Monthly Archive

I’m pretty sick of chronicling my improvement in mechanical matters (arcade controls, combo proficiency), so this post I’m going to describe my general strategy with Ippatsuman.

My Ippatsuman game revolves around his combo that I never shut up about. I have three methods of getting them in (there is mixture, it’s not 3 completely distinct tactics). In order of commonality they are as follow. 1 Blocking my opponents’ attack strings, then punishing once they become vulnerable. This method is so nice because in this combo-centric game, people are constantly trying to start off their combos (like myself, for instance). Often you can see them coming a mile away. Then a little bit of blocking nearly ensures you’ll be able to start your own combo as soon as their attempt is finished. 2 Rushdown attack. This needs little explanation, a rushdown attack overloads some players to the point that they’re unable to defend themselves, much less launch a counter-offensive. Like all things, some characters and opponent strategies lend themselves more to this type of game than others. A specific I’ve learned is that with many players (particularly less skilled ones), when I accidentally lose my combo during the aerial rave portion (fairly common), I land behind them and often can immediately start them into a new combo before they can react. For some players, I can go back and forth doing perhaps 3 or 4 combos in a row this way. Better players will only fall for this once, if ever, as there’s no reason the new combo cannot be stopped (or preempted!). Another thing I’ve learned is that jumping in with light attacks seems to be a great way to start chains off. This applies to most characters, not just Ippatsuman. 3 Miscellaneous openings. This is a lot looser than the other methods; it includes things like punishing whiffed attacks, catching the opponent off guard, and footsies.

Beyond setting up combos, Ippatsuman does, of course, have some other tricks up his sleeve. At a long distance, Ippatsuman’s baseball projectiles can really drive someone crazy. Between the 3 different trajectories, which each have somewhat alternate trajectories when thrown from the air, he’s able to hit a target in just about any position. They’re not terribly powerful, but can take a bit of life off someone while annoying them and teaching them that they can’t just keep away from Ippatsuman and think they’ll be safe. His straight fly has some good uses as well. It can be used to quickly close distance, punish blocked or whiffed long-range attacks, or simply to catch an opponent off guard. Better yet, this can be comboed (2 hit combo) into a final reversal breaker hyper move, so the damage done is greatly improved. Speaking of the final reversal breaker hyper, it’s an unblockable anti-air attack, so it of course has value on its own for opponents trying to jump in on me (very common, as mentioned in point 2 above). Ippatsuman’s grand slam attack is fairly limited in its usefulness. The power is ok at close or medium range, but nothing to write home about and the screen freeze before it makes it easy to see coming. I mostly use this either when the opponent has very little life and chip damage is useful or fatal, when an opponent just seems off guard, or when I’m desperate. His come forth, gyakkuten-oh hyper is total garbage. I call it the “hyper waster” as 80% of the time I use it, it’s by accident (not happening much anymore with the arcade controls). It requires at least 3 meters, drains your entire meter, does very little damage, and is fairly easy to avoid. I only use this for fanciful finishes or in rare incidents where it’s advantageous (usually when we’re both super low on life and the invincibility it provides is a huge boon). Ippatsuman’s assist is pretty lame and nearly the only time I use it is when I whiff Saki’s positron storm (in which case it’s very helpful). Come to think of it, with Saki’s limited close-range skills, I bet there are a few more cases where his assist can help relieve the pressure. I should look into that.

Originally I was planning on writing up my strategy for Saki as well as well as anti-Ippatsuman and anti-Saki strategies, but this ended up being a pretty long post so I’ll leave that for the future.