Hit Box enthusiast Johan from Denmark keeps it classy with an impressive Dudley combo video in SSFIV:AE. Below the break we asked him a few questions about his video and experiences on the Hit Box.
1. How long have you been on the Hit Box, and how are you liking it so far?
I've been playing on Hit Box for about six months and I'm very happy with it so far. I got started on a pad, but since I never played a lot of games on console it just didn't feel quite right for me. I figured I better get a stick, the consensus seemed to be that it was the ideal controller for fighting games, but since I didn't grow up in an arcade either, that felt incredibly strange for me too. After some months of honest effort I was getting better, but it was still much more of a struggle than I expected. Since AE had come out on PC and I had been playing on that platform, I decided to try out playing on keyboard with a Hit Box layout for fun one day, and it didn't take me long to upgrade to the real thing after that.
2. Is this your first combo video, and do you have more videos in mind for the future?
This is my first full-length combo video and I definitely have plans to continue doing these and hopefully get better at it as I go along. I'm actually working on a Dhalsim combo video as we speak. I was quite surprised at some of the discoveries I made trying to find new things to do, though you never know if someone was there before you. Still it's a ton of fun for me, so this definitely won't be the last one and I hope to improve and expand my channel with more content like this, maybe even other games some day?
3. What words of wisdom would you give to people just getting started on the Hit Box?
I think the biggest advantage of playing on a Hit Box, besides a personal preference for buttons, is the ability to analyze and fix your execution errors much more directly than on a stick or pad. If you're trying to do a half-circle motion on a stick and you messed it up somehow, it can be hard to know exactly what to do different other than to practice and "just get better" until you land it every time. Because the issue is physically hitting the right inputs, it can be pretty intimidating for new players, it certainly was for me. With a Hit Box, every motion can be broken down into a sequence of button presses and releases. If you miss an input, you can easily tell what you did wrong by looking at the inputs and seeing where in the pattern you went wrong (whether you released a button too late or too soon etc.). To me that's much less arbitrary than hitting or missing with a joystick, you only have to worry about binary movements (press or release). You still have to practice, but you have more to work with.
4. Is the Hit Box helping your execution?
4. Is the Hit Box helping your execution?
It's definitely helped from the get-go, but my execution has improved quite a bit in the time I've used it too. That said, there's no way around practicing and any timing in any game remains exactly the same. It's a fantastic controller, but unplinkable 1-frame links remain unplinkable 1-frame links (unless you're Sako).
Great video, Johan! Be sure to like his video and encourage more good stuff!