White Man

Hype Levels are approaching maximum. Anything else they announce after this is likely to spill down the sides of the tank. I know online petitions very seldom accomplish anything, but does anybody think it would be worth a shot to try and convince Bamco to localize this?

Hm. I don't know... Being able to YRC out of backdash sounds sort of wonky on paper, but I have my doubts regarding how practical of a technique it'll be in real match play. I'm just wondering which characters will be able to take advantage of that situation in a way that would actually be worth spending 25% meter. If the stuff I'm hearing about Overdrives being more useful this time around is accurate, I could see cancels in general becoming a less integral part of the gameplay as it evolves.

Skinny jeans be damned, I like that a lot. Never been much of a figure collector, but I'll totally jump on that if the price doesn't end up being too absurd.

Man, ain't that a kick. Unlike the myriad of fighters with DLC that frustrates me to no end, this is one game where I wouldn't have minded a handful of DLC characters. They can't possibly have too many characters in my opinion, and I wouldn't have minded shelling out a few extra bucks to ensure the roster winds up as big as it can be. I'm not at all surprised to see Pegasus Seiya made it in. Little surprised Allen is only a support character, though. I thought D.Gray-man was popular enough to warrant at least one playable rep... Speaking of playable, here's some off-screen footage of the game in action somebody caught at Jump Festa.

Oh my GOD YouTube. Edit: Quick, watch it before they take it down again!

Another great video, guys. Eddie changed enough in +R that I've been struggling to wrap my mind around all of his new tools from simply observing them, so this episode saved me a fair bit of research.

Opinions might vary as to whether or not an edit of an official piece counts as fanart, but this was just way too damn cool not to post.

New character still looks less exploitative than half the cast of DOA. Also, the fans voted for her, so I can only place so much of the blame on the devs. I will say, she does looks legitimately interesting from a gameplay perspective. Her move set, especially the projectiles, don't really match anything else we've seen from a playable Tekken character before, yet it seems integrated into the engine fairly well. This could be a sneak peek of the kind of gameplay we might potentially see if Namco ever gets around to making Tekken X SF.

Whaaaaat?!? That is insanely cool. Did NOT expect to see anybody from HTN make the roster. With Jump Festa coming up, hopefully we'll get a new trailer or maybe some bonus character reveals. I'd be surprised if they didn't have some kind of new media/announcement during the event.

Of all the unannounced characters from GG/X/XX, I'd say Johnny is among the most likely to make it in before the final build hits arcades. Thanks to Rob for backing up those vids. Time to grab some popcorn...!

Pretty sure that shows up when an Overdrive connects. Sorry for the confusion on the music. Somebody said this loketest would have new BGM as well as new voices, but I guess that info was wrong.

I SO can't wait for clothing covered in writing to become the next big fashion trend. I'd really like to get folks' impressions on the new music, but I understand it's probably hard to hear it clearly in a noisy arcade during a loketest. Still, any info/opinions on what little of the BGM can be heard would be greatly appreciated.

Too bad nobody remembers Super Dragon Ball Z. That was one was pretty sweet.

I envy anyone who can honestly say that Project Justice is the worst experience they've ever had with a fighting game. My pick is Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22. The game is a series of loading screens occasionally interrupted by ugly, bland gameplay segments where beloved DBZ characters such as Goku®, Vegeta®, Cell™, and Gohan Copyright © 1995-2003 TOSE Software Co & FUNimation All Rights Reserved trade awkward blows during matches that last roughly eight seconds on average. At least the Inuyasha PS1 fighter had decent graphics; there was nothing about UB22 that didn't suck.

I'd jump in on the PS3 vs. PS4 discussion, but it feels kind of pointless when we know so little about the game's tech specs and have literally zero information on the home ports. Doesn't really matter to me anyway. If the PS3 version is inferior, so be it; there's no chance in hell I'm buying a $400+ console for one game. Looking forward to seeing Zato and Bedman at the loketests. I'm also happy to see they updated the HUD. The RISC gauges look noticeably clearer now, and I'm overjoyed they changed those ugly-ass burst icons.

Speaking solely for myself, character tutorials for BlazBlue are not something I would be willing to support financially. I think you've done a great service for the GG community with Guilty Bits. The series filled a void by providing simple, straightforward tutorials for the cast of a game that is widely considered to have a high barrier of entry and requires a lot of precise knowledge that can be difficult to discern through experimentation alone. Prior to GB, the only ways for a newcomer to the series to gain this kind of insight into each character was to simply play the game until they figured this stuff out through trail and error, or spend hours exhaustively combing through wiki pages. The fact that the videos all have such high production values has also likely attracted new players to the game who began following the series simply because it was interesting/fun to watch. BlazBlue, on the other hand, already equips new players with all the information they could conceivably need to learn how to play as and against each character. Between the system tutorials, character tutorials, and combo trials, there's very little information left over to cover in a video series. At best, I think BlazBits would be a regurgitation of info already present in the game that came with the added benefit of a visual demonstration. You could probably justify such a project as having the secondary purpose of advertising BB to newcomers; unlike GG, however, BB already has a strong ad campaign behind it to expand its fanbase without the need for nearly as much aid from the players. I completely understand why you guys would want some kind of payment for doing a project like this. Frankly, I'm surprised (and quite grateful) you've done this much for free. That said, I personally don't feel as though a similar video series for BB is necessary—at least not enough that I'd be willing to donate anything to make it a reality.

I too am overwhelmed with joy that my favorite video game franchise is finally getting a brand new next-gen installment after years of silence. If they fail to include the character I play most frequently in the current version, however, this game will be responsible for plunging me into a suicidal depression that can only be escaped by sending a barrage of furious letters to ASW explaining how they have literally raped my emotions by proving they don't give a damn about their most avid online supporters.

Is it? I've heard connection quality is pretty spotty for a lot of players who generally had no issues with online matches in SC5. Not sure if the general opinion has changed or if the folks I talked to were simply unlucky. I guess I don't know as much about netcode as I previously thought. Between this and Plus R, I'm starting to think that adding online functionality to older games that weren't built around an online infrastructure is hellaciously challenging, even for developers who know what they're doing when it comes to this sort of thing.

Same here. Honestly, given how much work went into those beautiful sprites, I'm surprised they'd only use them for one single game (KOF XII doesn't count). At the very least, I figured we'd get one more 2D title—maybe two if they managed to create enough characters to justify another dream match entry. There are still enough 2D fighters being released that I can't say we're witnessing the death of sprites just yet, but it is a little disheartening to see more and more of the big companies going 3D with their classic franchises.

Surprise surprise, less fanatical players enjoy having the opportunity to test the waters and experiment at their own pace without getting tossed off a cliff for failure. Something a lot of vets within the FGC seem to struggle with is the fact that new players don't like being pinned against a wall and beaten to within an inch of their lives before being thrown to the ground and spit on. I've seen others suggest the idea that maybe the pros can take it a little easy on newbies until they get the hang of the game, and people usually come back with some college essay about relative skill levels and optimal learning systems and all this BS put together to justify not even risking having their win ratio take a slight hit. Either that or they start channeling David Carradine and give this zen master speech about how the young grasshoppers will never realize their true potential if they don't challenge opponents much stronger than them and so on and so forth, like playing fighting games makes you the protagonist of a shonen anime. "I got humiliated in the arcades as a kid when I was learning how to play these games, and by glorious God, that's how the next generation ought to learn them! Trail by fire! Let those latecomer scrubs get the button mashing and dropped combos beaten out of them! THIS! IS! SPARTA! "On a completely unrelated topic, does anybody have any theories on why the community doesn't seem to be getting any new members?" Obviously, people who can never accept losing are in the wrong genre. And yes, there is truth in the idea that playing against someone who is appreciably better than you will improve your skills faster than just about anything. There is a line, though. No matter how much you tell yourself that racking up a forty-game win streak against Joe Newbie will make him love the experience of getting his ass gift-wrapped and delivered to his front door, the truth is you're just stroking your own ego. Nobody enjoys losing constantly, and nobody learns anything from getting completely overwhelmed before they even know what's going on or have a chance to fight back. If you take away someone's hope of ever becoming really good at a game, you've just taken away any motivation they have for continuing to play it. And no, I'm not suggesting you treat new players like charity cases and donate free wins to bribe them into sticking around. But if you're good enough at a game that you can completely dominate someone, then you're good enough to know how to play so that you're providing them with a genuine challenge while still giving them the chance to actually play the game instead of watching their character get comboed over and over and over again. "But I play these games for pride and self-improvement, not to give free lessons to casuals!" Then avoid the casuals. Block players who let you get a double perfect on them. If someone's on a fifteen-game losing streak, politely encourage them to seek a lobby with people who are nearer to their skill level. Do whatever you can to avoid playing against people who offer you no challenge; just don't come back here and bitch when you notice the community shrinking because the old players are leaving and nobody is stepping up to replace them.

It's like you're trying to punch me in the stomach through the internet. As for Kokonoe and (unless folks have already changed their minds about this) Terumi being overpowered, I think there's still time for them to sort all that out. I have no evidence except past release patterns to back this up, but I predict ASW will release CP2 at some point and port all of the console-exclusive content to arcades. If/when that happens, the game will probably get rebalanced, just as every single new iteration of BB has, in which case a console patch to bring the two versions in line with each other shouldn't be far behind. Again, this is all speculation on my part. But for the sake of making my prediction early in hopes of being called a wizard later on, there you go.

Couldn't agree more, Ronove. I don't even get where this idea that #Reload is the better training tool for Xrd came from, honestly. We got an offhanded comment that the gameplay system for Xrd was going to be more similar to #Reload to the extent that it would remove several mechanics from Slash and AC, and everybody took that to mean the games' engines were going to be nearly identical?! And this is even in light of the fact that we have confirmation that Xrd uses several never-before-seen system mechanics; has different hitstop and movement speed; and we already know that the revealed characters' move lists are different AND a bunch of #Reload combos no longer work. If people want to play #Reload because they honestly like the game, then great. But this idea of going back and playing an old game with a dead community solely because it might barely resemble an upcoming new game closer than its more modern and better-balanced sequel? I'm sorry, but I see zero logic in that line of reasoning. It just reeks of desperation to get a miniscule edge on the competition come release day, which won't even matter for the majority of DL users since Japanese players will have already gotten MONTHS of practice on us by the time the home version comes out.

Don't buy a game with the expectation of it being a warm-up or a training exercise for a game you actually want to play; buy a game if it looks fun and rewarding and you think you'll get enjoyment out it. At this point, it's anyone's guess what gameplay mechanics will carry over from AC/+R to Xrd. That said, I think AC is a good enough game that it warrants picking up just to experience it as a stand-alone title, regardless of how many hours of training it might or might not save you when Xrd comes out.

Can't tell if sarcasm...? Kliff and Justice have been in more games (main installments at least) between GG1 and +R than not. They usually aren't balanced for tournament play, granted, but for them to even show up that much despite being officially dead as doornails kind of proves my point, I think.

Zato-1 is canonically dead, that much we know for sure. Last we saw of Eddie, he was gradually dying due to the inability to feed off of a live host—as I recall, several endings in AC+ had him biting the dust. However, I think another one of his endings had him discovering it was possible for him to continue living without a host, effectively making him immortal. Of course, whether or not any of those endings were canon is a moot point in the end, since the writers can pull whatever excuse they want to bring him back. Fighting games are notorious for reviving dead characters for the most absurd reasons imaginable (take Vice and Mature in KOF13). GG has never been the kind of game that prioritizes the story over the characters and gameplay, anyway. If they think Eddie's inclusion would benefit the game, then they'll find a way to put him in there, Zato corpse and all, plotholes be damned.