STREET FIGHTER III 3rd STRIKE: GILL FAQ (arcade version) -= SAL's guide to world domination and body paint =- STORY: The time is almost upon us. The two opposing forces of the universe that have been with us for all time will soon collide. Yet as the event draws nearer, I find myself experiencing disturbing moments, as brief as they are, of trepidation. I am the one prophesized to curb the impending doom by controlling the coming forces of utter destruction. I have spent my entire existence preparing for it, since the very moment of my creation. And yet, as that which was destined unfolds at last, I strangely feel, in small passing moments, that which the mortals refer to as apprehension. Have I been tainted by exposing myself to these inferior beings for too long? Their irrational and short-sighted motivations disgust me. Can they not see how foolish their ambition for freedom truly is? Perhaps their lowly minds are simply too limited to ever realize the importance of my task. Regardless, the fate of the world will soon be guided by my power alone, and the prophesized future shall surely unfold regardless of mankind's ignorant resistance. All of the preparations have proceeded within schedule... let the revolution begin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NORMAL ATTACKS: This is only a list the attacks Gill will use. If it's not listed here, you probably won't be seeing him use it, or ever wanting to use it yourself. JAB Punch A quick jab that can be chained into his standing Strong Punch. He'll poke with this at close range, and use it's priority to cancel out some Super Arts and special attacks. SHORT Kick A quick low kick with very little range or usefulness. He doesn't use it very often. D + SHORT Kick Can be chained into another crouching Short or a crouching Forward Kick, which he will try to do often. Luckily, it doesn't have much range. Watch out for it up close though, because it's one of his favorite pokers and cancelling attacks. JAB Punch + SHORT Kick Gill grabs you, holding you up in a choke hold with one arm. It inflicts surprisingly little damage compared to his other throw, but the computer will use this randomly instead of it anyway. F/B + JAB Punch + SHORT Kick A pile driver attack that amazingly takes off about as much life as Alex's Power Bomb, making this the most powerful normal throw in the game. If he's pulling this off on you, you know you're letting him get way too close way too often. STRONG Punch A quick straight punch. Not much range or damage, so don't worry about it too much. Like the Jab, he'll use it's priority to knock you out of some lesser-priority Super Arts or specials. F + STRONG Punch An uppercut he'll use to knock you out of the air on occasion. Not that good, but can be effective as an air defense, especially with his precise timing to ensure it will connect. D + STRONG Punch A sliding elbow attack that moves him forward quite a bit. He can chain a crouching Fierce off of this, but it rarely connects as a true combo. Be sure to block after seeing this move though, because he usually likes to throw out the Fierce afterwards whether it connects or not. FORWARD Kick Straight kick with decent range. Another poker, but not too dangerous of one. F + FORWARD Kick A sliding poke kick, that's not too bad for range. He slides forward about as much as with the crouching Strong. He can't chain anything onto this one though, so it's mainly just annoying rather than dangerous. D + FORWARD Kick Pretty good range. He'll be poking with this a lot, just like all his other low attacks. Try to watch out for this move, and be prepared to block low against it when you think it's coming. STRONG Punch + FORWARD Kick A standard overhead. He doesn't use it much, but he'll occasionally throw it out to counter a lot attack of yours. FIERCE Punch He smacks you with a chop attack with this one. Really fast, and does pretty good damage, but leaves him momentarily open when he misses. It also lacks the range of most of his other moves, so it makes a good opening to watch for and take advantage of. D + FIERCE Punch His big combo setup move. This is a two-hitter that launches you on the second hit. Great as an air counter or in close on the ground. After you get hit by it, he can chain all kinds of stuff to make some really nasty combos. This is definately his best normal attack, and the one you want to watch out for the most. It's ground range is limited though, sometimes leaving him really open if it misses. FIERCE Punch (while jumping) The air version of the standing Fierce chop. Good priority, especially against jumpers, but not much range. He uses the jumping Roundhouse a lot more than this one. ROUNDHOUSE Kick An overhead kick that's surprisingly good at hitting you while simultaneously avoiding your low attacks. Start trying to sweep him a lot and just watch him use this move to counter it all the time. It leaves him a bit open if it misses though, so considering how much he uses it this is probably one of your best opportunities to get free hits. D + ROUNDHOUSE Kick An incredibly good foot sweep move. It's range, speed, and damage are all simply unbelievable, making this probably his best normal attack aside from the crouching Fierce. Just be grateful it knocks you down so he can't combo off of it. ROUNDHOUSE Kick (while jumping) Like his foot sweep, this has incredible horizontal range. He'll almost always use this on a grounded opponent while descending from a jump, and it has so much priority that trying to counter it directly often results in trading hits at best, and your move being countered by it at worst. He always uses it at exactly the same point during the jump though, so learning to parry it instinctively isn't too hard with practice. FIERCE Punch + ROUNDHOUSE Kick Gill laughs it up at his pathetic opponent. The real Gill never uses this, but you can if you morph into him with Twelve. It leaves you totally wide open for a beating, so I wouldn't recommend getting this cocky against the computer's Gill while the match is still going. It makes a great showoff move if you still have time to do it after landing your finishing blow on him, though. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPECIAL ATTACKS: Note that although Gill's super bar will flash to indicate the use of EX moves has become available, he apparently has no EX moves to use it on. PYRO/CRYO KENESIS - D,DF,F + Punch A projectile move of either fire or ice depending on whether he's facing left or right. It hits twice, and therefore must be parried twice. It is able to pass through most other normal projectiles, and will often cancel out EX projectiles. It can also be angled with the button, with Jab travelling horizontally, Strong travelling at about a 30 degree angle from the ground, and Fierce travelling further upwards at about 60 degrees. Gill uses this move fairly infrequently, but can use it to intercept jumpers as an aerial defense with fairly good accuracy. Practice the double-tap parry for this move, and be prepared to defend against it in the air if necessary. SABER LARIAT - F,D,DF + Punch A dashing clotheline attack that has incredible damage potential. Like most of his other attacks, this one is able to hit twice. The first point of impact occurs directly at the start of the move, and the second as he dashes forward. If you're on the ground, the first hit will likely miss, unless he uses it as a counter right up close. If you're jumping in on him, the first hit has a better chance of connecting. Each hit does about as much as both hits from a Pyro/Cryo Kenesis, making this his most damaging special attack overall. Both hits connecting successfully mostly only occurs in cases of using it as a counter against a jumping attack though, and even then it's rare. He'll make use of this move randomly as a counter, and occasionally as a spontaneous ground attack. The speed of this move makes it almost impossible to parry, and Gill isn't left open for most attacks even after the lariat is blocked, but countering using a normal throw (Jab + Short) or a Super Art after blocking it is usually a safe retaliation. PSYCHO HEAD BUTT - D,DB,B + Punch A quick hopping headbutt move that resembles the look of a standard overhead (Strong + Forward). Gill almost never uses this outside of combos, but can be devastating when he frequently chains it after his crouching Fierce. The button used varies the damage, distance, and recovery speed of the attack. The Jab version can always be chained twice after the crouching Fierce, where as the other two can only be done once in this situation. A four-hit combo of his crouching Fierce followed by two Jab Psycho Head Butts is certainly Gill's best technique that doesn't make use of a Super Art. MOONSAULT KNEE DROP - F,DF,D,DB,B + Kick Gill leaps into the air and lands on the opponent's head knees first. It hits twice, and therefore must be parried twice, except in rare cases where the second hit misses and he lands directly on the ground after hitting you only once. Missing with the second hit occurs the most frequently against small characters such as Oro, Twelve, and the twins Yun and Yang. If both hits are blocked, he can occasionally be hit with certain fast-moving attacks as he rebounds off of you, such as Yun's Zesshou-Hohou (D,DF,F + Jab) and Q's Dashing Head Attack (charge B,F + Jab). If the second hit misses, though, he will immediately land on the ground and will not be left vulnerable at all. He's also vulnerable to moves like the Shoryu-Ken if used to intercept him before the Knee Drop connects. Still, the best way to deal with this is often in parrying it. Practice getting the timing down on parrying for the Pyro/Cryo Kenesis, and simply use the same timing for the double hit of the knee drop. Sometimes he'll pull this move off spontaneously, but often dashes backwards before starting it, so be sure to watch for that tell-tale sign and prepare to react accordingly. After parrying both hits successfully, he's left open for retaliation either in the air or the moment he touches the ground. That moment of ground vulnerability is extremely tight, but with practice you can learn to take advantage of it with nearly any ground combo you want. Assuming you can successfully parry it, this move is the one you actually want him to do, because it allows you the biggest potential opportunity for free hits aside from his Seraphic Wing Super Art. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SUPER ARTS: Note that unlike other characters, Gill has no Super Art selection process in which he must choose one over the others. Instead, he always has access to all three of his Super Arts, all of which use up his entire Super Art meter to perform. RESURRECTION (1 charge maximum) - automatically activated when knocked out This isn't a controllable Super Art, but qualifies as one regardless, due to it's use of the Super bar. If Gill loses all his life while his Super meter is filled, this move is then automatically activated. Instead of you normally winning the round against him at this point, Gill will float up into the air and start regaining his life back. His life bar will quickly increase during this pose until it fills up to 100%, or he is hit by any attack, which will immediately cancel the move and stop his life bar from increasing any further. He is invulnerable during the initial start of the move though, essentially guaranteeing him at least 10-15% life regeneration no matter what. In addition, his body emits a sort of reverse vacuum effect while floating, pushing you away from getting near him. This only has enough force to stop moves which don't have much horizontal distance or movement to them, though. Although he is in the air during this move, the vacuum renders vertical anti-air attacks mostly ineffective because of this. The best thing to do to counter this is to dash in as close as possible after knocking him down, and then perform a move with as much horizontal movement and speed as possible during the initial stages of the move. To illustrate this point, Ryu's Shoryu-Ken is a completely ineffective counter for this move, as it has virtually no horizontal distance, and will be immediately pushed out of striking distance even when done extremely close to Gill. Alternatively, his Tatsumaki-Senpuu-Kyaku makes an excellent counter, as it's fast horizontal movement makes it essentially immune to the Resurrection's anti-vacuum effect. Simply apply this information to other characters to determine what move would be best suited to counter the Resurrection, then get in close and dish it out. An interesting point worth mentioning is that he is unable to gain Super energy at all for the remainder of the round after resurrecting, so it can be a good thing to get him to use this if you think you have enough time left to finish him off for good afterwards. METEOR SHOWER (1 charge maximum) - D,DF,F,D,DF,F + Punch Gill tosses a whole shower of Pyro/Cryo Kenesis projectiles down from above. The damage varies greatly, but can get as high as around 70% depending on the number of projectiles that successfully connect. He's lost the lag time that left him open to retaliation after this move finished in 2nd Impact, making it an especially annoying Super Art to have to deal with now. Parrying it is possible, but not recommended, since the projectiles have no set pattern of descent, and missing one means the others will surely combo into some huge damage that just isn't worth the risk. If he does the move up close, the best thing to do is tag him with a fast normal attack to cancel it out as quickly as possible. You might still get hit by one of the projectiles this way but it's usually worth it, since blocking the whole bunch of them can add up to just about as much damage in the end anyway. If he's out of range of your normal attacks but you have a quick dashing attack that you can pull off right away, like Alex's Elbow Slash, you can also use that to cancel it out in a similar way, though this is slightly more risky. If neither of these options are open, you often don't have much choice but to just take the blocking damage. He can also chain this move off of his crouching Fierce, which produces a massive combo that pretty much wins the round for him right then and there, but he rarely does this, and there's nothing you can do about it when he does anyway, so don't bother worrying about it too much. SERAPHIC WING (1 charge maximum) - D,DF,F,D,DF,F + Kick Say hello to the mother of all Super Arts. Gill quickly floats to the center of the screen before activating the move, during which time it can be cancelled by hitting him out of the air, but take note that his Super bar will still remain filled if you do. When the move is activated successfully, Gill sprouts angel-like wings from his back and proceeds to fill the entire screen with energy. This move is completely unavoidable, and parrying it I assume is impossible, as I have yet to even hear of anyone successfully parrying one hit of it as of yet. Blocking it usually results in around 25% damage, where as not blocking it can result in up to 100% damage and instant death, though this damage seems to vary somewhat depending on your position on the screen. Specifically, if you're caught in a jump it tends to take off somewhat less damage than being caught on the ground, though this is by no means a certainty in every case. The move delivers 20 hits in total, after which Gill drops to the ground and is vulnerable for a short time. To compensate for the massive blocking damage you take, be sure to dash forward during this phase and welcome him back to the ground with the biggest, meanest combo you can reliably pull off. Usually it's not too hard to take more damage off him than he did off of you, especially if you have a Super Art charged up, making this move actually beneficial to you in most circumstances. In fact, the only time it becomes a real problem is when you don't have the 25% life you need to take the blocking damage, but if your life gets that low you're probably pretty much finished anyway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMBO LIST: Moves are seperated by a dash. There are others aside from these, especially off of the crouching Fierce, but these are the most important ones to remember. standing Jab - standing Strong crouching Short - crouching Forward crouching Fierce - Psycho Head Butt (D,DB,B + Punch) crouching Fierce - Psycho Head Butt (D,DB,B + Jab) - Psycho Head Butt (D,DB,B + Jab) crouching Fierce - Meteor Shower ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GILL VERSUS GILL: having fun with Twelve's X.C.O.P.Y. Since the only time you can play as Gill is through Twelve's X.C.O.P.Y. Super Art, the only possible opponent you can fight with him is the computer's Gill. Considering this, there's no real point to writing a general strategy section for playing as Gill against anyone else, so I'm limiting this player strategy section to winning against Gill using Twelve's X.C.O.P.Y. First, let's deal with the problem of getting that X.C.O.P.Y.'s bar maxed out in the first place. Gill's one tough cookie to deal with using Twelve's natural form, but there is a relatively safe strategy to building up your super bar enough to transform, and this almost entirely involves careful use of the D.R.A. attack (D,DB,B + Kick while jumping). Even when he blocks this move he rarely does anything too significant to counter it, and it will build up your super bar rather quickly either way. To get a few hits in before pulling the big copycat though, keep in mind that the D.R.A. can be activated at any time during the jump. Often times, if you do the move while coming down from a jump rather than on the initial rise, he's much less likely to block it. This seems to work best when using the Roundhouse D.R.A. from the opposite end of the screen while descending, but tends to improve the success rate for the Forward version as well. Sometimes when he throws a Strong Punch Kenesis out to intercept you from across the screen, you can actually fly under it and hit him while he's left vulnerable with the right timing. When in close though, a good technique seems to be repeatedly using the Forward D.R.A. directly upon leaving the ground. Just jump and do a Forward D.R.A. as soon as possible, then jump immediately again and keep repeating as long as you can avoid getting hit. If you get so close that you're risking being hit out of the air before even doing the D.R.A., then it's time to back-dash away to safety and start again with a Roundhouse version. Also, finding yourself backed into the corner can be a big problem for this strategy, so your primary goal in that case should switch to getting out into the open again. The best way to accomplish this when he's crowding you is usually to jump and do a Roundhouse D.R.A. over his head, or try air-dashing past him. If he's not quite close enough to get past him easily, it's sometimes best to let him get that close and then make your escape. His most effective counter for the D.R.A. tends to be the rising Kenesis attacks, which actually do slightly less damage to you than is done to him by being hit with a D.R.A., so even if you trade landed attacks evenly you're still coming out slightly better in the end. In any case, this strategy is most often a very effective method of both filling your super bar up quickly, and keeping Gill relatively pacified in the process. The only really dangerous thing to watch out for is being caught in the Meteor Shower while jumping, but the danger of that can be minimized by keeping the level of his super bar in consideration at all times, and being a bit more cautious with the jumping when it's filled. Now, once your super bar is full, go ahead and use it anytime you want to transform into Gill and let the real fun begin. With your double armor, remember that you take half damage of what you'll do to him with the same attack, and his move priority has for once finally been equalized. The only limitation on Twelve's newly aquired supreme power is the time limit on how long he can maintain his morphed form. So, although you could easily pick off his life little by little if you didn't have that limitation, your strategy to beating Gill must keep in mind that you do. Since you want to score big damage, and fast, you simply have to forget about using moves like the Kenesis and Knee Drop for the most part. The fact is he will almost always be able to block these attacks, making them a waste of precious time. Your main focus will instead be on setting up his most damaging non-super combo: the crouching Fierce into two Jab Psycho Head Butts. Luckily, this isn't as hard as you'd think, and takes merely a little prodding to get him to jump into his doom. Since his priority advantage is lost now, he won't be able to counter your crouching Forward and Roundhouse kicks with attacks of his own, so use these moves, especically the crouching Forward Kick, just out of range of hitting him. If it barely misses him, he'll respond by jumping towards you more often than not. When you see him do that, respond in kind with a crouching Fierce. Don't worry if it only hits once, or even trades hits with him, because once he's been launched those Psycho Head Butts are almost guaranteed to hit. Simply follow with the D,DB,B + Jab command twice, and watch as your simple 3-4 hit combo eats away at least a quarter of his life and does tons of stun damage to boot. Landing even two of these combos in a row will frequently render him dizzy, allowing you to score a free third one, which usually ends up winning you the round by this point. If for some reason this hasn't quite worked out as planned, and you're in danger of turning back into Twelve, then make use of the Pyro/Cryo Kenesis to force him to back off before you change. Once you're back in Twelve mode, start the strategy in the previous paragraph above and re-transform into Gill as quickly as possible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIGHTING FIRE WITH ICE: pulling the old switcharoo Now for everyone else, this section will deal with general anti-Gill strategies for all of the characters except for Twelve. A few universal points to keep in mind right off the bat: 1. Gill's moves generally have the best priority, speed, and damage of anyone in the game. 2. Gill's parrying rate can get as high as nearly 80% against ground attacks. 3. Gill's artificial intelligence knows an effective counter for just about everything. Looking at this, it's pretty obvious that playing offensively is usually going to be the quickest way to your grave rather than his. In fact, effecient defensive characters such as Remy and Oro tend to have the least amount of trouble beating Gill, while mostly offensive characters such as Ibuki and Yun have a much harder time. Luckily, I've come across a universal technique that tends to give anyone a fighting chance. So, without further adew, let me introduce the AI switching technique. The secret behind this method of indirectly controlling Gill lies in the fact that the computer has a set program of attack patterns, and can be made to switch to a new pattern under certain circumstances. The method of doing this we want to look at for Gill is by using a normal attack that barely misses him. When this happens, you will often notice him either pausing or backing up momentarily. This actually indicates that he's just randomly switched to a new attack pattern. Now let's go into detail on making this little programming nuance work for you. First, we need an AI switcher attack that can function as just mentioned in as safe and reliable a manner as possible. Ideally, the move we choose should have good range and speed, with speed being more important overall, and you should be standing rather than crouching for it. Most of the time this won't ever be used to hit Gill directly, but if you can get an attack with good priority that's even better for when it does. The perfect example of this combination is probably the Shotokan characters' standing Strong Punch. For other characters, we have to settle for the closest they've got to this, though. Once you've found something that seems to work, you want to use it whenever he gets just outside of it's range, or close enough to be noticably affected by it. When the attack just misses him like that, he'll pause or retreat as described before, indicating the switching of his AI pattern. What's the use of this, you ask? Well nothing on it's own, but we also want to find another attack we can easily use on him whenever he switches to an attack pattern that will leave him open. Lets call this an AI counter attack for future reference. For this one, power and range are everything over speed and vulnerability, since we're only going to use it to smack him when it's a sure hit. You also want to make sure it's really easy to pull off in a pinch, because Gill never leaves himself open for long. Ideal moves are standing Fierce or Roundhouse attacks with a lot of range, or dashing attacks like Alex's Short Elbow Slash or Q's Jab Dashing Head Attack. Now, here's a quick list of some of the moves to watch for after the AI switch that you can exploit: standing Roundhouse, standing Fierce, crouching Fierce, and upwards Kenesis. If he uses any of these and misses you with it, and you're in range to connect with your AI counter attack, go ahead and give it to him. After that, just go back to AI switching him until he does something that leaves him open again, and repeat. Now, it's important to note that he can also do other special moves or patterns after you switch his AI which your AI counter move won't be able to take advantage of. In those cases, simply refer to the appropriate counter listed in the SPECIAL MOVES section above, or block and wait until you get him to choose a pattern that is exploitable. Note that this strategy isn't a guaranteed success, as even the patterns listed won't leave him open to your AI counter all the time. This largely depends on Gill's position in relation to you and the range of the AI counter move you're using, since if you can't reach him with your AI counter it's useless no matter how much he's leaving himself open. It also doesn't guarantee you won't be taking occasional hits yourself either, since this is reliant on the range and priority of your AI switcher move, and how effectively and carefully you're able to make use of it. To make this whole thing a little easier to understand, I'll go through an example. Let's use Yun, because he's normally a tough one to beat Gill with and needs all the help he can get. First of all, let's find an AI switcher. Well, his standing Fierce and Roundhouse are obviously too slow, which is pretty much the case for everyone. The standing Forward and Strong are a bit faster, but we want something we can do again and again without being left too open, which unfortunately the awkward movement of these moves doesn't provide. So we're left with the Jab and Short, either of which could be okay. They don't have the range we'd ideally want, but the speed and potential vulnerability are the most important aspects to consider, so they're still the best bet he's got. Speaking of speed, the Jab seems to be slightly faster than the Short, and leaves him less open. If the Short had more range we might want to consider it anyway, but since they seem to be about the same in that regard, we'll pick the standing Jab. As a side note here, punches seem to invoke AI switching better than kicks do anyway, so when you have a close match like this one, you should usually go for the punch. Now to choose an AI counter attack. This one's an easier task, as that long range standing Fierce makes an obviously ideal poking attack. We'll go with these two then, standing Jab for our AI switcher, and standing Fierce for our AI counter. As another side note, choosing these attacks usually isn't so simple, and takes practice using them against Gill to determine which work best. If you find an attack that works, by all means stick with it, but you may want to experiment a bit with other attacks if the one you're using doesn't seem to be too effective, despite possibly appearing to be the most ideal through reasoning. Now the round begins, and Gill's already getting cocky and walking right on up to our Yun. We'll just hold back on the joystick for blocking purposes now, and tap the standing Jab whenever he's getting close but still outside it's range. It doesn't have much reach so we have to be careful about him throwing something like a crouching Roundhouse, which will go right past the AI switching area we've created with the Jab. If we're lucky he'll just walk close enough without doing anything like that though, then the next Jab that misses causes him to show the trademark AI switching pause. After we throw out that Jab we always pause to see what's coming, and only continue with another Jab if he's decided to try walking in again without attacking just yet. If we're backed into the corner by now, that's actually a good thing, because then we can constantly block without having to risk sacrificing distance by unintentionally moving backwards all the time. Let's suppose after the switch he goes into that crouching Strong into crouching Fierce pattern he loves so much now. We see it coming in time not get hit by tapping the Jab again, and instead sit back and block the pattern. The crouching Strong moves him in closer, and the crouching Fierce will leave him wide open. As soon as you see that opening, tap the Fierce for a free hit. But don't get cocky now, because we have to go right back to the AI switching pattern and wait for another opening after scoring that attack. If he now does something that doesn't leave him open, like his sliding F + Forward kick, then we'll just block it and continue messing him up with the Jab until he chooses something we like better. Now he may also decide to do other things, like a jump-in, in which case we'll parry his ever-so-predictable jump kick, and try something like our Strong, Fierce, B + Fierce combo as he lands. Likewise, Saber Lariats get blocked and easily countered with a normal throw, and the Moonsault Knee Drop will be parried and countered with a Nishou-Kyaku (F,D,DF + Kick), or blocked and countered with a Zesshou-Hohou (D,DF,F + Jab). After all this, those few moves of his that do get through won't really seem like much in comparison to all the ones we know how to take advantage of, and his life will gradually drop faster than yours will, hopefully giving you the win. As you can see, the basic objective here is to use the AI switcher not as an attack so much as a trigger to get him to leave himself open. Keeping this in mind, focus on finding a move for this purpose without the intention of actually hitting him with it, or at least not enough to do significant damage, but instead looking for what he seems to react and leave himself open to the most. When you're able to reliably switch his AI without fear of retribution, and have a good AI counter attack that deals enough damage to become significant in the long run, you'll be surprised at how easy to defeat he can actually become. As a mental note though, remember that you can never directly control what he does when he switches his AI. If he decides to do a lot of things that leave him open, then you may certainly be able to beat him before he fills his Super bar even once. If he decides to be annoying and favor AI patterns that don't leave him very open, on the other hand, you may simply not be able to knock him out within the round's time limit. Even in this case though, things aren't totally hopeless if you simply switch your objective to getting a time win. The fact is that all of his attacks that can take off a lot of block damage tend to be easy to counter afterwards (take the Seraphic Wing as a prime example). If he's not using those attacks, and you're playing cautious enough not to let a large amount of his poking attempts get through, you'll lose very little life. I tend to find battles with Gill to end up where I always have about 25% more life than he does at the end. That means that when I knock him out, I'm sitting with less than half, where as a time win might result in me with 75% and him with 50%, or whatever. The more aggressive he fights, the more damage you'll be able to inflict back with this strategy. Above all else, you must let him decide how the match will go, rather than trying to direct the match yourself. Your best bet is to play this match reactively, not actively. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ USEFUL TRICKS: artificial intelligence as an oxymoron? Alex and Q both have patterns that will guarantee you free hits as any computer opponent is getting up from a fall, including Gill. For Alex, simply stand on top of him and cancel a close Forward Kick into a Spiral DDT (F,DF,D,DB,B + Forward). For Q, simply grab him with the Capture and Deadly Blow (F,DF,D,DB,B + Kick), and follow with whatever you'd like as a juggle. Low-hitting Super Arts seem to be highly confusing to the computer no matter which character it's using. When done outside of countering range, Ibuki's Yami-Shigure will often hit an opponent easily as they rise, as will Necro's Electric Snake. Additionally, Necro's Electric Snake can be cancelled from the last hit of a Spinning Punch, or any grounded hits of an Electric Blaster (usually only the first two), and the computer will almost always get hit by it regardless of whether the preceding move was blocked or not. The reason is that the computer usually blocks these special attacks high, and when it does, it usually won't switch it's blocking correctly in response to a low-hitting Super Art cancellation on your part (though I have actually seen it happen maybe once out of a hundred times). Gill's offensive style leads him to fall victim to high-priority Super Arts when he's getting up off the ground. Simply stand within range of his normal attacks, and activate your Super Art the moment he's fully up. The trick is that he will always try attacking you the instant he's standing as long as you're standing close enough for him to reach you. The high priority of his moves usually makes this work in his favor, but not in the case where you simultaneously activate a Super Art that has an even higher priority. While Gill's parrying skills are admirable while grounded, he seems to lose this ability while in the air, so don't let yourself get intimidated by his frequent jumping tendencies. On the contrary, this often provides you with the best opportunity to knock him down and use the previous tricks listed above. While his jumping attacks do have a lot of priority, he's left helpless to anti-air attacks that hit him before the set point during the jump at which he always attacks a player on the ground. In other words, either simply attack early enough to intercept him before he attacks during his jump, or wait to intercept his attack with a parry and then counter. As against all CPU characters, Remy can get free hits with a low Light of Virtue chained after a crouching Strong Punch. All you really have to do to defeat Gill is sit there blocking low and wait. If he walks into range of your crouching Strong Punch, throw it out and immediately chain a Short Light of Virtue onto it. The Light of Virtue will almost always connect on any computer controlled opponent, regardless of whether the low Strong was blocked or not. If he jumps at you, then use the Roundhouse Rising Rage Flash early to knock him back down before he goes into the jump kick. Just repeat this simple and easy pattern, and those free hits with the Light of Virtue will quickly add up for the win. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ That's it... good luck defeating quite possibly the toughest and smartest fighting game boss ever created - you'll need it! :) email me at: bitoku_no_kishi@hotmail.com (but don't ask me anything related exclusively to the Dreamcast version of the game, because I don't own one and probably won't be able to help) be sure to also check out my Twelve and Sean guides, available at www.GameFAQs.com