You’re making an incredibly arbitrary distinction between what constitutes a Drive and what’s “just another normal.” Seriously, the only Drive I can see that actually does fit your (incredibly bad) definition of what’s “just another normal” is Impact, since it doesn’t really have any special properties other than huge hitstun and knockback, and you only ever want to use a non-Level 3 Impact in highly specific situations.
Soul Eater steals life; Frostbite freezes; Chain Revolver allows Noel to empty cancel; Sword Summoner allows for full-length, projectile-only combos, Voltic Battler magnetizes opponents, and so-on. Special, character-specific properties in each of them.
Also “Hazama’s chains are not primarily an attack.” Haha. Yeah, I’ll think about that whenever Ouroboros is crushing my swords and generally halting my advances with their amazing space control.
You’re not getting it.
The entire contention about Tsubaki and Izayoi being not as well designed as they could be all revolves around the fact that neither of them have D normals. That’s been the point from the start. Almost everyone else has a 5D, 6D, 2D, and j.D, and some characters have more than that. The ones who don’t get some sort of compensation that greatly makes up for it; Valk gets super mobility, Rachel gets 8-directional wind control, and Platinum gets seven different items to play with. Meanwhile, Tsubaki only gets three versions of “charge Install gauge at slightly different speeds,” while Izayoi is even worse, with there being absolutely no difference in function from 5D, 2D, and j.D. What’s the point of this? It makes them “unique,” sure, but most every other Drive makes a character unique without having to sacrifice normals to do so.
Them still using the D button for enhanced specials doesn’t really have anything to do with this. Jin’s been doing that from the outset, and yet he still gets to keep normals with Frostbite properties. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
Traits are NRS’s bastardized versions of Drives, where instead of using the button to give people different attacks with a character-specific property, they give almost everyone a power-up/mode-change button and call it a day.
I used Bullet and Amane as examples because they have moves that increase their specific character level as well as a special that charges it on its own. Given that these exist, I find giving a character an entire button to charge a gauge to be rather pointless.
Also, when an Amane gets to Level 3 Drill and is able to stay there, his matches tend to end really quickly in his favor. Drills are an amazing tool for pressure and damage. The problem is, the levels drop a bit too quickly, and I personally don’t see the point in having the Spiral gauge reset to Level 1 after all Distortions.
Yeah…not sure how out of every conclusion you could possibly make, you came to this one.
Oh, right, it’s because you’re a twit.
My issue was with you insinuating that giving characters real Drive normals was somehow a “cop out,” when Arc should be going out of their way to not make another Tsubaki or Izayoi.
