Kage Maru

Recently I have been trying to seriously learn Kage as a secondary character and I have to say I am having a whole lot of fun. I have dabbled with Kage before in the past, but I have never ever really tried to become really strong with him. He is a very interesting character where you constantly have to change the tempo of a fight depending on your opponents fighting style. Currently for me though I find myself more on the turtling end than on the offensive end where I would like to be. I guess it's mainly because I do not know to many tricks with him to feel comfortable fighting up close the whole match yet. There are many other reasons for this, but the most annoying one is that most online players are just fucking spammers. You can put them in a HIGH disadvantage position while you are trying to setup for a trick or strategy and they will still continue to attack no matter what the situation. I really don't get it! I beat so many players yesterday with what I am calling KSP which is known as KONJOU SUPER PUNCH! This elite VF tactic is guaranteed to own all high level noob online players. Have you ever lost to a Sarah player who has a rank of 8th Dan or better that you are better than and you just don't know why you lost? Have you lost to Brad players around the board with ranks ranging from Kyu's to Master and you just can't seem to seal the win? Why is it that Lei Fei players always seem to be beating you to the punch all the time? Well my friends I can assure you that with KONJOU SUPER PUNCH you will not have to worry anymore. It's guaranteed to help you get the win and pwn that fucking noob. More on KSP later.

The hardest problem I am having with Kage is getting sufficient damage. I think it's total bullshit that when I block a move that leaves someone at -17 I can only get PK damage where as someone like Akira can do 46P plus a follow up combo. This is another reason that prevents me from staying close. Keeping a small distance can be vital to Kage getting damage if something whiffs. But, what if the person is equally as skilled as I am or has superb defense better than my own? Now the difficulty of getting damage from that type of player has doubled if not tripled. Another area I am having trouble with is I do not know all of Kage's options for getting out of situations. For example I was playing ranking battle yesterday with VF395 who is a regular VFDC user and a really good Lei Fei player. There were many times during our matches where he would just constantly turn his back to me with Lei Fei and just use those strong back turned skills that sabaki and leave him totally safe. Even if something missed or whiffed he would just switch to another stance and then switch back to normal backed turned stance and just rinse repeat until something hit or he caused a stagger. For many matches I felt help less against this and always found myself at the wrong end of the guessing game simply because I could not figure out what move Kage has that can turn the tide or help me escape this trap. Although I was winning most of the matches, it was highly annoying to deal with this situation and I desperately wanted a way out of it. If I had Akira then it would be no problem as I understand all of his options and what move is best for most situations. It took me about 10 matches while brain storming in between rounds before it hit me. I remembered a conversation I had with Denkai(GT: BlackBauerCTU) about Lei's back turn situations and how good they were. Denkai's response was basically "pppffft I love when he turns his back and I am using Jacky. I just 46K+G and he is done!" This is not his exact words, but it's close enough. Unfortunately Kage does not have such a move, but remembering this conversation helped me figure out the answer. DOH Konjou use a fucking move that he can't sabaki to force him to hesitate next time or use the switch stance command to avoid your incoming attack. The answer??? *in my best Guile impersonation voice* SOMERSAULT! After about 3-4 flip kicks immediately upon turning his back it helped change the overall flow of the match and made the situation much more easier to deal with. Who says VF isn't about character knowledge? Especially when that knowledge is for your own character! Of coarse I know from back turned it's easy for Lei Fei to avoid incoming attacks, but now instead of me having to guess HE has to guess. This tide turning move now puts me on the offense although I am on the defense. It's 50/50 guess now. If I think he will attack immediately upon back turned just *Guile voice again* SOMERSAULT, if I think he will switch stance to avoid then just dash and throw. PWNED!

Alright that's enough ramble for now. I can't wait to get home and work on my Kage some more. There is so many things I have to practice and perfect especially that damn 4 hit uppercut combo from hell. It looks like I might have to practice that on a daily basis to be able to hit it on a constant basis. It's by far the hardest move or series of moves in the game. Christ I would kill for the Dural version of it! After I dabble with Kage for a few more weeks I think I will move on to Eileen next.

VF5 R

Like everyone else I have been looking at tons of videos for the new installment of VF5 and oh my god the game just looks incredible. At this point my interest in the current VF5 is dwindling very fast. Everything aspect of the game looks awesome with the exception to the music. The music just does not seem to fit this new master piece that Sega has created. I have not heard all the tracks, but so far Sarah's, Taka's and Aoi are the only ones I can tolerate at this point. Sarah's music gets bonus points from me for some reason as I really dig it the most. I do not know why, but since VF2 no make that VF1, I have never had any complaints about the musical tracks they assign to Sarah. It always seems to fit her character for some reason.

Game play wise the game just looks so incredible. You can see that they really improved on hit boxes and the over all feel of the game. Hopefully they really tweak this baby so we don't see to many random things occurring like the current VF5.

The 2 new characters look like they will really fun to play. I am really excited about both of them. I think if we ever do see a home version release, I will probably jump right into Taka first as he will probably have to be catered to in his own special way due to his size and weight. I think it would be best to see and fully understand what he can do to you in order to beat him. Jean will definitely be next as he looks like a hard hitter. My kind of character! Beat ass first, ask are you alright second! Could he replace my Akira?

All in all, if VF5R does come to console which I am sure is at least 1 to 1.5 years away, I recommend that everyone really take the time out to play ALL of the characters over a few times to help there eyes adjust to what they are looking at. Now that animation for a lot of things have changed, I can see everyone including myself constantly freezing up at points where they don't have to because they simply have no clue what they are looking at. New animation = auto freeze up! YUCK!

The game really does look awesome! I really hope we don't have to wait years for a home release. If we do, my vote goes to Xbox360! I am prepared for PS3 and Xbox360 as I own both, but there is something about Xbox Live that PS3 Network can not compete with in my opinion. Please for anyone reading this, let's not start a debate over which is better. This is just my preference and nothing more. I know for XBL you have to pay and for PSN it's free, but for what MS offers I will gladly pay the $50 bucks yearly to know that my servers are monitored and no cheaters will be coming on board. There may not be any cheaters currently on PSN, but it's just a matter of time if you ask me.

Well back to watching more vids.

Testing and rearranging

Just testing out some features and overall rearranging everything. I want to make this blog the only spot people have to go to for my LIVE feeds, newest youtube videos and VF advice. I just tested the youtube feature that automatically post any videos I want directly to my blog at the push of a button. Technology I tell ya, it's just to awesome!

Please feel free to leave comments on what I have done so far and how I can improve it. If you can remember my old blog, how do you think this one fairs against the old so far.

BlackBauerCTU(LAU) vs Konjou

Konjou vs Jhow

WCG - Finally I qualified for the regionals

Well it's been a long and really hard trip for me, but I finally qualified for the offline Atlantic regionals. So many times did I make it to the online finals as a favored to win only to have it stripped right out from under me. I think it took me at least 7-8 tries before I could finally do it, where as it took my NYC com rads only 1-2 chances. Am I choking due to nerves and over thinking or am I just being out played by my opponents? I really don't know, but I hope I can find the answer soon so I can make the necessary adjustments needed to tweak my game before the regional finals. I definitely know that I am not playing at my best, but even so I should not be having this much trouble. Honestly I think I focus to much of my time playing ranking mode and not enough time in Dojo mode practicing and refreshing my game. Also I have noticed that my mental toughness has definitely deminished a little bit. Mental toughness really is something a player needs and has to know how to keep in check. Letting your emotions get the best of you can really affect your overall game and performance. I think I may have to restart my mental training exercises to help calm my nerves so I can keep my focus.