I just got Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate on PS3, awesome game, I can kind of grasp the system but overall I'm still kind of button mashy when I come to that game. I know how to block/reverse strings and kind of punish stuff. Of course, we were playing tag mode, after a few hours I go to Tag 2 because my tag hunger needed to be fulfilled.
I got a buddy of mine on Tekken around a few months after TTT2 first came out. He would come over while I watched my replays. After watching some of my replays he decided to start playing. Nothing serious, he got beat left and right but he didn't care and still had fun. A few months later after I started to grasp the fundamentals of Tekken, he started playing with Asuka. I tried to explain to him how to do a combo, he could never do one.
He would say, "how do you do tag the other guy in while the first guy is in?", it was hard as hell to explain. I do it simply and it's a second thought, it's hard to actually map out what I'm doing. I tried to explain it to him and he still couldn't get it down. I explained to him what a bound was, and that, you cannot bound after low parries. He would do combos with Asuka, and then backroll catch and do another combo, for this reason he thought you could bound twice in one combo. I had to display that if the opponent does not backroll, that combo wouldn't work. His mind was blown.
He started to pick up Jun too because of their similarities. Whenever he would come over while I'm playing, he would play. He would consistently drop combos and whiff attacks. He knew how to do what he wanted to do, it was just hard for him to execute what he knew in an actual battle. I would go into practice mode with him and choose the same characters, and he says "you learned like 4 Asuka combos in 10 minutes, WTF", he was impressed with my ability to just go into practice mode and create like 3 60 DMG combos just by looking through the command list. Obviously this isn't really anything special since anyone who knows Tekken well enough can do this. I taught him to never backroll on get up unless the opponent is far away enough that, he or she can't backroll catch him. I did this one basic Asuka combo, with the default Jun tag filler and a running "Asuka kick ender", I don't know what the move is. He says, "damn", I think I can do that.
He tries this combo about 40 times, he still couldn't really grasp how to do tag assaults. Then he landed the running Asuka kick ender, and got extremely excited, he kept doing it over and over again. We played some matches and he landed that combo every single time. I remember one time I was just fucking around doing slideys with Law, then he beat me with that combo and I told him that was good shit. At this point, he went out and bought himself a copy of the game. He would text me through the week saying, "dude I just learned this new Asuka/Jun combo". We would have conversations about online matches. He started playing online ranked by himself and he would tell me stories about them. He would always tell me that, "your highest character is a Marauder? I thought you would be higher than that." So fast-forward a little later, he knows how to consistently do tag combos with Asuka/Jun, he's starting to punish launch punishable moves, he's not backrolling, a lot of essential things.
I pop in Tekken 6 just for shits and giggles. He picks Asuka, and I was surprised when his knowledge of Tag 2 translated back to Tekken 6, it was amazing. When I turned on Tekken 6, he said, "this game looks like it was made 15 years go compared to Tag 2." I lol'd. To the normal guy this story is insignificant, but to good Tekken players like the ones in this thread, I thought it would be interesting. I'm a huge fighting game guy, people hate playing fighting games with me because I always win. Then TTT2 came out, and really used to think that I could just spam launchers and win that way. Thanks to the many fights with the people in this thread, and through watching videos on YouTube, my experience in Tekken has increased. Within one year I feel like I went through a Tekken Hyberbolic Time Chamber.
Back in the Tekken 6 days, back when I first came into the GAF scene, with Sayah, AAK, Degen, Dropkick, and SDBurton, I knew how to play Tekken and how to do combos, but I had no knowledge of punishing. When I look back, I can't believe that I used to play Tekken that way, I would always wonder why I was losing. There was a point where I would actually dislike playing against AAK and Sayah because I thought they were impossible to beat. The problem wasn't them, the problem was me. I don't remember when exactly I learned what "punishing was", but I leveled up extremely. Then I learned that, no matter how good the player, they can be punished. So, once I learned this, and starting winning against the people I just listed, I got a lot more confident. Not to mention my casual regulars, Famicom, Ricko Sauve, dropkick, Degen, Cookiepants, Downplay, SDBurton, CSX, MannyBiggz, ElzaWalker.
ElzaWalker, Ricko, Manny, Dropkick, Sayah, AAK used to piss me the fuck off, I might as well call them
I couldn't get away with shit while playing with these people, "Oh, you want to do launch punishable moves? BOOM, punish everytime bitch." ELZAWALKER, YOU PUNISH EVERYTHING, WTF. ElzaWalker leveled up my game, Manny leveled up my game, Ricko leveled up my game, AAK birthed me, he taught me almost everything I know, I owe a lot to him, good dude. Sayah taught me about patience, and that no matter how good the opponent, patience and poking can still work. Yoooo, Famicom, whenever I play you it seems like you got twice as better as the last time, you stop falling for me old mixups so I have to create new ones. Overall though, thanks Tekken GAF.
- No one here is really the worst or the best. Everybody's got their own strengths and weaknesses.
