Game:

Guilty Gear -STRIVE- (2021)

Duration: 24:50

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Been a while! Had a DEVIL of a time in some OTHER fighting game but we're back with more Strive...this time I'm gonna just let series poster boy Sol Badguy carry me up ranked mode as I shake off my rust.

Sol is our main hero, a man who's lived a very long time and lost everything he ever loved, so forgive him if he's a little grumpy. The Prototype Gear, Sol is immensely powerful and practically immortal, on top of not visibly aging; in canon he's among the strongest characters by far...and so far in Strive he's also considered the best character or at least in the top 3.

What makes Sol good though? Good, reliable damage for one. He has a balanced moveset that lets him deal with just about anything. Volcanic Viper can hit anyone coming at him from above, Night Raid Vortex lets him just duck under projectiles as he approaches, with Wild Throw and his second Overdrive, Heavy Mob Cemetery being incredibly powerful command grabs. The only issue he has is...uh...it can be a little hard to get in close? But that's not much of an issue.

Set 1: Seventh Heaven District
Sol (me) vs. Leo (generic leo)

What a name! We already know what Leo does so I don't have to describe him! But...I think it's clear this guy knows Leo better than I did. He's more easily able to get into his backwards stance and from there it's hard to really find a way to attack Leo out of it. Plus he has a counter in that state I almost never did. But this guy didn't count on me freezing up and not hitting buttons, now did he?! I also have to wince looking back here: I had forgotten how to Burst since this is my first time playing in about two weeks. Dust + any button, BTW. Overall this is a good intro to using Sol though, I think. Night Raid Vortex kinda invalidates Leo's projectiles in a lot of cases, and Sol's big boy damage means that even my small combos that don't lead to anything still hurt. Good games overall though!

Set 2: Seventh Heaven District
Sol (me) vs. Anji (Damion)

I think Anji is becoming a nemesis of mine. Once again a character that my opponent seems to understand more than I did. Anji's a mix-up machine. Just keep doing Fujin and I have a one-in-four chance of guessing what the follow-up will be! Fujin itself is fast and he can go into it from a few of his normal attacks so that's something I need to watch out for. The biggest thing I see in this set (and really this entire session) is that my inputs are pretty sloppy. I get dragon punch motions when I don't want to, or supers when I intended to do something else. I use a controller and mostly stick to the D-Pad...maybe I need to start using the stick more. My thumb might be too big and hitting more directions on the pad than I intend! My other big issue is that I just don't know any decent combos. Like if I pop someone up with NR Vortex, what do I do after that? It doesn't help that a lot of combos require precise spacing. Sometimes you can do Slash, Heavy Slash, Volcanic Viper and other times you can't! Back to the lab again...

Set 3: Lars Canyon
Sol (Baticus Prime) vs. Sol (me)

My ultimate test: can you truly defeat yourself?! We even have Sol's theme playing for this one, so this seemed like a fitting one to end up on. Oddly enough I never thought to test if Night Raid Vortex goes under Gunflame or not. I assume not since it travels along the ground but who knows! Overall though, I think Baticus Prime here once again knew some basic combos but...maybe I had a better grasp of fundamentals? I still need to use Roman Cancels more though.

Uh-oh, what's this?! A Ranking Update?! So yeah uh...if you get on a win streak I guess the game can just step in and declare that you're just TOO STRONG for another player and stop the set right there, forcing you to the next floor. In Strive, the ranking system is thus: a tower with multiple floors for people to fight in, and while you can fight any tower floor that's above your current assigned floor, you can't go back down and pounce on weaklings. Though I think in this game's case the game's jumping to bold conclusions; maybe those wins were lucky! Maybe you felt more than challenged where you were but now the game's forcing you to match up with the big boys! And while the game keeps the EXP between all characters separate, your ranked floor is set. So if I want to try learning, say, Faust...I'm gonna be a level 1 Faust in a higher-tiered floor? Seems like a weird idea...we'll see how well this turns out for me in the next video, the other one from this session.

Keep enjoying the Smell of the Game!

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