Making an Advanced How-to-Sonic tutorial vid

[infomon]

This is a community project to develop an advanced How-to-Sonic tutorial video. Help is welcome, as well as simple advice; we're barely in the first stage of development.

Motivation:
The video won't be about teaching n00bs how to play Smash (what is DI, etc.), nor is it to explain the difference between side-B and down-B for those who still don't understand Sonic's basic attributes (I already have a [video tutorial] for that).

Instead, this should be a guide for smash players to learn how to use Sonic effectively in real matches, as well as insight into advanced techniques/strategies and their applications. Some facets we should cover:

• Spinshots and invincible airdashes
• The spacing for jabs and tilts, and where/how they can be used effectively in real matches, especially vs. top-tiers like MK
• Combos, follow-ups, tech-chasing
• Recovery strategies, including wall-jumps, appropriate use of Homing Attack, and Spring's invincibility frames
• Real examples of spindash mindgames being put to good use
• Weird/glitchy/nonobvious parts of Sonic's moveset, like sliding Utilts

What we need:
One of the most difficult aspects of this project will be finding genuine real-world video examples for these things. I can record vids of Sonic demonstrating combos/techniques, but only against sandbags/CPUs. We'll mostly want video examples from real matches against real opponents, with preference to high-tiers.

If you have vids or can record them of real matches, or if you know of existing vids (Winning Steak Cinemas, youtube, etc.) where Sonic does something interesting or effectively demonstrates something (jab-locks, Dtilt combos, tech-chases, whatever!), please post! You can send me replays via Wii or by email if you get it on an SD card. I can take snippets directly from youtube, but of course the quality is less than desirable.

Very Tentative Storyboard:
This is just one idea I have, loosely based on Puffball's suggestion. Feel free to suggest a completely different layout!

1. Maneuverability (aka how to control Sonic well)
   1. Dashes: foxtrots and advanced pivoting, grinding
   2. Using SD (B-reversed and not) to do super-rolls and shieldgrabs (with real examples)
   3. dash > instant-edgehog, W-edge (walljump from edge)
   4. Spinshots and airdashes
   5. Recovery: using homing attack without failure, wall-jumping and footstooling and spring tricks to get back to the stage, bouncing HA off walls/edges, real examples both good and bad
2. Sonic's A-button moveset
   1. Using jabs well, ex. beating G&W's Dtilt with a jab, setting up for jablocks
   2. Tilts: how to space them, some examples of where they win and lose priority wars, why they should be used more, sliding Utilt up slopes
   3. Smashes: DAC vs. hyphen-smash, stutter-stepping Fsmash, ... what else?
   4. Dash-attacks, like when to use them, and getting opponent onto a spring?
   5. Grabs: getting them (often by faking our way in with ASC/SD/something else)
   6. Aerials: How to avoid being predictable with Uair juggling (?), fastfalling the peak of a spring height, boxcutting?
3. Specials: mindgames and moar; how to use them realistically to get in hits and combos.

All advice/questions/comments/suggestions are welcome, along with any volunteers for script-writing, storyboard-planning, and especially video-gathering!!

 

[Chis]

I think it's too early to do that. I think 'people should walk before they run'. I'd rather have a video teaching them the basics. Spacing, what every move does and all the ways you can use it (Roys thread?), how to smash and tap DI + fast fall Fair to recovery. Things they can remember and start on. Also dispelling the assumptions that follow Sonic (zero priority, can't kill until 210, light, all he does is spin >_>). The melee thing was done a few years after release, while the meta game was running. It hasn't been a year yet :'(.

 

[Camalange]

As true as that is Chis, Brawl is developing at a much faster rate because of previous knowledge we had from Melee. We've pretty much cracked into everything Sonic has in his arsenal at this point, but there is always a chance something new will be discovered, even if it's nothing crazy. It would be a good idea to start with the basics. Going into each move and how and when they should be used. Then later go to the more complicated stuff.

I could probably help. I have access to a capture card.

 

[Phoenix_Dark]

I wouldn't saying it's developing faster than Melee did.. I just don't think there's anything to develop, lol. Shallow game is shallow.

 

[Camalange]

I wouldn't saying it's developing faster than Melee did.. I just don't think there's anything to develop, lol. Shallow game is shallow.

lol, I forgot to add that to the equation. That's just common sense anyway.

 

[thecatinthehat]

I wouldn't saying it's developing faster than Melee did.. I just don't think there's anything to develop, lol. Shallow game is shallow.

Took the words out of my mouth.

 

[Espy Rose]

I think it's too early to do that. I think 'people should walk before they run'.

"If you have time to think, then run." - Sonic

-----

But yeah, this would be a great idea. I'd like to help in any way possible, but the only thing, if anything, I can provide is the in-tournament footage via the Winning Steak Cinemas.

 

[Dark Sonic]

Honestly, I think that the video itself should focus on the more advanced stuff Sonic has.
The melee advanced "How to play" video didn't bother teaching people the basics like spacing and stuff...because those are the basics that should be known before even watching said video. I think the same should apply to Sonic.

The video should focus on more advance stuff, like Sonic's cancels, invincibility frames, Sonic's momentum changing options, ect. Spin mechanics and Phase changes, up B/side B/up smash invincibility, homming attack angles, dash canceling properties (screech stop vs shield cancel vs side B shield cancel), advanced recovery tricks, ect.

I don't want to see a video about spacing your aerials to beat other aerials...because that's common sense and needs no visual representation (it can be easily explained in words).

I'm not trying to undermine the basics, but they really are pretty basic (pun completely intended).

 

[infomon]

^^ I'm inclined to agree. I'm figuring out stuff all the time that's known by ppl like Tenki, but news to me. Like using SD or dodge-rolling out of a grind. It'd be good to have all this nonobvious stuff in video form.

 

[Dark Sonic]

^^I didn't know people even really used grinding.

And I've got a few HA tricks at the ledge. I'm still working on consistency, but if you HA at the lip of FD (right under where you would grab the ledge), you stay at the ledge after bouncing. You can regrab the ledge, wall jump, side B, ect from there, which is pretty cool. If you do it a little bit lower, you bounce...toward the stage (don't know how thatworks) and end up right next to the wall under the lip on FD (so you can wall jump without using your second jump).

Pretty neat stuff.

 

[darkNES386]

Perhaps a good way to decide whether or not we should go forward with a video is that we should compile an organized list (updated in the first post) of what we would discuss and how we would present it. This may seem redundant with threads like Tenki's b-mechanic thread, but trust me, if we don't have a list that we actually are crossing off and keeping active we will miss stuff.... plus if we went straight through tenki's thread that would take like an hour so we have to trim stuff down to what is most important.

ASC example
-word definition of move
-visual demonstration of various ways it can start (from aerial spin charge, spin dash roll off platform/stage)
-show that a spin dash >B started in the air is not the same
-explain what holding forward does/show it
-explain how it can be canceled/show it
-show various applications of the move: offensively/defensively

So see already we have to decide if we want to talk about the ASC shield cancel seperately or if we want to include it... do we talk about the ASC>footstool>... as an example or is that a whole seperate technique?

We deffinitely want to show actual applications and not simply oooo wow look a technique... now when will I ever use this?


Edit: Grinding for example is something I NEVER use in matches, maybe it's cause most of mine are online, but regardless we really need to probably step back and talk about what we're really doing with all of Sonic's ATs.

Does anyone ever do a B-reversal right before the reach the edge of the stage resulting in sonic hugging the wall before he rolls and attacks? This is easiest on yoshi's story

 

[Tenki]

I think

you should dedicate a portion of the video demonstrating Sonic's range.

Like, tip a F-tilt, D-tilt, U-tilt, U-air, B-air, etc
Tip a F-smash
Standing F-smash > stutter step F-smash
Standing F-smash > 'extended stutter step F-smash

Spacing is the biggest problem in most people's games, including my own. But for newbies especially, if all they know is how to spindash, that's no good.

 

[Dark Sonic]

^^Well, I guess you could emphasize how important spacing is, but going move by move just seems kind of redundant. You did list some of the more disjointed moves, so if it's only those then I guess it would be okay.

And a section on stutter stepping seems fine.

Does anyone ever do a B-reversal right before the reach the edge of the stage resulting in sonic hugging the wall before he rolls and attacks? This is easiest on yoshi's story

Yep.

 

[Chis]

Remember the kind of people that go to YouTube.

 

[darkNES386]

Do we want to discuss spacing entirely seperate or do we want to show it as we do each move/AT?

For example, we could talk about the spin dash shield cancel and how it helps with approaches and spacing (canceling fox trots / dashes on a dime) or do we want to talk about the spacing entirely on its own... I really don't think it matters, but we should stay consistent with whatever we do.

 

[Tenki]

I was thinking of having something like

(text)
Learn to your moves' range and use them smartly! (then flash .5-1 second clips of tipping moves in the background)

 

[darkNES386]

So we would show every move?

 

[Tenki]

whichever ones you feel noticeable lol.

So the important ones could be like F-tilt, D-tilt, F-smash, B-air, U-air, shown for like 1 second each, then the rest of them played in .5 seconds or less.

 

[darkNES386]

Ok, I feel you. Do we want a section on approach options?

 

[Tenki]

Maybe a short demonstrational, but not all-encompassing section.

For example, 'faux-approaches' that bait reactions. Like, talk about how you can run at someone then charge side-B in front of their roll range, then a demonstration of how you can use that to punish "R" reactions (shield-based reactions) from shield.

example:
opponent rolls forward, you shieldcancel and grab
opponent spotdodges, you shieldcancel and dashgrab or dash attack
opponent rolls away, you shieldcancel and dash attack

it'll give the basics lol.

But we don't necessarily have to go over every single kind of approach or every possible reaction from the opponent, and end it with an 'open ended' "you should think of these on your own lolz" kind of thing.

 

[Espy Rose]

Remember the kind of people that go to YouTube.

Which is why I suggested putting it on Youtube, and then hosting it on something like Rapidshare, Filefront, etc.
It would also be nice to see it in High Quality and NOT on Youtube, y'know?

I agree with dNES on the to-do list we should make. It would make organizing the attack lists much easier.

A simple rundown of his moveset (VERY BRIEF) should be in there. I know it's basic, but as said earlier, ranges, durations, etc. would be cool.

 

[Tenki]

I'm pretty sure Chis was talking about the demographic of the people who go to youtube.

This is our outlet to the soniclax15s and SonicX580's out there.

 

[darkNES386]

- General Brawl Skills: Spacing/DI/Patterns
- Overusage / Improper use of moves/ATs
- Lack of character matchup knowledge

Does this appear to be what becomes obvious to anyone using Sonic as their weaknesses? We should really think about what we want this video to accomplish. Whatever we do the video needs to start with meta knight doing a downtilt and then sonic home attacking into meta knights shield.

 

[Jim Morrison]

Call it How2Sonic

 

[Espy Rose]

I don't know, I'm more fond of Learn2Player and Learn2Steak.

Unless you guys want to be completely civilized, just call it something corny.
Speed Break: An Advanced Sonic Guide
or
Warp 7 (1 Steak if you know where I got this from.)

 

[darkNES386]

My question was overlooked. Here's what we should be thinking about:

Why can't WCD have a solid opinion on Sonic other then that he is limited?

The thread Tenki posted already has already found a common ground between many of the respectable Sonic mains and Samurai Panda.

Answer: Sonic has a massive human factor. No one should ever deny that beating someone of your skill or even slightly lower requires "work" when using Sonic. You have to always be thinking of new options and what you haven't tried yet in a current match.

What does this mean: Players will turn away from Sonic because they don't want to exert all this effort. Most people like to win and they like to do it without having to work too hard for it... it's only human. So now Sonic's meta game has a massive uphill battle to overcome. Most people playing against Sonic are having easy success with little reason to stop and analyze what he's actually doing.

In a nutshell: No one knows steak about Sonic unless they've put forth the effort to play as him.

So what's the point of our video(s) and what goals should we have?

1) I think we really want to see the WCD change the summary for Sonic. Samurai Panda did quite a good job of explaining a general Sonic summary:

Sonic has a crapton of options available to him (although many of them can be beaten by only one or two strategies), and his saving grace for not only his approach but his entire game, are his grabs. His ability to punish even the slightest lag with a running grab is awesome, and he has some interesting options out of his throws, too. However, he is mostly limited by the player who uses him. Sonic has options for "mindgames," but if your opponent plays smarter than you, then you'll lose. Sonic's reliance on reading/tricking his opponent are both the strongest and the weakest part of his game.

2) We need to make sure we keep intelligent conversation on the Sonic boards (steak is fine )

3) We need to make some flippin awesome videos to allow us to pool our knowledge together and step up Sonic's meta game.

Any ideas for how we can go about attempting to get the WCD changed without being stupid?

 

[Tenki]

Whatever we do the video needs to start with meta knight doing a downtilt and then sonic home attacking into meta knights shield.

Wait, how about:
MK spamming D-tilt. Sonic gets hit a few times, mistiming attacks, then goes for homing attack. MK rolls backwards, pulling the HA, then spams D-tilt more.

 

[Tenki]

My question was overlooked. Here's what we should be thinking about:

Why can't WCD have a solid opinion on Sonic other then that he is limited?

The thread Tenki posted already has already found a common ground between many of the respectable Sonic mains and Samurai Panda.

Answer: Sonic has a massive human factor. No one should ever deny that beating someone of your skill or even slightly lower requires "work" when using Sonic. You have to always be thinking of new options and what you haven't tried yet in a current match.

What does this mean: Players will turn away from Sonic because they don't want to exert all this effort. Most people like to win and they like to do it without having to work too hard for it... it's only human. So now Sonic's meta game has a massive uphill battle to overcome. Most people playing against Sonic are having easy success with little reason to stop and analyze what he's actually doing.

In a nutshell: No one knows steak about Sonic unless they've put forth the effort to play as him.

So what's the point of our video(s) and what goals should we have?

1) I think we really want to see the WCD change the summary for Sonic. Samurai Panda did quite a good job of explaining a general Sonic summary:

It took awhile to read everything that was posted, and because they were so long I don't have time to respond to each individual one. But rest assured that everything you guys said here, I already knew. Nothing posted in this thread thus far has been new to me (except Infzy's post on how to beat G&W's dtilt). Sonic has a crapton of options available to him (although many of them can be beaten by only one or two strategies), and his saving grace for not only his approach but his entire game, are his grabs. His ability to punish even the slightest lag with a running grab is awesome, and he has some interesting options out of his throws, too. However, he is mostly limited by the player who uses him. Sonic has options for "mindgames," but if your opponent plays smarter than you, then you'll lose. Sonic's reliance on reading/tricking his opponent are both the strongest and the weakest part of his game.

2) We need to make sure we keep intelligent conversation on the Sonic boards (steak is fine )

3) We need to make some flippin awesome videos to allow us to pool our knowledge together and step up Sonic's meta game.

Cool post, I'll get back to it later x.x;

Any ideas for how we can go about attempting to get the WCD changed without being stupid?

whoa - by WCD, you mean, SBR? Because the WCD should forever remain buried, except for when we're looking at snapshots and lolling at dysfunctional dash attacks.

 

[Jim Morrison]

I don't know, I'm more fond of Learn2Player and Learn2Steak.

Unless you guys want to be completely civilized, just call it something corny.
Speed Break: An Advanced Sonic Guide
or
Warp 7 (1 Steak if you know where I got this from.)

star wars warp speed 7

 

[Dark Sonic]

^^Yeah the current WCD seems like it would just turn newcommers away from Sonic forever. It describes a bottom tier (lower than bottom tier, even Captain Falcon has a better description than Sonic.), when the character rankings show that Sonic can be played in tournament with relative success.

SP's description would get people to at least look at the character rankings before making a final decision as opposed to the current one where people just write him off as the worst character in the game and move on.

P.S. Is anyone free to play online right now. Seriously, I'm mad bored and it would be really cool to have someone to practice with right about now.

 

[Espy Rose]

star wars warp speed 7

There's that.
Sonic also consistently said the phrase before running in Sonic SatAm.

 

[Jim Morrison]

No he didn't

 

[darkNES386]

You don't want to argue with puffball about sonic trivia.

So my question still goes unanswered, we need to figure out what's most important that we want to look into and then share with the entire smash community about Sonic. If we just say EVERYTHING then we're going to take forever to get anything finished so we should definitely split this into sections. Think about how long Infzy's Sonic Video is... (to prove my point).

 

[Jim Morrison]

Lol, true dat, I never played a Sonic game (Sonic Flash doesn't count)?

 

[Kinzer]

I think while we have some things that still need work, we do have moreorless EVERYTHING, wouldn't you think?

We has a matchup thread, we has a stage discussion thingie, we has a few threads talking about the ATs and junk, and a bunch more stuff.

 

[Espy Rose]

Lol, true dat, I never played a Sonic game (Sonic Flash doesn't count)?

dNES is right, you don't question my Sonic knowledge.

In SatAm, Sonic says it primarily to Tails before running off to do something (okay, not consistently, but he says it about 4 times in the series, which is alot, considering there's only 2 seasons).

He also says 90's phrases like "gotta juice", "jelly and jam time", and other things of the sort.

I just finished watching episodes 1-23 with a friend, and I've got to say, picking apart fallacies or just strange occurences in the series is quite the fun endeavor.

Robotnik even says this gem of a line when Sonic and Sally hack into the Roboticizer:

"Snivley, the Roboticizer is in Sabotage Mode."

I lol'd, pretty **** hard.

Oh, and I've played almost every Sonic flash out there, including the better ones.
You ever hear of SAGE Gt? (Sonic Amateur Gaming Expo)? Once a hear, playable demos of famous, upcoming fan-games of Sonic are previewed and made playable to the public. It's a delicious thing.

Although I still say Sonic Robo Blast 2 takes the cake as the best fan-Sonic game experience thus far. 16 people online tag is too good.

Other useless knowledge:

Sega Sonic (Sonic Team) didn't acknowledge Sonic's love of Chili dogs from the archie-based cartoons until Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. Before then, Sega Sonic never even mentioned the existence of the food.

-----

On topic:

Perhaps, as dNES suggested, we work this into segments. Perhaps it could even be possible to have a certain group working on a certain section each.

For instance, have a group working on the basic attacks and ranges.
Then another group primarily based around the mechanics of SD and SC.
Then a group for dashing mechanics and tech chasing and the like.

You know, something like that.

Then throw it all together to create the steak-zord.

 

[Kinzer]

Sonic sez.

Is fixed, also that's not Tenki.

 

[Espy Rose]

Is fixed, also that's not Tenki.

0_o

Wow, I just got mindgamed... so hard.

I curse Gtwhatever.
You deserve a steak...

You're not getting one though.
Why?
I fixed it.

 

[Kinzer]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but too much Steaksauce might get to your head, and you won't be able to focus right.

You got to take everything into moderation, they say.

But seriously, I like to know my Shawnike trivia.

 

[Espy Rose]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but too much Steaksauce might get to your head, and you won't be able to focus right.

You got to take everything into moderation, they say.

But seriously, I like to know my Shawnike trivia.

I was going a wee bit too fast there for a second, too much steaksauce at once is kinda dangerous.

I'm back to normal now, and I'd be more than happy to share more of my trivia. But that's for a later time.