Week 14: Learning AF- All Good Things (Finale)

     Welcome to Learning AF (Anime Fighters), this was an ongoing blog about me picking up and learning anime fighters and leverless controllers. As the title states tho this will be our last blog about this topic.

    During the previous week; I play next to no anime fighters at all and I currently aiming to still play and compete in them, especially Under Night In-Birth 2 but I think the learning period is over and now my blogs will be about just playing the games. I'll still post updates especially when these anime games drop new characters, Beatrix in Granblue for example will get a blog later this week for example.

    Do not forget this blog is done chronologically. We will discuss more about the future in the WHAT'S NEXT section below, with the introduction done, lets get started.

Monday

- Break Night

- However now I playing Darkest Dungeon II more seriously I have finally beaten the first boss Denial. I also found a team I like a lot.

Tuesday

- Darkest Dungeon II is so addictive it looks like my previous blog talking about slowing down is coming true.

Wednesday

- It was a good run but I think we might stop our ongoing blog series in the next blog.

- I think I might do a blog about Beatrix in Granblue Fantasy Rising tho. She looks fun and has tons of combo possibilities.

- To replace the gap in my content stopping this blog will create we will starting a new blog later this week called 'Dungeon Diving' which of course will focus on Darkest Dungeon II.

Thursday

- Got a preview of Nen Master who looks sick and I can always play more DNF Duel. Speaking of DLC and new characters, I got to say not enough credit is given to UNI2 for selling a character pass for the 3 upcoming DLC characters for FREE if you purchase the game (including the regular game) before a certain date.

Friday

- I would like to take this time to thank the folks who have read this blog. I appreciate you sharing my Learning Anime Fighters time.

Saturday

- Break Night

Sunday

- We will be continuing our Anime Fighters journey especially with UNI2. I brought a brand new arcade stick (Eclipse) after all and I will be doing dedicated PIT STOPS when new DLC characters come out but this will be our last Learning AF blog and for it to be ongoing for 14 weeks was an achievement which I am proud of.

WHAT'S NEXT:

    I've think I've said my piece above but again, thank you for following along. My next big thing will be 'Dungeon Diving' which will be an ongoing Darkest Dungeon II blog. We will have blogs dedicated to the upcoming DLC characters for the Anime Fighters I play as well.

    AV

Learning AF: Week 4- Decisions, Decisions

 Welcome to another Learning AF blog! First let us do some house cleaning. This blog is an ongoing account of me picking up and learning Anime Fighters (hence AF). Our main focus is on Under-Night In-Birth Sys:Celes, Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising and DNF Duel. However as of today, we are adding a final anime game, Melty Blood Type Lumina! I feel 4 games should be sufficient tho and I'll add my thoughts about learning Melty Blood in our next Learning AF blog. This blog is is also written in successional way so you can really see my learning process. With that out of the way, lets dive into Week 4 of Learning Anime Fighters

Monday

- Feeling I was neglecting Granblue Rising; I hoped back into it today.

- Since I got the deluxe edition with the season pass whilst it was on sale, I  already had 2B from Nier Automata already as well as the upcoming new characters, Vane and Beatrix respectively.

- 2B is actually has pretty complex (not surprisingly) set of moves and a quirk where her combos do not work inside a corner. Her combo routes are fun tho and I enjoy mucking around with her. I do question if I can her 720 super (where she self destructs) with MidNite/ my Leverless controller. The irony of the game with the simple inputs having a 720 super has no escaped me.

- Speaking of MidNite, I did not sit right with me that I had to switch back to my stick to do Grimnir's one trial so I was determined to complete all his trials with MidNite only. Eventually I pulled it off and it required a lot of trial and error. Also I noticed for the last section you can air dash forward not up forward and it'll still count, which actually helped a lot (even tho I can do it was the up forward motion too aka 9).

- Belial was last and his quirk was his moves can push enemies closer to him or further away. His combo trials were not hard but the irony is that I need a corner to keep folks close where I could not use the corner with 2B. Still none of the character screamed main material for me so I think I sticking with Zeta and Djeeta so far.

Tuesday

- Carmine was originally the hardest UNI2 character I tried (more on that later) and the fact he has specific timing and has UNI2's version of what they call 'negative edge' (a concept where you hold a button down and release it at specific times). Carmine also has a quirk which he leaves behind blood puddles which he can activate with other specials of his. Very cool. Once we understood that, his combos became much easier, he is not 100% done but I completed some of them.

- Merkava's trials are still complex to me through, despite trying them before. I was making some head room but my biggest issue is cancelling his 66B into 66C. I tried to look up videos and read forums to find help but I found nothing.

Wednesday

Leona custom colors FTW

- Made a Leona custom for Linne and attempted clean up some of her trials. I was able to complete her final trial which involves cancelling into her super and her 22A/B/C combos make more sense to me now. I do not see myself maining her but I do enjoy not being completed stumped by her like I was in Week 3.

- Nanase was another character that seem complex at first and her aerial mobility is very high, even more than Kaguya making certain combos harder. She seems to require a lot of tiger knees into aerial 236A to keep her combos going.

- I found the missing piece of why my combos kept failing with Nanase. I was doing aerial 236 hold A when I could have just done 236A in most cases. Her Combos became much more doable after realizing that. I also think I found the main culprit for my finger pain with Nanase having a lot of combos involving long presses.

- Finally completed all of Wagner's combos. As the person I had in mind as my main when I picked up UNI2 I actually happy I could at least finish her trials. I might still have as a back-up if Kaguya doesn't work out competitively.

- Merkava's 214 charged air fireballs which OTGs (Off The Ground) was another sticking point for me but I realize it can be buffered during his 66C attack, that made those combos much more doable instead of constantly trying to tigerknee them. 66B into 66C combo paths still elude me through. I might ask locally if anyone knows the trick to it.

Thursday

- Monk in DNF release day. I already posted some thoughts in my Monk blog but this one is more my thoughts when I first started using him.

- First, he hits like a TANK and he is built like one too. Damage gets nutty especially with his Gold Cube awakening (aka when his below 30% health) allowing more damage and sway/ duck cancels on hit and whiff and also after certain Magic moves. 6S, S after 6M for example.

- Kind of wish his movement options was not locked behind a motion and a button (aka 6S for Duck, 4S for Sway) mainly cause it requires some finger gymnastics to constantly do the high level stuff.

- Speaking of, holding 6 down helps a lot in harder combos, for example 6S, M, 6S, S. The 6S, S has a weird cancel window I had to get use to as well.

Friday

- Friday was a weird day, I was over-tired and did not sleep well. I still did some more Monk training (lol) and was finally able to complete his last combo trial which was surprisingly hard compared to his much easier 1-7 trials. All of them done with MidNite which I am trying to use exclusively for DNF Duel

- Almost done with Hyde and Linne's trials, the remaining ones are some of the hardest ones but I think overtime I should be able to complete them. Hyde's 66C into 236 moves still kill me and we will be re-visiting that problem very soon.

- Whilst I was grinding these trials out, in the background I was listening to Tsukihime lore to prepare myself for Melty Blood. The lore is WILD and I think I already have some characters I want to learn in mind.

Saturday

- Remember above when I said Carmine maybe the most complex character I've used. This was what I thought until I tried Byakuya. Not only is 66B into 236 rekka strings and double tapping after he does his web attacks. I can honestly say, he maybe the first character where I do not understand his quirk. Right now he is my biggest hurdle.

- Discouraged by failing to get Byakuya down, I switched to Mika, whom I heard is very easy to use. She has some quirks too like having to waiting after her mash A to do her charged C attack into her charged B+C attack. I also found out doing a charge C into a charge B+C manually wasn't working for me so I actually use a B+C macro to make it easier and it made a world of difference.

- Mika gives me heavy Gallon/ J. Talbain from Vampire/ Nightstalkers fame. The cancelling of her air attacks into another one into another one. As a former Gallon main (a long time ago), I found that very fun. She is also very funny as a character and I see why folks have latched onto her as UNI's unofficial mascot. Her character design really does not appeal to me which I have discussed in previous blogs. The young loud Lolita type really doesn't vibe with me.

Sunday

- Going forward Sunday is going to be a rest day for me, will probably won't do much on those days. Sunday is also dedicated to church, resting and spending time with my family. My Mondays are always busy too at work so I like getting a good nights rest before diving back into that.

WHAT'S NEXT:

So the crux of the matter and the reason for this week's title. I am purchasing Melty Blood Type Lumina and I intended on playing it, however this would mean I will playing at least 4 different games at once. Kind of crazy considering I used to play one, sometimes two fighting games at most during my whole fighting game career. So I think even tho I am playing all these games at once I need to make a decision which ones I should focus on competitively.

The no-duh is of course UNI2. Its the game I have been coming back to a lot, I have pretty much decided on a main and secondary and I intend on attending a tournament at the end of this month to play it. If you did not figure out I was going to go mainstream with this, I have clearly failed as a blog writer lol. I would love to go mainstream with DNF Duel too, especially with Monk being as fun as he is and of course Spectre is Spectre and I get to use MidNite but being realistic there is no real competitive market for DNF Duel.So of course I should then settle on Granblue Rising BUT whilst I enjoy playing it and I get to use MidNite, I have not latched onto it as much as my other AFs. I could start focusing more time on it and see if my attitude changes about it. However we might have a dark horse in the form of Melty Blood: Type Lumina. Seeing is I am a fan of how French Bread games play, Melty Blood (also by them) has similar style and shares some common traits (reverse beat originated in Melty Blood for example) so I might favor this game instead. Mind you this is just speculation because I have not actually played it but after this upcoming week, we might be ready to make said decision. However I'll need to divide up my time to fit all 4 games in PLUS get my break day and still play Marvel's Midnight Suns on the side which I started like I promise myself.

Also I did not follow up like I said with going online with my respective games but hopefully I can rectify it this week. A lot of the cool stuff I want in Granblue is locked behind the online component too and of course I want to get some player vs player exp before going to an actual tournament for UNI2.

On that note; this is week 4 of Learning AF.

AV

Learning 'AF': Week 3- Holding On

    So yes, we have changed the title of this blog series. Whilst Learning Leverless had a nice alliteration ring to it, I realized, realistically, it would be better to call this series learning Anime Fighters aka AF. I know in the fighting game community we typically refer to these games as just 'Anime' but that of course would be confused with the actual anime culture. Also a lot of this blog will be about learning and playing Under-Night In-Birth 2 and that is a game I only play with a arcade stick. I will keep using my leverless controller/ MidNite for other anime games like Granblue Rising and DNF Duel but right now the focus is on UNI2.

    Also the actually format is going to change slightly too, I've been writing this blog series like I write most of my blogs but I think something that would make it all more suitable would be a day by day play with my thoughts and extras at the end. On that note; lets kick off week 3!

Monday

- Returning to whom I thought was going to be my main, Wagner (more on that later) and Akatsuki (my main in BBTAG) and tried to complete their respective trials. Both are really hard for no reason. Akat in particular has some frame perfect combos which require a lot of execution for a guy folks like to call the 'simple' character.

- Another session with Akat and still not getting the results I want, I decided to try the other 'guest' character Eltnum (from Melty Blood) and she has some unique combos too with lots of extended button presses to get her modified gun attacks and some unique frame kills (where you purposely whiff a move to get better positioning), she also has a lot of combos into dash attacks which was what was giving me the most grief with Wagner.

Tuesday

- Back on Granblue Rising: After being stressed by UNI2 I decided to go completely simple and use Annila, a new character to Rising. Her trials where hella easy and I completed them all with MidNite. On top of that, the fact she is homage to Terry Bogard from KOF is hilarious.

BUSTER... SHEEP?

- After completing Annila I immediately want to do something difficult again (I am Soulsborne player of course I am a sadomachoist) so I decided to try Grimnir. Funny aside, I originally wanted to use Grimnir cause he kind of reminded me of Swift Master in DNF Duel whom I love using. Grimnir is a tough as people said. He's 'practical' combo which involved multiple air dashes and using his 'air traps' actually required me to bust out my stick to complete. So far, he is the only Granblue character who's trials feel actually hard.

- His last combo trials into his super had me in the dumps too and actually made me change my button config. I than subsequently realized the combo required me to do heavy, heavy into super and I was just doing one heavy lol. I was able to complete it much easier after realizing that.

Wednesday

- Switched back to UNI2. So I had a grand plan to go back and forward between UNI2 and Granblue during the week but as you'll soon see, all plans eventually go to crap LOL.

- Decided to give the newcomers a try starting with Tsurugi. Had a bit of issues with his skateboard move into his 236 strings but I soon realized you can cancel the skateboard attack into the string without waiting. Once I understood that I was able to complete all his trials. Good times.

- So confession time, when I saw all the fuss for the other brand new character Kaguya, I did not believe the hype. Big booby waifu character with guns seem rather obvious bait. I can not lie through, her gameplay look interesting through. As I started doing her trials I actually really enjoy her combo routes and felt bad for pre-judging her.

- Ironically, on the other hand, a character I had interest in, Linne seems overly complex and required a lot of execution to get going and I realized maybe she was not for me. Funny that.

Thursday

- So the plan to go back and forward, did not last long, I decided to continue in UNI2 cause I was having more fun with it so far.

- Tried Londreika, a lot of his combo routes got very same-y and he had some hard to execute timing on his 66b into 214b combos but his trials weren't super hard. He did have some 'cool; (hah) combos especially involving his 6b command move freezing folks which I enjoyed.

- Went and fully completed Kaguya's trials. The hardest parts of her trials was getting used to the timing needed after she does her grenade specials and flies back over her opponent as well as the correct time to do her jumping charge C to spike the opponent down. I noticed I had now completed all the combos trials for all 3 newcomers and it made me think if maybe their combos were a bit easier cause they are not legacy characters?

- Completed Waldstein's arcade story. UNI lore is surprisingly well written (not surprising cause its all based around a visual novel) and it really feels like this ends the a big chapter in the Under-Night In-Birth storyline. Also it was fun to actually use the character outside of training mode. Wald is in heavy consideration as a main, no doubt.

- So funny enough, Eltnum's strange combo routes, taught me how to delay my air combo strings so I can get the dashing C for her spike down, this immediately transferred into Wagner's combos and I was able to do a lot more of them especially the ones involving her dashing C. One of the big problems with all dashing attacks into 236 attacks kept popping up through and I would get a 623 instead of 236. It happens with a lot of trials I do and I low key wished the buffer windows wasn't so big after 66 where the last 6 lingers causing me to 623 over 236. Wagner's combo trials are close to be completed through.

- The same 623 over-riding 236 kept popping up during my Hyde's combo trials as well. I was able to complete a lot of them once I understood the exact way to get the delays in 214 rekka. Hyde seems fun but as a person who rarely plays protags I don't think I can main him.

Friday

- Back to GranBlue and I decided to complete Narmaya's trials but this time with leverless. Arguably the most technically character in GranBlue with multiple stance switches DURING the strings. I can honestly say to get her trials done, I used both my hands on the attack buttons and my thumb on the up button because she has a instant air move in the combo too. Eventually I got it done with MidNite and man I was happy. Narmaya definitely has a skill ceiling but man she is such a cool character and I would love to main her.

-  Going from overcomplex to something not was fun. I decided to bust out BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle (BBTAG) and mucked around with UNI character like I've been wanting to do. I was blown away but how BBTAG simplified a lot of the complexities of UNI especially removing most command normals but they kept a lot of what made the character that character. Definitely a interesting non-sequitur.

-  I originally tried Orie's combos in week 2 but now I had a bit more understanding of certain systems I was able to complete a lot more of her trials. She is similar to Wagner in I have most of her trials done with the exception of some really hard ones.

Saturday

- My Saturday was incredibly busy and on top of that, daylight savings kicks in and we lost an hour. I decided to take a break because of that and another reason.

- Now to address the elephant in the room, a lot of combos with every character in UNI2 requires long button presses to pull off certain moves. Eltnum especially and even Kaguya's most important part of her combo requires a hard press on C. Doing combo trials repeatedly and over the course of many nights has actually slightly damaged my pointer finger and now I feel a bit of pain when I hard press on anything. Being I am not used to constantly doing this hard presses, I account it to over-usage and hopefully a break night or two will make it ache less. I thankfully caught it early so hopefully it won't a problem. I've also decided to start limiting my sessions in UNI2 so I won't be playing it all night and repeatedly put stress on it.

- Related to all this, I finally have decided on a main in UNI2 and to my surprise, it is Kaguya. She gives me Spectre vibes with her air mobility into attacks into her outstanding reach and just general rizz. I have designed multiple outfits for her in the color editor but one of the ones I enjoy a lot is this Iori from KOF themed one.

Sunday

- Break day, part 2. I did muck around with Carmine but nothing serious. I will probably work with him more tonight when we begin another week of Learning AF.

UP NEXT:

On that note, we have explored some more anime games last week but I think I am ready for a bit of a side project and also so I do not strain my finger too much. I think I am ready to start Marvel's Midnight Suns so we will be playing that, Thursday will be dedicated to DNF Duel with Monk dropping and he will definitely get a blog depending on how much I like him and a focus in next weeks Learning AF as well.

I think this is also the week where I stop talking about it and start doing it and actually go online with a couple of my games. I ain't about the online aspect of fighting games but because some of the achievements are now tied to it I really have no choice plus I do want to get some Player vs Player experience before I attend my first UNI2 tournament at the end of this month. I think this week is the week I stop procrastinating and do stuff, be that online sets, starting a game I've been wanting to play and to focus on getting better in all aspects.

AV

Learning Leverless: Week 2- Stick Shift

 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.

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

PIT STOP: March(ing) On

 Well, after a packed February, you would think Rants & Raves (and Okays) would take a break but I have no intention to do so. If anything I have even more planned for this month.

I will not lie, I originally planned to pick up a new 'Triple A' game but since I have all these new fighting games to learn, I think that might be put on a backburner for a while. I have decided to go back to the triple A headspace because my last couple of indies were fun but I want a bit more substance.

Dredge was amazing and well deserving of the RAVE it got at the beginning of the month but Pony Island was just OKAY and I also played Doki Doki Literature Club + around the same time I was playing Pony Island and in hindsight, that game would be OKAY as well. As my second visual novel game (the first being Invincible: Presents Atom Eve) and my first real 'dating sim' I had fun with it despite its rather limited format. However the limitation of genre and just general lack of interactivity made me not want to jump back in when I complete one run of it.

For those not in the know, Doki Doki can actually get pretty dark and can be very triggering so keep that in mind but the game tells us this thankfully before starting it so you will know what you are getting yourself into. It also gets kind of fourth wall breaking which is funny because Pony Island also had some fourth wall breaks. However after a couple indie games in a row, I think I need a break.

Originally the plan was to finally get around to playing Marvel's Midnight Suns, a game I had an interest in but waned when I saw the reviews but still wanted to play because its a property (Midnight Suns/ Sons and me go wayyyy back) I like and after the game constantly going on sale I had the opportunity to pick it up for a decent price along with all the DLCs. I will still probably play it later this month.

However right now I am mostly pre-occupied with all the new fighting games I have committed myself too. Of course previous blogs have discussed my journey with Under-Night In-Birth 2 (UNI2) but now we can also add.

Yep, thanks to my incredible wifey, I was able to pick Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising (GBVR) whilst it was still on sale to complete my full transition to anime FGC player. I'll save deeper thoughts and chat more about it in my new Learning Leverless blog (coming Tuesday) but so far I am enjoying myself and even better is GBVR is much more compatible with my leverless controller 'MidNite'. This is of course stark contrast to my experience with UNI2 and leverless because I have decided I am going to stick with my arcade stick to play that one. Again, this is a big spoiler for the next Learning Leverless blog so I'll keep it short and save the meat of it for that blog.

Of course, this being a Spectre sponsored blog, we also need to chat about Monk coming to DNF Duel on 14th of this month and from his trailer he actually looks like someone I want to try. Brawler definitely was fun and Battle Mage was kind of meh for me but Monk definitely looks like the type of person I can have fun with and he looks like he might be a boxer too which is interesting.

With that in mind, we also have other blog planned for this month other than the weekly updates of Learning Leverless, I have plans to do another LIST (these will be probably once a month) and of course anything else that catches my fancy will either by PIT STOPs. UPDATES is constantly updated too (imagine that lol) so keep an eye on that if you want to know what's going on.

AV

Learning Leverless: Week 1 - Stick to It?

As I've promoted in this blog, we are now fully in our leverless phase and it has been... challenging.

MidNite

Part of learning leverless, was also learning a new game as well and as we previously mentioned, it was going to be Under Night In-Birth 2 Sys:Celes (hereby referred to as UNI2). Now I had a good idea it would be a struggle but since I was doing pretty well using my new controller of choice in DNF Duel and being able to pull off some of the harder combos with it I figured I could work with it.

However within the first couple days of using MidNite (the name for my Flatbox) I realized how different UNI2 felt compared to DNF Duel. For the people who do not play DNF Duel (on that note, shame on you! Its a amazing game just let down by its parent company Nexon) DNF Duel has motion inputs as well as 'simple inputs'. So yes, you can do a quarter circle forward and attack but you can also do just forward and attack and get the special move (at slight more mana costs but that's DNF system rules and we don't want to get stuck in the weeds). DNF Duel also does not have anything more complex then a Dragon Punch motion (aka forward, down, down forward) and does not even have a half circle forward attack.

So when I started using MidNite to practice UNI2 movement and specials I realize just how much more effort is required to do some of the more complex motions the game has like half circles, full circles and even charging up to down surprisingly. I quickly picked up the quarter circle forward and back motions without much issue but even the dragon punch motion for me is hit and miss which normal is not an issue when I was using a stick. Even more worrying was the half circle motions (another motion I had no issue pulling off with a stick/ I play Clark in KOF and King in Tekken) was coming out 1 out of 4 attempts. I know, I know, it is early days and I just started using leverless but for stuff that was once as natural as breathing for me to feel much more foreign was a step back. With that in mind, I decided to keep at it and using MidNite to complete all the trials in the Tutorial for UNI2 and was able to do most of them. Some trials required a lot more attempts but eventually I completed most of courses ranging from Novice all the way to some of Expert.

At this point, it is time to talk about my experience so far with UNI2. I have had a passing interesting in UNI series and always wanted to give it a try and with the new one coming out I thought it was a prime time to try. All this was previous discussed in other blogs leading up to this one so if you want the full story, make sure you read those. With this being my first UNI, I of course decided to go into the tutorials and learn about the game and BOY... is there a lot going on there.

UNI2's tutorial is extensive and a bit overwhelming to be honest. It also has a lot of just theory tutorials and not stuff that can be shown in-game and just a wall of text was not always the easy thing to retain. With Learning Leverless this series will be about not just picking up a new controller but also picking up a new game but I also wisely decided to do both it in 'chunks' so I did not get completely overwhelmed with info dump but even with chunks and not doing multiple tutorials back to back it is still a lot.

UNI2 also uses a lot of abbreviations like CS and D.I and tons of others but no glossary in the menus where you need it the most and instead I have to have a wiki up so I know what it was asking me to do. This I must say is a big mis-step and something that should be corrected. Say what you want about Tekken but the glossary is accessible during menus and is very detailed.

I really noticed these abbreviations became a real issue when I started doing the combo trials and even through you can use the 'demo' to show you what it looks (aka delay this hit here, charge this attack here) it still helps to know what the game is asking of you.

Despite this, I did enjoy learning the combo system and realized just how deep it was. I had made a decision before I even picked up the game I would main Wagner and she has a lot of cool stuff. I can honestly say, I always enjoy combo trials the most in every game I play so it is no surprise I was having fun. This all came with a big caveat tho. I was doing all these combos with my Xbox stick and not my MidNite.

Hello Old Friend

So confession. As I got closer and closer to the end of the Tutorial and in the Advanced section, I consciously switched back to stick (which is how I learned how to play fighting games) and started doing much better of course, I even re-did the previous sections with a stick and everything just felt more right. Now I do not want to say 'screw it' I am going back to stick because I really do enjoy using MidNite for DNF Duel and I think I can make it work in that game but I do not think I'll be playing DNF Duel competitively and I might be trying with UNI2 since its a new game and there are people actually playing it actively so I want to be at my best when I do play.

However I am not completely deterred so I have decided to use MidNite and see how I do with the combo trials and I might even go half and half for awhile and make a final decision before I go to my next competitive event. By then hopefully I had spent enough time with the leverless lifestyle that I can make a more inform decision. This will also be covered by this blog as this is an ongoing series which will be added too every week.

Before I go through, during this week of experimentation, I realized I might have been wrong. I really tried to justify choosing UNI2 over Granblue as my initial game pick up (I always intended to pick up both through) but I realized that Granblue has simple controls too similar to DNF Duel and since I am doing well in DNF Duel with leverless it might have been more suitable for me to have went with Granblue and leverless as opposed to UNI2 and leverless. In the end I might be picking up Granblue Versus Rising during my next pay period so I can practice that with MidNite and seeing if I am more comfortable with it but we will see come week two of Learning Leverless.

AV