TITANIUM BEAST!!!

From what I've seen, it doesn't take long for hitstun decay to kick in, so dunno how many awesome combos we'll actually have available to us now. =/

PSN: BeastOfFire Location: North Carolina, USA lol guess who I play

Yeeaaaah, maybe people thought HOS would be broken during the loketests, but on actual release, not so much.

Yeah well Ishiwatari's already mentioned on multiple occasions that he's done voicing Sol. So we get Alucard instead.

This is the alternate voice set from AC+, as well as the guy who did Sol in Overture.

Was in first loketest, then got changed back, I think.

I like the changes I've seen so far. Honestly he doesn't seem that different, some of the changes make him feel more stable though. His overall gameplan won't change much, so a lot is dependent upon changes to other characters in the game. Also not seeing the overall damage being reduced, still seems to be able to do a lot of damage in the right situation.

Honestly, I dunno where the idea of GG being "more metal" comes from, it always felt more hard rock while BB seemed more metal. They're both very video game, though. When you have repetitive themes, this is hard to avoid. Most people I know can instantly tell that GG music is from a video game. These same people think most of my instrumental rock and metal are from games, though. People just aren't used to hearing music without words these days.

Yeah, Ragna's normals don't fall under the category of "incredible". I would call them functional, and he has at least one tool for almost every scenario, but they don't come together in a way that is especially strong, so you have to be a pretty strong player to make them work, or you just have to be incredibly lame. This leads back to what I was saying in that the stronger versions of Ragna typically had better damage in BnB situations. In order for his gameplan to really come together, every hit has to count for something. This is a similar concept to Sol, though not as strong since Sol not only had better offensive tools, but the game he was in was better geared (lol) towards an offensive playstyle. He is designed to be an easily understood character who can be played in an aggressive manner, a fun character for a newer or less serious player to play. This is not to say you can't play him seriously, but your approach has to change if you intend to be competitive. As far as command grabs, my guess is that Mori doesn't want another Sol in his game. Ragna is already similar enough in design that giving him more of Sol's useful tools would sort of degrade the character's identity. It's unfortunate for those of us who tend to look at these games from a more competition-focused perspective, but that's just the way it is.

We're far enough away from release that all of this can change, so there's really no point in getting too upset about it. Fluck has good points, Ragna's rushdown capability has always been somewhat weak in comparison to the rest of the cast. The main difference between the versions where he's good and the versions where he isn't good have mostly related to his damage output compared to the rest of the cast and whether or not the characters that give him trouble are strong in that particular version. EX Ragna really isn't that different from previous versions, yet he's S tier in that game. Why? From what I can see, damage off of everything. Just gives more backing to the idea of him being a strong aggressive spacing character, as opposed to a rushdown character.

Only person I know of in Chapel Hill is Mad Tea Party. Most of us are close by, though.

! :D ! ... =/ ... I no longer have a PS2 stick, so I'd have trouble playing any GG until +R comes out. Need to get my dual mod fixed...

We had some casuals going at WNB this past Wednesday, there's still a handful of people who like it. I played for the first time in months and actually enjoyed myself, but of course, Extend Ragna is silly, so that was probably a given.

Charge gauge decreases more slowly when high level moves are used. Level 2 moves getting some pretty big buffs (lvl2 Blockhead wall stick, lvl2 Bandit Revolver slide down). DI only costs 50% bar. Yeah, I'm happy.

Apparently a couple of folks in the RDU area are hinting at wanting to pick BB up, so I may hop back on soon.

Watching Tetsu's BK compilation videos has me wanting to play BB again, so if someone around the RDU area could host, I'll come out.

Yeah, we just don't have anybody really hosting or trying to get anything rolling with BB or GG right now. People are mostly focused on KOF/SFxT/UMvC3 right now. I would like to play CSE, though. Wish I could host here...

So were you able to go, Austin?

BB was made to be played online, and as some of the higher ups in the community have mentioned, the fact that it has a strong netplayer community has actually hurt it in the tournament scene, so I would assume Extend has good netcode. Rob, I haven't retooled my connection for online play since the last time I had to reinstall my router software, so that might have been the cause of it. Too bad, cuz I've been looking forward to playing people.

Cool, just tell us where in NC exactly. Cuz that's really important.

I'm free in BB around here now. Sucks. People around Charlotte actually care about that game. Though I'm pretty sure some practice will knock the rust off, and Extend just makes me happy.

Eddie Dub! Haven't seen this guy in forever. We need to hang out again sometime!

Instant barrier has been in every version of the game, the only difference now is that barrier creates more push out. Is it really that big of a deal?

Nah it's all good, it can wait. Not like I'm gonna play Marvel anytime soon anyway.

I dunno, I already kinda don't mind Carl as much from last night. Granted, we didn't play a whole lot and everyone is out of practice, but I didn't encounter any really stupid stuff like I've seen in previous games.