Fighting Games

[Mustang]

Hmm, Nephew beats Punk to be the first SF6 exhibition champion. What the fu....

This irks me quite a bit and I'm not a tournament player. Something about the Street Fighter scene right now just irks the hell out of me and I think it's because of stupid shit like this. This really shouldn't be a big deal because nobody knows how to play (except those that are playing the hacked beta). It's the damn scene overcompensating by overhyping shit that doesn't need to be hyped up. It's an exhibition at PAX. Treat it like a damn exhibition and not a damn tournament. Maybe I'm tripping a bit because I'm trying to duck SF6 info but failing miserably because everyday it's SF6 here. SF6 there and I'm just overloaded. Like, right now I'd rather wait for the 1st batch of DLC characters and figure out how to play from there so I can forget all the mechanics and go in new.

Anyway, Tekken 8, Paul, Law (HOT DAMN), King, Lars (HOT DAMN), Jack-8, Jun and Ling Xiaoyu have been announced and all of them look great. Their is also a meter now with a "heat" mechanic, and it looks like they want you to be aggressive as hell because there's guard breaks now too. I've seen mixed opinions on Tekken 8 as a whole. Me? I'm loving what I'm seeing.

There have been some videos from Fighting EX Layer showcasing a 3D style of gameplay. Side-stepping plus the traditional way of a 2D fighter. This game here might be the one I focus on if it's real. Last time they trolled everyone on April fools and made that game real for the Switch. I skipped on it because it had a weird card function and while I do play TCG's here and there I don't like them in my fighting games (also, I'll admit that I will not play fighting games on the Switch), but if that's not the case the I stand corrected.

KoF15 finally got Kim coming. As much as I hope SNK can make a comeback (and they sort of did, I guess) and I'm glad KoF15 is doing "well", it ain't for me. I'll say it time and time again. I completely understand that KoF13's graphics can't be repeated and it hurt them in the long run and while KoF15's graphics looks better than KoF14's, it's still dated. Like KoF14 should've been a PS2 game while KoF15 look like it should be on the PS3. Like other new titles going the route of "dumbing" down mechanics, they go too far here as well with the combo routes. The pretzel control scheme had to go, but not my combos damn.

Anyway, that's it for new stuff. I've been watching a lot of BlazBlue and seeing some stuff I don't agree with. There's a player that goes by the name of Monarch and he's probably top 2 in North America. I need to see how he does against players in Japan using the "top" tier characters. I'm not coming at him at all. I'm coming at one of the characters that he plays. Lambda. Both US and Japan got this character either middle of the pact or low tier. The problem I'm having here is that Monarch is beating everyone in the US but no one is using the top tiers. So it's hard for me to gauge if it's actual skill or the character. In my eyes Lambda is top tier or the skill gap is very suspect minus 2-3 folks. If you want to tell me it's because Monarch's defense is that good, okay, lets put him in a different game then. Monarch vs Justin Wong who you taking? Monarch vs Punk? Momarch vs Sonicfox? His defense should carry him over in other games right? What's that? He don't play other games? How am I suppose to gauge this then? I'm trying not to come at him cause I don't want to deny that he's a great BlazBlue player, but I got no footage of him playing against high level top tiers, especially from EU or Japan. If anything I'm attacking the consensus of BBCF's tier list from both NA and JPN regions. If you're telling me Lambda is middle of the pact or low tier then she should not be able to handle the top tiers the way she does. If you're telling me it's Monarch I need to see him against the best (I also hear a lot of the old heads don't play anymore either, so there's that too). Nothing serious here. Just a thought that goes through my head at work while watching BBCF tournaments. That's about all I got with the FGC for now.

[Mustang]

I only care about 1 thing in this clip. Everyone that was putting KOF13 in their favorite fighting games list I wanna see you in the future otherwise you're all frauds in my eyes. None of y'all were around back in 2011-2012 (I'm looking at you JMCroft, Mr. Skullgirl. I'm looking at Mitchell of IGN. Max, I'm giving you the side-eye. I at least saw you try it back then before giving up on it).

That outta the way. KOF13!!!!!! ROLLBACK NETCODE!!!! LETS GOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Ahem.. I'm cool. I'm okay. 

Edit:

There's been some noise about Capcom "banning" Leverless controllers for Capcom Pro Tour. Initially I had a kneejerk reaction because of Twitter finger happy people. Turns out they're trying to address this SOCD cleaning problem. Like I said, originally I had a kneejerk reaction and was about to just say bump Street Fighter 6 and move on. Even then I never had a dog in this race to begin with since I never planned on entering in any Pro Tour events. But cooler heads, you know, I'm back in my wait till 1st batch of DLC characters phase again.

Watched a bit of Evo Japan on Max's stream. I never knew Virtua Fighter was that big over there in Japan but I'm glad I got to spectate it cause there were some great matches. Unfortunately I didn't get to see any Akira's but saw some sick Jacky play.

[Mustang]

So I decided to take a chance and join Discord. Biggest regret ever so far. I'm not OCD but good GOD it is a cluster. Seriously, it is the most disorganized cluster of words I've ever seen. Think of it like when someone wants to write a 5 page essay with no paragraphs.

I think I said it before. If you're trying to bring in new players this is not the way to go, especially when it comes to the games with a small scene (basically everyone not Street Fighter 5, Tekken 7, Guilty Gear Strive) this is not the way to do it. We're already divided, and even more divided with different discourses and whatnot. Telling new players to dig through all this just to look up a cluster of words to find links to more cluster of words on Twitter which have links to Youtube. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? BlazBlue, 3rd Strike, Mahvel (I gave up after that) has been the biggest headaches to navigate just to find the character(s) you're looking for, and I still haven't found characters for Marvel.

We're sitting on info which could've been put on Dustloop or Youtube because, what now? Your credit? Dude you get credit just for putting it up.

I don't care at all where all the cool kids are hanging out. I don't care about how you feel towards new people or us "boomers". I'm only there to find info and videos on characters and bounce.

Seriously, do better. I don't think these small communities really understand just how irrelevant they about to become just with Street Fighter 6 around the corner. I'm going to say it again. Tekken 8 is coming. Mortal Kombat 12 is coming (we know there is one, but not announced). Project L is coming (RIOT's community is going to kill off the small scene) Strive is here to stay. Fighting games are sitting pretty right now. BlazBlue and 3rd Strike are my favorite fighting games but their respective communities is dog shit. Get it together.

[Mustang]

Bastards got me. My folks did me dirty. They know I stay tuned into UMvC3 no matter what. They know I had plans to move on with other games. They know I might not be able to go to Evo, and what do I hear. "COME GET THIS WORK" (that's all it takes for me to come see you in this game, and they know this lol). Now, I'm not hard to find and my folks know this and every time they come through we run a set. It's all in good fun though. Give me some more opportunities to come up with a point Vergil team.

They almost got me to with USF4 as well, but I got the "just playing" option select. I got it downloaded and everything. I'm always ready to throw hands in that game. Just say when.

Anyway, like I said, 2v2's really got my creative juices going though. I need Capcom to port Street Fighter x Tekken over to current consoles so I can tinker around with that game as well. Hwoarang/Jin was the main team but I kinda want to tinker around with Hwoarang/Ibuki and Jin/Asuka or Dudley/Asuka. With Project L on the horizon turns out I'm not the only one getting interested in 2v2s along with myself and Justin Wong. Smug is now interested as well. I'll probably see some MvC1 coming from him soon.

[Mustang]

6 days since I've posted in this thread, and 4 days since the one in the watch playing thread. Going from being challenged to kinda moody. That BUSS-ASS is still happening tomorrow. Just a lot on my mind within the last 4 days.

So the in-between-ish right. Lots of discussions. Outside of SF6 single-player content, I don't think there's been any discussion that's been uplifting or motivating at all. Most of it has been geared towards new people. A lot of people in the FGC chirping. Dev's want to get new people to play the game. Pros speaking for hardcore. Hardcore speaking for Casuals. Casuals speaking for new people. All this noise going on and not a new person insight to speak up. Truth be told, everyone need to shut the fuck up and get these devs to speak directly to new people (here for example). These devs need to ask new people directly what can they do to get new folks to play fighting games. Right now they're going on assumptions that the games are too "difficult" to learn so they're dumbing down games (which is why we have SF5, KoF15, GGS, DNF, GBFV and DBFZ). We (as in the community) can say motion inputs aren't hard. We can say single-player content, but again we're speaking for new people (Case in-point. What new person know about ROLLBACK NETCODE)

So all this talk about new people, right, so let's talk about the content out there for new people since LI Joe brought it up. I'm not on Twitter but it was brought to my attention from a streamer I watch. Basically saying that some guides/tutorials are lacking when it comes to going in-depth with the decision making and whatnot. I looked at it and a lot of the comments were in agreement (shocking since there was no pitchforks). The streamers/content creators apparently are the ones that have a problem with him saying that. Alright cool. People can agree/disagree. Still no pitchforks. Cool. But what these content creators/tournament players/commentators are saying makes no sense to me. Yeah, I (ME) know exactly what kind of content that you put out. Shit for beginners. Alright cool. Joe's tweet literally said "decision making". What beginner knows anything about making decisions in a fighting game? He's literally talking about shit for the intermediate folks (The ones that are being called RANDOM or glue eaters or whatever). Folks that're trying to get to that next level which is tournament play. Granted, he could've been more specific. I'll give you that. But context clues are still there (isn't that basic shit?).

So lets look at some of this content. Guilty Gear Strive, Dragon Ball Fighterz, Tekken 7, Street Fighter 5, I believe I've seen Joe play all these games except maybe DBFz, but I know for a fact that there are great guides/tutorials on Youtube for those games (and people go in-depth as well). Take heed to what I did not name. There are a lot of fighting games in the community that are still being played. New and Old will try out all games if they're interested. Another reason Joe should've been more specific. We have no idea what game he's talking about, but like I said, he's played and is efficient enough in those games. So who is LI Joe? If you're an 16er or earlier then there's a chance you know who Joe is. I know for sure that he goes back as far as at least 3rd Strike and he's still going today. So his hands is in a bit of every fighting game. So let's go back to those games that wasn't named. UMvC3, MvCI, BBCF, SFxT, BBTAG, GGXrdR2, MK9-11, P4A, IJ1-2, KoF13-15, GBFV, DNFD, USF4, UNIEL, MB, SG, PRBftG (power rangers), and KI. See the trend?

So what the hell is Joe even talking about, right? So we can eliminate a lot of those right off the bat. Capcom affiliated games axed out because we know he's proficient in those. MKs-IJs can be axed out because he's proficient in those as well. That there leaves us with anime. So to those CC/Commentators/Pros, why the hell are you even talking (he's not talking to you nor about you or your game. Strive and SF5 Go sit the fuck down)? Yeah, there's information out there but guess what? You have to go dig for it. And even then, I can tell you straight up, a lot of the old info that used to be on youtube is gone (USF4 and SFxT videos for sure). So to say that the info is out there, you better put some asterisks on that or something because if you're gonna tell someone (especially a beginner transitioning to intermediate) to go to Discord, Fuck you, and I say that respectfully.

And then that brings me to whats been roaming on my mind today at work. Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, one of the GOATS. There's not a lot of info out there to help new players here either, until I came across SpartanThrone (didn't even know who this guy was until I got back into UMvC3), a treasure amongst man-childs. I'm just sitting at work watching his guides for UMvC3. A lot of it is for beginner/intermediate level players and he's going in-depth with it. Zero lightning loops? He Got those. Virgil sword loops? Gotchu. Magneto/Doom/Dormammu TAC's, Got those covered too. Incoming mixups? Damn homey got those too. I can only think of 1 other person that goes into such detail with these kind of in-depth discussions/guides/tutorials and thats Kenosu (I think that's his name, and I don't even know who he is, but he's one of those kinda guys... Those "I'm hot shit" type of people) and he goes into deep thought provoking discussions with DBFZ. No one does that for that next level. It's like new beginners, cool, I'll stay in this lane and shoo you away to discord once the beginner steps are done. Seriously, where is this kind of stuff for the anime/air-dash fighters (BBCF, P4A, BBTAG, GGXrd)? Non-existent, but like I said, OLD and NEW are a lot more willing to branch out now (at least us old heads that still plays). We're not nearly as bull-headed as to think Capcom fighters is king this day and age. Those days are long over.

And the reason why no one does those videos (which is why I got a problem with these Content Creators/Pros/Commentators coming at Joe, which is what Joe was asking about in the first place) is because they don't get the views they want. So it's a monetary/algorithm issue? An issue that you knew would happen when you decided to become a full-time streamer/competitor instead of going to get a 9-5? Ohhhhhh, so what you're saying is that you're lazy? Got it. Spartan has what, close to 600 followers on Twitch. You think this man gives a shit about viewership? This man made that stuff because NEW and OLD people alike are looking to learn that shit. To make matters worst. This man is in the UK (MAHVEL IS USA. That's a fact). I don't know if he works or not. I do know he runs a tourney over there though. I know that a lot of pros/content creators/commentators are full-time streamers, at least you better be (if you're not working a 9-5) because you're certainly not sponsored anymore (too soon?). You can miss me with that viewership bullshit. You stream everyday.

I had to get that off my chest. Sorry you fine folk here at Animation Revelation had to put up with a big wall of text that's not meant for anyone here     Hope it's entertaining though lol

Sorry for all the cussing too. I'm trying to stop, but it matches the mood I'm in.

[Mustang]

It's been a minute and to be clear, we're eating good.

That being said, content wise, we're doing terrible. And that's kind of been the topic as of late here in America, whereas, over in Japan the FGC has been blowing up. I think the thing with Japan is that they live and breathe fighting games. On top of that, V-tubers and top content creators over there are partaking in events. Here, we have tournaments and more ranks. To the degree of becoming a little stale. Some folks are trying for sure, but there's a mentality out there of just being complacent and I hate it. I'm of the opinion of taking baby steps. BUT we don't even reach out and that's my problem. We don't even try to reach out to the folks who are scared to play but have some interest. Hell, you see me, damn near strictly fighting games and my mood was showing it (grumpy). I had to break away from fighting games for a little bit just to have fun, so imagine tournament players. I'm like some of yall need to just get away for a little bit. Link up with people that don't even play fighting games and just mingle (ChilledChaos, ZeRoyalViking, Alanah Pearce are some of the folks I've mingled with over the last year, in terms of talking to and playing games with folk outside my circle). You see I play a bit of Among us and Project Winter (I want Town of Salem) and that's because of them, every now and then, with them.

The FGC is in a good place, but definitely becoming too complacent. I just think we need to collab a little bit. That's the first step.

There's a little bit more going on, but at the same time, not much.

[Mustang]

I kinda been out of touch for a little bit. Too much complaining for me to deal with. There was some Tekken 8 event where we get to see the final character and whatnot. Harada is the biggest troll since Ono lol. All in good fun.

I don't know how to copy and paste on this damn computer (touch pad is weird and no mouse and the moment).

Anyway, it's a brand new character. Her name is Reina. She has a fighting style similar to Asuka, but that's all I'll say in case people don't want to be spoiled. I've already been spoiled due to YouTube comments (be careful). I wanted to find out who she was through the story itself.

Anyway, I've never been the type that's into all this "waifu" talk. For the first time she's the closest to get me saying that (even me just saying that, comes off weird). Whatever. Her attitude and smugness, you don't really see it in many fighting games on women unless the cast is all girls. Some people would probably say Juri and I'll give you that to a degree. She's more crazy than anything. Karin is uppity. Reina just comes off as if she's saying "fuck around and find out" and I dig that. I dig that in real women as well (just know that the Gina Carano's, Meisha Tate's, Mandy Rose's, Jade's are the women I'd go for)

This really speaks volume for me, because I had already made up my mind that I was gonna pass on Tekken 8 until I saw her trailer. And to give credit, this is how you get me to try other characters btw. Hwoarang is already in the game so my main is already established. To keep me from getting bored, I would need to find a secondary. Now just judging from attitude and looks, Reina is the front runner but it's not absolute that I will pick her as a secondary, but it's guaranteed that I will try her out 1st out of the rest of the cast. That's how you get me to try the cast. Don't not include my character and then expect me to settle on characters until I can find one that fits my style. I'm going to have a hard time because my character is not there and I just won't be able to enjoy it the way I want to. In some cases, it's almost better to come with a brand new IP instead of continuing a series because I can go by looks and actually try out everyone if need be.

Anyway, that's about it. As far as I know, nothing big has been revealed for anything else. We did lose a FGC Legend 2-3 weeks ago due to cardiac arrest and he was only 39. He will be missed. Important message folk. Workout. No matter what you're going through just don't quit and go workout.

[Mustang]

These people, I swear, at this point I might not wait for Project L and call it quits with modern fighting games. It's at this weird point where people are trying to normalize whining for nerfs. Part of the fun is figuring out matchups and people are too lazy to do this now for whatever reason. There was once a time when theory crafting was a thing and we'd go back and forth with it, and that's how we found out what did what. But nowadays, man, people are so hung up on rank that they think they're going to get anywhere just by deleting the best character from the game just for it to repeat again with the next best character.

If you're playing fighting games, how are you even enjoying them if you're not willing to put in the time to "get gud"? (as some idiot said to me in the Youtbe comments)

I'm looking forward to Project L and Tekken 8, but at the same time I don't know if I should even bother with them anymore because all people are gonna do is whine and beg for nerfs instead of play the game. I'm definitely better off playing the older fighting games at this point since I don't have to deal with the laziness.

[Mustang]

A bunch of discourse and a lot is getting lost due to Twitter opinion. 1st I want to address some of my modern fighting game player brethren. If you like/love these modern games, play them. Don't let people my age or older sway your enjoyment. I just so happen to love all or most fighting games (I can find the fun in all the games I play). If you have a bunch old heads hating on Guilty Gear Strive, fuck them. Enjoy your game. Same thing with the characters, and this kinda ties in with "twitter".

There was once upon a time when the "pros" had a "secret society" type of chat room. Personally I think they need to go back to doing that and stay off of twitter, because, as I said, there's a lot that's lost on twitter, most of it being "tone". Twitter just comes off as negative and with everyone on it 24/7, everything comes off as negative when there can be a legit conversation that can be had. So the whole character thing, new person is afraid to pick the best character in the game because "everybody" hates best character. Pros talking to pros is getting lost with people on rank talking to people on rank, and all of it is crossed amongst each other. You got another camp (which I'm sort of in) saying stop complaining and hit the lab. Again, we're talking to other people on rank, but pros think we're talking to them, and it's just all misconstrued and everyone is yelling at everyone (Kinda why I want to call it quits for a bit until things die down). New people, play who you want to play. Play how you want to play.

Now for our little gauntlet. My brother-in-law won Street Fighter 6, but there was a lot of back and forth. It was a blast and renewed my interest in SF6 quite a bit. Just waiting on my character. I may try JP and Jamie, but we'll see.

We played 3rd Strike today and what I wasn't expecting was to be as dominant as I was, granted, it is my main game, but considering the last time we played, I lost, but it was a lot of back and forth. Today, I dominated. Couldn't remember how to play Dudley, but my Ken was mean.

Saturday we got USF4 and Sunday we're playing Guilty Gear Strive. I'm actually anticipating Strive because I never played my brother-in-law in Strive.

Next years gauntlet, we're already preparing for Tekken 8. It just might be Tekken 8, SF6 and Strive. I'd love for other people to jump into GBFVR, but I don't want to force anyone into it.

[Mustang]

So much has happened from the last post to now. Dragon Ball Fighterz world tour wrapped up this past weekend, and wow, if I were someone that still played this game I'd be upset with Bandai-Namco. Both Guilty Gear +R and Xrd had rollback implemented not too long after their initial tests, and the fact that it seems to be taking "years" for them to "fix" and release it, wow. This has to be more of an issue with Bandai than ASW.

Mortal Kombat 1 seemed to have stalled.

Granblue might've stalled. Unfortunate but there's no coming back for this game. Not yet anyway. It might be at EVO, but I have my doubts considering other games vying for the same spot.

Under-Night 2 just came out, but I don't know. It's up against a juggernaut that is Tekken 8, and even though the netcode is not so great from what I'm hearing, it is dominating everything. Being the new darling that's to be expected.

Street Fighter 6, I feel like something happened here but I don't know what. I've been kinda ignoring the U.S. scene and sticking with Japan.

Oh, I have noticed an old trend rearing its head again. Once upon a time ago, during the Street Fighter 4 days I seem to recall a little rivalry brewing between NRS and Capcom. And then I want to say sometime around 2012-USF4, Snake Eyes (#1 Zangief in America) said something along the lines of Street Fighter players will body the rest of the players in the scene. Fast-forward to now. I've seen Punk and Justin Wong body Guilty Gear players. Hell, Snake Eyes won a tournament with the "worst" character (Potemkin). I've bodied a DBFz player in Strive (but we won't talk about my feats  ). Justin Wong has bodied Granblue players. Poongko got top 3 in Tekken 7.

Snake Eyes might be on to something with that crazy statement he said back then. The reason I think that, all these people talking about "neutral" have no neutral. They just go ham from round 1 start. Going by that sort of silly logic, the only players I'd worry about are the Tekken players. I'll put some respect on NRS players names as well since they're dominating the anime scene too. I haven't seen anyone from outside of Street Fighter come in and dominate yet. SonicFox tried, got bodied and went back to Mortal Kombat (and trying Tekken 8, we'll see how they do). Leffen tried, packed up and went back to Smash and Guilty Gear Strive. Cloud805 tried, crawled back to DBFz. Lord Knight tried to troll with Honda. He learned the hard way. Haven't heard a peep from KoF players since SF6's release. So, Snake Eyes definitely might be onto something there. What this got to do with anything? Absolutely nothing. Trying to start some ish lol.

[Mustang]

I've been on and off with fighting games as of late. Both Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 pro's are just doing too much complaining for me at the moment. It's turning out the pro's (for both) are not liking the mechanic (Drive Rush / Heat Burst) is making the game too offensive. Personally I can't say much about it, in terms of trying to fix, but both Drive Rush and Heat, for me is where all the fun is at. If the developers can find a way to fix Drive Rush and Heat Burst without effect combo routes then I'd be for it. Otherwise, pro's, I'm sorry and I respect yall, but go sit yo asses down.

I won't do like other folks are doing. Calling pro players boomers and scrubs. Nah, that's too disrespectful. I get it. Folks developed their style and whatnot, and it's thrown out the window all in one game, but if you can't adapt, it's cool. Sit this one out and create content for a bit. The complaints about Tekken 8 that I'm seeing so far is based on online tournaments and that shouldn't be the way to go. I think EVO Japan is the 1st big tournament for Tekken 8 (should've been had one in Feb or March). To me, this is where the data should be coming from.

I haven't jumped into Under Night 2 yet. It's unfortunate that this came out as close to Tekken 8 as it did. It practically don't even exist at the moment.

I've pretty much given up on GranBlue Fantasy. The amount of whining here. Kills the game for me. Sure, Nier is strong/broken. Whatever. When you campaign "delete" character, I'm done.

Waiting to see what Akuma will be like, but I've always thought Akuma was a boring character. He's not going to bring me back for SF6. Hopefully someone from the next batch of DLC will bring me back otherwise I either stick with Ken and deal with the man-children or I bail.

Still waiting on Pocket Bravery. I know it's out digitally, but I'm a physical kind of guy.

Oh, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Justin Wong and Maximilian has played it. I'm not sure what to make of it yet. Mechanically speaking, it kinda reminds me of Guilty Gear in a sense with it's meter usage. I am terrified of the grappler already lol. Graphically, KoF15 failed and I think they know this. FF looks like it might make up for it. It looks like they're going to do what they can with UE4 and push it to the max, and I commend them for it. I wouldn't be surprised if they got some tips from ASW.

There's been some indy fighters floating on my radar as well, but I want to see more before I start getting amped.