Bang CMV Pt2 + Summer Jam

I'm... working.
Yea.

It's been a long time since I've actually wrote a post for my blog for many random reasons, but the majority of it can be blamed on laziness and P4A.  After I finished my combo video, I went home, got P4A when it came out, and pretty much haven't stopped playing since it's release.  I'll probably write a little bit more about P4A in my next post about what I like and dislike about the game.  But, for now I spend a little time playing catch up and write about my combo video and Summer Jam.



After recording everything, I needed to edit the video so that it would be a video instead of individual clips.  For reference, I watched alot of other combo videos to see how they managed to do transitions and how it worked out for them.  After doing so, I immediately ruled out the idea of using transitions other than fade out.    It looks too tacky and generally disrupts the flow of the combo video, unless you know what you're doing I would assume.  I decided that it would just be better if I did it simply and didn't try and complicate things any further so I just used fade in and fade out transitions for the combo video.

After making that decision, I needed to decide how I wanted to order the combos.  I knew that from the beginning I wanted to have a combo video that synced with the music since combo videos are essentially just entertainment with generally very impractical.  So, all I really wanted to do was make something hype and fun to watch even for people that knew little about the game.  Though I have to say that my method of determining the order of combos was completely arbitrary.  I took combos and put them in, watched the video, and noted what didn't work out well and changed the ordering from there.  Interestingly enough, when I watched the video on youtube, it's out of sync compared to a local copy that I have which is a little annoying to deal with.

Something manly enough for this...

As for the music, I decided eventually on Hagane no Resistance by Jam Project.  This I actually spent a little more thought on because the music sets the mood for the combo video.  Without an appropriate song, the impact of the combo video would be that much less and be much more boring as well.  So, I spent alot of time listening to a bunch of different manly songs, and watched some of Koshikawa's videos, who makes amazing Bang combo videos.  By taking references from there, I was able to think about what kind of song I wanted to use and how I wanted to order it all.

Now that my video is now complete and a little over a month has passed, I feel that I can analyze my video a little better.  Unfortunately, I have to say that the majority of the combos that I had in the video were kind of boring.  Many of them I feel would be pretty boring for other people who have never played Blazblue before, though I do know that there were those few combos that would be still be hype even with little knowledge of the game.  Hopefully, I'll be able to make a better Akihiko combo video for P4A, but making new combo routes I think will be difficult for me, so it'll probably take quite some time before it ever comes out.

My next objective...

Now that everything related to my combo video is done, I can move on and talk about other things.  A couple of weeks ago, the first P4A major took place at Summer Jam.  At that time, I had played probably close to 500 games of netplay plus maybe another hundred offline with LK and a few others.  I honestly went into the tournament not terribly confident with myself.  There were quite a few matchups that I lacked alot of experience in (and still do) such as Aigis and Elizabeth, though I could generally get combos down, so there was the small assurance in there.

Too super, too kawaii desu

I ended up in pool 4 which didn't start till something like 8-9pm so for the most of Saturday, I watched other people play and just hang out with other players.  By the time I was up to play, I was a little nervous.  The first notable player that I had to play in my bracket was Furok's Chie, who is a pretty good Roa in MB.  I remember the first game, I got completely bodied by the basic oki setup, but after a while I calmed down enough to deal with that and take the next two games.  Then, I had to play against SKD's Yu.  Honestly, I think it went alot closer than I thought it would go, but I lost.  After being put into losers, I had to wait quite a while until I played.  But once I started playing, I didn't stop.  First, I played against, Pochp's S.Labrys, a Labrys, and Roku's Yosuke, who I all beat, though they were all pretty close.  I was made my way to loser's semi to fight against SKD's Yu.... Again.  Well, long story short, I lost in a much more convincing fashion.  I think it might have been because I had already resigned myself to my loss which didn't help at all.

I ended up getting 4th in my pool, which unfortunately wasn't as good as I wanted.  I did want to qualify for top 8, but watching top 8 was also great.  Though Blazblue was a complete disaster, so fuck that.  All of grand finals was fun to watch and hype to watch, though I did miss some of it because i had to play some of my matches.  Afterwards, I hanged out with east coast which is always great.  I have to say, I have the most fun at east coast tournaments especially those run by Big E. They're always fun, and I love the east coast community that I sometimes only get to see then.  I'll probably be able to go to NEC which is probably my most anticipated tournament.  With Japanese players going and once again a large pot bonus, I hope good things will happen.

Oh yea, Happy Cirno Day~