I knew I'd find a way to write about this one day. I think I fell in love with Guilty Gear the first time I played it. There was something about the characters and the music that really struck a chord. This was all the way back with the first installment of GGXX, at my friend's house, back in elementary school. Now, over a decade later, I have finally seen myself rise from absolutely nothing all the way to the ability to play Venom. What a long trip it has been.
Arcade Fighting Games
I've always had a genuine interest in fighting games. Maybe it's just because I loved the character designs, but also the rush of adrenaline one feels when vieing for victory. Proving worth and proving skill, something only attainable after extreme amounts of practice and insight. Fighting games only ever rarely come naturally to people; for the rest of the crowd, hours upon hours of hard work, dedication, losing, and more losing, will earn a place amongst the best players of all time. It's something built within our genes, to constantly fight and strive for competition to prove ourselves in the face of great challenges. Fighting games just happen to be the modern day age of the Roman coliseum.
Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and Guilty Gear
I knew I should've started with Street Fighter. In a previous post I already talked about my failure by starting with Mortal Kombat. My notion of fighting games was special spamming and dial-in combos, with no sense of poking, zoning, throwing, BLOCKING, or punishing. But there was something about the characters of Mortal Kombat that truly tickled my fancy, some kind of flare that the Street Fighter cast did not have. That was the ultimate deciding factor for me back then. During junior high I moved on to Marvel vs Capcom 2. An unusual experience - I began to learn the notion of "hit confirming" into "combos" and abusing "top tier characters". I still didn't learn much though, since I played only keep away characters that never really required me to build a solid defense nor a seamless, tricky offense. That was, till Guilty Gear came along. Skipping past the gameplay for now, I remember picking Ky and listening to "Holy Orders" for the first time - I was literally blown away. I scrolled through the cast and was constantly amazed by how unique and awesome looking all the of the characters were. To this day, I still believe Guilty Gear has the best character designs and music of any fighting game out there. If we're talking about flash, flare, and style, Guilty Gear is definitely ontop of it all. Yes, even moreso than Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
Guilty Gear Gameplay and My First Encounter with N-O
I remember my early days playing GG. I only had GGXX Midnight Carnival when the new thing was Slash. I was absolutely horrible. I remember wanting to play Sol and reading a guide that said "down Slash is your best poke", so I literally just spammed 2S and Gunflames. Yea. I had no concept of even the most basic of basics, such as blocking, tick throwing, mixup, cross up, high, low. This was all foreign language to me. I just wanted to be cool and do some combos. Eventually someone introduced me to some videos online, and it opened my eyes to a world beyond my imagination. The first video I saw was N-Otoko vs P.C. back in #Reload. I was blown away. The dude fights with FUCKING POOL BALLS. I went into training mode right after and tried my luck. Holy fuck each set of buttons produced a different formation. Fuck that, way too hard. Move forward about two years, in highschool, I picked up GGXX Slash from H-F Blade and Blitz, and began to learn Faust and Slayer along with Bryan, who was playing Sol. Slayer was the first step in my gameplay. I had to learn a lot of hit confirming into aircombos and corner Pilebunker loops. Difficult for a beginner, especially since I was on pad. I still remember driving to Justus's house one time and playing versus Phobos (who was terrible with Baiken), Pulsr (who lost to a pad masher playing Sol), Hellmonkey (who lost to me more than once, a pad warrior, on his foilstick - boy have times changed), Black Chris (who was still playing Testament), Stormlock (who didn't have a beard yet), and Jo (who was still fat as fuck). I went to EVO with Ehd and Bryan, but I still didn't quite understand the game yet, and got absolutely destroyed lol. I felt like I was too far behind, so I just decided to quit for the time being.
(That and WoW was around, but don't tell anyone I said that.)
Crashman Chris Returns
I remember vividly. It was November of 2006, and I was hanging out with Bryan, Pat, and David at Pat's house. We were just chillin and playing magic when someone said: "Hey let's play Guilty Gear." Uhh sure. Slayer changed completely. What the fuck? Oh, we're playing ACCENT CORE now. Hm. It was all sorts of crazy shenanigans, EX moves and shit. I was interested again that night. I went back onto dustloop and looked up some guides and videos. I was going to make this happen. In December, I was re-acquainted with a lot of old friends at an Arcade Infinity ranbat. I was still really bad, but at least I knew how to do Slayer's aircombos and I almost beat Ken-I once. Once.That winter I was supposed to go to one of the first West Toasts. For some reason I decided not to go, and my GG playing went on haitus for about another year. I don't remember the exact cycle of events that brought me back to the GG crowd, but I believe it was when I became extremely sick of WoW after my senior year that I began to hang out with pulsr more. I went to one of his gatherings and really liked it. I started to play more and more, and eventually got to a below-average level with Slayer. Eventually I began to host and I was having weekly gatherings at my place during the fall of 2007. It was after I came back from Chicago and meeting Blacksnake that I wanted to begin learning Venom seriously. He was real character that I've always wanted to play, but was always afraid to because everyone said he was really hard to learn (more on that later). I didn't care. I thought that Venom was the most amazing crowd pleaser and I was all about playing the flash and feeling good about it. The training was not easy. I lost many many games to all sorts of people and even had myself recorded during a casual tournament during summer 2008. Lich King came out and I went on a haitus again.
The Path of Balls
I think it was towards the end of summer that Hellmonkey and I started hanging out more. What that meant was more time to play against him (or more time to lose against him). I had originally thought that losing so much meant that I wasn't learning shit. I now realize and appreciate all of those hours where he just sat there and beat on my ass all day, because it helped me to understand little things and fundamentals about the game that were extremely crucial to me as an aspiring player. One day, I decided, with the help of Zaido, that I would finally quit Slayer and pursue my true dream, Venom. I had so many doubts, just ask him. I would often get depressed and frustrated playing Venom and just go back to Slayer and win a bunch. This was weakness. I also remember one night, I just decided to use Venom exclusively. It was the same night Purrin and Deci came here all the way from San Diego. I beat Purrin and Deci a few times (out of many), but that was enough to give me hope. Seriously. I took Venom to EVO and failed horribly. I couldn't even look Blacksnake in the eye. I was seriously embarassed by my performance. Little did I know, I had so very little understanding of the game. It was really nothing to be ashamed of, in retrospect, because I probably only had a fraction of the grasp I now have over the game. Over the course of the next half year, a combination of playing a lot against Hellmonkey, practicing my execution in training mode when I was bored, talking about strategies with Biter and Blacksnake, and watching a lot of vids. I started out my mimicing Nanashi's style and then slowly began to hammer out my own style from that. Finally, at the beginning of 2009, I can finally play Venom to a level where I can say that Slayer is no longer my main.
This isn't to say that I'm very good, because that would just be a flat out lie. In fact, I am still very amateur to the game, compared to the people who have been playing it for much longer than I have. I still have tons of bad habits and gaps in my matchup knowledge that cause me to lose a lot of matches. Despite that, I've heard many comments from all of my old friends, that I have improved a lot, and I thank them for the encouragement. Hard work really, really paid off and now I am slowly reaping the rewards. I understand what I have to work on, and while I may not have a full insight into the most advanced mechanics of the game, I at least have an idea of what to look for now. It's really amazing and a great feeling to have reached this level, as mediocre it may be, cause learning Venom was no easy task. With Guilty Gear returning to EVO this year, I have even more reason to practice. With Street Fighter 4 out, even more faces returning to the fighting scene. I will fight this year and I will try my best to shine. N-Otoko, here I come. (Hah. I wish, anyways.)
OMG lots of homework. God help me. Toradora! and Soul Eater are turning super hype. That's about it for now. Peace out.
