Playstyle Analysis continued!
You guys know about my playstyle catagories, right? (it be on the first page son). To better my Sonic overall, I’ve been doing a study of play styles recently. It lets me see what they use successfully, and how to incorporate that into my game without becoming a cookie cutter, using that system as a guide. Then I said to myself, what the heck, I might as well post this on smash boards. Of course, if you think I f’d up on something, its not a big deal, say something about it. This is what I got from watching these players on a unbiased perspective. Note that I will not say through this analysis that one is better than the other, though I will point out differences between styles often.
After I did all that crap, then I compared their styles to mine, and it helped me more accurately pinpoint holes in my game. The info is based off of all YouTube matches I’ve seen regarding the said players over the last few months. I guess I will post more players styles later. Why do this you say? The thing I find most enjoyable about Sonic mains is how different they are from other good sonics. That is saying a lot, considering that many think Sonic overall has little options, or believe that they “all play the same.” The Fools.
This helped me a lot. I hope it tightens your game up as well.
First off, no matter which of these guys you admire there is are strong similarities: they all know Sonic’s foundational setups and mind games. The know all forms of recovery, the spin cancels and have a solid grab game. The difference in them lies in what order they prefer to initiate certain aspects of sonic, and what their primary KO conditions are.
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Malcolm no Style: The thing that I notice first about this Sonic is that he knows the Snake/Metaknight matchup. Another thing is way he manipulates Down B and side B. I’ve seen many times how he’d Spin Charge in one direction, leave the main platform, then return with a well placed side B, using the hop to return back to the stage. He seems to use this often, and what I get is that it allows him to maintain ball form, continue a rushdown or spins to most likely condition his opponents, and I am certain it is part of his early game to initiate his UpThrow/Froward Throw mindgames, which I consider the meat of his close range game. Getting this off once has a major impact on how the enemy would approach him, and allows a safer possibility of following those throws with an SDVJ and/or aerial. His run does not involve much advanced movement; that is to say it is mostly the basic run combined with sonic’s basic turn around animation. What makes it work is that not only is sonic fast (duh), he changes directions is random intervals, and can cancel his turn around state from the run into F-Smash or reverse bairs well. It’s a unique bait/punish tactic that I feel is synonymous with Malcolm’s Sonic. Falling bairs and Uairs are common parts of his punish game, it seems.
Style Verdict: Grapple /Punish/Ground
Immediate results from observing vids: improved grab game.
Tenki no Style: Now I’m certain that most of the matches were wifi- so keep that in mind. If I am correct many consider him one of the forefathers of the current Sonic metagame. So from off the bat we know he strong spin dash mindgames. In addition, a good portion of his mindgames revolve around the F-Smash, especially around death percentages. He is good at stutter stepping it, doing it off a full run, and charging it in the opponents face to incite movement he can punish. In terms of Ground movement, in comparison to Malcolm, Tenki is more run based, while Malcolm is more Spin based. You can tell; while Malcolm will use the spin specials in succession to maintain movement and pressure, Tenki, is more about the cancels/ mind games that they possess when using the spins: he prefers to run. He uses all known forms of ground movement to trick his opponents, from DDP, to b-reverse side B from a full run. You will see a lot of shied cancelled running. As Tenki is more of an innovator, I can easily say that I see stuff that most sonics don’t try at all, for example using the spring offensively, or spring spawning .I do not know if it’s because he treats matches like experiments, like I do sometimes, or not. Throw setups are vastly different too, and I think Tenki will spam Spring more than other Sonic’s in certain matchups. Another difference: I’ve seen Tenki simply stand as the opponent recovers from a previous attack, then punish the airdodge he knew was coming, Malcolm usually run in a small circle before the punish.
Style Verdict: Ground/Punish/Grapple
(Jeez, I tried hard to categorize him differently, but I really think Malcolm and Tenki’s basic play style is the same, BUT they prioritize on different aspects and are more polished in other areas, hence the order difference.)
Immediate results from observing vids: Improved Mindgames; Solid foundation of Spinology. (hehe, I think you get what that means).
Note: It’s interesting to note that after learning the basics from Tenki over the summer, I was able to go my own way with it easily with still committing to the basic rules he showed me concerning Sonic, giving birth to my own style. He is a good teacher, I guess…
Mr.3000 no Style: His sonic seems to be a very patient one style wise, waiting for the opportunity to get close. He loves to grab as a punisher, I’m watching matches where he basically grabbed the entire stock off of mistakes. His main goal is to grab, then follow up on your mistakes to increase the percents. This is another guy who likes charged forward smashes. Mindgames? He really pegs me as a guy who saves his smashes until it is KO time. Like the above three he has a solid foundation of sonics’s movements and feints on the ground, which is a must for a tournament Sonic. He uses all of his throws, but doesn’t possess the polished follow up game that Malcolm has off those throws, like the f-throw and up-throw. But he is better in the usage and spacing of the D-tilt, often getting multiple hits. He also goes for dairs and dair spikes as part of his edge game, combined with his F-Smash when he anticipates an attack were he to follow them off the stage. I need to practice the combat walking that he sometimes uses in matches ( he does it up close, how does he do it? Is he tapping A, holding A, or a bit of both?). It definitely throws people off sometimes.
Style Verdict: Grappler/Ground/Edge
Immediate results from observing vids: Imrpoved tilt usage, improved edgegaurding
So, yeah, I go that far sometimes… I didn’t put my name down, because, well, it would be weird to analyze myself. You can do that if you want. I haves youtube vids (Kojin Sonic in the search to make it easy for you) and Zorusen from youtube apparently has some vids of me too. So, after I see how this post is welcomed I may show more of my stuff/notes/steak.
Plz Comment. for this is a discussion on not only the player styles of these guys, but successful elements from other tournament Sonics you've seen as well.
EDIT: There is a "Kojin" that apparently plays Lucus. That is not me, it is clearly some imposter. I swear. I looked up my name on youtube and I find clips of this player. I don't play the Mama's Boyz, I swear...
