White Man

Courtesy of Xanthe.

Not to harp on this, but people expecting the full Accent Core roster for Xrd, even in the home version, are very likely going to be disappointed. We'll probably work up to that in subsequent releases (scope dat subtitle there guys) but expecting them to create 23-25 characters for what is essentially a brand new game on a completely new engine is unreasonable. Honestly, I'd be fine with it if we've already seen all the returning characters and the rest were newcomers. I'd really like to see ASW expand on the GG mythos and design some new characters instead of just converting everything from past games into 3D. I understand them wanting to make sure they appeal to old school GG fans who want to see their favorite character(s) return, but nobody has ever made a good sequel in ANY medium of entertainment from playing it too safe and rehashing old content while bringing very little new material to the table.

Dammit.

I suppose calling Slashbacks "low risk" wasn't the right way to phrase it... I guess simply in terms of the resources (read: meter) required to use the technique, the payoff can be very significant for relatively little cost. I personally rarely attempt Slashbacks unless it's against something with a lengthy and very obvious startup animation (i.e. Bandit Bringer), but I've seen people on this board talk about the ease with which high level players can SB their way out of practically anything with more than 2 frames of startup. If you're playing theory fighter, that's essentially giving people a tool that allows them to never get hit with a special virtually for free. As for a missed SB costing you a ton of life, I'm not sure about that. The situations where a good player is more likely to miss one is in the case of a very quick attack that's difficult to react to, and GG generally isn't a game where players can net huge damage off of jabs and pokes. Though I suppose that's splitting hairs. Maybe it's beside the point, but the parry system in SF3 is something I will condemn as broken. I've seen too many pro players complain that parrying is something that basically nullifies zoning and can very easily net someone a nice chunk of damage as a reward for a lucky guess. And yes, I have won SF3 matches against more experienced players thanks to guessing. But nothing in GG functions like the parry system, so again, that's beside the point. I guess my hope for Blitz Shield is something similar to SB that removes some of the difficulty of the execution and makes it a more strategic tool. Basically, it's easy enough to use that you can realistically expect to counter just about anything your opponent throws at you if you know what to look for, but the meter consumption creates a situation where you have to be smart about when you use it. The question then changes from "Can I counter this next attack?" to "Should I counter this next attack?" Of course, I have no idea if this is anything even vaguely resembling how the technique will actually work. That's just a pinch of speculation on my part combined with my personal hope.

I dislike Slashbacks and SFIII-style parrying since they're so easy to throw out and seem to reward guessing more often than they should. Yeah, you leave yourself open to attack if you mistimed it, but it's still a relatively low-risk option that can result in an extremely high reward. I think making the move cost meter is a great way to implement some kind of parry mechanic while keeping it balanced. Tension is so important in GG that gambling a fourth of your meter makes it a high risk/high reward option and not something you're likely to use unless you're punishing your opponent for being extremely predictable. Really though, how useful the technique ends up being depends on how they implement it. I've seen way too many mechanics in a ton of different fighters that sound completely broken on paper but end up being largely ignored by players because they're just not practical in actual gameplay.

Blitz Shield looks like it could be their attempt to renovate Slashbacks to be slightly more powerful and easier to use at the expense of some meter. The way the screenshot shows Ky's attack being recoiled, I'm almost positive the move is some sort of parry.

I think one problem with the "Who should I play?" question when it concerns character comparisons is the fact that you're essentially asking people to equate apples to oranges. What BlazBlue character plays like Millia? None of them, honestly, since ASW doesn't design their characters based off of prefab templates. Every character requires a unique approach to use effectively. And even if you point to some BB characters who use similar gameplay mechanics as Millia, you're not going to get a really familiar experience since A) each character is defined by the whole of the tools they have available and B) BB itself has a different gameplay engine than GG. Even if they had a character from GG make a cameo appearance in BB, they wouldn't play exactly the same because the game's speed, gravity, meter system, and combo timing are all different, among other things. Now, if someone is simply asking who's the grappler or who has the best keep-away game, that's a little easier (though the answer will still be open to debate in a game like this). As soon as you begin drawing comparisons to other characters in other fighters, however, you're asking a question that can't be easily answered most of the time.

Didn't Makoto also get a new stage? EDIT: Yep, she did. Speaking of stages, I'm surprised they aren't offering the old CT/CS stages as DLC. Guess they're saving those for Chronophantasma Extend...

It only got 34/40? Wow. The way Famitsu scores scale, that's like a D+.

Kliff's BB color is also Valkenhayn, weirdly.

Boa Hancock? What a weird choice. I'm glad more females are showing up in the game, but OP has so many more deserving characters... Having the release date pushed back opens the door for a larger final roster, at least. There's still some hope I may yet get to experience an epic Zoro/Kenshin duel.

Can anyone confirm whether or not the macro glitch is present in the post-patch 360 version? I've been trying to experiment with it, but I'm not sure if I don't fully understand how it works/can't pull it off or if it simply isn't there. Haven't had much time to play since the patch dropped. :/

Yeah. Hazama being a bad dude was kind of obvious from early on, but it was never that obvious he was THE bad dude. Maybe this is just the impression I got from playing CT, but he seemed to have kind of an evil lackey vibe to him, like the NOL itself was the secret Big Bad and he was there on some clandestine mission to keep an eye on everyone. His feigned cowardice and seeming inability to fight backed that up quite well. When you found out he was actually the absurdly powerful mastermind behind everything, it was appropriately shocking. The anime throws all that out the window. Not only does it show everyone right away that he's a villain, but it makes it very clear he's the one pulling the strings. Talking about the Ragna/Jin fight, aside from Jin's ice brick, I thought the fight was handled pretty well in terms of the animation and choreography. The only problem I have with the fight is, once again, the story and pacing. Ragna and Jin having their epic showdown was something the story took way more time to lead up to in the game. We knew so much more about both characters and their respective motivations that their fight had way more gravity to it. In contrast, the anime had almost no buildup at all. Rags and Jin see each other, there's the reveal they're brothers, and before you even have a chance to properly digest the implications of that, boom, REBEL ONE ACTION. I can't imagine why someone with no prior knowledge of these characters would be the least bit emotionally invested in their fight.

Watching the first episode felt like I was watching BlazBlue: The Abridged Series, except the voices were Japanese and not funny. There were some things I liked, to be fair, but the pacing was just abysmal. They included virtually none of the humorous or heartfelt moments from the game's script and comply blazed (lolz) through any scenes where some real character development (or hell, character establishment) could have happened. The pace was so breakneck it didn't even have time to explain what was going on. I thought one of the major reasons for this anime being made was to allow BB newbies the chance to familiarize themselves with the main characters and the early stages of the plot. To that end, this series is off to a very weak start. If I hadn't already experienced this story before, I would have been completely lost watching that.

Very cool. The fact that something came through for NA systems gives me hope that we'll get the full patch simultaneously with Japan, if not shortly after. If not... Man. Seeing the version setting right there and not having it respond to inputs is the ultimate cocktease.

A patch is out for the 360 version! Not sure yet whether or not it's THE patch... The update changes a few settings and features (move lists are translated, leaderboards finally work, etc.) and adds the version option to the game settings menu. The version is locked in at AC, however, and it doesn't seem you can change it at the present. I thought the ability to switch the version to +R might be offered as a separate download, but nothing new has showed up in the game's XBLA store yet. No idea what (if anything) has changed as far as online play is concerned. The servers are dead as a doornail tonight.

SO GLAD THEY FIXED ALL THOSE BUGS IN THE PATCH.

You could be right. Still, I'm not going to get my hopes up for too many characters from the more obscure series when they've yet to announce reps from some of their bigger money makers. As for Claymore, I should specify it's definitely affiliated with the Jump line of magazines; the tricky part is whether or not it's officially a Weekly Shonen Jump series. Claymore originally debuted in Monthly Shonen Jump and was only featured in WSJ for less than half a year as a holdover between the cancellation of Monthly SJ and the launch of its replacement magazine, Jump SQ. For this reason, it's sort of a "yeah it was technically featured in WSJ but it wasn't supposed to be" kind of situation. It might not matter, but considering the fact that J Stars and the DS Jump crossovers have thus far focused exclusively on series that debuted in WSJ, Claymore might not be eligible due to that technicality. I wouldn't mind being wrong, but it's something to keep in mind.

Characters from Hell Teacher Nube and Zombie Powder would be godlike, but I'm not holding my breath for either. Claymore would also be incredibly badass, but their refusal to acknowledge that as a proper Jump title probably means it's a no-go. Actually, most of those series probably won't get any reps in this game unless they push the release date back (or go nuts with post-release DLC). Time is running short if they still want to get the game out before the end of this year.

I desperately want to get excited over this news, but between the lack of online improvements and the game-breaking macro glitches in the JP patch, I ain't even care. Worst port ever of the best game ever.

Giving priority to the old characters doesn't necessarily mean there will definitely be no Overture characters (or completely new characters for that matter) in Xrd.

Haven't seen anybody mention Johnny despite him having a fair bit of story significance and being reasonably popular. I know it's fun to speculate, but really, any of the characters are fair game at this point, even the "unlikely" ones (up until the first trailer hit, two-thirds of the fanbase was convinced Eddie was dead). There isn't a single character in AC+ who doesn't add something to the game, and different characters are popular among different demographics. Trying to guess the roster is futile when we don't even know how many characters are going to be in the final game or how many new faces we'll see next to the old ones.

Everybody has a different philosophy on how to learn a game and I'm sure people will flock to this thread to tell me I'm an idiot, but I think you're much better off learning the engine before you dedicate yourself to learning a specific character. I guess I'd recommend initially steering clear of Zappa, Robo Ky, and ABA simply because they have a lot of weird mechanics that will steepen the initial learning curve (also maybe avoid Potemkin and +R Justice until you've got a handle on the game's various movement options). Other than that, just pick anybody and play the game. Get used to the feel of the gameplay, learn about movement, meter management, etc., and get an idea of how the different characters play in a practical sense instead of focusing on theory. It shouldn't take you too long to figure out who you like, then you can start putting in the time to learn that character after you've got a solid grasp on the engine itself. As for Slayer specifically, I don't know if I'd say his execution is especially difficult on the whole. I think the trickiest thing to learn with him are his air combos and being able to hit confirm off of a lot of different starters. I'm not an expert with Slayer by any means, though, so you might want to duck into his character subforum to get a better idea of the challenges you'll face picking him up. But just from where I stand, I wouldn't say his execution is that tough. Pretty middle-of-road, I'd say. You just have to be smart and really knowledgeable about the other characters' limitations, since a huge chunk of playing Slayer successfully means knowing when and how to punish your opponent's mistakes.

I'm really surprised they haven't announced any JoJo's Bizarre Adventure characters yet, given how white hot that franchise is right now. Not to mention Bamco already made JJBA: All Star Battle, so they should have some reusable assets left over from that game's development.

Not to drag this off-topic, but for anyone who is curious, yes, Capcom is currently bleeding quite badly. You reap what you sow. Back on Xrd, I'm a little confused about the game's presence (or lack thereof) at TGS. The official site says the game isn't going to be covered at Arc's booth, but apparently there's news Ishiwatari is going to be there and folks here seem to think there's a possibility for fresh news. So are they simply not making the game playable at TGS but might still have videos and news and whatnot, or...? What exactly is the situation here? EDIT: Just saw in a different thread that there's going to be a GG stage show at TGS. That explains a lot. Still not sure why Xrd isn't listed as a featured game for ASW, but whatever.