Help! I have no idea what I'm doing!
Your first objective should be to just have some fun. If you don't have fun playing this game when you're first learning it, you're not going to enjoy it enough to stick with it long enough to get good at it.
Don't force it. This is a game.
Even when you're playing the game at higher level you should still have fun. If you don't, find another character that's fun for you at high level or possibly even another game.
To get good you'll need:
- Training materials (the rest of this wiki).
- Other players:
- Find a local scene or build one yourself.
- Get your butt into the +R Discord: https://discord.gg/2yFPuB5
- Reference footage:
- http://horibuna.web.fc2.com/GGXX_ACPR/GGXX_ACPR_IN.html
- Also just run your own searches on youtube.
There are many individual skills you'll need to layer together to play any character in this game at a higher level. The Starter Drills will introduce some concepts and will help you practice some basic and intermediate skills.
There are numerous articles about how to get started with a fighting game when starting from nothing, and many of them are linked from the main page of this wiki. For your convenience, I'll link them here, but be aware that some of them use other games for their examples:
- Using_Training_Mode
- https://www.guiltygear.se/gg-fundamentals/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQQCan5oo90
- https://sonichurricane.com/?page_id=1702
Ok, but what do I do as I-No?
You want to land a hit, combo into a knockdown, force your opponent to block your music note projectile as they stand up, and then run a mixup while they're blocking. If they don't block correctly you get to do another combo and repeat the process.
A typical beginner gameplan is to use the Slash button at long range to control space, then airthrow if your opponent jumps at you.
However, I-No doesn't follow the typical gameplan because her far-slash isn't like anyone else's. It's a projectile, it's slow, and there's a gap between her body and where the attack actually physically exists. Also, her airthrow range is the shortest in the game. So you're going to do things a little differently.
You can use your crouching slash to check opponents similar to how other characters would use far-slash. It has long range, and it's actually better at checking movement because it must be blocked crouching. Then, you use far-slash from further away to force your opponent to try to go over or under it. Punish "over" attempts with jump-punch (j.P), standing-Punch (5P), or forward-Punch (6P). You punish "under" attempts with standing Heavy-slash (5H).
Note: Airthrow still works for beating "over" attempts, but with the poor range you'll need a lot of precision and it wont work in as many situations. It's not the go-to option for a new player.
Early on, try to get a feel for movement
I-No's movement is a bit odd. She becomes airborne when she dashes forward. You also have a forward moving attack that goes under most attacks while sliding along the ground, and you have an attack that dives from the air to the ground. You'll have a good degree of freedom when you get used to it, but you should be aware that these moves are somewhat committed. A character with this many strengths has weaknesses to compensate.
Fighting games reward finding the ideal distance from your opponent to control space without getting hit.
- Remember to walk. This character's dash is committed because it has startup frames where you can't do anything.
- Don't be afraid to fight at any specific range when you're learning. The ideal range is different against every character you fight.
- I-No almost always is happy to be at full-screen where she can safely shoot a music note projectile to get the opponent to block. The exception is when the opponent has a tool to punish note at that range.
- People call it "playing lame," but you should be content to only approach while the opponent is already blocking the multi-hit note projectile. This gives you a margin of safety to get close to them and use I-Nos strong high/low mixup game with far less risk.
- I-No almost always is happy to be at full-screen where she can safely shoot a music note projectile to get the opponent to block. The exception is when the opponent has a tool to punish note at that range.
- You don't have to think "I have to get in to win." You have strong mixup tools at close range, but you can also convert hits from long range attacks into full combos into knockdown. Now you're in and they're at a disadvantage on wakeup.
OK, I'm ready for the next step!
Check out I-No's overview page for her overview and write-ups on what each move is good for, Starter Drills to learn some fundamentals in a very Karate Kid "wax on, wax off" kind of way, her combos page to get an idea of how to run her combos, her strategy page for detailed writeups (like this one) covering a variety of topics, and the matchups page if any specific character gives you trouble. Also feel free to ask for help in the I-No section of the discord that's linked above.
