SFxT Review and Impressions with dat Nycc flavor!

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter x Tekken
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Well as many of you know a few hours ago was the NYC Fight club. The venue was great. Saw some people I wanted to see again, and as well got to play the Steve/Kuma build of SFxT. A lot. I mean I sat there from 6-10pm playing that game as much as I could. First hour I must have gotten about 10 matches won in a row before they changed it to both players get off win ,or lose.(I never lost the whole night , and played about 20 games ,or so) So now from what I could tell in this build the game is coming a long solid. Great pace, great design on the stages, and their changes. Now SFxT has a few things that need to be pointed out that I personally LOVED.

  1. Grabbing isn’t over prioritized, meaning that you can’t mash grab. Nope…Not what so ever…Why? Due to the distance that grab has. Your character has to be really close…I mean REALLY close to grab. meaning on knock downs your Oki means something.Yay!
  2. Can’t mash DP during block strings. I love this no more"Oh Shi- I didn’t finish my combo, gonna get DP’ed!" None of that, after your Lpxx2,mp,Hp string you’re safe. Meaning those mashers are getting exposed. Unless you went into a launcher then…You’re fucked…
  3. There seems to be meatys in the game as well. In one match I manged to land one, but the timing is difficult at the moment. But this means realy SF basics could be coming back
    (More testing needs to be done by others)

Now what I was REALLY impressed by? Two characters in the game are possibly the BEST two characters right now. Due to a few things. Their dashes, and their pokes. Now this might change in later versions , or it might not but for now these characters will most likely be TOP tiers due to how fast they can close zoning gaps. I mean they can close those gaps insanely fast. But before I get into them I wanna get into other characters that were in this build.

Abel**-** Played by ElTro step kick has been nerferd pretty bad. Dash animation after step kick is vastly slower then his regular dash and travels less distance, but the fact this is a magic series Abel can combo his far standing normals which has good range. COD can be juggles into for all 3 hits which in sf4 only 1 will hit. Didn’t get to use Tornado throw cause Abel approach feels different than his sf4 counterpart. Roundhouse overhead is so good for oki. if it hits you press HK again for the launch and get way more damage then in sf4.
Hugo: Over all his style is a bit slow paced. I didn’t play with him much, but others were playing with him, and they said he needed a few buffs on his command grab ranges. At times they seemed to wiff, and other times would grab(Needs more testing) But they say his normals are pretty good ,and he covers a large amount of space with just his pokes.
Poison: She/He really caught me off guard. I honestly thought this character was just gonna be a joke, and was gonna be useless. Well for you people that wanna main her/him guess what? MAIN HER/HIM. Solid pokes all around. Great footies, strong solid fire ball game, and nice damage. Her ranges with the pokes are sick. That S&M whip she uses covers a whole lot of range, and has great AA’s. IMO she’s gonna but good. Her Fire ball as well gives you great Oki situations.
Kuma: Another character that surprised me during the fight club. He has long pokes, but they’re not comparable to Hugo’s. His grabs from what I hear can go deep due to some type of lunge he has(Some one correct me on this) Didn’t see much of him but there were some people playing him, and they were doing well with him.
Steve Fox: I went in trying to play him as my main…But I felt disappointed. Slow ASS dash,it’s not good at all. I felt sorry due to the fact that someone else…Or to say two other characters have what he needs. All of his kicks on the ground cause him to sawy,weave,or dodge attacks. One can parry, others cause dodging/punish situations. I felt like he was slow, nothing like an aggressive boxer. In the air his kicks become attacks. So He can jump in, and get damage from there. But over all he was still in need of some buffs. Hopefully by the final version he’ll be better.
Yoshimitsu: He can control pacing very well. He can pull you in with his sword at certain distances. His pokes have reach as well.I can’t comment too much on him because no one played him. Then when I did see one playing I just saw him do that one move. Sorry guys.
Raven: He is what he is. A damn NINJA. His dash is slow so he won’t cover a lot of space. But his mix ups seem to be strong, Saw a bit of Raven but didn’t really catch a large scale of his extent due to no one good was playing him. But if they did use one of his moves it was the one move where he clones himself for a high low mix up. It seemed really good , and safe on block from a distance.
Sorry guys I didn’t see Ibuki at all =/ everyone just used Ken,Ryu,Chun,Sagat,Bob,Kazuya.

Cross Assault: This needs to be changed IMO. I found unblockables which can’t be escaped due to the block stun of attacks. Even if you could Alpha counter, the other character attacking from the back with the right imput would just place you back in the same situation. Just add an overhead into the attacks, and them add a low , the character couldn’t block the high low. Taking almost 60-70% of Hp just from that alone. This needs to be changed or taken out IMO, it could hurt the game in the long run.

Now back to something I spoke about during Steve’s write up. I mentioned about two Characters that have what he needs. Those characters? Kazuya, and Hwoarang. My god these characters IMO are gonna monsters if left how they are. IMO I’m HYPED for them. Some might say I’m over reacting, and that they’re not that beast. Others might agree. I’m not some godlike known name in the community but I’m a solid player over all. Out of all of my matches one was recorded by Jae the one. Thanks bro!
Now a brake down of both of these characters
Kazuya: Solid pokes. His range on his block string leaves him to do whatever he wants afterwards. I mean he can cover space so damn fast it’s ridiculous. Why? His Dash. It’s like a Marvel/Melee type of wave dashing that allows him to kill zoning whenever the person wants too. I mean he scares you from trying to zone anymore. He does good damage, but as well has great health. some examples of his dashing are at 1:11-1:12 ,2:09-2:12 ,and 2:54-2:56. I mean they aren’t crazy examples but just a preview of what can be seen if we learn this character at a higher level. He can also dash cancel his normals as you see in 2:54-2:56. As you can see you can cover a lot of ground on just a knock down to start a solid Oki game with him once you learn the character well.
Hwoarang: The other beast at arms. Combined with Kazuya I feel like they’ll dominate characters in the right hands. Hwoarang has a dash better , or right next to Kazuya. His pokes excel greatly in footies. S.Lk reaches from a large distance. Which from there allows you too combo into a launcher combo. If wiffed it’s safe. It’s fast it’s deadly. His damage out put as well excels greatly. He’s the perfect pair with Kazuya. examples of his dash can be found in 0:40-0:43, 1:17-1:20, and 1:49-1:52. His back dash is great too.
[media=youtube]c-mHmBThD-Q[/media]

Even tho this wasn’t the best video ever Excuse my sloppy playing But it does show off how those two could be very strong characters for later builds of the game if left this way. You can see in the videos as well some of their poke ranges , and strings* Once again excuse the random launchers* Thank you for reading, and lets hope this game turns out even better by release!

TL;DR version:
Grabs aren’t good
some characters are good.
Kazuya, and Hwoarang might be top tier if left alone, and unchecked.
Thanks for reading!

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Poison is going to be a mean whiff punisher. Specially considering she seems to be able to confirm into her launcher from a really long range.

Could you please elaborate on the uses of her fireball for oki?

Amen, brother, amen…

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Nope that wavedash isn’t going anywhere. The Mishimas (Jin, DVJ, Heihachi, Kazuya etc) used it extensively to get in and whatnot. [S]Only strange thing is that Hwaorang now has one.[/S] Scratch that a lot of characters have it these days. :smiley:

[media=youtube]zIRX3MdqIbc[/media]

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The Hwoarang dashing remind of MVC3 dash cancel speed somewhat.

Wanted to go but couldn’t get out in time. Nice writeup. Did they give free swag like the previous fight clubs and what were they?

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Seeing poison I was looking to main her and reading this I am more hype to play her when NYCC comes around

A fucking MEN

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i made a montage of the event i was first in line
[media=youtube]t3fOGyPgjxI[/media]

i played chun/cammy in sfxtk

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I know that they’ve had that in Tekken lol, But in this game it’s easier, and it’s fast. covering that much space in such short time is pretty nice to me. But the thing is they’re the only two that have this dash. This to me places them at a higher ranking then other characters at the moment. But it might change none the less(Lets hope it makes it!)

YES! AMEN! No more having to guess on my PRESSURE, or Oki. I’m hyped indeed!
Thanks everyone =D. Also blues I was the dude with the Red beanie. We was in the front of the line.

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Wave dash is only one thing that makes a character good. We still have to consider footsies, normals and more importantly, team utility - mostly dictated by whether or not they have a multi-hitting move that locks the opponent down in hit/blockstun for Tag Cancels (which is why Ricky and Justin were dominating the NCR9 tourney with Chun).

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As you may see in that video I played against More4YourBuck, you cannot play it like SF4. It’s a completely different game. It was my first time playing the game, and I tried to play it like that to get a feel for the engine. It’s more similar to Vampire Savior, where you chain normals of higher strength. Execution-wise, didn’t really feel a difference. In order to do a combo, you have to do light, medium, fierce, and press fierce again. I’m not a stick player, so my execution was a bit sloppy.

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Oh sweet jeebus this made my morning.

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Yep. Welcome to [S]VampireLigh[/S]Street Fighter X Tekken son!

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Most of this is sounding very good, but I have to say, the wavedashing makes me worry a little bit that zoning will be unimportant in this game. I hope not.

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Ok so I was there with my boy Buck. So far the tekken characters are strong. Tekken characters has more then 1 way to deal with fireball besides jumping. Magic series is good but people committing way to much to launch on a block hit which is equivalent to a blocked ultra. The game needs a damage buff. even with meter you will not take much stamina away. For a game that in order to loose you need to beat the 1 character every match almost end on a time over. Although the game is fun waiting in line isn’t lol. Only used 2 character which is Abel and Kazuya.

Abel**-** step kick has been nerferd pretty bad. Dash animation after step kick is vastly slower then his regular dash and travels less distance, but the fact this is a magic series Abel can combo his far standing normals which has good range. COD can be juggles into for all 3 hits which in sf4 only 1 will hit. Didn’t get to use Tornado throw cause Abel approach feels different than his sf4 counterpart. Roundhouse overhead is so good for oki. if it hits you press HK again for the launch and get way more damage then in sf4.

Kazuya- Played pretty much a capcom version of his tekken part. The 1st 4 buttons on the stick is pretty much tekken style while HP and HK is you generic Fierce and Roundhouse. kazuya has alot of his tekken move set like 1, 1, 2, df+2, 1 and also has his crouch dash 1,2,3,4. He also has moves that capcom gave him which is the qcf+P which is a Shadow punch. His dash is so fast and has little recovery, it’s insane. He was really interesting and wish I had more time with the game. I literally played the game 4 times on the 3 hours I was there since winners and losers go.

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I’d rather damage not be buffed. High damage shizz here doesn’t need to be found on day 1. Let’s keep it old school and let folks break the game first for damage. Besides, we’ve already seen people pulling off 40-50% shizz with proper cancelling.

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i rather have higher damage. it stops players from taking so many risks. i feel that was a problem with super when players took more risks becuase damage in the game tickles. i dont want marvel 3 damage it just needs to be brought up a bit.

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Agreed since theres 2 character and more than one way to tag out damage need to be buff a bit.

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Problem is that you don’t want to raise it too high to the point where you discourage creativity.

As stated, from the EVO build, guys were pulling off 40-50% combos from relatively simply shizz.

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I was wondering earlier if for the tekken characters capcom made lp,lk,mp,mk, like the four limbs in tekken, but i thought that HP and HK was going to be like pressing double punch/kick respectively. I’m sorry to hear about abel i was definately going to add him to my team, but ill work with anything. Thanks for the info though.

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I think he solid but I think SF character in general needs to get something new.
From what I saw Ibuki looks sick. Feels that she belongs in this game. didn’t see the Lightning legs loop done by Jwong with chun. Ryu looks a bit weak 1st impression.