Random Evo thoughts: I hate X-Factor, Zero, Vergil, and Akuma

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

For all the hype moments of 2013, I felt that they were overshadowed by anti-hype. I’m speaking directly with respect to MvC3, SF4. I want to hear what others think, maybe I’m the only one who didn’t feel so hype with respect to these 2 games. Here’s my thoughts:

MvC3: Zero & Vergil: the hype killers. X-Factor: an imbalanced hype destroyer.

Zero & Vergil: The hype killers
Zero is a hype killer; I don’t think I have to say why. I don’t get to watch MvC3 when zero is playing. Vergil, yea we all know he’s got some cheap braindead mixups and is really imbalanced in X-Factor; I’m not gonna beat a dead horse. I know the sad state of events where Disney or Marvel or whoever just makes it too hard to fix this game.

X-Factor: an imbalanced hype destroyer
Sorry to expose myself, but I like to be transparent. I did not watch the finals of MvC3 as I had lost all hype by then. By far, the hypest MvC3 moment for me in all of Evo was when Chris G had the guts and creativity to use not only Pheonix, but Dark Pheonix as an honest non-x-factor fighter. It was raw for better or worse, but he had some screen dazzling fireworks with her and Morrigan that honestly had me shouting in amazement. Now listen, I love X-Factor. I want X-Factor to stay. It’s just that in it’s current form it still needs tweaking. I hate when I can’t see characters within MvC3 flourish because they have no choice but to be pidgeon-holed into the X-Factor spot. Sadly Pheonix seems to be in that state right now. Other characters already flourish as they are but have an overpowered X-Factor (Vergil). Other characters for some odd reason have very weak X-Factors.

Ex) While the Hulk and Nemesis have some of the highest dmg boost from X-Factor, they have some of the weakest if not the weakest speed boosts, which ultimately renders them not quite viable as far as lvl 3 x-factor characters go. Right now Hulk is 100% dmg boost and 0% speed boost at lvl 3 while Nemesis has 90% dmg boost and 10% speed boost. I’m just saying, if these characters literally had this changed to 50/50, they would be rampaging monsters at lvl3. For better or worse, they would be rampaging monsters.

SF4: Loss of fighting spirit in both the characters and the players

The fighting spirit
I’m no longer excited to see Daigo. Props to him for makin it to top 8; he’s a great fighter. I just don’t feel like he has the same fighting spirit he used to have. Honestly though, a lot of players have great fighting spirit in this game. PR Balrog, Tokido, Xian, and heck even Infiltration. You can see to some degree when they’re happy, angry, sad, frustrated, worried, etc. Every once in a while Daigo smiles, but sometimes I think Daigo wants to suppress his fighting spirit and try to stay as a robot; I don’t know. I think to some extent all the supposed japanese “Gods” of SF suffer from this to a greater or lesser degree, but I could be wrong and I may honestly be very out of line saying this.

The developers have not developed the characters well
I’m only going to analyze Akuma, although my strategy can be applied to analyzing any other character.

Taken from http://wiki.shoryuken.com/Super_Street_Fighter_IV_AE/Akuma:

“Akuma has always been the “balance” between Ryu’s excessive defense and Ken’s excessive offense.”

Ok… I guess I can respect that… if it were true. Let me tell you the true state of Akuma, or at least what it truly feels like to me when watching him fight.

AKUMA HAS BEEN DESIGNED TO BE THE MOST COWARDLY FIGHTER IN STREET FIGHTER
I say this in bold to outrage not only Akuma players, but Akuma himself. I think if Akuma saw what the developers had turned him into, he would go raging demon on them.

Lets analyze the core of Akuma play as I saw it in the finals.
*1) Too afraid, spam air fireballs and hope for the best. *
-We’re both far away from each other, but he’s not attacking me! Spam air-fireballs and hope I’m better than him at it.
-Crap, he came too close but I don’t want to fight him now! Run away and put up air fireball wall to stay safe.
-I need a safe way to get in to net me a bunch of damage on hit but keep me safe if it’s blocked. I’ll try out ex-air fireball and hope it works out, but if it doesn’t at least I’m still safe, phew!

2) Please, please, let me land my sweep!
All I need to do is land my sweep, for the love of god!!! If I can land my sweep than I can start my vortex and not have to worry about fighting this character. Cmon, they gave me an awesome sweep and super-fast walk speed, the sweep is literally my best poke and it’s hard as hell to punish so I just have to work on my dancing/weaving skills and then I’ll eventually land it. What the hell??? Balrog’s not allowed to punish my sweep, that’s cheating!

3) Sweet, I landed my sweep. Party, I mean Vortex Time!
Phew, at least I can chill for these few seconds and see if the Vortex works out or not. Thank goodness, I was gettin sick of how well he avoided my last five sweeps. Luckily the sixth one connected.

4) All right screw this, I’m teleporting out.
As long as I rarely use it I can escape for free most likely. Haha, and some characters can’t even do anything about it lolololololol.

This concludes my analysis of the hype-destroying aspects of MvC3 and SF4 for this year’s Evo. I think if some form of Akuma does exist on this earth, he’s both happy and enraged. He’s happy that the “Akuma” currently represented in SF4 lost and showed how much of a coward he was. But obviously he is also enraged that this “Akuma” is meant to represent him, the real Akuma. SF4 developers beware! You’re making the demon of Ansatsuken angry!

2

I thought this year was one of the best EVOs and it was super hype. Justin Wong’s moments in UMVC3 were incredible even if he didn’t win.

Daigo just isn’t really playing to win anymore. He plays SF how he wants to play it and I respect him for that even if he isn’t going to win finals anymore. The rest of SF4 was awesome IMO. I loved watching all of the top 8 matches.

As for Akuma, I’m personally sick of seeing him in the game, but I was happy to see a lesser known character win grand finals this year.

3

All I see is someone complaining because top players are playing the metagame and abusing certain things to win, which is retarded if you’re a competitive fighting game player.

4

Justin Wong really made it good.

Akuma made SF zzzzzzzzzzzz so boring.

5

I’d rather watch Akuma than Rufus.
and UMvC3 was the most hype fucking shit ever…
I’d much rather Zero/Vergil/Morrigan be all up over the shit than Dark Phoenix in Vanilla… Now THAT was a hype killer… Fuck that ho.
I hate that game, and I screamed out “Happy Birthday” once… And I double-taked at myself like, “Seriously?”

6

Lol, well I actually agree with you. They are playing the metagame. Perhaps the metagame is metalame for certain characters.

7

Totally man. The only hype thing about Akuma was seeing him get beat. In retrospect I would honestly have preferred Cammy being in the top 8 over Akuma. At least her stuff involves actually fighting like a fighter to some degree.

8

I made a comment about the “boos” to Superman winning IGAU…
They’re there to win and to enjoy playing the game. If it requires being lame, let them be lame. They’re there to win. Everyone plays for whatever reason they want, whether be to express themselves or to get that money. That’s what they’re going to do. They’re there for nobody’s personal enjoyment but their own. If you don’t like the way the game is played on that level, don’t play it on that level. What other people do while playing has no bearing on you unless you’re playing against them.

9

Justin Wong won EVO. He lost intentionally because if those matches had gotten any hype more Yipes would have died of a heart attack.

10

Justin in this game reminds me of VDO in MvC2… He doesn’t lose because he’s not good enough to win. He loses because his characters limit his abilities… I mean, they suit his playstyle, but I think partly why Wong kept winning in MvC2 was because he ALWAYS used top tier… I mean, originally he had Mag/Cable/Cammy and then when Sentinel stuff was figured out, he used ROW… Then he started using MSS, then Thrax, then Clops over Commando. He ALWAYS used the teams that were considered the best teams in the game… :frowning:

11

Justing running Chris G’s team would be a sight to see. IMO, it would fit his playstyle quite well too.

12

Evo was hype because Justin Wong, hero of the free world, defeated the tyrant known only to the masses as Christ God to allow the New Floridean Era to begin

13

Did you even watch SF4 top 8? Tokido and Infiltration were punished hard for doing a lot of what you’re complaining about.

1: Air fireball spam
-Watch Tokido vs Xian again. Tell me that Tokido wasn’t punished for throwing too many air fireballs. Xian consistently focused them and backed off and got free ultra. Air fireballs are punishable. If the Akuma player is running away and using air fireball he’s giving the other player free ultra meter to use against him. Also watch Tokido vs Infiltration, air fireballs and how/where they threw them were very important in the match.

2: Sweep
-Akuma’s sweep is punishable, you even admit that. Balrog’s super is almost half health against Akuma so it’s a legitimate deterrent. Assuming that your character can’t punish the sweep on block there’s a universal option in focus-dash. The sweep’s fast and has good range, but can be focus-dashed if they’re really being predicable with it. If the Akuma is buffering Ultra every time for that option then that’s a skillful player and that’s a different complaint.

3: Vortex
-Not safe. Again, Tokido vs Xian. EX Gekiro (Waterfall Kicks) punished predictable demon flips multiple times. Demon flip isn’t ever free. The divekick option slows him down enough in the air to essentially nullify the “what’s he going to do” mixup and it becomes a left-right mixup that you can uppercut.

4: Teleport out of danger
-Not safe. A lot of characters can option select an ultra to catch him on the recovery, or predict it if they can tell the Akuma is nervous. It’s just another option, it’s not the ultimate answer on wakeup.

I’m not arguing that Akuma is a good character, that’s why the 2nd and 3rd best players in the world chose him, but you’re acting like these strategies are unbeatable when they were specifically beaten at EVO last night.

14

Daigo isn’t exciting because he isn’t hungry anymore. Others are. Infiltration and Xian are. And even more so, PR Rog and Laugh were.

The wiki descriptions are largely bullshit. The three core shotos have usually been pretty well balanced all around, with some stylistic leanings. Akuma has fluctuated between turtling and aggression depending on game.

Good job mistaking caution and respect for other characters’ tools and players’ ability as fear.

And also apparently missing all the aggression and neutral footsies by the Akuma players. But nah, if a shoto (a naturally zoning-oriented character archetype, btw) can’t be as mindlessly aggressive as a everything-is-plus-on-block Cammy he’s a coward. Seems fair.

15

I think if Justin did it, it would have Akuma or Wolverine, as those two better suit him than Vergil.
Either Wolverine/Morrigan/Doom or more likely, MorriDoom/Akuma

16

I take it I’m the only one who saw KoF.

17

I couldn’t catch it live, unfortunately, so I need to catch it on youtube.

18

KOF was pretty fun to watch.

SSF4 oil was pretty fun to watch.

I’m glad air fireballs from Akuma gets punished. Stop doing that shit too much. Most boring tactic ever, given that it’s repeated over and over again by the best loser. He really should have swapped it up more.

19

Do so. AE pool survivors => Top 8 cut was epic. Literally five hours of nothing but tournament finals quality matches, and two streams’ worth at that. I was pretty drained after that. Not due to lack of sleep, but just due to sheer hype overexposure. It gets pretty tough when you’re a shoto fan and Daigo vs. SnakeEyez and Laugh vs. JWong are on at the same time.

If you enjoy Cammy players being eliminated and sent to losers, be sure to check Haitani’s matches. He left a mountain of corpses behind while making sure Top 8 would be free of Cammy pollution.

20

Nope. I saw it and it was godlike.
King of Fighters this year and last was the most hype shit ever.
Reynald is fucking amazing.