The Akira Thread

[Dat Nyucah]

Goro's right in the sense that, Akira is only strong if you have mastered the game and know how to deal with your opponent. Meaning you MUST get out of training mode and play matches. AK's high execution threshold only truly affects his damage output, but in order to even be affected by this fact, you have to know how to open up your opponent. As you play more matches, the "hard" moves will become second nature. But AK's strongest moves are his most basic ones: , / , , and .

 

[Sly Bass]

How do you guys fight a super aggressive opponent? I was going up against a kasumi and pai last night that were relentless. It's as if those two characters have no recovery time between moves. When I do get an attack in edge wise, they magically guess a counter and immediately swing the fight. And no, it isn't always .

Anyway, how do you handle an opponent like that?

 

[Goro Hazuki]

I use side stepping, spacing, identifying patterns in their attacks, and using punishing crushes to make them think twice about rushing in. It often works and makes opponents worry about being unsafe and they start calculating their next moves a little more. Then from there it becomes an Akira friendly match.

(high attack with high crush) can help, SS is very reliable, SS can track, is an excellent crush and stuns well on CH, or even a simple in a la classic VF works.
is quite quick and opens some guaranteed follow ups (like ,,) but be mindful of high crush attacks.

can catch some attacks and gives you a decent launch as well for further damage.

is Akira's quickest launcher and curshes lows (also beats many mids and highs). The only problem with this is the risk associated with long recovery, so use this one sparingly.

Set them up to counter as well and punish with a

There are many more other ways really, but I think you see what I mean.

Finally, I'll state this again, spacing is very useful for Akira. Popping back and forth while calculating your next move works very well for your Akira game. I hope this doesn't sound too basic, but this is basically the frame work of what I kinda use. From there it's just practice and time in identifying patterns and reading the opponent.

 

[Sly Bass]

I've gotten to the point in my game where defense and movement are the only elements to drasticly take my game to the next level. Here are a few questions, any advice is welcome.

1. After throwing an unsuccessful counter, as your character naturally recovers, do you have to release the and press it again to initiate the block, or can you just continue holding down the button? When I throw a counter, I hold down the button in hopes that it will throw up a block as quick as possible as my character naturally recovers. I'm getting struck 100% of the time, which leads me to believe I'm doing something wrong.
2. How do you fight notorious turtles, aka Jan Lee, Hyabusa, and Ayane. I make a lot of poor decisions when trying to close the gap. Even if I wait for them to come back to me. Jan Lee bothers me the most due to every poke allowing you like a 3 frame window to throw a counter. I've tried slow escaping but can't execute it fast enough to get my blocks back up.
3. How do you punish an opponent during their offense to return control to you? Players like Jan Lee, Kasumi, and Hitomi seem to have zero recovery time after completing a blocked combo string. I block the string and try to return fire with a jab or , but am normally beaten out in frames.

Another thing I need to start thinking about is back dashing when an opponent is trying to close a gap. I don't do that enough.

 

[Sly Bass]

So um. Are there any other Akira players out there that do ANY research on this character other than me? I'm getting tired of reading my own posts...

 

[Zeo]

The problem isn't me not looking into new things concerning Akira, I actually discovered a good bit of tech, combos and all. The problem is you beat me to posting every single one of them. The only thing I managed to post was the +1 to +5 on his 214p depending on the range. As far as current affairs, I haven't been in the lab much but I've more or less hit a block as far as Akira progress.

That and my overall lack of drive to play from the delayed patch.

 

[Ghosty-J]

I'm afraid I can't find anything of good use. Most I did was post a combo or two which were virtually useless and you guys tend to discover better things than I could trying to explore Akira's mechanics. I feel kinda bad for not having anything to contribute though <.<

 

[Sly Bass]

I'm afraid I can't find anything of good use. Most I did was post a combo or two which were virtually useless and you guys tend to discover better things than I could trying to explore Akira's mechanics. I feel kinda bad for not having anything to contribute though <.<

You just keep making funny videos and we'll call it even.

 

[Ghosty-J]

You just keep making funny videos and we'll call it even.

You've got yourself a deal!

 

[Sly Bass]

Who wants to do me a favor? I need you to try the below combo and report back. I am at work, but I'm extremely curious if this combo would work. It relies on a wall splat bounce which i'm not certain will happen, but it might. I think if the opponent leaves their feet, the wall bounce won't happen.
, , , , , , , <Wall Splat Happens Here>, , , , , , .

This combo will work:
, , , , <Wall Splat Happens Here>, , , , , , .

 

[Ghosty-J]

I'm afraid I'll still be in class for another 7 hours. I'll try it immediately when I get back home later on tonight.

 

[Sly Bass]

Bah, looks like I'll have to wait another 3 hours to get home and try it myself then.

 

[Ghosty-J]

Just to ease everyone else's curiosity, the combos don't work since:

1) First combo refuses to allow me to follow up after the wallsplat since the opponent's feet already left the ground beforehand.

2) The recovery of the Tetsuzankou is too long for a followup combo with or . But the string can continue from that point with a regular instead. Tried using the Frame Knee After landed, but that refuses to connect.

So basically this:

, , , , <Wall Splat>, , , , -100 points of damage-

And a small variant I did based on this:

, , , , , <Wall Splat>, , , , , , -114points of damage-

 

[Sly Bass]

Yup. I tried it out last night, and you're right. I did find that a good alternative for the is to do .

, , , , <Wall Splat Happens Here>, , , , , , . 107 damage

It is less damage than your combo above, but the speed in which you can get to the guaranteed wall damage is high. You don't even need to be against the wall to do that combo. blasts them a good distance and then the ground can be closed by .

 

[Sly Bass]

You've got yourself a deal!

What happened to our deal?

 

[Ghosty-J]

What happened to our deal?

It's currently in the works and I've finally gotten around to resuming progress on it last night. But school projects and Ken's Rage 2 have been slowing down progress a bit. Of all the illustration montage projects I have to draw, I chose the most difficult historical figure to draw and paint over and over (Lu Bu) x_x

 

[Sly Bass]

Just an FYI, I'm going to hold off on anything new until the patch is released for Xbox. In the mean time, I might adventure into learning Brad Wong.

 

[Ghosty-J]

Speaking of which, just uploaded a new replay video and it's in the media section. I have two more replays ahead and I'll work on those whenever I get around to it next week.

 

[Sly Bass]

One interesting idea that I was discussing with Bakano is that there is a lot of randomness in our game play. If an opponent is guessing correctly at an alarming rate, I get shut down. I'd like to open some discussion on guaranteed combos, regardless of how small the damage output is. I'd like to find moves that don't allow the opponent to counter or slow escape.

I'd be happy to share a few instances of what I've found if I can see other people at least making an attempt at dissecting this character.

 

[Ghosty-J]

Unfortunately I'm of no help in the combo department. But when someone starts catching on to what I do quickly, I try to force myself to bait out constant counters so I can punish with a throw. Because apparently everyone looooooves to counter those mids <.<