The Misadventures of a Loli and Her Bucket

Wow, has it been that long since I last updated? Time sure manages to fly.

Since my last update, I have been in a serious love/hate relationship with Persona 4 Arena (P4A). Some days I feel really good about the progress that I’m making in the game. Other days, I feel like I just want to quit playing the game entirely. For the longest time, I couldn’t find just one character that I was comfortable with (if you couldn’t tell from all the posts that I’ve made regarding the game). I’d do really well with one character one day, and then the next I would feel like I didn’t have a single clue as to what I was doing with said character. I was satisfied then frustrated then satisfied again. Even though the mechanics were getting more and more cemented in my head, I still felt as if I wasn’t getting what I was looking for from the game. By this point, I decided that I needed to either decide on a character or just accept that I wasn’t going to improve in the game. Trying to remember the mechanics for three characters all at the same time while you’re learning a game is definitely not an effective way of learning the game. Especially when you’re already confusing things as they are with just one character.

Much to my surprise, I ended up settling on Elizabeth as a character. I was going to stick with Yukiko, but a lot of her combos seemed too fast for me to hold on to. Her moves made a lot of sense to me, and I loved the flexibility that I have with her setting up traps and keeping a ranged game… but I feel that her mechanics are just too complicated for me right now when I have a tournament around the corner. I may pick her up later on in the game, but right now I need to focus on someone who I feel solid with. That character happens to be Elizabeth.

I’m a little nervous, of course. Out of all the characters in the game, Elizabeth has the least amount of health. She also has a lot of mechanics that require a significant setup… and, in turn, also require a significant amount of risk. As most of my fighting game friends know, I tend to get in people’s faces a lot in fighting games, and my blocking leaves something more to be desired. I’m taking a pretty heavy gamble here playing as Elizabeth, but she’s the only character who I genuinely say that I feel the most comfortable with as of this very moment.

Her combos actually feel like they make sense to me. Rehearsing and rehashing her combos doesn’t feel like a chore–I actually feel like I’m learning something. The timing doesn’t feel sloppy to me. Her aerial combos are actually interesting, fun, and possible for me to do. While, as I said before, I can see myself probably picking up someone else as a strong secondary to make up for what I’m lacking right now, but I think I’m going to be sticking with Elizabeth through the tournament that’s coming up.

This is still scary. Don’t get me wrong. Out of all the characters I play online, Elizabeth has the lowest win percentage. I’m feeling that this is going to change, though, since the last two matches I played as Elizabeth in, I ended up winning. I usually don’t win matches with her. And, from what I can tell, people at this initial level are actually rather intimidated by my Elizabeth. And this is all after two or three days of seriously training with her.

I think if I keep up my game with her, that I am going to be something that might actually be worth fearing in this game. Sure, it takes me a little while to get the grasp of things in the game (after all, the only fighting game that I’ve ever really taken seriously in a long time has been BlazBlue), but I think I’m learning faster than I’m giving myself credit for.

I think the thing that has benefited me the most is that I’ve finally settled down on one character. When I was flip-flopping between three characters, I never found myself actually learning combos with the characters that I was playing as. I was really good at getting pokes in on my opponents, but when I’d get something going, I would never have the ability to string something together to punish the pokes I was able to get in. I could do this with all three of my characters, but after that? I was pretty much SOL.

Sure, the combo training is helping. It’s helping quite a bit, as a matter of fact. I don’t think it would have helped nearly as much if I didn’t just stop messing around with so many characters, though. There’s so much depth to Elizabeth’s play style, and I don’t think I would have been able to grasp any of this if I didn’t start taking playing as one character more seriously. I might actually have a decent chance if I keep on grinding this game out before the tournament.

Of course, I can already see Ryyu pounding my face in, but I think I’ll actually be able to hold my own if I keep up what I’m doing thus far. 😛

Lesson #1: Playing Persona 4 Arena (P4A) while drinking makes me less stressed out during matches, but I seem to get really reckless in what I can do. Not to mention any sense of performing combos seems to go right out the window. I still won a couple matches, but man, I ended up losing a lot of matches, too.

My win/loss ratio in P4A is nothing to marvel at, especially since most of my matches have been played while under the influence of alcohol… or have been played by my friends when they’ve just been hanging out while we’ve all been drinking. Most of my best matches have been on Tyler’s PSN account. My win/loss ratio with Teddie on there is better than on my own personal account. I’ve also noticed that I can play better as Teddie on his account, but I do a lot better with Yukiko on my own personal account.

I’m really starting to like playing as Yukiko. Even though I was so bad at it with Lambda-11 in BlazBlue, I seem to do a really good job of it with Yukiko. I love setting up traps, I love tricking the opponent into falling for my traps, and I love endlessly harassing my opponents with Yukiko’s fans. It’s almost, in a way, worse than me trolling online as Teddie. Teddie’s unblockable is annoying for sure, but few things annoy people as much as me not letting the opponent get close to me because I’m endlessly pelting them with Yukiko’s fans from every direction humanly possible.

I also actively started using my anti-air attacks with my characters, which has also effectively improved my game just a little bit. It seems like a lot of scrubby players were catching a lot of people off guard just by air dashing in instead of just mashing A. Now I seem to be doing a lot better against people who just mash A and people who just air dash in then mash A. At least this is somewhat comforting.

I ended up doing a lot of research on the mechanics of the game on Friday before getting some training in. This was probably one of the most beneficial things that I’ve done since getting the game. Since I understand a lot more of the mechanics of the game, I have a better idea of how to play against other characters. It is still a lot to think about, and I do still freeze up when I’m trying to process a bunch of pieces of information as rapidly as I need to, but I’m feeling good that I can take the knowledge that I’ve obtained so far to apply to my game. I just need to take the time to feel it out before it becomes second nature.

I’ve been a little distracted since I recently picked up Sleeping Dogs, but I can’t let my training falter any time soon. Gotta keep reading, gotta start practicing the combos I researched, and I gotta keep playing other people to get a better feel of what I can get away with. I should probably start watching more match videos and streams, while I’m at it…

Alex Jebailey had a Persona 4 Arena (P4A) stream where he wanted to see how many matches of P4A that he could win while playing as Chie… one-handed. I had a lot of fun watching the stream. He ended up losing more matches than he won, but he did manage a couple of really good wins. I was also pretty impressed with how many moves he could pull off one-handed. Sure, anyone can just mash A, but it appeared that he was doing a lot more than just mashing A. Tyler, Dani, and I were watching the stream while Tyler and I worked on assembling my new media shelf for all the video games I brought to my new place. Alex eventually opened up a lobby where, if people wanted to join, they could send him a message and play some P4A on stream.

I was tempted to join, but I still think I’m pretty terrible at the game. Everyone else playing on the stream seemed significantly better than I was. I watched a bunch of the matchups, hoping to learn some new tech. I’m still feeling a bit intimidated, but I guess it could be worse.

I bumped up my win/loss percentage today. It was mostly due to a relatively scrubby Yosuke and a couple matches against my friend Ben who I met through Twitter and met in person at EVO. I’m still sad my percentage is so dismal, but I did end up playing a bunch of matches while I was drinking yesterday.

I think I’ve settled on Teddie being my main and Elizabeth being my sub. I’m pretty good with both, but I think there is a lot more opportunity for me with Teddie. He is freaking adorable, not to mention he’s one of the best troll characters. Nothing makes people mad more than Teddie’s baseball bat and the Teddie Circus.

There are some days when I want to go back to playing BlazBlue because it’s safe for me. Then again, while I’m pretty good at executing a couple of combos with Lambda as well as setting up a few combos (not to mention that my corner combos are absolutely GDLK). Even with all that being said, my blocking is still weak, I’m not great at punishing random hits, and I do tend to play Lambda as a rushdown character instead of how she was meant to be played–zoning. I want to go back to BlazBlue for a little while, but that isn’t going to help me with P4A.

Since I’ve pinned down my characters, I think I’m going to start looking up character-specific matches, combo videos, combo lists, and frame data for the characters I want to play (Teddie and Elizabeth). This research should give me a little more to work with. Even though it seems like a lot of reading and a lot of extra work, I noticed that when I did my research with Lambda, things paid off. Practice helped, sure. Challenge mode helped, too. Understanding the deeper fundamentals of the game as well as watching higher level play always opened up more ideas and opportunities for me. Even if I couldn’t master the higher tier combos, it would give me an idea for ways to punish the opponent if I ever caught them off guard.

I really need to devote more time into playing against other people, watching matches, and doing my character research. I think I’ll start doing that today, along with all the other things I have already been doing.

I’m far from even considering myself decent at the game, but I’m definitely having a good start. Week one has been more successful than I could have ever hoped for.

(I never meant for my personal blog to turn into a solely P4A blog, but this sure seems like a good place to ramble and rant about my personal experiences into yet another fighting game for me.)

I think I’ve finally narrowed my main character selection down in Persona 4 Arena (P4A). As much as I would want to say otherwise, I think my main is going to be Teddie. I seem to grasp the system of his moves the best at this particular moment, and I do enjoy playing as him more than I do with the other characters that I’ve been trying. When I originally tried the game at EVO 2012, I had my heart set on using Akihiko as my main. I don’t see that happening at this very moment. While he has a lot of interesting moves, I just don’t feel as comfortable using him as I do Teddie or the other two characters I’ve been playing.

As for my sub, it seems as if I’m tied between Elizabeth and Yukiko. I have a decent grasp on both characters. I think it depends on how I feel as I progress in the game. It’s entirely possible that I could end up using Elizabeth or Yukiko as my main, but it all really depends on how things go as I start seriously training in the game.

I’m so proud of Tyler. He’s starting to get significantly better with Labrys and his execution with her moves. I think he’s actually better with Labrys than I am with any of my characters at the moment. He is regularly able to punish most hits he gets in with some of the combos he has learned so far. That is a lot better than anything I’ve done so far. I have a pretty advanced understanding of the mechanics of the game (since I’ve played Guilty Gear and BlazBlue in the past, and the mechanics of the game are similar in one form or another), but it sure has been something else trying to master the nuances of a new game when I’ve only focused on one game for so long.

On Sunday, Tyler decided to start playing some online P4A matches. He had some mixed feelings about how he did–won some matches, lost some matches. Even though my friends and I were drinking at the time, I decided to hop online and see if I’ve learned anything from all the challenges I’ve run through and the matches I have been playing. While I was initially concerned with my ratio, I figured that the only way to start learning more about the other characters was to start playing other people. Hell, I was hopeful that I would get to watch other players and possibly pick up new tech while I was at it.

Interesting experience.

I’ve noticed a trend in low-level characters that I’m good against and ones that I completely fail against. I seem to have a hard time fighting against Yu. A lot of his moves are so fast, not to mention that they hit hard. I’m good against low-level Yosuke’s because they try and rely on being fast rather than calculating a strategy. I am hit or miss against Akihiko. For low-level Akihiko players, I can easily bait them into rushing right into Teddie’s baseball bat. And oh my god, if that isn’t hilarious. Pretty much anything a basic Akihiko player does, I can knock him back and away really easy. And Mitsuru? Fuck Mitsuru. I can’t play as her, and I can’t play against her. Shota seems to be really good with Mitsuru, though…

One thing I’m trying my hardest to work on is my blocking. Since I’m starting to pay attention to all the characters’ moves and patterns, I’m starting to figure out how to maximize my block strings. I still get myself caught in a bunch of traps, I still mess up button inputs (thanks, BlazBlue muscle memory), and I still haven’t memorized my main characters’ move sets entirely.

My win/loss ratio is pretty awful. I lost a couple matches, I won a couple matches, Shota won a couple matches, Tyler won a couple matches, but in the end I lost more matches than I won.

I still get a bit of nerves when I play online. The feeling used to be so much worse when I first started playing BlazBlue online. When I’d get into a match, I would be incredibly tense, and I would feel my body pumping adrenaline through my system. My hands would often be shaking, and I would have to calm myself down before the next match. The feeling eventually became more natural in the long run, and when I play matches now, I don’t feel nearly as panicked and stressed as I used to. Everyone was right in saying that it is important to play matches online, with friends, and in tournaments. Playing in high stress situations on a more frequent basis helps you prepare for future high stress situations. I’m sure I’ll still tense up and mess up when I get in a high pressure situation like a tournament, but there’s only one way to fix this–adapt to the stress.

I’m still not sure how I feel about my progress in the game, but I haven’t even had the game for a month! It took me so long to get as decent as I was in BlazBlue… why am I so finicky right now? I know things will get better if I keep playing. I know I can.

Since the BlazBlue (BB) scene has been relatively dead as of late (if not deceased completely until the new iteration comes out), my roommate Tyler and I have decided to make Persona 4 Arena (P4A) the current focus of our fighting game community (FGC) presences. Both he and I are huge Shin Megami Tensei (SMT) and Persona fans, and we both have been meaning to get more in to the FGC. He’s new to the FGC but has played several fighting games in the past, and I’ve entered a couple BB tournaments, attended several local tournaments and ranbats, casually played fighting games other than BB, as well as attended EVO this year. Tyler and I both made it a goal to take P4A seriously, so that we can feel pretty good about entering in larger tournaments such as EVO in the future. I think, since we have a really good setup at home for getting practice in, that we do have a chance at getting pretty good at the game if we put some serious effort in to it.

Since Tyler has a Japanese PS3, he imported P4A in hopes that we could get a head start in getting some practice in. Unfortunately, due to some seller mishaps, he didn’t get his copy until a day after the US release. Regardless, since P4A is region-locked, he will at least have a copy of the game he can practice on his PS3. I preordered my 360 copy from Amazon, and I plan on getting a PS3 copy of the game when I get paid this weekend. I received my copy Tuesday evening. He and I have had a little time to get some play time in since then. Work seems to throw a wrench in to getting some serious play time in.

When I first started P4A, the first thing I ended up doing was going through the Tutorial. As with BlazBlue, I like knowing the basic mechanics of the game before jumping straight in to things. I was happy to see that a lot of the basic mechanics were a lot like BB. Air dashes, instant blocking, aerial combos, fatal counters, rapid cancels (called One More Time in P4A)… I felt like this would be a relatively smooth transition.

All I have to say is that my BB muscle memory can go die in a fire.

In BB, the top three buttons from left to right are A (Light), B (Medium), C (Heavy), with the bottom button being D (Drive). This setup is ingrained in my muscle memory. In P4A, the two left buttons from top to bottom are A (Character Light) and B (Character Heavy) and the two right buttons from top to bottom are C (Persona Light) and D (Persona Heavy). At first, I tried to change my controls to the BB setup, but that ended up being illogical and just confusing for me. So, I sucked it up and set my control scheme up in the default position. Let me tell you, old habits are hard to break. Since I’m playing on an arcade stick, I still find myself hitting BB C when I’m trying to hit the P4A C. And then sometimes I’ll get it right, and then the muscle memory kicks in and I mess up again. This will definitely take some adjusting to, but it’s my own mental block before anything else.

In games like BB and P4A, I am a sucker for combos. Even though I may not be the best fighting game player by any means, I absolutely love learning combos. After going through the tutorial and getting overwhelmed by all the new possibilities for moves and setups, I went straight for Challenge mode. I wanted to get a feel for each of the characters and see who felt the most natural with their move sets and play style. I also wanted to see how I’d do in general, especially since Challenge mode in BB was one of the fastest ways for me to learn moves and basic setups.

When characters were first being announced, I was wanting to play as Akihiko. Akihiko was one of my favorite characters in Persona 3, not to mention he seems to have a rushdown style that I tend to favor when I play fighting games (even though I play as Nu/Lambda in BB… but I can’t even begin to say how many people were confused by my reckless rushdown Lambda). After going through a bunch of challenges with Akihiko, I could say that I enjoyed all the options he has as well as his rushdown style… I thought I found my main.

I couldn’t be more wrong. Well, at least for right now.

Taking Akihiko in to some versus matches with some friends, I can’t begin to say how badly I kept getting beat up. Sure, it’s first day and blah blah blah… but it was a bit discouraging. I got down a couple things here or there, but I just wasn’t feeling it. The rudimentary grasp I had on the game was apparent, and everything I did was just so predictable. I know I need time to grasp the character that I’m playing as, and I need to learn more about the game… but it was still hard just not understanding and feeling like I was just doing two or three of the same things the whole match.

The next day, I delved further into Challenges, wanting to see if there was a character that felt at least somewhat more natural to me. I was having a bit of fun with Elizabeth and Yukiko, but I was shocked to see that the character that currently seemed the most natural to me was, of all characters, Teddie. At first I was joking with my friends that Teddie would end up being my main, but right now it isn’t looking so funny. Most of his challenges made sense to me, and I was finding different ways of building combos from the rudimentary lessons I was learning. I was starting to get the hang of his aerial combos, and I was finding creative ways into canceling into his supers. And I was actually having fun playing as him.

This is not what I planned. This is FAR from what I planned.

…oh well.

I do have to keep in mind that all the impressions I’ve made of the characters so far are based off of a handful of versus matches, one Arcade mode playthrough, and quick runthroughs of Challenge mode… not to mention I have only been playing the game for two days. When I first started BlazBlue, I started with Arakune, moved on to Ragna, then eventually settled on Nu/Lambda. And I was playing as both Nu/Lambda and Ragna until CS, where I finally put all my energy into learning Lambda as much as I could instead of multitasking with two characters at the same time. Teddie is who I feel comfortable with for right now, but as I begin to understand the mechanics of the game more, I may end up with another main entirely.

Initial impressions of the characters from my limited knowledge base and my lack of reading about the game beforehand/watching gameplay footage? Sure, why the hell not.

Labrys: She’s a bit slower than I like my characters to be, but her hits pack one hell of a punch. Day 2 Versus, Tyler was able to combo into one of her supers, and the damage that it did made me cringe. She’s not Tager slow, either, which is kinda scary.

Aigis: I think her long-range attacks could keep things interesting, but I don’t see myself playing as her since she has two different modes (normal and Orgia mode). I already have a hard enough time to keep track of one character and all his/her options as it is.

Mitsuru: I can’t play charge characters to save my life. I can pull off charge moves on their own, but in the middle of a combo? Nope, not happening. Mitsuru reminds me a lot of Jin from BB with her ice moves and the rapier. She has a lot of interesting options, but I don’t think she’s the character for me.

Naoto: I haven’t even really bothered with her past a handful of the challenges. All her gun stuff could possibly be interesting, but I couldn’t find myself even wanting to try and learn how to play as her. I haven’t heard a lot about her from anyone, though. I don’t think anyone has chosen her in any of the versus games I played with my friends, either.

Yukiko: Yukiko is definitely one of the characters that I’m still considering playing as my main or as a sub. Her 5C > 2C is very reminiscent of Lambda, which just makes me giddy. She has a lot of options with her various Agi attacks and her fans. She’s good at keeping the opponent away while being able to punish when she hits. I’m looking forward to exploring her options more.

Yu: I haven’t really played much as him, but from watching replay videos from the leaderboards, he seems to have lots of options to work with. He’s fast and flexible. I also think the “Yu/You” connotation is really cute, too (since, in the Persona games, the main protagonist is a character you get to name).

Elizabeth: Elizabeth is lots of fun. Lots of zoning options, lots of close range defense options… I could see myself using her as a main or as a sub. I still don’t understand a lot of her supers’ abilities to the full extent, but like Teddie, she has a lot she can work with.

Yosuke: Super fast, lots of aerial flexibility. I can see him giving me a headache in matches in the future with how fast he is. I generally like fast characters, but I think he might be too fast for me.

Chie: She’s also super fast, and she has a lot going for her when it comes to rushing down the opponent. She seems like a character you can pick up quick but may take some time to truly master.

Kanji:  He scares me with all of his options for following up attacks. AND THAT CHAIR, GOOD GRIEF. I don’t have a lot of experience with him, but I can see that I’d be a little scared of him if I was playing against him.

Teddie: Teddie reminds me a lot of Platinum the Trinity from BB with all the random items that end up popping out from his D attack. He has a nice variety of attacks, and his crazy supers are getting me excited to find ways to hit confirm into them. Zoning with Teddie should be interesting, as well as finding ways to use all the random attacks and items to my advantage. While I can’t say he’s definitely going to be my main, he does feel the most comfortable to me so far after two days of casual playing.

Akihiko: Anyone who has played me in BB knows I love being on the rushdown offensive. Akihiko is perfect for that. I just can’t seem to get in the right rhythm with him, though. He has a lot of interesting boxing options with his character such as dodges and weaves, but I don’t think I’ve had enough time to absorb it all. He’s still in my list, though.

Shadow Labrys: Like regular Labrys, but with a huge, crazy, heavy damage-dealing Persona. I get beat the hell up when I play as her, and people beat me the hell up when they play as her. Sigh.  I’m not a fan.

…that was probably a pretty awful review of the characters, but I can’t say I’m familiar enough with them to give them an accurate enough review. I’m sure I can come back to this post when I am more familiar with the game and laugh about how inaccurate the information I provided above ends up being.

Let’s see… other impressions…

I guess most of my impressions will be in comparison to BB, since that is my main game, not to mention the mechanics are relatively similar to one another. I like that instead of guard primers, you have the ability to break your opponent’s Persona temporarily. When you hit your opponent’s Persona (or vice versa), you lose one of your Persona’s cards. If all of your cards are depleted, you are temporarily unable to use your Persona until the gauge recharges. I think this concept forces you to think about the attacks you make just a little bit more, which is an interesting aspect.

One More Time attacks are like rapid cancels, so that you can string together combos or attacks that may not otherwise string together. Like rapid cancels, this consumes meter, which also forces you to think before you use it. I like rapid cancel combos, and I think they definitely put more pressure at the end of rounds if players know how to utilize them.

The instant kills with characters are also fascinating. When I first heard about them, I was worried that this would break the game. They remind me a lot more of Astral Finishes in BB, where they require a bit of setup, luck, and last round of a match to pull off. From what I’ve seen, most of them have a slow startup time that make them less likely to be overly abused. I’ll have to see how my opinion changes when I play more matches.

Some characters have the ability to use certain moves that can kill an opponent. I noticed that these also take a bit of skill in making sure they happen, so I can’t say for sure how this will go. More matches, more info, and then I’ll see how they play out.

I’m a fan of the status effects in the game, too. From sapping the opponent’s health to reversing directional inputs to preventing characters from moving, the status effects give the player something else to think about/utilize. I haven’t seen them happen too often in my matches, but it’ll be fun to make use of them when I understand what moves cause them.

It might just be me, but pulling off aerial combos seem easier in this game than in BB. It probably is just me. I could only reliably pull off Lambda’s aerial combos in BB. I can kinda juggle my opponent with aerial combos with more than one character if I get it going.

I also noticed that I have to be meticulous with my inputs. I can’t tell if I was just sloppy with BB, but I’ve really, really had to be careful with how I time my combos in P4A. It’s probably because I’m a sloppy BB player, truthfully.

I do like that save for charge moves, special moves primarily rely on quarter circles, whether they be single or double. And I also like that you can use an EX version of some moves by pressing A+B or C+D.

The All-Out Attack is a great way to set up aerial combos and learn the mechanics of them. I’m not too much a fan of the “Beginner Combos” that you can execute by mashing A–then again, learning every character’s combo strings for blocking purposes could really save you a lot of time with really scrubby players.

P4A has enough BB mechanics for me to feel at home in the game while having a lot of other things to work with that will force me to hone my skills more. A lot of hype has been generated about the game, too, so I’m hoping to see it get bigger as time goes on.

I hope that I can get tournament worthy in this game, but only time, practice, and hard work will make that happen. I think I’m going to try and document my progress with the game in this blog. I’m curious to see how I evolve as a fighting game enthusiast while playing this game.