Just to get it out of the way now, this one is going up late because the summer has been kind of rough. About 20 minutes after publishing this video, I had what my doctors are calling a "complex migraine." This means that when my run-of-the-mill migraine headache started, something I don't really get that often to begin with, I lost my ability to speak for about an hour, not unlike having a stroke. After a couple of hospital visits and lots of tests, I was told these stroke-like migraine headaches are going to be the norm for me, and I shouldn't be surprised if I have more symptoms like this when another migraine hits (speech, motor function loss, etc.). I need to treat these like actual strokes, so if/when it happens again, I need to head to the ER to be sure that it's not an actual stroke. Then I got covid. We'll get to that later.
So, Dudley. Dudley, right? Combo machine Dudley. This was a fun video to make, and not because Dudley's just a cool character. Part of it is the chance to make a good turn after kind of going after Elena's design. I know that there were some that disagreed with my approach to her video. I knew it would happen, and it's not like I got it as bad as other folks online when people disagree with them (I'm a straight white guy, so I didn't get it by a long shot), but it was still a bit discouraging. That's maybe why it took a little while to get the Dudley video up, even though it would be something of a counter argument to Elena. Still, to the people that didn't like my Elena video: tough shit. Elena's design is problematic at best, and I stand by that. Plus, now you've got Dudley, and Dudley rules.
When writing this video, a couple of other YouTube video "essays" about Dudley also hit at the same time. This always makes me a little nervous. It's not like I'm the only one doing these kinds of videos on the internet, but I take some pride in being as well-researched as I can be, but to also take context into account as much as possible when outlining design and intent. It doesn't happen often, but I get some things wrong here and there. It also happens that I leave something out, or not find out a crucial piece of design inspiration until after the videos post. I really have to hand it to the comments, then. My dedicated cult of cool people generally point me in the right direction without yelling at me, and I really appreciate that. But context is important. Capcom is notorious for taking what was in the air at the time and dumping it into their games. That's one of the reasons video series like this exist is to capture all of that, especially if a designer actually came out and said, yes, this character is based on this and this and this. That didn't happen at the time of the game's release (Japanese development interviews in the 1980s-2000 were coy as hell), so when it creeps up now, you have to latch on to it and in case it in (internet video) amber.
The thing is, these other videos that I watched on Dudley and other characters just refuse to do this. It's clear to me that the folks making them are just barfing out what they read on wikis and not extrapolating or reading between the lines. Sure, these are people that want to churn out as much content as they can because, hey, that's the gig if you want to make money off of YT videos. But in it's way, they exist as a guide post for me to be better at it, at least from a research perspective. Are these other videos or creators bad because of it? Well, I don't like them, but that's me. But me along with you in the comments are making something better. If I forget something important, and Ashita no Joe is definitely important in Dudley's case, thanks for pointing it out. Thanks for being part of this.
As for the video itself, I'm leaving out a lot of the inputs for moves. I know that the early episodes have them, but as I moved on to the later characters, it just didn't seem worthwhile to point out something that only matters to people that already play the game, and they likely know how to perform a Jet Upper anyway. Specifically, I didn't think it was worthwhile to list the commands for all of Dudley's expansive list of target combos like I didn't for Ibuki. These aren't combo videos, but a taste of how a character plays and why people pick them (or don't) for competitive play. There are tools all over the place to learn individual moves or attack strings, and maybe it was overkill to put this stuff in to begin with.
This also another video where I didn't play any of the mirrors at all. I'm not a Dudley player, but am lucky enough to know a few very good ones. We're all a little rusty without playing in-person during the covid era, though, so son't take it out on these guys for this an the Oro episode when we all drop combos and miss easy opportunities.
Extra credit can always be found at Frankie's Feetwork 101 channel where he breaks down Kokujin's Dudley play. For something a little closer to home, though, Keninblack is easily the best American Dudley player currently competing, and you can find a lot of his play in the Jazzy tournaments. On that note, hats off to Arturo and the rest of the Jazzy folks for keeping it alive during these lean times. This year's tournament was killer. You should watch it.
And with that, we're only down to a few final entries. The Oro episode is already live, and the Appendix for that one should be up soon (I'm on an island at the moment. I'll get to it when I get to it), and the script for Ryu is already about 70% complete. I'm still trying to figure out if there should be a wrap up episode after Ryu, which is what that one's not further along. If so, I'm thinking about a completely different format for it, but that might blow up in my face. Maybe vacation will give me time to figure it out.
See you soon
