One More Month Until Xrd OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!

     In less than one month Guilty Gear Xrd will be released for JP PS3 and PS4 and needless to say I'm pretty hyped for it. It's a combination of a brand new series of a game I really enjoy and I'm playing a brand new character. Now not to get it twisted because I still enjoy +R a lot and I hope it can co-exist with Xrd, but it will have a big influx of newer players I get to play along with a comeback of OGs who decided to skip out on +R. At least, that's what I'm hoping for anyway.

     The only thing that I can potentially seeing my hype for Xrd is if I don't find myself enjoying Sin for one reason or another. He has just about everything that I'm looking for a character so I think it'll just come down to me adjusting to him and treating him as a new character not try and copy-paste everything from my Order Sol play. I already decided that since I'm not going to NEC this year because of work related issues and mandatory overtime that I'm just going to devote whatever free time I have during NEC to training mode Xrd and Sin. I already have a training regime of sorts to go through when I have access to the game -

- YRC 214HS
- YRC pole jump momentum
- Blockstrings
- Combo Theory
- Meter Management
- YRC Backdash
- Meaty DP shenanigans
- Mixups

     And that's only the tip of the iceberg. There's also a few character specific stuff I need to figure out like Ramlethat everything, dealing with Eddie unblockables, figuring out how Elphelt work...a lot of stuff actually. I probably won't even be touching online until the week after or whenever I feel comfortable enough to get MU exp with him...whichever comes first. Thankfully I don't have to worry too much about character familiarity since watching more than enough Xrd vids and playing GG 2 1/2 years prior I have a real good idea on their general gameplan since it hasn't changed drastically. It just comes down to me applying everything I already know with a brand new character that sort of got me feeling a bit worried.

     For the time being I'm just playing Vita and PSP games to hold me over like Freedom Wars and Tales of Hearts R next month. I'm having way too much fun with FW and ToHR I've been waiting for since they announce an ENG version of the game to come out. I just know that as soon as Xrd drops every other game is getting put on the back burner for the time being. I really wanna have a better track record for Xrd than I did for +R. Not to say it was terrible since I did win a few locals / monthlies, won a regional and placed 5th at Frosty Faustings a year ago...I just wished I could've placed higher at UFGTX where it probably would've meant a lot more to do well...despite a lot of the players there knowing how much better I got compared to last year. Oh well with Xrd being a new game and all I see it as a new start. Just gotta do what I've been doing and I'll get that breakthrough sooner or later.

Till next month!

Guilty Gear Xrd TGS 2014 Sin Impressions

     Since I'm home off work early and have nothing better to do with my time, I figured I may as well get this out of the way and just get my first impressions about Sin out of the way. Why is there a picture of both Sin and El? Well it's simple. El has big tits and is holding a strawberry grenade.

     Now when Sin was first announced I was really excited that they released a character who would get me interested in Xrd. If you know me and my thoughts and Xrd then you'll most likely know I like the game, but not really a fan of what they're doing with most of the X / XX characters released. I just find their AC / +R counterparts a lot more polished and interesting to play and watch. It was the main reason I was more interested in /newer/ characters announced and not bringing back more XX characters if they're just going to revert them to their older counterparts. Anyways, when Sin was announced I was interested in how his hunger meter would work and how exactly his rushdown would work w/ him being able to special cancel all of his specials into each other as long as he has meter. I originally thought he was going to be Order Sol lite, but after watching the TGS vids and figuring out more and more stuff about him I'm starting to get more and more excited for him and can't wait to practice him when I get ahold of this game.

     I'm really liking his movement options. He has a nice, fast run speed with a normal jump arc. This is great for trying to chase people and stopping jumpouts (something OS has a major problem with in +R). Sin can close the gap just like HOS, not only by running, but with his pole vault jumps travelling full screen and giving you air movement options afterwards  and will most likely will have  more with YRC forward momentum. His backdash looks decent, but I can't really talk about it more until I know how much invul it has. It looks fast and covers a decent range, like Ciel's backdash in MB, so that's actually pretty good.

      His hunger meter looks really easy to manage to the point it'll probably be an afterthought in high level play. The less meter he has when eats. The more he gains. On top of that his special moves do not really take a lot of meter to use so you can really go HAM with them and stay safe for the most part. What this mean is that during his combos he can decide to cut his combo short and for hard knockdown and eat food and regain most, if not all, of his hunger meter back. On top of that he recovers fast enough that he'll be able to run oki on top of that. It's like AC FRCing with OS, minus the FRC of course. Although I'm 100% sure he'll be able to RC / YRC CIAGB (Cause I'm A Growing Boy) to set up even more obnoxious stuff.

     His DP is worth noting...for a few reasons actually. Unless it's an air hit, his DP will not launch the opponent. This sounds like a bad at first especially when you consider they will recover before you do unless it's a NON-CH. Well guess what? His DP can be special cancelled on hit or block. So guess what~? On hit he can get a full confirm and on block he can make his DP SAFE. DP > pole jump to get out of dodge or DP > rush to start pressure. For a rushdown character to have a safe DP in that sense is pretty insane. The best apart of all this? It all cost little resources to do. "Respect the mash".

     Overall, this character is looking /really/ good. On top of what I discussed he has a slow moving fireball super that will allow him to create space and safely charge (something OS can't do), his damage looks consistent and stable (unlike OS), he's not resource extensive (unlike OS), he has nice fast moving pokes and he looks like he'll have great pressure. I have really high hopes this character, alongside El, will be strong by the time console Xrd drops. Having a character I genuinely want to play is really helping me get excited for this game and I can't wait to play it!

Till then, later.

Episode 9: Why Do I Keep Using This Stupid Gimmick

     ZZZZZZ Ok so another Two years from my previous post and I was just picking up Skullgirls back then. I (am not making any promises) promise that I will not make this a common trend. I'll try and keep it from once every two years to every year :P

     Anyways, this blog post will not only mark my eight years playing FGs, but also my two years of playing Guilty Gear....god damn I'm getting too old for this shit. I'm not gonna go over every little thing that happened with me and FGs since if you know me personally or follow me on twitter then you probably already know, but I will talk about some of the stuff I normally don't talk about for both my time with MB and my time now with GG. For better or worse fighting games kind of sort of had a huge impact on my life. It forced me to become more of a social person, even if I don't really like the person and believe me there's /a lot/ of people I'd rather not deal with if I don't have to. It also help become more competitive in more aspects of my life. When I first started back in 2006 I was the total opposite of what I am now. Shy, timid, soft spoken and I had major self-esteem issues. It took me constantly talking to and hanging out with the #SRM crew on IRC, lying to my parents so I can actually go to a tournament in Philly and joining the military to fix a lot of those issues. I wasn't really a competitive person either and I had no drive or motivation to better myself in fighting games either.

     I can't exactly explain what it was that changed that when I played MB. Whether it was watching SBO 2006 for the first time or watching Zar and Sp00ky play back at NEC 2006 and thinking "Man I really want to beat these guys", something inside me just snapped and all of a sudden I really wanted to get competitive with the game show off my skills. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize that my driving force for wanting to get better is out of spite for other people saying I can't get good at a game...as silly and stupid as that sounds. The only reason I even considered going to a tournament was because I remember some people in the #MBAC channel back on EFnet were saying no one from #SRM would ever travel to a tournament and win and I even remember quite a few people in #SRM saying I wasn't a good player and only won because of Ciel character me. If it wasn't for that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have even considered traveling or rather I wouldn't have traveled right then and there. I really didn't care about the money or anything like that. My Eighteen year old self back then just wanted to throw in everyones face, "Hey I was able to go to this tournament and make one your WC player and arguably best overall USMB player at the time free as shit and I'm some 'scrub' from Ohio. What about you?" Granted I didn't say that, I was really, REALLY close to doing so.

     I know with my time playing FGs one of the things people really didn't like about me was the fact I came off as cocky and arrogant and I thought highly of my skills. I also never really "feared" anyone as a player and thought I could beat whoever I had to play and as far as MB goes...that's actually pretty true. In MBAC the /only/ people I ever really lost to consistently was Jiyuna and Lord Knight and the former I made that fool into a fucking mute the rest of the weekend after I beat him in Final Round. In MBAA again the only person I consistently lost to were Lord Knight and Tonberry. Yes I'm also taking my loss against Doren2K at FR 2010 and H-F Blade at EVO 2010, but other than that I was able to pretty much beat the majority of the MB players consistently or at absolute worst go even with them...whether it was casuals or tournament. I'm sorry, but I'm not really going to downplay my skills as a player, especially when I have eight years of tournament results to back my mouth up. Melty Blood should go without saying and if you've ever actually seen me play or watch sets of my play in Gear then you can see how good I am in Gear. The /only/ difference is in Gear I don't have anywhere near the track record I had in MB. Yes I placed well at regional and won a few local / state level tournaments since +R came out, but I haven't had that "breakthrough" tournament I had in MB. Despite that however there's not a lot of people who I play in gear who I would consider myself afraid of or who beats me consistently. Only people I can name was Elvenshadow, Kenji, Zidane (online. we haven't played offline), Kensou and Kyle W. Everyone else I either go damn near even with them or beat.

     Throughout my time playing FGs competitively my motivation for wanting to get better was never just for sake of wanting to get better or to better the scene or any of the noble nonsense. It's simple. I just do it so I can spite people and be like, "Hey. If I decide to take whatever game you're playing even remotely seriously then odds are I can most likely push your shit in harder than anyone you play on a consistent basis." It was one of my main reasons for picking up Guilty Gear. I might have said on twitter that I'm a vindictive person and I hold grudges. Well a couple of years ago I was talking to TitaniumBeast about the NC scene after I left and the topic somehow came up about Guilty Gear. Well I said that if I really tried I could become a good HOS player and he essentially says "LOL No." At the time I didn't think too much of it since I wasn't playing Gear, but when I finally did play Gear I never felt that I couldn't become a strong Order Sol player or a strong Gear player in general and I used his doubt of me to as fuel to get better and better.

     It sort of sucks that I have such a selfish and stupid reason for wanting to get better nowadays, but for some reason it really seems like it's the only way to get myself going. If I try it to help out other people it's pretty much a waste of time since the advice I give will either fall on deaf ears or the people who "show interest" actually has no interest whatsoever and I'm essentially just wasting my time. I never really felt like I had to get better for the sake of a local scene since I never had a local scene to call my own, except for my time in North Carolina and that was very short lived since by the time SSF4 and MvC3 came out everyone there was pretty much done with Melty anyway so it was just whatever. Maybe Xrd will actually change that about myself since there's quite of few people who's "interested" in it. I'm not holding my breath, but I would love to be proven wrong.

So yeah, my main driving force for wanting to get good at FGs was out of spite and just wanting to show everyone up in a game. Sort of stupid really. Hopefully my next blog post (whenever that will be) will be a bit more light-hearted, but yeah lol Happy eighth FG anniversary!

Also don't be afraid and try to use this blog post as a means to make a point about myself...just make sure you're a player worth a shit and don't waste damn near 7 years to do so. :P