Starting off the conference with a Q&A section, the panel covered the issues inherent in releasing and making a new fighting game such as roster selection, crossplay possibilities, and the idea of accessibility in fighting games. Some of these answers were surprising coming from Japanese developers, like the fact that most devs seem to be big proponents of crossplay, wherein previous inquiries regarding adding crossplay to games, it was generally considered diluting the experience since there was a perceived introduction of cheating from PC players. Additionally, on the issue of balancing accessibility vs. difficulty in keeping legacy players, virtually no one on the panel had a solid answer, but the representatives all agreed it was quite a difficult challenge, especially balancing the simplicity of both the gameplay and visuals. The panel also touched on some topics regarding the current state of affairs of fighting games looking to the future, including talks on where arcade sticks fit in modern games, and what the user experience of future games would look like. The stream gave valuable insight to the community, and with all the publishers together in one place, it was an especially unusual opportunity to witness.

After the Q&A, each publisher presented some features on what fans of their games could expect soon. With Street Fighter V already planning to have their big announcement stream on August 5th, CAPCOM was pretty tight lipped with new news, but they did mention a trial mode coming up soon with access to all 40 current characters for about two weeks, a great opportunity to try out some new characters if you didn’t already shell out the cash.

SNK was pleased to announce some news for Samurai Shodown including Gongsun Li from Honor of Kings as a new DLC character for Season 2. Samurai Shodown players will also be pleased to hear the game is getting a third Season of DLC, which if anything, suggests SNK has enough faith in developing their new fighting games that they’re willing to support the game through three seasons. Arika, developer of Fighting EX Layer noted they were working on greatly improving FEXL, with a new beta and improvement to netcode which should provide a nice bump in player base for the small game.

Bandai Namco and Arc System Works closed out the show with the larger announcements of the night. For Soul Calibur VI, Bandai Namco showcased the new character Setsuka and a new costume DLC pack including crossover TEKKEN 7 character costumes. Tekken 7 came in with big news of its own, including a whole new season of support, with a much needed balance patch, more new moves, online play improvement in the form of a wifi/ethernet connection indicator (and hopefully some netcode improvements) and a teaser for a new character likely to be Kunimitsu.

Finally, Arc System Works came up big with announcements for ArcRevo America and ArcRevo Japan online tournaments, in addition to two character trailers for Guilty Gear -STRIVE-. Surprising many, Leo Whitefang made his appearance, with a lot of old moves, including his signature Brynhildr Stance, and some new tactics to…make his opponent block for the whole round. Additionally, the cyber samurai we have been waiting for finally got showed off and finally has a name. Nagoriyuki got a trailer of his own, and showed a teleport dash with invulnerability, and a pretty damn cool sword. With all the great news for -STRIVE-, it was also announced that it will be on PS5, making it the first fighting game announced for the next-gen console. Responding to the excitement generated from the conference, the publishers mentioned they looked forward to another, although the suggestion was definitely tentative. Hopefully, depending on the reception of the news from the current JFGPR we’ll hear more from developers in upcoming conferences in a time where in-person events are scarce.

The post Fighting Game News: Japanese Fighting Game Publisher’s Roundtable appeared first on Gamesline.

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The post VGCC Episode 318: Ninja on the Cover appeared first on Gamesline.

Buttons:                                                           Directions:

P- Punch Button                                              7  8  9

K- Kick Button                                                  4  5  6

S- Slash Button                                                1  2  3

H- Heavy Slash Button

D- Dust Attack Button

For example, crouching Slash would be abbreviated as 2S. c and f refer to close and far proximity from the opponent, so c.S would stand for close slash, not crouching slash. Special moves note motions by sequences of numbers, for example 236P for a fireball or [4]6P for a charge fireball.

With the beta for Arc System Works’ newest fighting game, Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, concluding last weekend, players had three days to work with the game and understand what’s new and what’s changed in the next radically different installment to the Guilty Gear franchise. The beta included six mainstay characters from past Guilty Gear titles and featured online and offline vs CPU battles. With the huge amount of changes made to the fighting system and contentious opinions being held and discussed since the first public showing of the game, there was much to explore with -STRIVE-, so let’s take a look at the new system, looks, and how things have changed.

Let’s start with what I liked about the beta. The music and overall presentation of the game were strong, and aside from a few UX features which ended up being let downs, the game is easily the nicest looking modern fighting game. Characters and stages are beautifully animated and although there are a few lighting issues with certain stages and characters, it’s certainly eye-catching. I don’t think anyone is surprised to hear or see that the super animations look great, and in terms of cosmetic appeal, the game has a lot going for it. Additionally, while the character select screen looks a bit too much like it’s aimed at the game being a tech demo, most menus in the game retain an easy to read minimalist style which is a nice change of pace for the series.

Aside from these cosmetic changes however, the battle system in -STRIVE- has also seen some positive changes. First off, the idea of RISC and Dust playing a more important factor in the game has seemed interesting to me since the first livestream where ArcSys showed that they would be important features. Your RISC meter acts as an extension of a guard or stun meter, when you block, the gauge fills and when you get hit with a move while the RISC meter is filled (fully or partially), hits of the combo will drain your RISC meter in exchange for unscaled damage on those hits. With RISC filled beyond 50%, all hits are forced counter hits as well including throws, allowing for combos which would not normally be possible. In -STRIVE- the RISC gauge fills much faster than in past titles and can be stopped by using Faultless Defense, the Guilty Gear equivalent of pushblocking (which costs meter). Since air blocking is now possible without the use of FD, air blocked attacks will crank the RISC gauge up even more in order to mitigate meterless air blocking. In addition to this, Dust has been changed to have a much faster startup but will not launch the opponent unless it lands Counter Hit. The interaction between RISC and Dust in this case means that since having a 50% or higher RISC gauge results in all hits in a combo being Counter Hits until RISC is depleted, 5D can now turn into a potent, less reactable overhead launcher than its counterpart in past games if applying proper pressure (we’ll discuss that later). The implementation of this idea has resulted in some good and some bad changes to -STRIVE-, but in total, RISC and Dust in past Guilty Gear titles have felt very much like low interaction mechanics, so seeing them brought into the spotlight feels much more interesting than if the game simply removed RISC for being so “on or off”.

Now on paper (again we’ll discuss why later), RISC feels like a mechanic that you should always have to think about so that you can try to avoid being put into a state where you are susceptible to worrying about a 5D coming at you and potentially ending the round. The reason this is so much more interesting is that in past games, RISC and Dust Attacks felt like mechanics whose usages were heavily dictated by the tools of your character or the skill difference between you and an opponent. For example, in the Guilty Gear Xrd series, as I played Leo, my character’s pressure tended to be so strong, that if I were playing him properly, I could count on coming across situations about once per match where I could capitalize on the opponent with specific combos that were only possible with high RISC gauge, however, some players of other characters in an even match would almost never have to concern themselves with high RISC combos because a situation in which the opponent would have that high of a RISC gauge would simply be so uncommon that players would not be preparing for those sorts of scenarios. Additionally, if I were playing someone of much lower skill level than me, I could count on them not understanding when my offensive pressure ends and continuously blocking, this would then mean that because there is a large skill difference between players, suddenly the RISC gauge is now coming into effect constantly whereas in a typical game it would not. The same goes for Dust Attacks, where some characters like Slayer were able to utilize 5D frequently in combo scenarios, or characters like Millia had tricky animations attached to their 5Ds which made them harder for opponents to discern as an overhead in complex wakeup scenarios. The skill gap vs. usage issue comes into play much more aggressively here, where usage of 5D completely hinged on whether or not your opponent could react to the move or not. If your opponent couldn’t react fast enough, you now have a hugely damaging overhead combo starter you can throw out nearly at will, whereas if your opponent could react to the startup animation of 5D, the move suddenly becomes unusable and equivalent to purposefully whiffing a DP due to the huge recovery time. By making RISC a more universally applicable mechanic, and making 5D less of a “feast or famine” type of move, ArcSys has theoretically made both mechanics options that a Guilty Gear player really has to consider in -STRIVE- , but we’ll get into why this isn’t exactly the case later.

Additionally, the Roman Cancel system has been given a similar treatment, and ArcSys has doubled down on RC being the “creativity mechanic” in the new Guilty Gear. As in past games, Roman Cancel acts similarly to a Rapid Cancel in Blazblue or One More Cancel in Persona, where you may spend meter to cancel whatever animation you are in instantly, with the added benefit of a time slow effect happening on screen depending on how the RC was used. Roman Cancel now has many different effects depending on how the Roman Cancel was used, similarly to Xrd’s color-coded Roman Cancel system, but moreso. ArcSys has been tight-lipped about these new uses of RC, so it has so far been up to players to find out the details and we were able to find out some of the nitty-gritty. Roman Cancelling can now be used in pretty much any situation including while blocking, it has also been standardized to always cost 50% meter. RC now applies a very powerful time stop effect specifically to what it hits now, and the intensity of the time stop varies according to whether or not you were cancelling in an attack or not, so cancelling while you are in the middle of hitting someone will apply more of a time stop than if you were simply RCing as you were standing next to them. Notably, due to the fact that Roman Cancel only affects things which the bubble of the Roman Cancel touches, the usage of what was previously a Yellow Roman Cancel in Xrd has been severely reduced. The existence of YRC in Xrd resulted in the possibility of many powerful strategies by basically allowing you to do anything you wanted after throwing a projectile. The issue present in the system which caused some contention was that this resulted in character power level and ease of use being closely related to how well one could utilize YRC, similarly to the issue of Street Fighter IV characters being limited by how well they could utilize Focus Attack Dash Cancelling. While whether or not YRC “should be in” Guilty Gear has been debated even before -STRIVE-, ArcSys has made a decent compromise by severely nerfing it but allowing for the possibilities it provides to exist, albeit without slowing everything on the screen down. In total, the Roman Cancel changes allow for some very interesting situations. As mentioned before, since you can RC while blocking now, you can effectively make any move into a Guard Cancel Reversal, additionally, it seems that Red Roman Cancelling while your opponent becomes wallstuck will allow for an additional hit on the wall before it breaks. On top of those combat-focused RC uses, Roman Cancel can also be used as a unique movement option as people have noted, similarly to the Max Mode Auto-Run of KOF XIV, allowing for you to input 66RC or 44RC and dashing and Roman Cancelling at the same time. Once again, on paper this looks like a great change allowing for more freedom and creativity in matches, theoretically allowing you to “break the rules” of some other changes present in the game, but unfortunately this isn’t the case.

Sadly, all of the new and interesting mechanics we have just discussed all tend to fall apart when it comes down to the drawbacks of the new system. It becomes clear that all of the interesting applications of Dust with the new RISC changes, and all the theoretically interesting uses of pressure all simply didn’t matter in this beta when damage was so incredibly high. In past builds people had commented on the damage, saying it looks like everything lands Counter Hit when in reality it doesn’t, but this wasn’t completely made clear until this beta when everyone was able to play the game. Even in matches against equally skilled players who I typically have drawn out, close matches with, I felt like it simply wasn’t worth worrying about doing anything fancy because very basic combos with little optimization managed to do nearly 50% of my opponents health, which would then leave them in the corner, meaning that if I hit them with any special cancellable move the round was effectively over. The flow of a match very quickly proved to me that it simply wasn’t worth trying to do anything fancy in neutral and that all I had to do was take my damage from a few core hits, and the round was won. Trying to set up a mix up using a fireball RC simply wasn’t worth doing if I knew I could simply block a slightly unsafe move and punish with huge damage, or fish for Counter Hits and end the game in two touches. While damage in the beta was certainly a concern that impacted my gameplay the most, it is not what I am most concerned about in the future, since it is a trivial fix for ArcSys to retune the damage of moves compared to changing other core gameplay mechanics.

On the other hand, the Gatling Combo system in -STRIVE- is pretty questionable as it is right now, and it impacts everything from the feel of the game superficially, to the behavior of combos very awkwardly, all the while making it uncertain if it achieved the goals that ArcSys has been highlighting as core philosophies of Guilty Gear -STRIVE-. Gatling Combos are a core of anime fighters and have many names across other games, but all act similarly to chains or the magic series in Marvel games, where you can rapid-fire your inputs and your normals will cancel into each other in a certain order. Compared to past Guilty Gear titles, the Gatling Combo system has been severely reduced, and the universal PKSH “magic series” Gatling Combo has been removed across all characters so far. Instead, characters have largely universal rules which their Galtings follow, namely close slash will Gatling into most moves, including command normals, and P and K moves will only Gatling into command normals. This is a huge change to the overall flow of Guilty Gear combos, as the Gatling chain is effectively divided now into PK/SH, with no connection between the two “halves” of the chain. As a result, Gatling Combos are now largely two hits, with the “big” three-piece Gatling Combos almost only coming from landing a c.S. In addition, with the P and K buttons, not exactly every P or K can Gatling, for example, with Sol, 5P>5K simply isn’t possible, but Gatlings are possible from 2K into certain moves. After considering how these changes affect the game at large, it’s unclear if this Gatling change has impacted -STRIVE- in the way ArcSys was actually trying to. Accessibility and clarity have been core ideas that ArcSys has mentioned when creating the new Guilty Gear, and while it’s likely that these changes were made for other reasons to allow for higher RISC build, it’s unclear why they would make this change. Instead of characters following the general rule of PKSH, with certain exceptions and a few character-specific unique Gatlings, the new Gatling system makes it harder for a newcomer to memorize more odd Gatlings of seemingly arbitrary moves and making it nearly impossible for casual players (read: potential longtime players) to appreciate the game without looking up the Gatlings of their character, in turn making them not casual players. In the context of newcomers, these new Gatling Combos effectively have the game tell you “memorize this chart of confusing and unsatisfying small chain combos or don’t succeed”, which isn’t appealing to newcomers or veteran fans.

My final concern I noticed with -STRIVE- and perhaps the one that affects the general win conditions of characters the most is the change to how the corner behaves. Unlike most 2-D fighters, -STRIVE- features a unique wall break mechanic on all stages when a character is hit a certain amount of times on the wall in the corner. This might look a little similar to what you see in TEKKEN or Injustice, however in Guilty Gear -STRIVE- the wall breaks are always the same on all stages (as far as we have seen and been told), meaning there is no variance or “advantaged stages” for certain characters. The difference (and issue) between -STRIVE-‘s implementation and TEKKEN’s is the reward. In the TEKKEN series, typically a wall or floor break results in massive damage, and importantly, usually an extension of your corner pressure and advantage (as you will typically bring your opponent to the next wall with your extension), however, in -STRIVE­-, when you break a wall after ending a corner combo on your opponent, the wall simply breaks and you and your opponent are returned to neutral, with the aggressor gaining a meter gain bonus called Positive Bonus. The glaring issue here is that while corner combos are extremely powerful, there is not nearly enough incentive tied to breaking the wall for finishing a corner combo to feel good to players. Positive Bonus as it stands now almost may as well be useless except for in some edge cases, this is due to the fact that if you landed a corner combo to wall break your opponent, you have already landed one combo to carry your opponent to the corner, and the corner combo itself, leaving your opponent at such low health, that unless your opponent is Potemkin, you will likely not need to use meter on your final combo to kill. Since the game is what I would refer to as a “two and a half touch” game right now, and you get Positive Bonus only on that final “half touch”, it is largely useless to have extra meter when you know you can kill your opponent with any solid combo starter. Wall breaking and Positive Bonus only become more questionable when you consider that the game will likely become a reliable “two touch” game as people optimize their combos more and know how to play within the game since a Counter Hit combo can do enough damage to have your opponent waking up in the corner with 50% health just with the knowledge players have right now.

Additionally, looking past whether or not Positive Bonus is useful enough to justify wall breaking or not, is that in a game like Guilty Gear it feels terrible as a player to kiss the corner goodbye after a big combo. This is the closest I will get to saying that -STRIVE- doesn’t feel like a Guilty Gear game, but it does take away a significant point where momentum shifts and a different style of play begins. Being in the corner in past Guilty Gear games was almost always the win condition of most characters due to the incredibly strong presence of okizeme and the possibility for hugely damaging combos. Because of this, play on both the offensive and defensive side changed significantly while in the corner, and due to powerful movement and defensive options defenders still had a chance when in the corner. Players on offense in the corner would then have to account for these possible defensive escape routes and change their play in order to prepare for the defender Bursting out of a corner combo or using aerial mobility to escape over the attacker. To me, this is what is most exciting about Guilty Gear, I usually enjoyed experimenting with new escape strategies while playing with my friends, and while failed attempts usually resulted in me giving a perfect to my opponent, successes suddenly became unique sequences which I could keep in my back pocket for later. This was hugely important, as offense in Guilty Gear has typically been superficially overpowered, and being able to navigate around it could usually mean a player could make a defensive situation into their own powerful offense and turn the tides. It seems ArcSys decided that all of this intricacy was simply too much to risk new players getting angry at the game for getting blown up in the corner, so instead, you get blown up everywhere and the game pries you and your opponent apart mid-match. The fact that breaking a wall returns both players to neutral shows that the game simply tries to avoid scary situations for new players by inserting a hard breakpoint where you know that offense will eventually end, similarly to how Dragonball FighterZ got rid of Marvel-style incoming situations and instead reset to neutral between characters. While in DBFZ this could be seen as a stylistic approach to solving how a new character comes in, in a 1v1 fighting game like -STRIVE- this is much more obviously something implemented to change behaviors and “solve a problem”. Finally, considering all of this, even if you simply choose to not finish a wall combo and instead go for okizeme in the corner as your opponent slides off the wall, it feels bad to know you are forgoing damage and something positive just to set up a mixup, even if that positive isn’t very strong. Overall, it seems that ArcSys wasn’t sure how strong losing the corner would be in a match of Guilty Gear and the bonus for forgoing the corner is simply not enough, hopefully, Positive Bonus is significantly buffed or changed, or the wall is changed in a later build of Guilty Gear -STRIVE-.

After considering the changes in Guilty Gear -STRIVE- and having plenty of time to experiment in the beta, it’s no surprise people have quite conflicting opinions about the newest installment in the series. Since there tends to be very little overlap between Guilty Gear players and other anime players, either consequentially or purposefully, the community was bracing for negativity to be present, however, it’s important to keep in mind that the game has changed significantly with each demo iteration, and it still has at least another 8 months if the “late 2020” release date we were told is still holding true. With so much time and an extremely useful survey to gather opinions from this beta, it’s likely we will see at least one more significantly different build of -STRIVE- before release. Even with more iteration on the game’s systems though, there is still room for concern that the game simply won’t be changed enough. Only time will tell how the game turns out, and hopefully, with the announcement of more characters before release, we will see how ArcSys decides to flesh out the game system and make it a complete Guilty Gear experience.

The post First Look: Guilty Gear -STRIVE- Closed Beta Test appeared first on Gamesline.

Starting with the announcement on Thursday, Arc System Works’ social media accounts unexpectedly teased a big announcement coming. Later in the evening, ArcSys posted a link to the information page for their upcoming Closed Beta Test for Guilty Gear -STRIVE-. The page covered a variety of details to let fans know exactly what to expect, but news of a beta test didn’t seem to be as big of a deal as the teases earlier suggested. The page noted that the beta will be sometime in April and will include both online play during the network test and vs COM while the network test isn’t live. Seven characters will be playable, which includes characters announced from Sol and Ky through Faust, but ArcSys also included one interesting piece of information which has gotten many people excited about the future of the game: the inclusion of rollback netcode in the final product.

For those unaware, fighting games have had quite a bit of difficulty creating a seamless online experience since they are primarily played over peer-to-peer connections. This means that your connection quality is directly based on how well you and your opponent connect to each other and not based on how well you can connect to a dedicated server or data center as in larger games with a higher player count. Because of the nature of peer-to-peer connections, most fighting games use a method of lag compensation referred to as delay-based netcode to assuage connection issues. Unlike in a modern multiplayer game like Overwatch, when connection quality is poor in a delay-based environment, inputs are directly delayed by a certain amount of time in order to keep both players in sync. As you could guess, this isn’t very good for fighting games, where the exact timing of your inputs are what matters, and not just if you pressed a button or not.

Notably, some developers have made open source or proprietary solutions to these issues through the use of a rollback netcode framework for peer-to-peer connections instead. To give a practical example I’ll go back to Overwatch. If your game of Overwatch is laggy, your inputs aren’t permanently delayed by a set amount of time; you’ll actually notice that if there is lag, the game will instead snap you back to a point in time just a few fractions of a second before a connection interruption was experienced and attempt to correct the problem. This is rollback netcode; your game simulates what it thinks you are going to do, and as long as there are no issues it continues with your inputs, if an interruption is experienced, the game will notice and snap both players back to a determined point in the match. What this means for fighting game players is that you don’t have to time your inputs specifically for a certain amount of variable delay, instead you do your inputs normally (theoretically as if offline!) and if there is a connection issue you will notice and can pick up where the game leaves you off. Practically, there are usually some buffers to delay inputs by just a few frames so even if there is a one frame delay, you can count on it to consistently be a one frame delay and not variable as in a delay-based environment.

With rollback being the standard in games magnitudes more popular than fighting games, it seems like a no brainer that fighting game developers would work to include this sort of netcode framework in their games. Inexplicably, this hasn’t happened yet, and companies have been hesitant to focus on creating good rollback netcode by their own volition. Recently, this has resulted in community uproar and nearly all of the fighting game community has been calling for companies to work on implementing some form of rollback netcode into their games. Community figureheads like Sajam and Maximillian Dood have been calling for this reform for years, taking vocal stances to encourage fans to hold the functionality of their games to higher standards and provide feedback on netcode when appropriate. By being one of the first companies to clearly respond to the community and implement this system into a flagship game, ArcSys has put themselves in a very advantageous position. While people questioned whether or not -STRIVE- would be “true Guilty Gear” based on early gameplay changes, this move shows that ArcSys is not paying lip service by saying they are willing to fundamentally change their game based on feedback from the community.

This was no small change for the game, and the website for -STRIVE-‘s closed beta test confirms that while the beta will be using a delay-based netcode framework, rollback netcode will be implemented in the final product of the game. For Arc System Works to show players that they are willing to change underlying systems of the game to make a great experience, they have garnered tons of attention with many people saying that even with the gameplay concerns they have at present, they would be willing to give the game a try based on the transparency of ArcSys. Of course, this was before ArcSys dropped a trailer that addressed all those gameplay concerns.

Following the announcement on Thursday, ArcSys planned to show off a combined trailer of what was supposed to be shown in both the Final Round and Brussels Challenge trailers on Saturday. With everyone tuning in to YouTube on Saturday night to view the trailer, ArcSys had the perfect chance to show that they are following through on their commitment to the community. When the trailer dropped and everyone was able to see what they had in store, ArcSys delivered in a surprising, but rather modest way. The trailer was only one minute and six seconds long, but managed to show off two characters that fans were convinced simply wouldn’t be able to function in -STRIVE-‘s gameplay system: Millia and Zato-1. The superficial response seemed positive with many people praising both Millia’s and Zato’s design updates, however, it is what these characters can (and seemingly still) do that is exciting.

To explain meaningfully, I’ll have to use some basic fighting game terminology, but don’t worry, these are concepts you already experience in fighting games. For context, the community has been hesitant to fully embrace Guilty Gear -STRIVE- primarily due to some radical gameplay changes which have affected significant parts of the game down to core principles of Guilty Gear. The chief issue among these changes is that a component of standard gameplay called okizeme has been radically nerfed compared to the last Guilty Gear title, Xrd REV 2. Okizeme is a term meant to encapsulate the actions (and attacks) used after knocking the opponent down to hit them as they are getting back up. Xrd REV 2 was an extremely okizeme focused game with several mechanics designed purposefully or not to facilitate crazy sequences of actions which would make it very difficult for an opponent to wake up into and successfully block, eventually scoring the performer of the okizeme more damage, pressure, and options to win the game. Since most people so far have not been able to meaningfully play Guilty Gear -STRIVE- combined with the fact that each demo iteration of the game has included some radical changes, the community has only been able to form opinions based on gameplay mechanics directly shown to them, and most of those mechanics have been changed or created to cause powerfully hard to block okizeme to become much less common, or function completely differently in Guilty Gear -STRIVE-.

This brings us back to Millia and Zato-1. These two characters are known as okizeme monsters in Xrd REV 2 and are most powerful when they can score a knockdown to begin setting up absolutely wild okizeme setups and potentially mix up the opponent into a kill; this was to such an extent that Millia is rather notoriously known as a character that can either be double perfected and die early due to low starting health or get a double perfect because her opponent simply can’t block everything when she throws the kitchen sink at them. As mainstays of the series, fans were dubious as to whether or not Millia and Zato-1 would even be reflections of their past selves in the new Guilty Gear, and ArcSys managed to show that they weren’t going anywhere. Throughout the trailer, rather than showing superficially cool looking moves and following the formula of past trailers, all the gameplay was focused on what these characters do best. Hard to block setups were abound and while the trailer was only a few seconds, it shows that even if Guilty Gear -STRIVE- won’t be exactly like past games, ArcSys is still making sure there’s something in it for veteran players. Notably, none of the setups shown in the trailers involved meter and were obviously not close to what optimal okizeme setups for those characters would look like, so it’s possible that this trailer was even meant to show off that they have made changes at a larger scope, possibly allowing for these sorts of setups with more characters than previously thought in past demo builds. Time will tell if this stands correct, and with a beta coming up, it seems we shall find out.

I hope there’s a Guard button in Strive. pic.twitter.com/qPOfLKzjEG

— J I Y U N A (@jiyunaJP) March 22, 2020

Reception to both announcements seems to be very positive, and while people aren’t as focused on Guilty Gear as they usually are with present affairs in the world, people seem to be excited for the additions of Millia and Zato-1 into the game. With such a long amount of time until Guilty Gear -STRIVE- is set to release (possibly up to eight months) it’s now clear that huge changes will likely come to -STRIVE- before its final build. The game’s prerelease coverage has been quite unique due to the extreme amount of transparency and feedback solicitation from ArcSys for a game that was being billed as a complete restructuring of Guilty Gear. Thanks to it, we have seen each new iteration of changes as they have come out, and while that means we will definitely see the bad ones, that also theoretically means we’ll see the good implementations if ArcSys continues to be as receptive to feedback as they are now. Ultimately, we can only wait for more and I’ll see you all in the CBT (hehe).

The post Rollback Netcode and Two Characters May Have Saved Guilty Gear -STRIVE- appeared first on Gamesline.

Gameplay in UNICLR remains standard from past UNI games and consists of four buttons to control your character, referred to as ABCD: light attack, medium attack, heavy attack, and ~*special button*~. The game’s simplicity carries through from this button scheme to the actual fighting. Combos are performed simply by canceling a button from a lower strength attack into an equal or higher strength attack; this means that if you land a random A attack against an opponent and don’t have a combo prepared, a simple A>B>C will do and your opponent will think twice about getting hit by stray jabs. This is where the UNI series gets really elegant, a complete beginner won’t have to worry about any timing on their attacks and can pull off whatever combo they can happen to press, while an advanced player can really use all the freedom of this sort of combo structure to perform stuff you wouldn’t otherwise expect from a stray hit. I have always found UNI games to be great to introduce to new players for this reason; combined with a unique aesthetic, anyone playing the game for the first time can really feel the fluidity of gameplay, and when a game feels immediately good to a new player, there’s a strong chance they’ll stick with the game.

For players familiar with fighting games or wanting to learn how to play the UNI series beyond just the basics, don’t worry, notice when I described the gameplay earlier I mentioned it being “elegant”. The game is definitely NOT shallow and as soon as you look deeper into UNICLR this becomes more apparent. The beauty of the game is that you only really need to learn what you want to, so a beginner’s basic skills in this game will directly evolve into more advanced skills later because things like combos or spacing will never be fundamentally different unless you choose a character or playstyle that avoids certain elements of the game. While an autocombo is present (which isn’t really a bad thing), UNICLR differs from games like Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle where the main focus of combos falls on the autocombos available to a character; instead, it’s a quick substitute for A>B>C that has more advanced applications found by experienced players, so it has situational uses but doesn’t rule over your other combos. Everything in UNICLR can be taken advantage of by the player to the extent they want, so plenty of depth is present once you begin to critically look at mechanics like assault and the vorpal cycle, which are critical for high-level play.

In addition to learning the system for yourself, the tutorial in UNICLR is incredible and serves as both a useful mechanism to teach you the game as well as a meaningful chunk of content in the game itself. Beyond simply teaching you how all the mechanics of the game work (so you can forget them and start mashing buttons once you get into a game), UNICLR also teaches you theory on how to use them consistently from beginner to expert to make sure that players not only can do the inputs but understand when and where to use certain moves. If you’re a beginner, this is probably the best way to learn how to play any fighting game, as the tutorial will teach you about relative safety, how to use your attacks, and how to think effectively in-game. With over 100 missions teaching everything from basic movement to the various option selects present in UNICLR, I truly think this is the best tutorial to learn how fighting games generally work and how to play them. The tutorial also has extremely helpful tips for veteran fighting game players as well, and even though I know how to play the game, I will still find myself going through late missions in the tutorial to make sure I understand how to respond to a situation correctly. Character specific tutorials are also present and are as helpful as you would expect by providing tons of combos and strategy tips to explain how a character typically plays or when to use certain moves. At every step of the way playing UNICLR, the tutorial will be there to help.

Moving on from hard gameplay, let’s talk about the aesthetics of UNICLR: they’re great. UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH is an anime fighting game series, so if you’re averse to the sound of Japanese sung anime openings, look elsewhere (your loss!). Beyond the simple statement of UNICLR being an anime game, the game oozes a feeling of eeriness and coolness, making the more lively characters a welcome stirring of the pot when you get sick of seeing boys with dark jeans and trench coats on screen. The music in each UNI game has always been great, and this installment is no exception, with lots of soft synths and the occasional shredding guitar solo, like music to ride a motorcycle at night to. Continuing to where you fight, most of the game’s stages are like the gameplay; beautiful but streamlined. Based on the lore of the game which I am admittedly not an expert on, most of the stages take place in different locales at night, whether it’s a playground or a mall, the stages are exactly what you expect, and they greatly reinforce the mysterious mood. The character’s songs combined with the menus and stages really pull the game together into a cool and calm package when most fighting games try to make things as exciting and frenetic as possible. Also, with UNICLR being an anime game, you get no shortage of cool overly dramatic moments. Leaving the song selection on auto will cause certain character matchups to play a special song due to rivalry or adversarial conflict in the story. Along with the huge amounts of gibberish English text on the screen and the dramatic, mysterious anime soundtrack, UNICLR makes no point to hide its Type-Moon, Melty Blood origins.

Despite the unique aesthetics of UNICLR, my one complaint with the game may be others’ favorite part: the roster. Functionally, the roster leaves nothing to be desired; it provides many unique playstyles through each character and there’s no shortage of fun to be had playstyle-wise. My issue, however, is that most characters simply lack the extra oomph I crave when I look for characters in other games. With the overall chill and dark mood I described before, most of the character designs are also quite simple, much like something in the Melty Blood series, another game the developers previously worked on. Many characters’ outfits consist of pretty ho-hum getups, and while there certainly are some characters that break the mold like Gordeau and Waldstein, the fantasy of what each character should be doing in-game based on how they look isn’t always clear based on their designs. Characters like Linne and Seth have always fallen flat to me for this reason; even if I think they do super cool things in-game, it doesn’t feel like I’m picking a super cool character on the character select screen. This has been remedied with each subsequent version after UNI (the first in the series) as more unique and over the top characters have been brought in, and I feel that for most people UNICLR should not have this issue with the addition of the very cool Londrekia rounding out the roster. Obviously, this is a pretty minor issue, I’ve still found a character I enjoy playing in Gordeau, yet I never truly feel like my itch for a character has been completely scratched looking at the UNICLR roster.

In total, UNICLR is truly a great game and time will tell if it becomes one of the more memorable fighting games of this era. While we haven’t quite gotten enough time to see how all the balance changes have shaken out in the long term just yet, if it’s anything like past UNI games, no casual player should have to worry about picking a “useless tier” character unless they are really looking to optimize their gameplay (and transitioning beyond a casual mindset). Community support for UNI has always been great, with people looking to play this game pretty much throughout the fighting game community. With the game scoring another consecutive appearance at EVO 2020 for the series, it’s safe to say this is likely the best general representation of UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH so far and perhaps the best of anime fighting games as a whole.

The post Review: UNDER NIGHT IN BIRTH Exe:Late [cl-r] (PS4) appeared first on Gamesline.

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For Tekken, two of four announced characters were shown: the returning Zafina as well as the completely new character Leroy Smith. Every character will be getting balance updates as well as new moves in the coming season as well.

Oddly enough, a teaser involving Solid Snake was shown in the middle of grand finals. Nothing else was detailed, so who knows if this was a joke or a potential tease for Snake to arrive in Tekken later in the season.

SNAKE?!!??!!? pic.twitter.com/fUIsQnDo8S

— FADEL – 🖤🦅 HYPE @ EVO🕹 (@MTLSaiyan) August 5, 2019

Finally, a new Guilty Gear was shown off. Besides Sol and Ky’s new a look, a mysterious newcomer, and some stage transition mechanics, nothing concrete was revealed for the next entry in the Guilty Gear franchise. It looks absolutely gorgeous, though.

The post Here are the Tekken, Guilty Gear Announcements From EVO 2019 appeared first on Gamesline.

Set for release early 2020, UNIEL clr will include not just brand new moves and balance for the old characters but a new ice-based fighter named Londrekia. They didn’t confirm the consoles for which it will release, but the leak stated Playstation 4 and Switch.

More information will be coming in the future, so who knows what characters and balance changes will be coming to the Under Night franchise. My prayer is they make Merkava’s arms longer and make his yelling clip your speakers.

The post Under Night In-Birth Exe-Late[cl-r] Announced at Evo 2019 appeared first on Gamesline.

• Ultron
• Thor
• Hulk
• Hawkeye
• Rocket Raccoon
• Chun-Li
• Strider
• Chris Redfield

Not only that, but we have a full release date, September 19th.

In this blogpost, Combofiend points out that Capcom and Marvel locales will be mixed together for this game, really highlighting the crossover aspect of the game. Not only that, but Ultron and Sigma are fusing together to become the big-bad. Story, Arcade, Training, and Mission modes were all confirmed, so MvC:I will launch more feature complete than SFV at least.

There will be three editions of the game, the standard for $60 (which, if pre-ordered, comes with Warrior Thor and Evil Ryu costumes), Deluxe Edition for $90 that comes with the season pass (and Gladiator Hulk and Command Mission X), and a $200 collector’s edition that comes with Infinity Stone replicas as well as dioramas of Chun-Li, X, Iron Man, and Captain Marvel.

The 2017 season pass will include six new characters, and the first confirmed one is Sigma. Presumably he will be released soon after launch, as he IS already a main plot character.

The post Eight More Marvel Vs Capcom: Infinite Characters Revealed appeared first on Gamesline.

This was a long time coming, with debt issues coming to a head in mid-2015 and continuing until now. Mad Catz’s heavy involvement with the ill-fated Rock Band 4 crippled the company, and it never quite recovered. Early last year Mad Catz made a move to restructure and save itself, firing 37% of the staff and having its CEO step down. Harmonix even distanced themselves from Mad Catz later that year, even though they have their own problems these days.

Mad Catz shutting down is a bummer for the industry. Their peripherals, while infamous at times, were useful for budget-minded gamers. Their fightsticks are also top notch, and now with less competition, fightsticks may see a rise in price. It’s always a shame when a company shuts down and people lose their jobs, but it’s especially sad when something with such a history becomes nothing more than a memory.

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