just got back from japan

I just returned from a month in Japan today, and I've been checking out the posts to try and see what's up with Evo in the rest of the world.

I'll be writing all my impressions later, but for now, some quick stuff:

In my experience (3 weeks in Sendai, 1 in Tokyo), Brad was much more popular than Goh. While it seems like a lot of people fool around with Goh, I saw way more serious, high-ranked, strong Brads. The first above 10th Dan player I saw was a Brad player (rough translation: Strong Man), and in Tokyo, Masked Hijitetsu was playing Brad, 9th Dan.

I got the chance to fight with many really good players, recognizeable ones being Kurita (Vanessa), Goro2000 (Pai), Mukki Akira, 1st Angel (Akira), Dabi (Akira) and others.

Fighting with the best players is by far the MOST fun to me, as they don't wait, use nice techniques/combos, and all have very distinctive styles (i.e. PK Akira is very different from Mukki).

most game centers in Japan didn't replace the levers from ver. C to Evo, so it took about a week to get used to the often VERY loose sticks (and I thought my Namco sticks were borderline...).

Lau, Jacky, Pai, and Jeffry are heavily changed, and moves that have had the same animations since VF1 now look quite different, which also took some getting used to at versus play.

To my mind, Kage and Lei Fei were changed least, bu that's based on new moves/animation, and as I don't play them, I can't truly say.

Having had many of his reliable floats/combos removed or changed, Akira initially seemed very weakened; but after about 3 weeks, I was able to adjust and began to see his strength lies in his new combos/moves (i.e. yoho, shoulder, DLC for about 105-110 pts, counter, weight and stance dependant). The shoulder should be used less in favor of the Knee and Yoho, and the SIngle Palm-SDE canned combo is very good, but the timing is almost like a "Just Frame" command (I'd say you have about 2-3 frames); and the second hit requires the Palm hit or be guarded.

All of the new item systems are really cool, and the ranking up system is more forgiving now. Since most core fans (couple hours a day) were at 6 to 8th Dan, and Experts already at 10th dan and above after about 3 weeks, I don't feel people need to worry too much about starting over.

more later

Spotlite

 

welcome back man! It's good to hear you being so enthusiastic in your brief but informative followup from Japan post. Mike, David, Talis, Brian, and I have already had the pleasure to play evo down in Southern California at the Southern Hills Golf Land. It's just incredible how some of my old favs have changed - namely Akira and Pai. Tried Brad once too but couldn't make any progress with him so i stopped after that initial try, hope you can fill us in with Brad specifics in your next reports! I'm looking forward to hear what other great news from Japan you have in store. till then, peace!

oh btw, Mike flew this morning to new york but he's already regretting playing evo so early as doing so rapidly takes away from ver. C's charm. Mike, I'm sure you're gonna kick ass at nyg3 - we go West Coast!

 

Spotlite, you came to Japan!?
I sometimes play VF without card east of Tokyo, char is jacky of course.
At this time , I could not play with you, but I am looking foward to hearing of japan stay.

Thanks.

 

hey paul, nice to hear from you.

in reply to myke:

personally, I love fooling around with that move. If you haven't seen it, after the elbow, akira steps to the side in an arc and shows his back, while saying "mikitaze", which my friend said means that Akira sees what the oppt is going to do next.

after the step, akira can use ant of his TT attacks, of which there are 2 new ones. d+P has changed from the old overhand punch to a new kind of smash, which looks a little like b, f+P+K+G, where he moves both hands in the same way. This move seems to force a mild crouch on normal hit, and float on counter. I've seen people do:

d/f+K+G, f+P, u, d+P (counter, float) P, DLC

mainly to the CPU, but there's no reason it wouldn't work on people if you guessed to used d+P correctly. The other new TT is the P+K bodycheck. Arcadia says that after the step, P+K will beat high and low punches of slow and mid speed punch characters. Of course, you can always go for d+K, P, or even Knee to be cute and step away showing your back. It also says that you can use the step to dodge rising attacks.

The dangerous thing is it seems like if people fo for a back throw just as akira is stepping, he's screwed. Never the less, I like doing it in fights when I feel comfortable with my oppt, and trying fun stuff. It's cute doing it in the air, then showing your back to the TR/QRing oppt and buffering a dash towards them showing your back.

I think we'll see cool variants soon. I was thinking on the plane that I wanted to try float with akira moving parallel to the wall, d/f+K+G, f+P, step away from the wall, P+K oppt into the wall, then go for a ground/wall hit with the knee. This would require a good float, but I think it'd work, as I got the step-P+K in a lot of air combos.

regarding the Akira clips I've DL'd so far, the only Akira's I've seen are Negato and the brown Gi Akira with the beard (which is his coolest new item, to me). I saw that guy in the clips like matu_ketu etc.

while that guy is using a pretty ver. C-ish akira style (lots of SDE- DJK), Negato is playing more towards evo style Akira.

the one thing I saw the brown guy do which is an Evo combo is shoulder, d+P, DLC. The shoulder lost a LOT of it's float, and in closed stance a normal P will almost never hit (counter against girls). Since this guy can see stance, he does P, DJK in open, and d+P, DLC in closed to Lau.

Negato used the SIngle Palm, SDE (D, f+P,P), uses Yoho a lot in place of the shoulder (although he's still finishing with the ver. C staples of closed: P, DblPm, open: P, DJK but if you're fighting Kyasao...). He tries to get a counter hit with b, d/f+P, which now allows a DblPm guarantee. Also, he finished Kyasao with the nice d/b+P+K+G, no canned followup, Throw trick, which a lot of people use (including me). If people try to stop your dash expecting a throw, you can use the P+K sabaki which beats High and Middle punches and elbows, high kicks, and knees; and has a canned f+P followup that gives a nice float. The P followup gives DE like advantage on normal hit, and a good float on counter, which can be followed with the DLC. I didn't use the low kick followup too much, but probably will once people get good at dealing with the other stuff. d/b+P+K+G, d/b+P+K+G, X is also fun. The timings for the canned followups can be changed as well.

Overall, I'd say that while you CAN play Akira like ver C, you'll probably have more fun and success using the new stuff, as it balances out the things he lost. More later.

Spotlite

 

Hope you had a nice trip back. Was fun to head to Sportsland with you as well.

The only time I've seen a lot of Brads on one night was that one night in Shinjku -- they're just not playing in my area besides a select few. A few of them are good, but there are far more Goh's. I know quite a few that are half-decent with him.

 

Great report Bryan, please keep them coming!!