Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix Analysis and Future Tutorial

[oKutabareo]

Hey guys,

Super Gem Fighter / Pocket Fighter is one of the few quirky yet fun fighting games that Capcom has ever made. However, it seems that a lot of people tend to overlook such a great game because of its cutesy and simplistic three button interface. After playing around this game for a few months, it seems that there is so much more depth in the game than there is from a glance. Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix's mechanics, to me, are essentially a three button model simplistic combination of Street Fighter Alpha 3 and a bit of Dark Stalkers. It has many quirks that people either don't use or don't even realize that potentially can make the whole game challenging and fun. Thus, if you do play this game, it tends to be really hard to find good competition in 2DF or GGPO. Although there are guides on GameFAQs, they don't really go in depth on the mechanics of the fighting engine. For example, I have recently found that characters can really take advantage of frame counts or frame advantages. There are also bomb cancels, bomb kara cancels, and kara cancels that can be potentially used in a match, which I have done and proved to be quite useful (You can check out some of my matches on 2DF). The list goes on and on. I'll try to go more in depth with Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix by making a tutorial video or a written guide. It's a pretty underrated game that I wish more people would look into even if it's a twelve year old game. Also, I don't know if there is an official tier list for this game, but I have been seeing some weird tier list for Super Gem Fighter. I have compiled an unofficial tier list of my own and, of course, it is subject to be changed. Oh yeah, screw those fancy combos that you see on Youtube, the Pocket Genesis videos (On the contrary, the CLN1 basic combo video is pretty useful). More than half of those combos are just flashy and totally inapplicable because of air recovery or tumble.

Tier List After A Few Months of Playing and Testing:
- I based it on the character's effectiveness as a whole and it's dependency on gems. Obviously, characters who tend to depend on gems, leveled up specials, will be ranked a bit lower because it takes time to level up. -

Top Tier:
Chun Li - Excellent zoning, one of the fastest characters, excellent supers, good trades, excellent priority, best flash combos in the game, and crap load of frame advantage tricks.
Morrigan (Just a little under Chun Li) - Excellent zoning strategies, speed, supers, special air dash, damage output.
Ryu (Some might say Sakura should be here) - The usual all rounder shoto, excellent supers, good zoning, and fireball and throw pressure tactics. But, he's just a bit shitty with his initial bomb, nearly the most useless Lightning bomb.

Mid Tier:
Sakura - Strongest damage output of all shotos, good supers, good zoning, but she has a terrible glitch that makes her subject to a lower rank (The glitch that she can't defend against meaty attacks).
Zangief - Tick throw god, one frame throw combo god, good zoning, SPD pressure tactics, best user of the OTG move from Dark Stalkers, can take excellent use of bomb cancel, bomb kara cancels, and kara cancels, but can be stuffed out by shotos and himself.
Akuma - Good speed, good zoning, great dive kick, similar to Ryu but his weakness lies on his supers.
Hsien Ko - God of air dashing, good zoning, throw pressure tactics, throw to super setups, throw to bomb setups, but she requires at least the minimum of one super bar stock to be effective, which can be hard to come by.
Tessa - Excellent zoning, excellent flash combo pressure tactics, super jump dive kick pressures, but bad on trading, weak on supers, and dependent on leveled up specials.

Low Tier:
Ken - Good zoning, good dive in pressure tactics, Shinyuken is the only good super, but his leveled up specials will turn him to a shittier character and he has trouble building meter (He can't build meter with his Level 1 spin kick while the other three main shotos can, odd) unless his spin kick is Level 3 (Catch 22).
Ibuki - Good zoning, great corner pressure tactics, great rush setups, the second fastest character in the game, two great supers, but she is weak, too technical, can be too dependent on supers and gems, unfinished OTG mechanic, and faulty bugged Mega Crush mechanic.
Felicia - Decent zoning, two pseudo throw infinites, rolling super has good priority, catch, and damage, but she is too slow, and pretty dependent on gems to become effective.

Dan Tier:
Dan - Dan is Dan regardless if you level him up or not. He will always remain shitty or perhaps even shittier, but fun to use without a doubt.


2DFighter name: Kutabare

oKutabareo

[Maj]

I doubt you'd be able to find any tournament videos for this game, but i do remember CaliPower randomly mentioning it every now and again. Apoc ran a major Las Vegas tournament near the beginning of time that featured just about every Capcom game, including this one i think.

Unfortunately i don't have any first-hand information because all of this happened before i ever found the scene. Most old-school players hate playing games when they're rusty so i don't think you'd have much luck getting them to play you or even discuss strategy.

Anyway i'm looking forward to your video.

[oKutabareo]

Sorry, I haven't had the time to do some elaborate collaboration of tips and tricks for this game. But, this shall be a starter. A non air recoverable (Meaning totally legit), on ground, and usable combo for Chun Li against Gief.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXwyUTdw3tk

[oKutabareo]

A recent new discovery and useful combo for Hsien Ko.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erTbPdW7tzg

[Maj]

Whoa, that super is fast. Ken didn't even drop a pixel.

You should kick down some stylish Gem Fighter clips for our project.

[oKutabareo]

Another short update: Here is a sample of what the game engine of Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix is capable of.

Even though Ibuki, to me, is considered to be quite a low tier character, her speed and recovery is able to allow her to demonstrate some of the tricks in the game engine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDHnjGWHSn8

[jchensor]

Dude, I'm so excited by this!! I've always thought Gem Fighter was underrated and always thought there was more depth to the game than most people gave it credit for. But since no one ever played it, neither did I. But I never stopped wondering if the game actually had a fairly deep engine underneath.

Glad to see someone really exploring it. ^_^

- James

[oKutabareo]

*Gasp* THE jchensor responded to my thread! Haha.

I have a pretty big ass list of stuff that I have discovered about Gem Fighter's game mechanics. It's very heart breaking when I see random matches on GGPO or 2DF that don't use the game mechanics to the fullest. If both players are able to use the game itself to the max, this game can get very hectic (Zangief mirror matches are always Morton Salt level matches). It may be a three button game, but there's plenty of option selecting in this game and I mean a lot. Air recovery properties, wall bouncing properties, juggling properties, and throwing properties are just some of the little things that have to be taken considered during game play. Like the Ibuki combos, air recovery, bomb, sweep, and wall bounce properties were taken in consideration in making those combos. My goal is to find the best examples of legit combos (Meaning all hits are done consecutively without allowing the option of air recovery by the opponent) and setups for a better game play. For now, I'll make random short combos from various characters, but I'll make a tutorial when I find enough time and material sorted.

oKutabareo

[krusan]

Looks quite interesting. I have seen some combos for this game but it seems there is a lot to be shown yet and WE WANT TO SEE IT!!! Even if it is an underrated game, if you have deep knowledge about things not shown, IMO, you should show all this material.
Keep going!!!

[Don Vecta]

Okay, I'm interested into this. I'd like to see more info and stuff about the game.

Good tier analysis.

[oKutabareo]

Here's some useful BnB combos for Zangief in a typical match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_-KQCJyhxQ

[oKutabareo]

Pseudo Infinite Demonstration: (False Infinites)

Here's a demonstration on the game's air throw mechanics and gimmicks that can be used to abused people who don't air recover.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6v953zIppQ