White Man

Love the design. Holy crap though, I hope her AI is still being developed. Jinpachi and Azazel put up a better fight (read: were more obnoxious) on the easiest difficulty settings in their games.

Garou was the most popular game on that poll, followed by Last Blade 2 in second place and SamSho V Special in third. If they are porting Garou because of the poll (and if they're not then I don't know what the point of that poll was) then there's a decent chance we'll see the other two titles get ports at some point. I hope it happens. LB2 is the forgotten treasure of the SNK fighting game library and SamSho V Special is on my video game bucket list.

I was going to make a similar comment. Some of the links in the combo video remind me of the bound system in Tekken 6 and Tag 2, where you had a lot of weird physics issues like standing punches picking characters up off the ground and launching them seven or eight feet into the air. I see some similar things happening in this game, and it definitely does not look any less awkward in 2D. Fighting game physics are obviously absurd, but they should be consistently absurd in a way that applies universally to every movement and hit. One thing in the combo test video I saw that I really liked: at the 30-second mark, a character gets moved into the corner mid-combo, then gets bounced OUT of the corner when the other player continues the combo. I don't know if that was an intentional gameplay mechanic or a little glitch in the physics engine, but I'd recommend keeping it. BlazBlue has given me a distaste for fighters where you can just move somebody into the corner and pressure them for the entire round. I really like the idea of a combo system where certain moves adjust the other character's positioning in a way that doesn't lock them into the corner. It opens up a new level of strategic depth as you're forced to make that decision: Do I end the combo early and leave them in a disadvantageous position on the playfield, or do I go for the most damage possible and leave them midscreen where they have more movement options? The game is still waaaaay too early in development for me to comment on the aesthetics in any amount of detail, so I'll just say that the sprite animation is looking good so far. I do agree with TAI-X that the high frame count on animations could be a detriment in some cases as it tends to bog down the gameplay a bit, but I think you're still a ways off from tweaking stuff like that (though it's possibly something that at least warrants consideration as you proceed). The idle animations look really nice.

As one of those people with less than 100 online matches played, I can assure you we don't mind getting thrashed as much as you might think. We're just desperate to play the game with anyone, and maybe learn something along the way. (All I ask is that you don't skate through two rounds and then add insult to injury by comboing into your AH. That's just a dick move.)

What a random-ass thing to change. I can only assume that because Aksys was redoing most of the in-game text already, they just went ahead and changed the HUD text to achieve complete uniformity with the new typeface. Otherwise, I can't fathom why a professional graphic designer would feel compelled to make that particular modification. The lowercase lettering doesn't look horrible or anything, but it serves no purpose from a technical standpoint and does nothing to improve the game's aesthetic appeal (arguably the opposite). Very strange.

I honestly believe Lambda was added to the game purely for aesthetic reasons. Aside from keeping the character select portraits symmetrical, Lambda's inclusion gives CP2 the feel of being a dream match title, even though it's technically canon. The fact that EVERY playable character from every version of BB is included in CP2 is a nice selling point, even though Nu and Lambda have been wholly interchangeable up to this point.

More new features announced for Chrono Phantasma Extend: Tournament Match, a new online mode where you can organize tournaments between hundreds of players who will inevitably get fed up from waiting hours for their turn and leave early. BlazKart, a new mode where your favorite BlazBlue characters take the battle to the track in eight-player races. Sim Kagutsuchi, a new mode where you assume the role of the Imperator and use your in-game currency to upgrade and expand the 13th Hierarchical City while keeping your virtual citizens terrified and subservient. Lambda-11 Laboratory, a new mode where you can customize Lambda's move set in an effort to make her not totally suck. BlazParty Fever, a new mode where up to four players compete in riotous BB-themed minigames like Taokaka Bowling and Tic-Tac-Toe But With Ragna and Jin Heads Instead of X's and O's. BlazBurn, a new mode where you use either PS Move or the Kinect to activate your character's special moves and shed a few pounds in the process. (Upload your score and weight to the online leaderboards to find out who is the BlazBurn Champion!) Side Character Stories. Learn how Linhua spends her day off; embark on a thrilling adventure with three identical Ikaruga Ninjas; laugh along with unlikely roommates Nago and Gii as they endure zany predicaments and wacky misunderstandings. EX Unlimited Mars, a new take on Unlimited Mars where every character is invincible and capable of a one-hit KO. Failure results in a sixteen-minute-long sequence of unskippable loading and overly-elaborate game over screens. EX Training: Basically the same as regular training mode, but with separate trophies/achievements for clocking in a certain number of hours. Menu Race, a new mode where you navigate through different in-game menu screens as quickly as possible. (Upload your best time to the online leaderboards to find out who is the Menu Master!) New stages. Fight on revised versions of classic CP stages, such as Blockaded District at dusk, Snow Town in the middle of summer (renamed "Town"), and Yggdrasill Seed with litter and broken beer bottles covering the floor. Over 700 unlockable character stickers you can use to decorate your D-Code profile card.

It sucks that we're not getting the in-game gallery. 2002:UM has my favorite character artwork of any fighter. Oh well. Definitely still worth a purchase if the netcode turns out to be decent.

My pet peeve is when the only players online anymore are Japanese who (understandably) refuse to play with me because of my zero-bar connection.

Interesting. I guess that's one way to balance that mode a bit and give some of the less useful items greater utility. Meanwhile, Legion Mode is still nowhere to be seen...

Looks like the Extend version of CP is tacking on more minor improvements than we got for CS Extend. If you disregard the inclusion of all the DLC, the only real brand new content being added to the game besides Celica and Lambda are the new story mode bits and some tweaks to existing modes/features. Everything else is pretty much the same as it was in vanilla CP. I guess the overhauled gameplay will be enough to get hardcore fans to invest in Extend, but I feel like they're going to have a tougher time convincing the more casual players to make the upgrade. Given that the majority of players outside of Japan don't seem to care about the games' story all that much, I can see this being an especially tough sell in the US. Kind of makes me wonder if Aksys will even bother to bring this one over. How was Abyss Mode different in the Vita port? Never got the chance to play that one.

I don't think Nintendo would go for that. With a few notable exceptions, they're generally among the best companies in the industry when it comes to refusing to publish incomplete games.

I can't wait to see which member of Mori's imaginary harem gets added to the roster next.

Tager having an advantage over Nu doesn't actually surprise me that much. Tager has gotten new tools for getting around zoner tactics in almost every iteration of BB, and Nu's gameplan in 2.0 looks like it's set up so that she has a tougher time dealing with characters who somehow manage to get past her swarm of ridiculous projectiles. All Tager needs to do is land sledge at the right moment to score a counter hit and Nu is boned. Of course, this is the kind of thing that's easier said than done. It could be another case where Tager dominates the matchup in theory, but has a way harder time dealing with her in practice.

I think it was Justin Wong(?) who said the one consistent feature he observed in every successful FG player was their ability to remain calm under pressure and make intelligent decisions in the middle of a heated match. Makes a lot of sense when you think about it; fighters are all about precision. No matter what skills you've acquired over the course of playing a game, getting frustrated or panicky and dropping inputs can nullify months or even years of practice.

I'd say I agree with the majority of Mike Z's points, though I still feel he's exaggerating the impact of YRCs setting up option selects (I at least feel better knowing this isn't his sole reason for not playing Xrd). Regardless, I feel like I understand where he's coming from on both the positive and negative aspects he covers; his views of the game are informed and make sense to me. Sirlin's article is kind of all over the place. It reads as stream-of-consciousness rambling with no central focus and very little organization. If he wasn't forced to publish a rough draft to meet a deadline, then he really shouldn't be calling himself a professional writer. I wouldn't even mind the subpar quality of the writing if it weren't for the fact that the info seems very poorly researched. Sirlin gets terms wrong, repeatedly expresses confusion about the nature and/or history of what he's describing, and dedicates entire sections of the piece to complaining about minute aspects of the characters' designs in Accent Core: a subject that ultimately has nothing to do with his thesis. It's also a bad sign that he had to write the sentence "I am a very experienced Guilty Gear player," to secure his ethos, especially when he proceeds to describe how *even* he "couldn't pick" Ky because of his Stun Edge FRC and apparently Slayer's Dandy Step variations just blew his mind to pieces. Also, does he really not know where Roman Cancels got their name? I would think anyone who'd been playing GG for years would just figure that out on their own at some point. Sirlin makes a few decent points, but he makes them in such an ineptly-written article that I almost want to adopt the opposite opinion out of childish spite. I swear, that man could write an article about the farming industry that made me want to boycott eating my own birthday cake.

I think probably the main reason the PS3 version visuals look so jarringly bad is because of Xrd's graphical style. The drop in quality from the PS4 to the PS3 wouldn't be nearly as noticeable if it weren't for the fact that the models were designed to look like 2D spites. The graphics were made so precisely to achieve a certain look that downgrading their quality even slightly completely obliterates the appearance the artists were going for. On the PS4, the pseudo-2D effect on the characters is convincing enough that you can easily mistake them for super high-res sprites; on the PS3, you can simply glance at the screen and it's very obvious you're looking at 3D models made of polygons. If you've followed this game's development since it was announced, you've spent months and months looking at the game as it appears on the PS4. Seeing the PS3 version for the first time is pretty damn jarring. While it's an exaggeration to say the game looks hideous on the PS3, it doesn't really look good either. Whether or not it's worth buying a PS4 solely for Xrd will depend on how important graphics are to you and how much disposable income you have sitting around. If you already own both consoles, however, then definitely get the PS4 version. The difference in the quality of the visuals is more than enough to justify the price difference.

Not buying a game doesn't tell a company you disapprove of how they do business, but buying a game does tell a company you approve of how they do business. Sales figures are, in fact, the most effective way to communicate with the people in charge of making those sorts of decisions. Consumer buying trends were what kept CP off the 360, and they're what will ultimately dictate whether or not ASW continues down this path of gouging their fans with hundreds of dollars of on-disc DLC, sloppy game updates, and full-priced revisions of titles that make the previous year's full-priced versions obsolete.

Wow, they're actually patching the game based on community feedback. Good for those guys! Hope they're able to successfully fix some of the issues plaguing the game. It would be awesome if we finally had a BS-free definitive version of KOF '98 available outside of arcades.

People are allowed to spend their own money any way they want and hold whatever opinion they want; however, there are consequences for every action. As such... If you make a statement that an unreleased product will not be desirable to anyone, you're taking a huge gamble that other people's opinions and personal feelings will fall perfectly in line with your own. You have very little to gain for a correct prediction in this scenario, while an incorrect prediction will cost you your credibility and likely cause others to lose any respect they held for your views. If you blindly decide that you're definitely going to buy a new product upon its release regardless of its quality, then you're the most destructive kind of consumer. By choosing to support a company in this fashion, you forfeit the right to ever complain about that company's future actions or the quality of their future products because you directly contributed to the formation of a reality where that company profits from ignoring feedback from its dissatisfied consumers.

But you just said Code Mystics was given the XBLA version as a base for the port. They can't work miracles, man. I don't know if you played the XBLA port, but it was seriously shit. I downloaded the demo day one with the mindset of being 80% sure I was going to buy it. Without even experiencing the online component or being aware of how many features and modes they axed, two matches against the AI was all it took for me to nope my way out of that mess. The controls are almost unplayably bad. Thankfully, 2002:UM was a much better port, at least as far as the single player experience goes. If they can work out some of the kinks in the netcode, then we still have a chance for a decent KOF title on Steam.

Oh HELL no, the 360 port of '98:UM was garbage! I can't believe they used that as the basis for this version... Did they at least translate the win quotes?

Back to Guilty Gear it is, then. It was fun while it lasted, 'Blue. No hard feelings.

Not surprised at all to see they're doing CP Extend, though I didn't expect the PS4/XB1 ports. Hm, now I'm wondering if the impetus behind the creation of CP 2.0 was a desire to get the game on next-gen consoles. That would explain a number of things. I'll satisfy my curiosity if this is offered as a DLC expansion for the PS3 version (which very likely won't be the case given the existence of the next-gen ports). Otherwise, I can't possibly justify sinking another $40+ into this game.

The quote at the top of my post wasn't putting words in anyone's mouth, merely conveying a (comically exaggerated) sentiment that other posters claim unspecified players have expressed over the game. My aim was to make fun of the perceived attitude of these players, not their actual reasons for abandoning CP 2.0 — which could be perfectly reasonable or utterly absurd. Because nothing of importance is at stake, it doesn't really matter. The rest of my post is me explaining my perception of the current situation based on the information provided to me by other people. I don't know how I could appear to be a contrarian when I haven't outright disagreed with anything anyone here has said. Regarding Nu, I don't doubt that she's overpowered in this game, I simply have difficulty believing the scene is dwindling solely because of her (CT maintained an active scene with two brain-dead zoning characters on the top tier AND a tournament legal character with a meterless TOD combo). For all I know, this mass player exodus is nothing but other people exaggerating. I don't personally know the actual health of the BB playerbase in Japan. For that matter, I can't comment to the quality of the game itself, which is why I'm eager to play it: I want to form my own opinions instead of having to rely on conflicting reports from others.