The Official Fighting Games Topic

Update (2008 Feb 09): added 1 new recommended 3s vid and 3 new recommended AHF vids.

Update (2008 Jan 23): added a link in 1st post to freelander's most recent post in the 3s topic. It's under "educational vids" for GG:AC .

1:00 (end of round 1) - At first I thought it was silly for Kamui to burst and lose her super bar instead of saving it for the next round. But she actually manages to finish the round with 2x as much super bar! The weird thing she does where she pulls out her sword and it glows red allows her to trade her life for a bar of super. Normally you lose a lot of life -- more than you could actually deal in damage with an extra super. But when you have only a pixel of life left, losing it won't matter .

2:32 - LOL, accidental trade-life-for-super. (The motion is down-down-A.)

3:19 - Backwards guard cancel (4GC) straight into the super?! WTH are you doing Kamui?! T_T

4:18 - Wow, close finish. Would've been a lot more exciting if I hadn't accidentally looked at the progress bar earlier and saw that there was still 3 minutes left, though >_<;;.

4:36 - Jeezus, only 8 game-seconds into the round and already ACT has lost most of his life.

5:47 - The air tech that leads to ACT's huge comeback (actually, I think Kamui could've killed him here, but she messed up). Pretty amazing that he manages to play safe and block everything for the next minute, while still taking enough risks to get in on Kamui and KO her.

6:13 - Usually Maori whips out her whip at this point in the combo, making it a perfect time to burst. ACT backdashes instead to bait the burst.

6:25 - ACT messes up his combo, which actually makes the round even more intense .

6:38 - Yes, that sister drop is an overhead. VERY risky at this point because it leaves Maori wide-open to be killed by even a jab (A). But ACT guesses right: Kamui is scared of losing in the last 8 game-seconds and blocks low rather than trying to hit ACT. (He's even too nervous to block high on reaction to Maori's sister-assist animation.) Very nice comeback.

The game is entirely unpopular outside of Japan, where there've been several tournies. There must be something like <50 active non-Japanese players on Xbox Live, and I think a large part of the reason is that aspects of the game don't appeal to fighter players and others don't appeal to shmup players.

First, well, it plays like a shmup in the sense that you fire bullets, and that the arena is relatively large. On the other hand, some bullet patterns are next to impossible to dodge, which turns of shmup players who are used to being able to avoid everything. Oh, and the anime style graphics don't help in the West either.

However, I believe it's mostly players with shmup backgrounds that play the game. This is why most players sit at the other side of the arena dodging the other player's bullets, both people playing keep-away. It's what they're used to.

As maybe you saw, the main and sub weapon shots turn into melee attacks at close range (close range indicated by those circles). So one tactic is to dance in and out of melee range, making the opponent try to fire bullets, and instead use a melee attack (same attack button), whiffing, whereupon you can punish them.

There are actually combos in the game, although they are limited to fairly short strings. As for bullet patterns, each character of 8 (each has two "cartridges") has a standing main shot, guarding main shot, dashing main shot, standing subweapon, guarding subweapon, dashing subweapon, and ~4 special attacks that use charge gauge. You're right about variety of bullet patterns, though, as you can't really mix up the main shot much with itself--it's more based on the main shot in conjunction with the other two types to create different attack patterns.

The main kinds of things you wouldn't notice if you hadn't played the game are probably timing-related: recharge lengths of main and subweapons, the fact that you can't immediately dash after finishing a full dash, the cooldown from different firing animations, canceling attacks, etc. It's possible to do directional shots (manual aim) as well. So the kind of thing you can do is use a special attack and subweapon in one direction to force the opponent to move away, closer to you, while you dodge their dash attack, waiting to hit them in the small window when they're in recovery from the dash.

About the BOSS mode, you get 2 uses for your entire BO3 match, and gain another once you lose a set. Using BOSS uses up all the charge meter. How much charge meter you have once you use BOSS determines how much HP the BOSS comes with (BOSS has separate HP gauge). If you destroy a BOSS, you get your entire charge meter filled. Also, if you end a BOSS with more BOSS HP than you have real HP, then part of the difference is recovered. There's also such a thing as final BOSS, which is a more powerful version that lasts a little longer, which if killed gets you instantly killed. This can only be activated if you're at 0 HP--you get knocked down to 0 instead of dying from anything above 0, and only die once you get hit at 0. So this brings about some sort of meta-game in when to use BOSS, how much charge meter you want for it, whether to use BOSS for HP recovery or damage, if you can survive using BOSS given the opponent has charge meter and can use special attacks on you, whether or not to do some risky attacks that hurt the opponent's charge meter beforehand, etc. Actually, I'll agree here that the BOSS mode is a weaker portion of the game, as it's fairly inelegant. Also, the number of attacks in BOSS mode is limited to 3-5, so there are less options for the BOSS player. But it does balance the use of special attacks.

I guess I ended up rambling longer than intended. I must really want to convince people to play the game so I can trash them online lol.