crack. To combat this, pushblock allows you to shove people out of your face to gain some space. Please note, however, that unlike in some other games like Marvel vs. Capcom 3, mindlessly mashing pushblock is not helpful. For multi-hit moves or tight blockstrings you must pushblock at the END of the move for pushblocking to be effective.

#2 Start with one character and build on it
Although most experienced players agree that Solo Characters are at a significant disadvantage compared to teams, focusing on a single character will help you get a solid footing in the game. Learn your single character before branching out and adding more to your team.

#3 Learn which of your character’s moves are unsafe
As with any fighting game, some moves simply have much longer recovery time then others. Typically Supers, special moves and Heavy normals. Long recovery time moves leave you vulnerable when blocked and should be used primarily in combos.

If you’re unsure if a move is unsafe or not, set up a mirror match in training mode and program the training dummy to do it on you. If you manage to hit the training dummy before they finish the recovery of their move, then you know its unsafe.

#4 Learn a simple combo first
Unless you’re a veteran fighting game player, start with something small that you can do reliably and work your way up to more difficult combos as your execution improves. Attempting to learn a giant combo all at once as a newbie is a recipie for frustration. As a new player, a short, simple combo that you can do 100% of the time is much more useful to you learning how to play the game and winning matches then a longer, more damaging combo that you can barely execute.

#5 Finish the tutorial, multiple times if need be
The tutorial in this game is one of the most extensive, well-thought, well-designed, in-depth, detailed fighting game tutorials out there. Not only it teaches you stuff, it also explain how that stuff works and WHY it works. Play through the tutorial, several times if you need to, until you feel you’ve reasonably learned and memorized what it has to teach you, especially about semi-advanced mechanics like pushblock, learning to counter a turtling opponent, and so on.