AKENO KUDO - SANDBOX START
Another long day of squandering her parents’ tuition money came to an end as Akeno stepped through the door of her family home. She dropped her bag to the floor with little care given to its contents before taking off her shoes and adding them to the line-up of footwear that occupied one side of the hall. The shoes her dad wore to work every day weren’t there, as expected, and her brother’s shoes were of course away at university along with him, meaning it was just Akeno and her mother in the house right now. “I’m home.”
“Welcome back.”
The sound of her mother’s voice from deeper within the building confirmed her presence, something with provoked neither pleasure not displeasure from her. The thought of being alone with her mother wasn’t exactly enticing, but it didn’t hold the same kind of dread that it once did; without her father there to act as a mediator the two could sometimes get into some heated arguments, depending on how stubborn they both were feeling that day, but recently it had seemed like they would butt heads less and less. The last huge fight they had was probably back before she started high school, when she had tried to convince her parents to let her start taking full-contact karate. That fight was so large and lasted so long that Akeno thought that maybe they had both just expended all of their energy towards each other and had now found some kind of equilibrium, one where her mother would just be subtly disapproving of her life instead of vocally and Akeno would quietly judge her in return.
She picked up her bag by the straps with one hand and walked towards the kitchen, poking her head around the doorway to make sure her mother was there, she was, before retreating upstairs to her room. Her bag was tossed onto a chair in the corner of the room as Akeno flopped back onto her bed so that she could stare at the ceiling for a few moments, allowing herself to relax and decompress as she thought about what she still needed to do today.
Dinner would probably be in a couple of hours, prepared for around the time her father would be home from work, so she had time to kill. Her lesson at the dojo was tomorrow, not tonight, so there was no need to worry about getting her stuff ready. She still needed to work out today, but that could wait until she was feeling less lethargic. Of course, there was the ever present spectre of homework that still needed to be completed; if she turned her head to the side she would even be able to see the open textbook on her desk for the maths assignment that was due… tomorrow? The day after?
I guess that decided what she would be doing. She sat up before she could put things off any longer, standing from her bed and reaching her hands above her head as she stretched her body out like she was trying to touch the ceiling. Walking over to the desk she saw that things were still exactly as she had left them last night, her textbook still open to the same page and the paper she had torn from her notebook still half filled with equations that led to more confusion than answers. Akeno let out a sigh as she took it all in before reaching over and grabbed her controller.
Yep, video games it was. Playing a few matches online should pass the time nicely and it had been some time since she had last played seriously. The only question was which one? She’d love to play some Tekken, but trying to get a good match at this time of day during the week never seemed to work out; the same was true of Street Fighter unfortunately and she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been able to play that without lag issues. Looks like it was SOTF again; Combat wasn’t her favourite game, but it was still fun and it was always easy to find a good match with how many players it had and it’s good online. If only other developers could catch up to the rest of the world in terms of netcode, then she might have more options. Akeno fired up her console, booting up the game as she settled into her chair with one leg tucked under herself. Once the game was up and running she went online and created a new lobby for herself, sitting back in her chair and making herself comfortable as she waited to see who showed up to challenge her; after a few minutes of waiting people began to trickle in and soon she had people lined up to face her.
The next Evo champion Akeno was not, but she still knew what she was doing better than a lot of casual players and in her first few matches it showed, as several opponents quickly fell before her before she met her first real challenge against an Archie player. It was a strange quirk of online play that the worse a character was the more worried she was about facing them, since any new or bad player would be drawn to the top tiers or most popular characters, but anyone who mained a meme pick like Archie usually knew what they were doing. She went back and forth with that player for a few matches before moving on to the next opponent.
“Okay. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Evo Moment #96
Private Lobby
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Akeno sat in an empty lobby for a moment before the blank space where the second player was supposed to be filled up. It was a player called… Temarichan, the name read. Their avatar was a bunch of painted lines — white, indigo, pink yellow, orange — splattered around on a canvas, forming what was maybe the roof of a house but otherwise holding no real definitive shape. There was the sound of fingers on a keyboard for a few moments before the person turned their mic off, selected ‘hi!’ from the list of in-game greetings, and said they were ready to fight.
...Their ping was notably low. Like, almost at zero. Noooooooot something you normally see when playing this game. Not unless you were playing someone in your city.
...Their ping was notably low. Like, almost at zero. Noooooooot something you normally see when playing this game. Not unless you were playing someone in your city.
Temari-Chan was it? Was that their actual name or was it a reference to something Akeno wasn’t familiar with? It was probably a character from an anime or something, but you could never be sure. Name aside, the avatar was pretty cool; nice and colourful even if she couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be exactly. Her own avatar was much simpler; the kanji for ‘Heaven’ written in bold, red brush strokes on a black background to go with her user name of ‘Raging_Demon23’. Not enough people got the reference unfortunately; if they did she probably wouldn’t be playing this game right now.
In any case, it looked like Temari-Chan was the friendly type and Akeno returned her greeting with one of her own. With her opponent readying up Akeno started the match, taking them to the character select screen. She wasted no time in locking in Stephanie Brooks as her pick; not her best character, but one she always had fun with. There was no reason to take this too seriously.
Now, who would Temari-Chan pick?
In any case, it looked like Temari-Chan was the friendly type and Akeno returned her greeting with one of her own. With her opponent readying up Akeno started the match, taking them to the character select screen. She wasted no time in locking in Stephanie Brooks as her pick; not her best character, but one she always had fun with. There was no reason to take this too seriously.
Now, who would Temari-Chan pick?
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The other player scrolled through the list of playable characters for a moment — you think, for the most part you just keep hearing the sound the cursor makes as it moves through the screen — before stopping. There was the sound the game made when a player was selecting costumes and colours and super moves for a character before the render of a Hispanic girl with black hair and a trenchcoat appeared on the screen. Before your opponent’s choice of character can sink in, the game moves. Selects a random stage, displays both you and your opponent’s fighter profiles — the other player seemed to have a Ryan Butler quote as their banner — before heading into the match.
...
You and your opponent are now both standing on Season 41’s famed pirate ship. You’re on the left side of the screen, and Karen’s on the right, looking at your Stephanie and delivering a dramatic ellipsis. Before long, the announcer sounds off, and you feel your adrenaline start to rise as the count goes down. Three.
Two.
One.
Fight.
...
You and your opponent are now both standing on Season 41’s famed pirate ship. You’re on the left side of the screen, and Karen’s on the right, looking at your Stephanie and delivering a dramatic ellipsis. Before long, the announcer sounds off, and you feel your adrenaline start to rise as the count goes down. Three.
Two.
One.
Fight.
The match started before Akeno had a chance to see what character her opponent had picked, but as the stage loaded in and the character introductions played she felt the familiar surge of annoyance and disappointment that always rushed through her when she saw the Season 65 champ on the screen. It wasn’t because she was a bad character, if anything she was still in need of a balancing patch or two, and it wasn’t because Akeno disliked Karen, if anything she was a fan, it was because those dreaded ellipses had been the harbinger of many a boring match in the past few months.
As the countdown concluded and the match began Akeno immediately went on the offensive, Stephanie Brooks charging towards Karen on the screen and she sought to put the pressure on from the start with a basic combo of jab, jab, straight. As was usually the case with new characters it seemed that every other player had jumped on the Karen bandwagon and muddied up the lobbies with mediocre Karen’s; it had been a few months since her release and her honeymoon period was coming to an end, but it was still the case that about 4 out of every 5 Karen players online had no idea how to play her. How Temari-chan reacted to this early offensive would let Akeno know if she was the four or the one.
As the countdown concluded and the match began Akeno immediately went on the offensive, Stephanie Brooks charging towards Karen on the screen and she sought to put the pressure on from the start with a basic combo of jab, jab, straight. As was usually the case with new characters it seemed that every other player had jumped on the Karen bandwagon and muddied up the lobbies with mediocre Karen’s; it had been a few months since her release and her honeymoon period was coming to an end, but it was still the case that about 4 out of every 5 Karen players online had no idea how to play her. How Temari-chan reacted to this early offensive would let Akeno know if she was the four or the one.
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Wham Yubeesling
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Bad move.
Temarichan saw the rushdown attempt and countered. A few frames before the jab could reach Karen’s hitbox, the action crawled to a still as the sound of an explosion reverberated over the soundtrack. The camera focused on Karen for a second — as she gave Stephanie an ellipsis — before she drew out a gun, pointed it forward, and sprayed it at her opponent. All shots made their mark, taking off a fifth of your lifebar and sending you far, far to the other side of the screen.
...Yeah. This Karen seemed to know how to play. Now that you were far away from her, it seemed like she was in her element. Every time you tried to rush forward, she would hit you with a straight shot. If you tried to jump, she would aim at the ground, where the bullet would ricochet and force you to stop your motion so that you could guard against it. Every inch you moved towards her, she’d take the equivalent away. She hasn’t been hit at all so far, and you’re currently — through chip damage or otherwise — nearly down half your lifebar.
What do you do?
Temarichan saw the rushdown attempt and countered. A few frames before the jab could reach Karen’s hitbox, the action crawled to a still as the sound of an explosion reverberated over the soundtrack. The camera focused on Karen for a second — as she gave Stephanie an ellipsis — before she drew out a gun, pointed it forward, and sprayed it at her opponent. All shots made their mark, taking off a fifth of your lifebar and sending you far, far to the other side of the screen.
...Yeah. This Karen seemed to know how to play. Now that you were far away from her, it seemed like she was in her element. Every time you tried to rush forward, she would hit you with a straight shot. If you tried to jump, she would aim at the ground, where the bullet would ricochet and force you to stop your motion so that you could guard against it. Every inch you moved towards her, she’d take the equivalent away. She hasn’t been hit at all so far, and you’re currently — through chip damage or otherwise — nearly down half your lifebar.
What do you do?
Oh.
Oh, okay. That’s how it was going to be.
As the match started Akeno still couldn’t tell if her opponent was a bad player or a genius, but in either case she had to respect the audacity of her opponent to use a raw super at the very start of the match, even as she mentally kicked herself for falling for it. With her character pushed all the way to the other side of the stage she now faced an uphill battle as she tried to close the gap between herself and her opponent, a difficult task when her opponent’s entire strategy revolved around not letting her do so.
Every blocked projectile was another chance for her opponent to back away and every hit was another sliver of life lost. Her chosen character, while fun, wasn’t very fast and it was taking all of her focus to dance around the bullets whizzing her way, but the stage was only so big at the end of the day and slowly but surely Akeno was able to get ever closer. She was leaning forward in her chair now, intently focused on the screen as she worked towards the moment she would find her Stephanie standing directly in front of Temari-chan’s Karen.
She blocked a bullet fired straight towards her before dashing forward, jumping over another projectile and landing directly in front of Karen with her back to the arena wall. Instead of attacking she waited, not touching any buttons and hoping her guess was correct. Karen reached for her waist and pulled out the sword cane, taking a defensive stance as she entered the active frames of her counter Super that would have dealt significant damage to Akeno’s Stephanie had she attacked. With a confident smirk on her face Akeno grabbed Karen for a throw without waiting for the animation to end, Stephanie throwing her opponent to the ground for her first damage of the match.
As Karen stood Akeno hit her with an overhead attack, guessing that Temari-chan would try to crouch and block low to avoid being grabbed again. She guessed correctly and Stephanie hit Karen with a hammer blow from above that opened up her guard and allowed Akeno to start her combo; low jab, low jab, short uppercut into a sway that lead into a right hook to the body followed by a left straight that pushed Karen back. Normally that would be the end of it but because they were against the wall Akeno was able to finish the combo with Stephanie’s own Super, catching the falling Karen with a Knockout Punch that sent Karen toppling back the other direction.
Akeno had her character take a step back to avoid a potential rising attack from Karen, while not giving her enough room to start shooting projectiles again. The entire sequence had taken only about 45-50% off of Temari-chan’s lifebar, while she was now down to about 40%, but now that the distance had been closed if was much easier for her to turn this around.
Oh, okay. That’s how it was going to be.
As the match started Akeno still couldn’t tell if her opponent was a bad player or a genius, but in either case she had to respect the audacity of her opponent to use a raw super at the very start of the match, even as she mentally kicked herself for falling for it. With her character pushed all the way to the other side of the stage she now faced an uphill battle as she tried to close the gap between herself and her opponent, a difficult task when her opponent’s entire strategy revolved around not letting her do so.
Every blocked projectile was another chance for her opponent to back away and every hit was another sliver of life lost. Her chosen character, while fun, wasn’t very fast and it was taking all of her focus to dance around the bullets whizzing her way, but the stage was only so big at the end of the day and slowly but surely Akeno was able to get ever closer. She was leaning forward in her chair now, intently focused on the screen as she worked towards the moment she would find her Stephanie standing directly in front of Temari-chan’s Karen.
She blocked a bullet fired straight towards her before dashing forward, jumping over another projectile and landing directly in front of Karen with her back to the arena wall. Instead of attacking she waited, not touching any buttons and hoping her guess was correct. Karen reached for her waist and pulled out the sword cane, taking a defensive stance as she entered the active frames of her counter Super that would have dealt significant damage to Akeno’s Stephanie had she attacked. With a confident smirk on her face Akeno grabbed Karen for a throw without waiting for the animation to end, Stephanie throwing her opponent to the ground for her first damage of the match.
As Karen stood Akeno hit her with an overhead attack, guessing that Temari-chan would try to crouch and block low to avoid being grabbed again. She guessed correctly and Stephanie hit Karen with a hammer blow from above that opened up her guard and allowed Akeno to start her combo; low jab, low jab, short uppercut into a sway that lead into a right hook to the body followed by a left straight that pushed Karen back. Normally that would be the end of it but because they were against the wall Akeno was able to finish the combo with Stephanie’s own Super, catching the falling Karen with a Knockout Punch that sent Karen toppling back the other direction.
Akeno had her character take a step back to avoid a potential rising attack from Karen, while not giving her enough room to start shooting projectiles again. The entire sequence had taken only about 45-50% off of Temari-chan’s lifebar, while she was now down to about 40%, but now that the distance had been closed if was much easier for her to turn this around.
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The Karen moved. Closed the gap that had been in between her and Stephanie and — before you could properly react — grabbing you, the Karen stuffing Stephanie into a bag and stomping repeatedly before kicking her across the stage. From there, it’s back to how the first part of the match went — Stephanie trying to close the gap, Karen not giving you any sort of inch. This time, though, the Karen didn’t make any mistakes. Rushes got comboed with straight shots. Jumps got pushed back by ricochets. You start making slow progress, getting closer and closer to a foe who doesn’t seem to have realized that they’re in the corner of the stage, but before you can fully close the gap, the timer runs out. Both fighters stand still for a moment before the announcer declares the Karen the victor, causing her to react with an ellipsis and causing Stephanie to slump forward in defeat.
The screen fades to black, and before long, both you and Karen are back on full health. The announcer counts down (3, 2, 1), and the second round begins.
You still have a chance to turn this around. What do you do?
The screen fades to black, and before long, both you and Karen are back on full health. The announcer counts down (3, 2, 1), and the second round begins.
You still have a chance to turn this around. What do you do?
This. This was why Akeno hated fighting zoners; they just weren’t fun to fight at the best of times, mostly because they refused to fight you back. Shoot, run away, shoot again, run some more, maybe mix it up a little and shoot twice, then run… and if you did manage to get close then they always had some trick to escape or boot you all the way across the stage and reset you progress back to zero. They took skill to use, and thank god for that or everyone would play them, and a part of her could appreciate anyone who took the time to learn a character to this extent, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating to deal with.
Still, no problem was insurmountable, no opponent was unbeatable, and she still had two more rounds to prove that this was the case. Adapt, adapt, adapt; Temari-chan probably wouldn’t try to use a raw super at the start of the round twice, but you never knew with some people so Akeno would approach more cautiously this time. She waited to use her second super for a counter, but that might change, and she knew to use her throw to create distance. All things to keep in mind.
The round started and she moved her character forward slowly, since the rushdown approach clearly didn’t work, letting Temari-chan back away if she wanted to. She would never catch Karen if her opponent knew what she was doing, Stephanie just didn’t have the speed or mobility to win that match-up; rushing forward could work if the other player wasn’t expecting it, but Temari-chan was better than that. Nevertheless, the stage was only so large and if she continued to back away sooner or later Karen would find herself cornered whether she liked it or not; the trick then was to avoid as much damage as possible until that happened, blocking as many shots as she could, and making sure she didn’t slip past when Akeno went for the kill.
Still, no problem was insurmountable, no opponent was unbeatable, and she still had two more rounds to prove that this was the case. Adapt, adapt, adapt; Temari-chan probably wouldn’t try to use a raw super at the start of the round twice, but you never knew with some people so Akeno would approach more cautiously this time. She waited to use her second super for a counter, but that might change, and she knew to use her throw to create distance. All things to keep in mind.
The round started and she moved her character forward slowly, since the rushdown approach clearly didn’t work, letting Temari-chan back away if she wanted to. She would never catch Karen if her opponent knew what she was doing, Stephanie just didn’t have the speed or mobility to win that match-up; rushing forward could work if the other player wasn’t expecting it, but Temari-chan was better than that. Nevertheless, the stage was only so large and if she continued to back away sooner or later Karen would find herself cornered whether she liked it or not; the trick then was to avoid as much damage as possible until that happened, blocking as many shots as she could, and making sure she didn’t slip past when Akeno went for the kill.
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The Karen did what Akeno thought they would. They backed off, moved slowly, and took potshots whenever they thought they could. It worked, for the most part. Occasionally you could close the gap and do some damage, but it seemed like they were still winning — eventually you’d block high when they aimed low and the Karen would get a hit in. It didn’t lead into any big combo, but the isolated hits started to add up. Before you knew it, you were down a third of your lifebar.
But you notice something. The Karen doesn’t go back to the end of the stage like she did the previous round. She zones and basically plays the exact same way she did before, but always in a position where you can close the gap and hit her. Maybe they haven’t noticed. Maybe you can punish that later.
...Maybe you can punish that now. The Karen just whiffed one of her power shots and is now stuck in the recovery animation. You have a chance to close the (admittedly smaller) gap. What do you do?
But you notice something. The Karen doesn’t go back to the end of the stage like she did the previous round. She zones and basically plays the exact same way she did before, but always in a position where you can close the gap and hit her. Maybe they haven’t noticed. Maybe you can punish that later.
...Maybe you can punish that now. The Karen just whiffed one of her power shots and is now stuck in the recovery animation. You have a chance to close the (admittedly smaller) gap. What do you do?
Adaptation was key to any kind of player-versus-player experience, but it was especially important in fighting games; identifying your opponent’s weak points and changing you play-style to exploit them, or recognising your own weak points and moving to cover them, were both important parts of the game. Everyone had bad habits. Maybe they blocked too much, or didn’t block enough, or maybe they used the same combo over and over. A lot of the time, winning a match just came down to who was better at reacting to the situation.
The important thing to remember was that this process of adaptation was happening both ways at all times. Your opponent was a person, not a static block of ones and zeroes, who could change things up at any moment. It was fairly similar to fighting a person in real life in that sense; the constant mind-games going on behind the scenes reminded her of competing in karate tournaments. It was a big part of why she liked fighting games as much as she did.
Akeno had tried to adapt, slowing down her game play and playing more cautiously, but Temari-chan had also adapted in her own way; the only problem was Akeno wasn’t sure what their plan was. The Karen wasn’t backing away as far or as fast as they could, meaning that there were several times where she took a hit they could have avoided. As a consequence she was never close enough to the wall to be cornered which was likely the intention, but even so it was almost like Temari-chan was staying close on purpose. Why?
“Bait.”
Was that the idea? Let Akeno get a few inconsequential hits him to make her lower her guard before closing the trap on her? Were they fishing for another counter attempt? If that was it, it was a risky strategy.
As if to prove her point, Temari-chan whiffed one of her bigger attacks at that exact moment, Akeno side-stepping rather than blocking. If Karen had been further away at that moment then she would have recovered before Stephanie could close the distance, but because she had been staying close Akeno was able to close the gap; Akeno input a forward sway followed by a dash, meaning her character moved forward in a low stance before transitioning into a gazelle punch. If it hit, the big uppercut would launch her opponent into the air and let her juggle Karen all the way to the wall for a lot of damage. If she whiffed herself however then…
Well, there was always next game.
The important thing to remember was that this process of adaptation was happening both ways at all times. Your opponent was a person, not a static block of ones and zeroes, who could change things up at any moment. It was fairly similar to fighting a person in real life in that sense; the constant mind-games going on behind the scenes reminded her of competing in karate tournaments. It was a big part of why she liked fighting games as much as she did.
Akeno had tried to adapt, slowing down her game play and playing more cautiously, but Temari-chan had also adapted in her own way; the only problem was Akeno wasn’t sure what their plan was. The Karen wasn’t backing away as far or as fast as they could, meaning that there were several times where she took a hit they could have avoided. As a consequence she was never close enough to the wall to be cornered which was likely the intention, but even so it was almost like Temari-chan was staying close on purpose. Why?
“Bait.”
Was that the idea? Let Akeno get a few inconsequential hits him to make her lower her guard before closing the trap on her? Were they fishing for another counter attempt? If that was it, it was a risky strategy.
As if to prove her point, Temari-chan whiffed one of her bigger attacks at that exact moment, Akeno side-stepping rather than blocking. If Karen had been further away at that moment then she would have recovered before Stephanie could close the distance, but because she had been staying close Akeno was able to close the gap; Akeno input a forward sway followed by a dash, meaning her character moved forward in a low stance before transitioning into a gazelle punch. If it hit, the big uppercut would launch her opponent into the air and let her juggle Karen all the way to the wall for a lot of damage. If she whiffed herself however then…
Well, there was always next game.
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Wham Yubeesling
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It hadn’t been bait.
You think. You don’t know for sure. You’d imagine that Temarichan would’ve done something to stop this by now if it had been bait, but then again, you can’t read her mind. Not via online, at least. Could’ve been a whiffed attempt at making you lower your guard, could’ve just been a mistake on Temari’s part, but either way, it’s payday for you. The first hit connected. Stephanie knocked Karen into the air. You didn’t really have to think about the next part — it was all bread and butter from here. You jump, send out the next move of your combo, and-
Whiff.
You’re not quite sure how, but before you got the next attack out the Karen had moved far enough to the left to avoid it. You both land on the ground, and before you can fully think through everything that’d just happened, the Karen uses her super. She draws out her gun, the game slows for a brief second, and the next she fires. Hits with nearly all of the bullets. Throws you all the way to the other side of the screen.
Back to square one.
And for the rest of the match, you can’t get back up. The Karen seemed to have learned from their mistake, and now made sure that they were always on the opposite end to where you were. You move forward, she moves back. You try to rush in and close the gap, she shoots you back to where you used to be.
You’re a little better at mitigating what she throws at you, but it’s sadly not enough. The timer runs out again. Karen is declared the winner of the round, and therefore the match. The screen moves to a closeup of Karen, and the two thirds of the screen that aren’t dedicated to grading your match (on… odd rubrics, you don’t know how the game measures your ‘strategy’ here) showing her, reacting to her win with a typical ellipsis.
A couple seconds later, a prompt comes up. Do you want to fight Temarichan again?
You think. You don’t know for sure. You’d imagine that Temarichan would’ve done something to stop this by now if it had been bait, but then again, you can’t read her mind. Not via online, at least. Could’ve been a whiffed attempt at making you lower your guard, could’ve just been a mistake on Temari’s part, but either way, it’s payday for you. The first hit connected. Stephanie knocked Karen into the air. You didn’t really have to think about the next part — it was all bread and butter from here. You jump, send out the next move of your combo, and-
Whiff.
You’re not quite sure how, but before you got the next attack out the Karen had moved far enough to the left to avoid it. You both land on the ground, and before you can fully think through everything that’d just happened, the Karen uses her super. She draws out her gun, the game slows for a brief second, and the next she fires. Hits with nearly all of the bullets. Throws you all the way to the other side of the screen.
Back to square one.
And for the rest of the match, you can’t get back up. The Karen seemed to have learned from their mistake, and now made sure that they were always on the opposite end to where you were. You move forward, she moves back. You try to rush in and close the gap, she shoots you back to where you used to be.
You’re a little better at mitigating what she throws at you, but it’s sadly not enough. The timer runs out again. Karen is declared the winner of the round, and therefore the match. The screen moves to a closeup of Karen, and the two thirds of the screen that aren’t dedicated to grading your match (on… odd rubrics, you don’t know how the game measures your ‘strategy’ here) showing her, reacting to her win with a typical ellipsis.
A couple seconds later, a prompt comes up. Do you want to fight Temarichan again?
Frustrating.
For a moment it almost seemed like Akeno had that round in the bag. She’d landed her uppercut, launching Karen into the air and that should have been enough to turn things around; instead she’d missed the first hit of her air combo somehow and gotten hit with yet another raw super just like in the first round.
Definitely frustrating. Not because she’d lost but because she’d made such a simple mistake.
The option to rematch sat on the screen, taunting her. Normally she’d decline, since she didn’t enjoy playing against zoners in general and she disliked playing again Karen specifically even more. But at the same time it didn’t feel right to end things on this note. Win or lose, it didn’t matter to Akeno as long as she was happy with her own performance. She wasn’t happy with her own performance this time.
She hit rematch.
The game took her back to the character select screen. She moved the cursor around until it was highlighting a familiar face and confirmed her selection. Stephanie was fun, her mix of boxing techniques and grapples made her one of Akeno’s favourite characters to play as, but to deal with something like Karen she needed to use her main.
For a moment it almost seemed like Akeno had that round in the bag. She’d landed her uppercut, launching Karen into the air and that should have been enough to turn things around; instead she’d missed the first hit of her air combo somehow and gotten hit with yet another raw super just like in the first round.
Definitely frustrating. Not because she’d lost but because she’d made such a simple mistake.
The option to rematch sat on the screen, taunting her. Normally she’d decline, since she didn’t enjoy playing against zoners in general and she disliked playing again Karen specifically even more. But at the same time it didn’t feel right to end things on this note. Win or lose, it didn’t matter to Akeno as long as she was happy with her own performance. She wasn’t happy with her own performance this time.
She hit rematch.
The game took her back to the character select screen. She moved the cursor around until it was highlighting a familiar face and confirmed her selection. Stephanie was fun, her mix of boxing techniques and grapples made her one of Akeno’s favourite characters to play as, but to deal with something like Karen she needed to use her main.
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Verity had hit rematch too.
((continued from Orlando Five-O))
It was always worth a shot. Most people just kinda decided ‘eh, nah,’ whenever Verity had a fight that she wanted to re-do but sometimes people were actually down to retry a fight they’d just lost. Sometimes when they did that Verity was able to perform the impossible and beat them again. Always was a nice thing to see. Today’s quick-play-session-because-Verity-had-an-hour-before-her-walk-and-really-did-not-feel-like-doing-homework-right-now had been… really terrible so far (curse how in every fighting game Verity got stuck in the anti Goldilocks zone where she was never able to win against the people in her tier and yet all the people in the tier below were so easy Verity would get booted back up to her original tier every time), but now she’d gotten her first win of the day, and it looked like she was going to get her second pretty soon after. It’d be the best thing that’d happened today so far. She couldn’t wait.
Because, like, not to be cocky? But this Stephanie… wasn’t great. Really said something that Verity had played as sloppy as she had (really, how the fuck did she get into that wombo combo during the second round there) and was still able to stall the match out. So long as Verity didn’t go in immediately assuming she was going to win again, she was probably going to win again. Just needed to not make any mistakes.
Like picking Karen again, for example. She was a fun secondary main (she always wondered how the person on the other end of the screen reacted when they realized that this Karen wasn’t one of the many EZ wins littered all throughout the server), but that last fight did a good job at giving a reminder as to why Karen was just a secondary. No. Verity moved the cursor around until it highlighted the only face she knew how to really play and confirmed her selection. Karen was fun, but the whiffs and sloppy play meant that Stephanie was going to learn the bread and butter sooner or later. If Verity wanted to turn this into a streak, she was going to have to use her main.
((continued from Orlando Five-O))
It was always worth a shot. Most people just kinda decided ‘eh, nah,’ whenever Verity had a fight that she wanted to re-do but sometimes people were actually down to retry a fight they’d just lost. Sometimes when they did that Verity was able to perform the impossible and beat them again. Always was a nice thing to see. Today’s quick-play-session-because-Verity-had-an-hour-before-her-walk-and-really-did-not-feel-like-doing-homework-right-now had been… really terrible so far (curse how in every fighting game Verity got stuck in the anti Goldilocks zone where she was never able to win against the people in her tier and yet all the people in the tier below were so easy Verity would get booted back up to her original tier every time), but now she’d gotten her first win of the day, and it looked like she was going to get her second pretty soon after. It’d be the best thing that’d happened today so far. She couldn’t wait.
Because, like, not to be cocky? But this Stephanie… wasn’t great. Really said something that Verity had played as sloppy as she had (really, how the fuck did she get into that wombo combo during the second round there) and was still able to stall the match out. So long as Verity didn’t go in immediately assuming she was going to win again, she was probably going to win again. Just needed to not make any mistakes.
Like picking Karen again, for example. She was a fun secondary main (she always wondered how the person on the other end of the screen reacted when they realized that this Karen wasn’t one of the many EZ wins littered all throughout the server), but that last fight did a good job at giving a reminder as to why Karen was just a secondary. No. Verity moved the cursor around until it highlighted the only face she knew how to really play and confirmed her selection. Karen was fun, but the whiffs and sloppy play meant that Stephanie was going to learn the bread and butter sooner or later. If Verity wanted to turn this into a streak, she was going to have to use her main.
It looked like Akeno wasn’t going to get the rematch she wanted, unfortunately. As the next match loaded in it wasn’t Karen that was staring back at her, no ellipses this time, but a different character entirely. Normally Akeno would consider that to be a good thing, but here it was bad for two reasons; she wouldn’t get the chance to redeem her loss and she was back to step one in terms of knowing what her opponent’s play style was going to be.
However, though disappointing, the situation wasn’t all bad. Judging by Temari-Chan’s character selection this should still be an interesting match at least; A.C. Bones vs Ryan Butler, season one’s popularity pick vs the super-fan, mix-ups vs guesses. It wasn’t the fight she was looking for, but this kind of match-up and the head-games it led to were always fun.
The character intros played out, Bones twirling her bone shivs unnecessarily, before the countdown to the round starting began to play; from the word “fight” Akeno was rushing forward, Bones dashing towards her opponent much like she had at the start of the last match. Last time it had ended disastrously, but the difference in run speed between Stephanie and Bones was noticeable and the amount of time Temari had to react was much lower as a result. Besides, Ryan didn’t have a sixty four hit super that would push her to the other end of the arena like someone else did. On the screen Bones closed the distance between herself and Ryan in an instant before throwing out an attack, which was when things got interesting.
Bones had several different moves that worked as combo starters; highs, lows, mids, overheads, even a throw. Each of these moves also deviated into multiple combo strings, making it difficult to know which move was coming next at any given time. Every character had options and different attacks and combos, but few to the extent that Bones did. Was she attacking low? High? It was a mid, Bones slashing at her opponent’s stomach with her shiv. What was next? Another mid. Followed by either a high or a low, low in this case, before transitioning into a high.
A series of light, quick attacks lashed at Temari’s character, all of which were safe on block for the moment until Akeno was able to confirm a hit. Bones didn’t have the damage output of a character like Stephanie, a trade of for the versatility she had, but if the opponent didn’t know her strings then they were in for a rough time.
Time to see how much Temari knew.
However, though disappointing, the situation wasn’t all bad. Judging by Temari-Chan’s character selection this should still be an interesting match at least; A.C. Bones vs Ryan Butler, season one’s popularity pick vs the super-fan, mix-ups vs guesses. It wasn’t the fight she was looking for, but this kind of match-up and the head-games it led to were always fun.
The character intros played out, Bones twirling her bone shivs unnecessarily, before the countdown to the round starting began to play; from the word “fight” Akeno was rushing forward, Bones dashing towards her opponent much like she had at the start of the last match. Last time it had ended disastrously, but the difference in run speed between Stephanie and Bones was noticeable and the amount of time Temari had to react was much lower as a result. Besides, Ryan didn’t have a sixty four hit super that would push her to the other end of the arena like someone else did. On the screen Bones closed the distance between herself and Ryan in an instant before throwing out an attack, which was when things got interesting.
Bones had several different moves that worked as combo starters; highs, lows, mids, overheads, even a throw. Each of these moves also deviated into multiple combo strings, making it difficult to know which move was coming next at any given time. Every character had options and different attacks and combos, but few to the extent that Bones did. Was she attacking low? High? It was a mid, Bones slashing at her opponent’s stomach with her shiv. What was next? Another mid. Followed by either a high or a low, low in this case, before transitioning into a high.
A series of light, quick attacks lashed at Temari’s character, all of which were safe on block for the moment until Akeno was able to confirm a hit. Bones didn’t have the damage output of a character like Stephanie, a trade of for the versatility she had, but if the opponent didn’t know her strings then they were in for a rough time.
Time to see how much Temari knew.