I believe in neutral anarchy, where walking forward and throwing out an armored button can count as neutral

To paraphrase someone from Twitch chat: "I run up immediately and get hit every time, therefore the game has no neutral"

Anyone who thinks high speed and mobility equals no neutral has never played Melty Blood, in a bathroom or otherwise.

"Neutral" means you and the opponent are in an even situation, and are free to make any decision next. "Neutral" to screaming people, means "let me win"

The speed limit is 66 because forward dashing skips neutral. :)

"Neutral is for chumps" - Sol Badguy, after using Ground Viper for the third time in a match

A lot of people's idea of neutral is 2 Ryu players walking forward and back only hitting low forward 🙄

Gonna make a fighting game where the round starts with both characters knocked down. Then, there's no neutral, only oki.

Maybe people don't notice the neutral decisions in mvc3 because half of them happen off screen

People have been saying anime airdashers have no neutral for years

This is the first time in 8 years I understand what's going on in Marvel 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I remember when I was playing Plus R against a streamer, one stoner kept repeating "look at this dude trying to play neutral in guilty gear lol". I was playing my regular Axl. A zoner.

So glad somebody with some presence said this. It’s fucking exhausting listening to people complain about “no neutral” as if such a thing is even possible

I think fast games can also be intimidating to people who aren't used to them because they have this misconception that you have to be paying attention to every little thing that is going on in order to play. But in my experience, as you play fast games more, you start to filter what you are actually paying attention to. Just takes some time.

This whole video was great, but I think what really ties it all together is how after the slow and methodical minutes-long breakdown of each and every interaction, Sajam just replays the entire match again without pausing and it's like "holy shit how many times does Doctor Doom get sniped, how do you keep up with this" Also I get the thumbnail, it's amazing (as always) Moste :)

10:06 "Ew green stuff bad" Sajam predicted people's opninions on drive rush

Finally, Sajam admits that Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 is a ground-based footsies fighting game

KOF players are breathing very heavily right now

On the flip side the decision making usually gets more complex in a slower game. Overwhelming the opponent by playing fast in a game that allows you to effectively play that way is more important than playing "right" and calculated. It's a 100% legit playstyle. Daigo actually talked about this why a player like Onuki who was so dominant in older SF titels struggles to reach the same success in the modern ones, while Daigo is still a world class player. Like imagine if you only had 1 second to consider your opponents moves in Chess, yeah it would be a totally different game and not necessary a more complex one. Two different skillsets, both are cool. It's sweet to see a player like SonicFox just overwhelm his opponents with high speed pressure and split-second decision making. But it's also really sweet to see a player like Daigo land 10 out of 10 flashkicks in a set due to his understanding of the game and his opponents psyche.

10:32 "Oh shit we're playing Noöch"

How fast you can process information and reaction times might be a real barrier to how much you can appreciate fast paced neutral games. But just because you would crash a Formula 1 car on a speedway doesn't mean it's not a car.

There wasn't a single combo in that game that hit the double digits. That's how good this analogy works.

Neutral is a state where both players don't have any particularly overwhelming advantage. Saying that a fast game has no neutral is kinda dumb cuz it implies that one person already has pressure on another just by the characters they're playing

Neutral is in every fighting game. Whether the game is slow or fast, clean or chaotic, and whether you think about your decisions or not, there is neutral.

Marvel seconds are like real seconds but s l o w

Lots of people have zero idea what neutral or footsies even mean. I've literally seen people with a straight face say gg has no neutral while watching Johnny vs Faust. They will watch John 6p a Faust 5s, or Faust 2Hing a Johnny 5H across the screen and still say gg is all oki.

It’s always been funny to me when people say Marvel 3 has no neutral because it’s the game that taught me the importance of good movement and controlling the screen.

Alternate Title: Just cause it isn't Street Fighter, doesn't mean it don't have neutral

This was actually such an awesome video. I've never been able to follow MvC but breaking it down was great, you really can see all the decisions.

The only way a game would NOT have neutral is if you could literally not walk backward or stand still ...just constantly running at the opponent

I had the most intense neutral game I have ever experienced in any fighting game when I played Goldlewis against a Anji

This is what newer smash fans sound like when talking about Melee. It's actually funny because I used to not like fighting games (especially street fighter) for a multitude of reasons but then I started playing competitive Melee. After that the first true "Fighting Game" I played was DBFZ because I love Dragonball and I was researching Marvel since I heard it was the "Melee of fighting games". I played DBFZ and the pace was really fast but I started to get it. Then now I am coming to all these fighting games I was never able to get into and the difference between SFV is like *sips tea* "mmmmm yes indeed, sometimes it is nice to slow down the game pace and just walk back and forth throwing out pokes/fireballs once in a while"

There's some kind of mental association between slow and strategy in some people. It's not just the FGC either, I've heard similar dismissals in other genres too.

melty neutral exists cause of good anti-airs rarely being present in kits. it's just different. but neutral still exists despite air mobility being good. it's not all air-to air since not all characters are good in the air(pciel for instance is slow in the air and can't cancel air normals into air normals like other characters). but the game still has grounded and air neutral.

Having arguments picked apart and things pointed out by this man Sajam is my kink

Sajam saying "Ew, green stuff bad" in relation to people not liking fast neutral was incredibly prophetic about the SF6 discourse.

Nova is so cool in this game. I'm sad the early 2010 Nova renaissance never materialized.

I have the utmost respect for people who are able to get so good at a game like Marvel, they can make such minute decisions on the fly under so much pressure. This was a great analysis, Stephen!

To this day, Nova vs. Magento is one of my favorite matchups to watch in any fighting game ever.

this is one of my favorite sajam vids, i've watched this like 8 times

It's crazy how casual who can barely play a fighting game property,tell pro players a game has no neutral because it's fast. 🤣😆

Great video. You explained it way better than I could and I will link to this video as a example till the end of my life.

as far as i can tell, marvel neutral means spamming the doom missile button

Everything is rushdown didn't you get the memo Sajam?

FGC: "[Insert game here] sucks because it's too fast paced and has no neutral/footsies. It's gimmicky af." Also FGC: "[Insert game here] sucks because it's too slow and neutral/footsie based. We wanna do cool combos and other crazy shit." Developers: "Screw it, let's just make a fighting game about [Insert anime here] that the casual gamer might enjoy. Time for us to touch some real money." FGC: "Wtf bro?! Hey [Insert streamer here] why don't developers listen to the community?" Streamer: "Because the community doesn't know what it wants. CASUALS, however, are much easier to please."

Great points in the video. I think when people say a game has no neutrals, they usually mean there's powerful options which will easily end neutrals, such as high mobility moves that are + on block, or approach options that are too safe. It could also mean that neutrals isn't a large enough factor to winning. For example, a game where winning neutral once leads to endless momentum, and not enough viable options to be able to escape that momentum.

That was such a sick analyzation of the GB and TA moons game, helped my feeble little brain understand marvel for a few minutes :)

I love how every team fighting game is just like : "Sir, how fast do you want the gam-?" "Y E S"

Didn't' know that Gears was the broccoli of fighting games. No wonder they taste so good! Great video as always. The explanation of the motives behind each action were excellent.

I think the lesson we can all take from this game is that marvel is great and everyone should play it more.

The topic the video is on is dope but your analysis of that 35 seconds of gameplay is fucking impressive man! I would have been thinking these guys are just jumping around but you break it down to an art form!

Damn, that was some absolutely juicy marvel analysis. I'm gonna need a cigarette after that.

THIS is the video both the FGC and FG developers need to watch, right now. Thanks for the educational content. It has been so frustrating to hear that "MKX has no neutral cause you can run" argument, I swear...

My thing with fast games isn’t that there’s no neutral, it’s just that my brain does not go fast enough to process the decisions lmao. I’m fucking stressed after blocking 30 df1s in Tekken, I can’t imagine some of these games with like 5 frame moves. I’d be a fucking old man after two matches.

ROAD SAFETY LAWS, PREPARE TO BE IGNORED

Sajam talking about neutral speed just makes me think of dragon ball. The whole “they’re moving faster than you can see” line. That’s what I imagine when people complain about slow neutral

That Thumbnail is hot fire..

i actually some how magically got into a player match yesterday in umvc3 on pc. it lagged like shit and neutral consisted of me spamming foot dive and the other guy spamming roll on frank with arthurs twin dagger assist, some things never change

That example was crazy. All that in 35 seconds, blows my mind. MVC3 too fast for me to play. :x Thx for the good breakdown.

As Sol in Plus R, I just run at people until I have enough meter to cannonball myself at them, or DI and run at them menacingly.

Neutral is like vegetables. Best comparison I've ever heard.

I personally love slower paced neutral like sf4. It gets super tense when both players can react to each other stuff/risky options like jump ins etc. Love games like +R though, which is on the opposite end. Mike Ross' Honda vs Honda match way back in SF4 is the pinnacle of neutral :P

Man my speakers kinda suck, I gotta raise the volume mad high to hear you Sajam.

I think I enjoy neutral in like a direct relation to how many movement options you have and how many ways you can convert off stray hits. Guilty gear, blazblue, melty blood, and kof are all really addicting for this. Stray hits leading to such critical damage often has the inverse effect to what these people assume in that it makes neutral EXTREMELY important even in the context of these games that aren't tag fighters.

I've come from the future to rewatch this after watching the latest neutral video on the channel

This video is freshhh

Man, this really helps me understand how little I understand Marvel. It's so fast and so much going on!

Fast neutral is cool, its the TOD combos that get me

That last bit about having to work harder to enjoy watching fast paced neutral explains why I struggle to watch games I'm not familiar with for more than maybe 10 minutes, it all blurs together to me

You understand neutral when you start seeing neutral in 1 touch death games.

I didn't realize Marvel 3 was the chess of fighting games.

"No neutral" is just one of the blanket terms people use if they don't like a modern fighting game.

To be real tho that is the most neutral heavy mvc3 match I've ever seen

I thought nuetral in marvel was the state of your stick when you let go of your controller after being touched.

always nice to see a Phoenix player get humbled

Neutral going over 69 mph will get you a $420 fine.

I think the 'speed' of the game has very little impact on how much neutral occurs. SF4 is relatively slow by comparison to most anime fighters, but get caught it one of its many cyclones and there won't be much neutral will there? In fact, in games like Strive/BB, Pot and Tager the SLOWEST characters are the ones who deny neutral the most, because they often rely on 50/50 mixups. BB has low neutral not because its fast, but because you can confirm 40-60% damage off of most hits at a high level and almost every combo leads into good oki, this coming from a BB fan. As has been pointed out before, Neutral is just the period where both players can press buttons. It is NOT synonymous with footsies, or grounded footsies or anything like it. If you don't like anime fighters because the footsies are partially airborne and require some harder reads and have bigger consequences than other games, fair enough, but complaining about their 'lack of neutral' just because they're faster than you're comfortable with is just disingenuous. Something doesn't cease to exist because you don't like it.

Neutral exists in all fighting games with one exception playing against sonic in smash

hey that vegetable enjoyment phase hits pretty close to me! coming from moderately paced games, at the end of ggst's 2nd open beta, I got a match with milia with me playing ino, although I'm sure we're unoptimal, being newcomers/midlevel players, we were buzzing across the screen and back and at some point I reached a cathartic state where my actions are no longer processed 100% by my brain. Much like the 6yo me would never understand the enjoyment of fresh crisp lettuce, the 25yo me might not understand that it's possible to not think and make the correct decision at the same time, multiple times.

Even dbfz that has universal neutral skips with vanish and super dash most of the game is neutral or blockstrings

I think it's a bit more about the feel of how much time is spent in the neutral, whether there's any mid-range poking/footsies, mechanics that have that "skip neutral" feel, and other elements that contribute to the game feel. This is why the genre was at it's least approachable for about 10 years. The fast pace and lack of time, per round, spent in the neutral (compared to pressure and combos) feels un-fun to more people than it appeals to. In game development, what matters most is that the feel of the game retains the majority of people who purchase and try the game and the game has to hook the player within the first 30 mins (on average). Otherwise the player will go play one of the myriad other games readily available.

And add some cheese sauce

Yeah , I've seen how the people, that claim MKX has no neutral play. It usually goes like this : MkX hAs NoOo NEutRal *immediately runs into jab string and dies*

The only neutral in sol matches is the pre fight cutscene that plays before he fights ky

PSA: Neutral and footsies don't mean the same thing.

Right but characters like Makoto were designed to negate neutral with her fast dash and EX hayate (albeit was used as a whiff punishment tool mostly) that’s why it took ‘till the next game and the 3rd update which was AE for her crouch MP to be more useful in neutral. Note:I’m a Makoto main.

What is this dnd alignment chart of footsies. Fucking chaotic good ken Vs true neutral Ryu and shit

I believe this idea comes from the misconception of Space Control on Neutral = Full Zoning. Maybe you should do a video about it.

when i think of a game with a lack of neutral i think of unist. speed has nothing to do with it. whether a game has more or less neutral than another game just comes down to what percent of the round is spent where neither player is in hitstun or blockstun. in unist this percent seems to be waaaay lower than any other game i've played. round starts, you move around for 2 seconds, someone throws out a full-screen normal and it leads into a 20 second blockstring, you get mixed, knocked down in the corner, wakeup in a blender, repeat until the round ends.

The faster the game, the faster the neutral is.

I had to learn this for myself when i had to play against chip whos just running around doing a bunch of stuff, if i do not match his speed i die.

KOF has a nice neutral with all the hops and rolls and stuff available for movement at high speed. KOF feels like im autopiloting and looking for a chance sometimes.

It looks like some people consider neutral as a synonym to footsies.

i wish there was a montage/highlight channel on JUST the high level movement in anime fighters like this clip was; i just want back to back neutral shmoovement, with no focus on combos in the videos 😭

As a Melty player I got that a lot "this game is too aerial and too fast, thus it doesn't have neutral" thankfully that dark age is in the past, ppl today are much more mindful

It isn’t that it doesn’t have neutral it just isn’t nearly as much the focus of the game. And some would argue that neutral is where all the tension is, especially for spectators

i define neutral as the decsions being made when both players are neither + nor - on block generally. I wouldnt say MVC3 has no neutral, its just a high stakes neutral where if you lose neutral once you usually end up losing the match. It definitely has less frequent neutral, where as in a game like SF, losing a couple neutral interactions doesnt lead to losing the whole round as much. This is why the phrase "1-player game" was popularized from the mvc3 days, cuz if you lose neutral once at high level, you are getting unreactable oki'd to death.

I have always believed neutral was everything up into a combo. I don't get people who think speed gets rid of neutral.

How do they make choices so fast?

Goddamn I miss this game