Oh Mr. N, so fun but so limited. Or is it just me playing bad?

Mr. N is one of Divekick's sharper acute angle divekickers, with a divekicking angle of 60 degrees. He dives very high and kicks very low, a more defensive character to the crazy offence you can expect from Redacted due to the former's slower kick and the latter's much faster one.

I had already decided pre-release that I was going to main Mr. N. I like the concept of the depth outside of complexity that Divekick has and I thought that Mr. N's special moves would allow me to make big strides online and in the Giant Bomb online tournament which took place this weekend.

Marneto, his air special, allows N to float downwards very slowly. The primary use of this as any N player you've seen is to get mid-range during all the divekicking and jump high in a position that seems to suggest a positional mistake has been made, only to spring the trap when the opponent goes for what they believe will be an easy KO.

It's a very useful tool in low-level matches, especially as we're in week 1 of Divekick's release. But as I discovered, the Giant Bomb divekickers are of a different class from the week 1 players I was finding online.

Giant Bomb online tournament

@fluxwavez put together a good tournament, which would've been much more enjoyable had more of the sign-ups shown up when the tournament began (and had I won one of the many raffle items). On paper, I won 4 matches before being eliminated from the tournament, but only 1 of them did I play a match. My two losses where against Dr. Shoals and Stream.

I've played several Shoals players since release, and it seems like Mr. N can keep up with her and keep under her but not KO her, not with N's vertical kicking angle against Shoals extremely fast kickback. I'd never played a Stream before and have only played one other since, but I feel like with time I can take down Stream players once I know what Stream is capable of.

New technology emerges in time for the bane of my existence to crush me

I found this video that had emerged over the weekend and gave me hope that N can still find a place in upper tier lists. It also described me and what I was doing (wrong) with N exactly.

This is the advanced tech I've been hoping for, something that might make N viable beyond week 1. I had been neglecting N's ground special, GTFO and the new Marneto tech will definitely help with kick factor metre cost per Marneto use. I should point out that I'm not using the ultra responsive buttons of an expensive fight stick, I'm using L1 and R1 on my PS3 pad, but while I won't be able to go crazy like this guy does, the baiting concepts still apply.

So there was an element of naive optimism this afternoon when I attempted to apply these new techniques and ran into an online army of Kung Pao players, N's worst match up in the entire game as far as I'm concerned. If a Kung Pao player plays defensively, waits it out and counters when an opportunity presents itself, there's nothing that N can do. It's like throwing yourself at a sniper from long range armed with only a pistol. Baiting means nothing to Pao players, because their kicking speed and angle means that N getting into the mid range to even attempt a bait is out of the question.

When I wasn't playing Pao players, the new techniques are making life easier, but are not changing the existing match ups. But I will push on, represent Mr. N and hopefully work something out to counter some of these crazy Divekick characters. Maybe those responsive stick buttons are the difference maker, but I like to think somehow there's still room for improvement in my game beyond reaction times of button presses.

This is how I feel Mr. N, at least in my experience, matches up with the rest of the Divekick cast at the moment. Question marks means I simply don't have the matches under my belt to give a score.

I'm looking into Dive as another character that may suit me and without a doubt make matches against Pao and Shoals less painful. All considered my time with Mr. N and indeed Divekick has been the best £7.99 I've spent for as long as I can remember. Looking forward to match-making in Ranked to be patched though, waiting times can get quite long.

For your consideration:

• Giant Bomb's Divekick wiki page - It will more than likely provide detail for anything you didn't quite understand in this blog
• Adam Keits Heart Twitter - The creator of Divekick is a fountain of knowledge
• Giant Bomb online community tournament 1 bracket - See how it all went down

Even switching from L1/R1 to Down/X had noticable improvements for me.

As a Pao player I'm not afraid of any Mr. N. Unfortunately I don't think Pao is strong enough or has enough options for her to last long past week one. Look at Sensei and Markman. They have similar dive heights and kick angles to Pao. But Markman has all his items plus precision mode. Sensei has that entire other stance, which is similar to a Mr. N only faster. I typically get enough meter as a Pao to teleport once by round 9, assuming I don't get headshot. Otherwise all she has is her dive, kick, and kickback.

@flstyle: After a few days now of playing against nearly every character as Mr. N, I think I have to agree with Kung Pao being the hardest matchup. I feel like a Kung Pao player can handle Mr. N pretty easily as long as they just don't do something stupid and stay patient. I've been switching to Dive as a counter to her now.

I haven't faced S-Kill yet so I don't really know how that match-up would go, and I've only faced a couple Streams but it didn't seem too bad. Currently though, my least favorite matchup for Mr. N (besides Kung Pao) is Mr. N. Divekick is already a huge mind game, but a Mr. N mirror match is a fucking crazy mind game.

I think the Stream matchup won't be too bad for Mr. N if you can reliably use Marneto to dodge Stream's 2nd jump/punish strategy. I haven't really seen a Stream player do anything other than that. I know that I haven't been able to pull it off reliably, but I blame my bad reflexes on that more than anything. It seems like you should be able to hover just enough to get you out of stream's way.

@flstyle: Intresting read mate, and as a Kung Pao player I would agree with you that Mr. N seems struggle against her. The only advice I can offer is from my own, limited, experience. The main thing that seems to trouble me at the moment is when somebody, regardless of character, plays aggressive and chases me back into the corner. Once Kung Pao is in the corner she is almost certainly finished, because, as any Kung player will tell you, she is designed to utilise her jump back then kick to punish. And if she can not jump back, her jump hight isn't enough to compete against most of the others. Now, admittedly, getting her back into the corner without exposing yourself to said counter attack is where the trouble comes.

Good luck for future matches, maybe I'll see you online again, and if so I'll be sure to watch out for these new techniques of yours :)

@flstyle: You had any more luck today pal?

Thanks! No I haven't been on today, going to get plenty of game time in tomorrow.

You don't need a fancy-pants stick to have good execution. I use LB-dive and A-kick on a regular 'ol Xbox pad and the stuff he does isn't particularly difficult, the timing's just tight. Once you practice it enough and learn the rhythm, it'll be easy to pull off like 7 Marnetos before you even touch the ground. Stream's meter build trick requires plinked double jumps, so it's something I had to learn early.

@flstyle: By the way the guy who created that video (to anyone who isn't familiar with the guys who placed in the Divekick tourneys) is this GUY: @g_ aka alb247 in the Steam Divekick tourney.

Interesting. I main Mr.N myself so I'll be sure to try out those tips. I definetly need to get better at finding a use for Get The Food Out, I mostly use it by accident due to my current button set-up. Most use I've had of it so far is acting silly and to steal a round from a savage, stick-using Mr.N I fought once.