Well i got to play MVC3 for a good 8 hours today at a friends house. (he got his copy early by paying the extra money for 1 day shipping), and i played around with Hsienko a bunch. Be warned, i was only an average mvc2 and tatsu player and my execution isnt too great (never could pull off the ROM or fly combos consistently), but here are my impressions:
1: Dark-Force-Pendulum (DFP) assist is fucking RETARDED. It is SERIOUSLY too good right now. Definitely the best assist in the game as of now. You know how haggar’s lariat beats everything in the game for free? Well imagine him jumping into the air, doing his lariat spin so fast that he flies across the screen like a helicopter, bashing everything in his way. THAT is what DFP feels like. Its fast and amazingly safe. It beat every super i tried it against clean. Sure she takes a little bit of damage, but its ALL red damage, which gets regenerated damn fast in this game. Not only do you have to be REALLY stupid to have this assist get punished, but it has to be punished OVER AND OVER for her to die. Basically, DFP is a lockdown assist, a get off me assist, an anti super assist, and an anti-air assist all in one, and is extremely safe (in the hands of someone REALLY good, i think she might actually be unpunishable in some circumstances). This assist ALONE is reason to pick hsienko. On point, even if all she could do is sit on the ground sucking her thumb, id STILL pick her just for this damn assist.
2: She controls really awkwardly. Actually playing as her, i didn’t accomplish damn near anything. She seems to be like one of the old mvc2 assist characters that weren’t really bad, but were always at a serious disadvantage on point against characters like storm, sent, and mags. (Examples would be CapCom, Psylocke, Tron, Cyclops, Doom, etc). This is most likely due to the fact that i don’t know her best way to safely fish for hits, and don’t know her optimal BnB’s, or what moves are safe or not. Given time we may find ways to play her that might make her a nightmare on point, but first impression of her doesn’t look very good. (that assist of hers is so damn good though that i don’t CARE if shes bad on point)
3: I didn’t get to use gong very much since my opponent was an avid wesker user and just teleported right through it. Gong also was loosing to his sentinels mouth lasers, so i gave up on the move completely after the third match or so. I still think the move is good, but i think itl mainly function as a way to keep herself covered when shes on the approach against characters who cant bypass/nullify it. Gong as an assist seems fucking worthless. If you want a defensive assist, modok is still king, even if his barrier only lasts 2 seconds. Though even if gong assist was good, id still pass it up for DFP.
4: Anki-ho does seem random. From my experimentation, the probability of getting a stun projectile seems to be 1/6. (Your milage may vary, i could have been unlucky, or maybe i was actually LUCKY and the probability is normally even lower. who knows.) I mostly used her light version though, different strengths may have different probabilities, or they’re might be a way of manipulating those probabilities or reading a pattern like there was in VampSav. I didn’t figure it out though, itl definitely need more testing. For those of you who were hoping to end your combo with anki ho hoping for a dizzy to give you another free combo, your better of going for a reset or a mixup instead. Anki-ho as a combo ender seems like waaay too much of a gamble.
5: Her forward ground dash has some great properties on it. I don’t know what it was like in VampSav, but it actually functions as a teleport, not a dash. Once she turns invisible, the longer you hold the stick forward, the farther she goes. The distance limit is about 2 or 3 Ryu’s in length, but the point is, you can choose to teleport either in front or behind the opponent and INSTANTLY go for a jab into combo, and there’s realistically no way for them to react to it. They just have to guess which way to block or use a move that covers both sides. I can see this being put to GREAT use after untechable knockdowns or while the opponent is suffering from a lockdown assist like chun legs. You can even teleport behind the opponent if hes in the corner. Its great.
6: I’m disappointed with her command grab. Unlike Tron’s command grab where you can combo off of it using an OTG assist, the only thing hsienko can do off of her command grab is X Factor or Tenraiha. They both land too far away and recover too quickly to hit them with anything else (even deadpool’s otg assist, which from what i tested seems to be the fastest otg assist in the game, with vipers seismo in close second.) They also land too far away for her to do her teleport dash mixup, unless of course you throw them into the corner. So to sum it up, Hsienko’s command grab is mainly going to function as a way to get an easy tenraiha, and then DHC her out. Having the command grab by NO MEANS makes her a threatening grappler like thor, tron, or haggar.
7: As far as team configuration, I was having good success starting with a keepaway character like deadpool or dormammu, keeping the opponent out until i built up the meters to DHC into hsienko’s darkfoce. I tried starting with Hsienko for a while instead, but she was getting nailed too hard by my opponents Wesker. Again, as we learn more about hsienko, it might prove more beneficial to have her lead, but for now, its… tough. For those of you looking for a great day 1 team, i think Chris + DFP is going to be reaaaaaly strong. chris’s main problem is that he has no way to control the air. DFP really helps with that problem. ALOT. (it doesn’t eliminate his weakness, they can still superjump/fly over the DFP, but it really does help)
Thats all that i can think of for now based on my time with Hsienko. I probably won’t be able to play again until after the regular release date, so don’t expect any more info from me unless i forgot something and come back to repost it later.
Thats all. Keep on swinging folks.