It's Coming. GET HYPE!!!

Go here. Now.

http://www.capcom.co.jp/newwarrior/index.html

Gentlemen, let us prepare.

WCW Recap: GET HYPE!

The first ever West Coast Warzone Tournament was held this past weekend in Irvine, California. I was lucky enough to catch most of it live on the live stream. All I can say is wow! Tons of quality play, by players I've never heard of and players that I'm very familiar with. On the famous front, we had Marn, John Choi, Alex Valle, Floe and Ed Ma, plus a few others. The relative unknowns were Filipino Champ, Bryant the Tyrant, Masarap, and Yeb, plus more. I'll touch on Yeb later in this post.

For commentating, the floor was held by Gootecks and John Rog. There were a few repetitive instances, but good commentary over all. The speakers got genuinely hyped and the feelings were infectious.

In early pools, some standout play by the heavy hitters like Alex Valle and Marn. Valle actually played Gouken in his early matches, and did pretty well with him, to the delight of the crowd.

Speaking of hype, the biggest swell of excitement surrounded Yeb, a Gen player from San Diego. Yeb was a relative unknown coming into the tourney, but he's well-known on the srk Gen forums alongside JiBbo. Both players are proponents of Gen's standing medium kick into hundred hands combo. For the uninitiated, the mk hands combo requires 5 punch inputs during the very short window when mk can combo. This is used profusely in matches to grab additional damage on Gen's best poke, as well as to string together combos upwards of 18+ hits. It's pretty damn impressive, to say the least. As well as being hard as hell to execute. 

Yeb wowed the audience early on in matches against Andre, and later, in a knockout match against Hugo, a Dictator player, he brought the crowd to it's feet with a last ditch final round Ultra that he landed against Dictator's EX head stomp. The significance of this is that he used the invincibility frames of the Ultra to make the head stomp miss, and plant Dictator on the ground in time for the Ultra to land. Needless to say, this was CLUTCH. The room exploded. In later matches, he took down the famous John Choi, and got a double perfect on Magus1234. At the beginning of top 8, the whole room chanted his name after he defeated Floe's Sagat. In the words of John Rog, if you don't know Yeb, You Just Don't Know. After his 4th place finish, losing to Ed Ma's Akuma, he received a standing ovation. Quite possibly a first for the fighting game scene, and this was after his loss. Yeb was definitely MVP of WCW.

Other surprises included Masarap, a relative unknown getting comparisons to Daigo due to his uncanny consistency with fadc ultras. As well as Boxer player Bryant the Tyrant with some stunning upsets, and a Blanka called Moval beasting. In the end, Marn took the finals after facing off against Alex Valle. The consensus was that it was a great tourney with a great turnout, including about a hundred players who signed up the day of the event, throwing brackets into chaos and causing some delays. Still, a great time was had by all, and some classic moments were had.

Top 8 is here, this does not include the first game of top 8, floe vs Yeb, linked to earlier.

Playing Abel: Another Approach.

I've started playing Abel seriously as an alternate to Ryu, I say alternate, but I've been playing him fairly exclusively this past week. He's a good change of pace from Ryu, and the approach is completely different. Where shotos excel at zoning you out and spacing for anti-airs, Abel's game involves up-close mixups, combined with command throws and a roll that bypasses most attacks. His anti-air game is pretty weak, though. He has a throw that catches jumping opponents, but the timing and angle that it comes out at causes it to miss most of the time. 

Abel is pretty challenging to use, as he has no basic "safe" strategy, unlike say Ryu who can throw fireballs, and shoryuken his opponent out of the air when he tries to jump. Ryu can win matches using almost nothing but cr.mk into fireball, and shoryuken. Abel doesn't really work that way. Instead his game is based on reacting to the opponents actions and punishing their mistakes. And at intermediate to higher levels you really need to get into your opponents head and condition him into playing in a way that Abel can punish him at will. Many players call this using mindgames. 

Here's an example. Say Abel knocks down his opponent. As the opponent gets up he can:

1. Stay back a bit and sweep the opponent, as his sweep has deceptively long range

2. Use a Wheel Kick, which must be blocked high, alternate with sweep to mix it up

3. Dash in and use either regular Tornado Throw, which beats counter-throws, or EX TT, which beats most attacks

4. Roll behind the enemy, and attack from the back

5. Jump over the enemy and go for a crossup

6. Do nothing, block.

The thing is, this isn't even all his options in that scenario. He can use his step kick to dash in and start another mixup for example. The step kick itself leads to another half dozen options. Of course, not all those options are safe, and if the opponent guesses correctly he can knock Abel out of the mixup. Still, he's a real versatile character. And I think that's the key to his appeal for me. I really have to out-think and psyche out the opponent to win with Abel, so when I do win, it's very satisfying. The flipside is that when I can't get his offense rolling, it's very frustrating. "I should have done this, I should have done that" kind of frustrating. Still when you totally Yomi your oppenent's game, and make him feel that everything he's doing is getting countered or punished, there's no feeling that compares.

NOTE: "Yomi" is a japanese term that loosely translates as "knowing the mind of your opponent". And since Abel's gameplan is reliant on mixups and baiting, yomi is a big part of his game. For more about yomi, see here. 

Have Stick, Will Fight!

I purchased an XBOX 360 TE FightStick yesterday, after some time spent cursing the Fightpad and saving money. And it's every bit as good as the reviews  say it is. It's much more precise and sensitive. Maybe a bit too sensitive, as I found myself jumping backwards a few times when I wanted to perform a standing block. I also have to re-adjust my timing on several combos, as opposed to mashing out my 2-in-1's on the pad. Finally being able to execute an srk FADC into Ultra online makes it worth every dollar. My movement is much improved as well, I can dash in and out on command, and positioning myself is much easier. The stick also enables me to see if I'm executing moves with the correct timing. On the pad, I would miss some moves but chalk it up to the mushiness of the pad not recognizing my inputs properly. With the stick, I can now tell that it's in fact my execution that is off. 

I've finally fought my way into Championship G2-C, after an eternity spent in D and E. I'm feeling much improved from when I picked up the game some weeks ago, but certain matchups still give me a lot of trouble. Dhalsim in particular is a tough fight for me, as is Rose. I still can't beat really good players consistently,  but I sneak out a win here and there. I do feel that my arsenal has expanded thanks to the TE stick, as I can pull several combos I wasn't able to execute consistently before. I do feel that I have a lot to learn, and I'm not making proper use of all the options available to me as Ryu.

In the meantime, I'm trying to develop a secondary character, and I'm torn between Rufus and Abel. I feel that I grasp Abel better, but Rufus has some amazing damage potential. For example, Rufus can hit a jumper with his own jumping hk, and follow that up with EX Snake Strike and do at least 30% damage. His Ultra is also relatively easy to set-up and he's got a good mixup game. My main issue with him is he requires very precise execution on many of his combos. 

Abel on the other hand, has strong grabs for turtling opponents, as well as a good assortment of strikes. His rolls enable him to bypass projectiles and setup crossups. He also has a ton of health and takes longer to defeat. His Ultra is great for projectile spammers and can be linked to his cr.hp. His Tornado Throw is also very potent. 

And then there is the possibility that this is another symptom of my love for alts in MMO's. I'm really bad about this, to the point of having nearly a dozen different characters that I all play, yet not really getting very far with any of them. I guess no matter what game I play, my indecisiveness will always surface.

The Ties that Bind, the SF4 Anime Review

I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to talk about the anime DVD that came with the SF4 game. So apparently Capcom decided to release a companion anime to go along with the launch of SF4. Great idea, but shoddily executed. My first issue with the movie is that I'm not sure when it is supposed to take place. It's not a prequel, and it seems to take place in the same timeline, but its link to the game is extremely tenous. There is no mention of any "tournament", many characters, including guys like Honda, Blanka and Zangief are no where to be found. Of the new guys, you get a glimpse of Abel, and no Fuerte or Rufus. Crimson Viper has a major part, as does Cammy. Then of course Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, Guile and Sakura round it out, with small baddie parts from Claw(US Vega) and Boxer(US Balrog). Seth takes the evil boss role, with Dictator(US Bison) in a smaller part. Anyone else I didn't mention is pretty much out.

Cast issues aside, there just isn't enough action. There's a fair bit of exposition, with characters running around investigating and maybe only 3-4 'fight" scenes. The fight scenes are fairly bland and the big boss fight is anticlimactic. The animation itself is very clean, but not very detailed. It's pretty much the same stuff in the arcade mode intros and endings.

I would have been okay with all this, had the translation been on par. Unfortunately, Capcom for some reason instead of commissioning an alternate script translation for the subtitles decided to go cheap and dubtitle it. Dubtitling, if you don't know, is simply using the English dub script as the subtitles. Therefore, instead of getting a better, more accurate translation with subtitles, dubtitles just give you the English dub, like closed captioning. The thing about dubbed anime, is that usually certain liberties are taken with the dub in order to match the mouth movements of the characters. So normally the dub translation, while adequate, is not as accurate as it could be since it is dealing with the constraints of the medium. 

I guess I'm not entirely surprised that Capcom skimped on the translation, seeing that the anime itself is pretty subpar. It's strange that they'd be hesitant to spend money on something that's supposed to promote the RETURN OF STREET FIGHTER! In a way, perhaps this is an indication that they might have not been as certain that SF4 was going to succeed as we thought. It sounds like a no-brainer now, but keep in mind that before the game actually gets released, they only know it did well in arcades, which is not a guaranteed success on console/PC.

Good Times and Pad Woes.

Last night was my third night of SF4, and I finally started playing in championship mode, using Ryu. I did pretty well, I'd say i won about 60% of my matches, and advanced up a bit, I'm now in G-3 C, whatever that means, heh.

I've also unlocked Gouken now, and I'm practicing with him and Abel. Strangely enough, Abel seems to be a good fit for my fighting style. His rolls are KOF-ish, and he has a easy to perform command throw, and a Fei-Long style punch/rekka combo. I'm still spotty with him, but when i get momentum going, it can be hard to stop me. Of course, smart players still drink my milkshake, but I feel that I have potential with Abel. Gouken is much the same, great when i can get momentum going, but some matches it's like I'm beating my head into the wall. I also have a bad habit of under utilizing certain moves of his, like EX palm thrusts, and overusing his demon flip and fireballs. I can get a pretty decent zoning game with him, but under pressure I tend to crack. I do like his mixups and how you can use his Ultra in multiple ways: after a back throw, as an anti-air, and in certain corner combos. I just need to get used to his unique quirks, and I think I can be a decent player. Especially once I stop whiffing Ultras.

Speaking of Ultras, I may be setting aside Ryu for a little while. Why? Well, because his main setup for his Ultra involved an FADC'd shoryuken. And on a pad, it's very difficult to do. Because of the way i have to hold the pad, quickly executing Focus Attacks can be a challenge by itself. And so FADC-ing anything for me on the pad is hard to do in the heat of the moment. The main thing is that the buttons are too close together for me to do it comfortably if I hold my button hand piano-style, and if I use the regular grip with my thumb, certain normal links get harder to do. So it's a no-win situation for me without constantly changing my grip. Also, it's getting to be murder on my left thumb So it looks like getting a stick just became a much higher priority.

I should be able to purchase a stick within the next few weeks, hopefully. The pad will have to tide me over til then. In the meantime, it looks like Abel and Gouken will be taking up most of my time, unless I somehow figure out a way to do Ryu's FADC shoryu into Ultra on the pad reliably.

My first online fights, defeats and victories.

Before I could even begin to play SF4, I have to acquire a controller, right? Logical. So I figured I'd go down to Best Buy, grab a PC game bundle and go home. Not that simple. No local Best Buy has Fightpads or sticks, much less the bundle. So I have to break my personal rule of never buying from Gamestop. I call around to six or seven locations, and only one has a Fightpad, and it's a used one at that. No matter, I go down there, purchase the pad, and then I go to work. A bit later I get around to examining the pad, which I didn't have time to do earlier as I was on my way to my job. Problem. The USB port is missing. 

So I call the Gamestop I purchased it at, and spoke to the guy who sold it to me. Initially he said I'd have to take it back, since they didn't have any others. I replied that I needed the pad, and I didn't care if he had to pull a port off another used pad and give it to me. He hemmed and hawed at this, so I added that maybe he should call around to other stores, see who has a spare port and instruct them to hold it for me. He hesitated at this as well, so I just said that I'd call him back later. A fews hours later, I call back and he says that he did find the port and that he would hold it for me. Great, that's one problem gone. After picking up the port, I head to Best Buy, and hey, they have the game with the pack-in anime DVD. I picked it up as well, glad to have the bonus DVD. My excitement about the DVD quickly soured however when I realized the travesty of its translation. But I'll go into that later.

 Anyway, after some tinkering I get the game installed and the controller drivers downloaded. Now I can play SF4 for the first time. I go into training mode, and pick Ryu. 

I suck. I'm amazed at how bad my execution is. The pad makes performing the moves slightly less difficult, but my execution is bollocks.

I sit in practice mode for a while, trying to get used to performing combos and links. Some of the stuff was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I had a hard time executing his cr.lk, cr,lp, cr.hp into tatsu. This is considered one of his basic bread and butter combos (BnB). I wasn't having much success with f+hp, d+hp into special, either. Daigo's execution is truly beastly to pull links like that off on command. After about 30 minutes of practice, I went online for the very first time. I played about an 45 minutes, and managed to lose most of my first several matches. I'd get a round win every so often, but I didn't really win much at all. I did get a session in with someone called obliterage, and we played about 7 matches, 4 of which I won. I was pretty stoked about it, and I sent him a gg mesage along with a friend request afterwards. I played arcade mode solo afterwards, working on unlocking characters. So I've got Sakura, Fei Long, Cammy, Gen, and Rose. I'm going to try and unlock Gouken tonight, as he's who I intend to play as a secondary character, after Ryu. Although that may change when I get an arcade stick, so that I can start learning to use Gen, who has incredibly technical execution demands that pretty much require a stick. The Fightpad is nice, definitely better than a vanilla controller, but it has a slight mushy feeling that makes some precision movements feel somewhat floaty. Still, it'll tide me over until I get a stick.

All in all, I'm very excited to be getting back into fighting games, even if it's only on the PC. Still, it's been years since I've seriously played, and I'm looking forward to working my way up the ranks. If you see me online, send me an invite, I'm going by Hiryu ZeroTwo.