Recently, ArcSystemWorks partnered with Sony and hosted a PS4™×『GUILTY GEAR Xrd -SIGN-』”闘神激突” event which consisted of a team battle between Guilty Gear specialists and other fighting game players strong at various games. Original article with full footage here.
Nage outlines his thought process during his match against Kazunoko as part of a two part blog. @_tenkai has translated the first part into English.
Translated Version by @_tenkai
Re-post of Translated Version
Hi there. I'm Nage.
This article will be about "My Thought Processes During My Toshin Gekitotsu Match"
*Annotated version by Robot SheKeiB
Original Video Here
- What I thought about before the match
- What I thought about during the match
I will be talking about these two points.
I'll be doing one match per article, so you can expect the second match onward in the next update.
This article will only be about the first match!
- What I thought about before the match
I thought about exactly what kind of player Kazunoko was.
*My Thoughts
-> At key moments, he will use his invincible reversals.
-> If he thinks that I will dash forward into his space, he will come forward and attack.
-> He will aim for reversal gold bursts.
-> He is very good at deciding whether to go for aerial attacks or ground-based attacks. (He's very good at making his jump-ins work)
These are my impressions of him that I thought about based on the previous versions we fought in.
Also, I really didn't want bombs from my item throws, but in the end, a ridiculous amount of them came out.
I will write about why I didn't want them a little later.
- What I thought about during the match
I'll be using the timestamps from the Youtube video when writing the point-by-point analyses below.
0:33 Counter throw
-> He ran towards me, so I went for a [low block -> throw -> low block] sequence. (I input it as 1 > 4 throw> 1)
0:37 Command throw
-> Since I already aimed to throw him, I tried the same method of attack twice to see how my opponent reacts and deals with it. It worked, so I was able to quickly calm my nervousness a little bit at the beginning of the match.
0:50 Burst
-> This is a guaranteed burst point against Volcanic Viper. Since it's guaranteed, I used it to keep the situation at even and neutral.
0:53 6HS
-> Here, instead of aiming to actually hit him with it, this was a 6HS just to keep the current situation. Hit or block, all I wanted was to keep the current space. ("Man, it'd be even better if hits!" is what I thought)
Also, this was a 6HS from pretty far away, so it would be difficult for him to commit to a Volcanic Viper reversal. And even if he did uppercut me, it wouldn't be that terrible of a situation. That's what I thought.
*This was a 6HS where I would get counterhit by VV, but I predicted that the followup 214K wouldn't connect.
1:03 j.2K against 2D
-> I actually talked with Kazunoko about this some time later.
This is a move that counters his habit where he uses Sol's 2D to stop Faust's approach.
The drill will end up hitting Sol instead.
This is one point where I punished Kazunoko's habits.
I didn't really aim for this specific punish, but I was pretty glad that it hit.
1:19 Antiair 5K into air IB ground throw
-> This is where I react to his IAD with 5K. Then I confirm the start of the divekick motion and change my antiair plan to air IB land ground throw.
I wasn't so sure if I would get the air IB in this situation, but it ended up becoming a situation where I was able to switch from trying to punish an IAD approach into punishing his attempt at baiting my anti-IAD antiair with divekick.
1:37 YRC
-> I had the lifelead and I wanted to make it more guaranteed that he would have to block the meteors (the YRC would make it difficult for him to get out of the way).
During the YRC, I reacted to his 2D and went for an FD.
1:41 6HS
-> I wasn't actually aiming for this 6HS.
If you look at the input display, I was aiming for an airthrow at 1:40, then I messed up and got 6HS instead.
I'm not too sure what I was thinking here, but it was something like
"Wait, 6HS came out... wait, it beat divekick...?"
And then in the next instant I won the round! lol
This was the end of round 1.
Overall, I was paying careful attention to not retreat too much if possible. (I wanted to keep a mid-to-far distance from my opponent at the middle of the stage)
Watching this match again, it looks like I spent a lot of time around the circular part in the middle of the stage.
I was also thinking about the point I mentioned where if he thinks I'll move forward into his space, he'll come forward and attack me. So I feel like I was trying to keep my space in the middle of the stage more than I usually do.
2:00 j.2K against 2D
-> The same as what happened at 1:03
2:12 Scalpel Pull RC
-> Here I thought far slash > hammer hit > scalpel pull would hit, so I did an RC but it didn't actually end up connecting.
I did dash into item throw after this. This was a situation it would've been difficult for him to counterattack me from a forward airtech
2:16 Forward crawl 2S against Bandit Bringer
-> This doesn't come up very often, but this is a situation where as I'm throwing out 5P, I'm watching my opponent and the current situation, so I was able to get the proper punish.
I think Kazunoko did Bandit Bringer because he was aiming for me throwing out a far slash.
2:20 Mashing 6P+6HS throw OS
-> You can see I'm mashing 6P+6HS here from the input display.
Whenever I choose to not block, I fully commit to whatever move I decide to do.
2:21 5P losing to Gunflame
-> I was too close, so the Gunflame hit.
If I was a little bit farther, I could hit 5P and still block the Gunflame.
2:25 Mashing j.6P+6K
-> When I try to airtech forward, I'm mashing P and K.
This makes it so when I actually tech, I can get j.P into j.K if it connects, so I can easily blockconfirm or hitconfirm into a combo.
If you hit P and K at the same time, P takes priority, so j.K won't come out and instead j.P into j.K is what will happen if it makes contact.
2:28 Downburst after the VV>214K
-> I was being wary of VV>214K into red RC, so I went for a downburst.
2:30 Blocked 2HS>Blocked Poison>Item Throw
-> There are situations where if 2HS hits, poison into scalpel pull would combo.
So I went for 2HS>buffer scalpel pull input. If 2HS is blocked, I hit the button for item throw. If 2HS hits, I hit the button for the scalpel pull.
Don't mind my sloppy 9 and 8 inputs when I did the item throw.
A similar situation also happened at 1:30.
But in this situation, the 2HS hit at roughly the same time as the poison, so I don't think the scalpel would've connected.
So I still did the scalpel, but it's a situation where it's like "There's no time to hitconfirm, so just do it! (It probably won't connect, though...)"
I thought it wouldn't work out, but I just kind of did it anyway. It was a mistake.
2:34 I got airthrown
-> This is the reason why I didn't want bombs. Kazunoko is very good at airthrowing Faust players who jump to escape the bomb explosion.
Even during the match, after it happened I was like "Ah, yeah... I thought that would probably happen."
2:40 Scalpel Pull (Buffer YRC)
-> Here I buffer YRC just in case he uses Grand Viper or IAD to get past my scalpel pull. It got blocked, so the YRC didn't come out.
2:42 2HS hits
-> This 2HS is a frametrap. I think I just went for the scalpel after it without really confirming. And then the combo into RC into victory.
The first match went kinda like this!
(Writing it was more tedious than I thought!)
The second match onward will be coming next.
Until next time!
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Heaven or Hell, the biggest anime fighting game tournament in Brazil, is running its fifth edition in October. The tournament had its first iteration back in 2007, becoming a yearly event in 2012, when Lord Knight was invited to the tournament. Since then, the scene has been growing steadily in strength and popularity and, this year, Heaven or Hell has invited very special guests attending the tournament: Ruu, the famed Bridget and May player from Japan, and the Melty Blood Transcendental Orchestra finalist, Rakuchan. Rosha and Akkii, strong japanese Melty Blood players have also confirmed presence for the event.
