Basic Combo Video Etiquette: Content

Every combovid begins and ends, succeeds or fails, with quality of content. Everything else is secondary to how good the combos are. However, the presentation of the content certainly leaves an impression on viewers, so it matters as well. Here are some quick and easy tips to point your video in the right direction.

    #1: Do your research. If you’re making CvSPro combos, watch every CvSPro combo video you can find. Make sure you’re either making improvements on their combos or going in a different direction entirely. There’s no reason to duplicate anyone else’s combos or to produce inferior versions of anyone else’s combos. There’s always room to find original material in any game, especially the good games.

    #2: Try to convey an interesting concept within each combo. Either build the combo around a new discovery, or try to incorporate at least one unexpected element into every combo.

    #3: Plan ahead so that your combos don’t end up looking too similar. If you have three clips starring the same character, with the same beginning, the same ending, and the same core concept, your video will turn out repetitive and monotonous.

    #4: If the combo works midscreen, keep it midscreen. Save the corner for true corner-only combos. Generally, midscreen combos are more technically impressive. They also look better simply because they seem more challenging, they take up more of the screen, and you don’t have to worry about fancy supers/ultras getting cut off by the corner.

    #5: Don’t overuse Rolento/Zangief/Chang/Honda as dummy opponents unless the idea absolutely demands it. If the combo works against a thinner opponent, use someone less common like Guy, Vice, C.Viper, Yun, whatever.

    #6: This should go without saying, but it comes up often enough that it bears repeating. Make sure your combos actually combo! Random combo videos pop up all the time containing two or three failed combo attempts and that’s just plain simple laziness. It’s quite annoying to see something that amateurish in a combo video; and makes it seem like a waste of time watching the video. Always do one last check to verify that the number of hits matches the combo counter in every clip.

    #7: If the game includes a recovery mechanism, make the dummy recover whenever possible. For example, SFA3 combos should be performed with automatic air recovery (tech flips) enabled in Training Mode. If you perform the combo in Versus Mode, at least verify that it’s inescapable beforehand by using Training Mode or some other precise method. If your project inentionally includes combos that are escapable, then make a note of it in the video.

Adhering to these basic standards should help you produce consistently high-quality content for all your combo video projects.

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3 Responses to Basic Combo Video Etiquette: Content

  1. darcontek says:

    haha don’t take me too seriously when I write this but you should write don’t use your cell phoen to record, use a capture card. It’s like the difference between using a videocam to bootleg a movie vs. a straight from dvd rip.

    • Maj says:

      I’m going to write two more articles along these lines – one for video capturing and one for editing. Although not everyone has a capture card and i don’t mind cell phone videos if they show something interesting, but i’ll figure out a way to mention that somehow.

      Btw i posted your video yesterday. Tell us some stories!

  2. darcontek says:

    Hmm. Stories?

    The first arcade game I truly fell in love with was Marvel vs Capcom 1 when I was 11 years old. Seeing Megaman and Spiderman in the same game blew my mind away and all I did was think about how I was going to get good at the game. My local arcade was actually a videogame store in the city of Rowland Heights, CA called “Game Store” and it was incredibly cheap because it was one of the few places where the game was only a quarter since most arcades were either going out of business or raising their prices (at gameworks marvel vs capcom cost 75 cents to play).

    I think the true benefit of the arcade experience for me as a kid was being better than older people (teenagers or adults) at something. It gave me such incredible satisfaction knowing I was better and I could beat people.

    After my local game store closed down, I started going to SHGL. I wasn’t a regular and would only go once in a blue moon. What I really noticed different from my previous arcade is that the top players put an insane amount of dedication and lived to play every game out there from SF, KOF, Tekken, and Marvel. This is very different from videogame culture today (at least in my eyes) because people seem to only hold onto being good at one game and one game only.

    The end of my arcade game experience came when Marvel vs Capcom 2 came out. The game didn’t live up to my expectations because it felt like a copy and paste mashup of previous marvel games. Also i didn’t like how assists didn’t have limitations and the background music was just awful jazzercise music. I remember the tourney scene being incredibly huge for that game… but that didn’t do much for me at least.

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