Game:

Guilty Gear -STRIVE- (2021)

Duration: 21:30

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Alright, I want out of the upper floors. Let me fight people I have more of a chance with! It's time to take drastic measures and try using probably my worst character....Zato-1.

Guilty Gear's premiere puppet fighter, players control Zato and his shadow beast Eddie at the same time. With practice, players can unleash a torrent of attacks that make it hard to tell where or how to block, doing big damage when you finally break through defenses. Pretty much all of Zato's attacks use Eddie in some way, though only his specials drain from the Eddie Meter. If the meter completely empties, or either Zato or Eddie get hit, players are unable to use Eddie again for a time. He's got a lot of good moves that cover a lot of space; drills, piercing lances, sharks...even a projectile reflector! However, Zato's hard to use well as he relies on moving both characters independently, which takes practice, on top of Negative Edge, where you do a special move input but HOLD the button down and then release when you want it to happen, so that you can move Eddie where you wish beforehand. Hard stuff. Also, Zato's got lower health than average AND tied with Faust he has the worst GUTS scaling, so at low health moves still do the normal amounts of damage so he's a bit squishy. He also lacks a traditional double jump or air dash, instead able to fly for a short time in any direction. Kinda slow in this game though.

Set 1: Seventh Heaven District
Zato-1 (me) vs. Axl (0NI0N)

Man...I hate fighting zoners. I'm not going to say this is a bad match-up for Zato, since he DOES have things he can do at range too. I just have no idea how to deal with Axl and need to fight him more. And as far as zoners go Axl isn't even that bad. He's not filling the screen with nonsense (no, that's Dizzy's MO), he just has really good normal attacks that cover good range. I DID put up a decent fight though, even if it kinda felt like 0NI0N was toying with me a bit. I should have tried flying at angles Axl can't easily hit. Hindsight!

Set 2: Jellyfish Skynarium
May (Karquadd) vs.Zato-1 (me)

For all of the May hate, I don't encounter her that much, so this seemed good to post. I get a better idea of just how good May can be, converting into Dolphin off of a lot of moves. I'm just not used to going from normal moves into charge motions. I also admit I was kinda...not being super serious here. Like, I basically sat on Burst a lot. I was on a losing streak and was kiiiiinda hoping this would finally knock me back down...but then I won one! Karquadd, you were the chosen one! It wasn't supposed to happen like this! (Also looks like May can have trouble getting past that counter special of Zato's. Shame it drains the Eddie Meter so much)

Set 3: Original Central Park
Ky (Warhunter89) vs. Zato-1 (me)

I really liked this set, and felt it was a good one to end on. Now, I'm finding one of the hardest parts of learning a fighting game is knowing when it's time to take your "turn." If I block this sequence of moves, I should be able to attack...NOW! I've fought enough Gios that I know most of the time I CAN'T do anything but block until a certain point. Ky likewise is someone I've both played as AND fought a lot, and he's straightforward enough that I have a pretty good idea of when it's safe to attack or jump away, or at least I can adapt. It was a little shaky in the first game, but I was able to turn it around to bring us to Game 3 and...h-how did that happen at the end there?! Sometimes you have rounds where everything goes right and I guess that happened for me! I don't think I've ever gotten a Perfect before, Strive or really otherwise so uh...yeah I kinda popped off and feel pretty proud of this win....even if I was just mostly hitting buttons.

Wait, I won! That means it'll be harder to rank down! I'm gonna be stuck in here forever! But I still have a few characters I haven't touched yet that might be harder to use than usual, so there's still....hope? Everyone, please don't give me your energy!

That said, I had a LOT more fun with Zato than I expected...he's definitely tricky to use but pretty satisfying when it all goes according to plan. I....might actually want to use him again after this?! This must be the work of an enemy Stand!

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