Best way to get better at fighting games?

[Benpasko]

I am going to repeat what i have previously said:

-Blazblue:Ragna and Jin.
These caracters possess some of the most spamable atacks in gaming history.
Their one combo players literaly make it so even IF you escape,
they can close in on you inless than 2 seconds,
if you make a recovery too soon,they chain the same combo all over again,
if you play defensively youl just get jugled and cornered.

And ill add this:its realy fucking hard to atack someone who is always atacking(kinda like hadouken spam)and trying to defend said combo is rather tricky.The combos,used by Both Ragna and Jin alternate a lot beetween high and Low atacks,making it dificult to both defend and if you miss they can just...restart the combo at any time,dealinga great deal of Damage.

I dont ragequit.I decide I dont fight batlles I am already going to fail,and nothing I can do will even influence that.
I "ragequit",as you say,to these people.People who just dont play corectly,who dont play for fun,who dont play for chalenge or anything the game offers or stands by.I never quit before an oponent clearly superior to me for experience
I have nearly MASTERED Tager,ok?I know all of his tecnicalities,all of his mooves,strategies and the such.

I play the game but over 80% is in practice mode

I am already good at the game.Now if these people would dignify to actualy play how they are suposed to instead of exploring one comand like a workaholic robot,that would be great.

No really, just get better. If you've mastered Tager, why are you still getting stomped by people who mash one combo? You have a textbook scrub attitude. If they were so overpowered, then wouldn't competitive BlazBlue just be nothing but Ragna and Jin? Just because you don't want to learn how to deal with the moves they're doing doesn't mean it's DISHONORABRU. The only thing undignified here is your lack of grace in defeat. Go home, troll.

 

[kaioshade]

When trying to get better at fighting games, there are a few things to keep in mind, and i asked myself many of these same questions.

1. You need to like the game. If you are just playing because other people are, but just do not like the mechanics of the game, you will not have a good time. I do not like the engine used in MK and Injustice. I do not play those games. SF and tekken are my mainstays.

2. Be prepared to lose. Be prepared to lose OFTEN. as others have said, try to analyze why you lost. If possible, record your matches, it can give great insight to things you may not realize you do that leave you open for your enemy.

3. Start with a basic character, or an established one. Some characters have a higher execution factor than others. This does NOT mean one character is necessarily better. But for example, when i was teaching my little brother to play Street Fighter IV, i told him to use Ryu. Ryu is a very basic character to pick up and learn the basic mechanics of the game. Once you learn timing and general maneuvering with him and you feel comfortable with the game system, explore other characters. He eventually settled on El Fuerte, who is a bit more complex, but he now has a foundation to utilize that.

4. See if there are any local players. Internet is fine, but sometimes having people by you to play, share tips, combos and general strats can be very beneficial to your development as a player.

5. HAVE FUN. If you are getting frustrated with the game, put it down for a while. Yes, this can very well introduce "rust" but i personally believe getting a bit rusty is much more preferable to rage quitting the game.

6. Ignore Cesar Rijo.

 

[Maximum Bert]

A lot of saltiness in this thread now it seems but combos are a part of most fighters dont want to deal with huge long combos try DoA or Soul Calibur or Street Fighter 2, Darkstalkers 3 etc.

For games like MvC (series), Blazblue, Killer Instinct and even Skullgirls to an extent combos are a huge part of the game so at some point to take your game to the next level you will have to learn them.

It has been said before in this thread combos are not needed at first fundamentals are much more important to learn but the whole point of combos is to obtain maximum amount of damage when you do land a hit so you dont have to get in so often.

Later on you will see patterns to combos such as oh if this move hist I can do this and this but if this hits I can start here etc so you vary what moves you are using top open them up.

Some characters have great pressure and will use alternating poking strings mixing between high and lows which is a good way to open people up as if your defense is lacking you will get hit eventually and if you dont know where the gaps are in their attacks you will not know where or how to punish, so again at some point you will have to figure this out to improve (and how better players minimise their risk)

Some characters are almost always better than others take Injustice for example where its much easier to win with someone like Superman and Deathstroke than it is with someone like Zatanna or Flash because they require substantially less execution and knowledge to use.

At the end of the day people buy the game to play if people are doing stupid easy punishable moves just smack them about and enjoy your win if they are wrecking your shit try and figure out why and how they are doing that i.e how did they open me up how much damage are they doing when they open me up with specific moves (because being opened up with different moves leads to different damage on most occasions) and then learn to watch for the most damaging.

Some characters you will find get most of their damage from hitting with lows or high attacks for example and so you will know to block the corresponding way most of the time.

Oh dont get salty at others or intentionally ruin their game always try your best and experiment with new tactics and dont blame the game or others if you lose even if it can seem pretty unfair sometimes i.e horrendous lag. If what they are doing is allowed in game (they havent hacked it for instance which is very unlikely) and you lose well that just means you got outplayed, time to drag yourself off the floor again and carry on

 

[Thr33X]

Here's some sound advice, ripped straight from the words of the cast of the Street Fighter series themselves (with a little help from Shadowkan123, member of the SRK forums):

- A defeat learned from is more important than an empty victory.
- Every moment gives us a chance to become more than what we are.
- It's better to conquer a hardship then to conquer nothing at all.
- Keep your mind calm and pure. Focus on what is important!
- Range... Speed... Priority... Know and master all your attacks!
- Seek an opponent who is your equal. Only then can you improve.
- The eyes of a warrior never stray from the spectacle of battle.
- The world is big, there is no limit the human strength...
- Trying something new, is to explore your true potential.
- If you are angry, how can you hope to strike effectively?
- It hurts twice as much when you know that it was your fault!
- You'd feel better if you would just cheer up!
- That's the spirit! Fight fiercely every moment of the battle!
- Whether you're reckless or brave, use the style that suits you best!
- A champion does not achieve victory when fueled by anger.
- Self-respect breeds discipline
- Put some thought into your actions and you'll eliminate your regrets.
- A lack of spirit will always lead to defeat!
- Be a master of your mind before attempting to master your body!
- Defeat will help you to solve your ego problem.
- Study your opponents and exploit their weakness. That is the key...
- An angry fighter is an ineffective one...
- Don't assume similar tactics you have used on others will work on me.
- My master was right... I have to improve myself with every battle!
- Oh yeah! I'll start using that move more often now!
- With every match, my timing becomes more precise!
- Wow! That actually worked! Next time I'll do it with skill!

Again, straight from the game itself.

 

[Username Redacted]

I am in no way troling,oe mean to troll.I am dead serious about this.

Ok, since you're saying that you're not trolling then I might suggest you leave this thread because your advice is flat out terrible.

Oh and I was serious about the combos.A good game should be able for us to naturaly be able to do combos acordingly to the caracter we are curently playing.Its rather hard to explain,just imagine it like Hotline Miami.Planing MIGHT get you where you need,but the flow of the game encourages natural thinking and execution.Again its rather hard to find an exaple for this,so please try and focus on what I just said.

I'm trying to focus on what you just said but you're not making it easy as my natural aversion to rages is a hard reflex to overcome AND the fact that what you appear to be describing here matches up with exactly zero fighting games in existence as far as I am aware. Maybe fighting games just aren't your thing.

Sorry for trying to help.


Maybe they arent,maybe I just aspire for Fighting games to be a bit LESS techical.Its just my type of gaming style,and so far it has served me relatively well in fighting games.I just go with the flow,I never memorized combos and as I said a couple words before it has served me well.Maybe for YOU it doesent work,but for me it does.
Thanks for bashing my advice,realy.Just....trying to help and get bashed to infinity.Well done.

Except that what you're suggesting isn't helping. It's locking yourself and anyone who takes your "advice" into the mental cage of the scrub. Now, I'm not trying to use that term derisively just that what you're doing is, at the most basic level, assigning arbitrary rules to how a game should play that the game itself didn't feel the need to include. Sort of. When you're complaining about overly long repetitious combos what you're complaining about is a system that the games developers put in place to determine how long and how much damage (roughly) they wanted a character to be able to do. The mechanics that govern this (for the most part in most games) are variations of hitstun deterioration, hitstun scaling, gravity and damage scaling. The game has already figured out what is and is not acceptable in terms of combos (some more obsessively/restrictively than others). It doesn't need you imposing arbitrary external limits on its system because you're tired of seeing the same thing over and over again.

I also cannot think of any modern fighting game that isn't complete crap where anything resembling free-styling ones approach to the game would be met with anything other than spectacular levels of fail so you're going to have to enlighten me with regards to what game(s) you're talking about there.

 

[RJ 17]

Now I can already guess the first thought: "Practice". And yes I know its going to come down to that and time investment and there aren't any shortcuts and blah blah blah, but practice is worthless if I don't even know what I'm supposed to be practicing about it.

One of my biggest problems, in so far as my uneducated eye can guess, is it just seems to be impossible to be consistent with input; I feel like I can press the exact same button series over and over and get a different result even when to me there nothing different I've done. If I try to perform any quarter-turn move I'll probably succeed 3/10 times. Even after spending a large amount of time just trying to practice doing a quarter-turn move reliably over and over I don't feel any differences between the times it's correct and the times it isn't, and don't seem to see any improvement in the rate I perform the move I mean to do.

The problem with your question is that it's too generalized. Pretty much every fighting game series has different mechanics that you have to work with. Someone good at Dead or Alive, for instance, won't necessarily be good at Soul Calibur, while someone good at SC might not be good at Marvel vs Capcom. So really it is indeed the case that all you can really do for any given fighting game is to practice it until you've mastered their mechanics. As for the difficulty with controls, I'd suggest using the D-Pad rather than the thumbstick, it tends to be more precise with it's inputs while the thumbstick can often go too far or doesn't go fair enough by the time you hit the attack button to execute the move.

If anyone cares to give advice specific to Skullgirls, I haven't picked a 'main' character, but I'm strongly gravitating towards Painwheel based just on character aesthetic.

THIS was the question you should have asked in the beginning.

As I said, all games have different mechanics and what-not that you have to work with within the game. Sure, a lot of them have common aspects (some form of a quarter-circle move is pretty standard for almost all characters in all fighting games), but you should be asking how you can get better at a specific game rather than ALL the games. Sadly I've never played SkullGirls so I really can't offer any advice on this front. Though I'd imagine a lot of it still just boils down to finding a character that fits your playstyle - for example preferring quick/nimble ones or slow/powerful ones - and just practicing with that character over and over until you get a real feel for how that character flows.

 

[RJ 17]

I refuse to play a game I cannot win,refuse to work on soething I will not get repayed.
You are saying:you do what I am complaining and I say its unfair,not fun and overall is just saying fuck off to any decent player of fighting games thats trying to have fun.
Question:
How the hell do you expect us to have a civilized conversation in this case?

Listen,this conversation has draged out far too long and honestly this is one word from becoming a trade of insults.I am bored to tears just reading what I have typed.This conversation has ended,hopefully you will understand why and not bother to respond.
Have a good day.
-Yclatious

In that case dont play if you cant handle loses, honestly what you are complaining about is moot you blame others tactics and characters for your loss rather than yourself which is a real crappy attitude and annoys everyone in any game the fact is they were better than you it seems you cant accept that.

I tend to see your attitude a lot by people who cant figure out why they are losing I mean it cant be their own lack of skill right it must be something else.

Basically I would say you arent as good as you think you are but instead of accepting that and trying to be get better you just want to play against people who play the way you think they should play so you may have a chance at winning which is not a good course if you want to get better.

Quitting a game in a strop is never a good thing to do in any game.

As for the trade of insults I think it has been pretty one sided on your part towards me its obvious from your recent comments that you dont take well to people opposing you so I can understand you dont take being thrashed at a game very well either because the other person wasnt playing the way you wanted.

Ragna and Jin are fine btw definitely not super op.

Allow me to play Devil's Advocate for a moment here...or maybe I'm just looking to be a quasi-mediator since there definitely seems to be a lot of people hating on this Cesar chap. Not that his atrocious spelling or slinging of insults has made him any more endearing or worthy of sympathy, but I'd just like to touch on something if I may.

Now to be fair - at least in my experience - he does have a point in that in a lot of fighting games online you tend to run into people who have their favorite character and know one certain move that's "cheesy" and tough to avoid and they just spam it over and over again. It's easy to see how that would be frustrating, I've experienced that frustration myself. It first happened when I tried playing Soul Calibur 4 online...first I came up against a Taki who just keep using a quick little chop to the ankle over and over again. I tried different characters, different attacks, differing approaches, but the speed of Taki's strike and the fact that it causes your character to stumble for a moment meant that she could effectively stun-lock you...that is unless you can pull off one of those "perfect guard" techniques where the little shield thing pops up and you knock them back. Now I always SUCKED at doing those so there just was no way to win. Playing against someone who only uses a single cheap attack - again as I experienced against Vader with some kind of force-choke-slam + force-lift into another force-choke-slam over and over again - doesn't really help you improve. All you're learning from that experience is "This character has a very cheap attack that can be easily spammed". In my case, I knew how I COULD counter the spamming, but I just wasn't good enough to execute such a counter. This turned into me just plain ol' not having fun and that's why I decided to stop playing SCIV online.

That is to say that Cesar wants to fight people who "fight fair". That is, they fight "like the computer" (in that the computer doesn't just spam the same attack or combo over and over) but obviously better than a computer since they're a human player. In the end if you're just not having fun then why are do you keep playing the game? You're essentially just bashing your head against the wall.

NOW! On the other hand, most every single combo and move DOES have a way to be broken. As I said in my reference to the Taki attack: I knew what I had to do, I just for the life of me couldn't do it. No plan of attack is absolutely fool-proof no matter the fighting game, and this is what Cesar needs to keep in mind. Not everyone is going to "fight fair" in terms of what he's talking about, however a person who just does the same thing over and over again is easily exploited once you find the weakness in that combo or move. Switching gears and talking about DoA5 now, I was up against a Hitomi player who kept using the same five-punch combo over and over. That's all the player did, without fail. I have to admit that I didn't see a way around it at first so I lost the first round to this guy pretty soundly. However during the 2nd round, I finally found the flaw. The strikes are quick and have decent range, no matter what I came at the player with his/her attacks would land first. I was using Kasumi at the time and decided "Well if I can't beat this guy to the punch, I'll just have to go over the punches!" So I did Kasumi's attack where she flips towards the opponent and kicks her feet out to spring-board off the opponent's face, launching them backwards as she flips backwards creating a lot of distance between the fighters. BAM! The 5-punch combo was broken.

Sure enough, the opponent kept using that combo over and over and I just kept jumping off his/her face over and over. For 11 or 12 full fights that's all my opponent did, as if assured that somehow his/her punches would hit me when all I had to do was keep flip-kicking over them. Finally my opponent tried coming at me with more variety and a "fair fight" ensued...which I won and the other player then quit. The point is, however, that EVERY spam-combo can be broken in some way, the designers of the games specifically make it that way, and this is what Cesar fails to realize. But again, if you can't see a way through your opponent's attack then you're pretty much doomed to a rage-quit anyways, and that's why Cesar's frustration is understandable, at least in some way.

 

[Maximum Bert]

*BIIIIG snip

Dont get me wrong I know what he means and I have ran into it myself in a number of games and it is annoying as hell when the other player just abuses tactics and moves that are pretty powerful in some cases they are actually broken i.e the easy infinite in early DoA5 with Mila springs to mind where she knocks you down once and then ground attacks you repeatedly until you die without being able to do anything. I still wouldnt quit against such players but I would choose not to play people who abuse such tactics however such attacks rarely last long in a game now and get patched pretty quick (because otherwise the game becomes a joke and people stop playing).

What Cesar was on about is people opening him up and killing him with one tactic repeated ad infinum although his message is a little muddled as at first he says its OP`d and he wont fight fights he cant win because all they do is spam one combo and then later he says he can win so that would suggest its not OP`d and he just dosent like their style of play which is fair enough. However he also complains about people using pressure strings on him and in Blazblue no less so basically he is complaining about people rushing him down with their rushdown characters and then saying they are wrong for playing like that which just blows my mind.

I think I remember speaking to you in another thread about something vaquely similar I agree some attacks are annoying as hell especially in lag take DOA5 for instance I lost a round to a guy who just kicked because the lag was horrendous later on I just rushed him down as I knew if I couldnt counter spam reliably on this connection then odds are neither could they and so I just spammed my fastest attacks knocked them down and then countered every wake up kick (because they never stopped waking up with the same kick so I just pressed a second earlier to counter than I would offline and bam they ate it every time) and I got perfects the other 2 rounds (Which is why I love DOA5s system if you read them its very easy to counter but unlike the other games counters arent so powerful as to make offense risky).

The main problem I have with Cesar is he is encouraging people to ragequit if they are losing to something they find spammy which I dont agree with dont play them again if you are really not having fun but never quit mid match, secondly of course by ignoring why you lost and just labelling it spam you will never get better. Like you said pretty much every move has a counter or at least a way around it you just need to figure it out and apply it just labelling it cheap quitting the game and getting in a huff wont make you any better which is what this thread is about.

I think its a given if you play any competitive game you will get pissed off at some point and just think omg I cannot believe I just lost to that bullshit but you need to keep the right frame of mind you lost because you were just worse in that match thats not to say the other player is necessarily better as some character matchups are pretty heavily steeped in favour of one side but thems the breaks you just werent good enough to overcome the hurdle.

I think I kept it pretty civil towards Cesar but as others have pointed out his attitude is textbook scrub and what he was advising in some parts was pretty toxic to anyone who wants to improve.

 

[Guy from the 80's]

I used to be very good at streetfighter to but also virtua fighter. But now a decade later at 30-something I'm terrible. I've been playing strategy games for so long that my brain seems unable to remember moves and combos. Basically my playing is limited to blind button tapping

 

[RJ 17]

*BIIIIG snip

Another Big Snip.

I wasn't trying to side with Cesar, but rather just explain that he does have a couple valid points that got lost in his atrocious spelling and disgruntled disposition.

1: There are indeed a lot of players out there that use "cheap" tactics in online play.
2: Fighting those players can be VERY frustrating.

However that's why I came back in my pose and said that I agree with you: quitting isn't the answer. If you're just not having fun with a game then there's no point in playing it, sure. But rage-quitting in the middle of a match (I must have missed where he suggested that) is just poor sportsmanship. Even when I come up against someone that's using a "cheap" tactic, I'll still play a couple games with them just to see if I can devise a way around it. And if I can't, I'll back out after two or three full games and then hit up the theater to watch the replays and pay close attention to see where the opening in their attack exists because there HAS to be one.

I admit I wasn't paying too much attention to the conversation at hand, just skimmed over it, but yeah if he's getting frustrated at people just rushing him then it's just like you said: he's not as good as he thinks he is. That's pretty much what I do, to be honest. I play Kasumi because she's so nimble and quick, I don't like having to rely on counter attacks and instead prefer to just be up in their face with a flurry of different attacks and combos. It works sometimes, doesn't work other times, but in the end I still have my fun with the game. Basically I'm kinda like Sanoske from Rurouni Kenshin (if you've ever seen that anime): "Defense just isn't my style!"

On a side note: I'm glad to hear that you enjoy DoA, it's by far my favorite fighting game series because I love the mechanics the fights are based around. I feel it gets a really unfair reputation because of the eye-candy factor when, at it's core, the gameplay is really enjoyable. Though speaking of the eye-candy factor, I picked up DoA5 Ultimate yesterday and got a REALLY good laugh out of the fact that there's a "Breast Motion" option in the menu that can be set to "Off, Natural, or DoA" xD

 

[Maximum Bert]

I wasn't trying to side with Cesar, but rather just explain that he does have a couple valid points that got lost in his atrocious spelling and disgruntled disposition.

1: There are indeed a lot of players out there that use "cheap" tactics in online play.
2: Fighting those players can be VERY frustrating.

However that's why I came back in my pose and said that I agree with you: quitting isn't the answer. If you're just not having fun with a game then there's no point in playing it, sure.

I know you werent I was just stating why I was apposing some of his advise as for your above points I agree with you and I am glad you agree about not quitting. I was trying to get Cesar to clarify his position but he just kept repeating the same stuff so I just left him.

As for Sonosuke he dosent need defence because hes hella tough thats his main strength dagger to the face psssh Sanosoke dont care although maybe he should have learned some defence against Kenshin .

I play Ayane mostly in DOA5 her and Bayman have always been my favs throughout the series but I sorta neglected Bayman in 5 for some reason. I still have a bad habit of trying to counter everything mainly because counters used to be so powerful but in 5 while they are still damn good they arent the be all and end all like they were in 2 or even as powerful as they were in 3 and 4 (4 just made me tired mentally to play thanks to the awesomeness of counters in it). I like Ayane she can rush down fast but she can also annoy by moving in and and out of range fast and I just like how she spins everywhere.

I did start learning her properly such as proper strings launchers critical stun combos (even though she dosent need them really) and safe poke strings etc but the online was so bad that I just gave up hopefully Ultimate has rectified a lot of it. I havent received my copy yet (UK here) but I am looking forward to it especially Rachel and Momiji being added but I think I will probably stick with Ayane shes too much fun maybe I will try and get her vortex going if its still in.

Kasumis a great offence character so you dont really need to rely on counters so much but even one of two correct counters can really mess with the other persons head especially in longer sets you can really get a read on most players and mess with their heads by countering ofc they can also do the same to you but youd be surprised how little some people mix it up and pattern play completely which is a death sentence in DOA more than any other game. Actually thinking back to our prievious conversation I am sure you wouldnt be surprised having experienced an extreme example of pattern play yourself.

I agree the game gets an unfair press sometimes because it is actually a decent game I really feel this is the first proper competitive DOA game but honestly the game dosent do itself any favours with things like the breast motion even if it is throwaway and dosent affect the game at all although its part of the series now its whats expected and if there is good gameplay to go along with it I have no problem.

After Soul Calibur DOA is my favourite 3D fighting franchise.

Damn I wish Ultimate was out here now although I reckon I have a fair amount of rust to shake off.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

I used to love Ayane (and still do) but they nerfed her drill-kick attack (don't know what it's actually called, but that's what I call it ) so I've trended more towards Kasumi. I like Ayane's fight-style a whole lot though, all the spins and back-turns and what not REALLY throw the opponent off balance as they never know when the actual strike is going to come. Bayman (and Leon, who's back in Ultimate) is another one of my favorites, my 2nd favorite male character beneath Jann Lee, because he's a defensive power-house. Maybe it's just me, but his counters seem to be a lot more forgiving, that is you don't have to time them as perfectly as you have to do with other characters. He's definitely a grappler though, as his throws and counters are just brutal. My favorite part of him (and Leon) is the fact that you can do grapples after knocking the opponent down...I particularly love finishing a fight with a knock-down then doing the neck-snap ground-grapple...it's pretty much the closest thing to a Fatality in the DoA universe (apart from Alpha 152's point-blank face-blast throw)...I just love how it says "KO!" RIGHT when the neck snaps. :3

As for Rachel and Momiji: Rachel plays a lot like Tina in that her blows are a bit slow-ish but pretty powerful and she's definitely capable of laying a strong beat-down on someone. Momiji is essentially a female Ryu with a lot of hard-to-execute moves but if you can pull them off they're REALLY powerful. They brought another Virtua Fighter character over as well: Jacky. This guy is OBSCENELY annoying since he actually has an auto-counter against mid-punches. Seriously, he doesn't have to press anything, if you try to do a mid-punch even in the middle of a combo he just catches it and does a little counter attack for a mild amount of damage. It literally cancels out a large number of options to use against him and makes it so the safest bet is to just stick with kicks. I honestly can't believe they put something like that in there, having a free auto-counter is an obscenely advantageous edge to have. Other than him, Rachel, and Momiji, as I mentioned they're bringing Leon back, and as I'm sure you know he's just Bayman except with a slightly different flavor.

As for Soul Calibur, I can't say I'm a huge fan of it. The Ring-Out mechanic is just one that I never particularly enjoyed. I'm about somewhere between average and decent at it, but never really got into it. The first one I played was SC III with Spawn the OverPowered (his charged fireball move could literally kill someone in a single shot if you had the right weapon equipped) but that was way back in college. And I already mentioned my experience with SC IV in a previous post. As I said, I knew what I had to do to stop that lame Taki player, but for the life of me I just can't pull off one of those perfect guard blocks and that seems to be REALLY important when it comes actually wanting to be good at the game. Haven't bothered with SC V, but from what I've heard I'm not missing much on that end.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I used to love Ayane (and still do) but they nerfed her drill-kick attack (don't know what it's actually called, but that's what I call it ) so I've trended more towards Kasumi.

Tell me about it it took me ages to get out of the habit of doing that move it went from godlike to damn near useless they can counter it, block and punish it easily as it leaves her really unsafe, it dosent track and most annoyingly of all it has pathetic priority if they hit almost any move it will knock her out of it seriously 9 time sout of 10 its not worth doing now (unless they changed it again in ultimate).

One things that has annoyed me throughout the series and takes me some time to re-adjust to is how so many high attacks are beaten by lows on wake up seriously you knock them down you do a jumping spin attack they wake up with a sweep and it knock you out of your attack even though its nowhere near you. Something is wrong there and was my main gripe with DOA5 its just dumb to make a sweep hit me when I am in the air above their head.

Ayane is strong enough without her drill kick (and to be fair in some of the past games it was too strong anyway) she has a fair amount of tools but one wrong move and you get messed up bad.

Apparently Rachel is styled after Spartan from DOA4 who is sorta styled after Leon and Bayman so I was expecting a grappler also she has air throws I love doing that oh and she has a Tifa alt costume which is probably the main reason I will use her .If only I could change her hair colour or they gave Momiji, Kokoro or LeiFang the costume instead it would be even better, or just add Tifa to the game if they did that I would have a new main and would play the hell out of it even more than I intend to do now. Momiji looks awesome I cant wait to try her out I was never a huge Ryu fan in this game but Momijis move set looks cool so I am glad to hear she seems good.

As for Jacky I see from your comment they kept his neutral parry. He has that in Virtua Fighter so I am not surprised they kept it in DOA I never was a fan of Jacky in Virtua Fighter after Lion he was probably my most despised character. Akira, Pai and Vanessa were my favs in Virtua Fighter I mostly played Vanessa but I am a terrible Virtua Fighter player. VF5 FS is great honestly it feels solid but for some reason it just dosent grip me even though I cant find much bad to say about it.

As for SC Spawn was in SC2 for the Xbox maybe you got the number wrong SC3 was only on PS2 (and arcade) and had a character called Nexus he carried a huge scythe like zasalamel and I think he has a fireball type move but I think Spawn did as well in SC2 although I mainly played on PS2 so we had the broken piece of boring crap known as Heihachi instead.

I always stuck with Siegfried throughout most of the series (or Nightmare in 2) because I just love his style but I also played a lot of Cervantes in Soul Calibur on Dreamcast because he was beastly in that. Unlike DOA which has just released its best installment imo (ok talking about 5 I havent played Ultimate yet) Soul Calibur has never equalled that frankly near perfect Dreamcast installment 2 was fun but not in the same league 3 had major issues except the arcade one which I only got to play once but thought was amazing. 4 had the best roster imo (excluding the crappy star wars characters) but some of the worst gameplay of the series while 5 felt lacking in modes and had a bizarre character lineup choice why replace iconic characters with horrible unlikeable new versions and then give them the exact same fighting style?

Gameplay wise though I would place 5 only below the original SC title also the online was solid so kudos there and the create a soul mode is approaching something truly awesome but yeah the new characters sucked and the single player was pathetic. Its understandable considering the earthquake hit while it was being developed which set it back and then Namco wanted to concentrate on Tekken Tag so they ripped out more of SC5s budget and gave it to Tekken at least thats what I have come to understand.

I dont know why Namco mistreat SC its one of the more unique fighters out there luckily it did much better than expected while Tekken Tag did much worse and a new SC title has been trademarked (although we dont know if its a proper SC game yet). So the series will continue for a while yet despite them seemingly wanting to kill it (probably because its not that big in Japan, actually I think it biggest in Europe especially France which is surprising).

SC2 is being released soon in HD with online which I will be all over as although I found it a disappointment after the original its still fun as hell and its the one most people played first and so remember most fondly.

Learning just guard isnt that important until high level play but you really really need to know your moves for each situation and have damn good spacing sidestepping is also hugely important in SC probably more than any other fighting game I can think of.

Ah to many great fighters not enough time Aquapazza is out in America soon as well and Chaos Code and under night in birth comes out in Japan on the PS3.

I have pretty much decided to just play Skullgirls and Persona 4 Arena for 2D though and DOA5 and SCV/2 for 3D as they are probably my favourite atm. No game is for everyone though SC may not be for you and thats fine I will forgive you since you show good taste in liking DOA5 . I keep meaning to practice Kasumi but havent got around to it yet so I only know her on a basic level she is fun to play though.

 

[RJ 17]

Apparently Rachel is styled after Spartan from DOA4 who is sorta styled after Leon and Bayman so I was expecting a grappler also she has air throws I love doing that oh and she has a Tifa alt costume which is probably the main reason I will use her .If only I could change her hair colour or they gave Momiji, Kokoro or LeiFang the costume instead it would be even better, or just add Tifa to the game if they did that I would have a new main and would play the hell out of it even more than I intend to do now. Momiji looks awesome I cant wait to try her out I was never a huge Ryu fan in this game but Momijis move set looks cool so I am glad to hear she seems good.

As for Jacky I see from your comment they kept his neutral parry. He has that in Virtua Fighter so I am not surprised they kept it in DOA I never was a fan of Jacky in Virtua Fighter after Lion he was probably my most despised character. Akira, Pai and Vanessa were my favs in Virtua Fighter I mostly played Vanessa but I am a terrible Virtua Fighter player. VF5 FS is great honestly it feels solid but for some reason it just dosent grip me even though I cant find much bad to say about it.

As for SC Spawn was in SC2 for the Xbox maybe you got the number wrong SC3 was only on PS2 (and arcade) and had a character called Nexus he carried a huge scythe like zasalamel and I think he has a fireball type move but I think Spawn did as well in SC2 although I mainly played on PS2 so we had the broken piece of boring crap known as Heihachi instead.

Yeah, I've got that Rachel costume you're talking about and it really does look pretty much exactly like Tifa's outfit in FF7 (none of this black leather half-trenchcoat nonsense) with the exception being the fact that she doesn't where a miniskirt but instead a pair of REALLY short short-shorts. I haven't messed around with her too much but now that you mention it I do vaguely remember the SPARTAN character in 4 and I think there are some similarities between them. As I said, Momiji is tricky to get the hang of but she's still pretty good with a lot of aerial combos and attacks (she can even execute her Power Blow as part of an aerial combo).

As for the Virtua Fighter characters, I'm decent with Pai, manageable with Sarah, but for the life of me I just can't get the hang of Akira. He's too choppy to me, that is most of his basic combos end after just two or three hits and leave you open afterwards. I'm sure I'm not using him correctly but apparently I just can't get the hang of how you're supposed to use him. I've already mentioned my gripe about Jacky's free counter. I did his Command Practice and it seems like he could be good but requires a bit more advanced controlling than most of the other characters so chances are I'll be steering clear of him.

As for Ayane's drill-kick, it's still useful in finishing off combos, but you definitely can't rely on it like you could in previous games. I don't know if they updated it's priority or not for Ultimate, as I said I just got the game yesterday and haven't had too much time to mess around with it yet. Really the only characters I've played with were Rachel, Momiji, Kasumi, and Helena (because she has a really lovely white dress for a costume that I wanted to unlock...hey, if you get to look forward to Rachel just because of her Tifa-like costume, you can afford me this one indulgence ). I've played a few Tag matches, both Rachel and Momiji have Ryu as an official teammate (that is they have a unique opening/closing pose and unique tag-throws) but that makes sense since both of them are from Ninja Gaiden. The tag-throws with Momiji and Ryu look really great.

Some good news in case you were wondering: all your saved data from DoA5 carries over into Ultimate. So you keep all your titles/unlocked characters/DLC costumes (if you got any) so I was REALLY thankful for that. I swear if I had to go through all the trouble of unlocking another 300 titles to get Alpha 152 again I was gonna be PISSED! As it was I had her available from the git-go. I've been practicing with her a lot as well, I wanna become good with her because I'm betting that she can be as cheesy as M. Bison if you know what you're doing with her. This brings me to one of the new features of the game: Combo Training. It's kinda like the Command Training only it focuses specifically on teaching you nifty combos for each character, and a lot of the things I've seen from 152 really impressed me...now if only I can execute those in a real fight. She seems to be able to trigger Critical Bursts with great ease.

As for Soul Calibur: wow, it's been THAT long? I could have sworn that Spawn was in SCIII, but thinking back I played the game he was in back in college and the 360 wasn't even out yet so I guess it would have had to be on the XBox. As I said though, I just never really got into the game, at least not fighting online. I remember playing that game in my dorm room with friends and having tournaments and such. Direct head-to-head I had a blast, so obviously I was hoping with the capability to play online it'd be just as fun...sadly I was mistaken. As for my characters I was mainly a Cervantes player. Mitsurugi was my #2 and I was kinda decent with Maxi (just because his fighting style actually rewards button mashing ). With SC IV I made a character based off of Raphael and he was pretty frickin' sweet. His look was absolutely wicked, PERFECT for a Raphael copy. Against the few friends that I managed to play with directly I was able to do pretty well with him. But I've already described my online woes with the game so no need to repeat them.

In the end though, DoA is pretty much the only fighting series I subscribe to these days. I used to like Marvel vs Capcom 3 and even did fairly well with it online. My team was Doom, Zero, and Amaterasu. In the end I started getting bored with it though so I decided to retire from it. I was never exceptional but I could hold my own in most lobbies, winning two or three fights before someone would take me down. In the end I traded it in to help pay for some other game, can't even remember which. But yeah, I've been with DoA since DoA2 Hardcore. Funny story about that, I had played it over at a friend's house and decided I wanted to get it, so I was taking a game in to trade it for DoA. Someone else was at the store wanting to trade in DoA2 Hardcore for the very game that I was taking to trade in. We ended up just cutting out the middle-man and swapped games before we got to the cash register. :3

As for Kasumi, as I've mentioned she's definitely a rusher. She's not as good at Ayane in throwing people off-balance since Ayane has all the spins and rolls and such to make her hard to predict. But with Kasumi if you go at them with a barrage of different attacks and combos and toss a throw in there every now and then she's so quick that she can make sure that the opponent just doesn't have time to react.

 

[Benpasko]

5 felt lacking in modes and had a bizarre character lineup choice why replace iconic characters with horrible unlikeable new versions and then give them the exact same fighting style?

Except for Talim, they just took her out completely. The other characters at least got their styles carried over, they just gave the finger to people who like Talim.

 

[Maximum Bert]

snippity

Cool stuff yeah Akiras hard as hell to use he is in Virtua Fighter as well but if you can use him well hes an absolute monster if you cant (like me) hes not so good although he seems easier to use in DOA than VF.

I like Pai in DOA more than Virtua Fighter I feel she really fits the game and has an amazing mix up game or at least it seems so she is probably the character I have the most trouble reading.

I dont like Alpha I have her unlocked in DOA5 but I am still salty at her from DOA4 good god I hated her in that game as for Ayanes drill kick (yeah I have always called it that as well) I really only use it if my opponent is doing something stupid like handstanding with Bradwong when I am nowhere near them (lol why would you do that) for ending combos I tend to go with the 66kk7k move or if it will connect the easier 66kkk move but never do this move outside of combos its pure counter bait although I suppose you could cancel the last k with 4 and then punish if they got ahead of themselves and tried to counter.

With Kasumi I like her vanishing and slicing moves they look sweet I pretty much play her pure rushdown like you say and try and mix it up (like I do with everyone) but I dont know enough of her data to be good with her just a few moves that I think look sweet and a general feel for what she will do when. With Bayman I just like his come at me bro style they attack you counter after 2 counters they tend to get scared as he does quite a bit of damage so then you can just start abusing some kicks and necksnapping them but I really havent used him enough in DOA5 I know none of his combos holds , throws etc and not enough of his moves for me to really use him effectively, same with Bass (sorry Mr Strong). I can use Tina ok ish though I suppose although I dont particularly like her or Helena much.

Why do they give Ryu more partners I mean I suppose it makes sense but surely he has enough already then again maybe I am talking out my ass. I am glad Eins back he was cool shame Tengu is still out I loved playing that dood in 2 Hardcore. You didnt miss much with DOA1, DOA2 was a huge improvement (strange how lots of fighters improve massively with a second installment then take ages to improve again if at all).

I never really played MVC3 I have UMVC3 but I just couldnt get into it I had lots of little nitpicks with it I didnt like the backgrounds and I was sorta butthurt that Psylocke wasnt in it who after Tifa is one of my favourite female videogame characters so I never really found a team I was comfortable with and in the end dropped it before obtaining any level of proficiency.

Has the netcode improved for DOA5U? Surely it couldnt get anyworse anyway. I like the new modes and features I have heard about and am glad stuff carries over I didnt want to have to unlock Lisas swimsuit again. I am so glad they patched it so you could get it without having to finish legendary survival mode (I dont like survival mode in this game I find the ring stage really boring and having to abuse the AIs weaknesses rather than play properly annoys me sometimes).

Online in SC4 was bad btw V is much better but the game is not so changed as to make you change your mind if you werent a huge fan of the others. Good to hear from another DOA player though I am gonna be so out of practice (like I am in most fighters now) but I am gonna have a blast when it hits. I am better at DOA than I am at Skullgirls my Squigly, Valentine team needs some serious effort put in.

5 felt lacking in modes and had a bizarre character lineup choice why replace iconic characters with horrible unlikeable new versions and then give them the exact same fighting style?

Except for Talim, they just took her out completely. The other characters at least got their styles carried over, they just gave the finger to people who like Talim.

Zasalamel got cut as well and probably others I am forgetting but yeah they did a piss poor job with the character select I pity the Setsuka and Sophitia fans especially seeing them left out and and their styles given to Patrokolos the most unlikeable character I have seen in quite a while followed closely by Phyrra (and they included both of them on the roster twice).

At least you will be able to play Talim in SC2 HD when it hits and hopefully in Lost swords if it is an actual proper SC game and not some crappy spinoff.