anybody else into fighting games?

[atothex]

C Chun with meter hurts about as much as Bison; the main difference is that she dies if she messes up the combo.

Anyways, I really wish Guilty Gear would put out something on Xbox 360. I love the female character design, and there's enough females that I can always be a female char. In SF, I have to mess with mid tier girls or just be a guy. Usually Vega haha.

[catscratch]

Not too long until Super SF4 now. I can't wat to see how they fuck up character balance this time. A lot of reported changes I like, but some make me and more than a few are flat-out . Removing Gen's MK Hands combos? 2d ultra for Chun that can combo off EX legs for full damage anywhere on the screen? Guess Capcom really can't put up with Gen being anything other than bottom tier and if Chun isn't 3S Chun overpowered, she really needs a boost? Sometimes I do wonder just what the hell Capcom is thinking, but then I remember that they're Capcom. Two steps back for every step sideways is the name of the game.

On the whole though, it does look like it's going to be a better game this time around.

[atothex]

Haven't really followed closely, but the new chick is a fox.

[falkon]

Just got BlazBlue. Suck at it though.

[catscratch]

BB has a stiff learning curve, especially if you didn't play Guilty Gear. Check out the Dustloop forums and watch as many vids as you can, and of course spend a lot of time in the lab practicing. Get a good stick too.

I dropped BB since I really hated the visual style, and in general don't like really long Guilty Gear-style combos. It did have a fair amount of gameplay innovation though, at least compared to SF4. But SF4 is way more polished.

[atothex]

Yeah, I haven't found a BB character that really clicked with me. I really want to like it, but ultimately, the gameplay isn't up to GG standards.

Continuum Shift looks to be a bit better, but I'm still not ready to put it up there with the GG games, which have been through many iterations already.

[catscratch]

*long rant warning, with lots of technical street fighter gobblygook inside*

Been playing Super SF4 for a few days now. First impressions very positive on the whole, but with a few obvious and quite lamented facepalms which the community saw a long time ago, and which Capcom failed to fix despite everyone telling them to. But more on that later.

Game feels faster, more responsive, and more balanced, at least at first glance. New stages look better, new characters are interesting and returning 3s/alpha characters are... well I didn't play 3s or alpha so I wouldn't know, but they look cool at any rate. Damage output for most characters has gone down, but 3s characters do damage that's more in line with vanilla SF4, and may be overpowered. But of course time will tell.

Individual character notes/impressions:

Sagat: got nerfed hard, but is still good. Ultra setups mostly intact but do very little damage. Tiger uppercut does very little damage too but he has a new move that doubles next TU damage, and apparently can be used in combos though the timing is tricky. Sagat still looks strong but he can't casually take half your bar now off an anti-air trade. He has to work for his wins.

Ryu: retarded super traps are gone, and dp into ultra does a lot less damage. His ability to do huge damage off a single hit or trade is diminished. He also has less anti-air priority. I'm guessing he still has few bad matchups to worry about and should be good overall.

G Toyota a.k.a. the Tyrannical Teabagger a.k.a. Mr. Ed Honda: New ultra is seriously useless. Only good in mindgames but you generally need to spend meter to land it (off FADC hands and the like), and it doesn't do enough damage to offset how hard whiffing it will get you punished, or how bad its range is, or how stupidly hard it is to land in general. Ultra 1, however, is tweaked to be more effective against fireballs, and he can headbutt over Sagat's low tiger shots now, which really changes the matchup. His damage output is mostly intact, which means that in relation to everybody else, he does even more damage now. He's dangerous. And fat.

Blanka: is subtly tweaked in a lot of good ways. His forawd hop is faster and much more useful. His normals have better range, and some of his links seem to be easier now, especially c.mk into ultra 1. Ultra 2 is useful as anti-air or anti-fireball, makes him even better vs fireball characters but he didn't really need that. Balls are more punishable on block, however. It seems that Capcom wants him to be more offensive and less turtly, which is definitely a step in the right direction.

Chun: is not as overpowered as I feared. She has better anti-air priority (df+lk is a good anti-air now, finally) but she's still not vanilla Ryu in terms of zoning ability. Ultra 2 combos anywhere on the screen off EX legs but its damage output is low. It's useful, but hardly game-breaking. Overall she feels more well-rounded and her bad matchups should be a bit easier, but her good matchups probably won't get any more abusive.

Guile: is the most improved character in the game, hands down. He's really good now. His charge time got decreased so he can actually keep up with others in the fireball war. His links got easier, his footsies are better, and he has actual ultra setups now for ultra 2. He's more versatile, more powerful, and generally feels a lot more like real Guile, which is great. I don't know if he'll be top tier but he's good.

Gen: is sort of the other way around. We've been telling Capcom "this new Gen sucks, all we see is nerfs, what are you doing?" to which their only response was "wait for the finished version before you judge." Well, now we have the finished version, and Gen sucks. There are some buffs but mostly it's huge and unnecessary nerfs. His jump arcs are much worse, he lost all of his good BnB combos, his wall dive setups are gone and have less priority, his meter gain is about 1/3 of what it used to be - what's going on? His normals are faster and can be linked much better, but what good is it if they don't do any damage or gain any meter? He still has a ton of Ultra setups and can take off half your life in a blink, but his sustained damage ability is really nerfed, as is his ability to get around zoning. He's low tier - or at least right now he looks to be low tier. Maybe with time people will discover new things for him, but right now he looks like a massive facepalm on Capcom's part. Needless to say, a lot of good Gen players are furious.

That's it so far for characters that I know at least somewhat well.

Gen fiasco aside, the game is much better.