Most of my time at the arcade lately has been spent playing either SF4 or Daemon Bride.  I still play Blazblue occasionally, but after SBO, I’ve mostly been awaiting the revision.  I think Blazblue is really fun, but I learned just how broken the game is in Japan.  It took them several tries with Guilty Gear though; this will be no different.

In Japan, I noticed how easily everyone was doing the Akuma f.RH loop.  I knew there was an easy input method for this combo, but I never actually put the hours in to practice it because it didn’t seem practical.  Well, I should’ve known better because every Akuma at Big Box was doing this combo easily.

Since I’ve been home, I’ve been practicing this combo in every game of casuals at the arcade that I can.  I’ve got it about 80% of the time now, and I think by the time SB4 rolls around I’ll be above 90%.  Since this was also the #1 question I was asked after Japan, here’s how it’s inputted:

HK –> 5LP –> 6HK, MK –> 5 LP –> 6HK, MK –> 5 LP –> LK Hurricane Kick –> Sweep (or HP Dragon Punch depending on character).

Inputting 6 with HK gives you the tiny bit of distance you need to stay close, and MK is supposed to be inputted one frame later so that the game registers the input as “HK, HK+MK”.  That’s what we decided to name “p-link” I think . . .

Oh yeah, it’s character specific too.  Sagat, Abel, Guile and Seth are the characters easiest to get full reps on.  It can also work on Rufus, Zangief and other big characters but you have to be careful with distance against the fat characters since it’s really easy to get close stand jab instead (you need far stand jab for the combo).

How good am I at Street Fighter 4?

This is another thing I want to be perfectly clear on:  I know I’m not very good at this game right now.  There is always buzz about who’s hot and who’s not.  I’m not a scrub, but I definitely have a lot to improve on.

People tend to learn the name “fubarduck” and mistake me for a naturally talented player.  If I were to put myself into a category, I’d say I fit somewhere around “40% talent/60% hard work”.  Comparatively, I’d put players like Justin and Hsien at 70% talent/30% hard work or so.

Yeah, I have some talent, but I acknowledge that a lot of players are naturally better at fighting games than me.  They’re just a little better at seeing a step ahead, and don’t really have to think about it as much as your average joes like me.

I haven’t put nearly the number of hours into SF4 that I had into GGXX and 3S, so it’s no wonder that I haven’t really done anything in this game yet.  I’m pretty sure that I played Blazblue more than SF4 this year . . . like a lot more.  And hey, I’m pretty good at it now!

That having been said, I also know that none of that prevents me from being capable of winning.  I am not the type of player that gets winstreaks (I think my best arcade winstreak was in the 40′s or so . . . compare that to Hsien, who regularly got over 100 wins in 3rd Strike in the early days).  In the entire past year, I think I’ve only broken 30 once.

But, tournament play is different.  I can focus all of my mental energy on that once match, and really think about everything I do instead of just let my mind wander like if often does when I’m just in the “flow” of casually enjoying fighters.  Sometimes, I try to focus really hard on casuals like I do in tournaments, but I usually get exhausted and need a break after 10 games or so.

Anyway, I hope this will be a good place to vent my feelings on player skill, the state of the scene and whatever else crosses my mind.  Let’s see where this goes . . .