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In real life, you mustn't let a fight escalate, or so the veteran scrappers and brawlers advise through toothless gums and with black-eyed wisdom. Instead you hit them with everything you've got, right from the off: maximum violence, instantly. That way you have a chance to end things before they get out of hand, to remove your astounded opponent from the equation without risking much pain or, hopefully, any damage. But on-screen violence plays by a different set of rules. Here fights must build and grow, moving back and forth through moments of distance, intimacy and rebuttal like a love scene, before reaching the final knockout climax. There's a reason that kung fu movies usually employ choreographers: screen violence is its own sort of dance. And beneath, or perhaps inside, every dance, there's a rhythm.
This is something that fighting game players are acutely aware of. While fighting games and music games appear to be opposed (the former primarily concerned with conflict, the latter with resolution) there's a rhythm action component at the core of every Street Fighter. Opponents must read one another's moves and, on finding an opening, tap out a rhythmic sequence of buttons to execute a balletic combo. Trip the rhythm and the combo (maybe even the entire fight) is lost.
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