Airk

Yes, but this advice overlooks the simple fact that people are not logical all the time. (You can probably build a convincing case that a lot of people aren't logical at all.) Most people find huge strings of devastating losses discouraging. Playing someone on your level gives you more chance to -see- your improvement (You might be improving against a better player too, but it's much harder to notice if you're still getting destroyed.) And besides, nothing says you can't learn from playing someone who is on your level. In fact, it can be easier, because really, you're unlikely to learn more than a couple of things from any given match, so if a match is a big explosion of you just getting blown up 117 different ways, it can be markedly more difficult to even figure out where to start. Yes, you can ask questions, but not every good player is good at giving useful answers either. Some of the "advice" I've heard people give out after winning a match has bordered on being negatively useful.

Nemesis with the good advice; Regardless of what the hardcore "pros" say, playing against people who blow you up all the time isn't really a great way to learn, because it's super discouraging. Nothing beats going up against a good close matchup a bunch for you to start coming up with new stuff and hone your skills.

I disagree; Partly because this breaks down pretty rapidly, but mostly because most "rivalries" don't actually involve characters with particularly similar skills a lot of the time. The characters just need to have -something- in common. Whether that's being "the lead girl" in their franchise, being "the heavy" (even if not necessarily a grappler), "the villain" or whatever. Reference CvS2.

True, but they are also not completely dissociated.

Tsubaki has what is probably the hardest resource management game in the game, because even when you have a character like Rachel (Who I think is generally regarded as somewhat complicated), who is dependent on a little meter...that meter COMES BACK. By itself! While there are certainly some decisions to be made about how much wind you burn under what circumstances, the only thing you need to do to get more of it is be on the ground for a while. You can be doing a combo and your wind will come back. You can be blocking and your wind will come back. You never have to make space and put yourself in a vulnerable position just to fill up that gauge. Which characters do you feel have all these extreme nonstandard intricacies?

I would seriously question Tsubaki as "easiest". I don't think she can even compete with Makoto for "most straightforward". Having a whole extra gauge to juggle complicates matters a lot in terms of what you should be doing in a given situation - even moreso even than Litchi's "Where is my staff" combo decision tree, IMHO.

Just wanted to say thanks, not only for collecting all these videos, but for your commentary; It's super valuable to have someone pointing out "noteworthy things" so that I'm not relying on my currently sketchy "What works in CP" knowledge.

Of course, then you have people like me who bought the game on BOTH platforms... Edit: and why are we even discussing the PS4?

Your mileage may vary, but I think Hazama is kindof in his own little world - his movement is extremely nonstandard compared to other characters, and he has a weird hybrid keepaway/runaway/rushdown game going on. Also, his normals are retardedly good, and you don't want to get used to that. :P So he's not super hard, but he requires a different mindset than many of the characters in the game. I suspect he's also somewhat more executionally challenging in terms of combos than a lot of characters. I think the important thing when learning a new game though, is to stick with one character long enough to understand them. If you start jumping around a lot too early, you're in the fastlane to "spent lots of time on the game but aren't actually good with anyone." which many people find frustrating.

Tsubaki and Makoto are pretty much your choices if you want to play a female rushdown character. Sadly, between the two of them, you have the bottom tier of the game pretty well covered. On the plus side, neither of them is terrible tier, just "definitely more work" tier. And on the upside, if you pick Tsubaki, folks on the character forum here totally have your back. Jin is solid, and, intriguingly, since his tools are so vanilla on their own, he needs to be played in a fairly tricky fashion to do well. Fortunately, he has lots of tricks. Hazama is just mean, but he probably has a slightly higher "figuring out how the hell all this stuff works" curve than the other three characters you mention. The good thing about this game is that it's impossible to completely screw yourself over with your character pick.... so... yeah. Pick someone and get practicing. It's not worth agonizing over, you've got a lot to learn regardless, and a lot of it will transfer on some level if you decide to change mains. Welcome to BB.

I refuse to believe that Arc Sys is SO incompetant that they can't budget a port to make a profit when it sells over 200k copies.

This isn't really true at all; For those following the news, there are two phenomena that are happening in Japan that makes this seem like a bad move for Arc Sys; #1: Arcades are fading. Yes. They are. They're not dead or anything, but they are definitely losing ground. Daigo Umehara has been doing all kinds of tours and stuff trying to promote arcades. This is a known issue, and you would think it would lead Arc Sys to try to support good console sales for their titles. Though it's obvious enough that this is also playing into the HUGE delay on the console release. #2: Japan is trending away from traditional consoles in general, and towards handhelds and mobile devices. This, too, would, you'd think, lead them to make the game for the console that has the distinct numbers advantage in their "#2 territory" (the US). Arc Sys' traditional markets are shrinking in Japan. It's not "losing money", but I think it really IS "leaving money on the table" to not publish an Xbox version abroad. I agree that it's probably more to do with Microsoft than anything else though.

Or, to simplify: Relius got buffed. Carl got nerfed. (Overall, anyway.)

Why do you think Hazama's outfit is some sort of "uniform"? It certainly shows no sign of adhering to the standard NOL uniform design guidelines (Like, being excessively complicated. :P). I think it's just a fedora and longcoat because he thinks it looks stylin'. Plus. Intelligence division. He's probably "plainclothes". He can wear what he wants. It's not NOL issue. That doesn't make the hoodie look any less stupid though.

It's honest advice. Fighting games change a lot, all the time. If you really think that CP is going to be a big problem for you, you shouldn't botther. That said, I think you grossly overestimate how much relearning will actually be required for CP and how difficult it will be, and coming in and saying "Hey, I want to practice, but I don't want to learn." doesn't really leave you much in the way of choices. But have a nice day. ^_^ The K1 Effect: #1: Makoto's Asteroid vision isn't bad, though it's not awesome either. It's probably about as good as Guy's run ins SF4 (Which is also 'good' but depends a lot on your opponent respecting you.) It can be used as a tricky pressure reset via Break or Eclipse turn. You can also use the B/C versions into Lightning Arrow (or j.C or whatever) if you don't think your opponent is on point with anti-airs. Certainly, you have a lot of options, but part of that is because Asteroid Vision isn't JUST a "run/stop/attack" select like Guy's run. If it were, I think it would be somewhat weak. Therefore.... #2a: I think this is a kinda weak in this sort of game, because most characters can do something like this already - the only advantage gained by making the run a special move is the ability to special cancel it. If this is just one of a bunch of skills then this is kinda okay, but it's not very interesting. #2b: Sounds a LOT like Mu's drive, only watered down. Could be okay, but a lot depends on how the game works. Again, would be kinda weak in BB. Honestly, I think you'd want the glyphs to do something OTHER than just be reflectors that are used in one EX move, unless they are super easy/safe to lay down. Though I guess you tried to address that with C #2c: Weak unless A) The barrier is freakin' huge and can block projectiles from lots of different angles and positions and/or is large enough for a character to stand inside ala Hakumen's Barrier OR B) The game itself is full of projectiles but doesn't have all that much variety in projectile types - i.e. SF4. In SF4 LOTS of characters have projectiles, but 90% of them are grounded and the only real difference between them is speed/recovery. However, projectiles of that nature are generally pretty crap in a game with airdashes and high mobility (SF4 is a super low mobility game.) So this probably won't really be useful. #2d: No idea, not enough detail. Sure? Just sounds like a multi-hit special attack that is even frames if spaced right. No idea about any of the supers because I'm not really familiar with the moves you are referencing.

ALL hitconfirms; There's less hitstop, so you have less time to react to the counterhit. Heck, it'll even be harder to confirm whether you're in range for 5BB. Reptar is right in a way, but that's not really what I'm talking about when I say hitconfirms. It's nice and all to be able to go into longer combos, but that's not -really- a hitconfirm. A hitconfirm is going into a combo at all. For example, the 5C (or 5B) CH > 6C stuff. You have less time to react. That's not really debatable. The fact that you can "autopilot" some stuff and go into a better combo anyway is nice, but in Extend you could still do that and go into -some- sort of combo, so you were still hitconfirming.

I bet it's like Ragna where you can negate the loss with barrier. Still, I agree, this character sounds retarded. Nerf plz. ;P

I think the problem I have with dubs is that localization is hard. And I don't even mean the traditional idea of localization like "making the jokes work in English". I mean stuff like how do DEAL with a character like Tao, who is basically a talking LOLcat? And "how much do you go for voices that sound like the original Japanese versus selecting voices that actually sound good in English?" It's seriously complicated, because a LOT of stuff that voice actors DO in Japanese just DOESN'T WORK in English; For starters, voice acting in Japanese frequently has the Ham Factor turned up to 11. Characters DECLAIM, and SHRIEK, and generally act like first year drama students told to "emote as much as possible". And if you localize this stuff directly, and try to have your VAs ham it up as much in English as the Japanese actors do, you just end up with characters who sound like idiots; There's nothing wrong with the performance by Bang's (original) English VA, but a lot of people HATE his English voice because he sounds like an idiot. Actually, he sounds like an idiot in Japanese too, but that's normal, so it works to some extent (Though I suspect that the "I don't actually understand what he's saying, but the way he's saying it sounds awesome." factor plays in a lot here too, and once you can understand what he's saying, you realize it actually sounds kinda stupid. Though also to be fair, things DO often just sound cooler in Japanese.) but as soon as you try to do that in English, it becomes awful. Similarly, little girls speaking in super high squeaky voices sounds fine in Japanese, for whatever reason, but if you do that in English, people tend to clap their hands over their ears and flee the room. And that's even leaving aside all the weird Japanese vocal-tics that come into play - how do you translate someone who says "-de gozaru" (or "-desu" or whatever.) after half his sentences. It doesn't MEAN anything, really. If you actually try to translate it, the dialogue comes off hideous and stilted, so you basically end up instead trying to write lines that have a similar effect - namely, lines where the character saying them sounds kindof archaic and old fashioned, which is why Bang's translation is the way it is. So...BB's dub is pretty good, overall, but it's a really hard task, and I don't think it's an art we've quite mastered yet. THAT said, I switch back and forth. Because I think I like the Japanese performances in their ridiculous, hammy glory a little bit better (I speak only slightly more than zero Japanese) but having the dub for the battle voices allows me to get all the JOKES! Tsubaki vs Makoto intro in Japanese is just like "Okay, what?" whereas in English it's pretty funny. ("You're going to practice that UNTIL YOU GET IT RIGHT!") And basically all the humorous combat lines in Japanese are lost on me, while I can appreciate "Press start continue!" or whathaveyou in the English. And BB is a funny game. So... tough choices.

I am such a failure. I literally did not know about this until Sunday night, and I could have gone. =/

Probably. CP is going to make hitconfirms in general much harder.

If the initial 2C is a CH, you can, I believe, do 2C > 5C > 2CC > IAD to help adjust the height. Otherwise, if you hit them too high, you can delay a little, but if they're really up there you'll have to do a different combo.

Good games to Tsuuna and Lord Pwnage; I am thoroughly battered now. Also. Bad at this game. My excuse for the day is that I'm recovering from being sick.

Well, bad news, new version of Arcana 3 is coming, Injustice your combos will probably be out of date in 4 months, and you probably shouldn't learn CP either because it'll be due for an update too. If 9 months is too short for you, you are probably in the wrong hobby.

Well, since it seems like characters don't have home stages anymore, where else is it going to default to?