I never knew I’d be so appreciative of the hundreds of hours I spent smashing out the same combos over and over again in BlazBlue. Sure, it was good practice. I always thought it would have been more beneficial if I had practiced my combos half as much and invested the other half of my time in playing matches online against real people. After all, what is a combo if you can’t execute it in a real life situation? It’s not like your opponent is going to just stand there and let you get the ideal setup for your combo. You need to learn how to optimally punish whatever hits you happen to get in, and you need to learn how to accommodate your combos based on the situation at hand. Nevertheless, I think all that practice in BlazBlue has made my life at least a bit easier when it comes to P4A.
Even though I’ve played fighting games for a lot of my life, BlazBlue was the first fighting game that I ever took as seriously as I did. I devoted hours upon hours researching combos and frame data, mashing out the same combo over and over again for hours until it was second nature, and playing online until my hands wanted to fall off. For a little while there, practicing BlazBlue almost became a full-time job, taking up at least four hours of my day, if not eight or more. I started understanding more about execution, timing, priority, and strategy. BlazBlue was also the fighting game where I transitioned from playing on the Xbox 360 controller to an arcade stick. I’m glad I did, and I don’t ever see myself going back. Anyways…
Even though I felt like I was having a hard time transitioning from BlazBlue to P4A, I can definitely appreciate all the little nuances that BlazBlue taught me. When I dived right into the challenge mode on P4A, I was amazed at how smooth my execution was when it came to the combos. The only thing that was really giving me trouble initially was button confusion with the change in layout. When trying out combos that involved slight delays in input and rather specific timing, I was able to see and feel things a lot faster than I would have if I didn’t play BlazBlue as adamantly as I did. I could tell by listening to the rhythm of my button taps if I poorly timed a combo. I could watch character animations and see if I needed to do something different to land my combos. As I kept plowing through challenges, I could see that a lot has changed since I first started taking my games seriously.
Feels good, man.
Just after three days of poking around P4A, I noticed my timing was significantly improving when it came to combos. Even though BlazBlue muscle memory was getting in the way here or there… things were just clicking really well. And that made me wonder if this was all just attributed to the P4A system or if my execution was actually getting tighter and more refined. I decided to do a test run by playing BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend for a little while.
…let’s just say that I was pleasantly surprised.
I hopped on to Challenge mode on BlazBlue and selected Lambda-11 (my girl!). I started from the first trial, and I was happy to see that I was right–my execution is definitely improving. I went through the majority of the trials without having to attempt them more than once. And the trials that I once had to try an excruciating amount of times before I got them by sheer luck? I was immediately able to tell what I was doing wrong when I attempted them a long time before, and I was able to efficiently correct all the mistakes I made in the past. I even beat some challenges that I just couldn’t figure out for the life of me back in the day. Once I got the general method of execution down, I could reliably perform these new combos over and over again. I knew I was feeling pretty good about things, but I didn’t think that three days with P4A would have made that much of a difference.
Glad to see that things are paying off in some form or another.
I still have a long way to go; this isn’t a bad thing, though. I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve only had the game in my possession for less than a week. Of course I’m not going to be as good as I am at BlazBlue right away. Of course I’m not going to know, off the top of my head, what button combinations do what for all the characters in the game. I’m not going to know what attacks to look for from certain characters just yet. All these little nuances come from research, experience, practice, and TIME. Hell, I haven’t even decided on a character I want to focus on just yet.
I still enjoy playing as Teddie, but I’m a bit worried that I’m relying too much on a lot of the overwhelming amount of random items he employs. The game is still fresh enough to where I can get away with that from time to time, but I can’t rely on that forever. I’m also really enjoying playing as Elizabeth, too. Yukiko and Akihiko are still on my roster, as well. I guess it’s better to have four plausible mains than still having no clue. I think I just need to start doing my research and see what best suits my playing style.
Playing my roommates and my friends has been helping me get a feel for all the characters, which I think is essential for building the appropriate countermeasures later on down the road. Playing online on two different systems will help that, too, when the time comes. I’m also looking forward to doing my research when I settle down on a character or two, as well. I’m feeling pretty good about things so far. I’ve got a good start going, and now all I gotta do is keep on running with it.
I still have a over a month before the first local tournament, and I have a lot of time before EVO to really hammer things down. Sure, I have a lot of things to focus on until then that isn’t just hammering away at P4A, but I know if I set my mind to it, I can make it happen.
…it’s worth a shot. 🙂
Tags: BlazBlue, FGC, P4A, Video Games