Calling it ‘a lot different’ is doing a disservice to the phrase. Talking to several people familiar with both FT and AC, there are differences but most of it is nothing drastic, since most of the new features (like dodging and circut spark) are mostly useless, and the new characters are rarely played (especially Aoko… well, no one plays Neko-Arc but that’s a joke character). This is further confirmed by comparing the frame and damage data from the MBAC mook with the in-game data in FT – 95% of the moves have the same properties and speed, and the differences are minor.
Normally, I’d stop reading right there…but continuing on…
The thing is though, while they’re not drastic changes, they still ARE changes to the engine. And for the most part, the reason why they aren’t used is not so much because they are “useless”, but because most don’t know how to use 'em effectively; same story with the way-underused “charged normal” attacks, and Ms. Aozaki. Thus, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the home console port would be all that it takes for people to be able to try out more stuff, especially since it wouldn’t be so much in the way of you losing your coins to a machine this time around if you fooled around too much.
Any way, the only thing I could ask for, at this point, would be for Ecole and SEGA to think about putting this game on other platforms, say like the Dreamcast, GC/REV, and possibly the 360. If the Cinderella story that is MB can say anything, is that the game is too good to be stuck on any one platform, and that they should ride this doujin game/Tsukihime’s popularity for all it’s worth.
Besides, if MB can make it, that might be the extra incentive for other companies to perhaps try their luck. I can’t be the ONLY person here who’d like to see the likes of Eternal Fighter Zero and Immaterial and Missing Power realize their manifest destinies as well, right…?
EFZ is an impossibility because the characters come from many different series… they would need the rights from ALL companies before they could even think about it, and that’s something I believe Tasofro has said in the past they didn’t want to deal with.
IaMP is a different story, but they’ve still got to go through Zun, and that is a feat all its own.
Personally I’d rather they stay on the PC, where we get free patches and expansions periodically, so the developers can fix major bugs and broken characters… instead of releasing a new expansion after a few years that just resorts the tier list (hello GG).
Of course, at the point EFZ is at, the game is balanced and bug free enough I’d feel pretty confident putting it to console/arcade. Not so much IaMP though.
Is that true? All I have been hearing for years on end was that all of the characters hail from the doujin shoujo series called “To Heart”. You sure you’re not thinking of “Queen of Heart”? I know that lil series has characters from “To Heart” in one game, and “Party’s Breaker” in another…
In any case, if it was just a matter of liscensing from a doujin company, I don’t think it would be too, too bad. Remember, this is the same part of the world where the likes of Super Robot Wars and various other doujin games can practically run free. And if worse comes to worse, maybe the time will eventually come when the guys will just make their own characters for their own distinctly original games. That’d be great too.
I’m not saying that they should leave the PC market altogether (in fact, that’s pretty much an impossibilty for many Doujin developers). It’s just that, really, the world of fighting games could use all of the “new blood” that can inject some life into it that it can stand to get. And a lot of these doujin fighters really do have talent that could be used to do just that.
As I said above, there’s different ways they could approach the issue, assuming any more are interested are going arcade/console. They could go the Melty Blood route, making a more or less “final version plus some extras” exclusively for the different market. Or, as I suggested above, they could just create a distinctly original fighter for the arcade/console market, which could echo the same style as the other titles, just with original characters to avoid any entanglements. And assuming they were interested, in this upcoming era where pretty much all the consoles look to be having online capabilities of some sort, they could just as easily use the console’s server as a way to distribute upgrade patches or whatever.
All I know is that I think MB should be leading the way for more doujinsoft fighters to be accessible to more people…not the exception that proves the rule.
To Heart is not a doujin shoujo series. It is a professional bishoujo game released by Aquaplus.
Party’s Breaker is the subtitle of a later Queen of Hearts game. The characters come from Comic Party, another game by Aquaplus.
Queen of Hearts is the one that has the To Heart characters.
EFZ is not related to the Queen of Heart series at all. QoH was created by Watanabe Seisakujo, the same group that developed the game engine of Melty Blood (Type-Moon created the characters/scenario). EFZ is created by Tasogare Frontier.
EFZ has characters of four professional games: MOON (as of 3.x), ONE, Kanon and AIR (as of 2.x). MOON and ONE are published by Tactics, Kanon and AIR by Key.
Super Robot Wars is not a doujin game. Super Robot Wars is a professional game series developed by Banpresto, a company that has licenses to the characters/mecha that appear in the series.
I don’t think there is such thing as a ‘doujin company’. The idea of doujins is that they are done/published in an independent/amateur form, without an established company or using a publisher. That’s how groups like CLAMP and Type-Moon started, and that’s how ZUN and Tasofro are right now. The moment they go pro, their releases are no longer ‘doujin’. Although the people that work on Melty Blood are basically French Bread (formerly Watanabe) you don’t see French Bread’s label in Act Cadenza. That’s because French Bread is not even a established company. Pro artists often make doujin releases, but thats independent from their companies or publishers.
I am not a lawyer, so I have no idea how licensing original material from doujin groups could work. I suppose the licensing could be paid to the individual people, if possible at all.
Update: from Type-Moon’s doujin page (translation by EvoSpace):
“Upon creating a Tsukihime figure, you don’t need any permissions, loyalty, check of the sculpture, or submission of a sample. However, if you were to sell it, please place a “( C ) Type-Moon” on where people can see.”
The reason why there is an arcade (and now PS2) version of Melty Blood is because Type-Moon is no longer a doujin group, but a company. The fact that Type-Moon has been involved in Melty Blood since the begining helped a lot too, since that solves a lot of the licensing issues. A reason why they want to keep Act Cadenza and ReACT as separate releases is beause they don’t want to hurt AC’s sales. Final Tuned was released as service for the fans, but they didn’t have to.
Game is not too broken. Not perfectly balanced that’s for sure, and even after the revision it still features a few semi-infinites if I’m not mistaken (if someone feels and urge to correct me, please do so). But still far from being broken. Definitely a good game and even kinda newbie-friendly.
Arcruied has a really stupid infinite (go to gamechariot.com if you want to see), and some other characters have infinites too, I think. Some characters are just too good, some are worthless (Aoko, Kishima [I think that’s his name]). Akiha (normal version), used to be S rank, but now she’s dropped to B and her red hair version went up to A. Overall, the game doesn’t seem too broken, but it’s not perfect, as expected. Looks really fun though, IMO. Also, Sion is broken because she’s just way too sexy for her own good. <3 Sion
Just comming back from the arcade, I was there watching some Japanese guy and his buddies laughing their asses off at a 250+ jab combo as well. It does like, no damage at all, but c’mon, 250 fuckin’ hits
