this right here

Well said.

I think u are exaggerating this too much. Lot of the people just don't want to touch the entire roaster of characters and diving deep into the game U know that if u pick this character u will be 'almost' get rewarded for playing. There is no this "nerdy" shit. Why I should wasting my time and losing the shit out instead of picking the BASE?

@@malenkoechado4445 huh

@@malenkoechado4445 bro what are you talking about

Absolutely. I was just about to comment this. The smash definition of a shoto is not the traditional fighting game definition. It is, as you said, a guest character that has motion inputs and automatically faces towards the opponent.

Let's be honest here, that's not the _only_ reason the FGC keeps clowning on Smash players. lmao

@@_Jay_Maker_ its funny too since there are arguably shotos that are within the smash universe without other fgc characters

@@davidtinfoil9324 mf super mario is more shoto than kazuya

@@davidtinfoil9324 Mario is a shoto

‘I must work on my oki, I must work on my spirit’

i guess that's why, from time to time, you get the teabagging kyle players. he just did run up on me several times and I didn't react to it at all. i deserve all that bag.

That's exactly the feeling. Get a good read on the opponent and win the round: I am a genius Try to do something saucy and lose the next round: Oh no! Dragon Install and Ky j.D are a trap!

@@AchedSphinx Ky running at you full screen based on a prophetic dream he had 2 weeks ago telling him that this run up grab will hit

Yep, this is why I usually pick shotos.

An important tip for new people is to still play who you think looks cool. Some people don’t like shotos because they can feel too “bland” and a lot of new players have a more casual mindset of “hit buttons and watch cool shit happen.” I do love to use shotos to learn mechanics in fighters that I’m personally new to.

It's also important to mention that shotos have their priviledges as well, even if they don't have explicit gimmicks. Unless the character is truly abysmal, there's no such thing as picking a character that doesn't ignore some part of the game and doesn't "carry you" in some way.

@@eduardoserpa1682 Needs more upvotes. Shotos tend to have 'better in class' tools compared to the cast. The good ones rarely, if ever, have worst in class or bottom end iterations of tools. Their footsie buttons, invincible wakeups, anti-fireball tools, or fireball are almost always pretty good, especially compared to the rest of the cast.

@@sylascole5254 I mean, they do act as crutches, but you can kind of choose which crutch to leave behind when you branch out to different characters. Works like a charm tbh

I still remember my first steps in fighting games, trying the Shoto type was the first time I understood 'yo, don't just run in and push buttons'. I realized I could throw fireball and wait for the other guy to do something stupid. That first match where I realized 'he jumps every single fireball' and beat him for it got me hooked.

I feel this comment a lot. GG Strive is my first GG experience and I gravitated towards Ky because almost every other character is specialized in some way, making the game feel more like an obligation to learn. Ky is just so easy to understand and play so I get to have fun with less time commitment.

Nah you're valid for caring about the lore.

@@NemSumeragiexactly gg's lore goes fucking HARD

If it's in the game you're valid for caring about it imo. I feel very similarly about Sol, I wanted to play him before I knew anything about Guilty Gear just from his looks, theme, and what I read about him as a character. Turns out he's fun as fuck and I've since played him across Strive, Rev 2 and +R.

I feel the same way with ryu. I'm a huge nerd for lore and ryu's story was just compelling to me

Another shoto W

in shoto we trust.

He has a few frames of ducking at the start of the move so he can go below highs and hit you. Not invincible to anything else though.

Even cooler when the sword happens to be a railgun

Id say not, because her unique tools like dash and drive mean you cannot play her like a shoto very well, she is very much made to get in

‘You play a top tier because he’s busted. I play a top tier because he just happens to be a shoto. We are not the same’

yeah it's a plus on block launcher/whiff-punisher, not a yolo reversal move

It is invincible in smash though, and that's what started the discussion

Not sure why not in ultimate, but I guess in Tekken it’s a different move entirely. News to me. Maybe the ultimate version is too fast(projectile speed) or too slow(active frames) to work as a “real” fireball. I think it’s mostly used for edge guarding, so I guess we could require it to be some level of neutral tool?

@@sumthinorother9615 Yeah, Kazuya is definitely not a shoto in Tekken, but he at least fulfills the upward move, sideways move, fireball thing in smash. Kazuya isn't a shoto in tekken, but I think he might be in ultimate lmao

it's a beam, not a fireball; the travel time makes the difference since you can no longer move independently of it onscreen

@@Jako3334074 Fair enough

This is what Shotos should be. I think LK’s definition is a little too street fighter specific. If we’re gonna use it as a general fgc term, then we need to generalize it to apply to other fighting games. I agree w u 100%

I mean, if you want to call fillia a shoto then she still fits the general characterization of dp, forward advancing move (the spike ball move) and drill could be a projectile. For a shoto in that game tho, i generally think of annie 9 times out of 10. But i dont think SG is a game that has characters that only fit one archetype. They usually check 2 or 3 boxes, or else they make their own archetype. I personally wouldnt call gio a shoto either. Shes built closer to a cammy imo. But this is all just my opinion. Take it or leave it 🤷🏾‍♂️

Akuma is another example. He's strong but is made out of paper and his combos can be awkward and tight.

Well, is he?

I'd like to know if shotos exist in 3D fighting games and who they are.

@@smoothsavage2870 Akuma in Tekken 7 i guess counts.

The problem with defining shotos as "the model of how the game is meant to be played" is then shoto doesn't mean much to some one who isn't familiar with the given game, and it's not too useful if you know how the game is played since you've already moved beyond the bounds of vague archetypal definitions. And it's not at all useful for talking about broader trends in fighting game design if the only definitive connective tissue between them is "they're the one on the box art" Especially when you can use a much clearer description to convey that idea than an old iffy term from 90s arcades, like "the fundamentals character" or something.

@@commiekin There's a lot wrong with this post. First, "Model of how the game is meant to be played" isn't representative of what I posted. You might feel like it's some essentialization because you're keen to dismiss it - but it's wrong. Secondly, a lot of Shoto players tend to plateau with the characters because they lose focus on what the archetype's strengths are. I think my definition can help with that. Feel free to disagree. Lastly, this is just fighting game nerd talk. This whole discussion is only going to be useful to a small subset of an already small subset. This is like coming in to a discussion of Pokemon card players trying to optimize MTG slang terms and telling them they're wasting their time.

@@SLFKimosabae " they're the archetype that best models the dynamics of a specific game's system mechanics" are your words. That is a description of a character who is good at that specific game's fundamentals, who is the model of a game is "meant to be played" on a basic level. Also the idea that you should play to your archetypal strengths is not good advice. You don't get better at playing a character by thinking of how their archetype is meant to be played, you get better by thinking of their specific toolset is used. For example if some one asked you how to play Kazuya better and you said "remember the strengths of a Mishima type" you haven't really told them anything because there's many different characters identified as Mishimas. There's three or four pure Mishimas - Kazuya, Devil Jin, Boring Jin (Some people might disagree but whatever), and Heihachi - who play differently from each other and use a similar toolset to emphasize different elements of the game, and then you have all the more Mishima light characters - Kazumi, Bob, and even Armor King. Even in this video two characters are identified as Shotos - Sol and Ky - who are not going to be helped by being given the same advice of "play more like a shoto." Pot doesn't need to think about how Zangeif is played, they have different problems and different tools to solve them. (e: Or an even more extreme example, MB's Kouma and Zangief) There are some transferable skills and ideas, sure, but those are things you learn as you learn to play your character. And yeah this is nerd talk but the point of verbiage and terminology is to be useful. To have utility. To convey meaningful information neatly and cleanly. Archetypal definitions can't convey a deep understanding of a character's toolkit but it can be useful for giving a quick if shallow impression of how a character plays to people who aren't familiar with the game. That doesn't really work very well if you have to then also explain a game's unique quirks and meta and all that. At that point you might as well just explain how a character really functions. Like as an outsider, you calling Captain Falcon Melee's "unofficial shoto" doesn't mean anything to me, and I'm going to bet people who are familiar with Smash are going to use more specific terminology to talk about what he's capable of and what he's good at rather than relying on an extremely broad archetypal term. e: Meanwhile, to use one of the few Smash terms I kinda understand, once I know what defines a space animal I've gotten an immediate impression of how at least three different characters kinda play. To be honest I don't think shoto is a very useful concept outside of Street Fighter. It's a bit like the term Mishima, and I don't think there's any way to make it a useful encapsulation of how a character plays outside of its originating franchise, but at least when you tell me a character is a shoto by the basic definition you've told me what some of their moves are.

Kazuyas don’t use laser in neutral the same way ryu or ken would. You don’t see Kazuyas throwing out a laser then trying to get in after the laser comes out.

As a Nightmare player I can relate. I kinda like shotos but... Give me the one with the longest normals lol. Currently playing Sin, just like I did in Xrd. I hope Beak Driver becomes the neutralizer it used to be