Since a lot of people are interested in Jean but sadly hasn't even had a chance to play him ever I thought I'd make a small write up with move descriptions and impressions that I gathered my small time playing Jean (preceded with a few months of research though). I was supposed to do this when I came home from Japan but a lack of enthusiasm for a Jean-less future just made push this ahead indefinitely.
First,
here's a link to the frame data , which I initially compiled through watching lots of vids and now I've filled in the blanks and corrected it thanks to Arcadia.
Second,
here's a link to a movie where they test almost all of the moves just going down the movelist. If you watch the movie and have the movelist next to you, you'll figure out which move is which. You can also check out some moves
at Sega's official site for VF, although it's a smaller selection. They do have all the throws there though.
Jean to me is mostly something I would dub a "power poking" character, he's not a character where you will be going for launchers most of the time (although he certainly doesn't lack damage in that department), since his launchers while good are a bit risky compared to how you can chip off large chunks of damage with his very powerful poking and punish game. He doesn't have any special stances or something like that, you will have to rely on VF basics with him a lot.
Jean has two things that make him unique in VF. First off is the large amount of charge moves he has. While charge moves is nothing new in VF, the way Jean's move works is very unique. When charging moves you don't only get a more powerful version of the same move, but many times the move while fully charged will turn into a completely different move, sometimes a fully charged high will turn into a mid. It doesn't stop there as he in many cases will have a move he can execute while charging another move!
So people will understand what I'm talking about, I'm going to give an example: Jean's
Jean's
is a special high punch that tracks to one direction and if it hits it will give a modest +1 on hit. If you charge it though it will give a more powerful version of that punch that breaks the guard of the opponent and will give a head collapse if it hits. WHILE charging
you can press
(you still have to hold down
) and you will instead get a mid kick straight out of
, which will keep anyone trying to duck
honest. You can get the midkick out very fast from
if you do
,
,
,
and just hold down and tap
immediately.
Another nice example is Jean's
. Many of you recognise this move as it's one of the moves you see Jean use the most. It's mid punch-mid knee, 15 frames (add 1f for execution), hits grounded and both hits wall stagger (having the second one wall stagger is the most powerful though, as you've probably seen from the wall combos he gets). This move is silly good on it's own, but there's more! If you charge
fully, the mid knee will instead turn into a high fly kick that is UNBLOCKABLE and knocks down the opponent. Now, while charging
you can hit
while holding
and you'll instead get a fully circular high punch that is +5 on hit (+10 on CH). This can really fuck with the opponent at the wall where you charge the knee just enough so it doesn't turn into the fully charged one making it hard for the opponent to guess if it's the mid or the unblockable that comes out and if he tries to evade both the charge
will get him.
The second thing that is unique with Jean is the hit effect from his
. This move is 15f (again, add 1f for exe in practice) and on hit it is +18, on counter hit +28. So you figure, this means he gets stuff for free? No. This advantage is so called "fake" advantage, something that to my knowledge hasn't existed in VF before this but does exist in Tekken. When the opponent gets hit, he's -18 but he CAN BLOCK (standing or crouching) during all these frames, but he can NOT do anything else. As an added bonus, any attack Jean connects with during this +18 will automatically be a counter hit, even if the opponent just blocks, however, the opponent can NOT be thrown during this stun.
So this effectively creates a guessing game between mid and low and since anything that connects is a counter hit it means that lows get a bit better. The mix up of choice here is another
or Jean's
. The latter is low to high and knocks down, while the former if it hits during a
stun while produce a crumble where you can connect a heavy down attack afterwards.
is for some very weird reason safe, despite being a low kick (-8) and you can hitcheck the follow up
on counter hit, making this a very safe strategy. Around wall doing
to
can be downright murder.
Some other fun facts about
is that if it hits in the back or side it's still +18 but since the opponent is unable to block, you will actually get free attacks here. If Jean breaks Akira's
+
he can score a guaranteed
in the back and then launch with
...
Moving on
Jean's punishment is exceptional
He gets a
at +12
+13 he has
+
which knocks down and gives a lot of damage. In R they've adjusted so most stuff that is jab punishable is -13, so Jean can get this from a LOT of stuff.
+14 he has
which also knocks down and gives more damage then
+
, the range is very good.
+15 he has
which is very good for punishing low kicks (most low kicks that crouch in their animation have been adjusted to -15 instead of -14 now). The second hit slams them, but won't give you anything guaranteed on open ground. If you do it against the wall however you can do a combo afterwards, making this a better punisher then
on standing opponents near walls. On open ground however,
does more damage.
is easily one of Jeans best moves. It's a natural combo knee to high punch which you can hitscan, so it's another very fast power mid in his arsenal.
at +17 his
is the typical knee launcher that does GREAT damage.
Some alternative punishers is doing
on crouching opponents at +16 and do
+
at +19 when you're at far range. His "SPOD",
+
is also quite nice to use as a whiff punisher from backdash as it is 19f, gives great damage, has absurd range and is safe on block in case you would fail.
Jean's throwing game is about the same level as Jacky when it comes to options and damage. Which means his throwing game is definitely strong enough to not be a liability in any way. His strongest throw is
+
which does 55 dmg and his second best throw is
+
which does 50. Jean doesn't have any particular ring out potential from his throws, closest would be
+
, but that's just as risky to attempt for Jean as for the opponent. Jean also has a very good guard break,
+
, which is high and 24 frames So all in all with his throws, guard break and charge moves that breaks guard/gives adv on block he has very strong options against machi opponents.
For defensive moves, Jean has a very nice punch parry. It is similar to Lion that he has
+
+
on high and mid punches and
+
+
for low punches. Both version you can hit a
on succesful parry and get a stomach crumble. Something I've seen Koedo do however is to do the parry and buffer throw escapes, which means you lose the ability to do the
followup, but you will still get enough advantage to cram a
in there.
He has a sabaki against elbow and mid punches, the command is
+
, the animation is very similar to
and does indeed give the same kind of hit effect on normal hit (however, on counter hit it immediately goes to a backwards crumble).
+
is a nice move with a very weird evasive property. I think the closest comparison would be Pai's
. It knocks down on all hits and you can do his roll attack,
+
guaranteed. Talking about the roll, it's a VERY nice move, it counts as a double kick attack, tech crouches and gives a stagger on all hits. Extremely useful against characters and players depending on stance and sabaki shenanigans.
I THINK I've seen his
+
sabaki some time, but I've found nothing about it afterwards.
Jean's backturned game is very barebones and is not really a part of his game at all.
So let's take a look at Jean's launchers. He has the typical VF knee with
and pretty much like Jeff's
both in terms of hitbox and damage. It does not have the common trait among VF knees that it scrapes the ground, and it might miss against stuff like Akira's
+
at close range. It's -15 on block, so nothing you can spam, but worth throwing out there from time to time.
+
is a long range mid uppercut that gives flop on hit. It's 19 frames and safe on block (-8). That it gives flop however doesn't keep it from doing great damage as combos will be in the 60-70+ range, lots of tricky OM combos if you want to max out the damage. This is in my opinion Jean's most useful launcher considering that it's safe and has great range and really not too slow at 19 frames.
+
is a downwards pointing elbow that slams down the opponent, it's safe, 21f exe and also has very good range...like everything else Jean has.
What Jean lacks in his launcher game is that he doesn't have the typical 16f CH launcher that most of the characters have in some form to use as nitaku, the move that sort of fills that role is his
which instead of giving a combo grants you the powerful mix up I wrote about above. So all in all, it's not better or worse, just different.
Let's talk a little bit more about Jean's poking.
He has the traditional VF elbow and midkick at 14 and 16f respectively. While his
is nothing special in terms of followups,
is mid-high-high and serves mainly as a combo finisher, never hurts to have an elbow. His
on the other hand has tons of stuff to use. His
is a natural combo on all hits, which is great on it's own. Just looking at the movelist makes me realize I don't the stamina to go through all the charge variations here as they're just too many, just check the movelist and the movies.
is a very nice 15f mid-mid that is highly delayable and combos on all hits. It's negative frames on hit though.
I don't think I need to write more about
and
, these moves are just awesome and Jean's main weapons IMO. Just watch Koedo's movies and see how well he uses these moves, particularly around walls.
For tracking he's also well equipped, his
tracks to one direction and his
tracks in the other, both are high but have really great charge options.
+
is a standard high fully circular and
+
is a standing low sweep similar to Brad's.
He also has a bit of a weird thing with his
+
mid kick, which can be cancelled with
. However, after you cancel it you can press
and it will go into this low sweep. It feels a bit too telegraphed to use that much.
In close, I think Jean is a very powerful character that is not too complicated to use, his execution is not overly demanding except learning to hold buttons for moves. He is also retardedly safe on some stuff, but most of all he is FUN to play, I have never felt any VF character be so satisfying to play before, his moves have great power, looks stylish and gives great damage, so what is there not to like? His game around walls is also superintimidating.
I can't think of too much else to write right now without just going through every small detail, if people want to know more, just ask, preferably link a video.
I'll end with a
link to my combo list which is mostly taken from Koedo's blog. I don't know if all of these are max anymore, but still a nice reference.
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