Halox said:
I have a love/hate relationship with this game. I absolutely adore it, but I am frikkin' awful at it. I am lucky to get past 3 people. I have actually resorted to playing mainly SSIV, because I can at least feel competitive with it.
snesaes said:
I just got SS3 in the mail today, and I personally am enamored with it...I muchcan't wait to get 4 now.
Although the topic of the thread has progressed to SS3/4 (which share a different gameplay style than that of SS1/2), I'm going to comment on SS2 because I anticipate that you'll go back to it soon. That's not saying there's anything wrong with the later SS games, but it's just that...people who play SS always seem to gravitate back to SS2, it's just got that sort of pull, even after they've seen all the endings.
I take that back...SS5 was a major disappointment, even with the huge ghoul thing.
With that being the case and me being a big fan of this classic, I hope to get you out of that love/hate rut you may have or may develop with the game. Embrace the Samurai Spirit twice-over, I say!
Here is the best advice as already posted by another member, which I feel deserves some additional remarks.
Syxx573 said:
Just learn all the characters... it's not like there are that many special moves in the game.
For SS2, that's a really good idea, which is also easy to implement. The moves are all pretty much based on quarter circle forward/back and dragon punch motions anyway, so it's simple to learn a new character. However, the main thing is that SS2 is really based on nuance; most characters share similar special moves/combos/tactics, so it's the little things that determine victory, like the reach and speed of one's sword. Even if you want to simply master one or two characters, you should play all the others just to know their strengths and weaknesses; this is true of all fighting games, but I find it most effective in SS2.
If you follow Syxx573's suggestion of trying out everyone, you'll find that there will be a huge leap in improvement very soon in your chosen character. In addition, even for the other characters that you play once or twice, you'll find you could play through the game; this is because you'll know the weaknesses of each opponent, having played as them once or twice, too. The point is to learn the system, not just one character; once you do that, everything falls into place for you.
The above advice was first given to me by a guy whose favoured character was the ninja Hanzo. My friends and I were in awe of this guy when SS2 had just came out; he'd go in the arcade, pick a random character, beat it and get the special ending for when you don't use any continues. At that time, I played exclusively with Genan and thought I was pretty good with him...except for the fact that I, too, had problems get past the 3rd stage. Once I started to learn the other characters, thus the system, I found that it wasn't all that difficult to beat the game at all with anyone.
The main reason I'm saying all this is that snesaes mentioned Jubei; that's a guy really worth playing once you learn the other characters because of his awesome parry move and depends entirely on knowing exactly when the opponent is going for a big slash. It's absolutely golden seeing that moment when blades cross; my favourite is when he does it to Genan, whose hands are trying to force his razor glove down, leaving himself completely open to Jubei's eviscerating counter-blow.
You'll find that, after some practice, the move is quite easy to do, and you'll probably first learn to use it when fighting Kyoshiro in front of his kabuki audience. It's better than a Fatality, I promise you. Ukyo's probably the top character, fine, and all the other characters can be equally good when mastered, true, but I will contend that Jubei's got the most style and when you beat another player with him using the parry move appropriately, there's a certain R-E-S-P-E-T-C attached to the win...that's right, I'm talking respetc.
Oh, in case you ever want to check out the endings (I know you've seen all the SS2 ones at this point), please go to
http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/neogeo/ .
Jubei, man...I mean, everyone else has 2 eyes and 1 weapon, he's got 1 eye and 2 blades. Respetc.
