So I've decided to go ahead and download Marvel vs. Capcom 2 off of the PS store and take it "fo' a riiide" and I have to say, I'm actually playing it a lot more than I anticipated. It's aged a lot better than I figured it would have. I didn't care for it too much back when it released. Sure, it's broken all to heck with the Marvel characters winning the top tier bracket easily over the Capcom ones and the music is just as grating and irritating as ever and the basic gameplay has been dumbed down to super move, super move, super move, super move, super move as opposed to utilizing actual combat strategy, but I guess since I know these things going into it this time I'm not disappointed. That and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than what it was back on the DC or PS2.
I can with confidence say I definitely made the right decision to get rid of my copy of KOF XII condsidering I'm having more fun playing a game that's nearly 10 years old for a fraction of the cost. I preordered my copy of KOF XII picked it up that Friday and quickly figured out after a few hours of play that it totally wasn't worth a purchase, but I actually held out over the weekend for the infamous patch that really did nothing and that was pretty much the final straw. Even if they do inevitably fix the online or add some decent DLC, the online community for the game at this point has dwindled to nothing except the SNK Nazis who practically burn you at the stake for not liking the game and dare to express something as crazy as a negative opinion and wish to continue to live in a fantasy world where Arc System Works totally doesn't exist and you're not a real fan for being angry with your purchase, shame on you for not supporting SNK for not buying their subpar effort because they totally work hard and stuff and to hell with those reviewers like Famitsu, they don't know what they're talking about even though they're a well respected magazine with a 20 year history from the country of the game's origin and several other well respected US publications agree with them as well, they don't know what they're talking about and they're all paid off every one of them and SNK IS GOD please allow me to throw more money at you guys I will pay full price no matter what the rest of the world says and oh my God a new patch is coming soon when will Mai get here?
Needless to say, I'll stick with MvC.
Showing posts with label 2D Fighters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2D Fighters. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 18
Wednesday, August 12
King of Fighters XII Review
"The future is now" SNK? Oh man if this is the future you had in mind then I want no part of it. This is yet another review I had written up for a long time yet didn't publish for two distinct reasons. The first reason was because I planned on doing a BlazBlue vs. King of Fighters XII comparison and essentially review both titles at the same time since they both literally released within weeks of one another. The second reason was I wanted to hold out and see if SNK would fix the atrocious online mode. By this point if it hasn't been fixed I seriously doubt that it will ever be up to par and BlazBlue pretty much trumps KOF XII in literally every category effectively negating any need for a comparison type review. However, I will still give KOF XII a standalone review because quite frankly I'm angry that I lost $60 and I feel compelled to state the reasons exactly why I think this is a terrible game and I wasted my money and stuff on a stupid blog as if SNK would care about my opinion or something.
King of Fighters XII has to be one of the few games that has actually angered me upon my purchase. I’ve bought worse games over the years of course, but KOF XII is one of those rare times where I’ve actually become physically frustrated with the developers and everyone involved with its release because SNK can do better and quite frankly the KOF franchise deserves better. This game is an absolute slap in the face to anyone who has ever followed the series for any length of time. Actually, the KOF franchise hasn’t been the level of quality it once was in the 90s, but all the same none of the newer releases displayed such a level of sheer ineptitude and laziness as this title either. This game has no business being called King of Fighters.
Presentation wise, at first, the game looks okay. They have gone and finally re-drawn the sprites and initially everything looks great. Unfortunately the sprites look very pixilated on a HD screen, even with the smoothing filter option cranked to max. There is just no saving the sheer amount of pixilation. While most of the cast looks okay from the redesign, some characters look downright terrible. Ralf and Clark got not only bigger sprites, but bigger stomachs as well. Seriously, what did these guys eat to grow so huge? Athena Asamiya what did they do to you? She looks like a pink, anorexic bug. The character animations are decent, but not quite up to par with what they should be. Backgrounds aren’t much better, while they’re infinitely better animated than the characters themselves; there is entirely too much going on most of the time. The menus are boring and forgettable, much like the music. A much better choice would have been to give each character a theme from an older title that plays whenever that person jumps in a la Marvel vs. Capcom simply due to the lack of not only forgettable tracks, but very little tracks, period.
It’s time to kick the dead horse, kids. Yes, the online is atrocious. Purchase the game and players will find themselves already having to download a near hour long patch just to work out some of the kinks with the online. While the patch helps somewhat, the online is still a horrible laggy mess. The fact that a patch was released only a few days after launch is indicative of the fact that SNK released an unpolished, unfinished mess of a game that has no business having a $60 price tag attached to it. Ultimately, that’s just one example of the real issue with KOF XII. It’s not so much what the designers didn’t include, honestly, I knew that this game had very little modes and stages; it’s more or less what little they did include isn’t even acceptable. The gameplay, while not horrible, isn’t even up to par with past titles. The gains and improvements made to previous installments were promptly ignored by the developers. Many characters have had moves taken away for some inexplicable reason. The ability to switch members in the battle is gone. Why make so many improvements in the gameplay over the years and utterly ignore them in the newest installment? The A.I. is broken and stupid. Even on the hardest difficulty often times they play like button mashing newbie. Many times the computer falls for the same moves over and over from the player. I’ve literally won matches by using the same move throughout.
How in the world could SNK charge full retail price for a game this unpolished and unfinished? SNK will have to do better than this if they want to enjoy further success with this franchise. There is absolutely nothing here of merit. The only positive marks I can give it is that the gameplay is actually okay if you play versus mode locally with a friend. But even with that praise, past KOF titles are vastly superior in that regard anyway and a bit lighter on your wallet as well. There is absolutely no reason to purchase this game. Let it waste away in obscurity in the bargain bin and spend your $60 elsewhere. SNK has not earned it with this one.
King of Fighters XII has to be one of the few games that has actually angered me upon my purchase. I’ve bought worse games over the years of course, but KOF XII is one of those rare times where I’ve actually become physically frustrated with the developers and everyone involved with its release because SNK can do better and quite frankly the KOF franchise deserves better. This game is an absolute slap in the face to anyone who has ever followed the series for any length of time. Actually, the KOF franchise hasn’t been the level of quality it once was in the 90s, but all the same none of the newer releases displayed such a level of sheer ineptitude and laziness as this title either. This game has no business being called King of Fighters.Presentation wise, at first, the game looks okay. They have gone and finally re-drawn the sprites and initially everything looks great. Unfortunately the sprites look very pixilated on a HD screen, even with the smoothing filter option cranked to max. There is just no saving the sheer amount of pixilation. While most of the cast looks okay from the redesign, some characters look downright terrible. Ralf and Clark got not only bigger sprites, but bigger stomachs as well. Seriously, what did these guys eat to grow so huge? Athena Asamiya what did they do to you? She looks like a pink, anorexic bug. The character animations are decent, but not quite up to par with what they should be. Backgrounds aren’t much better, while they’re infinitely better animated than the characters themselves; there is entirely too much going on most of the time. The menus are boring and forgettable, much like the music. A much better choice would have been to give each character a theme from an older title that plays whenever that person jumps in a la Marvel vs. Capcom simply due to the lack of not only forgettable tracks, but very little tracks, period.
From this....
...to this.
Thus do we come to the next problem regarding KOF XII.; the lack of everything. This game offers very little modes and features and gives players only the most barebones of options. The game only includes 22 characters and some character exclusions are head scratching. (Mai Shiranui, K’) This would be fine if the game offered something. Give us a story mode, or at least more stages or more gameplay modes. You know, something to justify the $60 price tag. There is an Arcade mode where you can replay to try to get the best time possible by playing through a whopping five stages with no bosses. There isn’t even an option to do a single player run in Arcade mode. Amazing! Seriously, guys, would a Survival Mode have been asking too much? Other than that, there’s a Versus mode which contains the same amount of whopping five stages and a Training mode and of course, online.
It’s time to kick the dead horse, kids. Yes, the online is atrocious. Purchase the game and players will find themselves already having to download a near hour long patch just to work out some of the kinks with the online. While the patch helps somewhat, the online is still a horrible laggy mess. The fact that a patch was released only a few days after launch is indicative of the fact that SNK released an unpolished, unfinished mess of a game that has no business having a $60 price tag attached to it. Ultimately, that’s just one example of the real issue with KOF XII. It’s not so much what the designers didn’t include, honestly, I knew that this game had very little modes and stages; it’s more or less what little they did include isn’t even acceptable. The gameplay, while not horrible, isn’t even up to par with past titles. The gains and improvements made to previous installments were promptly ignored by the developers. Many characters have had moves taken away for some inexplicable reason. The ability to switch members in the battle is gone. Why make so many improvements in the gameplay over the years and utterly ignore them in the newest installment? The A.I. is broken and stupid. Even on the hardest difficulty often times they play like button mashing newbie. Many times the computer falls for the same moves over and over from the player. I’ve literally won matches by using the same move throughout.
How in the world could SNK charge full retail price for a game this unpolished and unfinished? SNK will have to do better than this if they want to enjoy further success with this franchise. There is absolutely nothing here of merit. The only positive marks I can give it is that the gameplay is actually okay if you play versus mode locally with a friend. But even with that praise, past KOF titles are vastly superior in that regard anyway and a bit lighter on your wallet as well. There is absolutely no reason to purchase this game. Let it waste away in obscurity in the bargain bin and spend your $60 elsewhere. SNK has not earned it with this one.
Tuesday, August 11
Hands off the panda! It's time to read the BlazBlue Review!
It's time kids. Another game review. This time its the fighting game chock full of complete and utter badassness, BlazBlue Calamity Trigger. I know I've already given this thing the veritable thumbs up from initial impressions, but this is the review proper. I waited so long for the review despite having typed it up weeks ago largely because I wanted to see if my opinion would sway once the initial "wow" factor wore off.
From a pure technical standpoint, BlazBlue is the best 2D fighter in years. Anyone who is a fan of Arc System Works’ previous installments of Guilty Gear absolutely must pick up this game if they haven’t yet done so. It is simply the fighter of the decade, no bones about it. However, Guilty Gear fans are not just the ones that should be convinced. Those of you that don’t particularly care for 2D fighters, or even fighters in general; now is the time to become a fan and BlazBlue may be the game to convert you.
Obviously, the presentation for the game is awesome. This game is presented in a widescreen HD format and it looks simply amazing. Animations are crisp and smooth. The backgrounds are rendered beautifully and have incredible depth. If you’re not particularly a huge fan of anime or the Guilty Gear series, the character designs may be a little off putting at first however. A black blob with a mask that utters disjointed speech against a little boy with shorts, a top hat and glasses that commands a robot doll that he claims to be his sister is just one of your possible matches. Suffice to say, every character is definitely unique and each has their own little quirks and eventually they will grow on you. A nice little touch in particular is in regards to the speech during battles. Often times, different characters will say different things depending on who they’re fighting. It’s a nice little touch that helps to make each of the characters a little more distinct. Fighting games tend to have bad English voiceovers at times, but BlazBlue’s English voice cast is actually pretty decent. Many of the characters sound just like their Japanese counterparts although if English V.A.s aren’t your thing there is still the option to switch to the original Japanese voices. Daisuke Ishiwatari returns to compose excellent up tempo rock pieces that are easily on par, or perhaps even better than Guilty Gear. All in all everything about the presentation in this game draws you in and supplements the intensity of every battle.
That’s where the brilliance of this game truly shines. This game is the culmination of the errors and corrections that have been made to fighting games for the past 20 years. The developers at ASW have taken the mistakes learned from the past over previous fighting game design and have crafted the most balanced fighter to date. This game has an answer for everything. Simply put, button mashing is not an option. Turtling is not an option. You will learn the moves and you will learn to play as the character chosen properly, or you will pay. Sure you have your basic weak, medium and strong attacks just like any other fighter, but the drive button is where the differences really come into play. Each character plays so differently from one another because of this. One character drains life. One character controls the wind. One uses the awesome power of magnetism to draw his opponents closer to him. Every character’s special moves and abilities center on this fundamental concept that they each have an ability to exploit. You could easily spend hours in the training room perfecting moves and combos trying to learn the different characters. Now I told you button mashers out there don’t do it because there’s an instant block technique that speeds up the characters recovery time which means they will counter you and make you pay dearly. Oh and it also charges up a little bit of their special move meter. Do not turtle. I mean it. There is a meter called the Guard Libra. If you block too much, it will stun you for a brief period of time and you’ll be open for a punishing combo. These aren’t concepts that haven’t existed in fighting games before, but that’s the brilliance of BlazBlue. The developers took concepts from various other fighting games, including their own and have balanced everything out beautifully. This game forces you to play strategically, not spam cheap tricks.
Now I’m not trying to scare anyone new to fighting games or anything. This game is a bit more advanced than your average fighter and if you can’t perform a simple down to forward and attack to pull off a special move, then you’ll probably be in for a pretty steep learning curve going in. Before you decide to go online and show off your amazing prowess with your favorite character, BlazBlue offers lots of single player options and modes to keep you busy as well as help you learn the game. Besides your usual Arcade and Versus modes there’s a Score Attack mode where you fight every opponent in the game to try and get a top score, plus your exploits will unlock various movies and character art in the Gallery mode. But most likely the bulk of your offline excursions will be spent in the game’s Story Mode.
I’ll say one thing first; the story for this game is….ok. Compared to other fighting games, it’s not that bad. It may feel a little overwhelming to see so many characters and so much terminology thrown at you initially, but eventually playing through every characters story will unravel more of the games plot as you go and eventually everything will indeed come together. The fault of the plot is that everything comes together in a very convoluted, disjointed way. Though the game designers did add a special bonus section called “Teach Me, Miss Litchi” that helps explain some of the terms and character backgrounds, (and is absolutely hilarious by the way) the very need for something such as this is indicative of a rather poorly told plot to begin with. Oh well, at least it wasn’t Street Fighter 4.
But it’s a fighting game. Let’s face it; plot is merely a façade for two people to beat each other up until one’s life bar is completely drained. You’re sick of things like character development. You want to show your “mad skills” online! Well, good. The online net code for this game is probably the best for a fighter yet. There is sometimes a bit of lag particularly during the opening animations before a fight, but once the action gets underway, everything is smooth and fast as if your opponent were right there with you. The game keeps track of your win loss record as well as how many incomplete matches someone has had. While this doesn’t particularly avoid the issue of someone rage quitting in the middle of the fight, it does help alleviate the problem somewhat. Unfortunately, this is also recorded for the other person as well.
Offline or online, BlazBlue is an amazing fighter and Arc System Works has once again outdone themselves. They have proven themselves to be the company to beat when it comes to 2D fighters, now if only some of its competition would stand up and notice what they’ve been doing with the 2D fighter for the past 10 years or so and catch up; fighting game fans will be a lot better off. And to anyone who isn’t a fan of fighting games, you should at least give BlazBlue a whirl and see what one of the finest examples of the genre to date has to offer.
From a pure technical standpoint, BlazBlue is the best 2D fighter in years. Anyone who is a fan of Arc System Works’ previous installments of Guilty Gear absolutely must pick up this game if they haven’t yet done so. It is simply the fighter of the decade, no bones about it. However, Guilty Gear fans are not just the ones that should be convinced. Those of you that don’t particularly care for 2D fighters, or even fighters in general; now is the time to become a fan and BlazBlue may be the game to convert you.Obviously, the presentation for the game is awesome. This game is presented in a widescreen HD format and it looks simply amazing. Animations are crisp and smooth. The backgrounds are rendered beautifully and have incredible depth. If you’re not particularly a huge fan of anime or the Guilty Gear series, the character designs may be a little off putting at first however. A black blob with a mask that utters disjointed speech against a little boy with shorts, a top hat and glasses that commands a robot doll that he claims to be his sister is just one of your possible matches. Suffice to say, every character is definitely unique and each has their own little quirks and eventually they will grow on you. A nice little touch in particular is in regards to the speech during battles. Often times, different characters will say different things depending on who they’re fighting. It’s a nice little touch that helps to make each of the characters a little more distinct. Fighting games tend to have bad English voiceovers at times, but BlazBlue’s English voice cast is actually pretty decent. Many of the characters sound just like their Japanese counterparts although if English V.A.s aren’t your thing there is still the option to switch to the original Japanese voices. Daisuke Ishiwatari returns to compose excellent up tempo rock pieces that are easily on par, or perhaps even better than Guilty Gear. All in all everything about the presentation in this game draws you in and supplements the intensity of every battle.
That’s where the brilliance of this game truly shines. This game is the culmination of the errors and corrections that have been made to fighting games for the past 20 years. The developers at ASW have taken the mistakes learned from the past over previous fighting game design and have crafted the most balanced fighter to date. This game has an answer for everything. Simply put, button mashing is not an option. Turtling is not an option. You will learn the moves and you will learn to play as the character chosen properly, or you will pay. Sure you have your basic weak, medium and strong attacks just like any other fighter, but the drive button is where the differences really come into play. Each character plays so differently from one another because of this. One character drains life. One character controls the wind. One uses the awesome power of magnetism to draw his opponents closer to him. Every character’s special moves and abilities center on this fundamental concept that they each have an ability to exploit. You could easily spend hours in the training room perfecting moves and combos trying to learn the different characters. Now I told you button mashers out there don’t do it because there’s an instant block technique that speeds up the characters recovery time which means they will counter you and make you pay dearly. Oh and it also charges up a little bit of their special move meter. Do not turtle. I mean it. There is a meter called the Guard Libra. If you block too much, it will stun you for a brief period of time and you’ll be open for a punishing combo. These aren’t concepts that haven’t existed in fighting games before, but that’s the brilliance of BlazBlue. The developers took concepts from various other fighting games, including their own and have balanced everything out beautifully. This game forces you to play strategically, not spam cheap tricks.
Now I’m not trying to scare anyone new to fighting games or anything. This game is a bit more advanced than your average fighter and if you can’t perform a simple down to forward and attack to pull off a special move, then you’ll probably be in for a pretty steep learning curve going in. Before you decide to go online and show off your amazing prowess with your favorite character, BlazBlue offers lots of single player options and modes to keep you busy as well as help you learn the game. Besides your usual Arcade and Versus modes there’s a Score Attack mode where you fight every opponent in the game to try and get a top score, plus your exploits will unlock various movies and character art in the Gallery mode. But most likely the bulk of your offline excursions will be spent in the game’s Story Mode.
I’ll say one thing first; the story for this game is….ok. Compared to other fighting games, it’s not that bad. It may feel a little overwhelming to see so many characters and so much terminology thrown at you initially, but eventually playing through every characters story will unravel more of the games plot as you go and eventually everything will indeed come together. The fault of the plot is that everything comes together in a very convoluted, disjointed way. Though the game designers did add a special bonus section called “Teach Me, Miss Litchi” that helps explain some of the terms and character backgrounds, (and is absolutely hilarious by the way) the very need for something such as this is indicative of a rather poorly told plot to begin with. Oh well, at least it wasn’t Street Fighter 4.
But it’s a fighting game. Let’s face it; plot is merely a façade for two people to beat each other up until one’s life bar is completely drained. You’re sick of things like character development. You want to show your “mad skills” online! Well, good. The online net code for this game is probably the best for a fighter yet. There is sometimes a bit of lag particularly during the opening animations before a fight, but once the action gets underway, everything is smooth and fast as if your opponent were right there with you. The game keeps track of your win loss record as well as how many incomplete matches someone has had. While this doesn’t particularly avoid the issue of someone rage quitting in the middle of the fight, it does help alleviate the problem somewhat. Unfortunately, this is also recorded for the other person as well.
Offline or online, BlazBlue is an amazing fighter and Arc System Works has once again outdone themselves. They have proven themselves to be the company to beat when it comes to 2D fighters, now if only some of its competition would stand up and notice what they’ve been doing with the 2D fighter for the past 10 years or so and catch up; fighting game fans will be a lot better off. And to anyone who isn’t a fan of fighting games, you should at least give BlazBlue a whirl and see what one of the finest examples of the genre to date has to offer.
Tuesday, July 14
The Wheel of 2D Fighters Fate is Turning.
So, as anticipated, BlazBlue is pretty much as the kids say, “full of win.” The game is pretty much awesome and one of the most balanced fighting games ever. It’s easy to pick up and play for a newbie, yet absolutely difficult to master and a skilled player will cream you if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m sure I’ll give it the satisfaction of a full review sometime in the near (probably not so near) future. And I mean, a full review; not the usual write a 2 paragraph, hastily thrown together write up with a bad joke or two tossed in review either. Yeah, it’s that good. I’m willing to dedicate that much of my time to it.
But more importantly, BlazBlue is actually way more popular than I imagined it to be. Many gamers are actually curious about the game and want to try it. This is a very good thing. Between this, the soon to come King of Fighters XII, and yes, even the ultimately lame Street Fighter IV, I have to say that the 2D fighter is back. Glad to see you. We missed ya. Yeah, I know there was Guilty Gear to keep us fed for nearly a decade but that was pretty much it. It was so irritating to see game developers feel the need to try out some 3D format on franchises that simply work best in 2D. King of Fighters Maximum Impact for example, was a flat out embarrassment. Maybe with the growing popularity of BlazBlue and the sheer hype surrounding SF4, maybe now developers will start making more 2D fighting games. I think also part of it is the advent of online gaming becoming more and more common on the consoles. Unfortunately, in my area I know of no one that really plays any 2D fighting games so 99% of my Guilty Gear excursions were against the computer. Only on the rare occasion when I was able to visit my brother did I get to play another actual human being. The problem with playing the computer often times is it’s hard to find the right difficulty balance. Set it too low and the game is embarrassingly easy. Set it too high and you get destroyed by an A.I. that pulls off damn near impossible combos to input. But now with online gaming for consoles becoming more and more of a common thing, I’m able to go online and play tons of different players and actually interact with them kind of giving the sense of that old school arcade feel from the early 90s and I absolutely love it. 2D is not dead, we may just see a revival yet. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
But more importantly, BlazBlue is actually way more popular than I imagined it to be. Many gamers are actually curious about the game and want to try it. This is a very good thing. Between this, the soon to come King of Fighters XII, and yes, even the ultimately lame Street Fighter IV, I have to say that the 2D fighter is back. Glad to see you. We missed ya. Yeah, I know there was Guilty Gear to keep us fed for nearly a decade but that was pretty much it. It was so irritating to see game developers feel the need to try out some 3D format on franchises that simply work best in 2D. King of Fighters Maximum Impact for example, was a flat out embarrassment. Maybe with the growing popularity of BlazBlue and the sheer hype surrounding SF4, maybe now developers will start making more 2D fighting games. I think also part of it is the advent of online gaming becoming more and more common on the consoles. Unfortunately, in my area I know of no one that really plays any 2D fighting games so 99% of my Guilty Gear excursions were against the computer. Only on the rare occasion when I was able to visit my brother did I get to play another actual human being. The problem with playing the computer often times is it’s hard to find the right difficulty balance. Set it too low and the game is embarrassingly easy. Set it too high and you get destroyed by an A.I. that pulls off damn near impossible combos to input. But now with online gaming for consoles becoming more and more of a common thing, I’m able to go online and play tons of different players and actually interact with them kind of giving the sense of that old school arcade feel from the early 90s and I absolutely love it. 2D is not dead, we may just see a revival yet. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Wednesday, July 8
Blaz Blue First Impressions
Holy cow I've finally dug my PS3 out to actually play a new game on it for once. I managed to pick up a copy of Blaz Blue today, and I must say from the first 30 minutes of play, it seems pretty awesome. I'm sure a full synopsis is forthcoming as I get to delve into the game a little more, but I would highly recommend this game to anyone who loves good old 2D fighting games. Its made by the same team that designed the Guilty Gear games so anyone familiar with those will love the game and feel at home instantly. Even better the Limited Edition comes with the 42 song, undoubtedly awesome soundtrack by Daisuke Ishiwatari (What, don't know him? Shame on you.) and a Blu-Ray movie that offers strategies and tutorials like a strategy guide. It costs the same as just getting the game by itself so there's absolutely no reason not to get it.
You'll have to excuse the lame picture quality as I used the Playstation Eye to capture this but you get the idea. Anyway, between this and King of Fighters XII that is soon coming out and apparently going to be awesome as well, it would defintely seem that Street Fighter 4 is pretty much already rendered as junk. What a shame.
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