Those videos for Ash and the Elizabeth team were actually pretty enlightening. I finally feel like I understand the basic functionality of how KOF XIII handles DC/SC (I didn’t know you could SC whiffed moves in this game until I saw Ash do charge b, f + A xx qcf, qcf + P. But you still can’t DC whiffed moves, correct?)
Would really like to see more videos like these for the rest of the cast (EDIT: apparently that’s EXACTLY what they plan to do. Excellent.), especially Mai, who is still obnoxiously hard to find in location test footage. I still have the sinking feeling that she’ll end up being the inferior version of Athena, who does basically everything that Mai does, except she has a better fireball and can move backwards at double speed.
(I really don’t get why they didn’t give Mai aerial d + A so that she could do roughly the same thing; it’s not like she has any readily apparent offensive advantage over Athena to merit inferior defensive/zoning options. Maybe it’ll turn out she’ll have some nice beastly stuff in HD mode/with NeoMAX available, but this is Mai we’re talking about, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.)
Whether you can DC whiffed moves or not I’m not entirely sure, the example you gave with Ash makes it sound possible since they showed it in the video but we don’t really have anything else to go on besides that lol, I know you can DC/SC blocked moves but that’s about it
Haha true
It does seem like she’s lacking, she doesn’t have her air d+A, df+B, and she could really use one of her KOF 98 DM’s back, but on the flipside it’s cool that her ryuenbu is based on her FFS version (which was damn good), it also says her Chou Hissatsu Shinobi Bachi can be done in the air as well so combo into neo max is pretty much confirmed, she has her Ukihane air command (it’s listed as d+D now), all in all she still seems solid and has a good amount of options (although from the looks of it Athena still puts her to shame lol)
I think that is a close D this time around sharing a similar look to her CD. I could be wrong although that would make more sense. A few characters have had a cornucopia of normals changed. Although on a side not I think it would be best to require that Betty do a command normal before comboin? the Coup.
Ryuu Enbu has always been a strong move; any changes they made to it for XIII seem to be mostly cosmetic.
Her normals look decent; her new air CD looks decent and reverting her far C back to its '94/Fatal Fury/CvS2 state will probably be a big improvement over her iffy '98 far C. But that’s not really gonna be what holds Mai back.
Mai’s historically gotten most of her momentum from spacing for her pokes and Ryuu Enbu, since the lack of a cheesy d + B, d + A limits her capacity for balls-out offense. (She has good jump-ins and good crossups, but her low options in her overhead-low-throw mixup leave something to be desired.) Her primary tools to help her get this spacing have historically been backdash air d + A (if she needs to back up a bit) and her A fireball (which covers the ground so she can space more safely on the ground).
The first one simply isn’t present in KOF XIII (unless they added it in at the last minute), and the second one is godawful slow to start up in XIII. I know that most command-character fireballs in KOF follow the rule of A version starts slow/flies slow/recovers fast and C version starts fast/flies fast/recovers slow, but Mai’s A Kacho Sen seems to be taking this rule in a severe direction. It seems to start way slower than in previous games without a significant reduction in its recovery time, which makes her much more vulnerable to punishment if she doesn’t set it up off a knockdown. (And realistically, besides her CD attacks, Mai doesn’t have a lot of knockdowns that confer enough distance and frame advantage to merit or necessitate a meaty fireball.)
It would be easier to get around the long startup time of the fireball if she could backdash d + A to gain some quick distance and cut off long-distance jumps with the threat of a fireball landing (and if they don’t jump, just run up and re-establish aggressive poking range). As it is, it seems to me she’s better off not chucking fireballs, period, against a standing opponent. Not a huge problem in an aggressive game like XIII, but I’m not convinced Mai has the power by way of EX, DC, HD mode, etc. to really remodel herself as an offensive threat to merit selection over characters with similar movement speed and pressure games (Kula jumps readily to mind). Her DC utility seems kind of limited, and given her traditional role as a battery, is she really going to be worth dumping meter into for EX DM and NeoMAX?
Maybe she’ll gain some reversal or attack power to offset her toned-down mobility (or maybe she’ll get some weird safety net if she can do something like Kacho Sen DC -> backwards charge Musasabi no Mai…I still haven’t found out if you can DC whiffed specials), but right now I’m kinda weirded out. If Mai’s not hit-and-run…what exactly is she?
Sorry for the essay, but Mai has historically been one of the most mechanically interesting KOF characters to me. I’m really hoping she turns out well for XIII because this game looks hype as hell.
Nah all your points make sense, hopefully all if not most of our questions will be answered next Monday (July 5, 2010) when they release the Technical Reference video for the Women’s team, personally I wanna see this new “demon flip” move that Yuri has now lol
Mai comes in at 4:26. Either this is a recent build or the guy is using C Kacho Sen, but either way, the startup looks much better than it was in early footage of Mai (which is still some of the only footage of Mai to be had). Looks like we might have a (minor) crisis averted here.
And that new (old) far C really is nice. Shame we’ve yet to see any footage of Dune-caliber players trying Mai.
One last thing:
[media=youtube]KIlyOUbMvC0&hd=1[/media]
Is Kyo actually DCing on whiff at 2:55? (the fireball DC to Orochi Nagi) Looks like the fireball hits him after the super activates.
If this is true certain characters might be able to get an FADC/FRC kind of thing going on with projectiles (Athena certainly with Psycho Ball DC teleport, maybe Mai if the charge system permits Kacho Sen DC charge Musasabi no Mai), or at least to fill combos in neat ways by making certain hits whiff.
So apparently you can drive cancel into the same move as long as the second move is an EX, example shown: Ryuusou Geki (qcb+A/C in air) to EX (qcb+AC in air), makes me wonder if you can do the same with DM’s
The Athena technical guide was showing off some really neat properties and applications of DC.
She already seems to make really good use of DC given her array of multi-hit moves (Psycho Sword from light attacks, Phoenix Arrow from heavy attacks) to allow her to DC to super, possibly DC to Phoenix Arrow from Psycho Sword (would be very interesting to see how the juggle math ends up on that; if she still has the opponent in a juggle state after doing, say, B Phoenix Arrow, could she tack on a super when she lands?), or even the basic DC to Psycho Ball we were seeing (looks good to me because it gives her plenty of frame advantage to run around and adjust spacing before the opponent can tech, whether for more pressure or for runaway).
Her EX teleport and its capacity for DC raise especially interesting questions, however. If you can cancel her EX teleport super-early in the animation (rather than after it “fires” like in the video), could you use it to make other specials enjoy the invincible startup a la CvS2 roll cancel? How could other characters make use of such tricks?
And since her teleport doesn’t inflict any kind of hit or blockstun, is this a special case for DC, or can other characters with non-attack special moves do the same thing?
Honestly, DC’s one of the most impressive mechanics in KOF I’ve seen in years. Can’t wait to see how the Japanese probe its subtleties.
LoL, I just posted this in the “incoming!” thread… so weird having 3 threads that serve almost the same purpose, before a game comes out… (I understand the need after, surely.)
We also got to see more of what looks liek Kula’s old :r:+:snkc: command move… which isn’t listed on the official move list. it easily doesn’t have the range of her old move, but I think her standing far :snkc: looks like it has better range than it used to.
Ryo’s command parries looked nice, he can cancel into them off whiffed normals too, it seems. Has his Ko’oh Ken always been good enough to absorb fireballs+still hit the opponent, as it did to Robert at the end of one of the fights?
The player in the vid kep trying to land Kyo’s triple kicks after an aerial Orochi Nagi… wouldn’t be suprised if it’s possible at the right range. Maybe even.only the EX variety?
Terry’s ability to cancel his crouching sweep into :df:+:snkc: looked rather nice. Think he also combo’d into the move off of normals once?
Since you can cancel DC’d whiffed fireballs, I suppose you’ll be able to cancel to make blockstrings, too, eh? King should be a great Chip damage killer, if she can cancel from Tornado Kick to Venom Shot on demand…
DC’s do look like they have loads of tactical possibilities…
According to that official move list, Hwa Jai has one command normal (:df:+:snkb:), the slide. I swear he’s done the :r:+:snkb: kick before in vids, however, I wonder if Joe’s command normal has become his normal? (now that’d be weird.)
Also, there’s no showing of that Ki Charge move that Robert had on old versions of the website. Think it’s been removed from him? (Not like he NEEDS more moves.) Vid tomorrow wouldn’t answer this, unless it had an EX version, either.
Lastly, anyone worried about Vice’s meter building ability? The idea was brought up on another forum. Without Outrage/Ravenous, she really has nothing “spammy” to build up meter with.
Personally, I think this’ll be balanced by her potentially being one of the most dangeous grapplers in the game, when she has said meter. Anything that sets the opponent into EX Da Cide loops is going to hurt profusely. This is only offset by the fact that Da Cide itself does absolutely no damage.
I think she’ll make a good final team member, for this very reason. Your thoughts?
Yeah I’ve seen Hwa do Joe’s f+B in a couple videos as well, dunno know why it’s not on the official move list
The HK and JPN move lists all say it’s been removed, not that he would need it anyway
I agree with you on her being a good candidate for last team spot, after looking at the technical reference video she’s got a lot of ways to burn meter (but not enough to build sadly), EX Da cide may do no damage but it has anywhere priority from what I heard (works on opponents while they’re airborne, in hit stun, rolling?, and possibly the ground?), EX Splash is an auto overhead that works on standing/crouching/rolling opponents, when EX Mayhem connects it puts the opponent into to counter-hit status allowing for another mayhem to follow-up (she had a combo like this in 2k2), EX Negative Gain will be much easier to combo into with the range it has now, Mayhem>Splash>SC to Overkill looks nasty
out of the whole Yagami team I found Vice the most interesting, EX Splash>Overkill DM? on top of that I wonder what her HD combos would be like, so many possibilities
Yeah, I’m suprised not many around the net seem to be giving her or Hwa Jai any grief over lack of moves/headswaps/etc. The same peopel with the “Lazy SNKP is Lazy” stuff, but anyone who gives the characters a chance, seems to enjoy them. Even declaring them as mains and the like.
I love SNK-style female grapplers, and Vice looks like a solid twist on the idea. She’s going to be pretty dangerous with the right planning, and I’m glad they gave her a command normal.
So EX Neg-Gain leaves them in counter state, eh? Sounds fantastic to me. I’m quite alright with giving up her other command throw, to get a comboable NegGain… (Haven’t played 2k2um yet, so can’t comment on that variation.)
She’s raised a few spots on my list since the TechRef, so I think that’s a good showing. Technical grappling sounds right up my alley! (need Shermie-like colors…)
EX Mayhem does (her shoulder tackle), if your hands are fast enough you could probably short hop forward then do the Overkill DM before they hit the ground
Well in OG2k2 she could combo into her Negative Gain (hcb x2+K) by doing her close st. D if you could catch them, in 2k2um she gained the ability to cancel her Outrage into Negative Gain, but since she has neither EX Negative Gain having a wider hitbox makes her more of a threat, now she just need a good strategy to build meter