Ben Reed

Wait, where was it confirmed that dolphins are despawned if May blocks? i watched Twitter last night (mostly Ho-chan's feed) but I don't remember hearing much about May besides what Ice Cube posted from kedako's Twitter.

An increase in attack level means more hitstun and blockstun. This means that H dolphin gets slightly more advantageous on block and even more advantageous on hit (pretty huge for RRC combos because you already got a TON of hitstun from strings like 2D > [4]6H > RRC. And now you get MORE!) I mostly like the OHK command change because I tend to practice on a noiseless stick, and the padding to reduce the noise often makes it so that I miss diagonals occasionally when trying to roll a hcb really fast. And since Gear doesn't accept 6246 as hcb,f, I don't get my OHK. 623K is much more noiseless-stick-friendly because there's only three directions to hit and I'm trying to end on a diagonal anyway, so it's pretty much impossible I'll mess up. (The diagonal also presumably means goodbye to accidental 6K when I meant to OHK...even though that wasn't a particularly terrible failure case. I, uh, MEANT to do that!) Having Applause auto-ride easier to activate will probably be confusing until I re-practice my setups, but ultimately it sounds like a damn big gain. If anything, having it easier to trigger (esp close to the ground) is definitely a buff for May, because as long as you don't miss (jump like a dork into a ]K[ dolphin and fly off to nowhere), auto-ride is godlike. And really, once you practice basic hoop oki, it's pretty hard to make auto-ride miss. The change to Blitzed projectiles gives some pause to meaty Applause dolphins, but not very much compared to other characters IMO. The ability to hold dolphins gives a lot of flexibility to bait wakeup Blitz (and also to kinda keep initiative if they don't wakeup Blitz, you drop a K dolphin on their head as they jump out and at least you can bait their air tech), and depending on the activation range for the new property, it may make no difference to occasional mid-range check strings such as 5K > 5S > 41236S (and you can hold S anyway, so whatever). I think worst-case scenario for this patch is May stays where she is (which is not a bad spot at all in this game, TBH).

Quick Reference: Kon (MA) vs Nagi (AX): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lHyg8uG7v0&feature=youtu.be&t=00h16m20s Azesuke (MA) vs Yosuke (AX): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CEF_AAbSV8&feature=youtu.be&t=00h06m02s Though it sounds incredible, what you want to do in this matchup is actually zone Axl! Well, sort of. What you're actually trying to do is establish enough space to safely call summons without being hit. With the summons out there, you can use them as shields to get closer to Axl and poke a bit more substantially. Ideally, you get in far enough following the bouncing ball/sea mammal to stage a successful mixup into combo into the life lead, which you then protect by playing even lamer than Axl. But if you don't, just take the tension you get and start carefully working your way back out (baiting Axl's pursuit attempts all the while) so that you can put up fresh summons and try again. You do NOT want to be a hero in this matchup because Axl is much harder to fight at mid-range than he is if you lame him out. If you play lame enough you can actually out-turtle Axl. If he corners you, Blitz Shield is absolutely critical here. You can kinda get away without it in MOST other matchups, but not with Axl. He just has too few holes in his pressure/anti-air tech traps to just IB and wait for a big negative number to sneak/mash your way out. If you want out, you gotta Blitz. Critical: The absolute biggest things you need to drill on are as follows: (1) Mash out of 2H stagger > block 6H (2) Block 2H > Blitz Shield 6H It sucks but 2H > 6H is the idiot-check, both for you and the Axl player. If you can consistently get out of this low-level trap, this matchup gets dramatically better/less dumb for you. If the Axl player is good, they'll start mixing it up in 2H situations, potentially giving you more gaps to react and escape. (Even if they can counter-Blitz when you Blitz their 6H, you can at least use the Blitz recoil to escape the pressure situation.) If the Axl player is bad/predictable, even better, just bide your time for a 6H, collect your free Blitz punish into (hopefully) life lead and coast from there. If you mash well enough, you have enough frame advantage to backdash the 6H (and NOT get hit since you did it later than if you IB the 2nd hit of 2H), which means you can Blitz Shield too, but backdash is safer. Poking: 6P is actually pretty good against Axl's 5P. From just outside round start position (and outside his 3P range!) you can 6P through his 5P and hit him, creating a nice bit of space for summons. The only downside is that this only works INSIDE 2H range. 5H is a potentially great solution to 2P, At longer ranges it can safely clash, at closer ranges you can potentially CH Axl into a nice combo or at least massive frame advantage in his face. Just beware of DP/throw if he mashes out of the stagger. Just outside of green chain range, you can react to whiffed green chain by calling a 41236S dolphin. If you do it at the same time the chain will destroy your dolphin, but with average reactions you will do the dolphin late enough anyway to not get hit by the chain. Release immediately for a minor hit on Axl, hold it down if you think he will chill after whiffing it and allow you to get a little closer. If you clash with the 1st hit of 2H with May's 5H, you HAVE to either RC or Blitz Shield (preferably Blitz Shield). There's not enough of a gap to safely do anything else, including block(!). If you clash with max-range 2H with May's 5S the story has a happier ending. At longer ranges the 2nd hit won't even reach you post-clash and you can get a mostly-free summon while Axl's move recovers. Just watch out for Danger Time. Anti-air/Air-to-Air: From half screen and closer, jS from single jump or IAD can be beaten very consistently on reaction with 2H. You'll lose at longer ranges where you can't quite reach Axl's hurtbox, but that's fine because at extreme ranges you're better off just keeping your space (or backing up further) to summon more safely. From outside that range, you can 6P Axl's jS pretty consistently. With 50%, you can RC and run up for a combo, otherwise you can just take the knockdown for a free summon. Blocking/Defense: If you're in 2H hell, there's only one real solution and that's to ground block and wait for either a gap that you can escape from or enough tension to Blitz Shield 6H. If you try to air FD too much to avoid 2H hell, then you're spending a lot of tension that could otherwise go to a Blitz Shield that (if successful) could seriously transform the match for you. 3P (the standing low chain) is plus on block. I know, it sucks, but once you block it, you're basically committed to blocking. Stay low so you don't get clowned by 2H and be ready to react to 6H, because that's where the pressure either resets or you escape to glorious-ish neutral freedom. (coming soon: research on his corner tech traps after upchain and the like to see when/where teching is bad) Punishes: Sadly there's not a whole lot of stuff you can punish on block in this matchup besides Axl's DP. 2D > green chain can only be punished if you IB both moves and Axl doesn't do a followup, so don't bother trying to punish green chain, just make sure you block it. Blocked DP is a reasonably generous punish. It is air blockable unlike his chain anti-airs, but that's not a huge deal. From a vertical jump normal block (you get pushed back a bit), you can punish with 5K > 5S minimum. From a safe jump block spacing you can get cS (or 5S) > 2D > [4]6H, but you can't wait too long. If you IB a DP from a safe jump, you can punish with microdash Overhead Kiss > combo, but it's really tight. Still worth an attempt if you think Axl's gonna down-back rather than live dangerously after you block his DP close. You can't punish his overhead special on block. IB'ing it makes it minus on block, but not enough for a normal punish. But on the upside, it's slow enough to air throw on reaction from neutral. If Axl does it out of a string like 5K > cS > 5S > 63214S, you can 6P (the opposite direction, where Axl ends up) and beat it even without IB. No combo afterwards, though, unless you RC. To save your meter, your best reaction is probably just to jump and air throw Axl for a knockdown.

You can summon a beach ball with either 214P or 214K (different trajectories; K is more horizontally biased than P), so you should have at least one of those buttons free to summon a P or K hoop dolphin with. You can also use RC on the startup of an Applause dolphin to lengthen the time before the auto-release, allowing you enough time to hit the button 1 more time before you go back to holding the button (before the RC freeze ends, around a half-second window). Pretty sure this only works with an Applause summon that's just starting, though, not with hoops you've already set. If they're flying away from your cS > 2H > 2[8]H combos, it's probably because you're doing the 2[8]H a bit too early. Experiment with special-cancelling the 2H as late as possible, as well as chaining cS > 2H as slowly as possible. If you slow yourself down a little, you will both push the opponent higher in the air and will cause May's vertical dolphin to go slightly under the opponent and hit with the "wrong" side of the attack. This will apply the pushback from the move the "wrong" way and pull the opponent TOWARDS May, allowing you to do cS/2H/whatever into an extended combo.

Hey all, What are some good drills to work on air throws? I suck at air throws right now but am trying to incorporate OS jP/air throw into my game. I have a particularly hard time vs Chipp teleports; my when-in-doubt tactic vs Chipp is to do a bunch of empty double jumps and wait for a teleport to either air throw or anti-air, but I get air thrown by Chipp 100% of the time trying to air throw him, even fresh off my own YRC. I can't really think of any good realistic drills to program the dummy to do except like 5P > cS > JC > immediate jP to make sure I'm jumping up ASAP.

Very brief training mode question (I saw no thread for it on the general GG discussion board): if I program Sol to Volcanic Viper (and/or followup), cut the recording off before he lands, and have the dummy Guard option set on "Everything", he should block any (late) punishes I attempt on the 1st possible frame, correct? Trying to tighten up my DP punishes. It's weird because I punished the hell out of this one player's DPs in tournament (and won the match!) but choked completely trying to punish the same player in casuals later. I figure it's time to tighten the bolts.

@AOW_Yomabuddy If you're missing the jS after close S, it usually means you're doing the close S too soon. For an OHK combo, you want to run as deep as possible into the opponent before doing close S in order to connect the followups. As long as you're deep enough, the jS should be easy across the board. Beach ball is good but really unsafe to call out without (1) a knockdown, (2) a YRC, or ideally (3) both. If you're really itching to call it out without YRCing, do it outside the range of the character's air dash, and ideally do it on reaction to a big full-screen whiff that you're not in range to whiff punish with something better (let's say full-screen a bad I-no throws an HCL to zone you and hits air, you can react to the whiff by calling a beach ball and she won't be able to dash in and punish before the ball spawns). Hoop dolphins are slightly safer to call at neutral without YRC, but like with beach ball, you want to treat them more like a whiff punish than something to spam when the opponent is waiting patiently. And you don't want to call them at their minimum range vs opponents with good ground mobility, otherwise they might just dash past the hoop before the dolphin spawns and whiff punish you. The best way to condition people to let you summon more freely (besides knocking them down for safe calls) is to make better use of your normals to zone and poke people with. Normals like 5K, 5S, 2S, jS, jH are her go-to space control tools. They have short reach so the key to using them well is understanding May's mobility, which is pretty high for a character who hits as hard as she does. The general space you want to try and keep with May before you score a knockdown is about the maximum range of her forward air dash, giving you several options to figure out what your opponent's doing and act accordingly: - If you think they won't react and anti-air, IAD in for pressure/attempt a combo. Mind your spacing so you don't get thrown & understand what ground normals will reach afterwards (pushback is high if you don't cross up, keep it short and sweet) - Empty double jump/vertical jump trying to bait the opponent to run in, whiff a poke, and get counterpoked by a falling normal like jS - Run up and pressure up close with 5P/5H, fishing for either a tick OHK or a counter hit combo into knockdown/charge dolphin RC > combo - React if they run at you on the ground trying to bait a whiff poke and punish/force a block with moves like 5K, 5S, or [4]6S/H - React if they IAD at you by either jumping back to escape an unfavorable situation or challenging really bad IADs with 6P or 2H > 2D (whiff) into air combo Normals are what enable you to use summons safe-ish-ly. Focus on making better use of your pokes and tick grabs to make people more hesitant (or more frequently knocked down) so that you can summon more frequently.

Actually the more I mess with it I'm not sure you CAN JI her 6K. Maybe I just imagined it. I'm just doing cS > JI > 5S > super jump > double jump to make sure I'm JIing properly and I can do that consistently. But when I try the same input/timing with 6K YRC I can't air dash out of the YRC. Either that or I'm actually entering pre-land frames before my air dash can come out. I actually don't think this is a gigantic thing I GOT to get down. She already has tons of stupid teabagging options between her Vega jump and doing stuff like double dolphin pressure from oki ([4]6S > 41236]K[ > air dash jS > jH > whatever). I just hoped it would be kind of a no-brainer thing to tack on simply cause her 6K chains from so many things.

What are (in you guys' opinions) some easy strings from which to JI May's 6K? I only managed to do it once by accident. Was mostly trying to do it off strings like cS > JI > 5S > 6K > YRC so I could air dash in super low for pressure/combo.

Is that link character-specific or just really, really hard? I'm trying it right now against Tomoka and I'm missing it, but I also expect she might be too tiny to hit with that series at all. I'll try it again with somebody really huge like Sel herself, I guess. EDIT: I see that you can hit people lower in the air with a late special cancel to 214A, but MAN that link is SUPER hard. Gotta be 1 frame or nothing. I don't suppose there's a BlazBlue hold buffer in this game? EDIT 2: Oh, okay, I see the trick. You have to be at long range when you hit the sweep or else you don't get maximum untech time from hitting late enough with 214A. I was lazy and instead of recreating my pushblock setup, I just set the dummy to counter hit and tried it from point-blank. EDIT 4: Current Alicia route I'm trying to work out from that starter is 2C (counter) > 214A > 5A > 5B > 2A+B(1) > 5S > etc. Writing it all down for academic purposes, but I don't think I'd try that combo in a real match, heh. Probably just chicken out and do like 2C (counter) > 5A+B(1) > Alicia > whatever instead. Final non-Trump combo I came up with was 2C (counter) > 214A > 5A > 5B > 2A+B(1) > Alicia 5S > jB > jC > djB >djC > j236C > j236A+B > 41236B+C A+C = 5182. That is DAMN nice. Now that I understand how to space that link (from max 2B range or max 2C range), it's a LOT easier to pull off. Thanks Silvius. I could actually do these in real matches!

Adding a punishes section to the Selvaria page.

Found a quick and dirty way to improve my anti-air somewhat with Selvaria/Alicia. Up until now I had been confirming anti-air 5B into basic jump cancel combos, but I found that for 1 bar I can get a lot more consistent, damaging followups by doing 5B > 5A+B(1) or 2A+B(1) > 5S. Works at multiple heights/distances, works from jump blockstrings into 5A > 5B air unblockable, works from basic 5A > 5B anti-air tick, and it seems to be consistent against midgets like Tomoka too (though I think I should test it against Asuna too, I think she had kind of a weird air hitbox). No timing nuances, just support cancel ASAP from the first hit of whatever Impact Skill. Pop, pop, boom, combo. Only downside is you're STILL stuck trying to anti-air characters like Kirino with Sel's meh anti-air. (She has good vertical range with 5A and 5B, but she puts so much of her hurtbox in there too. If I have a choice, I like to try and slip under and anti-air landing recovery with 2A or something instead, but against characters with great double-jump games like Kirino, those opportunities are much rarer.) EDIT: oh my God Rentaro combos are so much fun 214A+B 214A+B 214A+B over and over and over again... Thanks Silvius. I'm gonna stick with Rentaro/Enju for now, seems like a lot of easy/powerful combo potential there.

Awesome, thank you. I'm gonna start cleaning up the combo section now, add some descriptions and actual formatting(!) to the BnBs I just kinda threw up there.

You have to be in Trump Card mode, otherwise 2C won't chain to 5C. Fire off an A+C to activate.

What's a good combo-extension assist for Rentaro? I picked him in the lab on a whim because of his 5B and he's kinda growing on me. I'm trying him with Alicia right now but his combos with her 5S don't seem nearly as derpy as Sel's, lol. Only midscreen confirm I have with her right now is, uh...2 hits long (5A > 5C > 2A+B) and kinda nuanced (late support cancel from 5A+B(1), but before the 2nd hit, else the grenade OTG's). I'm only like 10 minutes deep with him though, so hopefully I'll understand him a bit better later on. EDIt: NM, already found a derpier confirm with 5A > 5B > 5C > 5S > 236B. I still kinda like the DP one though because it looks kinda cool. Dude has a MANLY-ass DP.

Not like you have to bother, unless you whiffed something like a level 2. Once the move starts, Sel can't stop it, it takes like a second and a half to activate, and if it doesn't hit you, she instantly loses. So you're more likely to see this move only as a troll in casuals (and I mean a NO respect move!) and MAYBE a last-ditch wakeup for an opponent who's almost dead anyway. Remember, this is a one-attempt, LITERALLY all-or-nothing move. Instant win or instant loss. This is not something you have to respect every single time you knock Selvaria down, because she can only do it in the final round with both Trumps to begin with. The only way you'd use this in a serious match is if someone REALLY fucks up their combo (like Shizuo did in that video!) and you can hit them before they can block.

More fun facts about Selvaria's self destruct courtesy of my brother testing: - If it hits, Selvaria wins the match - If blocked, Selvaria loses the match - It's blockable but deals 100% chip on block (no chip kill, but still!) - It hits full screen I almost regret posting this simply because it'll gimp trolling with it in casuals/netplay.

From an untechable knockdown, hold 7A+C (both stick and buttons). I had no idea human players could even do this move. It has long startup, but if it hits the opponent, it counts as a WIN for Selvaria. Not a draw but a WIN. I don't know what to make of this move yet but it's GUARANTEED to troll somebody in casuals at least once, lol. EDIT: NM it looks like you can only do this move in single-player modes like Survival. This is almost certainly for the best, lol. EDIT 2: Okay, I figured it out. You can only do it in the final round (not on match point...has to be last possible round in the match). I'm testing it in Versus mode right now.

Played a bunch of casual sets at the CEO tournament today. I have come around on the Selvaria vs KYH matchup and no longer regard Accelerator as an essential counter to KYH/Accelerator. So long as you confirm reasonably optimized combos with Alicia and avoid taking tons of Piercers to the face from ill-conceived chicken blocking, you can win the matchup just fine without Accelerator 5S oki. I also now regard KYH as one of Selvaria's easier matchups compared to more aggressive characters (especially Kirino...her aerials shit on Sel's anti-air and she's difficult to whiff punish without burning A+C. And that command run HAS to be respected if you don't want to stay in the blender forever for eating slide after slide). I'm adding some basic stuff to the wiki now, mostly on basic neutral game. I more than welcome people who are more literate in advanced oki setups with Alicia to correct me as they please, I'll try not to say anything about stuff I don't know much about. All I really feel qualified to say on Alicia is "she's the best, grenades for life lolol".

I don't entirely agree with this simply because Sel has at least one hard (I wouldn't say 3-7, but 4-6, maybe a really "hard" 5-5 seems safe) matchup in the form of KYH. With KYH/Accelerator I might jack that up to 3-7 unless Sel has Accelerator herself, in which case I'd call it a hard 5-5. But against other characters I think Sel does just fine. I would hesitate to say A tier because I don't think Sel is quite as good at spacing as KYH. That's without considering assists, though. Once Sel gets in, she does pretty good with oki. Just that she's not as great on the outside as one would expect of a lady with a huge lance that doubles as a laser cannon, and being on the outside is a much bigger deal against KYH than against other characters. I don't think she's garbage at all, though. I still like Sel/Alicia for other matchups, I learned a lot of tech from Silvius' channel. But I still favor Accelerator vs KYH simply because it's so much more important to stay inside in that matchup than in others.

Sweet, see you there. I even practiced Guilty Gear a little (including non-Kliff characters!) so I might be down to play some of that too. On the subject of Selvaria, I just played a long set vs my brother's KYH/Accelerator and holy shit that character/assist combo is so dumb. KYH already tends to beat Sel at mid and long range, but Accelerator 5S makes her REALLY hard for Sel to attack. I started the set with Sel/Alicia and could barely lay a hand on him. After literally slamming my stick a couple times, I switched to Accelerator for the hell of it and the matchup got so much easier it's not even funny. The main thing I was doing for basic meterless oki with Sel was combo to 5C 214B, recover fully, call Alicia 5S. Not enough frame advantage to do anything but block and bait reversals, and I learned quickly that Alicia's grenade would just trigger KYH's 2A+B anyway. But with Accelerator 5S I could do the same setup and frame advantage didn't matter because of the threat of Accelerator. I was free to walk around, jump around, 2A, 4A+B, just poke with impunity at KYH without having to block a bazillion Piercers. If I landed a hit I just did basic combos into 214C j236A+B for another knockdown and to wait out Accelerator's cooldown, dumping meter/Trump Card with 41236B+C if it would kill. I got so much more mileage out of Accelerator instead of Alicia in that matchup it wasn't even funny. IMO Accelerator could stand a couple whacks with the nerf bat, it just offers WAY too much utility compared to other assists with the same intended role. Only a handful of assists KINDA counter it if you're not retarded with use of Accelerator 5S. (And the 6S isn't bad either! It's just that it shares a cooldown with 5S, the Haggar lariat assist from hell. So it's not gonna see much use except in kill combos and the occasional full-screen reaction.) As for the matchup without considering Accelerator, main thing that causes problems for Sel is Piercer. Sel has no real way to whiff punish it and it kills random up-back, so basically you just have to wait out the Piercers, convince the KYH player that it's time to start baiting Sel's attempt to sneak past Piercer, and fish for a 214B or perhaps a double jump/super jump and/or empty teleport (or j214C if you know you're spaced right for it) in order to get in and start oki. That move just has so much range and a hitbox that covers so much of the floor/low airspace that you just have to be patient and put up with it and creep your way in grappler-style. With the right assist (Accelerator!) you only need one good read to get in and stay in with 1-bar confirms to j236A+B. Her counter is of course trivial to safe jump from knockdown so the only trick is not accidentally getting poked back to Piercer range once they leave blockstun. Accelerator, though. Goddamn. Mark my words, aside from a handful of soft counters, that assist IS the metagame, lol.

I'm still learning the game, but I messed around a bit with Selvaria/Alicia and I think I'm figuring them out a bit. I'd like to compare notes with people because I haven't been able to netplay much so far (for what little that is worth on my awful connection). Still learning BnBs with Trump Card already active as well. I think I'm figuring her out, but the main thing I don't get about her so far is her teleports. What do they have for invulnerability or autoguard? (Presumably they have some near the middle so you can go through fireballs and such. I'm still learning where everything is in training mode because I can't read Japanese.) What does holding the button (for stuff like 214[A]) change about them? Despite the cannons she really strikes me as more of a mid-range character than a long range one due to the reality of meter dynamics in this game. Cannons are only really safe when you're way the hell away and you're not gonna build nearly as much meter doing Marvel-style keepaway as you are creeping to mid-range Guilty-Gear style and trying to keep the fight there. Her A+C is a really good punish in lame matchups, but it pushes the opponent really far away, which can be counterproductive if you're down on life and you needed that A+C mostly to get momentum back. So you still have to make your way back in kinda carefully even with a good read. I like the tracking on Alicia's grenade, but unfortunately none of Sel's meterless hard knockdowns seem to be advantageous enough to do Alicia 5S meterless and be anything other than safe to reversals. Seems really good that she can get knockdown from the absolute tip of 5C range though. Main thing I like about Alicia so far is being able to extend Sel's throw combos with her 5S. For 1 bar I can get a free Power Up Blast by doing throw(1) 5S (stomp hits) (grenade hits) Power Up Blast (do the Blast late enough and it hits OTG so they can't tech). For actual combos from that starter, so far I have 1939 for 1 bar, 2239 for 2 bars, 3128 for 3 bars, 1761 using Combo Blast only, 2077 if you just do throw into Trump Card (though I would avoid doing that except for the kill since Sel seems better at mid range). I need to mess more with Alicia 4/6S. Seems decent and I have at least basic combos with it, but again, Sel's lack of ability to call her safely without a cancel kinda bugs me. Right now I'm much more used to the grenade assist, especially in combos because I understand the scaling a lot better from her 1 big hit than the zillion little hits of 4/6S. I've only played one (underwater) matchup and that was vs KYH. Seems like it would be more even without lag but it feels like Sel's better off challenging her at mid-range (where KYH is pretty good) than keeping her out (or if I want to keep her out, I need a lamer assist like Leafa or something). Hard to poke at her randomly with cannons unless you're sure she's out of stabbing range & isn't gonna read you. But her 2A+B is a counter so it seems safer to chuck grenades on her wakeup for baiting purposes. Plus in a pinch it seems like you can punish all her long-range moves with Sel's Trump Card. I liked this game more than I thought I would despite not recognizing 90% of the characters in it. Seems like it'll be fun offline when you're not rolling the dice whether or not you successfully chained/special-cancelled that lucky counterpoke.

800 health for DIO, seriously? I had no idea they hit him that hard. Put on the same health tier as a dog, he MUST be pissed off about that, lol. Pucci buffs were pretty reasonable. Disc steal nerf is peanuts compared to how much safer it is to talk to the baby now. The Made in Heaven changes also make sense, given that he still pretty much wins the round for activating it (and the strategy for using it is unchanged -- save it for match point). I still think Giorno's slightly better for the same strategy (play meterless, get 3 bars on match point, become complete bullshit), but Pucci has definitely jumped up a bit for 1.04. Nobody's improved like Akira, though. Holy shit, Akira.

That's what I was afraid of. Guess I'll plug in P2 joystick and see if I need to hold any buttons with my feet.

Has anyone attempted to mess with frame data in this game yet? I kinda want to try some basic stuff, but besides the ghetto classic "do a mirror match and have both players hold up to vertical jump after a hit/blocked move", I dunno what tools I have to compare move speeds against each other in this game. Is there a dummy record function in this game? I can't read the menus unassisted (minus 50 weeaboo points, I know), so I have no idea what I can do with the dummy besides stand/crouch/jump/player 2, and all guard/2-hit guard. I know that there's not a WHOLE lot to it because almost nothing except Stand Rush and fully detached projectiles are plus on block in this game, but mostly I just want to find out if jab speeds are uniform (a la Tekken) or if they vary wildly (a la Soul Calibur).