Get good.

This is how games used to be. Wait until you're fighting Gill in Street Fighter 3rd strike. I don't know how many attempts I made before I finally beat him, and that sense of accomplishment when I finally did was incomparable.

A lot of old games still operated on a mindset of trying to maximize the number of quarters being put into an arcade machine. It's only in recent years that games started holding your hand more and coddling you. Then you've got the journalists who need to be shown the right orientation to hold the controller and where the "jump" button is, and games getting made for them, since they're the ones writing up the articles and reviews. Absolute lowest common denominator design.

I think that's part of why games like Dark Souls became popular. After so much hand-holdey, cinematic slop, a game that respects your ability and your intelligence and actually provides a challenge is a breath of fresh air.

IDK, some of the old ones are pretty fun.

you say "try-hard" but i say "no hand holding". the combos were harder to pull off and strings were often smaller but more effective. i am not a "new fighting game hater" or nothing, i play modern fighting games all the time and still love them. but old fighting games were definitely less beginner friendly and did not really attempt to cater to newcomers, and there is something admirable about that.