I’m hesitant to call her “original” but aside from a bit of Juri-ness, I’d say she is reasonably her own entity.
looks nice
I don’t see the Juri influences other than the short projectiles. Her cr.B and overhead kicks look more like XIII Kula’s j.CD/XI Kula’s air projectile and they took the animation and made it into a launcher/rekkas/super/overhead. The skating animation is kinda similar to Kula and her command normal looks like the second part of Kula’s cl.C.
XDZW is the best because now I get to play two different Kula variants. Personally I think that one character with the Sealing powers is the most unique “move set” wise outside of her neutral stance which is just from general wushu anyways. I was hoping for more Jet Set Radio-ness from Ciel, though. At least some spray paint or something.
Edit: watched more of the video and Ciel has Kula’s cl.D. Thinking about it more, her DP arc is like Kula’s and K’s Crow Bites, even with K’s hard knockdown ender that looks like XIII Kula j.CD. For sure we got double Kula.
Have you ever played it?
Why Juri clone? Because of the black hair? She reminds me more of Poison.
She reminded me more of Poison.
Running animation is not important. Her command reminded me of Hibiki from Last Blade II, instead.
Yes…if I haven’t, I wouldn’t say a thing as I wouldn’t have ANY right to comment on anything considering the game.
It seemed to me you were complaining about the game’s online, but that mostly has to do with the fact we’re trying to connect with severs on the other corner of the world, so it’s natural single match won’t flow as it should.
But in the 6P 3v3 option, that is the more recommended for us, I have almost never found a hard problem like lag or delay, and I don’t think I’ll have any problem fighting Ciel because of the online. Characters like Ell Blue have very heavy cross-up and mix-up elements on their gameplay, I’m more worried about Blue, for example, than for a super that’s mostly used to crown a combo in the end.
About the high damage on her attacks, and combos being too long, I think Wuxie exhibits the same aspect, and it’s not really broken. Also, it’s very well-known in every fighting game, a new character is slightly doped at first, to appeal players to use this new proposal. But knowing Tencent, they will patch her the fuck out in less then one week if they overdosed.
Which is actually what I found sad about it, the missed opportunities. I’ve evolved more into appreciating what makes the game tick visually. The designs can stand on their own and it would’ve given the game so much more identity and appeal, if they all have completely original animations.
Oh well, looking at the bright side, this game sure gives some amazing smut fodder. Claire x K’ , Amenth x Bogard Brothers… the possibilities are endless my brain is hurting from the deluge of ideas!
Color me impressed~! A character that seems to have no direct sprite rip off in this game? Talk about an anomally! The animation on the hair looks flawless. 
Thinking about it, the stomp super is kinda like Anji’s Overdrive where he stomps just like Ciel does and spins around. You’d think being named Ciel, she’d have some of Type Moon’s Ciel moves or something.
I’m not complaining so much about the game’s online as online play for games in general. Even at the best it can get wonky.
My potential issue with Ciel is that she seems set to thrive in an online community. High damage isn’t a big issue unless it’s Pre-Patch Terry damage (and that came with huge stun). She’s not so much a broken character, in no way can we make any sort of judgment on that before having a lot of time grinding with her, it’s just she’s really built to potentially abuse the online aspect where reaction time is slightly slowed at best and the fact that she has an auto-combo that leads to very easy confirms for great damage.
Ignoring the online aspect, she looks like a fine character. Damage on her stomp DM might be slightly high for what it can do, but nothing worth bitching about at length. Interesting enough design. Solid normals, good crossups, easy confirms. We’ll see what she can do soon.
Which in turn, is a copy of Omega Rugal’s stomp on KOF '98 IIRC. Which, at the same time, might be a copy of some thing before that. It’s a kind of move with a kind of mechanic. We can’t really blame something now for not being entirely original, when fighting games have been out there for more than 20 years.
I agree on that, it’s a little or a much of a shame that if you want to show the game to a friend, so many things will pop up like copied for other games. But in the best of the cases, one could at least appreciate there’s also more originality on this game than what people see at first glance.
As for the “knock-offing”, I don’t completely agree with many of these; I mean, people saying Legend is exactly like Akuma, pffft! The first characters were easily the worst cases, but you got to remind Tsukikage and Claire are “2.0” versions of Freeman and Kula, while Kuraki looked like a botched down Athena and Brazel a not-so-well-disguised K’ skin.
But then, when you get more into the game, you realize these have reasons to be (for example, Tsukikage and Claire are way better than their counterparts IMO, like the designers said “you know, I would have done it this way”, and Kuraki is a simplified Athena with a more zoner role and very effective in what she does) and at least one could appreciate the cool designs.
Latter characters might be more “concept-inspired” than “gameplay carbon copies”, main example Yan: even his animations are completely Rock Howard and his fighting style (fire punch combos) are a direct homage to Kyo Kusanagi, in the gameplay mecahnics, he’s completely different to Kyo.
Finally, I’ve even started to think this could be a good thing, as I see this game as a “spiritual successor” for the KOF series. In fact, this could easily be branded as “KOF XV”, a “KOF XD” spin-off or something like that, include a tenth more of classic “must” KOF guest characters (Mai, Iori, etc.) but introduce the XDZW characters as “the new generation”… And them being so resembling (and at the same time, pretty different) to some people from KOF, you wouldn’t miss that much your classics, and you would have a good time learning to use these “newcomers”.
And being branded under the KOF label, the animation ripoffs (that are clearly the most objectable thing of the whole knock-offage) would feel redeemed.
@Saitsu : Very good reflections, I guess you would like a little more speed in the game.
I was thinking more of the arc of the jump and fall. Rugal kinda just jumps at you with a normal-ish arc.
I think the main thing I don’t like about the game are the two button throws because they’re so shitty. It’s like a worse off command throw that doesn’t do much damage. The thing would be more viable, but there’s alternate guard in the game so it’s really easy to punish tick throw attempts with full combos. Two button throws with whiff animation in this game is really a step backwards unless they make it not have a whiff animation, or take out alternate guard, or return to one button throws without whiff animations (because CVS2 set the precedent that there can be 1 button throws and whiff animations.) I’d rather see the latter.
I think the major thing with 2 button throws as a design choice is to force you to commit to throw instead of having a ton of OS bullshit where you never have to worry about if you’re going to throw or not because it’ll just happen if your opponent needs to be thrown. I do think that throws as a mixup option aren’t super strong because of alternate guard, but at the same time you can throw people out of DP so it kinda opens up a different blockstring meta where you have to guess the frame trap or the throw to decide whether to reversal out or not. DP will beat frame trap but lose to throw, throw tech will beat throw but lose to frame trap, roll will beat frame trap but lose to throw. Throw becomes more of a punish and read tool than a mixup tool.
Newest trailer:
i think 2 button throw was for online purposes
it may not be but it could be.
say all you want about 1 button throw vs 2 button throw, 2 button should technically have less OS’s and you have to be more intentional with throws and throw techs
Having normal throw OS’s an integral part to KOF though. Especially for the grappling character, most characters would have to try to read a command throw on oki and choose to jump out or not. The mix-up in return is for the grappling character to choose to go for a normal throw OS so that the whiffed normal can tag the opponent as one is jumping out. The expectation changes in which the opponent will start teching more often and weighing in risk and reward. Then the player can choose to start using more command throws to beat tech attempts.
Note this is mainly on oki where the opponent isn’t induced in block stun and the grappler has earned the knockdown to have a strong mix-up option. Alternate guard makes command throw options not as strong in neutral since they’re easily punished on whiff; so, the grappler has to earn that knockdown to get the strong mix up like how the grappler in SFII needs to inch his way in, somehow get the knockdown, then have a strong oki/tick game up close.
For a game that “aspires” and “tries to be 98,” making two button throws to shallowly create “change” doesn’t do much for the game. Throws already beat a bunch of DPs, although not all of them, in 98 so that doesn’t really change much. Then making them have a whiff animation is balls. Against DPs, Rolls, Frametraps, Whiff Throws, whatever you can alternate guard against all of that, find an opening in the rule of 2, and punish accordingly through pure fundamentals.
Like if you seriously think that throw OS’s are too good and don’t belong in “KOF/XDZW” or that it’s fine to have normal throw whiff animations like in KOF12, I’m sorry to say that you don’t understand KOF that well yet. Sparkster understands, mops the floor with the Western players online, and does agree that normal throws are shitty and he punishes that for free.
I’d say the game would benefit if they either leave two button throws as two buttons and remove whiff animation, or return 1 button throws and have a heavy attack whiff. Then to balance around the OS, choose what type of normal is whiffed to increase or reduce the effectiveness. There is a reason why Kyo’s Normal Throw OS is better on his C Throw by having an uppercut come out on whiff in 2 frame start up but only nets a frontal soft knockdown while his D throw nets a hard knockdown back turn for a deadly mix up but throws them out of the corner/behind him and has a slower, janky kick on whiff with not as much vertical coverage. Or that Daimon has a better D throw on whiff to tag jump outs but only throws behind him and soft knockdown while his C throw is a mash throw that can’t be teched at all (even during rolls unlike other throws) but has a lower range to tag jump outs.
Or if XDZW wants to make normal throws into shitty command throws, then turn up the damage on normal throws into command throws and be able to cancel into them. It would make throws better, but it would make things very homogenized and everyone into a semi grappler. That should be kinda fine though since everyone in Vampire Savior has a universal command throw so it should work in XDZW. And hey, it would set it apart more from 98 while having an option that isn’t almost completely useless.
lol i understand that there is a deeper balance thing going on within throws and most of the stuff you posted is fascinating to me
but i doubt whoever is in charge of balancing this game knows that either
i’m not saying i know anything here, i’m just saying that i would believe it if someone told me 1f throws on close C/D would be sloppy on rollback netcode.
I know it works well in KOF98. Although in 98, the throws are instant about 0 frame but there is inherent input delay built into the game. So when you input a throw, the game delays the actual start up by 3 frames. So the throw takes 3 frames to come out, but when it actually starts up it’s instant. That’s why there is a silly buffer window with throws in KOF games. Like, you can hit cl.C then press forward or back 1-3 frames after hitting the C button and then you accidentally get a throw.
So if XDZW is really like or wants to be 98, I can picture a return of 1 button throws that could work well in rollback netcode. I play up to 160 even 170 ms on GGPO for KOF98 without any rollback or latency issues (the reason of high ms is because I play against Asian players across the ocean), so it shouldn’t be much of an issue as long as it isn’t like ST or Guilty Gear 0 frame throws that truly start up instantly and on command.
You have tons of tech frames in ST, so the instant throw thing kinda balances out.
You can check now my character review for Brazel:
Is the client updated yet or did I get bad info from TFG (yeah, somehow I got some XD news from TFG, weird)?