Actually, this is really good advice.
But in other news, guess who got the game today? HAHA! I won't turn on the NSO until I get back from vacation though (December 4th). I'll just try different fighters in the Ferrum league for now. :)
If anyone else has experience in this game, feel free to post.
Nah's generally covered the gist, as a fighting game player myself I'd probably add:
Training modes and the such are your best friend. Once you've decided on a character/playstyle you want to hone, sit in the training room and just... practice. Practice everything. Take your special moves and use them against each character, seeing if they can punish it on block and if so, what with. Do the same the other way around - have dummies use moves on you and see what you can punish it with.
Learn your combos/mixups! There is a term - bread and butter - for combos that should be your go-to every time, so take the time to really learn them inside out so it becomes muscle memory. Following that, experiment with your punishes. Once you've learned that XYZ attack can be punished on block, see if instead of just one move/normal, you can do a combo to punish it. Maximise the damage and then comes the fun bit...
...learning Oki/Yomi! That is, mixups! Once you've got an idea of your frame data and such (so knowing what attacks either are, or look, safe on block and such) you can start experimenting with scenarios to try and keep your opponent on their toes. A typical example would be that a lot of people will for example always throw after the end of a certain blocked string, so it conditions the opponent into then pressing throw in anticipation and perhaps not blocking. Mixup in this case means that once in a while, you'll instead attack, causing them to whiff and then punishing them appropriately. All about getting into the opponent's head and capitalising on that!
I hope you enjoy Pokken, it's not my first choice when it comes to these games but I know it has some very fun characters and mechanics so I think you'll have fun!
