King of Fighters Roman Numeral added several new features to the teammate tagging system introduced to the series by KoF2003. It didn’t take long for someone to find a glitch to keep multiple teammates on the screen at once. T-7 built an entire combo video around that revolutionary discovery.
Here’s a sample: T-7’s KoFXI Combo DVD Preview
It looks ugly and most people don’t seem to like it, which frankly isn’t surprising. Still, it’s sad how quickly people judge something they don’t understand. I mean, there are probably less than ten people on the entire planet who can fully appreciate this thing. While i’m not one of them, i know i’ve never seen anything like it before.
The entire concept of manipulating two or more characters simultaneously through one controller is largely unexplored territory. What little of it we’ve seen in MvC/MvC2 is only the tip of the iceberg. That T-7 ventured out as far as he did without any conventional trail to follow is nothing short of remarkable. We don’t have to enjoy watching it, but we should at least recognize its significance.
He’s actually started uploading the entire DVD, one character segment at a time. The last Ralf combo is pretty dope.
While I’m not sure how he has the partners stuck on screen, I can tell (by the first few Maxima combos), that he uses the partners’ superfreezes to extend combos – the leader keeps moving through his/her super while the dummy freezes, so the leader doesn’t have to finish a super, or can whiff hits that might end a combo.
It also seems like superfreezes that are very close together only count as one for the combo meter, so if he needs more freezetime, he can just activate two supers very closely together. I’d imagine a combo transcript for these would be pure insanity.
This is all just speculation, except for the transcripts = insanity part.
Actually i think they tend to use characters with multi-part supers for these setups. For example, Athena’s forcefield super has a followup where she turns it into a fireball which costs no additional meter. That’s two superfreezes for the price of one. I think Duck King’s dance super has the same deal. I hadn’t noticed that until you mentioned it.
This whole concept of whiffing supers within two-character combos comes up in MvC2 as well, but Marvel tends to frown upon comboing throws whereas KoF is always down. It’s a good thing SNK got around to fixing the way combos register on the counter before they released this game. Because this would have been a lot less impressive if the counter resetted every time a throw connected.
Yeah I’ve always hated that bit about the combo counter resetting for a throw – before I understood how the games worked, I thought people were pulling off pseudo combos.
Speaking of pseudo combos – How do you feel about the current definition of a combo, that once the first attack lands, the opponent cannot stop the onslaught – isn’t this negated by Burst, Combo Breaker, or Mega Crash? So do these only become combos when those abilities are disabled (i.e. no meter, already bursted, used all breakers, or….well KI is out, I think)?
Another thing – what about combos that follow a dizzy? One of the things I respect about 538/kysg’s 3rd strike combos is that he begins the second half of the combo while the minimum amount of time needed (even with a programmable pad) to recover from dizzy isn’t up. The videos where a character sits back and builds meter for awhile, until the very last frame of dizzy; they’re impressive in the way that they show a good use of timing, but the opponent could break out of the “combo”, no?
Tech rolling vs. OTG also applies to the above. I’m lookin’ at you, Marvel and GuiltyBlaz. Thoughts?
That’s the introductory theoretical definition of combos, not the applied one – which varies quite a bit. There are some escapable combos that nobody objects to seeing in combo videos: followups after throws that could have been teched, non-trivial OTGs that could have been escaped by quick standing in a different mode/groove, combos vulnerable to combo breakers.
There are some inescapable attacks strings that nobody likes seeing in combo videos: beating up on autocounters, unblockable setups after knockdowns, guaranteed throw setups, guaranteed anti-techflip traps.
There are also a few situations where combo rules are dictated by testing limitations. Certain defensive mechanisms are ignored because it would be humanly impossible to test against them. Mashing does weird things in Marvel, like making you get up faster after a knockdown. Then you have games where dizzies are random, so if you can manipulate luck to get the dizzy how/when you want it, then the opponent could probably manipulate luck in reverse too. If they push the right button at the right time, they’ll totally screw with your combo. Does anyone actually care? I doubt it.
Personally i’ll subscribe to whatever definition is used in the video i’m watching. As long as they stick to it, i’ve got no problem. If someone wants to do CvS2 EX-Groove combos and SFA3 tech flippable combos, that’s cool with me. Just don’t expect me to be impressed when your combos turn out slightly better than a video which avoids those concessions, because that’s no longer the standard you’re competing against. On the other hand if someone passes on difficult opportunities to combo throws because they’re escapable, that’s fine too. Just don’t let me see an easymode throw combo halfway through your video.