PS2 Evo Impressions jibba jabba

Got to play, even vs. decent human comp to some extent.

GRAPHICS

Everyone asks about the jaggies. Yes, they're 80-90% smoothed out. The game looks so much better with this one little thing fixed. Low resolution constantly reminds you when you're playing VF4C on the PS2. The downside is that when the jaggies are smoothed out the lower quality textures really stick out, where before they weren't as noticeable.

Highlights:

[*] The menus and presentation are super slick. I'm easily impressed tho. I liked the original VF4 menus but these are really well done. It's like everything's skinned in chrome and indiglo LCD screens.

[*]I didn't sit and count, but there were like, pages of wallpaper. A handful were available right away and the rest I guess you win in quest mode. They're now an item in the options menu rather than a secret. I'm sure they're going to be gorgeous.

[*]This might be imagination or the urge to spooge like a fanboy, but the colors look brighter and the lines defining things sharper and cleaner. For example the lifebars in VF4 always looked really washed out to me, and the graphics on the character select screen were noticeably downsampled. Now it's just clean and colorful.

[*]The new training stage is hot! You've all seen pics and movies. "Authorized Fighters only". Cute. The glass walls aren't reflective but they have a nice faked effect. So much better than that ghetto warehouse. The palace stage still doesn't do anything for me (yes, they redid it. Orangey Sunset all over).

[*]This is more a compliment about VF in general and evo than it is about the PS2 specifically, but going through the included replays and stepping through them frame by frame with R2 really shows off how beautiful the animation is. Simple jabs snap your head way back. A dashing elbow has akira stretch his leg waaay behind him as he surges forward, nearly in a full crouch. A barrier kick actually jacks the opponent 2 feet off the floor and they clutch their stomach as they go up. It's cool to be able to see the game this way and you can't do that in the arcade.

Lowlights:

[*]Some stages there's still noticeable jagginess in the background. When a short line is drawn at an angle, like the line forming part of the poly that extends from someone elbow to their wrist, jaggies are barely noticeable... but when you take a straight line like the wooden edges of Akira's dojo and then angle it, the jaggies stand out more. So basically the smoothing on the characters is great but the smoothing of the stages is only a mild improvement.

[*]Textures being unchanged sucks.. and yeah, they're 100 percent unchanged. I can sort of see them doing that, it's convenient and there's a deadline. But why the hell does goh's arm, when they zoom in during a certain win pose, look like a checkerboard? They have the opportunity to put in good brand new textures for the new guys and they put in downsampled stuff. There's also some vague feeling of 'lack of detail' I get when I see certain characters and stages, like kage's wonderfully detailed armor in the arcade looks off on the PS2. Or pai's stage, which is kind of flat and simple looking even in evo, looks noticeably less real on the PS2 due to some subtle lack of texture detail.

[*]Jeffry's stage has crapped up water, it's some sort of fractally-plasma-blue and black texture, doesn't look like water. A few others just look bland, and I dunno if it's because they didn't change enough from VF4C to evo or what. Jacky's stage helicopter spotlights actually look worse than they did in PS2 VF4C. Sarah's stage seems just blah. Kage's stage feels so ... pallette-swapped, even though that's exactly how it is in evo too. Or maybe it's more like... in evo it seems like the lighting is changed, but on the PS2 it's like the colors were changed and the lighting isn't even a factor.

SOUNDS

Are all fine near as I can tell, but I'm no audiophile. My favorite mp3 track doesn't sound as good on the PS2, but it occurs to me that the mp3s will sound better in general than even the arcade, so I don't count it as a bad thing.

BALANCE AND GAMEPLAY

Can't comment fairly on the balance, but I did very well with goh vs my friend and I can see the gameplay is intact and that the version B changes are probably for the better. I love that shun got that sabaki and that lau gets fun stance tools to play with to keep him from being such a 3-move-wonder. Having played Evo A, I violently appreciate one of the less-subtle upgrades in goh's game: His one really decent long range attack (b,f+K) crumples on MC in version B... and that sets up good damage + tech roll guessing games. Got backstaggers with standing K a couple of times but couldn't find much to do with them except a dashing elbow. I'm open to suggestions. Anyway the point is the game seems fine and fair, which is just what I expect. More importantly, the gameplay is dead on the arcade version, as VF4C's seemed to be. No retarded PS2-specific bugs that I know of. Speaking of retarded, a few moves that have always irritated me in the past still do, but I'm 99 percent sure I just need to get better at the game. For example I always hated how a 14 frame kick from shun di turns into an easy 35% with three button presses. If sega can tone down jeffry's KKP, I wish they could have done something with shun's, even though it's HH*H or HH*L and has suxor recovery. A quick note to shadowdean: You can spare us all the HHAHAH MUST IRRITATE CREED reply kthx gg. I found struggling out of some block staggers was easier. I like the no-forced-guard of stuff like PPP combos or vanessa's d+K,P(P) or lau's sidekick-P-palm. I think that every character seems fair, neither of the new guys feels like a new number one but neither is a dishrag. The old number ones don't feel like they've gone to the gutter.

The AI has gotten good. Low dan opponents are no longer necessarily mindlessly easy to beat. It's better at stopping patterns, it doesn't fall for charge attacks anymore. It uses max damage combos very well in a lot of situations, i.e. an example I've heard is that jeffry used a MC-only knee combo on akira, something like knee P P db+P+K slam, pounce. The computer also mixes up throws better and doesn't ALWAYS throw at -8 or -10 type situations, sometimes it attacks with a big move and sometimes it even sits there and allows a whiffed throw escape or whiffed dodge to happen so it can counterattack.

GOODIES

So many to go on about here.

[*]Hyper mode for mindless fun and seeing just how fast and dextrous creative you can be.

[*]See-saw battles where any damage you do to the opponent gains you life, and vice versa, so the lifebars shrink and grow until one guy can deplete 200 points more quickly than the other.

[*]Old VF4C stages are in there, somewhere.
[*]As in the arcade and older versions, VF1 character models + VF1 lifebars + (I think) hidden old VF1 or VF2 tracks. I can confirm the models because I saw them in the ending btw, your replays vs each character are shown as flickery VF1 model holograms in that hidden VF4C stage I think of as "the den". There continues to be no real ending, which is fine with me.

[*]Challenge training will make you weep. Going through trial training was like a 'yeah yeah whoop' in VF4C, but beating challenge mode in evo is insane and you actually feel like it's important to save the result on your mem card if you manage to pass a trial. Some sample trials:
-block alternating SDE's and df+P+K's from akira strictly on reflex 10 times. Fail once and the counter is back to zero. You gotta do it first with plenty of time to think, then with akira going into spastic rapid fire mode. Not too bad.
-struggle out of ST, sgpm staggers from akira and ST, stpm staggers from lau. It's ridiculously tough and again you have to nail it perfectly many times in a row. Couldn't do it.
-TR throws like jeff's b+P+G and wolf's twirl and lion's new throws perfectly (10x or so) so that you take less/no damage. Managed to pass this.
-Use good fuzzy guarding techniques to consistently avoid damage from akira mixing up double palm, df+P+K, and throw. First you must do it in a neutral situation, then in a -1 situation after guarding a jab, then in a -2 situation after P,K hits. A buddy claims he passed these but I blew it. I think sega screwed up a bit in that they gave you the nearly unreal situation of perfect jab-double palms from akira, practically the only mid in the game that comes out in just 12 frames. Any other character and you'd have more of a fighting chance, but standing up from a half crouch to guard a 12 frame mid on reflex is near impossible, and if you don't do it on reflex you risk eating the throw.
-Tech roll stuff like akira's AS3 a few times in a row.
-Fuzzy guard in such a way that jacky's elbow is guarded while rising from a crouch, but also somehow go back into a crouch in time to duck (not guard) a canned backfist followup. But not crouch for so long a second elbow will stagger you. What the fuck. 10x. Can't do it.
-Struggle out of staggers like brad's elbow into crumple hook canned combo. Pretty easy.
-Correctly counterattack after a mix of counterable/uncounterable moves 20 times against any character. This is a great drill and probably the most important and useful one in the bunch. You must react to throw counterable attacks with throws, and uncounterable attacks with low punches. If you don't, the counter resets to zero. I was able to do it on my third try vs jeffry. I think I'll do it vs. all characters, it really forces you to learn to counter appropriately and not just mash low punch in reply to stuff like blocked knees.
-correctly dodge on reflex semicircular attacks going in opposite directions... first jacky switching stances a few random times then doing a low backfist, then more challenging against jeffry's charged db+K or charged baseball pitch, which have similar animations but the pitch is only dodged towards the front and the low kick towards the back. 20 x I think.
-EDTEG and DTEG and TTE [!] against jeffry mixing up various throws 10 x.

You get the picture.
Trial training is also great, and I learned some goh specific flowcharts like b,df+P (hits) into shrm (beats low punch) into b,f+P (flops people as they start to stand up and struggle out of the shrm stagger).
There's some new stuff too like using delayed attacks against dodges, using low punch MC's to set up MC's with slower moves, triple low throw escaping, and a ton of EDTEG type stuff. TRing slams is hard if you're dealing with something as low to the floor as akira's AS3.

[*]more character specific and evo-specific tips and combos and flowcharts in trial training.

[*]quest mode... beat opponents, move around a map and use fight money to buy items. Win stuff. It's neat.

[*]random challenges occur during plain old arcade mode, like try to throw the opponent 18 times over the course of the match to win an item.

[*]Play in pseudo tournaments, advance through the brackets, beat the local champ. Nice touch.

[*]New settings for free training, tho I admittedly couldn't use them b/c of the language barrier. But teaching the computer to block-and-counter a specific way is going to be great.

[*]Faster load times even on the burned CD I got to play. They're fast enough that you pretty much don't notice them.

THE UGLY

The whole mem card thing.

I could go on but I'll wrap it up. The game is near-perfect and offers everything anyone could really expect for this kind of port: no mistakes in the gameplay or serious discrepencies in the graphics/sound department. Full customization and configuration options. Tons of easter eggs, winnable items, and almost RPG-like sidegames and challenges. Nice interface, full featured and user-friendly and just polished as hell. If anyone has any complaints about this game outside of the memory card issue... they're drunk. The sheer volume of work and care that went into making is hard to miss. I can't wait to buy a USA copy assuming it ever is announced.

 

Ah good stuff can't wait to play it. By the way:
[ QUOTE ]
I can confirm the models because I saw them in the ending btw, your replays vs each character are shown as flickery VF1 model holograms in that hidden VF4C stage I think of as "the den".

[/ QUOTE ]
The hologram replay thing is also seen if you defeat every character in the arcade version of the game.

 

I'm drooling all over keyboard. /versus/images/graemlins/crazy.gif I just hope we don't have to wait till Sept. Hopefully this summer.

 

Nice impressions man, thanks allot. If you've got the time I'd appreciate it if you could ellaborate on a few points:

- Is the lighting improved?
- Have you seen any new items not present in the arcade version?
- Have the damage states of objects been improved? ie. the breaking tiles on the temple stage?
- Is quest a big improvement over Kumite?

Cheers

Stephen

 

***Drools eyes glaze over***

Creed that was great, I really hope Sega brings this stateside and fixes the whole memory card thing. I really think this will be the fighting game of the year not Soul Calibur 2.

My only question for you is, why aren't you playing it right now? /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

Oh man creed - you should of seen Ben's eyes light up when he saw all of akira's new movement ticks and new moves...he damn near shit his pants...thing of beauty.
I agree more or less with your review - your bitching about shun nonwithstanding /versus/images/graemlins/wink.gif I Really hope an english version gets released so I can benefit more from the training mode...it also seems that the record keeping mode has been upgraded..hrmm..maybe I can have my friend who knows Japanese translate the game. I like the quest mode better than Kumite, feels more thought out. I need to figure out how to make a character also....My complaint is Goh's b,f+k is just retardedly nice...I swear its damn near impossible to side step attack.

 

Damn Damn I'll literally be counting the days once the US release date is set.

That Challenge Mode sounds likea super-bitch and I'm sure it'll keep us flustered for a very long time. Can't wait!

 

[ QUOTE ]

- Is the lighting improved?
- Have you seen any new items not present in the arcade version?
- Have the damage states of objects been improved? ie. the breaking tiles on the temple stage?
- Is quest a big improvement over Kumite?


[/ QUOTE ]

Lighting: not that I noticed at all. I wouldn't say it's improved enough to notice, and like for jacky's stage it looked worse. I remember always noticing that green glow under the characters in evo jacky stage, and I don't remember noticing it for the PS2. I'd have to turn on the PS2 to confirm that though. I'd say that between improved/redone stages and the nicer antialiasing - it looks better regardless of the lighting issue.

-new items not in the arcade: nope, and I doubt there will be any. There weren't any in the PS2 VFC as far as I know. And I remember some were missing like jeff's turban.

-damage states of objects improved: no, did they need to be? Tile breaking seems about the same as it ever was, which was pretty much just like it looked in the arcade.

-quest is 1000 times better than kumite. I can't believe guys like DRE put in thousands of matches into kumite (I hope I didn't make him blush /versus/images/graemlins/wink.gif) ... well anyway, if anyone out there could play kumite for 100 matches, they can prolly put 1000 into quest.

 

Praise + nitpicking

Alrighty, I just picked this up yesterday, and spent most of last night playing it with one of my teammates. We're both incredibly impressed with it.

Training mode is tons better now. The character-specific combo and technique training is a huge asset. I think now I can finally diversify my character roster a little bit, since I've pretty much been exclusively Vane since I got here. (Currently pondering picking up Lion again...)

The challenges are INCREDIBLY evil. My friend has 3 characters at or near Mousa levels, and even he couldn't get far in Guard Challenge 4. "This is almost IMPOSSIBLE!" were his exact words. He gave up after about 20 minutes of trying because his hands hurt. The reward for finishing all of those challenges had better be something really nice to justify the aggrivation they will surely cause...

Quest Mode is also superbly cool. Presentation is nice, the regular challenges are fun, and you can even adopt the whole "Gotta catch 'em all!" mentality to collecting things like emblems, player data, etc. You can play in regular arcades under more standard rules, or you can go to Event Square for special-rules battles. And indeed, the special battles totally rock. Here's some examples of the sort of special-rules tournaments you can enter:

- Knockdown Clash. Better learn how to do your tech rolls perfectly, because if you don't take one, you take extra damage when you hit the floor! AIEEEEE!
- Iron Battle - 1 round. 1000 HP per player. No time limit. Get ready for a long, tough fight....
- I forgot the name of this but it involves "Wall" - The walls aren't electrocuted, but they might as well be, because hitting one HURTS. A LOT.
- Survival - no HP recovery after rounds end. Not too new a concept.
- Hyper Action Battle - I mentioned this in an earlier post. This is hella fun. There IS strategy involved, if you just spaz out you won't get too far. Certain moves chain together a LOT better than others, and some simply cannot be feasibly used in a chain. Plus there are damage and execiution restrictions as well.

Others might open the further you progress, but these will definitely keep you interested for a good, long while.

Well, on to my whiny portion. The game actually looks worse than my first impressions gave away. If you never played the arcade version, you probably won't care, as it's a fine looking PS2 game, and you can skip this. But, if you have grown accustomed to Naomi 2 output like me, here is a list of immediately noticable graphic differences from arcade. More as I find them!

- I have to agree with CreeDo on the city stage - it looks like it's constantly being run through one of those Photoshop filters that just accentuates bright highlights while downplaying gradient shading..
- On Kage/Goh's garden stage, it looks WAY too bright. The arcade version has this nice, dark purplish hue to everything, and it's GONE on the PS2. The sakura blossoms are less numerous as well.
- For some reason the fence seems higher on Wolf's stage. Maybe I am just hallucenating, or something. Way too bright here as well, and fewer spectators.
- Character models: Skin looks a lot paler and less detailed for a lot of characters (Wolf being most noticable to me). Vanessa still has that "freshly washed" glow to her, but it's not as bad as the original PS2 rev. The faces don't seem as detailed, either, making some characters unnecessarily uglier.
- The original VF4 stages are included as well, but you'll notice that some of these have lost details... i.e. the fogginess in Vane's harbor, and the COMPLETE LACK OF SPECTATORS in Wolf's stage. Wow, is that place ever boring without 'em.

Thoughts after one day? Pure joy on a DVD.

 

Re: Praise + nitpicking

"Wall Death Match" is the event you were trying to remember. "Counter Challenge" is the only extra Event that has opened up for me so far. It treats every successful strike as a MC. Making for some vicious battles. It opened up for me after winning the Sega Bay Area tournament.

 

Re: Praise + nitpicking

Has anyone else noticed that some of the old stages brought back from VF4 such as Lei fei's has improved cloud texture, resembling the arcade version a little bit? It's like as if the developers combine the PS2 version's detail and lighting plus the arcade version's cloud texture.There are some stages that are crapped with especially wolf's stage.

 

One thing that I would like to highlight is how PS2 Evolution has little-zero "shimmering" when compared to PS2 Version C. This makes all the difference to me, and so graphically I consider Evolution to be a VAST improvement over Version C.

 

I'll definitely have to agree here.

Another welcome addition is the visibility of the back of Jacky's jacket.

Say that five times fast.

 

does anybody else's game experience "JITTERING" right in the beginning of the camera panning over the stages? Or even at the charater VS screen when the lightning strikes right after both characters are chosen.

 

Yes!!! Mine does. At least in those versus screen matches for the special tournies. I thought it was my crappy PS2's doing, since it's a modded version 1 playing an original import DVD.

 

I thought it may have been the goddamned PS2 import running on the extra 10V here in America compared to the 110V in JP. But I experienced no ill effects with my import DC previously. I keep running across those who highly recommend a step-down transformer. All my components in my entertainment system is SONY, but lately, they've been accused of making fragile electronics... and seen first hand, some friends' consoles breaking or unable to read CD's. Their original PS has had nothing but people claiming for it to break. I guess it's their way to get a "larger" installed base. Shit, I'm rambling again. Sony has a way to make me feel uneasy with the longevity of their consoles.

Does any body elses jitter?

 

My copy has that jittering as well.Happens most of the time during the stage intros.
At least it doesn't affect the gameplay /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

Yeah,mine does too. I think it's how quick the CPU pans over the areas in those stages. Not sure though... but the camera seems to go to rendered pars of the stage you'd never see in a fight.