psabr guide - nathan drake

Nathan Drake

Square Attacks:
NS - Brutal Combo
Three hit combo, which bizarrely ends in one of 3 different hits, with different knockback for each one. The first two hits are a left and right punch, which gain 5 AP each. The last hit will always gain 20 AP on hit, but the three different hits act differently, with seemingly no way to control them. There's an uppercut that launches the opponent upwards a bit, a forward punch that ALSO launches upwards a bit, and a front kick that knocks opponents down. I have no idea what the deal with this is, but apparently the knock down kick is good set-up for combos.

FS - Haymaker
A dashing punch with fairly decent range that gains 20 AP. Knocks the opponent down and can hilarious combo into itself, but only once. Like it's not a bad move but it's fine.

US - Throw Grenade
I have no idea why this is lumped in with the other melee-based square attacks, but whatever. Drake throws a grenade forward in an arc. This is pretty much Snake's grenade, but you can't actually aim it. It explodes after roughly 5 seconds on screen, and pops opponents upwards when it explodes, and gains 20 AP. This could probably be used for starting aerial combos if it wasn't ass to try and hit with. I think there must have been some issues with Drake players spamming grenades, because the guide says you can have four on screen at a time, butit seems like you can only have 2.

DS - Slide Attack
Drake performs a sliding kick. This move kinda rocks actually, as it has good range and minimal ending lag, meaning you can basically use any attack out of it, baring some of Drake's slower moves like Magnum. It's pretty fun to experiment with, but doesn't have a whole lot else going for it besides the combo potential. Gains 20 AP.

Air NS - Punt Kick
A really, pathetically dinky little kick with minimal range. This is easy to hit with against a jumping opponent, but its basically useless in the air, as its hitstun is way too short and ending lag way too long to take advantage of in any reasonable capacity. The guide suggests using against grounded foes, but the knockback is far too low to combo it into the only reasonable combo option, Grenade Launcher. The only reliable way of getting this combo to work is by hitting an opponent with their back to a wall, since they bounce into the grenade. Gains 20 AP, really just kinda shit.

Air FS - Drop Kick
Drake basically just performs the Smash Bros. heavyweight villain dropkick attack, despite being like 180 pounds. What makes this attack actively ridiculous is the fact that it just fucking LAUNCHES the opponent across the stage. Its hilarious to watch, but this actually makes it a decent combo ender and keepaway move, honestly. Gains 30 AP.

Air US - Air Throw Grenade
The aerial version of Throw Grenade, obviously. Everything is the same, except for the grenade's trajectory, which is higher and narrower than the normal version. This actually makes it a lot more usable, since the narrow arc can hit with more precision.

Air DS - Double Swing
Drake swings both his fists downward, like DK's FAir. This is actually Drake's absolute best combo starter, as it causes the opponent to be briefly stunned, allowing you to follow up pretty easily with any of his grounded attacks. While not as fast as Punt Kick, it's got better range and actually works with hitting opponents from above. Gains 20 AP


Triangle Attacks:
NT - Run and Gun
Drake pulls out a rifle and fires it 3 times. You can hold the move, with Drake pausing to reload every 3 shots, making this not a move you want to hold since it makes you vulnerable. Each hit gains 3 AP. While firing, you can input left or right to have Drake auto-run forwards or backwards, firing more shots as he does. The amount of hits and AP gained varies depending on position, but running forward generally nets you 15 AP and running backwards nets you around 12 AP. You can also press the Square button to have Drake perform a melee whack with the gun's bottom end. This deals some knockback and gains 30 AP, and pressing Circle while running will cause Drake to enter his Coverwall move seamlessly. This move is pretty good for approach, considering its range of options, but the best choice is to run forward and whack the enemy with your gun, as this can net you a lot of AP if done well enough.

FT - Magnum
Drake pulls out a magnum pistol and fires a single shot from it. This, like the Drop Kick move, deals a lot of knockback and sends foes flying at ridiculously high speeds. On top of that, it has DISGUSTINGLY high range, and gains 30 AP as well. The only drawback is high starting lag, which in turn leads to it being predictable, and also nearly impossible to combo with, despite the guide suggesting that you use it to finish combos..

UT - Grenade Launcher
No, I don't know why Drake has two moves that launch grenades. For this one, Drake pulls out a grenade launcher, which fires the grenade upwards at a 45 degree angle. It also explodes on contact, gaining 20 AP and knocking the opponent upwards in the process. Like the aerial variant of Throw Grenade, this is much better than normal Throw Grenade due to the narrower, more precise arc the grenade is shot in. Exploding on contact makes it better than either Throw Grenade period, since the opponent can't as easily dodge it. This is probably Drake's best anti-air, which is not a great thing all considering.

DT - GAU-19 Heavy Machine Gun
Drake pulls out a massive machine gun from his ass and fires it. The machine gun will start firing below Drake, before he gradually points it upwards as the move continues. You'd think the hitbox would be locked close to the machine gun's muzzle, but this also has disgusting range for what it is, though not as bad as Magnum. The machine gun fires 9 shots during the whole move, each of which gains 5 AP, except for the third shot, which randomly gains 10 AP. This totals up to 50. The machine gun is slow as hell and leaves Drake completely open from above and behind (And below if you're standing on a thin platform). It's powerful, but really has no use outside of the rare times you can manage to lock an opponent into all 9 hits.

Air NT - Rope Swing
Drake magically materializes a rope out of nowhere, and fires his rifle as he swings from it, running along the background, even if there's nothing there. You tried, I guess. The actual swing here isn't a hitbox, only his bullets are. The rifle will fire 6 bullets, which each have different ranges thanks to Drake moving as he fires. The first two bullets only gain 1 AP, while the rest only gain 5, totaling to a very weak 10 AP gain. I think this and another move are attempts to give Drake more of a mobile edge while in the air, but there's very little focus on it, so it might as well be worthless.

Air FT - Air Magnum
It's the Magnum, in the air, still with disgusting range. The only notable things are the fact it halts all momentum when used. and the fact the guide suggests firing off two magnum shots quickly by using the aerial version when near the ground, and then firing one as soon as you land. This is, frankly, a monstrous idea imagined by demons.

Air UT - Air Grenade Launcher
Same as the normal Grenade Launcher, but in the air. You can make the grenades travel farther by being higher in the air, I suppose

Air DT - Uzi Spray
Drake pulls out an uzi and sprays it in an arc underneath him. I'm genuinely not sure what the purpose of this move is. The guide says that you use this to "suppress" grounded moves, which i guess means it has decent hitstun. It's mostly just way too weak, only gains 10 AP, and has no unique properties to really make it worth anything. It doesn't even fire projectiles, its purely a melee hitbox.


Circle Attacks:
NC - Oil Drum
Drake kicks an oil drum forward. The oil drum appears out of thin air, so don't ask where it came from. The oil drum bounces as its kicked, but then rolls across the ground for either 3 seconds, or until an opponent hits it, where it will then explode. The barrel itself gains 10 AP, while the explosion gains 30, meaning that if you can string together the barrel and the explosion, it totals to 40 AP. This move is obviously more of a space control move thanks to how big it is, but thanks to the disgustingness that is the Magnum, you can actually pull off some brutal looking combos. You can also technically combo with Run And Gun but its not as fun as using the Magnum.

FC - Tranquilizer Dart Gun
Drake fires a tranquilizer dart from what honestly just looks like a normal pistol to me. This has a decent range to it, but still nowhere near as gross as the Magnum is. However, while this doesn't cause stupid knockback, it does do something potentially more gross: it prevents the opponent hit by it from jumping, and also reduces their speed, for 5 seconds. The guide says that you get less out of this by using it on slower characters, but I think that just makes it worse for the slower characters. Obviously you want to use this on mostly faster characters, but still. This is just a really dickish attack. Gains 10 AP.

UC - Zipline
Drake summons a zipline from thin air, which he then rides along for way too long of a time. Seriously, this thing is ridiculously long, and takes forever to finish. You can't cancel out of it either. This is allegedly a mobility tool, and you aren't completely vulnerable while on the zipline, Drake's entire body becomes a hitbox that gains 20 AP on hit. You can technically use it to like... run away from opponents so you can throw grenades and shoot at them, but it really doesn't have much else to use it for.

DC - Coverwall
Drake summons a chest-high wall, which he then ducks behind. This is basically Drake's Very Special Move, as he can do quite a few things with it. The cover is roughly half Drake's height and can take 100 AP worth of damage before its destroyed by the opponent. Drake can perform a bunch of his attacks from behind it, he can perform a gun bunt that gains 20 AP, throw a grenade in one of three different, randomly selected, directions, fire his grenade launcher, and fire three shots from his rifle, which can be aimed up and down. All the attacks act like they do in other parts of the set, even gaining the same amount of AP. This is a very versatile defense move, but the main issue comes from the fact that you never really want to be doing anything else, except for when you want to use your Supers. So, basically its a pretty good representation of the Uncharted games.


Air NC - Air Oil Drum
Oil Drum, but Drake kicks it at a downward diagonal angle. It's basically the same since the oil drum is already a separate projectile, but it is worth noting that the direction its kicked at actually increases the speed of the drum, making this most likely the preferred way to use it.

Air FC - Air Tranquilizer Gun
Instead of firing the dart forward, Drake instead aims it diagonally downwards. This is a decently useful change to the move, but I can't help thinking about using this on an opponent trying to recover from a hazard, and you just hitting him before he double jumps. Awful.

Air UC - Air Zipline
Zipline, but done at a more diagonal angle. The grounded version already has a slat to it, so this one has to be super slanty. Not much different, but there's a fun thing where you can go through thin platforms if you hold down while on the zipline. That's actually clever and almost gives it a point to existing, since you can potentially hit foes through a thing platform with it.

Air DC - Ledge Fall
Drake summons a floor beneath him, which then crumbles and causes him to fall through it. Yep. This is probably the single dumbest move in the game, but aside from its tacky animation, it's a very standard stall then fall move, gaining 20 AP on hit. There's not much else to this, and it really feels like filler. One fun thing is that the attack doesn't have a set range, and you can go through thin platforms by holding down while using it. This gives you another means of attacking opponents under thin platforms, or just create a falling wall of pain.


Throws:
FThrow - Mighty Kick
Drake grabs the opponent by the shoulders and then kicks them in the stomach with his amazingly strong foot, launching them into a roll across the ground. The enemy becomes invincible while rolling, meaning you can't really follow up until after all the hitstun ends, which is a lot. Like every throw, drains 15% of the character's AP.

UThrow - Flip Up
Drake flips his opponent upwards, like really high up. This is basically Drake's only way of getting opponents into the air at a decent pace, which the guide never actually brings up. It only mentions that you can use it to move opponents to higher platforms, which you can, but that has zero strategy to it, and to throw opponents into hazards, which is actually very funny sounding.

DThrow - Back Punch
Drake punches the opponent in the stomach, and then in the back to knock them to the ground. It has heavy hitstun, meaning that you can use this to get an opponent off your back. That's basically all for this one.


Supers:
Super 1 - Propane Tank Toss
AP Required: 150
 Drake throws a propane tank forward in an arc, slightly farther than Throw Grenade's range. The tank will explode when you either press a button to automatically fire at it, or when 3 seconds pass, where Drake will automatically shoot it of his own accord. Anyone caught in the explosion will be killed. This is a relatively decent Super, as the explosion has good range, especially when fighting on smaller stages. The main issue is that Drake is vulnerable during all of it, and the tank will disappear once he's hit. The guide suggests using it off of higher ledges into groups of opponents, which I agree with. You don't have to worry about any walls blocking the gun shot, as it will go through walls as well.

Super 2 - Stone Pillar
AP Required: 400
Drake summons a stone pillar, which he then pushes over. Anyone who touches the pillar dies. The pillar is actually three distinct objects stacked on top of each other, so as they fall they will actually split apart. Again, this is better on smaller stages thanks to how large the pillars are, and because, even after it splits apart, it still kills everything it touches. The sections of the pillar are actually tied to the game's physics engine, rather than being predetermined, which means you can do some REAL fucky stuff with them. For example, its very easy to clip the bottom section through thin platforms. The guide calls this Drake's best super, and I'm really not one to disagree with that.

Super 3 - El Dorado Sarcophagus
AP Required: 750
Drake summons the El Dorado sarcophagus onto the stage (It actually hangs out in the middle of the stage during the duration of the move), which automatically transforms the opponents into decrepit ghouls, aka the annoying bastards that made the final part of Uncharted 1 a nightmare to play. Here they are far less annoying, as Drake also gets access to the Golden Gun, which will automatically kill any ghoul its fired at. The gun now replaces all of your attacks while the Super is active, but it actually auto-aims at any ghouls nearby, though you need to be facing them. The opponent however, is stuck as a ghoul and can also only use one attack, which gains 10 AP and decent hitstun to waste Drake's time. This isn't a particularly great Level 3, but it can be very insulting to the enemy. It's main issue is that its the second worst of its cost. Most other 750 Level 3s have the courtesy to grant you invincibility and some more distinct advantages. This one just gives you a one shot kill projectile. There's only one other 750 Level 3 I'd call worse than it.