Part 11: Update #11 Ground Dodging

Yeah same, the only interesting technique available in stage 2 is Mule Kick since it's the first juggle you get, except many people will outright dismiss it since it's not cancellable, has an awful startup animation and lets you open to attacks for a very long time. That's something I really don't like about god hand, how uninteresting your techniques are up until you reach stage 4/5 which is more than halfway through the game. This really makes your playstyle and skill floor stale as you have barely any interesting techniques to play around with.

Having said that, I think I'm biased and forgot about how balancing works in a game like god hand, especially how players must feel during their first playthrough, so maybe not having a lot to play around with is probably for the best if someone is still unfamiliar with the controls or the game, although I would disagree but the whole slow character progression is one of my biggest pet peeves. When it comes to games like DMC and Bayo, I find the starter moveset very boring and samey, I don't like having to wait until the endgame to finally be able to experiment and juggle with more weapons and more moves and have fun, I don't like grinding for money/red orbs either (I had my share of doing chapter 2 in bayo 1 over and over just to get more rings and it was awful, just give me sai-fon and let me play as jeanne already, goddamnit kamiya.)


Update #11

It's that time again

Ground Dodging

tl;dr time a Running Slide, Sweep, Reverse Sweep and Drunken Sweep to dodge (most) projectiles

Ground Dodging (aka "limbo dance" dodging as I like to call it), is the ability to avoid enemy offensives by using unorthodox ways to low attack. There are certain techniques in the game that allow Gene's hitbox to move so low, they open up-dodging prospects that were impossible before otherwise.


2 hours in mspaint

The ideal position for a Ground Dodge puts Gene beneath his standing-waist height; of course, this entails that whatever weaving (up on the right stick) can avoid, Ground Dodging is able to as well. The main benefit of it all comes from removing half the space the model takes standing up. This allows you to formulate new strategies to work beyond the scope of actual dodges. As a result, some patterns become easier to counteract without having to sacrifice position.

The moves which reliably use this property are:
-Running Slide (locked move, while running press X)
-Sweep (locked move, up on right stick+triangle)
-Reverse Sweep
-Drunken Sweep

The middle of the animation for Barrel Roll Kick also puts you in this stage, however this doesn't apply to the startup and recovery animation. No other move despite evading high attacks seems to share this specific characteristic. The problem with trying to perform this is that none of these moves can be dodge cancelled, so you need to know precisely where and when using this approach will help. It may require a bit of testing.

To close up, remember this doesn't make you invincible (against grab attacks for example) so keep position and timing for different moves in mind.