DNF Duel

[Mustang]

Dungeon Fighters I guess. Like League of Legends, never played or bothered with anything like it before. Anyway.

Apparently that's the name of ASW's newest game in the making. Went from not knowing anything about this game at all for a year to this week alone with so many character reveals and, today, with what kind of fighting game this will be. Not to mention there will be a Beta released some time today/night.

Grappler = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxyu1PhDiqI
Berserker = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OMF9afxkA0
Inquisitor = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh0yoNh0RQU
Striker = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0VvuXEpvFA
Ranger = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JehaBmJzCEo
Kunoichi = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fDmr44TvHo
Hitman = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlJO0toTXfc
Vanguard = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-AB0lPCE8U
Dragon Knight = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkzB4qTxK3g
Crusader = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckVSCiAkm_M

DNF Duel Gameplay

About HP = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnmI3zSGjRA
About MP = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOVAgy6NiXU
About Conversion = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKWTJo2d-VA

And that's that. After seeing the Conversion video this game has me thinking this game could get very wild for a 1v1 game. I will also say that this is the first game that I've ever seen where I'm interested in playing the entire cast. No idea when the game comes out and I think it might be exclusive for PS4/5 (at least I know the Beta is at the moment). ASW is going crazy with the fighting games at the moment.

[Mustang]

Finally got a chance to play it this morning. Got bopped by Grappler. Yeah, I kind talked down on Grappler but I still feel like he's in the wrong game. Everyone in this game looks busted, whereas, Grappler has to work to get in, and once he does, it's a throw. I don't fear throws (this is not Street Fighter 2). Throws are just resetting the situation. All I have to do is uppercut and be done with it.

Anyway, I got kicked out of the server multiple times. Everyone's been getting kicked out left and right. Once you get in and have actual matches, they feel good. I am wireless and didn't have much of an issue, but I was also on around a time where there's less traffic.

So I will be retouching on who the main will be. I didn't care so much for Ranger like I thought I would. I haven't gotten a chance to use Striker yet. To my surprise the one that's really getting my attention is Berserker. He looks so plain but he has that sauce that I'm looking for. He has main character syndrome status written all over him so I tend to stay away, but he has everything I'm looking for.

Apparently there are a couple new characters (no trailers yet) and the release date is Summer 2022.

[Markness]

I will play this at Arcade UFO in Austin since they keep abreast of the 2D fighting genre. I never knew about DNF until I saw the videos for this game and I like what I've seen of it.

Do you watch Legacy of Kaiser by any chance? He's a riot!

[Mustang]

Unfortunately I've never heard of Legacy of Kaiser.

I envy you Texas folks. There's always a scene there. Between Texas and Cali, seems like there's always a spot to get games in. Here in Michigan, places are far.

[Mustang]

So there's another Beta that everyone is trying out as we speak with Ghost Blade. I'm gonna skip this one. I don't think I want to play anymore until they game is officially out because I want Training Mode.

That being said, Ghost Blade, while his moveset looks really good, he's lacking in the damage department unfortunately. In some ways he looks like he can be a mixup heavy monster but it's hard to tell.

I'm starting to eyeball Striker and Dragon Knight as mains. Striker in particular, while she looks like she'll be another version of Jam I'm seeing things that people are messing up on that's giving me ideas, and they're not going for them. IFC Yipes said he thinks she'll be top tier. He's good at calling those things out early, and while I'm not seeing it yet I do think she'll be strong for sure. Dragon Knight on the other hand just reeks of power with her little dragon giving her mixup potential. Out of the guys, Grappler is looking a lot stronger. Perhaps it's because a lot of people that were once playing DNF is messing around with GGS and still playing SF5CE. Berserker is starting to look a lot stronger. Kind of like how Sol was strong over everyone in Strive.

Anyway, this game will probably be the game all of my attention will be focused on. I'm digging everything about. GranBlue, I'll be playing a lot more of until the release because they play fairly similar.

Come on June.

[Mustang]

So now I'm on Day 3 (didn't play yesterday. Played USF4 with the nephew before he and his sister went home)

Since I've mellowed out compared to day 1 (I was pissed with the overall package) and, while I still don't like full screen normals at all (seriously, I'm not one to talk about neutral at all since, again, that's not my style) but even when you compare it to games like UMvC3, that's just too wacky for me.

All the characters are wacky in their own way. Right now the character(s) I see that's going to struggle a lot, unfortunately comes back to Grappler. With all these long reaching normals that everyone has he's going to have to play like a nut and channel his inner Makoto (USF4) because he has to get in to do damage and if you're an old school type of player (the neutral guy that's playing a grappler for an oddball reason) chances are you're trying to play smart. Throw that ish out the window. Go ham right from start and charge that shoulder tackle because that's looking like the only way you'll get in.

Launcher might be another character that struggles too despite having a full screen rocket launcher. Ranger and Troubleshooter does her job better than she does.

I want to say Striker will struggle but she has mobility going for her. I mean the whole game feels slow as it is but she's faster than the rest of the cast so far, at least she feels that way. But once she's in you're going to be blocking forever, and if she breaks your guard you're as good as dead.

Like I said, it's a wild game. Anyway, if you haven't seen me say once or twice, I'll say it again. As great as ASW is as a company they're becoming shitty as well. The last 3 games they've released has just been overall weirdly designed, even by their standards. Cloud_805 has also noticed this. With everyone hung up over the decision making for DBFz latest patch, and now this game. ASW is just weird right now. Trying to bring in a new people but keep on making these silly ass decisions to not make great single player content. Dumbing down gameplay but expecting these new players to jump in and beat these hardcore players with the same type of gameplay as the new player. Really? What good is Autocombo for a new person if the hardcore player is better with autocombo? What good is there by breaking the wall when the new player is going to get put through in constantly? Long screen normals..... Need I say more. Anyway, the game is not bad, but I wouldn't exactly call it good either. That sweet spot in the middle of okay sounds about right. If it wasn't tied to ASW's little Esports thing this would probably die, but then again maybe not since it has good "rollback" netcode.  That seems to be the feature that everybody only cares about these days.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I do want to play this game, but I'm kind of in the middle of a few other games right now. I feel like I should try and start the game early in it's lifespan, though, since that's when you can find people of equal skill level to fight. As fighting games go on, only the more committed and skilled players tend to remain and I end up not even being able to find someone to practice against in any decent way.

[Mustang]

Indeed, now would be the best time to jump in if you're looking for new people or people of equal skills. This is true for all fighting games. As time goes on the player count starts dropping and then you'll have a steeper hill to climb because at that point people would've already figured the game out and are trying to master their characters while waiting for the next update.

[Mustang]

I'm starting to warm up even more on the game now. If you can get past the bullshit of long screen normals and that everyone has enough jank the game's not bad at all. It's literally going through similar phases of Marvel vs Capcom 3. I don't know if it'll ever reach that level (in terms of generating hype. I wish it would be one of the main games at Evo), but in terms of making the other person not have a turn, it's 1v1 Mahvel through and through.

To give you an even better idea of what this game is like, if you ever heard people say just buff everyone and nerf no one, this is literally that. There are weak characters and even those weak characters can still kill you if you're not careful.

I'm also starting to see a flaw in the character choices as well. Making everyone look cool is a great idea to keep people interested in playing the game for the long haul, but I want to main a character and unfortunately none of them really screams out main character for me so I'm sort of settling on Ghostblade at the moment.

I'm curious to see where this game will be at in a year and see where they go in terms of adding more characters in the future.