VF Noob - Starting with Pai & Akira

Im a complete noob but im really looking forward to the new VF. I haven't played the series in over a decade.

Im thinking of starting with Pai and Akira, and then branching out to Sarah or Akira

Is pai a good beginner character?

 

I would say Pai, Lau, Lion, Jean, Goh, Taka, Jacky, El Blaze, Wolf, Jeffry, Eileen...

They are good and not really hard for a new or a beginner player.

But VF is easy to pick and "hard" to master for the most part, just pick the character that clicks the most with you.​

 

Just my opinion.. I'd say sure, why not. She could be considered a good starter character for simple, basic reasons.

1. She has punch punch punch high kick, punch punch punch mid kick, punch punch punch sweep moves you can try to lean on when overwhelmed and mix up. (You don't always have to finish any sequence of moves)

2. A fast mid with an easy input that doesn't do a lot of damage, gets people off of you.

3. A high and low full spinning kick. Full spinning kicks cannot be evaded.

Those are basic things you can mix up with throws among other things.. Like any character, she also has a lot of moves at her disposal that's too many to list (there's an already organized command list section on this website for that).

HOWEVER.. There's also other characters with similar traits. And for that reason, my advice is to use a character that has moves you like. It will take time along with match losses to memorize their moves and learn how to defend yourself and fight with them. So it's best to put your time into the characters you enjoy/has moves you like and find the ones for you.

People say Akira is a hard character to use and not for people new to VF. But for me, I liked his moves the best and I started with him. I lost a lot and still do, but that's who I wanted to learn how to fight with. Regardless of who you choose, you'll have to learn how and when to use your moves.

 

I think the biggest problem with Akira is that new players see him and think he's going to be easy to use like Ryu since they look similar, but while Ryu is fairly straight forward I personally would not recommend Akira for a new player. When starting out he is going to feel slow while a character like Lau has easy strings that will at least make a new player able to get a few wins.

I agree with what you said about picking a character you like and just sticking with them though. Tiers don't matter much in this game compared to others so its best to just stick to a character you really find fun and learn them.

 

Yeah that kind of stuff is case by case. Every character can get busy, it's just 'how do you want to do it?' lol.

I'll admit that if someone has no fighting game background, they probably shouldn't start with Akira, but. Ultimately that's up to them if they don't mind the road.

 

Oy! As mentioned above, and even I myself always tell people, start with the character you like, and who you want to play with. But yeah, Akira will be kinda tough, for a beginner to learn. He is in a sense not too beginner friendly.

 

Thanks for the feedback guys

Gonna start with pai and take things from there. Ive played alot of fighting games since i was a kid, so im up for the Akira challenge. Definitely want to try him at some point as he reminds me of Ryo from Shenmue.

 

Yeah, dude. Akira is pretty awesome and a lot of fun if you like his style. I say go for it if that's who you would like to be good/put up a fight with. I dabbled with Pai a little bit too, and she's also pretty awesome. Any character can get busy, lol.

In my opinion, the only thing that makes him harder than other characters is most of his moves require more stick inputs and he doesn't have quick, long string mix ups. That's what I assume people mean when they say he's not for beginners. You just have to be a little quicker with Akira (not for all his moves, though. He does have simple input moves too). I like the movement you can do in this game, so having to do slightly more inputs with the left hand to do attacks didn't bother me when I started. I wanted to get good at movement/directional inputs anyway, lol. For my own personal style of playing.

I started playing VF in VF5. Compared to that game, he's a little easier to use in VF5FS. Mainly because of the new crumple and bound system, along with the characters floating higher during combos. Because of those things, you have more combo routes that do high damage but doesn't require the dexterity you used to need to get max damage. He still has some gnarly stuff that's hard/can be hard to do, though.

Edit: Fuh that video. Anyways, just have fun out there, brah.

 

Thanks a million for that dude. I'm definitely going to check that video out. Hopefully i'll be able to pick up some cool tips and combos along the way

 

That video is from 2012. You'll be able to find better stuff. But that don't mean there's not gems in that one. Have fun.

 

Did the tutorial and some training with pai, then went straight into ranked. It's going very well. My street fighter/ Shenmue and dead or alive experience has helped a ton. It plays very similar to Shenmue 2 and i played a ton of the street fights in that game.

 

@Shensun
That is good to hear dude.

 

Getting my ass kicked in by the Dan ranks lol. Its a lot of fun

 

Made it to the 5th Dan rank

Gonna jump back on tomorrow for some more

Loving this game

One half laggy match out of 50. Not bad at all

 

My same experience. Just one slightly laggy match out of about 50.