Betcha didn’t see that coming!
Alright glorious SRK forums, are we looking at a revival for SFV? Probably not. Either way, lets discuss the game here!
To this date we’ve had two beta tests.
I’m really excited for the game in general. Getting back into a SF game without focus attacks means a bigger presence on normals-based footsies gameplay, which I’m excited for. I think the metagame that comes from pressure, striking and knowing when to attack and block is exciting, or else I wouldn’t be a SF player right. I’m sad theres no hard-hitting zoner like Sagat, but I’m going to try a more in-your-face pressure approach with Ken this time around. I also want to try out Laura and I’m hoping to make her my grappler-alt. I like her movement style with the ducking and weaving v-skill, plus she seems really simple up front so I shouldn’t need to remember a lot of technical stuff to use her effectively. First beta I played a lot of Chun-li, then switched to Cammy. Second beta I think I played Ken almost non-stop, but I also was excited to try Rashid so I played him a bit, and I tested Necalli but I didn’t like his moves.
Theres still one more main beta (4+ days) and a yet-to-be-determined amount of random stress test days to come, as well as one more new character announcement.
What do you guys think of the game overall? How do you feel about the new characters this time around - compared to SF4? They gave us 4 new characters out of 16 total, exactly like SF4 console launch had.
To me, Necalli is like the “beast” type character that fills the stylistic niche that Blanka had. So I think he’s kinda nasty for that, but he’s a way better character design overall and I would rather play him over Blanka any day. He has a similar moveset too - a forward moving attack, diagonal up-moving attack, in your face pressure special (kinda similar to lightning), and he sports a command grab too, which is great when you fight a good turtle.
Rashid is super cool. He’s like Aladdin and Jafar combined but with a bunch of tech hahah. His moveset is incredibly mobile, and while I liked his pressure game and some of his normals I thought his specials were kind of wonky. You need to really figure out the spacing for them to find the effective ranges. I know someone will do that, and he should be pretty good, but I wonder how he will fare in the long-haul, when people find out ways to shut down his jab-tornado-jab pressure.
Laura is awesome. I like her design too, its simple but with some flair to it. She has the most “martial arts” design out of the new characters overall so far, which makes sense being Sean’s sister and knowing Sean’s design, which was the same kind of Gi that Ryu and Ken use. Her moveset is interesting, with her cmd grabs letting you choose which side of the opponent you land on. Also she has a really easy anti-air which is going to be great. Her kick normals seem to be a lot better than her punches, except for low strong, which has good range and speed. I haven’t played her yet but I will be focusing on her in the third beta, assuming the character choice mirrors what happened in the first two.