Figure'd I'd copy my Otakon Impressions to an earlier post, for ease of use, and since they seemed well-appreciated!:
Overall General Observations:- Alt Palettes were selected with the "back" button on the 360 joystiq. Kyo and ElisaBOOBWINDOW were the only new ones selectable. The quality on these details was fantastic; All the little secondary animation you expect was there, Kyo looked like a whole new character, and Betty's breast made sure to jump around at any possible occassion.
- There was no way to get the remixed tracks in this version. I tried holding buttons before matches started... but didn't seem to matter. And y'know... I'm not sure if Saiki or Billy had themes... or did I just never see them played first?
- Man, are there a lot of new / re-recorded voices. We didn't have the sound very loud the whole time, but the variety of reactions, new move lines, varied win quotes, and general audio polish really was great.
The new stages lack in animation greatly, compared to the old ones. However, they excel REALLY well in once specific area: Specific Character Animation and Cameos. Lets break it down individually:Desert: Most sparse. An animated Flag in the BG, a nice sandstorm, and that chubby kid from AoF 3 show up between rounds.
Didn't notice much else, but it's very nicely drawn, and the perfect place for those who claim the BG's are distracting.
Micky's stage: Ok, this REALLY is an obvious AoF homage. There is gang poster for Jack on the back wall. The front junked Car reads Art Of Fighting. Mr. Big and Karman Cole show up to have a chat in the BG, very obvious it's them when you see them up close in a 50+ inch LCD, lol. A host of cats play around in the garbage, and they change between rounds. Also, a black dude sits in the doorway close to the fighters. He's chewing/blowing bubblegum the whole time, which animates very well. When someone wins a fight, be'll stop chewing, and turn his attention to the fighters, giving a look of interest / approval.
Kyokugen-ryu Dojo: Ok, this place is FULL of fun stuff. The Kids and Kushnood all observe your match with different emotions.
Totally unlike the Arcade stages, the characters don't speed up as you fight, they just... react. Naturally. They cheer and show approval when players win. Kushnood / Marco nods his head in approval, smiles, and laughs. Oddly enough, you never see the full stand animation he has in the "stage select" screen preview, he's always sitting.
Also, the ENTIRE Anti-Kyokugen team shows up here.
- On the left-most windows along the right side, Eiji sneaks a peak into the dojo. He'll look around for a bit... then act as if he is noticed, take a suprised look, and dissapear.
- Right under him, Kasumi Todoh is giving a very casual glance into the building, most of the time.
- In the very center of the stage, under the potted plant on the shelf, a door will open occassional (especially during victory, it seems), and Malin will be seen, peering at everyone within.
Sho Hayate watches casually, as well, being very controlled, compared to the others. Also, as noted, the left side of the stage has 2 posters. 1 is of Takuma chopping a Bull behind the head, to bring it down in 1 blow (Mas Oyama reference) and the 2nd has the Kyokugen's most well known diciples on it, with a dojo phone number that consist of a lot of 555 XXXXXXXX.
Rooftop Coliseum: Fireworks shine in the background, and the ground has a really nice floor, which is hard to see in some vids.
The only cameo I noticed is from Hattori Hanzo (far left), but his scarf billows VERY fluidly in the wind. The little crowd of people below also have animation that suggest they're moving, which looks better than I expected.
Forest / Destroyed Manor: Kagami (LB) and Kain (MoTW) show up in the BG, with very well animated energy/lighting effects shining on them. To the far left of the stage, occasionally, Charlotte will appear, looking away into the background. These 3 don't seem to respond to the player, but the limited animation on them is very smooth.
Sky Noah: Easily one of the most static background (all the screens change, sure, but everything else kinda sits...), yet the one with the most lively, active background characters. Rose, the Black Panther, and Adel move about between rounds constantly. Rose changes outfits at pretty much every move, as well. When Adel is closest to the screen, at the far left, holding onto a mug, and operating the computer, he looked like a perfect up-rezzed version of his KoF XI sprite, brought into XIII style. Also, occasionally,, Rugal shows up, twirling a glass in his hand, on the central monitor.
Clocktower: The gear animation here is very nice! Watching pistons pump and parts turn was all pretty elaborate. I couldn't tell if the clock had any significance, as in if it kept the accurate time or anything. Krauser and Laurence were obvious in the BG, but I couldn't tell who sits between them... this was the hardest cameo for me to try and make out.
Lilly Kane, however, is fantastic. Like the Kyokugen dojo people, she reacts very well, and takes on a happy look and claps for the round winner. I wonder if she'd react to Joe, if you brought him here?
Pao Pao Cafe: Let me say, this stage has some of the most gorgeous coloring of anything I've seen in gaming! It's also the one that felt most like it'd belong in the arcade release. The people in silhouettes in the BG are much more caricatured than anyone else seen in the console stages. Cameos include Richard (sitting to the back left, cleaning a statue) and Bao, to the upper right of the Dragon statues. Richard is very nicely defined, and very close up (in his FF1 outfit), but he didn't seem to react to the fight, like others. Oddly, however, the central musicians react like the arcade BG chara's: They speed up to insane degrees, when reacting to victories. Of all the new stages, I felt this one to be the best compromise between the lively arcade stages Vs the lush, detailed, yet more static console stages.
TFTP Headquaters: There's a red orb in the center, with power coursing from it over time. As the fight progresses, tendrils start to snake up the walls, perhaps getting more dense as rounds go on. Believe character voices also echo here, but not as strongly as in the White Gate stage. Otherwise... I didn't notice any cameos or such here. It looks like a good place for a final encounter, but if I had to go to a stage like this, I'd prefer the "heaven" or "hell" stages before the gate, from the arcade release.
Note that there was no Iori 95 stage in this build. A shame, I really wanted to see it in person!
Overall, these new stages are a perfect compliment to the older, crowded ones. Everyone should be able to find a place where they
prefer to fight, as they all have unique atmospheres, secondary lighting, sound effects, level of echo, etc.
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Character Notes:Vice:- 2 Hit close standing
. First part is a knee, second is her stretching out her leg. Not much testing done with it, just happy to see it there. - Observed a single situation where
Mayhem gained projectile invincibility, VS Kensou's fireball. Didn't replicate again in mid-battle, so not sure what that means, but it's interesting! - Had a REALLY hard time getting EX Gore Fest to work. It ALWAYS came out as an EX Splash. This was really annoying, as I wanted to check out how damaging the EX version felt as a combo ender!
or Splash were great blockstring mixup fuel. Totally devoures any low attacks people will try to retalliate with.- Vice has a 2nd win pose, using part of Splash's recovery frames, and a few new ones (she puts a hand to her mouth while laying along the ground.)
Hwa Jai:- The crowds were enjoying everything about him! Crazy cackling laugh, freakin' awesome neomax, odd relations to Adon and Joe... he was also one of the most fun for me to play, personally.
- Crouch
, stand , df slide , qcb + is a legit combo now, 5 hits. It leaves him right in your face, ready to continue the barrage. I probably pressured people with this Combo / Blockstring more than anything else. This might even be MORE abuse-able with "Drink Pink" activated, but not sure. - He seems to have a target combo with crouch , . The appears to be exchangeable between standing or ducking. Didn't catch this in gameplay myself, noticed that here, near mid vid: The King of Fighters XIII: Gameplay Video #7 EVO 2011 [PS3]
- His ground CD now has him leap forward while performing it. This makes it REALLY easy to use to punish laggy moves, and then follow up with EX Dragon Kick's Anywhere juggle properties. This makes it similar to Ralf's in useage.
- Dragon Breaker DM has 2 forms: button is a command grab, 0 range for comboing off attacks (so only use with 1 close attack, for instance), but hey, it's a legit command grab! button variety is like Vice's old leaping grab DM, except the startup seems fully invincible. I was easily able to jump through DM's, Vulcan punches, and high-priority strikes with it, to land the throw.
- Drink Pink seemed to have some invulnerability? I remember watching someone try to hit me out of it, to no avail. It might have the old SNK-style "Different button determines different invincibility" properties that various DMs have in many games.
- His taunt seems unusually easy to cancel out of. I tricked quite a few people into trying to land a jump-in while using it, only to counter with a Dragon Kick afterwards.
- I can't compare him to the arcade, as I never played the arcade game; However, I can say that Dragon Tail has deceptive hitboxes... the swipe isn't as large, or persistent, as it appears it should be. I wiffed with it on jump-ins more than I'd liked, and failed to shield myself with it in the air as much as I'd prefer. Back hops into horizontal Dragon Kick is a nice trick, but a bit limited by it's startup. Quite risky, too, but I could see it being useful to start a guardbreak combo in HD mode.
Mai:- , target combo. (Awww, she and Andy have the same Target combo!) Can be used from whatever you can get a standing to combo after, and can be performed without hitting. Couldn't get it to cancel at all. However, rapid fire blockstrings with this made me feel like I was playing MvC or Real Bout...
- Ukihane knee dive is faster and more useful.
- Musasabi no Mai seemed pretty safe on block.
- I had fun playing her myself, and the 1 other that played her well seemed to give me suprising trouble with solid use of normals, and with speed that always seemed to have her attacking before I could retaliate...
Clark:- Autoguard SAB is abuseable VS pressure happy people. Seems to be full body autoguard too, though I'd have liked to test it VS more sweeps, to make sure. Made quite a few mildly salty opponents with just this move alone.
Ralf:- Strong Gattling Attack now hits with a fire effect. Helps differentiate his version from Clark's even more now.
- link after strong gutpunch and such still worked wonders. My brother WRECKED many people with this on our final day!
Maxima:- The Dead-drop after air vapor is nice. Still seemed to be able to combo after the EX one in the corner (was worried he'd lose that), and it really helped with moving around fireballs and anti-airs. I was able to backhop and use it to build meter, but I don't THINK you could do it in the same style as the arcade players; he'd stop in the air, do the move, then fall down, no mysterious phantom gauge-building.
- Maxima Laser NM is the best move known to man. *ahem* I punished so many tutle-strats, risky gambles, sloppy advances, and general "down to the wire!" situations with this move, that it should be illegal. Mix with Iron Man colors, and the "Unibeam!" chants could be heard from many.
- Did they improve his win pose? I thought it was a very boring animation od him shooting off Vapor before... but now he speaks words, and takes on a grind afterwards, all while his jacket jumps a bit while still shooting the vapor.
Terry:- His down , down target combo is insanely easy to do. I wouldn't even pretend it's a link. Every random nobody who played Terry was able to do it by accident! I don't even know WHY they were pushing those buttons! I could never get Burn Knuckle -> DC Crackshoot to land out of this combo, but don't know if that's because of ME, or the range it sticks you at.
- Trinity Geyser is a much more legit Neomax now. You're pretty much guaranteed 3 waves to hit mid-screen, and they've been slowed to individual pulses now, rather than just one wash of power. Unfortunately for me, I screwed up and landed EX Power waves rather than the Trinity Geyser most of the time. Either I was too hype playing Terry, my execution just SUCKED with the Blazblue sticks provided by Atlus, or... well, it's a bit of a mix of both, lol. (I prefer to play on a table, not with joystick in lap.)
Yuri:- Her Hyakuretsu Binta is now a close range command throw, rather than a short range dash. No change in motion. The variety still seems to be a long-range dash.
Raiden:- I didn't hear or see anyone play him once, in the 2 days I was there. Same with Goro, though I almost picked him myself... I almost forgot he was in the game due to this, lol.
I think that's basically everything! It was great to finally get to experience the game properly in person, and big thanks to Atlus and SNKP for making / allowing such a thing to happen! There's such a LONG list of things I didn't even get to do/test/try...
