Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Annotated Appendix: Twelve

Like Necro, Twelve is another character that I have a perverse respect for after making this video. Specifically, I mean I didn't realize the two characters share more than a backstory after analyzing their normal move sets. Not that I want to play as Twelve after this, of course, but still, that's a cool touch that one would expect of Capcom games of this vintage.

I just never paid attention. I never wanted to. Twelve suuuuuucks. I know he has his fans, and there's a few decent high-level Japanese Twelve players out there, but goddammit, if the first of half of this video shows nothing at all, it's that none of my other player team or myself can do any real work with the character because there's. Just. Nothing. There. He's only got one actual combo, and everything else he can do is completely dependent on super meter. I mean, Samurai Shodown games are essentially built this way at their core, but at least in those, one good attack can do decent damage. Poor Twelve just can't dish it out.

But enough complaining. This video was a pleasure to put together because after being away so long, it's nice to come back with a character that doesn't have as much baggage as, say, Akuma or Chun. With the pandemic going (and going and going), I've been much more busy working than I thought I would be, and that's really ground things to a halt. At least with the Twelve episode, I can shake off the cobwebs because the next few are going to be meaty. One is going to be a Bonus Stage episode in between Yang and Ken, just to spoil things a bit.

And speaking of bonus stages, who knew that Twelve had a unique win pose during his? I sure didn't.

Things that should have been in this video: Twelve has a wide variety of combos out of the XCOPY that are dependent on the other character. Like everything else, it starts with crouching LK into the AXE, comboing the super, and then a move out of that. Imagine it like V-Trigger in Street Fighter V, but with a much shorter window for timing the post-super link. It can be a little easier if the opponent jumps at you and Twelve just goes into the AXE/SA/character attack, but this is one of those instances where I was frankly too lazy to record them. They're hard, and never worth it, since high-level Twelve players, such as they are, never even use the XCOPY. Yeah.

Speaking of Supers, SA2 can combo from a close MK, a super jump cancel, and then the SA. I should have notated it better in the video. I also could not for the life of me do it against another Twelve, which makes me think that it only works against taller characters like Urien. After inspecting the second 3rd Strike Gamest Mook which pictures it working against Necro, though, I'm probably wrong. It still might be character dependent, but like the above XCOPY screed, I just stopped giving a shit once I landed a combo that worked. Apologies.

Lastly, I wanted to show the exact translations of his binary code win quotes, and even get some footage of the console-specific Urien quote, but I honestly didn't have any room. I backed myself into a corner when I wrote and recorded the script, and it would have been too much to fix when I started editing everything together. Sorry, but you're just going to have to take my (and the internet at-large's) word for it when it comes what he's saying. I actually did try to run these codes into binary/ascii translation tools that I found online and they never matched up, which is why I mention in the video that they're not a 1:1 translation.

Today, I am trying again to file for unemployment after my work furloughed me. So far, it has gone as awesome as you may have heard from everyone else trying to do the same thing. I'd like to take this moment to really thank my Patreon supporters out there. I don't make a ton of money on these, but your help really means a lot to me, especially in this moment.

With that, I hope you're doing well and staying safe. These are hard times, and even harder in the face of racial tensions that, in a perfect world, should have been eradicated millions of years ago. As a straight, white 40 year-old dude, I don't have any right to say anything other than I support protesters, grieve for their losses and champion their gains. Black lives matter. In a way, it's a pleasure to work on a series of videos about a game, one of the first that I can think of across the medium, that embraced the African American community. Maybe you can find some comfort in that if you can.

Take care.

No comments: