Some great matches from last week I’m just getting around to posting now. There was over an hour and a half of footage, which is a lot to look through, but I tried to get the matches that I remembered. I need to keep better track of who plays what so I can caption the matches a little better. I will say that I’m the Alex player, and if you see a character being played competently, it’s probably not me. I did have some moments I was proud of, and certainly there are some highlights in the video, so without further ado:

Friday night was a lot of great matches and barbecue, and it’s hard to argue with that. Unfortunately, due to the number of people and last minute changing of setups, there wasn’t the chance to record anything. I did all right with Alex, and I see now how mk xx EX Flash Chop is really good. I seemed to get worse at parrying, which was either a function of fatigue, or lack of practice. At any rate, good shit, both in 3S and 4.

Some more matches, I’m thinking of playing Alex now as well. I used to tinker with the idea back in the day, but I feel like I know a lot more now about mixups and pressure than I did back then. I didn’t play great, but I tried to find notable matches with things that I did well, and matches where I didn’t put enough pressure on. One thing that jumps out at me is punishing better with Alex– too many times I did throw or power bomb where I had super. Also, the difference between some of his “flash” strikes escapes me, and once I got the sleeper hold not expecting to, and missed the chance to deal some stun damage.

Testing my DVD recorder and (lack of) editing skills. These matches were the first of the night, and not the best, but this is to see how well Youtube works. More match videos to follow.

edit: Youtube let me upload, but no longer allows anyone to upload videos that are longer than 10 minutes. Since I didn’t really split it up, this one’s going to Vimeo now. Transcoding this many times has resulted in some skippage, but hopefully I’ll iron these issues out for next time.

I’ve been playing a mix of 3rd Strike and SF4, mostly 3rd, at least once or twice a week. I’ve been maining Chun and learning Urien as a secondary. I really like Urien a lot more than I thought I would, but I don’t think it’s really teaching me that much except about overhead mixups. If I want to work on execution, I think I’d be best served by playing Makoto and Ken, two characters who would definitely help my links.

As far as cancels and hit confirms go, I’m a lot better about back+hp, but nowhere near consistent with c.mk. I’ll get it if I’m expecting it in a setup, but not if I’m just throwing footsies out there and it happens to hit.

I also have a setup with a DVD recorder now, so I might be able to post the results of weekly matches if all goes well, and I can confirm the whole thing doesn’t add any lag.

Recently, I end up spending a lot more time missing links and cancels into super. My footsies are better, but I think I need more practice, I don’t practice enough. I suddenly find that Chun’s b+HP xx SA2 is easier for me to do than b+HP xx HP Kikouken xx SA2 for some reason. I guess it doesn’t really matter, the only reason Kikouken xx SA2 is any good is for block damage anyway.

Also, here’s a great series of articles about footsies with even better reference material on SRK. I must say, I like SRK’s new push towards more content, I hope they can keep the quality level up to the standard they’re setting so far.

http://www.shoryuken.com/content.php?r=40-Learn-Footsies-to-Make-Your-Ground-Game-Not-Suck

I’ve been playing a lot of SF4 recently, both online and off. I’m somewhat eager to play the upcoming Super Street Fighter IV, but it’s also generally true that the more characters are in a game, the less balanced it is. I suppose you could say that Alpha 3 was an exception to that rule, but I don’t have as much faith in the SF4 dev team.

Played a little KOFXII again, though mostly just for a laugh. It was pretty fun, though I forgot how technical a lot of the combos were.

As for 3S, I’m a little better at hit confirming c.mk and b.hp into SA3 with Chun, but standing hk and kara throw are still sort of at 50%

So I’ve gotten a lot better at a lot of the cancels I need to do with Chun, but using them in a match is the big question.  Learning the b.FP xx SA2 is really hard for me for some reason.  I think I understand now how to do it, it’s just a matter of consistency.  It’s just two half circle motions, and timing the back Fierce with the beginning, and the Roundhouse kick at the end of it.

Played some SF4 for the first time in a while by accident when Eva(n) challenged me to some 3S and I didn’t bother to read the IM that carefully… whoops!  That went all right, though I need to setup GGPO and 2df soon so I can actually get online competition whenever.

Also, I’m linking a Third Strike blog, http://3rdstrike.wordpress.com/ since it’s dedicated to the game.  I’ve been playing Third Strike since it came out (not to say that I’m any good), so it’s always interesting to get a relative newcomer’s take on a game that’s been out for so long.

I’m going to try to make more frequent smaller updates rather than biweekly super-updates like I’ve been doing to keep things pretty brief and easy to read.  I’ve been practicing canceling into super from the most basic setup, crouching (mk) forward, which I have down pretty well now.  I do a quarter circle, hitting mk when the joystick is at down or down-forward, and then another quarter circle forward and kick for the super.  The downside to this is that I have to hit it pretty early in the first quarter circle for it to work at all, so integrating it into an actual match and footsies is pretty hard.  I’m going to double check if there’s any other way to do it, joystick technique is fairly new to me.  My other issue is with hit confirms; it really doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of time to check before doing the super, but it’s necessary as a basic part of the game.

I didn’t post about them yet, but I had two great sessions with Chris, Mike, and Billy in Third Strike. Basically, my parrying is fine, but my super canceling leaves much to be desired. I’m going to probably main Chun-Li in Third Strike as well, mainly because she’s good and a lot easier to pick up than Makoto. Mike plays Ibuki better than anyone I’ve played so far, and Billy’s Urien has Aegis setups on tap. I did a little better at Chris’ place, I think because his PS2 sticks are a little looser, so getting double quarter circle motions is a little easier. I am now much more motivated to practice, since I can at least test my progress with more people IRL. This isn’t the first time I’ve made a resolution to go back to 3S, but at least this time, I’ve managed to stick to it a little more.

So I’m technically on vacation this week, so probably not much posting and not much playing. I did bring my laptop and my stick, so at least twice a day, I’m playing through the single player mode of Third Strike on MAME. Right now, I’m going to try a different, more guided strategy when practicing: make notes of areas I need to work on, and practice those, rather than just combo and setup practice. To make a list:

Controller familiarity:

Dragon punch motions from the left side are harder for me than the right side on a stick.

Canceling into super is hard for me on stick because I tend to not bother buffering in the first quarter circle on a pad.

Technical ability:

Become more consistent with kara throwing.

Links – Chun’s various links into super, Makoto’s links into SA1

First things first, I’m going to make sure stick execution is not my problem, so I’m playing Ken since he has a ton of moves that cancel into super, and lots of dragon punches. I’m already noticeably better, going from about 15-20% to more like 60-70%, but it needs to be at least 90% before I move on.

I’m also playing some KOF, which is more about learning to input moves very cleanly and precisely, because there are a lot of half-circle motions, and the game is a lot more particular than SF4, which has definitely spoiled me with its shortcuts.