"It's very easy to plateau in fighting games": GekkoSquirrel talks about his love for GGS Giovanna, his expectations for Project L, Street Fighter 6, and more

Nate “GekkoSquirrel” has only been making fighting game content on YouTube for a few years now, but most of his content is educational, hilarious, and insightful. GekkoSquirrel’s YouTube channel is home to many videos about fighting games, where he brings a wealth of knowledge to newcomers and veterans alike.

One of the great things about fighting games is that there is always something new to learn, no matter how long you’ve been playing. I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Nate about fighting games, improving one’s skills, and his expectations for future titles like Street Fighter 6 and Project L.

He has an enormous amount of love for the genre, and it shows in all of his content. His content is funny, allowing many to learn more from watching it. While most players (this writer, included) have been playing fighting games for years, it's difficult to play them at the highest skill level, which is why many fans appreciate this form of educational fighting game content.

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GekkoSquirrel introduces Sportskeeda to his excellent fighting game video essays

Q. First off, thanks for taking the time to chat with us! For those who do not know about you, GekkoSquirrel, tell our readers about your content!

GekkoSquirrel: Thanks for having me! My name’s GekkoSquirrel, I am a Fighting Game Content Creator that mostly focuses on Video Essays about the different aspects of fighting games. I talk about topics from simple things about the way we input moves, the ways the games try (and fail) to teach players on how to play effectively to more in-depth topics to the meanings behind character themes and the way their visual design affects the moves they have.

My biggest series so far is Getting Good At Guilty Gear Strive, in which I retell stories of my tournament runs and competitive endeavors inside Guilty Gear: Strive. I hope you all check out my videos after reading this interview!

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Q. You have made several very entertaining and educational videos about fighting games, but what first got you into the genre?

GekkoSquirrel: Back when I was about 11 years old, me and my dad bought a copy of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 for the PlayStation 3. While I didn't play much of Tag 2 itself, the game came with a digital download code for Tekken Tag Tournament 1 and my dad would tell me how much he used to play that game and how he loved it.

We would spend many nights just playing against each other until it got to the point where I beat him so badly that he threw his controller across the room. After that, I really wanted to get into fighting games, but being a kid, I had no idea where to even start or what to do. Fast forward to 2019, I just finished my first year of university and found I had about four months of free time to do whatever I wanted. I remembered how me and my dad used to play Tekken Tag Tournament and thought it'd be fun to try and get into the new game Tekken 7.

I never got very good at Tekken, but it was a fun experience that introduced me to the FGC at large. Eventually, COVID-19 hit and I couldn't go to my locals anymore and had to play online. Most of my friends at the time didn't play Tekken, but they did play Dragon Ball FighterZ and they were MUCH better than me.

Despite being godawful online, I wanted to get better and beat them, which lead to me eventually creating my YT channel and becoming obsessed with these games. Fun fact, I still can't consistently beat my friends in Dragonball FighterZ, but it's much closer than it used to be.

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Q. In your video "I Wanna Be Number 1: Getting Good at GGST", you showed off your growth as Giovanna. What led you to pick her in the game?

GekkoSquirrel: Ah, Gio, my beloved. In the old Guilty Gear games, I always had the problem of not having a character that I really really wanted to play. There were some like Slayer, Johnny, Jam, and Baiken, but they always seemed too complicated for me to pick up and the playerbase seemed non-existent, so I never really learned how to play them.

When Strive was announced, though, I knew I wanted to give it a shot and Giovanna's trailer sold me on the character. The theme in the background had me grooving in my seat. Her unique step dash looked extremely fast, her attacks looked hard-hitting and quick, and she looked like she was going to be really fun.

Come the first beta where I got to play her and that was entirely what she was and I was so happy to see her. Plus, she's really easy to play, so I don't have to battle with complicated inputs or weird gimmicks and can get down to picking my opponents apart and playing mind games, which is one of my favorite things to do in these games.

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Q. According to Liquipedia, you've done a fair bit of play at competitive events such as EVO 2022. What was the experience like competing with some of the best in the world?

GekkoSquirrel: I'm very lucky that I was able to go to events like EVO and VSFighting X and I'm extremely grateful to all the people who helped make my travel to those events possible. However, fighting players who are the best of the best in these games can be a horrifying experience.

At offline events alone, I've had to play against two of the best players in the world (TempestNYC and Tiger Pop) and both matches were massive eye openers about how far there is still left to go as a competitor. The thing about fighting games in particular is it always starts out as it's hard to see how much further there is left to go when it comes to getting better. It's very easy to plateau in this genre and think that you're already at your peak.

But when you play against top-level competitors, you'll soon see that there's basically another entire mountain left to climb to get better, which is both exciting and terrifying. I look forward to fighting more top players as I continue on my fighting game journey!

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Q. While you've played many fighting games, do you have any particular subgenres? Anime, 3D, SNK Heroines?

GekkoSquirrel: The more I play these games, the more I realize that Anime Games/Air Dashers are easily my favorite genre. These games' esthetics are practically unmatched by any 3D or traditional fighting games, and they always manage to have just the right amount of crazy things that when you get hit, they make you question why you're playing at all. But when you hit them, it makes you feel like a god.

Games like Persona 4 Arena Ultimax and BlazBlue: Central Fiction have been great fun to learn slowly with my friends and I, of course, have a massive love for the Guilty Gear series as a whole.

I'm very excited to sink my teeth into Guilty Gear Xrd, now that it's finally getting rollback. I also have a soft spot for Team/VS games like Dragonball FighterZ and Marvel VS Capcom as they always tend to bring hype matches and fun gameplay to the table.

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Q. There are several very exciting games in the works right now, but one, in particular, is Riot Games' Project L. Do you have any knowledge or experience of it? Anything in particular you hope to see from the game?

GekkoSquirrel: While I've not been able to try out Project L at all yet, unfortunately (The video I made about why I'm worried about Riot entering the FGC probably didn't help with that) I used to play League of Legends all the time back when I was 16 to 20. So, I have a good familiarity with the characters and the world the game is taking from.

I am very excited to see what Riot comes up with, the game itself looks quite interesting with everything we've seen. However we still don't know about the universal mechanics or any of the game's functions yet. I hope they add a feature like BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, where you're able to use multiple assists on the same character depending on the direction you hold with the assist call.

I also think having an actual 2v2 mode where you and another player control both the characters on the team would be quite interesting. Also, Gnar, he was my old main and I love him.

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Q. On that note, did you wind up taking part in the Street Fighter 6 beta? If not, did you keep up with any other content creators that were experimenting in it?

GekkoSquirrel: I didn't and I'm so upset about it! I was watching streams and videos on the game religiously while the beta was happening because I wanted to see everything I could about the game.

I was practically living vicariously through creators like zDamascus, Tyrant, Brian_F, and Sajam while the beta was happening. I do intend to make a video on the game with everything I saw because there's a lot of things that are getting me very excited just from watching.

Obviously, the gameplay looks amazing, but I'm also very interested in the lobby and character creation system along with how Capcom is handling its customization options. I really want the game to just be out now. Please, Capcom, give us another beta so I can play it this time.

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Q. It can be incredibly daunting to get into fighting games for newcomers. Do you have any advice for players who get frustrated by being smashed by more skilled opponents online?

GekkoSquirrel: Oh boy, I've been there. The best advice I can give is to learn with a group and try to set small goals in the match for you to hit. If you learn with a group that has a range of skill in the game, then you're more likely to enjoy your time as you'll be playing with people that you actually know and can communicate with in order to get better faster, but there's a larger chance you'll fight someone at your skill level more often, which is always when these games are more fun.

If you don't have that option though, setting goals for yourself like Anti-air X amount of jump-ins or landing a shimmy or land that basic combo you've been looking at can be the best way to get over tilting as your goal stops being to simply win matches and becomes about getting better and landing cool moves.

I always feel better when I lose matches but manage to do something I've been struggling with for a while because it shows I'm improving. The improvement should come first and the wins will come later. If you can't do that, go to a local and stop playing only online. It's much easier to have a good time when you have a face and voice to put to the guy kicking your ass over and over.

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Q. What was the hardest lesson you had to learn for improving in fighting games?

GekkoSquirrel: The person who beat you in that match played better and there's a good chance that they are just better than you. This is something that I struggled with a lot for the longest time. When I first started playing, I would always subconsciously make excuses for why I lost like my opponent's character being cheap or them doing "scrubby" tactics.

That was just me trying to avoid the real issue though, which was that they were simply playing better than me on that day and I needed to learn from that loss and use it to improve. It's not an easy lesson to learn and it's one that I still struggle with sometimes. Ky's in Celestial really test my patience with this one, but it's the most important and best thing I've learnt.

Learning to compliment my opponents when they do something sick and realizing that I didn't get cheesed but got outplayed has helped me improve a ton recently and I suggest any competitors should try it.

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Q. When you play or compete, what sort of controller do you use? Fight stick, pad, Hit Box, Guitar Hero controller?

GekkoSquirrel: I use a Razer Panthera Evo with custom Sanwa OBSF-30 buttons for my main 6 buttons and the default Razer Buttons on the far right 2 buttons. For the longest time, this was my dream arcade stick. But after using it for over a year and a half now, I've started to realize some problems. Taking the stick apart and checking the components isn't an easy task, in fact, it kind of sucks. There's so many screws and the case is assembled in a way where you can never rest the top panel in an ideal way when you're messing with the buttons and stick, leading to awkward configurations while modding the controller.

The default buttons were also way too sensitive. I could hover my finger on top of the button and move it in small circles to get inputs, meaning I would accidentally get inputs all the time. It's why I play games with only the basic attack buttons and no throw/Dash macros. I can't even have the taunt button bound! Changing the buttons did help with this, but I still get miss inputs if I'm not careful.

Despite that, I still love the stick, the design is really cool, and having the artwork fill the entire thing is a great touch. I am excited to see the Mad Katz TE3 when they finally release those, however.

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Q. You've been making fighting game video essays for a while now. Have there been any you are particularly proud of?

GekkoSquirrel: Obviously, Getting Good At Guilty Gear Strive Episode 1 (Aka "I Wanna Be Number 1: Getting Good At GGST") is my favorite thing I've ever created. While I don't think it's perfect (no video I've ever made is), I think it's an excellent video in terms of pacing and the story it tells and I'm very excited to get episode 2 out of the door and into the eyes of the public.

It's a lot of work to make those kinds of videos, however, it's always worth it to see people's reactions. Episode 2 should be coming out relatively soon, so keep an eye on that. Apart from that, I always really liked my Greatest Giovanna and Greatest Anji "Guides" as I really got to mess around with a different type of video style than what I'm normally used to and I think they're both pretty funny and informative.

I also think "Melty Blood Type Lumina Is Good Now" is a pretty good video for similar reasons. And finally, I'm very happy with "What Does Each Strive Character Theme Mean?" as I got to share my thoughts about some really cool music and it seems a lot of people resonated really well with that video, which makes me very happy.

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Q. In fighting games in the years to come, what are you hoping to see more of? Where do you think fighting games are lacking and could improve?

GekkoSquirrel: This answer has somewhat changed recently because of the Street Fighter 6 Beta, I would have said they just need better teaching tools and good lobby systems for people to play and they would have been set.

Now though, I see the need for more casual aspects in fighting games to attract more players and get them playing. Features such as Street Fighter 6's character creator are a great way to get people invested in the games, even though it has nothing to do with the actual gameplay. I think developers just giving players more things to do that isn't just "Play Vs mode" is a good direction for the genre. Having events for different seasons which change things like map designs and add in custom wacky game modes could always be fun.

The genre as a whole has basically relied entirely on DLC characters for players to come back and pick up their games again, so having some other reason to play the game other than "A new character just dropped" will probably help the life spans of these games out.

The biggest thing related to this I would love to see is a Splatoon-style Splatfest mode, where players pick a team and fight players of the opposing team for prizes like lobby cosmetics or titles or even character skins. However, the games do desperately need better tutorials, good functioning netcode, and good lobby systems before they add all that.

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You can find GekkoSquirrel on YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, and his Patreon, where he regularly creates educational and entertaining fighting game content.