Welcome friends, to a much awaited, much anticipated and much too late edition of The Life and Times. Today we talk about what's been rockin' fifthStitch's little world recently. Them bitches!
YEP, THEM BITCHES!
So today, I just bought the newly released fighting game Street Fighter x Tekken (x is read as "cross", see what I did with the intro now? no? okayguy.jpg). Much too early. Much much too early for anyone who isn't a hardcore fan of fighting games, Tekken and Street Fighter. Of course, falling under all three criteria and falling haaaaaaaard, I bought the game anyways. I'm sure I could've waited a month, possibly two, then I could have gotten the game at a cheaper price, but meh...
YOU REALLY WANNA MAKE THEM BITCHES WAIT?
Right. Let's just talk about the game, shall we? Now, I'm not going to write a definitive review, as that obviously is impossible at this stage (I've barely even touched the game; I've barely even touched them bitches!), but I'm gonna give my first impressions about the game after playing for about an hour or so. Imma divide them into positive and negative points, as any kind-hearted person would. Bear in mind, I still have a lot of ground to cover with regards to this game, and with regards to the fighting games genre too. If ever I make a mistake with the jargon or what not, take it with a grain of salt.
Ready? Then let's begin with the negative points:
No piano inputs.
Piano inputs, or "mash them buttons" in colloquial language (what do you mean that's not how people talk?), means to hit an attack button a certain number of times rapidly. What attack button do you hit and in what combination depends on the game. For instance, in most Street Fighter games, Chun-Li's Hyakuretsukyaku (roughly translated to "Ouch ouch stop kicking me you spamming mofo") requires five kick button inputs; which kick buttons you press doesn't matter (sometimes there's a restriction that says you cannot start the series with a Hard Kick, sometimes there isn't any). In VS games like Marvel vs. Capcom or Tatsunoko vs Capcom on the other hand, Chun-Li's Hyakuretsukyaku requires three kick button inputs of the same strength. Maybe I'm just used to piano inputs, but this makes comboing into these moves a lot easier, and sometimes comboing out of it too.
Not in Street Fighter x Tekken! Probably the biggest disappointment I have with the game, because of the Cross Rush input mechanics (which almost almooooooost mitigates the loss of the piano inputs, see the positive points), it's quite impossible to actually introduce piano input special moves into the game. So what input did they replace the piano with? A half circle forward. That's right. A half circle forward. Yeah, sure, it just takes some getting used to, but this really takes away from what makes Chun-Li Chun-Li. See, for me, part of the charm of playing with Chun-Li is the guttural feeling of spamming a kick button and watching Chun kick the crap out of a hapless opponent. Although you can still spam the kick button after the half circle input for more kicks, it just doesn't feel right you know? Just ask a certain Nina player I know...
NINA HATES NOT BEING ABLE TO BUTTON MASH AS MUCH AS
SHE HATES RYU'S JAW (SERIOUSLY, GOOGLE HER UP)
Oh well...
Charging Ex Moves can sometimes interfere with combo timing
In this game, certain special moves can be charged by holding down the attack button used to trigger the move. For example, Ryu can charge his Hadoken into an Ex Hadoken; further charging will result into his Super Art: Shinku Hadoken. While nothing is inherently wrong with this, and I do get the flavor its supposed to express (remember those super moves in Tekken, like Paul's famed and feared Phoenix Punch? yeah, that, and darn does it feel the natural and perfect for that purpose), it takes a bit of delicate button work sometimes to avoid delaying the special move so as to make it combo from a normal move or another special move.
You can still do the traditional press two attack buttons for EX and press three attack buttons to Super, however, so the timing on these individual moves aren't really affected if done this in this "traditional" manner.
Not really a big draw, but the next one is, and is probably related. Also, totally nerdy yeah? Julia Chang approves...
JULIA CHANG, PROVING THAT NERDY POCAHONTAS
ISN'T SUCH A BAD PEG...
Links and cancels feel stiff
A cancel happens when you use a special move or another normal move to cancel the ending animation of a normal move (in more technical terms, the recovery animation or recovery frames of the move). An example is cancelling Ryu's crouching Medium Kick into Hadoken, you skip the animation of Ryu pulling his leg back and instead go immediately into the animation of a Hadoken, thus scoring you a short combo. Links on the other hand involves inputting an attack (either a special, a normal or a super) with proper timing such that it begins to hit the opponent before the opponent can recover from a prior attack (thus scoring you a combo). In Street Fighter IV, the links were kinda tough, but were manageable. You had visual cues as to when you can begin to input the next move of a link. The cancels are quite obvious too; moves that can be cancelled will be cancelled if you time the input of the next move properly.
I cannot say the same for Street Fighter x Tekken. I don't know if it's just me (it's probably just me) but the cancels and the links feel quite stiff, like there's little to no margin for error. Either you hit the move early or you don't; like there's only a small window with which you can input your next move, either when you're cancelling or linking. This is frustrating for characters like Chun, who rely on her powerful normals to get the job done.
I'm not exactly sure why this happens, maybe its again because of the infamous cross rush, or maybe beacuse I haven't had enough practice with the game, but I dunno. Time will tell, maybe if I get used to it more. I can probably improve my timing. Or there's a secret about Street Fighter x Tekken inputs that I have yet to know about.
Curse you Capcom for giving me stuff to obsess upon! Also Cammy...
Curse you Capcom for giving me stuff to obsess upon! Also Cammy...
CAMMY, BECAUSE USING A DRILL IS TOO MAINSTREAM...
And speaking of Cross Rush
A Cross Rush is when you input a Light attack (either punch or kick, crouching or standing) followed by any Medium attack, followed by any Hard attack and again followed by another Hard attack. The last Hard attack becomes a launcher, automatically tagging you out for your partner to continue the combo. It's pretty fun and easy, but it can be quite frustrating as well. For instance, normally you'd want your normal attack combo to end in a Hard attack. Better not spam that Hard attack, if you don't wanna trip a Cross Rush! Worse of all, it seems like any time you spam a Hard attack twice outside of corner cases (like the extra Kick button spam at the end of a Hyakuretsukyaku input), it turns into a launcher as if you just inputted a Cross Rush! So you better be careful about your inputs; Cross Rush can be a double edged sword sometimes.
Whew, that's a lot of negative points! Let's talk about the positives now! But before that, hey, let's see another one of them bitches; that's certainly a positive point!
IT'S QUITE HARD TO LIKE YOU, POISON, BECAUSE
I STILL DON'T KNOW WHETHER YOU'RE A
GUY OR A GIRL...
Alllllright... Moving on... Positive points, yeah:
Easy awesome combos
It's often rare that you find characters with easy combos that are also quite awesome (and by awesome I mean either exaggeratedly long or excruciatingly damaging); rarities like Lili and Asuka from Tekken or maybe Juri and Cammy from Street Fighter. Newbies can pick em up and just play, and they'd have an awesome time just doing basic stuff. In Street Fighter x Tekken, and specifically because of the aforementioned Cross Rush, most character's combos are easier to do and does awesome damage; if you follow the magic Cross Rush series. It seems, just for the Cross Rush inputs, the window for attacks to combo into each other is quite huge (as opposed to regular links and some cancels). Light attacks cancel extremely effortlessly into Medium attacks, which cancels equally effortlessly into Hard attacks and finally into Launchers. And each and every character can do this!
Lili, in my opinion, benefits alot from this fact. A connected Light attack with three stocks of meter can easily turn into 401 damage (almost half the health of an average character like Ryu or Ken). I'm sure other characters can and should take advantage of this fact too (I'm looking at you, Asuka, and your annoying combos from Tekken 6). I actually can't wait to try all the characters just to see what awesome and relatively simple combos they can do.
LILI AND ASUKA, FIGHTING OVER BENTO
(AND A SPOT IN FIFTHSTITCH'S HEART) SINCE 2007
Speaking of combos...
Everything juggles!
I almost typed jiggles there, but lets leave that to Dead or Alive.
Anyway, yep!. In Street Fighter, sometimes, attacks that could theoretically nail airborne opponents will not do so. For instance, an anti-air Light Shoryuken from Ryu will launch the opponent high enough that a Hard Hadoken would seem like it could hit the opponent on the way down. But it won't, because it doesn't have the juggle property, unlike an EX Hadoken, which can. In Street Fighter x Tekken however, if an attack would seem like it would tag an airborne opponent, it probably will. This is to emulate the juggle combos that are the bread and butter of Tekken games.
AND XIAO YU PLAYERS. ESPECIALLY XIAO YU PLAYERS...
This opens up A LOT of combo opportunities. And I mean A LOT! Take Lili for instance. She can do a Light attack to Medium Attack to Hard Attack to EX Dendrobium (which launches opponents and wallbounces them), then catch the now airborne opponent with her Super Art: Wind Up Spear. This is the aforementioned 401 damage combo, and it's super easy to do off any Light attack that sticks (preferably a crouching one) and with three stocks of meter. Light attacks, especially crouching ones, are traditionally used as Hit Confirms (to check if the combo is hitting before committing meter into it), which further improves the utility of this simple combo.
And this is just me pouring about thirty minutes worth of practice on Lili, how much more if I devote more time to discovering and practicing her combos? How much more someone who is more experienced with fighting games than me?!?
Awesomeness...
It's a tag team game, meaning I get to play with both my favorite Tekken and Street Fighter characters AT THE SAME TIME!!!
AWESOMENESS! For me, this is the biggest BIGGEST reason why I bought the game, and mitigates a whole lot of the negatives I mentioned awhile ago. My team now consists of Juri and Lili, my second favorite Street Fighter character and my favorite Tekken character respectively (I wanted to play as Chun, my favorite Street Fighter character, but the lack of piano inputs is still rather off-putting, though I'd definitely still want to play as Chun - her normals and set-ups are still as awesome as ever!).
And. I'm. Having. So. Much. FUN.
Incidentally, these two are probably the bitchiest characters from their respective games... So... mhmm!
Them bitches!
I can't wait to play this game with my friends! I'm calling you out, anyone wanna play? I promise I'd be gentle...
GENTLE AS CHUN'S HYAKURETSUKYAKU!
See you on the battlefield, bitches!
You sound like a mean girl with all the "bitches" in this post LOL. xDDD
ReplyDeleteBOO NO BUTTON MASHING. :(((((
But fiiiine I will give this a shot since you did say the combos are easy.
They are! It's as if you're typing actually. L, M, H, H. The tricky bit is when your other character tags in, you have to time the next attack so your opponent hasn't fallen out of reach yet before you attack, but its not really that hard; any easier and it would seem like the game is spoiling you...
ReplyDeleteFight me. >:P
ReplyDeleteAnytime bro!
Delete