Replay overview, Rust-o-leum edition: SSF4AE, BB:CS2, KOFXIII, and AH3

This week we'll take a look at some replays that happened after Thanksgiving weekend, and see affects new and shiny games do to performance in preceding games.


Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition:

incrospito(Balrog) vs Eienhikaru(Chun-li) Ranked Match 12/04/2011

This match is really indicative of my continued naivete of playing online, mostly holding myself to a "2 out of 3; character locked," ruleset. Obviously this isn't an official tournament or anything so all that goes straight out the window and I really should take that to heart. Just before this match I'd gone 1-1 against his Rufus while the matches were pretty standard, this one he brings out his main chicken and educates me in the Balrog v Chun Li matchup, hard.
Overall comments I have about this are, I get pushed into the corner too easy and I'm too focused on spamming recovery (0:39, and this is off of a throw which doesn't allow me to recover like that anyways ;_; )  rather than trying to think my way through the match. The neutral j.FK's help to break the momentum, but by the time I get them in there, I've already lost a great deal of life to keep up that steam.

ELOCHILOKITO(Adon) vs Eienhikaru(Chun-li) Ranked Match 12/04/2011

After this match I was pretty salty because I made some really newbish mistakes, I missed punishing that Ultra at 1:01, I underestimated too many of his Rising Jaguars, and I really botch an input at ~1:57. 3.Short makes Chun do that flip kick, what I wanted was  2x 2 SK > EX Hyakuretsu > Kikousho. This is a common setup for me and I obviously wasn't keeping track where I was facing.
After watching the replay again, I nearly get a seizure from the spammed inputs and 3xK from ELO, I'm so salty potato chips would be like cotton candy. Was this guy taking bets that he could just spam and beat someone? Someone's kid cousin over for the weekend? This clearly was not a good weekend for me in SSF4, I need to keep to warming up before I hit ranked at the very least because going in cold for these few matches really destroyed me.
 
BlazeBlue: Continuum Shift 2:
There's a misconception, that even I fall into where Player Matches are viewed sort of casual, non threatening, you're just sort of killing time sort of thing. No. This is not the approach anyone should take or have towards player matches.  I ran a BB:CS2 set with SBRS-Bulange recently that was one of the most intense and chaotic sets I've had in forever.

Eienhikaru(Litchi) vs SBRS-Bulange(Lamda 11) Player Match 12/06/2011

This was really good example of the first part of these matches, my execution was non existant, relying on patterns and misjudging throws. However I've improved a smidge about defending that overhead D that sneaks in from behind, and not trying to jump in/over her Spike Chaser. Many of the Litchi vs Lamda matches played out like this one where we're just down to pixels near the end of fight.

Eienhikaru(Litchi) vs SBRS-Bulange(Rachel) Player Match 12/06/2011

One thing about re-learning a patched character is that combos and tech you used before can get scrapped and put you at a handicap. I was heavily reliant on Litchi's Itsuu cancels > Ryuuisou as a use for my heat gauge. Now that I can't do those mid combo anymore these can be sniffed out really easily due to long startup, overall not allowing me to use Heat for anything useful. I was constantly dying at a full heat bar, and not in a position to use it for an astral.
Despite it being a techable combo at ~3:12 that's probably been my best use of Dai-Sharin to date.

Eienhikaru(Litchi) vs SBRS-Bulange(Lamda 11) Player Match 12/06/2011

It's really clear that when I'm at close and short/mid screen I do better, and when I make space or try to use space to my advantage I get out-poked like a mofo.
This really pushed me outside of the "my favorite combo works, so I'm sticking to it," pattern I'm really bad about. I'm beginning to understand that I can't holding generic approach to fighting games, like I'm walking in like I would with an FPS where I have what I have, and the only thing that makes a difference is execution. Matchups matter, and I need to understand that if I'm going to improve.

King of Fighters XIII:
Here are some early replays of KoF XIII, they announced that they're working on a netcode patch so it  makes me happy that I won't have to rely on local play only. With these replays, I'm saddened by the fact that the replay menu doesn't have or display who I fought for the ranked matches. When I get a chance to piece together who I fought I'll update the video details.

Eienhikaru(Athena, Kula, Mai) vs (Kula, Kyo, Iori) Ranked Match 12/01/2011

This was some solid Kula play on the part of my opponent. If I have a choice of hard and light attacks I favor the hard attacks, but clearly with Kula the hard kick version of her Ray Spin just throws her across the screen.

Eienhikaru(Athena, Kula, Mai) vs (Maxima, Yuri, Joe) Ranked Match 12/03/2011

The Yuri I fought in this I swear the player must play an Akuma just from the heavy amount of air fireballs he did. He's also got the black outfit and red hair to boot. At ~3:36 I just started laming it out because I was unable to approach without being forced to block or trade damage.
~5:07 I was so ready to punish that super I managed to cross over but W T F - does the hit box include Joe himself? Sure I screwed up on my input, but I'm clearly behind him anything should have hit even if it wasn't a great punish.

Eienhikaru(Athena, Kula, Mai) vs Drizzmat(Hwa Jai, Yuri, Terry) Player Match 12/05/2011

These next couple replays were my first foray into Player Matches and the lag was really bad, I should probably get a capture with the inputs but I know for sure all the whiffed "neutral" punches from my Athena were supposed to be 2.LK > Psycho Ball.
Hwa *hurts* amg - he fights like a cross between Adon and Gen-an, and those are not characters to be taken lightly either.
Yuri I find hilarious as a character, but she seriously is like the lost, parallel dimensional daughter of Sakura x Dan (...ew, but anyway). The forward moving Cho-Upper and mannerisms are almost distracting to me, just how equally similar she is to Dan and Sakura.

Eienhikaru(Athena, Kula, Mai) vs Drizzmat(King, Mai, Andy) Player Match 12/05/2011

Some really strong King play here Drizzmat, good solid combo into Super at ~0:43.
Mai's Neo Max must have a crazy hit box - I know it can be blocked from the tmes I've been messing around with it in Training. I don't know if you can react-block to it like you can an Ultra from SSF4 or something, like what happened to my Kula at ~3:06, also I don't even see where my Neo Max hit Andy at ~4:49, he couldn't get to the top-right corner any harder and it still hit x_x.
Overall I need to work on my Athena, using her like a weak Ryu just isn't cutting it right now, and learning more painful stuff with Mai or deciding on a stronger, perhaps more intuitive anchor. The best example of this I've seen so far is from CrossCounterAsia's Xian, Watch when his Takuma is rotated in, it's beyond just being a different fighter, he just pours on the hurt.


Arcana Heart 3:

Eienhikaru(Saki) vs Prod7gy(Heart) Ranked Match 12/04/2011

Something a bit different this time around, I put in for a few Ranked Matches in AH3 finally. We play this when we do locals but I've never seriously taken it online until now. I kept running into Prod7gy and everytime we got matched up his Heart would just spam that Heavy attack. I wasn't too sure what was up until I did a bit of searching, it turns out he was doing some AH3 streams that day.
Prod7gy, Good Guy Streamer: Runs Streams - Sets up a free "bot," for players farming Ranked Matches!