#115 Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown PS3 \\ I don't learn Taka's trick until the very end! \\ VF5FS
1Command Training and then some of the DLC "Special Sparring" mode on "Very Hard" difficulty with sumo wrestler Taka-Arashi in Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown on PS3!
His training was not hard at all and I pretty much breezed through it, relatively speaking, although there was one recurring ending on moves, whose purpose I couldn't quite figure out. Then I had a really rough time actually fighting with him! Then near the end I figured out what that move ending was good for--and figured out a few other important-ish things I'd been overlooking all this time, too!
0:00 - start
1:03 - Command Training!
18:26 - training summary and favorite moves!
21:52 - vs Travel Agents team -- Special Sparring (Very Hard)
22:23 - vs Stomp Out Loud (Lion - Travel Agents)
23:57 - vs Gilty (Jacky - Travel Agents)
31:55 - vs Stalking Mantis (Lion - Travel Agents)
56:06 - vs Marek (Shun - Travel Agents)
1:00:48 - Marek's train riding win pose animation
1:00:58 - still fighting Marek ;_+
1:05:59 - vs Agent V (Vanessa - Travel Agents)
1:11:51 - vs Kim (Vanessa - Travel Agents)
1:21:22 - vs El Twelve (El Blaze - Travel Agents)
1:23:07 - vs Underworld team -- Special Sparring (Very Hard)
1:23:44 - vs Wreckshop (Jeffry - Underworld)
1:28:30 - vs Sleepy Sifu (Lei-Fei - Underworld)
1:35:14 - vs Grace (Sarah - Underworld)
1:38:23 - vs KamiKAGE (Kage - Underworld)
1:40:54 - vs New kid in town (Jean - Underworld)
1:47:55 - review: what was that mystery move again?
1:49:10 - Dojo - Tachi'ai practice
2:03:33 - wrap-up and what's next!
Taka's slaps--he can string together as many as six in a row!--seemed nice and easy in practice, but in a fight, the enemy can just dodge them all, or even get hit by some, then block the rest, and counter attack--instead of being knocked down like they should have been. : P
At the same time, I got gun-shy about using Taka's hugely effective, mid-hit basic kick move--which you can loop indefinitely, and which can sometimes beat an opponent all by itself. : P But I wanted to learn how to fight with him "for realz" so I stopped kicking, and tried getting by on punches. This was a huge struggle, as you can see early on there vs Stalking Mantis and Marek. : P
Also, vs Stalking Mantis I found I could no longer do Taka's back+P+K move--two mid-hit slaps with a knock-down--reliably: instead, his neutral P+K move, a pretty nasty head-butt knockdown, kept coming out! I couldn't figure out why, until very late in the session, when if finally dawned on me: in VF--unlike in eh well the 2D fighting games I play such as KOF 2000 or Street Fighter Alpha 3--if you're holding a direction, and only later press buttons, that doesn't count as a normal direction-plus-button command, but rather as a direction-held-plus-button command, which is different. Taka has no hold-back+P+K command, so it was defaulting to just P+K (head butt) instead of doing the back+P+K I thought it would give me (two slaps).
So that's good to figure out, finally. And, why was I holding back to begin with? Because I was raised on 2D fighting games where holding back is how you block. : P I hadn't even realized I was doing it in VF--at the same time I was holding VF's Guard button to block! Sheesh. Well, that's a habit that's so ingrained by now, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to shake it. But at least now I realize I'm doing it. : o It would sure help me if I could stop that, though, and have the stick direction free while blocking, so I can have it that much more ready for other moves.
Oh, and that mystery move: that's "Tachi'ai," a stance, initiated by hitting all three buttons together, where Taka bends down in a kind of American football ready-for-the-snap pose; from that pose, he can go into two stunning high attacks, a knock-down mid attack, a low kick, or other things like special evades or a stepping-back taunt/counter pose, with optional punch follow-up if the opponent isn't falling for it.
But more to the point, it solves the problem I'd had with getting stuck doing his punches, slapping away at air after the opponent ducked or evaded: you can bail out of attack chains like that by hitting all three buttons to go into his Tachi'ai stance, then switch to one of the quick attacks that exit that stance--so you can save yourself from a failed attack and switch to another one mid-stream. Hey, that would have been useful! : D
I had been kind of despairing about Taka, but I think I see one big way I can fix the main difficulty I was having--by learning how to use Tachi'ai effectively. So that gives me something to work on with the big fella next time.
Recorded 5/14/20 w/ PS3, OSSC, Framemeister, Elgato HD60, Hori RAPV 2017 w/ Sanwa lever & buttons, Blue Snowball microphone
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