Fighting Games

[Mustang]

Street Fighter 5: Championship Edition
I didn't speak about it in my last post but I don't know how I feel about the V-Shift mechanic. I understand the excitement for a defensive mechanic (I'm gonna go off on this in a bit) but for my play-style it's "meh". I like the effects it gives off but I guess that's all, but I suppose it's better than some V-Reversals. I only bring this up because I'm currently training as Dudley in USF4 and it got me thinking about what I can do with Ken, Zeku and Guile.

That being said, this "DEFENSIVE" mechanic. I'm seeing reactions from some of these people acting like it's the next best thing. The problem I have here is that these are the same people that complained about USF4 being "too defensive" with FADC's. Now I get it, and I have no problem with a purely offensive Street Fighter, but I understand those that do have a problem with it. But know this, Woshige (Guilty Gear player) is not the only reason why we have a purely offensive Street Fighter 5. This Street Fighter is the direct result of the complaints that USF4 had against it and like I said, I'm fairly certain that those that "hate" USF4 are the same ones whining about it being too offensive now and now praising Capcom because they put in a mechanic which half the fans complained about in the first place. Go sit down some where.

Guilty Gear StrIVe
Nagoriyuki is out. I thought I would play as him but from what I'm seeing he would be too much for me to handle. That being said, Sol and Chipp are looking like the characters I'll be playing. Sol, while he doesn't that mulling style that I'm looking for he still does huge damage. I don't think he ever had a high-low mixup game in previous GGs, but I do like how hard it look like he hits. Chipp is a mixip / setup nightmare.

I'll edit this post once I look at more of the Strive beta from other people.

Edit 1:

So I'm watching Maximilian Dood mess around with Giovanna in training mode. Holy cow, I thought this character was looking a little bland at first but she might the most explosive in the game. Low key, she might be that Dudley equivalent in GG that I've been looking for. I mean, yeah, sure you can say Slayer would be the obvious choice and I agree with you. I almost chose him quite a few times. If it wasn't for Johnny, Slayer definitely would've been my main. Giovanna on the other hand, I don't know, the vibes I'm getting from her is definitely Dudley-ish where one combo you just lost 60% of your life. She might be a main. We'll see. She definitely looks fun.

[Mustang]

King of Fighters 15
So Kyo's trailer came out I think last night or early this morning. K might be my favorite SNK character but Kyo (especially in this trailer) brings the hype. By far the best trailer SNK put out compared to the previous character reveals. Definitely gonna be on my team for sure. The way SNK does hitstop with Kyo (I suppose all of KoF games) just make it feel like each blow is just gonna feel real satisfying.

Guilty Gear StrIVe
Been watching top level players play. I'm definitely rethinking my decision on picking Sol and learning Zato. The Sol player I was watching knew what he was doing but what's not clicking with me is his pressure game. Very lacking, but I think Sol has always been like that. Johnny's and Venom's pressure game was crazy because they cranked that block bar not to mention making you scared to push a button. I think that's why I'm going to try Zato, but he scares me because I've never done negative edging before, but I was always intrigued by him though.

Edit:

So I watched more of StrIVe.

Potemkin scares me. I never liked grapplers to begin with, but this version of him scares the hell out of me. 2 command grabs and your dead, and the way damage is dished out in this game, yeah, it's very unforgiving.

Nagoriyuki as I've stated in another post looks like he'll be too much for me to handle. I've never been able to manage meter well and I have to manage a blood meter? Not for me. That being said, he's like a walking cannon. He deals out damage from everywhere. I think his one flaw might be his air game, but if you can manage to keep him on the ground and play footsies you might be golden.

Giovanna looks so basic but look so fun. I compared her to Dudley but that's not right. I want to say she's more like Cammy in Street Fighter 5 but fun. Her design is awesome btw.

Sol Badguy will probably be the main. I know I said Zato might, but I watched Fenritti put pressure on a Giovanna player and, good God, that pressure looked insane. Got me rethinking everything about him.

Leo is UNGA BUNGA, but I haven't really been impressed by anything he does. To me he might be the boring one.

I haven't seen much from anyone else.

Dragon Ball Fighterz
I'm seeing weird complaints that I'm not liking from players. I don't know if they played other fighting games or not. The most recent player I've been seeing weird complaints from is HookGangGod. It's been a while since I've last saw a video from him (2-3 months maybe). Anyway, he was basically making a comparison between PS4/5 players and PC players

"PC players think they're GO1"
"PS4/5 players mash"

This is weird to me because in this very same video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrhkNVYUuEo you're playing mixup characters.  You're literally playing your game and not letting your opponent play theirs. But then you say that crap and I'm like "HUH / Wha?" I mean, honestly, what more do you want from your opponent? I mean if he reflected, he's a masher. If he uppercut, he's random. If he blocked, he's trying to be the next GO1? WHAT?! At worst the only thing you can criticize the opponent for is being scared. Every single fighting game you are told to BLOCK until it's your turn and in a game like this where there's so much going on you criticize my man for BLOCKING?

Maybe it's just me being an old head, but Hook is weird to me and I'm seeing a lot more weird people in this game. Don't get me wrong. All fighters got their strangeness, but DBFz is bringing out a lot of strange ish from people I never heard of until DBFz came out.

[Mustang]

Street Fighter 5: Championship Edition
Oro, I'm not a fan. Don't get me wrong, he looks good, but I just never been a fan of his character (I also don't think he's a wasted slot). Rose on the other hand, she looks very intriguing. In USF4 there were times I played her to counter Ryu but I found her to be too boring for me. Here, her moveset just looks so good and I can probably express myself with her. Akira was also shown and for how far they got with her she looks interesting.

All that being said, I'm currently installing the game again because I think I found a main. Oddly enough it comes from playing a little bit of Guilty Gears Johnny. Instead of being pissy about no Dudley I decided to try a different angle and go the Johnny route (mid-range, high damage). I've been watching Idom play her and with her ability to cancel her normals like Johnny's Mist Cancel and the ideas I'm having in my head with her might finally give me a reason to stick with the game. When I see Idom play her he plays more of a defensive zoning game whereas I'd probably play her more offensive.

King of Fighters 15
Where do I start with this one? So since Kyo's trailer the only other trailer I actually liked was Terry. Not saying the other ones were bad or anything, but his trailer, like Kyo, got me pumped. Everyone else afterwards leading up to Mai was ok. I'm not going to go into the details but there are some things I'm seeing from James Chen (UltraChenTV duo. Commentator) that I don't like that's been irking me revolving around this game (in general to be honest)

Am I still looking forward to the game? Yes, but I'm on the fence now.

That's about it in terms of new stuff. Still waiting on my taxes so I can upgrade to PC. Been having epiphanies about my character choices and whatnot.

[Mustang]

Guilty Gear Strive
I'm worried. The last beta while I saw everyone try out I-no and Anji I saw even more people flock to Sol Badguy and I don't blame them because he actually looked like a complete character. It's bad enough that the game is very limited on combo routes. It's even worse when 1-3 characters are gonna be the go-to character everyone will flock to which will make for a boring game. No matter how fun it actually is, it's been shown in the past that running into the same character over and over will make you bored. E-sports is even worse for the spectator. Hopefully this'll be fixed by the time it comes out (I have my doubts).

Street Fighter 5: Championship Edition
Not much really going on here. Capcom dropped a surprise patch where it looks like Ken and Nash received the most buffs. I'm currently bouncing back and forth between Zeku and Ken as to who I'm going to main.

That being said, the complaints and comparison between USF4 or SF5 is rearing it's head again. I ignored most of it but man, you would think the people that hate SF5 would just move on. I love and still play USF4. SF5 pales in comparison to USF4, I get it, but I still enjoy the game. I also understand people hated USF4. Cool. Move on.

Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown
So this was re-released for PS+ folks. I forgot how good this game is. I usually went to this and DoA over Tekken, but truth be told I'm not gonna get back into this unless they come with a VF6.

[Mustang]

Guilty Gear: StrIVe
As fun as this game is I'm out on it for now. I tried it with Street Fighter 5 and I've tried it here and it's normally not something I would do in my fighting games. Take a handful of characters and try them out to find a character. Like SF5 found everything fun but I wasn't gelling with anyone. I'm not gonna be like some of these other old heads and whine about it. I'm gonna keep supporting the game and hope I get a character that's for me through DLC. I'll continue watching as well because it's a blast to watch (and play) but I won't be playing until I get a character.

King of Fighters 15
Completely out on it. SNK needs all the support they can get, but I'm sorry, I came across a game called E's Laf and that too is being made by a small team and it's looking gorgeous. While KOF15 is not looking like KoF14 (some models are clearly copied/pasted), it does, however, look worst than Samurai Shodown. (I think the E's Laf team is even smaller than SNK and SNK actually has someone with money backing them). I know it's been post-poned until 2022 and it's a good thing too, but I'm not confident in them at all.

[Mustang]

Guilty Gear StrIVe
https://youtu.be/DeTYR57hB44

That's the first DLC character. Personally, not for me. I have a hard time controlling big and slow characters. That being said I absolutely dread fighting them, too, because they terrify me. T-Hawk scarred me for life in SSF2. So you can imagine what I'm like when it comes to Potempkin and now this guy.

[Mustang]

Street Fighter 5
They just did their summer reveal thingy yesterday. It was good, but the final character was ho-hum. That being said I respect what Capcom did. They did their thing with Champion Edition considering when SF5 first came out. That being said it's still not enough to get me into it. Guilty Gear Strive is in the same boat for why I'm not currently into it. I don't have a character (I sound like a broken record at this point). Other than that it's a fun game that I'll pull out if anyone wants to play but it won't be a game I'll put anymore time into. I will respect what Capcom has done with the game and wait to see what they can do with Street Fighter 6. I also gotta mention that Akira looks good but I was underwhelmed. But I definitely want a new Rival Schools.

Guilty Gear Strive
There've been some hot-takes about this game within the last couple of days and I swear it makes the FGC look childish the majority of the time. So Sonicfox said something along the lines of not being motivated to play the game and then twitter took that and ran with it and started dumping on the game saying "Strive Sucks". This is why I'm not on social media. I pay more attention to the people that actually plays the game than casuals or spectators. And when you have multiple people saying the game is fun but feels limited then I think you need to listen to those people. Now I'm not saying ASW don't listen and I suppose they want to focus on casuals, but your hardcore audience is who you need to be listening to, imo. I consider myself borderline hardcore/casual and I can see how limited the game is. The RC mechanic is god-like but it's Street Fighter 4-ish. You'd think I should like that and I do, but there's only 16 characters and only 3-5 feels complete and I don't want to play any of those characters. That being said I like learning. All that technical stuff in previous GG's is what I want to learn. Don't take it away. I like swag combos and Sol is the only one that might have those.

I say all that because I think that's what most are feeling. It just sucks that the FGC are full of people that can't speak for themselves or can't articulate very well so they resort to "STRIVE SUCKS". And even I don't think it sucks. It's like SF5 in the fact that it's incomplete. Just give it some time.

[Mustang]

Dragon Ball Fighterz
It's been a hot minute since I've talked about this game. What looks like the final patch was released today, but there was a video about it yesterday. Holy cow, these changes are crazy. There was nothing but buffs across the board and the system mechanics basically revamped the game entirely. You pretty much have a new game here. I'll admit I am considering picking the game back up, especially what I've seen with Cell, Adult Gohan, and Goku Black (that could be my team right there) not to mention I haven't brought up SSJ4 Gogeta at all with his crazy movelist. The only thing that's holding me back is the player base. Don't get me wrong, the FGC is full of toxicity with Smash being the worst, but right after it imo is MK and DBFz. I know I shouldn't let some things determine whether I get into it or not but when the community is full of trolling and whining it's hard to find places to go for answers. That being said, if I were to get back into this it would be for the friends and fam.

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
MAHVELLL!!!!! Man this game is still so good to watch. I've been watching Tampa Never Sleeps tournaments and some of these players are using characters you don't usually see and even then you have a couple players using top tier characters very differently compared to how everyone was playing back then. One guy who goes by the name Milky plays Magneto very stylish. Almost akin to Marlinpie's Dr. Doom and as I've stated before I'm drawn to swag players doing flashy combos. I've been very tempted to pick this back up but like DBFz it would only be for the friends and fam. Not that it's toxic compared to what I remember back then, but this game used to make me very salty, close to rage-inducing levels and while I don't see myself going back to that type of attitude I am cautious of it though lol. I think I'd want to make 3 Virgil teams. One where he's on point, battery and anchor.

Spencer/Nova/Wolverine/Spider-Man, Vergil, ? (thinking along the lines of Doom, Magneto, Hawkeye)
Vergil ?, Doom
?, ?, Vergil

Vergil is my favorite character overall. Had Capcom nerfed him I still would've used him because of loyalty lol

Tatsunoko vs Capcom
I watched Justin Wong and JMCrofts play this the other day. Talk about a game that needs to be remade. I never played it because it was on the Wii and my attitude at the time towards Nintendo, well, just know that I'm more lenient towards them these days compared to back then lol. This game right here  could possibly have the best combat of all time in a fighting game. When it comes to freedom I think this captures what I imagine (between this and GGXXAC+R).

[Mustang]

King of Fighters 15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd8stc2qOIk

That was shown off at Geoff Keighley's ONL thing I believe (the event was terrible or rather it was not for me). Anyway, I know I said I was out on this game, but that trailer opened my eyes a bit. I'm not out out on it but I'm still going to remain cautious. This might be the most complete fighting game at launch that I've seen in a long time. There are people disappointed and rightfully so about the amount of characters at launch, but people have to remember that 39 characters is still a lot of characters especially when compared to other fighting games at launch.

K', Kyo, Terry of course.

[Mustang]

I have another rant about tier list incoming.

Ultra Street Fighter 4
I've been bouncing around lately. One moment Dudley then the next moment, Yun. In the end I think I'm gonna settle on Evil Ryu and Cody.

Dragon Ball Fighterz
This game here. If only ASW and Bandai can come together and get rollback netcode. I watched USA vs France 5v5 and the amount of hype generated were Marvel levels of hype. Granted US got trounced it was still great to see. Got me thinking heavily about who I want to run and how many teams I want to run.

That being said, USA, I hope this woke us up, because I saw Cloud805's excuse for losing and I don't care. I'm not going to crap on anyone because it was not free by any means. When these folks give out advice I listen. Cloud put out a tier list and Raptr_AU went over it and made his own. Cool. A lot of people are calling Cloud's list "CAP" (guess that's the new thing kids are saying) and when I compared the 2 lists they were saying the same thing.

I said before that I hate SS, S, A, B etc. But even with that, Clouds list was S, A, A-, B. So his list is being called "CAP" because of letters. This right here, gentlemen is why I hate the FGC some times. I'll tell you here and now that the FGC most definitely need to learn how to talk (just like I need to learn grammar check) because all I saw was "CAP" this and "CAP" that. At least Raptr made a tier list to combat Cloud's list but get this. The only difference between the 2 was the letters (if there was a banging my face against the keyboard emoji I can use that here).

All this talk about no wack characters and no trash tier (yet the words that come out of these folks mouths are Goku Black is trash or worst character in the game), despite B tier being the lowest changes nothing. I want to choke a lot of these people that are saying garbage like that. No matter how you slice it. No matter how viable a character is. There will ALWAYS be a top tier and a bottom tier. I don't care if you have a list where everyone is in S tier. The very 1st character you put in S tier is considered the best and the very last character you put in is the worst despite being viable. That bottom character is lacking something that everyone else has or loses a lot of matchups henceforth being bottom. It's this weird internet "ghetto slang" mentality that we need to get away from and start learning how to articulate ourselves better. I can only take so many "for real for real" and "come on cuh" (DON"T GET ME STARTED ON "BRO")

But seriously, that 5v5 was awesome and if you still follow DBFz and have not seen it. Check it out.

That rant being over.

Guilty Gear Strive
I'm poking my head in and out of the scene here and there and I noticed a lot of people, I don't want to say dropped the game, but it certainly seem that way with this new Melty Blood game. I mean it just felt like last week there was a money match between Punk and Hotashi and now this game feeling a little more empty and I don't know what to make of it. These fighting games coming out like this could be killing it's own community with so much division going on. It might be too oversaturated at this point. And then on top of that you still have this Nickelodeon All Stars (I swear, a lot of folks are hypocrites in the FGC) coming.

[Mustang]

I'm about to do something you never see me do before. Praise Smash Bros.    

Nah, for real, though. I remember all the talk about Smash not being a fighting game. I might've even said it couple of times coming up, but in the end it don't matter. Let Smash be Smash and move on is what I will tell anybody today (However, those folks that're running to Nickelodeon All Stars and I'm seeing a lot of hypocrites). Anyway, Sora in Smash. I thought I'd see a lot more reaction videos out there, but to my surprise I didn't see many. And considering that it's SORA and Disney and the last character one would think there would be more. I will say that I wish Capcom had someone like Sakurai though. How many years has he been working on this? 3? 89 characters right? The amount of work and time he put into this is nothing less that astonishing. I've never been a fan of Smash Bros and even now you will never catch me playing it, but the reveals and how each character was implemented has always been fire. I do wonder what he's going to do next though. Would he really want to go through all of that again on a new console? I look forward to what he's going to do in the future.

[Mustang]

Guilty Gear Strive

Red Bull Kumite was wild. Gobou is a madman. Happy Chaos was revealed as the newest character. Not much was shown in terms of what he can do but he's a gun wielder though. Not much was shown for me to get hype either. Oh well, onward to the next character reveal. Thinking it might be Final Round next year.

There was controversy going into the event with SonicFox being invited over Hotashi to start. People were saying SonicFox was a no-brainer since he/they is so good at multiple fighting games. Hotashi beat him during Online Evo so people were asking why didn't he get the invite over Hotashi. That being said, SonicFox got washed, and I have nothing to say about it. It happens. Move on. What I will say is that a lot of these younger folks need to start respecting some of these older heads in Guilty Gear and I'm not talking about Hotashi (as far as I know he came around with Xrd). These younger folks are starting to let fame get the best of them and their mouths are gonna get them in trouble.

I wasn't interested in watching Tekken 7 but it's still an awesome game. It might be going on as long as USF4 at this point. I have no desire to watch SF5CE though.

[Mustang]

Project L
So this game is being done by Tony and Tom Cannon. Those that don't know, they were once founders of EVO (kind of back due to turns of events last year), but they've been working at Riot Games for God knows how long now. Anyway, this game has been in the making for I have no idea, but apparently it's going to be the savior of fighting games. Oh, did I mention it's based off of League of Legends? Yeah, I have no idea what that is either. I just know it's some MMO that ex. fighting game players go off to play when they've given up on fighting games (that and Dota, which I also don't know what that is either)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hugGCZon3I&t=365s

That being said, after watching that clip, I'm impressed and am looking forward to whenever it gets released.

[Mustang]

BlazBlue: Central Fiction

I haven't played it but I've been watching this like crazy. If I'm comparing this to Guilty Gear XX or Xrd I don't know which one I'd say is better. The freedom is insane in BB. The other thing is there are tons of characters that I can jive with in this game. And then there's just tons to do in this game. I have this on the ps4 but there's no rollback netcode and everyone is playing on PC. I'm going to using Naoto, Jin, Azrael, and Hazama, maybe a little bit of Valkenhaym. Overall, I'm loving what I see though. Kicking myself though because I should've been put time into this game but noooooo. Back then I had to be a capcom only kinda guy.

[Markness]

Thank you, Mustang! I love GG Strive!  I just hope it won't be the final entry in the series!