I've been a big fan of fighting games for a while now. It started with Smash Bros. Melee--the validity of its status as a fighting game notwithstanding--and gradually grew from there with me getting kind of into Ultra Street Fighter IV and many older fighting games. This mostly consisted of me messing around with friends, never really challenging myself to get really good at any game. Eventually I found myself at least competent in USF4, but I never played frequently enough or really dedicated myself to getting good the way I did with Melee.
Guilty Gear is something that I admired from afar. I bought the first variation of Xrd when it came out and played it a very small amount on my own time (mostly because I knew no one else with a PS3 to play it with), but it all seemed so absurdly difficult to me, with systems upon systems to learn and a community that had gotten so good at the game that I really didn't feel like I had a chance at getting as good as them. For a while I watched a bit of pro GGXRD here and there, in the back of my mind yearning to get to the point where I could parse what was going on in the matches.
Then recently I got the itch
I don't know what it was, but I felt like my competitive spirit was dying. I wasn't playing Melee as much as I had been; I had no desire to buy SFV with what a train wreck it was and continues to be; and I hadn't really found another game that really brought out the competitor in me. So I decreed to myself: Get Good at Guilty Gear.
So I'm doing just that.
I bought the whole Rev 2 package on steam, and spent a lot of yesterday and today relearning all the roman cancels and bursts and whatnot that I had forgotten from my little time spent with the first iteration. As I proceeded through the tutorials I couldn't help but start to feel overwhelmed by it all again. GG is a serious fucking game. At any given time in any given match there is so much that you have to be thinking about. I don't know what it is about this run through but it feels surmountable this time. So after another session of getting bodied by people I don't know and learning about the plethora of different unique characters in this game I decided to start this thing to document my journey in learning this game.
I hope for this to become a sort of... tool to help less experienced players get into fighting games I suppose. They seem so difficult and esoteric from a distance--and they are when you get up close too--but, speaking from my Melee experience, nothing feels quite as satisfying as the growth you feel as a player when you see yourself improving. When you win your first set against someone who you feel like would have destroyed you all but a few months ago. I want to document my mindset and the steps I'm taking so that hopefully if I ever get to that point of competency or even proficiency it's all there for people to read. Also it sounds fun to keep a diary of my progress I guess. Read it or don't, WHATEVER MAN.
So after that needlessly verbose introduction I suppose the documentation begins NOW. I started by playing a bunch of matches against a friend of mine. He is a little more experienced than I am and we both just randomed a bunch of different dudes to try and learn the cast. I remember a few standouts from my time, Potemkin seemed fun (though a little research suggests he's sandbag tier, which doesn't necessarily concern me considering my level at the moment), Faust is ridiculous, Johnny is hilarious, and Milia seems like my kind of character, but also way too advanced tech wise for me to try tackling right now.
After those matches I elected to just hop into the combo challenges and see what I could muster with the different characters I tried out. I messed around with Potemkin, Milia and Ky mostly. Getting a feel for how they roll and seeing if any of them are right for me. With Ky I basically resigned to myself that he's Ryu, which is definitely wrong, but it's the way that I rationalized him in my head and maybe is a good way to get started?
So then I made another stupid decision, let's stream! Maybe some nice GG folks will come in and give me some hot tips. So I streamed myself getting bodied by randoms for a while, played some Potemkin, some Ky, a dash of Milia. Played some people WAY better than I was, and played some people who I felt like were right within reach of me actually being better than. We'll see I guess! Ended up chatting with a dude for a while who seemed pretty knowledgeable. So I got those hot tips I needed. Nice!
The only other thing I really feel the need to mention is something that happened while playing against some dude who was playing okay as Faust. I was playing Ky and there's a brief pause between a couple of our sets. Then suddenly I see the chat bubble: "STOP PLAYING KY LIKE RYU" and I burst out laughing. Yeah. That sounds about right. He proceeded to switch to Ky himself and show me his decidedly mediocre Ky skills. Ky skills so mediocre that I managed to take a round of him here and there. We even double KO'd once. That was fun.
After some more matches I headed back into the lab and my stream friend said I should try out Leo. Got a bit into his combos and I gotta say he feels alright. Lots of juicy mixups plus some dope cross swords, so maybe he's my guy for now, we'll see I guess!
Thus ends the first chapter in my journey. I don't know for sure if this was any good, but I think I'm going to keep doing it. I definitely want to keep playing Guilty Gear, so I guess that's good right? If you want to join me on my journey I'll probably be streaming most of it I guess maybe kinda? Feels weird to plug myself but I'll be streaming it here. Check it out or don't. I also plan on keeping up with this bloggy thingy so maybe stick around for part 2 whenever that happens! Thanks for reading duders.
Stay Fresh,
~nic~
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