Mortal Kombat: The Basics

Mortal Kombat 9 is fun and it’s a shame that the Savannah area hasn’t embraced it. Despite a long-running effort to include it into the local bi-weekly line up, the game just hasn’t picked up steam with the locals. There’s just been too much of a negative attitude towards it; too much “Well, this isn’t how it works in Street Fighter,” and I don’t know if it’s just ignorance or a refusal to change but…

This isn’t Street Fighter. Sure, it’s riding the coat tails of Street Fighter 4’s success and the series (in the last decade or so) hasn’t had the best track record, but this is a reboot and it’s a damn good one. Anyway, that’s enough preaching, onto the more important stuff – The Basics. Check after the break for the full article.

Standard Notation & Terms

1 – FP – Front Punch – Strikes with fist closest to the opponent.

2 – BP – Back Punch – Strikes with fist furthest from the opponent.

3 – FK – Front Kick – Strikes with leg closest to the opponent.

4 – BK – Back Kick – Strikes with leg furthest from opponent.

BLK – Block – Block incoming attacks.

XRAY – Unleashes the character specific X-Ray attack. Requires 3 meters.

Break/Breaker – Uses two meters to break out of a combo. Performed with Forward + BLK.

1+3 – Throw – Pressing the 1 and 3 buttons together performs a throw.

Typically the combo notation for MK is done with 1, 2, 3, and 4. Occasionally you’ll see FP, BP, FK, and BK, but I find that it’s much less common. As with most notation “xx” typically means to cancel something with a special move and a tilde (~) means to briefly wait. Sometimes I’ve seen “->” represent waiting, but I’ve more commonly seen it refer to dashing – It probably just depends on the guy transcribing the combos and shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out.

X-factor and Team Composition

Here’s the follow up to the team building concepts article series, it’s a rather short one due to it mostly being about preference, but hopefully it sheds some light on how to use X-factor, or how to build a team around it.

Love it or hate it, X-factor is a huge factor in Marvel vs Capcom 3. Knowing when to use it, how to use it, and who to use it with are all key in being a successful player.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 team building concepts: Style archetypes and part of the character selection process.

When beginning to form a team in a versus game, you have to ask yourself what the goal of that team is. Do you want a team designed to rush the enemy and force them to make mistakes? A team based on keep-away and frustrating your opponent while whittling down their health? Maybe you want a team that excels at neither, but can handle either situation marginally well.

It really boils down to what you feel like your best play style is. Some people know immediately what they’d like to do, or what they’re best at while others kind of struggle to grasp it.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what your play style is, but I do know some important things to consider for each team type and maybe that will help your decision.

Marvel vs Capcom 3: Team Building Concepts

Building a team in Versus series games isn’t as easy as it seems. Even in Marvel vs Capcom 3, where X-factor makes almost any character capable of destroying an entire team, there’s still a lot to consider.

As much as we would all love to throw together our three favorite characters and hope that they work, that just isn’t often plausible. To an extent, any competitive player must be willing to compromise taste for effectiveness. It’s not a ‘crutch,’ nor is it ‘dishonorable’ to pick up a better character for the sake of being able to compete better. In fact, if you’re reading this, you should remove those words from your fighting game dictionary.

Most of my team building experience comes from years of playing Marvel vs Capcom 2 and even though the games are very different, many of the concepts still apply.

I’ll start with a list of things to consider, then periodically expand upon each of these topics. I won’t be covering all of this stuff, but there will be a couple articles. Just ponder the topics.

Team Building Concepts:

• Team/Style archetypes: Focus and Versatility
• X-Factor and how it effects team building decisions
• Character archetypes (Point, Support, Anchor, Assist, Battery)
• Team order and safe-switch options
• Picking the right assists for your point character

Frames and You: Understanding Frame Data

If there’s anything I’ve learned playing fighting games, it’s that the community has a lot of lingo and technical terms that confuse beginners or spectators.

The lingo side of things is being filled in slowly over on the glossary page, but many of the technical terms require much more than a sentence or two to describe, so I’ll define some of these terms and try to keep it simple so that the people trying to learn can grasp what’s going on.

One term (or topic) that I feel is pretty difficult is that of FRAME DATA, so hit the break to read more about it.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 strategy: Zero

Quick Overview:

Zero reprises his TvC role as supreme rush down in MvC3. Basically every tool he has is there to get him closer to his opponent, and he does it better than almost everyone else on the cast. With a mix of safe normals, impossibly hard to spot command dashes, two projectiles and one of the best level three supers in the game; those interested in playing this Maverick hunter shouldn’t be worried about his performance. He’s extremely versatile and can generally make the most of any given situation.

What is he fighting for?