6-4 Fight Tips, or: Understanding Atavaka

[Just_Matt]

I'm making this thread for anyone who might have trouble fighting Atavaka, the game's rival character who stomps you into the ground on stage 1-3.

I'm doing this mainly because it's a fight that plays on a very different set of rules from the rest of the game, half of which are taken from how fighting games work - so if you're not familiar with those, that fight is gonna be kind of a problem.

The base concept behind this fight is that Atavaka plays the same game as you, but better. You are to him what the normal enemies are to you - as such, it is the only time in the whole game where you're put in a position of genuine disadvantage.

His moveset is similar to yours, but with one big difference: he has a grab that can catch you if you try to jump, air recovery or dash across him. That narrows down your movement options to one thing, and you're going to have to get good at it:

Backdashing

Specifically, backdashing while throwing out light attacks - either standing or (potentially better?) crouching. You can backdash without changing direction by pressing the dash button with no other directional input. If you're doing both of those while keeping out of range from his attacks, then congrats - you are now engaging in...

"Neutral play"

In fighting games, neutral play is the moment during a match where neither of the players has a gameplan figured out yet, so they're just throwing stuff out and sizing each other up. It is also something you never do in SZX - because, at any given time, you're in a position where you can and should dealing damage: your DT gives you HP back if you deal damage, enemies stop attacking if you're hitting them, etc. This here fight is not the case, so the first step to beating it is, genuinely, taking stock of your own mortality.

His moveset also features a long-range sweep, a teleport, a light attack combo similar to yours, a palm strike and a stomp. Most of these moves can be avoided by using your dash's iframes to get out of dodge, albeit with different timings. I haven't mastered the fight myself, but I understand it enough to tell you that understanding neutral play is 50% of the effort required to beat it.

As for everything else, the same rules apply: try to keep it your fatal sync up as long as possible by looping it with your offensive burst - especially because, by and large, bursting while his armor is still up will only leave you open to more damage. That is, coincidentally, something that can happen to you in the game the Burst mechanic is taken from: Guilty Gear - in which "burst baiting", i.e. creating situations in which players are tempted to burst, only to leave themselves open, is a decade-old tactic by now.

Air recovery shares a similar issue, in which staying in the air leaves you vulnerable: the same logic that usually applies to regular enemies, now flipped on its head and applied to you. In that case, you can actually recover on the ground by holding "down" and pressing jump. That should give you time to dash away and make some distance again.

Lastly, you should seriously learn how to consistently use one of the game's two secret Super Arts: "Border Breaker". It is executed at full meter OR at ANY TIME during fatal sync (which is why you should have it up as long as you can), and it instantly breaks armor/deals an immense amount of damage.

You should NOT be aiming to break his armor with it in this fight, but rather to do it during neutral play. Once you do, pop fatal sync, combo him in any way that leaves him on the ground and input Border Breaker (Down + Down + Down + Light + Heavy) - if it all goes right, the move should be going off as soon as he gets up: meaning he'll take all the damage from it directly.

I'm by no means a master at either fighting games nor action games, but I think understanding an encounter's logic helps a lot with actually taking it down - so i hope this basic tip guide helps! I'll probably write it down as an actual Steam Guide at some point if i have time. If not, someone better can do it.

[bionicviper]

Nice. Thanks for this.