Questions about lesser known fighters-blazblue,guilty gear,melty blood,under night in-birth,etc

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
1

I have alot of questions so let me say thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to help.

I was watching funny and cool moments when a game caught my eye called Under Night In-Birth. I tried looking for info for it online but had a hard time finding any news from the past 2 or 3 months. From what I gathered its a japan arcade only game. Im wondering if theres any news on this, specifically if theres going to be an american release or if a date has been announced. I only have an Xbox 360 so thats the console im curious about.

I really fell for the all the incredibly detailed 2D anime style sprite visuals of this game, plus the combos appear to be really cool. Upon my attempted research I saw that the game was made by the same people who made Melty Blood. Are there any melty blood games for the 360? All I saw was ps2 games but information seems to be scarce for the game so I figure Id get a more definitive answer here. If not, which Im assuming, are any in the works? Or any other anime fighters by the same company for the 360?

Like I said above, I fell in love with the look of these games and upon reading that there doesnt seem to be any 360 titles available I started looking up games I have heard of but were never really on my radar (ive been strictly a capcom fighting gamer forever but havent branched out) like Blazblue and Guilty Gear. Still, information seems jumbled and I couldnt make sense of my concerns so here are a few questions regarding both of those titles:

Which titles are available for the 360?
Which are the newest titles for each?
Which games for each series are usually considered the best out of the available 360 titles?
Are these games still played online or would finding matches be tough? This is important to me since I only really want to fight others online.
Are there any new titles for these franchises coming to 360 in the near future?
Are these games easily accessable for Capcom guys? I prefer SF4 and Mvc3 over SF3 and MVC2 by a longshot (dont kill me), do you think would I like these games?
Are the moves SF inputs like srk or fireball motions or is it something different? Is the combo system at all comparable to SF or Marvel games?

Finally, are there any other Xbox360 2d anime style fighters youd recommend for a SF4, MvC3 head that just want to fight others online? Does Persona fit any of that criteria? It seems to be fairly popular at the moment.

Excuse my complete lack of knowledge but I guess thats what this section of the boards aims to help with. I mean, I only play fighters and I play them every single day, and have been playing since SF2 vanilla in arcades but I really need some enlightenment outside of strictly Capcom titles and the first 3 MKs. Thanks again for reading.

2

My, my, so many questions! I only have a 360 too, so I may be able to help!
-If I remember correctly, the only titles you mentioned that are on the 360 are Blazblue and Guilty Gear. Persona is pretty good, too.
-Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend, Persona 4 Arena and Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus (ArcSys will put out the +R update soon, so that may be a title update or a separate release)
-Personal List of Gameplay Quality: GG>>>>>>3s>MvC2>Blazblue>>Persona>>>>Marvel 3>>SF4 (I’m hella biased, though)
-Guilty Gear is basically unplayable online. I do believe Persona and Blazblue have an online community.
-The only one getting an update any time soon is Guilty Gear, and that SHOULD improve the net code. The next Blazblue is only on PS4, because 'Murica hates anime when it isn’t labled Street Fighter
-While game pacing is match-up dependent in all games, Blazblue is likely the most Capcom-friendly, assuming you can get the concept of jump cancels (Note to everyone else: I mainly play Arakune, so that may not be too accurate. Please correct me if that is not the case)
-The only “Strange” input you will regularly see if half circle back, forward inputs. (Trace 63214, then tap 6 on your number pad if you have one, to get an idea of how it looks) Plus, I don’t think Blazblue has too many of those in the first place.
-Biggest difference in the combo system is manual teching. Think of Marvel for a second, and how you flip out of a combo if it is done wrong. In Arc Systems fighters, you have to press a button (directions are optional) to tech out of a combo in such a case. This is really noticable in Blazblue, where you will basically be put into a hard knockdown state and the state resets each time you are hit by an OTG if you don’t tech, similar to assists in Marvel vs Capcom 3. Guilty Gear and Persona have much shorter knockdowns overall, but you still will fall all the way to the ground if you don’t air tech. Furthermore, if the combo continues past a point where it could have been teched out of, the color of the letters will change. Blazblue will even display which hit in the combo you could have teched, including throws, which are techable but can be comboed in to. If you throw mid-combo, the tech window is very high, so it isn’t recommended.

3

My answers in bold.

For future reference:
http://www.dustloop.com - the primary forum for the anime FGC, also has a comprehensive wiki
http://www.meltybread.com - Melty Blood forums
http://wiki.mizuumi.net/w/Main_Page - wiki for Melty Blood and lesser known games that you might be interested in, many of which have PC versions like Vanguard Princess and Wonderful World.
http://www.youtube.com/zero3japan - various high-level videos from a Japanese arcade

4

Wow, thank you guys both very much! A ton of really helpful info, exactly what I needed. I had no idea all 3 titles were made by ASW. I love their style even tho Im pretty new to it. Im debating between BB and P4A right now, leaning towards P4A because it seems much more active. I only worry because reviews talk about the combos being extremely easy. I dont mind that in itself but I just wanna make sure theres a feeling of accomplishment to pulling them off. I think I read that combos can be executed by simply tapping the same button say, 5 times… Now I dont mind things being easy on the surface and easy to jump in and play (I actually think more FGs need to be that way), but is the depth there beyond that? I dont mind links but definitly prefer chains by a mile. I guess thats why Im so fond of UMK3 (back in the day) and UMvC3, but I cant see A,A,A,A,A combos being very rewarding to pull off. I gotta do some more homework on that aspect I guess… but its looking like Im gonna go with Persona.Your answers really helped me make sense of which of these games is most up my alley. Thanks a ton for the help, seriously.

5

Mash combos in Persona do less damage, are unoptimized, and incur a health penalty. They are just there until you get something better.

6

lol what, easy combos? Anime games have a reputation for the opposite. They are much harder than MvC3, at least. Persona is the easiest among the games though, you shouldn’t have too much difficulty with it.

7

Now I’m starting to wonder about trying to get into mvc2 as well. It seems so different than 3 tho and what little I’ve played of it, I didn’t really think was as great as people make it out to be. I don’t think I ever even learned a single bnb tho tbh so it’s not like I’ve sunk the time to really know. Is mvc2 still played online? I’m still leaning towards p4a but since it’s only 15 bucks and I usually like cap games once I get into them, I’m thinking about checking them both out. Are there any decent resources online where I can learn how to do combos for it? I had a hard time finding any last time I checked. I love umvc so much and I’m pretty sick at it, am I just missing something when it comes to mvc2?

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MVC2 is worth getting into, I don’t know about 360 online but PS3 online is active.

9

Just wanted to say I picked up persona 4 and I’ve only been at it for about two hours but I’m starting to grasp it a bit now and I gotta say, it’s pretty amazing. I’m really surprised more people aren’t talking about how incredible this game is. Thank you guys so much for all the info in helping me figure out what I should get. I’m gonna grab marvel 2 next week and really give it a fair shot as well. It’ll be nice to take a break from the usual sf and mvc3 to learn some new fighters. But persona, wow… Really wish I’d have picked this up a long time ago.

10

So from Marvel, to the Japanese Scooby-do!
Regarding P4A, I get dizzy just by watching Youtube videos! But since you are used to MvC3 already, that will not be an issue.

11

It’s going to get an update soon, that’s why it’s not coming to consoles.