The Fighting Game Diaries: There is (no) adaption

A while back, for the first (and possibly last time) I completed the arcade mode for Third Strike, using Akuma. The final boss of Third Strike is Gill. Gill has a bit of a reputation. He is one of those old fighting game bosses. The bosses that input read, do more damage – the old Capcom, SNK special. Regarding bosses like this, I have occasionally seen comments, mainly from older fighting game fans that fighting bosses like this, with AI like this made them better at fighting games. I…somehow, maybe… could see that. Perhaps. Maybe not.

Jumping heavy kick my beloved. Fire balls, Supers – none of that. Jumping heavy kick is where its at.

In theory, it should take extreme skill to beat a tough boss. The AI should make me pull out all the stops. Optimal combos, precise parrying, immaculate footsies and neutral. Or I could just spam heavy jumping kick because for some reason Gill could not handle that. In total, it took 5 or 6 items to get past Gill. 4 or 5 attempts or so of trying to fight properly and then the cheesing. I noticed on the previous attempt it was sort of working so I decided to run with it. Apparently at some point Gill will start laughing, and that brings the difficulty down. Maybe he laughed at some point? I don’t know. Whatever happen, the man who would be God couldn’t handle jumping heavy kick.

The idea that this triumph has somehow improved my ability to play fighting games is… well, it’s certainly something. What I did was find one specific pattern (and nothing else) and exploit it. Granted, spotting patterns and learning how to deal with them in fighting games is a skill. But not like this. This is locking down one specific thing, that the opponent is never going to counter (it’s a gap in their AI) and repeating it over and over. Most folks in a fighting game will change something. I mean, I learned how to jumping heavy kick a lot. I would need my opponent to never, ever anti-air. Not even once, for that knowledge to be useful. Moment they do, nothing to fall back on. Because Gill has taught me heavy jumping kick is the most amazing thing I can do.

The only thing I have learned from fighting, and watching other people fight over tuned boss fights (hello again SNK), is that you hold out until you find one specific pattern and then abuse it. Which is all well and good against an un-reactive AI. Against a person though, that’s of limited use.

Did feel good beating Gill though. Not going to deny that. Not the most elegant of exploits, but I can say I knocked the dude over. It’s a worthwhile achievement.

It’s far more thrilling to fight and overcome a human opponent. A lot more rewarding too. The process goes back and forth. One person presents a problem, the other person tries to solve it. This process can go back and forth, almost infinitely. The problems and solutions keep changing. Could be a change in neutral, could be a new move being presented, could be a change in play style (someone decides to rely more on their zoning then their rush down, as an example). These changes can be gradual or moment to moment. It’s all incredibly exciting. Particularly when compared to a boss who if I tried anything outside heavy jumping kick would murder me just because. 

As an aside, a worked-out AI opponent can still be fun to fight. Hell, I’ve played so much Sekiro in boss rush mode, despite the boss fights not changing because I enjoy it so much. However, I struggle with replaying Dark Souls sometimes because the bosses aren’t that dynamic, so they aren’t as much fun to fight over and over. Same applies to fighting games. I don’t have much of an urge to fight Gill again. There might be a fighting game boss out there I would be down to fight over and over again. We’ll see if one turns up.

It’s a bit of shame. Some fighting game bosses are visually incredible, with glorious animations. It’s just that they input read you do death and remove the chance for a dynamic fight by punishing anything but the optimal strategy, which can be incredibly boring. A good enough human will do that, but at least you know it’s by skill and experience, honed over a good number of matches. Matches that have seen them change and adapt, over and over again. That process is a lot of fun.

The two sets that follow are from the Park. One versus a Faust player, and one versus a Ky player. Two opponents that both present different challenges. Faust with his items and range with his Scalpel and Ky with his ability to zone with fire balls. Both sets see me slip into a 3 – 0 hole, and something has to change.

In the Ky set, the problem was getting caught out by fireballs. I was too eager to jump in, often from too far away. Ky had time to launch his projectile and recover in time to throw out a 6P. I was also not disguising my jumps in general, resulting in a lot of 6P. Too many jump ins against one of the game’s best 6P’s isn’t going to end well. I eventually start to either empty jump more, or neutral jump. This allows me to clear fire balls, and not take a 6P to the face. Both welcome changes. There are still mistakes made, but a lot less of them. Towards the end I time my jump ins a lot better. I’m catching Ky as the fireball is launched, thus not allowing anytime for a 6P to follow. It alters how the match plays out. Also, throughout this set I got a lot better at hitting 2S. It was getting spaced and punished a lot early on. I cleaned that up and got more combos as a result.

Don’t call it a comeback.

Solid defence is nice.

Not that this was gameplay related. But I got teabagged too, and it’s clear by the final match that ticked me off a little more than I thought it did. That last set was cranky Baiken. I do love cranky Baiken.

Wall breaks are nice.

A little scuffed, but got the job done.

Beating the fire ball with 2H. Feels good. Then catching the fire ball with youzansen. Feels good.

Also, one more thing before I forget, and possibly the most exciting thing. I’m teching throws. Long time readers might be familiar with my colossal struggle with dealing with strike throw. It became a big mental block. Still is. But, I’m finally having the confidence to try and tech. To read (best I can) when the throw is coming and dealing with it. There is much progress to be made, but this progress alone is incredibly exciting. I even got in some throws of my own. Wonders never cease.

With the Faust set, initially my thinking was that I made a whole bunch of alterations based on Faust’s items and playing around his scalpel. Watching the set back however, it seems like I just started playing better the longer it went on. Sometimes the adaption isn’t specifically technical, it’s a cleaning up of what’s been put out there already. Prior to the set finishing 3 – 3, there were some close rounds. I think it finishes 3 -3 because I clean up my act, and those close loses become close wins. The Faust matchup is tough though. Baiken gets a lot out of 5S. It’s one of the best pokes in the game. Faust is one of the few characters that can out poke it. Baiken likes to attack from the air. Faust is one of the few characters that not only has a good 6P but seventeen other buttons that also anti-air well.

Do love a good side switch.

All of this makes it a fun challenge to navigate.

Baiken lean’s into her 6P.

Fighting games are full of fun challenges to navigate and learn from. One of the reasons they are so much fun to play.

The Fighting Game Diaries: There are (no) adjustments

I’ve been playing Street Fighter 3^rd Strike online. Not enough to replace Strive, but enough that I am messing around and trying to learn new things. However, because I play on PS4 I have to play on the 30^th Anniversary Edition and let’s just say it’s not the most populous player pool. I’ve encountered like, 5 different people across multiple nights of play. I can see 5 people in 5 minutes on Strive. It’s a different vibe. It has not been unusual to play the same person during one session.

Strive and 3^rd Strike are different games. There are things that can carry over – things like spacing, blocking and whiff punishing can carry other. In one way or another. But there is a bunch of stuff that is different, and it can take a while to get used to. A few examples. Sometimes I’d tried to get out of a corner with up and back. There’s no air blocking in 3^rd Strike. It’s got me in trouble more than a few times. If only I had a burst. I also sometimes forget that I cannot air dash in 3^rd Strike. I just keep doing jumping heavy kick in the middle of nowhere. And sometimes I try to run. There’s no running in Street Fighter. Only dashing. Switching between games can be tricky.

There has been a lot of losing. Sometimes the opponent is simply more experienced and better than me. That happens. It’s an older game – released in 2018 (original release being way older) and I’m coming into this very late. I set my stall out – win a game, any game. As long as I could say I was good enough to win a game at 3^rd Strike I’d be happy. Because I am one of those folks who watches a lot of 3^rd Strike, talks about how much I like 3^rd Strike but barely give it any playtime. Well, it has been time to fix that. Turns out watching 3^rd Strike and playing 3^rd Strike are different things. This is on the basis of the skill required mind. 3^rd Strike is an older game, but it controls incredibly well – its super responsive and clean – 9 times out of 10 an input goes in, and it comes back out as intended. I’m just not that great at picking the right one. I’m a heavy kick enjoyer – dangerously so.

Hits the mark.

After a fair few losses – I think 15 or so seems a good estimation it finally happened. I finally won a match. I should have mentioned I’ve been sticking with Gouki (read: Akuma). I used Gouki the first time I tried 3^rd Strike online (incredibly laggy) and after a session messing around with a few characters (but starting with Gouki) I have been running with him. My opponent was using Dudley. They had already beaten me with Dudley, so I was not expecting much. But through poking and keep away I managed to get a life lead in the first round, and I kept it. My spacing felt pretty decent, and I even got to finish with a super. I think they thought I was going for another regular fireball (I’d used a few of them) and tried to jump it and got caught up in the bigger hitbox. The second round saw similar spacing and control – keeping Dudley away for the most part. I’ve seen enough of Dudley to know that up close he’s rather dangerous. It appears Shoto’s can keep Dudley at bay with pokes like standing medium kick – that’s good to know.

Defence.

I’ve managed to secure three wins somehow. One against Yun who, surprisingly has supers that aren’t Genei Jin (huh) and one against Ken (both the same player) – I blocked supers and punished (somewhat) accordingly. Sometimes the simple stuff works the best.

Think that’s a missed parry.

I’ve got a long way to go though. I still don’t know how to combo properly. There are certain things I can do – low medium kick in fireball, and low medium kick into tatsu for example but nothing substantial. I don’t know any real mixes; I only know one or two hit confirms into super. And that’s the one super, the big fireball one. No idea how to hit into the others. I mess around in training mode and get occasion combos in there – normally little 2 or 3 hit things. Nothing major. I was going to say I cannot do EX moves but Gouki doesn’t have those it turns out. But I also cannot do EX moves. I’ve read how to do them, but I can’t get them to come out. That’s something to practice. That’s what learning is for though. I don’t mind learning through losing either – 3^rd Strike isn’t my main game, so I feel like there’s less on the line. It’s something I am doing for fun. Still want to learn some combos though – just say I can do them more than anything else. Hitting one in a match would be fun.

I’m still extremely excited though. I managed to prove to myself that I can win matches against human opponents in 3^rd Strike. I’m good enough to do that. And after a long time of watching 3^rd Strike I’m finally playing 3^rd Strike. That’s good too. It gives me a sense of perspective. I already knew that when I watched tournaments I was watching talented people. Now I know just how talented these people are. Must take a lot of work to get that far in the game.

Whiff punishing. I also whiffed but got away with it. I’ll take it.

I’m a long way from that. I will probably always be a long way from that. But to myself I proved I can win in 3^rd Strike, and I’m having fun trying to do that. I’ll take that.

A late edit: I’m not sure how much longer the 3^rd Strike experiment is going to last. Not because of the difficulty of the journey, but the quality of the online experience. 30^th Anniversary version of Street Fighter does not have ping counters or connection strengths on show. You can select the quality of connection (low, medium and good – solid tiers there) but on the match screen there is no indication of how good things are. Combine that with the low player population and… it’s not great. There are matches like this:

I’m not sure how it is on their end but on my end, that’s barely functional. The loss is inconsequential. Even after a win I’d bail. Playing on a connection like that just isn’t great no matter the outcome.

For reference I have played matches in Strive that have 250 MS and they have been playable. In some cases, more than playable. That’s not happening here. There’s no Arc System Works Rollback to rescue this situation. It’s just something to put up with and deal with. But considering I have fighting games that have good net code on deck – that’s a hard sell. No matter how great 3^rd Strike is.

That’s a damn shame.

The Fighting Game Diaries: Me and My Friend Learn Mashing Does(n’t) Work

My friend, who has made a previous appearance on the fighting game dairies appears once more. Always cause for celebration. This time she came to my house to play fighting games, so no taking the PS4 to work. Not that that happened anyway.

This time around, owing to the extended time we had we played a whole bunch of stuff. As always Xrd Rev (2) lead off, and then we headed off to Street Fighter (a medley of Third Strike, II Turbo and one match of Alpha III). We then stopped off at Granblue Fantasy Vs. And as before, thoughts were vocalised, and things where learned.

Giving Technical Controls a go: Xrd always makes for a good start. She likes Xrd, and the stylish controls let her do a lot of stuff and have a lot of fun. This time around we did one match – she played Sol and I played Johnny. She did some mashing, did some cool combos and won the first round. I adjusted, used slash and far slash more to out space the mash and took it from there.

She has mentioned that she would like to try the technical controls. I showed her training mode and combo practice with Sol in Xrd and let her have a go. She managed to pull off Gun Flame successfully – yay! Then she got a bit bored. I mean, I do sometimes forget that these controls can be tricky for newcomers. But the fact she can pull of Gun Flame means she can do Bandit Bringer and Bandit Revolver – it’s the same quarter circle but with kick instead of punch.

One thing she did bring up – on the screen the buttons say P, K, S and HS. And D is there to. On the controller its square, cross, triangle and circle. And R1. That is a little confusing now I think about it. There is an option to switch it to the latter in the game – I might do that for next time.

Street Fighting: We then checked out Street Fighter. Thanks to the 30^th Anniversary Edition, there is a whole bunch of Street Fighter games in one place. The most time was spent with Third Strike and Street Fighter II. We pretty much ran through every character in both games – I think that speaks to how much fun we had. Aside from Alpha 3. It turns out, the Alpha III character selection screen has a hidden timer. It’s frustrating for anyone who has not seen the cast before and wants to see who’s who. Although the same applies to Third Strike, except Third Strike has a visible timer. I’m not in an arcade anymore – let me take my time.

Compared to the matches in Guilty Gear, and later Granblue the matches in Street Fighter where a lot more even. I edged Third Strike. In Street Fighter II though, and this is not an exaggeration she kicked the shit out of me. I got to like 9 – 2 in her favour. I got bodied.

Getting Yun’ed.

In Third Strike my friend finally started to block with some consistency. This time I gave a more detailed explanation of blocking and how it functions – certainly more detailed than just hold back. It worked – she blocked out extended attacks – high and low. Didn’t her long to get used to it either – one or two matches and she had it. And in her mashing she managed to parry a few times as well. I managed some parries as well – by the by, parrying in Third Strike feels so good to do. She also threw me a good few times – I can’t throw people in Third Strike (I should look it up) but she can. She doesn’t know how she can but she can. She also managed, with Necro to throw me as Yun whilst I was in the middle of Gen’ei Jin. Won the match too. She’s a god.

(Gif of Hugo Super should be here – see note at the end.)

And for the first time in any game, she did supers. She hit me with Hugo’s super – the one with two 360 inputs – I can’t even do those. It was amazing – I had my own will it kill moment in my head before the final hit. And we both found out Chun Li has amazing buttons that go 17 miles – just stand in neutral and poke people to death. My friend digs supers – even when I was winning matches with them. She thinks they look cool – I agree. Super moves a pretty great – satisfying to pull off and visually pleasing. It’s a good combination.

Where I find out Chun Li has good buttons.

Thanks to Makoto I managed to pull ahead – but the whole thing was a close-run thing. My friend did say whether it was her or me she liked seeing a match end on a super. Super’s are pretty cool.

Mashers Paradise: Not Street Fighter II. Not even remotely close. A shit kicking is what it was. It’s possibly the most one sided one of these sessions have been. What was interesting about this was her reasoning for this. Now, bear in mind I’m not the best player of Street Fighter II (clearly) – so what follows is skewed by that. But also bear in mind up until this point my friend has played Strive, Xrd (Revelator and Rev 2), Third Strike and (after this) Granblue. And she is a self-admitted masher.

Paraphrasing her, she said of all those games Street Fighter II was the easiest one to play because… it rewards her mashing more than any other game. I mentioned to her that this surprised me. If you play fighting games, particularly modern ones you might be familiar with some opinions of some people who play older fighting games. They can harp on about how the new games are too simple and they can be solved by mashing. By contrast, the old games are too complex to mash – you had to precise all the time, due to the complexity, which apparently all modern fighting games have binned.

This happened a lot. Also, she discovered the joy of the double KO.

Then there’s my friend, with her limited experience mashing away to her hearts content and winning at Street Fighter II. I was trying to do spacing and all that good stuff, and she just mashed and ran me over. It was fun to see. It was a lot of fun.

Also, while I am on Street Fighter II. When people complain about Strive damage – after Street Fighter II I don’t want to hear it. I’ve never seen a throw in Strive take half a health bar. Sometimes more. There are times in Street Fighter II when even Season 1 Sol Badguy would be saying “guys, that’s too much damage. Y’all gotta turn that down.”

I think my favourite moment was when she told me – as she was crouching in the corner, and I had low health – don’t come near me – I’m going to hit you. I went near her, and she hit me low. She won. Yeah, she said she would, and she did it. And she did the same again in another match. I should have listened.    

It got to the point where I stopped recording her wins – normally I record her wins, but she was just winning so many. You love to see it.

Looking the part: And finally, we come to Granblue Fantasy Vs. For the most part this was one sided – I got out to 9 – 0 match lead. My friend was enjoying herself though (again, ran through most of the characters) and was pleased whenever there was a close round. Then came the final match. I played with Ladiva and she played with Zeta.

I forgot how much fun Granblue can be. Hooray for Rollback (when it arrives). Also, my friends corner pressure – good stuff.

Out of all our play time, I think this was the most excited and happy I heard and saw her. She was downright ecstatic at points. I think I’ve mentioned she mashes. We watched the replay back. This time around, she said there where points and moments where she looked like a fighting game player. Not someone mashing – someone playing the game. She had a combo of 12 hits – she’s down 3, 4, 5 hits – never 12! She got so excited when she saw the 12 come up – there was an audible noise of glee. Specials were happening with some consistency – fireballs, Zeta’s thrust attacks – all that good stuff. Granblue has a dedicated block button. She liked that. She had some consistent blocking. She liked that. She commented on the replay how pleased she was with some of her blocks.

You love to see it. You truly do. I’m getting a little emotional writing this. We’ve been playing for a while; she’s been trying to do more and more stuff and she saw all of that come together. She was so happy that she did that, and I was so happy for her too.

You love to see it.

Notes and Asides:

This post is launching without Gifs because Gfycat is having a moment. Once it starts working again I’ll put them in.

Watching Third Strike

Like a lot of fans of Third Strike, I’ve barely played it. I do love watching the game though. The two fighting games that get most of my viewing time are Guilty Gear Strive and Third Strike. I play Strive the most, I like watching Strive and it’s always fun to see what the best players are doing. My only means of playing Third Strike is on the 30^th Anniversary Edition and the netcode there is not the best. I’m think I’m being kind there. The offline options aren’t great. There’s training mode, arcade mode and that’s it. There is a versus option, but that’s limited to PVP. There is no ability to fight an AI opponent in a one-off fight. Now, I’m not a game developer so I don’t want to say if that would have been hard to put it but I’m pretty sure other fight games in 2018 had that option. So, that means a whole lot of watching.

The extent of my Third Strike skill… in training mode.

I can also do a Raging Demon. Not well camoflauged, but I can do it.

Luckily for me, there is YouTube channel called Gamer Newton. It’s a Japanese arcade that uploads it’s tournaments and special matches. Every Wednesday there is a one on one Third Strike Tournament – makes for good viewing after work. Occasionally there are first tens – these can either be incredibly close or train wrecks – both are fun for different reasons.

This weeks tournament. Fun stuff.

Third Strike is one of those games where I will go out of my way to watch it. It’s a special game. Even though I don’t play it a lot, when I do mess around on training mode I can tell how good it is. Everything is clean and responsive – it controls super nice.

My watching of Third Strike is not rooted in nostalgia. I know this because I have no nostalgia for Third Strike – it was never a childhood/teenagehood game of mine. The Street Fighter I have memories of is Alpha 3 and I don’t seek it out. I watch for a bit if YouTube throws up a recommendation but nothing much else and never for that long. The earliest memory I have of Third Strike is watching Evo Moment 37 (me and whole bunch of people) – I can’t remember when I saw it, and it did not lead to an instant Third Strike interest, awesome as it is.

This is a fun one to watch.

Parrying could get me interested though. After playing Sekiro. All roads lead to Sekiro for me. As a comparison, most parries in I’ve seen in fighting games are like those in say, Ghost of Tsushima – a big one-off moment where the game slows down. Third Strike’s parry operates more like Sekiro’s – truthfully Sekiro’s parry would be more like Third Strike – seamless and flowing into other moments. There is a little bit of hit stun and a sound that goes off but otherwise parries slip right into the next action. It makes for wonderful, flowing fights that I have not seen much of in other fighting games. Just look at the Daigo parry – parry after parry after parry – only ending after the super has finished. Consecutive parries are the best.

Historical significance.

Please bear in mind all of the following observations are based off watching the game. If I played the game more, perhaps things would change. They are based on the reputation of Third Strike (I guess older fighting games in general) in comparison to modern fighting games. More particularly, the criticisms that get levelled at modern fighting games, where sometimes, older fighting games get a more favourable looking at.

This video that got me to pay more attention to older games and how they work.

As a player Strive, I have read numerous comments regarding the damage in the game. The damage is too much, the damage is too high, makes the game too easy. These comments aren’t hard to find. I’ve since learned these comments are applied to a lot of modern fighting games. The damage is high across the board apparently. Now, not everyone in Third Strike has that sort of damage. But there are definitely characters on the roster that can do Strive damage. Hi Makoto. Hi Dudley. Hello Chun Li. And Urien. And Yun. And Gouki (read: Akuma). Okay there’s a few of them. Watching Makoto delete a health bar in 10 seconds is something to behold. Sometimes without a super even.

The games in the Street Fighter series are supposedly the pinnacle of footies, with Third Strike being right up there. Until Makoto launches herself halfway across the screen to punch your character straight in the sternum. That’s not counting Yun doing the same thing. That’s not counting Gouki (read: Akuma) teleporting across the screen. Or Urien doing full screen shoulder charges. Or Tatsu’s launching people like helicopters. All hail EX magic. Not bad for an honest based footsies game.

More one on one tournament action.

Finally, the balance of Third Strike in terms of characters. There are the have nots (Sean and 12) and the haves (Chun Li, Yun and Urien passed on my observations) and still have a lots but not everything (most people who aren’t Sean and 12) – people playing Sean and 12 have to work twice as hard as the middle group, and almost four times as hard as the top group. That being said when either of those two win, it’s pretty cool. But, when there’s a tournament and a Chun Li or Yun turns out, perhaps put some money on them being there at the end, or there abouts. I know in tier lists Urien never makes the top but based on what I’ve seen a well-played Urien in Third Strike is a particularly terrifying opponent. The mirror damage stacks up quickly. Chun Li matches are funny though. They start off as fun, free experiences. Then Chun Li gets a bar and then the fight suddenly becomes a terrifying game of don’t get kicked in the shin. Or chest. Or head. Or anywhere really. Chun Li can go into super from a whole bunch of hits. Chun Li’s Houyoku Sen (the multiple kicks) does so much damage, it’s particularly dangerous. If she makes it to the second round with two bars of meter – good luck I guess.

This is worth watching – but that in itself is a spoiler. If this fight goes as it normally would, it should be incredibly onesided – for the first part it is. Then the magic happens.

I don’t hold any of that against the game. The more I’ve played fighting games and watched them I’ve realised that from any time and any era, all fighting games have bullshit. The degree of bullshit differs from game to game, but its there. High damage has always been there, lopsided rosters have always been there and honest footsies have probably never been and never will be. Accepting all of this and rolling with it has been… a liberating experience. Might as revel in the shared experience of fighting games rather than pretending some are purer than others. Helps to make the game fun.

Preach

Beating someone with bullshit is fun. Triumphing against the bullshit is fun. It’s all fun. One day you’re the one being bullshitted, and one day you’re the bullshitter. These things go in cycles – the circle of life in every fighting game. Celebrate it – it’s beautiful.