发信人: princepan()
整理人: metalsolo(2002-01-21 21:14:35), 站内信件
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以下文章来自美国顶尖高手SETH。他在日美大赛中被击败后，认真思考后
写下以下文章，让我们得以见到王者格斗家们的极意：
Rather than turning this column into a 14-part series in which I analyze the
precise contours of my defeat in agonizing detail (as I’d like to do), I t
hought I’d try doing something actually useful instead. So here’s a quick
survey of some of the magic behind top Japanese play. And it is magic. While
there’s no question that they’re not some other-worldly unbeatable gods,
I saw nearly every character in every game played better than I’ve *ever* s
een them played by anyone in the States (outside of MVC2, which they don’t
yet understand). Not better in a supernatural way- just better. They knew th
e matchups better, they had more techniques, better setups, etc.
But setups and techniques aside (since we can just steal those- hehe), what
REALLY set them apart? You’ve heard me go on about it here already. If you
didn’t believe me before, believe it now: it’s all about execution. This i
s ground zero of good SF. They had simply amazing execution in all regards.
As I’ve already pissed away an entire column going on about the importance
of execution in general, I’ll try and talk here about a few specifics inste
ad...
The first and most basic aspect of their execution is just what you’d expec
t- there are a lot of combos and techniques that US players are aware of, bu
t regard as simply too difficult to be practical. "Save it for the combo vid
s- you’ll never get away with that in a real match!". Now, sometimes you wo
n’t get something in a real match because it has an extremely contrived set
up- a "trick shot" combo. Fine, yes, no one (including the Japanese) gets th
ose in a real match, and people who spend their time trying spend even more
time getting killed for the effort. But there are others that aren’t imposs
ible to setup, they’re just really hard to actually perform. These are the
ones that the Japanese players are tossing off. How? No national secrets her
e- it’s just practice. So why don’t you see that in the US as well? Becaus
e Japan has the additional ingredient missing from the US scene: competition
good enough to reward the effort. This is key. Sure, maybe you COULD do tha
t really tricky crouch-cancel electricity Blanka VC, but you don’t NEED to
practice that to win- you can beat everyone you know with just reg’lar ol’
crap. So why bother? That’s a fair question in US arcades. In Japanese arc
ades, they’ll give you the answer to "why bother"- because you HAVE to be a
ble to do that to beat the guy next to you. Skill tends to rise to the level
necessary to insure victory, and not much beyond there. Intense competition
breeds better, tighter play (duh), and the competition in Tokyo is intense
like nowhere else. Walking 2 blocks in Shinjuku, you pass more and bigger ar
cades (with constant competition) than you see in the entire Chicagoland met
ropolitan area.
So that’s the most boring, predictable way in which their execution was imp
ressive. But wait! There’s more! A lot more. In addition to actually *doing
* the combos we usually judge to be impractical, they also tended to be bett
er at taking full advantage of the techniques we do use. I don’t just mean
they perform them more consistently (though that’s probably also true), I m
ean they use them to better effect. The best example of this is probably kar
a-throws from 3s. You interrupt a normal move that advances your character s
prites to increase your throw range. Although it’s an important part of the
game, we’ve known about that for a long time, no big deal, right? Wrong. T
he Japanese players were getting flat out more range on their kara-throws th
an we do. Okay, so a little more throw range. Cool, but you’re still wonder
ing what the big deal is. The big deal is that you can exploit this with mat
chup shattering effects. Makoto, for instance, can get Hugo-SPD class range
(seems like even more, actually) on her semi-throw, when "kara’d" to it’s
full extent. So suppose you’re getting worked by Akuma (as Makoto mostly do
es). Say you’re down to like 20% life, and Akuma’s working on a perfect. B
ut... uh-oh. You parry into super-ranged kara grab. Then you combo that into
the 2 super 100% Touch of Death combo. Peace out, Akuma. You become threate
ning in a way you never were before- like a mini-Zangief (worse, actually).
Playing against that is also incredibly unsettling, so there are psychologic
al bonuses too.
While distinct, these types of execution obviously aren’t exclusive of one
another. Combining them, you see devastating stuff like the kara’d walk-up
720 Gigas Breaker from Hugo. Extending the range on the super grab is alread
y pretty cool, especially since he could perform it as a walkup (without hav
ing to tick into it, etc). But the mastery of basic techniques goes even fur
ther: One weakness of special grabs in 3s is that they can all be escaped si
mply by jumping away. Hence, to avoid wasting the superbar and insure a succ
essful grab (and a win for that round), the Hugo would wait to do the walkup
720 *until he saw you crouch*. Jumping from crouch (rather than a standing
position) requires an extra frame before you get airborne (you go to the sta
nding animation, and then to jump, though it all happens very fast). This is
just long enough to prevent you from being able to jump away- you waste you
r "escape frame" merely going from crouch to standing, and are grabbed at th
at point. So once you crouch- bam. Grabbed, dead. This would seem like an am
azing display of reflexes (reacting to a crouch!) if you didn’t realize tha
t that was exactly what the Hugo player was waiting for you to do, and why.
While this was pulled off by an excellent player, it was pulled off consiste
ntly, and in an extremely deliberate way. So you have technical excellence (
the ability to do a walkup 720), a thorough understanding of supplementary t
echniques (real kara throwing) and a detailed knowledge of the game-engine.
The routine combination of all these things begins to paint a picture of wha
t you’re up against when facing Japan’s finest.
Before going any further, it’s important to note that a major component of
the Japanese technical excellence and execution is their superior hardware.
Japanese sticks and buttons are just straight-up better than ours. That’s n
ot to say that playing on them was initially fun- it was a painful adjustmen
t in a lot of ways (I got more accidental Spinning Bird Kicks during the wee
k in Japan than I have in probably the last 5 years combined- including in t
he tournament itself, unfortunately- and a lot of people were having trouble
doing DPs). "Jumpsuit" Jesse Cardenas, ST player par-excellence and combo t
echnician had an old post in the forums about how impressed he was at the di
fference when he bought a cabinet with Japanese sticks installed. I won’t r
epeat all of his points here, but I agree, and there’s really no comparison
. The keys are the tight responsiveness and small base on the joysticks, and
the sensitivity of the buttons. The smaller-based, shorter joysticks allow
you to hit a lot more points with a lot less wrist action, and in a shorter
time. The buttons are also a lot more sensitive- they can be triggered merel
y by brushing them, you don’t have to slam them, or push all the way down.
This makes a lot of stuff possible that would be totally out of the question
on US sticks (things like the walk-up 720 with T.Hawk in ST that I saw- a f
eat that no one understood, and which should be almost literally impossible)
. I should also mention that not only are the Japanese sticks and buttons in
herently better- they also WORK. The arcade employees in Japan aren’t just
another bunch of slack-jawed yokels punching the clock that could just as we
ll be working at McDonald’s- they’re all required to know how to fix the m
achines, do so routinely, actually seeming to like their jobs.
Even here, however, the top players don’t just take these advantages at fac
e value- they make the most of their tools. A lot of top players in Japan wi
ll leave the stick in neutral when not actively performing a move, or being
forced to block (there are a number of advanced benefits to this- e.g. you c
an execute a variety of commands from neutral faster than you can from, say,
a defensive crouch, and you’re actually smaller (less sweep-able, for inst
ance) than you are when crouching). To get back into this "ready" neutral st
ate, they just let go of the joystick- it naturally snaps back to center its
elf immediately. If you tried to let a big American 360 snap back to neutral
on it’s own (I have), you’d be amused to see it actually bounce from def.
crouch, through neutral, to off. jump, and back and forth. That’s what hap
pens if they’re tight. When they’re loose (which actually tends to be bett
er), they don’t snap back at all- at least not reliably, and certainly not
faster than you could put it there yourself.
Another example: Daigo (the Beast!) Umehara in particular has developed an i
nteresting "failsafe" technique for performing specials (something like this
was first championed in N. America by Chris Finney, many years ago). He wou
ld drum his fingers lightly, in quick succession, over all the relevant butt
ons. So, for instance, if he wanted to perform a DP, he’d start with the bu
tton appropriate to the move he wanted to do (i.e. start with jab if he’s g
oing for a jab DP), but then also hit strong and fierce in quick succession-
to give himself as many chances as possible to make sure some dragon punch
comes out, at least. He fills the entire window with inputs, brushing each b
utton, getting the benefit of the press and the release (which can also trig
ger a special, of course) for a total of 6 inputs in a fraction of a second.
What does this insure? Execution. He executes better than anyone. Not only
does this technique help to guarantee that the move actually comes out, he’
s also able to do his moves with reversal timing with remarkable consistency
. Additionally, he’s getting his counter moves off as fast as is technicall
y possible, every time. This can really make a difference. You’re forced to
give him the benefit of the doubt on all his reversals- if he’s going for
it, he gets it so often (like, every time) that it doesn’t pay to challenge
him straight up. You can’t ever count on him to miss a move due to technic
al difficulty, or pressure. You’re forced to out-think him.
These are but a few more (Japanese-flavored!) in the long list of the benefi
ts that flow from excellence in execution. So although your slop is good eno
ugh to beat the drooling local chumps, do yourself the favor and go it one b
etter- hone your technique as best you can, and don’t settle for the least
you can get away with. Maybe there’s no one at the mall who’s demanding mo
re, but they ARE out there...
PS- Since I’m not planning on doing a log right now, regarding the trip ove
rall: Although everyone seems to enjoy pretending that things were super-dra
matic and loaded with nationalism (they weren’t), the trip boiled down to a
great time with great players and great guys (in a fantastic city). Our hos
ts were incredibly gracious, helpful, and fun throughout, and we all owe the
m a huge debt for putting together the best SF event ever. Deafening shout-o
uts to Julien Beasley, Kuni Funada, David Dial, Mr. Matsuda, Wakamatsu, TZW,
Harahi (aka Blanka God) and all of Team Japan (except that surly guy with t
he bad moustache, because he smelled bad and looked shifty- you know who you
are, punk!). That said, (in addition to the vicious tournament beating =),
my exploits included:
- Going 4-6 in a 10 game Chun v. Ryu series with Daigo (the Beast!- who we t
hought was playing better than any of the team members we faced).
- Splitting evenly (lots of games) with "Brother" Ken (team member who plays
a better Ryu, a great Bison, and a great Dhalsim).
- A winning record vs (team member) "Kurahashi" Guile.
- 4-0 vs TZW. Woo!
So yes, I stunk, but not the *whole* time- just when it counted =)
--
我站在无边的黑夜中,追求明天的光芒万丈.
在黎明的第一道曙光到来之前,我淡出在迷蒙的黑色中.
我生存就是为了迎接曙光,但是曙光不属于我.
黎明不是我的目的,而是我永远的目标.
※ 来源:．网易 BBS bbs.netease.com．[FROM: tnt-3-112.sta.net.cn]
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