Destroyed!
Sep. 19th, 2010 01:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoyI'm guessing not all of you are too familiar with Guilty Gear - specificically Guilty Gear XX, specifically Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, though I don't think that's relevant - so let me describe one of the more ridiculous features of the game: The instant-kill move.
Each character (save Order-Sol, I think) has one, and, well, it does what it says. If you hit with it, you win the round automatically. Naturally, such things are not going to be made easy to use. Allow me to describe just all the hoops you have to jump through in order to use one.
If you want to do one, first you have to enter instant kill mode, which you do by hitting all 4 buttons at once. On our controllers (GameCube controllers) we've aliased this to the Z button to make this easy - it's not really very convenient on a gamepad[0] - even though anyone sensible will pretty much never use it. Going into instant-kill mode takes like half a second and leaves you vulnerable.
Then once you're in instant-kill mode, your super meter starts draining (and I'm not sure if you can use it for anything, either). If it empties, your health will start draining, and rather fast (though you apparently can't die this way). If you decide you don't want to go for the instant kill after all, and hit all 4 buttons at once to exit instant kill mode, this also takes about half a second and leaves you vulnerable again.
Should you decide to go for it, and actually execute the move, well, if you hit with it, you've won the round, and get to see whatever elaborate animation they came up with for the move (and instead of the usual victory "Slash!" you get a special "Destroyed!"). But if you miss, or it's blocked, or countered, or anything, you lose your super meter for the entire rest of the round. And note that this being Guilty Gear, your super meter isn't just used for supers, it's also used for green blocking, which allows you to avoid taking chip damage (among some other stuff).
Well somehow, it seems whenever we teach someone new the game, they somehow during one of their first matches end up accidentally hitting Z. Or maybe deliberately just to see what it does, I don't know. At which point we have to explain why hitting Z is a bad idea and how instant kills work and how they should hit it again to get out of instant kill mode.
Well, Doug was playing against a new player, Marquise, a first-year here, who was just learning. And guess what, he accidentally hit Z. So we explain instant kills, and so Doug decides to demonstrate one on him. (Though how Doug knew Testament's instant kill without looking it up, I have no idea. (Doug doesn't ordinarily play Testament, to my knowledge.) Probably he did look it up and I just missed it.)
Well later Doug and I were playing some matches, he was Ky and I was Slayer, and Chad - another first-year, I don't think he plays Guilty Gear - started saying how he wanted to see some "special moves". What did he mean by that? Special moves are used all the time. Did he mean supers? Somehow we figured out he meant instant kills; I think he may have mentioned the "Destroyed!" message. We explain why these are impractical, though I point out that Axl's seems kind of usable. Doug decides to humor him and attempts Ky's, but I counter it; he doesn't try again after that.
After a few, I switch to Axl - partly because I would like a chance to try an instant kill move - and Doug switches to Slayer. Well, the first round isn't going so well for me, and eventually I'm low on health but high on super meter, and, quite importantly, I manage to get away from Slayer for a bit. "You know what, Chad?" I say, and hit the Z button. "I'll go for it." Doug jumps in attempting to hit me with an aerial heavy slash, but I go QCF,QCF+HS (I'm kind of surprised I got it, I usually have trouble executing double quarter-circles) and the network of chains spreads out around me and the hit counter starts increasing like mad and Slayer is DESTROYED! Doug was pretty surprised, that was for certain!
...then I lost the remaining two rounds pretty badly. But hey! I pulled off an instant kill in an actual match, even if none of us are very good!
Unrelatedly: The other day I went down to Pinball Pete's and saw some people who were actually good playing Medieval Madness, and I now have to ask: How to pinball players learn to *move* like that? (Also, I won a replay! And got up to the King of Payne! But then tonight I played like 7 games and did terrible each time.)
-Harry
[0]We've also aliased P+K+S to the L button, for Roman cancelling, but only DeVries has actually learned to do that.
Each character (save Order-Sol, I think) has one, and, well, it does what it says. If you hit with it, you win the round automatically. Naturally, such things are not going to be made easy to use. Allow me to describe just all the hoops you have to jump through in order to use one.
If you want to do one, first you have to enter instant kill mode, which you do by hitting all 4 buttons at once. On our controllers (GameCube controllers) we've aliased this to the Z button to make this easy - it's not really very convenient on a gamepad[0] - even though anyone sensible will pretty much never use it. Going into instant-kill mode takes like half a second and leaves you vulnerable.
Then once you're in instant-kill mode, your super meter starts draining (and I'm not sure if you can use it for anything, either). If it empties, your health will start draining, and rather fast (though you apparently can't die this way). If you decide you don't want to go for the instant kill after all, and hit all 4 buttons at once to exit instant kill mode, this also takes about half a second and leaves you vulnerable again.
Should you decide to go for it, and actually execute the move, well, if you hit with it, you've won the round, and get to see whatever elaborate animation they came up with for the move (and instead of the usual victory "Slash!" you get a special "Destroyed!"). But if you miss, or it's blocked, or countered, or anything, you lose your super meter for the entire rest of the round. And note that this being Guilty Gear, your super meter isn't just used for supers, it's also used for green blocking, which allows you to avoid taking chip damage (among some other stuff).
Well somehow, it seems whenever we teach someone new the game, they somehow during one of their first matches end up accidentally hitting Z. Or maybe deliberately just to see what it does, I don't know. At which point we have to explain why hitting Z is a bad idea and how instant kills work and how they should hit it again to get out of instant kill mode.
Well, Doug was playing against a new player, Marquise, a first-year here, who was just learning. And guess what, he accidentally hit Z. So we explain instant kills, and so Doug decides to demonstrate one on him. (Though how Doug knew Testament's instant kill without looking it up, I have no idea. (Doug doesn't ordinarily play Testament, to my knowledge.) Probably he did look it up and I just missed it.)
Well later Doug and I were playing some matches, he was Ky and I was Slayer, and Chad - another first-year, I don't think he plays Guilty Gear - started saying how he wanted to see some "special moves". What did he mean by that? Special moves are used all the time. Did he mean supers? Somehow we figured out he meant instant kills; I think he may have mentioned the "Destroyed!" message. We explain why these are impractical, though I point out that Axl's seems kind of usable. Doug decides to humor him and attempts Ky's, but I counter it; he doesn't try again after that.
After a few, I switch to Axl - partly because I would like a chance to try an instant kill move - and Doug switches to Slayer. Well, the first round isn't going so well for me, and eventually I'm low on health but high on super meter, and, quite importantly, I manage to get away from Slayer for a bit. "You know what, Chad?" I say, and hit the Z button. "I'll go for it." Doug jumps in attempting to hit me with an aerial heavy slash, but I go QCF,QCF+HS (I'm kind of surprised I got it, I usually have trouble executing double quarter-circles) and the network of chains spreads out around me and the hit counter starts increasing like mad and Slayer is DESTROYED! Doug was pretty surprised, that was for certain!
...then I lost the remaining two rounds pretty badly. But hey! I pulled off an instant kill in an actual match, even if none of us are very good!
Unrelatedly: The other day I went down to Pinball Pete's and saw some people who were actually good playing Medieval Madness, and I now have to ask: How to pinball players learn to *move* like that? (Also, I won a replay! And got up to the King of Payne! But then tonight I played like 7 games and did terrible each time.)
-Harry
[0]We've also aliased P+K+S to the L button, for Roman cancelling, but only DeVries has actually learned to do that.
