VF4Evo at #2 on Sony Playstation Japan Most wanted list.

Yes, Evo is at #2, and the IMMENSE Asian popularity of Sega Rosso's Initial D put's it at #3. Funny thing is, Last Bronx is at #13.

http://www.jp.playstation.com/cgi-bin/newitem_ranking/this_week_ranking.cgi

Lastly, ironically, and rightfully, Soul Calibur 2 is nowhere on the list. Highly overrated in my opinion. At least the Japanese gaming contingent "gets it." Or, are not getting it.

Anyone else agree?

 

I'm actually a fan of SCII. Really, whether a game's a hit or a flop in Japan makes little difference to me..."I like what I like".

I just wished VF would get more popular here stateside, but oh well. /versus/images/icons/frown.gif

 

I agree Catch, I personally am not too fond of soul calibur2. And did it really have to be Heihachi? /versus/images/icons/confused.gif I just hope we will get an announcement of a US release soon

 

Great news, but unfortunately Evo did not make the top 10 list over at IGN. =[

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/384/384959p1.html

 

that Maxi guy pisses me off. You can't do anything to counter some of his moves. the ultimat cheap guy.

 

<caugh> cry of the scrub <caugh>
I think some people say the same of Lei....he's so cheap..you can't do anything.

 

*cough*Have you played someone who plays Maxi?*cough*

Really though, I'm not one to make excuses. No VF character can be realy considered to throw the balance of the characters to an extreme degree- including Lei Fei. The difference between SC and VF to me is the balance issue. There is no immense advantage in choosing characters, or in certain matchups. I think there is a problem with that in SC.

You must be a SC fan, or understand SC better than I.

 

Well, I have played against some of the top Maxi players in the country (in SC one). Maxi is just one tough character to understand. You could consider him to be like Jacky. He is the SC character that takes the least knowledge to compete with professional level players (who dont have a very good understanding of Maxi, which is quite common actually). However, unlike Jacky, Maxi has a lot more he can do. In that respect, he is much like Lei Fei.

In SCII, Maxi has even more crazy mind game potential, but he has been slowed down, and is a bit weaker overall. A lot of his old tricks are no longer effective, he is much more balanced on the learning curve.

SC one and II are extremely well balanced games. SC one had one of the most balanced lineups of all time. So much so, the game never came to having tiers as small as those in VF4. SCII, I cant say for sure, I haven't even played it a fraction as much as either VF4 or SC one. Ver D seems very solid, the original release was quite bad though. Keep in mind Heihachi is simply can be considered a joke character, its likely he will be a cause for serious unbalance in the home release. But the original cast is quite balanced.

Balance in VF and SC is quite different. In VF, its an overall feel, in SC it jumps all over the place. One day you have a technique that murder people in droves, later, you can feel like your back to square one. In the end, when you approach mastering a character in SC, the feel is very similar to VF.

-DeathCom

 

Lei Fei Cheap? Not even close. At high levs he takes massive skill to beat someone. Trust me. And I've played SC and all the chars. seen pretty balanced. The only prob. is the game takes minimal skill to play compared to games like VF or SF3

 

Cervantes is rubbish(as in sucky)in SC2 and there are tiers. There were also tiers in the first game hell WCmaxi had an in depth list of them. Now they called them rankigs and were based around a system in which all characters were rated against the others in how well they did against every other character in the game. For example Maxi wins 6 out of 10 matches against Asta. Now all these numbers were averaged. All character who had an average of 6 or more were top tier. All characters with an average of 5 were mid tier. All character with an average of 4 or less were bottom tier. So dont come in here spouting your garbage about no tiers fool. SC1 is very well balanced but a good kilik against a less good taki still loses. VF also doesnt have the amount of bad matchups for single characters. Mainly because everyone has base moves that are similiar in exe speed. So no matter how slow you are you have a move to stop a rush by a much faster character. This is SC big main problem imo. That and the fact that little characters induce too much blockstrun and a weak throw game. Up close characters are always top tier in SC. Only real exception is Nightmare and this is genrally because he is too fast for his size. PEACE

 

Catch I couldn't agree more. Soul Calibur is getting all the media hype but a VF4 offers more in terms of gameplay. And in defense of Lei Fei, he rocks.

On a side note I had Soul Caliber for Dreamcast when I had that too. Then one day I turned it on and my memory card was erased and all my hard work getting those characters was too. Needless to say after that my Dreamcast's days were numbered. Soul Calibur is fun but Virtua Fighter is the one fighting game to rule them all.

 

Though I know this is pointless to discuss among a VF biased site (duh, as it is also pointless for one of you to argue at one of the many SC sites). Bottom line, I play both series extensively. I only specialize in a select few characters in each, but play a wide variety of opponents (well less wide in VF... no one plays here /versus/images/icons/frown.gif ).

In the original release, and even ver D, Cervantes is pretty bad compared to what he was. As an SC one Cervy player I was lost playing SCII Cervy. Overall, yeah, he could be easily worse than the worst of VF. I havent played him enough to know for sure.

As for WCMaxi and his project, it was a topic of long debates at TooHectic's site. People assumed because he worked for Namco that it was law. The bottom line, no one bothered to really get down and either translate one or make one for VF. However, I have the feeling that doing so would be nearly sacrilegious here. Also, keep in mind that WCMaxi's project in no way reflected general tournament results both here and Japan. Again, looking at the chart, its extremely balanced still. The biggest differences are only .5 to 1.0 between characters. That right there shows you its simply not enough to determine any tournament based event. Anyway, if someone were to actually make one for VF4, do you really think that a VF4 Jacky Vs Sarah match is perfectly balanced?

Anyway, SCII has a long way to go yet, no one has enough experience at it to really give out such a ranking project quite yet.

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SC1 is very well balanced but a good kilik against a less good taki still loses. VF also doesnt have the amount of bad matchups for single characters. Mainly because everyone has base moves that are similiar in exe speed. So no matter how slow you are you have a move to stop a rush by a much faster character.

[/ QUOTE ]

Taki takes way longer to learn than Kilik does. Kilik has all the early level advantages, range and power. In the end, Kilik has mean, short, counter hit, guaranteed damage combos that can be devastating to an overly aggressive Taki player (as most are). The balance of the game is close enough that a good Kilik player can make up for his weaknesses against a certain character. Just as one does in VF4. And for the sake of argument, since we have the skill project on the table. Kilik only has a -1 against Taki. So, being the better player, his skill would easily balance the fight against a less good Taki right there. Also if we take both those players and say they were newbies, the argument can then be compared to newbies choosing Shun and Pai... who is gonna win that?

As for moves being similar in execution speed. SC has one universal move that is designed to do just as you say. Good old guard impacts. Some one is too fast for you, parry that sucker. Works on throws too (which is a bit odd IMO, and not on Astaroth throws). So, no matter how slow you are, you have a move to stop a rush by a much faster character. Aside from that, though the moves are diverse (universal low punch is non existent), even the slow guys like Astaroth and Rock have very fast moves to interrupt speedy characters.

-DeathCom

 

I wasnt comparinf things athe the lowest level i was comparing at the highest. So two experts one playing taki and one playing kilik. kilik has a much more difficult time as he gets smoothered by an very fast taki who maintains initiative. In a game where the biggest difference in ranking is +1 or -1 and 1 game deficit to a character is huge. That was my point. In VF i have yet to see a ranking chart at all here or in japan. But for you to say SC is more balanced is dumb. That was my whole argument. SC is more built around bullshit glitchs and weird instanced than a game system. Its system isnt as consistant and it annoys me. and Dammit throws need to be more powerful

 

My sentiments exactly. God, I couldn't put my thoughts into words like I wanted to, and you fleshed it out exactly.

i Think, that having different weapons, it's really hard to balance it. I mean some weapons have an obvious reach advantage, others speed. The nunchucks have both these. The sword has power, but not speed.

The variation from one weapons speed to another, power, initiative, varies too greatly IMO in Soul Calibur... making playing it, highly frustrating. If Namco decides to look at the gameplay end of it, instead of the graphics side, I'd be happier.

Some of these problems existed even in Last Bronx.

That being said, I would love to see a weapons based fighter by AM2. Fighting Vipers implemented some use... Picky's skateboard, the BMX guy and his bike; ect. Maybe AM2 should make FV3 an all weapons fighter, and show the gaming community how it should be done.

Past FV's were done for graphical experiments sake for future implementation in VF. Which makes a future version of the game that much more interesting.

 

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
I wasnt comparinf things athe the lowest level i was comparing at the highest. So two experts one playing taki and one playing kilik. kilik has a much more difficult time as he gets smoothered by an very fast taki who maintains initiative.

[/ QUOTE ]

I tried to explain that scenario a little as well. Lets compare to VF4. Two equally good players, one uses Kage one uses Sarah. Though no "skill project" exists on VF, one can clearly see Kage with the advantage. He has that slap punch move that goes through all high punches (no sabaki, just goes through it). He has more moves that put him at a frame advantage than Sarah does. Since most of his moves do more damage, most have priority when playing getup games. Kage also has more than a few moves that hit Sarah out of her backflip escape (his sidestep attack for example). A excellent Sarah player will have to be extra cautious playing even a decent Kage. Its certainly not a no win scenario, but its certainly not a fair match either. Again, Kage generally takes more time to learn than Sarah does (just like Taki takes longer than Kilik).

As for the Taki vs Kilik debate. Its not a tremendous disadvantage. Well timed counter hit f+A,A,A combos from Kilik will interrubt Taki's possession rush tactics. Kilik can get solid damage off any launcher (in most cases not air control escapeable). Taki has speed, power, and is outstanding at applying pressure. But she lacks really good mixups. Most of her offense is high and mid. Knowing this makes it easy to anticipate and parry her attacks and force the post GI game (which she is not particularly good at). Its true that Kilik must adopt a "Taki strategy" to be effective against her, but the same holds true for many character match ups. This is the SC equllivant of learning each and every character's weaknesses in like one does in VF. You simply must know what moves are what type of counterable, what beats what. The same applies here.

As Im saying, no SC (1&2) are not perfectly balanced, but neither is VF4. So I would go to argue that both games have the same amount of imbalance within them. SC seems to have a few more extreme examples (the new Cervy maybe, though the US national tournament came down to Cervy Vs Xianghua), but SC also has more characters.

The weapon range aspect of SC is an element unique to weapon fighters, and quite hard to balance. In many cases, this is the element that keeps overall slower characters like Astaroth and Ivy on a level they can compete with much faster characters. Weight displacement also is a huge factor in SC. An Astaroth bullrush will gain tremendous ground against a lightweight Taki, but do little against Nightmare. VF4 has the weight aspect, but its simply used for what combos work on who. This also is true for SC.

Both games have an immense amount of depth to them, and both are very different from each other. The comparison is tough, but I still think the balance of the two can be compared.

BTW, I read rumors a while back about AM2 making a weapon fighter (a real one). Last Bronx was simply stiff and shallow compared to VF, it felt too gimmicky. Fighting Vipers I really wouldn't say uses weapons. I say this for if a fighter is to use weapons it must account for their space. In SC, weapons can collide causing special stuns. In SC weapons can also be "stripped" from one's hand. (Mitsurugi hold's his sword out in front of him, its quite easy to bat it away from his control for a moment) In FV, two Picky's cant have their skateboards connect.

Oh and...
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That was my whole argument. SC is more built around bullshit glitchs and weird instanced than a game system.

[/ QUOTE ]

One could easily say the same about VF4. There are tons of examples that the concepts of throw counterable simply override the logical nature of the game. These appear to be glitches, though occur simply because of the hard written rules of VF. Kilik's Monument Thrust Block is technically a glitch, but even with it to his advantage, it just acts as partially strange. RCC, IPO, IWS, and that stuff are not glitches, its simply perfect timing on move inputs. Im not exactly sure what you refer to as bullshit glitches?

-DeathCom

 

True, VF is not "perfectly" balanced. I beg to differ though, that SC and VF share the same degree of balance.

BTW, refferring to FV, it's not a weapons based fighter. I was just reffering to FV as AM2's way of testing out new aspects of 3d fighting it's exploring for VF. Gameplaywise, and Graphicswise implementation. The way Picky uses the skateboard, it is used in combat, are you saying he does not use it as a weapon?

 

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Two equally good players, one uses Kage one uses Sarah. Though no "skill project" exists on VF, one can clearly see Kage with the advantage.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi...while this is not my *argument*...I felt there are some things that should be cleared up for the sake of everyone else.

In the scenario u mentioned above, it is WRONG to think that Kage is the one with the advantage. Despite appearance, Sarah is equally as strong as Kage, if not..she is stronger! She is ranked 2nd best in the game! While Kage is a mere 5th. (Info from a very respectable mook..however, it has been so long since vf4 came out..i believe everyone is at the stage where all fights are on even ground...rendering the tier list useless~) A good Sarah player can cause u absolute hell with her normal moves.

An excellent Sarah player will cause all sorts of havoc in ur head with her FL stance....without even needed to use her special High prioperties while in FL. Believe me when I say this, Ur pain against Sarah begins when the Sarah player matures away from using simple FL tactics.

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He has that slap punch move that goes through all high punches (no sabaki, just goes through it).

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes indeed...a high p will miss kage...so too will a high sweep! But doing that requires yomi on the kage player part...not a matter of the move being 'too good'.

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A excellent Sarah player will have to be extra cautious playing even a decent Kage

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know how u came to that conclusion...perphaps u would like to elaborate on it? Ur line makes Kage appear to be overly powerful when in fact, it's quite not. (n IMO, Sarah is the one that is overly powerful...but I have noticed ppl on this site has a tendency to think of the chicks as *weak* when mooks and clips have often proven otherwise...so *shrugs*)

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Again, Kage generally takes more time to learn than Sarah does

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Once again, I see a need to stress that ' so n so needs a longer time to learn, compared to so n so' is quite untrue.

Some ppl can pick Jacky and might learn how to do his moves, but never be able to use him correctly...others can pick up Kage n click with him instantly.

In all fighting games, there are characters that have commands that are much easier to do in comparison to others.

However, at the end of the day, regardless of whatever character the player is using, he/she shares the same problem of having the need correctly guess which lvl to attack, how to pressure and how to defend.

And the critical issue here is defend. By defend, I dun mean just pressing G or ETEG etc etc etc.

Being able to defend urself means knowing ur character so well that u know what is the best thing to do in every situation.

To get this level of intimacy with ur characters goes beyond the boundary of ' this character is easier to learn'.

I can do ETEG etc etc etc

Yet I cannot say I know how to defend myself at all with say, shun.~

 

Words of wisdom from Summah. /versus/images/icons/laugh.gif
As a Sarah player, I know that there are too many moves that can be used to deal with Kage. The example of Kage's df+P can easily be dealt with things like Sarah's knee or the dragoncannon. Both of these moves will net Sarah major damage. In the case of dragoncannon, if it MC's Kage's df+P, it's easily half life gone right there. Both a Kage and Sarah player have to be equally cautious, just like every other character in VF. /versus/images/icons/laugh.gif

 

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The way Picky uses the skateboard, it is used in combat, are you saying he does not use it as a weapon?

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Yes, the skateboard is a weapon. I was under the impression that if AM2 were to make a weapon fighter, you would be happy if they treated all weapons as such. Since FV is a hand to hand fighter, the skateboard is treated as an extension of Picky.

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Despite appearance, Sarah is equally as strong as Kage, if not..she is stronger! She is ranked 2nd best in the game! While Kage is a mere 5th.

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Interesting. Ive not seen Sarah winning many tournaments, always Akira, Kage, or Jacky. Its also interesting that I came off as the Kage player. Im actually the one using Sarah. I know about the mind games one can play while in FL. And its enough to keep decent Kage players at bay. But JChaung's Kage... FL mind games were nearly useless, he perfectly understood his options when Sarah is in FL. The catch throw is too slow, he would wait to look for f+K or catch throw, on K, flipkick, or K,K, he would get those quick punches in after. If I was stupid enough to use a third K in FL, he would know which way to sidestep it and punish big time. d+K in FL was also often too slow. Surprisingly f+K+G seemed to screw him up the most. But any attempt at backflip was usually met with throw counter or Kage's sidestep attack. FL df+P,K re-enter FL was often screwed by Kage's odd slap punch.

Anyway, Its very possible I just suck with Sarah. But my simple point is, VF4, like SC, has rankings, as you assist in demonstrating. However, I am glad to know the mook has Sarah in such high regard. (I always knew she was developer's favorite, well Yu Suzuki's fave, she couldnt very well be as bad off as the usual rankings point to)

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Yes indeed...a high p will miss kage...so too will a high sweep! But doing that requires yomi on the kage player part...not a matter of the move being 'too good'.

[/ QUOTE ]

Completely agreed there. FL attacks are often about yomi. You have to know before you attack if you intend to FL flipkick or K, or sabaki, if you do not put the moves in immediately, low punch will beat you (if they guess you not going to attack immediately). Im just saying that most of the concerns one may have about SC are as easily dismissed.

-DeathCom

 

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Interesting. Ive not seen Sarah winning many tournaments, always Akira, Kage, or Jacky. Its also interesting that I came off as the Kage player. Im actually the one using Sarah. I know about the mind games one can play while in FL. And its enough to keep decent Kage players at bay. But JChaung's Kage... FL mind games were nearly useless, he perfectly understood his options when Sarah is in FL. The catch throw is too slow, he would wait to look for f+K or catch throw, on K, flipkick, or K,K, he would get those quick punches in after. If I was stupid enough to use a third K in FL, he would know which way to sidestep it and punish big time. d+K in FL was also often too slow. Surprisingly f+K+G seemed to screw him up the most. But any attempt at backflip was usually met with throw counter or Kage's sidestep attack. FL df+P,K re-enter FL was often screwed by Kage's odd slap punch

[/ QUOTE ]

I did say that a Sarah player has to *mature* away from simple FL tactics to go beyond the next level..didn't I?

For what's it is worth...I do not agree that SC is glitches and etc etc etc

I found the game very fun~

And I feel maxi is very much like Jacky.

Often misunderstood as 'overpowered' and overly quick~