Welcome to week 2 of Learning Leverless; an ongoing blog series discussing learning my leverless controller and also learning some anime fighting games like UNI2 and GranBlue Rising. I think going forward Monday might be the best day to upload since it technically is the beginning of the week.
Off the bat, first I want to talk about DNF Duel. Out of all the anime games I am playing this is the one I enjoy the most (thanks in big part to Spectre of course) but it is also the game that probably gets the least love. Thankfully we might see a injection of some interest with the introduction of the 4th DLC character Monk.
Since I do not play Dungeon aNd Fighter Online (aka the series that inspired DNF Duel) I can only go with the trailer to speculate about Monk but so far he looks like his from the same order as Crusader (another Holy themed character in the game) and looks like DNF Duel's boxer cause I saw no kicks in his trailer. This is kind of ironic of course because Street Fighter 6 just dropped Ed and his is their pure boxer as well but with psycho powers so that's funny. Design-wise he actually looks pretty cool, the older man vibe with gray in his hair and summoning the a big golden gauntlet for the finishing touch. My old small gripe with the design is we already had a male character with a cape-esque design in Brawler but its a small gripe and I definitely like his design much more than Battle Mage. Anyhow he drops on March 14th and I think I might give him a try. I might even jump online and get these pesky online achievements I need as well.
Related to this is how using leverless/ MidNite feels so comfortable for me in DNF Duel. One little shortcut I found that is blowing my mind is you can hold down buttons and it still registers the moves. For example, when I want crispy air dashes with Spectre I just need to hold down the jump button and it comes out as soon as she can do it. Even more amazing is you can even use your right hand which of course traditionally you use to hit 'attack' buttons to hit a 'movement' button. This was a revelation for a stick user and truly helped see the potential leverless has.
However despite all the victories I had with leverless in DNF Duel, I quickly realized as I played more and more Under-Night In-Birth 2, that stick might be where I'll plant my flag. In the first week playing UNI2 I realize just how much harder it is to pull off certain motions and esp some of the more complex juggles require almost King of Fighters execution and that is a game I would never consider playing on hitbox due to its complexity. Speaking of KOF, I thought the trials in KOF 13 was the pinnacle of hard trials but some of these UNI2 trials are on some next level that even stumps me.
I will not lie through, seeing how MidNite made instant air moves easier and certain other movements easier (like micro dashing, another key component of UNI2's combos) in DNF Duel, its a shame I could not translate it over to UNI2 but I think a big part is UNI2 special moves require full motions and not simple movements as I've noted before. This will however come back later and will be discussed again when we get to the Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising.
UNI2 with stick is where we are going now through and so far it has been a good relationship. As I mentioned the combo trials are tough but with a good stick they feel doable and after a couple days working at it I got my first 100% completed trial and it was for a character I least expected.
My first 100% combo trial was completed with Waldstein, UNI2 premier grappler. Waldstein also has a 360 command throw which is very hard to pull off on leverless so it even made more sense to switch to stick. I will not lie, it was a great feeling completing it and as I did, I actually grew kind of attached to to the big guy where I might even consider using him. I have played grapplers before (Clark in KOF, King in Tekken) so I can make it work and Waldstein's kit just screams fun.
After low-key joining the Waldstein army, I start experimenting with more characters but all of them had moments when the strict execution stopped me from getting 100% again at least, until I found Enkidu. Enkidu ironically is Waldstein's rival and the two are linked in the lore so that was a funny moment. Enkidu similar to Waldstein is a up-close and personal fighter with some rekkas style attacks. The term rekka is borrowed from games like SF, KOF and others but the I hope as a person following/ reading this blog I do not need to breakdown all fighting game terminology lol. Enkidu had some challenges the biggest one being a dashing attack at the end of a aerial combo which can ONLY be done when the person is outside of a corner. I quickly learned, that positioning is super important for some of the combo trials for Enkidu but it was done and I got my second 100% complete.
I once again played around with a couple more characters during my 3 day exploration of UNI2 and actually ignored all other games, I realized despite her visual appeal I do not think I can play Eltnum (and that she is actually a guest character from Melty Blood) and protagonist Hyde was cool but not my cup of tea (I seldom play a protagonist with the biggest exception being Virtua Fighter where I am all about Akira but that's a massive outlier case). This is all lead up to my most surprising moment through. A character I had no plan of using or was interested in surprised me the most.
Yes, edgy (pun intended) as hell antagonist Kuon. Brand new to UNI2 but not to the lore, Kuon actually has some of the coolest combos and set ups I've seen in the game. Sure he looks like what happened if Timothee Cahaleet and Darkstalkers' Jedah decided to fuse together but getting away from the fact he is ANIME as FUCCCK, he has a lot of tools which I was like I think I might have fun using him. Shocking cause as I said I originally had no plans of using him. Also just like how Waldstein taught me to do motion's during animations, Enkidu taught me the art of spacing out my combos, Kuon taught me the funniest one. Mashing is good.
One of my biggest annoyances with UNI2's combo structure is holding down attack buttons in a very tight frame specifically jumping heavy/ C. This attack increases the hit stun for the jumping attack but doing in then finishing a regular air combo became a big point of contention until I realized I can mash out certain attacks and it should still come out. For example: a big part of Kuon's bread and butters ask him to do a 2C (hold) cancel into jump C (hold) into a aerial A,B,5B,22A (I am using the number pad notations because that what UNI player use). The aerial B after the A was constant missing or not coming out until I started mashing the B and it finally started coming out more consistently. YAY. Figuring out mashing was the key to success I eventually completed all of Kuon's trials as well and spark my interest in using him. With the Kuon breakthrough, I decided I was due to go back to leverless and see if it would work with the other anime game I am interested in.
As I shared last week; thanks to my wifey, I was able to purchase Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising whilst it was still on sale. Not only was I able to purchase it I got the deluxe one with the DLC character pass so yeah 2Butts in the house lol.
As I mentioned above, one of the most important reasons why DNF Duel works so well with MidNite for me at least was the simple commands. Well Granblue also has simple commands and Grablue has gone in where there is even no penalty for using simple commands like it did in the previous game. So with that in mind I figured leverless would work better here and boy did it ever.
In one night, I got a much better feel for it and another thing I appreciate GBVR being a more grounded game and jumping is not as encouraged as say DNF Duel or UNI2. Heck I completed trials for Zeta (whom I hope to main), Djeeta who is dual-tagonist (not Gran tho lol) and Soriz's combo trials in one night.
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| I need this battle pass outfit, Not only its amazing we have a Spectre color scheme! |
If anything the combos are so easy that I might not even discuss them as much as I do the UNI ones. The main thing is, I enjoyed GBVR enough that I went into the arcade mode and finished with MidNite, something I haven't even done in UNI2 with a stick. First I was surprised by the fact that you can change the difficulty of your opponents during the arcade ladder climb and the presentation was amazing. This is truly a beautiful game but that does surprise me because Arcs System Works are wizards when it comes to 2.5D animation. I think I will stick with MidNite/ leverless when it comes to GBVR and I think we are going to do fine so I am happy my leverless is not only being used for a dead (even tho it is my fave) game.
On that note, now I have 2 anime games I am playing with 3 come Monk's release. I am thinking of switching back and forward between them nightly (like a stream schedule but without streaming) mainly cause muscle memory and switching back and forward between controllers might be weird and we are jumping back into UNI2 tonight. Thinking of doing the arcade mode for it as well as some of the other side content before doing some more combo trials. I'll keep you guys updated with UPDATES which show up on the side of my blog as well as Learning Leverless every week. I am excited about fighting games again.
AV
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