Once I get off my ass and finish a basic strategy section, I’ll gussy it up with a table of contents and page numbers before throwing it around. I’ve been humming and hawing on just adding an addendum section for FD2, since it’s really only there to cover Fabien, Dixon and Kate.
Kept you waiting, huh?
Guide’s updated with a rudimentary strategy section and the streamlined list of combos. I’ll be updating these as I get more offline gameplay in hand (looking back into decent netplay options, by the by).
Some observations about offline matches:
[details=Spoiler]
N64 hardware runs like buttcheeks, even moreso if you have Hit Frame and Key History on. Prepare for Matrix levels of slowdown during some throws.
Bob’s Palo Special loop is more like a mixup, since an opponent escaping 62A+B can jump away. Guess between Palo Special or 42B lol
Abdul is a barrel of laughs, but man oh man do his normals blow. When it rains, it pours–he either scores the perfect read and wins before anyone can assess the faults in his technique, or he gets badgered to the ledge, can’t waddle away, and gets bodied.
Tomahawk is fucking savage. Every single disadvantage by the enemy is an opportunity for a TAGS/246A+B mixup. Whiff “punishing” with 44B and forcing them to block it leads to crazy damage, so he’s very menacing to be around.
I apparently suck with Leon, but even on N64 hardware his infinite is as easy as ever. 6B would be busted if not for how easy it is to parry. 61B is a lot easier to land if you’ve cornered the opponent, but it remains unreliable.
Master is pretty good at comebacks thanks to the ease and power of his combo game. 46B and 44B are pretty easy to stuff, so landing key hits with him requires distancing and patience.
Ushi’s RFF oki is cute, but lousy.
Playing on default settings is pretty cramped. It might be worth cranking up the arena size to accentuate the poking game (and downplay the ease of which one can sandbag a bad round for only a one-point loss).[/details]
Wouldnt a bigger arena favor characters with infinites? yeah, with a smaller arena they would still lose once caught by an infinite but it would be by a ringout instead of getting in place for a finisher/grab.
I dont know, dude. Should be somehow like they handle stage select in tournaments or something.
Stage select isn’t really a convenient option, since the size is fixed globally in the options. There’s probably a middle ground somewhere where they’re big enough to breathe, but small enough to manage infinites. For the moment I’d stick to the default unless necessary, but it’s food for thought.
I mean in the way how its decided who gets to make the choice. Personally, if it was a “best of 3” scenario the first fight would have default stage size, then the loser gets to choose the size for the next fight.
That could be reasonable. The game grants the option, may as well use it (speaking of which, long sets in this game are fast. You can press A after character select and during the splash screen to skip to matches really quickly).
More comments about offline:
[details=Spoiler] Played a truckload of Master. His 44B either has the wonkiest hurtbox ever, or it has an unlisted high crush property. Unsure which. Opening a round with it or his 46B can lead into a combo that meets the ledge. On default stage size, characters with Ryuji HP or above (Valerie and below get zonked) will meet the ledge during a 5ABBBA juggle–but only if Master nails them at the start of the match. Essentially, the closer he is to his ledge, the more his overall point value increases. Additionally, dependent on spacing, 5ABBBA can flick dudes right off the ledge as they land.
In regards to your mention of bias towards infinites, Ferlanga, you’re right on the money. Default stage size isn’t favourable to characters like Leon, downplaying the strength of their infinites. Master has fewer issues–412AAB has lower ledge carry. Fighter’s Destiny seems to have a lot of these Miracles of Accidental Game Balance™.
Inashi is really damn good, but if your character has no unduckable mids and/or no BT holds, scoring guaranteed damage is tricky. I grew fond of calling out BT attacks with Counters, but parries work in BT. Basically, if you don’t have 100% free stuff from Inashi, play it by ear.
Middle ground in our sets was tough. True to form, most rounds started and ended in an instant with a good read–if they didn’t, it was nickel-and-dime poke city until Judge or sandbag RO.
There is nothing more heartbreaking than opening a round with a Counter and watching them dodge it harmlessly. Try to stay conservative at the outset.
Dodge-buffering is pretty strong, but defensive throws can and will make you look like an idiot.
It’s tempting to constantly retreat during Piyori, but in doing so you’ll inevitably corner yourself. If you recover, you’ll no doubt have put yourself in a spot. Sometimes it’s worth taking some gambles in Piyori to improve your long-term position.[/details]
So I cracked open Nintendo Power 105 (Feb. 1998), and it includes a list of the unlockable attacks. It confirmed my suspicion: I’m missing one Gained Skill for every character. I can’t seem to get characters with the Initiate tag to gain that last skill through Win Or Lose; it seems as though you’ll never have quite the same version of a character, depending on the Memory Pak.
That’s odd, since when I made new files to test that theory, I unlocked the same sets. Very confusing. The article itself makes no mention of this, so there’s a missing link here I’m not getting.
(In other news, Pierre can delay Satellite Kick with 64B2, I’ll need to add that)
EDIT: Debunked. TL;DR I cocked up the previous plugins for memory paks or something, there shouldn’t be any issues in normal play.
Yeah, you definitely can’t have all the skills. I’ll get a new N64 controller next week, so I’ll be able to test that out finally.
How many unlockables are there per character? 1 Master skill and 9 Win or Lose skills, right?
The NTSC version sure has it’s share of slowdowns, so I actually prefer the European version. It is a bit slower, but at least it has a steady frame rate, no drops whatever move comes out and doesn’t matter what stage you play on
There’s one universal skill gained when a character clears VS COM (denoted by the star), and 10 skills that can be unlocked in Master Challenge/Win Or Lose–one of which can only be gained through Win Or Lose, and of which only 9 total can seemingly be learned.
For example: a skill for Abdul called Rabbit Hell (26B). It’s a Counter, but I have no idea what it’s like and have yet to learn it somehow.
EDIT: Worth noting that Ziege’s Throw Reserve, which I’m so fond of, debuts with Tomahawk. The inputs are weird, but it’s there–even though I’ve never seen it used anywhere.
EDIT II: Debunked. TL;DR I cocked up the previous plugins for memory paks or something, there shouldn’t be any issues in normal play.
Well that sucks. I guess you could lose on purpose to lose a skill and win again to get another one. Did you check my FD2 savefile just in case?
Maybe its just my imagination, But i think one of my character had one more skill than the others. I’ll have to check myself that sometime.
I checked the file. I’m thinking this issue I’m having is a product of the emulation, but it’s puzzling–for some characters (like D-Dog), my savefile is identical, but for Ninja or Federico I’m missing one of their attacks (666_B and 1BBA, respectively).
I’m going to take another pass at new save files to see if anything changes. Until then, these missing attacks will fill in some holes in the movelist. You have my gratitude.
EDIT: Figures that I learn the mysterious missing Bob attack seconds into my new attempt. I switched some plugins, so it looks like I’m on the right track?
EDIT II: Ran through the game with Leon and had no difficulty gaining every attack, so I either pooched the emulation or going Master Challenge > VS COM had some effect I wasn’t aware of. Expect some updates to the movelists in the future.
Well i think Federico’s 666_B is just an unlisted move available at all times, since its never been in the movelist yet I could perform it (if this happens to be the move where he lays down)
Btw what emulator are you using?
I couldn’t find that for Federico or Ninja without unlocking it first.
(I used PJ64 primarily, with Mupen64 and BizHawk to test frames and whatever)
EDIT: The issue may have something to do with having a character only unlock moves in Win Or Lose, not Master Challenge–I didn’t get Cross Elbow with Meiling, and I didn’t take her through like I did Leon. In any event these moves were carried over into FD2, so once again: Ferlanga, you da real MVP
MVP?
The movelists have all been updated. It would seem clearing Master Challenge with a character is required, else you reach Initiate minus one Gained Skill. I paid the price for not noticing this sooner. The only move that has no analogue in FD2 is Boro’s 6ABB, which I’ll need to update later on.
In light of a couple of these developments, Pierre might go up a bit and Meiling might go down a bit.
Most Valuable Player, playa
Lol no im not.
Played this a lot back in the day because I had an N64 and was starved for fighting games. Played Boro the most (or “Heidi” as she was called in the German version) so I guess she’d be my “main”. I suppose Valerie, Tomahawk and Leon would be my other characters.
I recently played it again and boy is it slow and mediocre, but I can still enjoy it.
Edit: Oh yea and that guide is amazing holy shiiiet, great job. Never thought Tomahawk would be a top tier…
Hey, somebody knows a good n64 emulator to run this game??. I played A LOT of this game back in the day!. Also great stuff by IM_amazon!, very good guide!.
Yooo. How did I miss this!? Good show OP!
I’m back with new stuff. Sooner or later I’m going to come back to the guide, fix up some of the typesetting/syntax errors, and reincorporate this info I’ve been compiling for a while.
STRINGS/DODGE BUFFER
[details=Spoiler]As alluded to when referring to Fighter’s Destiny’s crude “wakeups”, Guard/Hirari are permitted in that order. However, what I didn’t realize before was that this “grace period” extends to normal block/hit stun, and other actions as well. As a result of this, a wide assortment of strings prevent the enemy from dodging out on hit or block. Some strings even have guaranteed hits–attacks placed too closely together, to the point that shifting elevation or from block to dodge isn’t fast enough. These aren’t excessively common, but will have to be added to the guide as required.
This causes some strings to have very odd confirms–it’s safer to eat the second hit of Leon’s 5AAB in most circumstances, for example.[/details]
FRAME DATA
[details=Spoiler]I’ve taken hitstun rules for granted…
In just about any fighter I can think of, hitstun is just what it is. This is not the case in Fighter’s Destiny.
You can recover from hitstun sooner by jumping/ducking. Much of my research was built on the “hit stuff and hold up” method, so many attacks I ruled minus (or worse, unsafe) on hit before aren’t…technically. This is a character-dependent thing; certain advantages prevent this from being useful, and there are ways to counter it (read: dash-ins to chase jumpers, etc.). I’ll cover the defensive applications in greater detail later, but be aware that many attacks that appear to be very minus (like 5A) aren’t as bad as I once thought.
EDIT: Neglected to mention that this is useful because you can avoid High/Low situations with this from disadvantage, whereas you can’t with Hirari.[/details]
REST HOLDS
Spoiler
Just a quirk I realized when trying certain setups. You’re under no obligation to mash for damage if you Lock someone–why not just hold the buttons down and heal while they escape? Depending on the character, this can cause a big differential in life. Due to its eerie resemblance to rest holds in pro wrestling I decided to adopt the name.
THROW PRIORITY
[details=Spoiler]I’m stunned that I failed to see this sooner–in yet another foreshadowing of Virtua Fighter 5R, throws are zero-frame moves that still “lose” to attacks. In other words, strikes are universally throw immune. Unless the throwing character has advantage (and is close enough), you cannot be thrown out of an attack based on my research.
Throws in general are a bit weaker than my prior evaluation–they’re fast, but it can be really hard to find attacks that truly allow for throw punishes, or proper throw callouts for dodge baiting. More to come.[/details]
OPTION SELECT: “FUZZY DODGE”(?)
[details=Spoiler]Aside from basic OS stuff like extended throws (3A+B, Bob’s 62A+B), here’s the Johnny-come-lately for Fighter’s Destiny defensive tech: Fuzzy Dodge (for lack of a catchier name).
This is essentially a sibling of Yutori that exploits basic attack speeds (particularly in context to their frame data above). When placed at a small disadvantage (but not punishable), input H~+G+A+B(+2 if you like). 5B/5A are the fastest punishers in the game, but lose to Hirari. Meanwhile, 3B–the fastest Mid option–can be blocked at either elevation. By doing this input, you will dodge fast High/Low attacks, and still be able to block in time to stop any Mid cold. By adding A+B you also immediately transition to Yutori, affording yourself a throw escape (should it come to that).
There is a flaw to this, however: it’s a commitment. Unlike Yutori which ignores Hirari to simply guess high/low, Fuzzy takes precious frames engaging the dodge. Combined with reaction time, the delay in defense can be exploited: walk-in Locks still work, as do slower Highs or Lows. Additionally, this enables opportunities to engage KD attacks and force the Fuzzying player’s hand. In this way, the situation can be equated to something like Soul Calibur II’s post-GI game.
(Theoretically you can probably throw the player on the frame they’re only pressing H, but I can’t say that there’s any practical situations which allow that)[/details]
TIER ADJUSTMENTS
[details=Spoiler]Unsurprisingly, I probably overrated Joker. He has problems with Fuzzy and Yutori, and is unsafe on his key throw–but man oh man can he Rest Hold like a champ. His 4B is also unparryable, even by Leon, so it’s a real headache.
The discoveries to frame data and the dodge buffer benefit Ryuji, and to a lesser extent Abdul as well, so both may go up a bit.
Bob warrants a great deal of mention: throws are less reliable than I once thought, so he’s weaker in that regard. But the 62A+B into Palo Special is basically free. It’s a massive headache to escape from since he essentially has to botch it. His 42B may have good application to kill fuzzy. He can also get a free 42B after a launch, not unlike Abdul. Bob will probably go up.
Valerie’s Push is really, really good. She can safely combo it into 44B or snipe you with 46B(G), it can lead into will-she/won’t-she parry/Counter guessing game, and she can dash in for Push shenanigans or jump in for CH flipkick nonsense. She probably won’t move up, but be advised.[/details]
LEDGE OPTIONS
[details=Spoiler]Not a revelation, but there’s an unlisted “jump” as an option from the ledge. Press 9 and you’ll see: it’s floaty, not invincible, and can high-profile like crazy if they don’t react to it in time. Not a one-size solution, but it is present.
In regards to getting them there, going for raw launchers and pushing the corpse to the ledge is a low-risk/reward means of turning a round in your favour. Robert is in dire need of something like this since he’s pretty bad at winning in other ways.[/details]