Escape

I've a bunch of stuff waiting for an eBay listing offer, so yes! I said Crown parts but remembered they're Seimitsu buttons. The stick's the Helpme version of the Crown 309.

It's definitely my preference, but I'd rather they achieved it through buffed movesets with less reliance on meter. I think enjoyment of this leans heavily on how much you enjoy its layering of competing systems atop old-school play. Tekken's going the same way in 8, adding systems that'll take precedence over the skills it took me years to build in previous versions. Things move on and I don't wanna be Turbo Dad, but is Viper's offensive freestyling too unpopular to ever return... (I'd be interested to know how many of her cancels eluded playtesters.) JP's currently a freestyle zoner TBF, so credit there. Sako's got a handle on his Ivy strats. It's probably my favourite dpad available, with membranes that click like switches, I only wish they sold them in a fightpad because of their awkward position. I feel that's the main reason they sometimes skip diagonals on fast inputs for me.

QCF+P~K is -5 on block but appears to be safe at max range. Go into training and see what can punish it. Her QC kicks are all punishable.

Are you pressing lights too rapidly and then trying to cancel into specials? Because you lose the ability to cancel if you mash — you have to input each new move toward the end of the previous. Those players sussed you were inexperienced and surged in confidence (your honourable conduct after throws is a giveaway — pressure!), but like a seesaw they'll come down as you go up. You'll notice significant changes with moderate improvement your end. Showing a couple of good reads is often all it takes to dramatically close an apparent mismatch, it just takes a lot of time to learn enough about the movesets and matchups of each game to spare the capacity for the psychology beyond them. I typically spend a few days in training with new FGs, then an evening against a mate, more training based on what happened, and then finally the same approach in ranked. I'd played Tekken for over 20 years when 7 arrived, and for all that was crushed by my first high-level Gigas — a lowtier character! So I spent my last couple of rounds just blocking as best I could to have a look at him, then recorded those moves to practise against.

Bit of a boring roster, though.

If Korean backdash had no range in Tekken it'd be useless, but that's because mids are frequently used and they hit crouchers. For example, if you KBD close to your opponent you're still in range when it ends, and if they throw out a mid or low at the same time then it's 50:50 whether it lands on the frame you're vulnerable. But although Dee Jay's inviting lows for the same reason, his might have some utility on account of overheads being rarely used. [Also I can do it on my modified stick, but I've found the really short throw I like for 3D fighters pretty terrible for 2D, so I'm thinking about building another] No! He is harder to learn than most characters, but not much harder to actually control, and unless he's toptier this time you'll get the boost of knowing him better than most players.

It's on my Bad Mechanic list for being unsatisfying to land, where I almost feel unsporting for trying to maximise damage. The Peter Manley of specials. From the beta I'd say Benny and Cat are with Frodafone.

No worries — you can't like yourself.

I loved Uncharted 2's multiplayer, but the more they added to it in sequels the less I enjoyed it, and I'd much rather pay for Factions 2 to keep it old-school simple.

Leaving parry and the other systems alone for a minute, I played SF4 to check if I'd totally lost my execution after struggling so hard with the beta, and while my Viper was nothing like of old, I immediately found her easier to control. Two theories: SF4 has much simpler animation, where lots of moves end quite abruptly with a gap before the next, and these comparatively staccato transitions might help me. SF6 flows a lot more. And of course the other thing is how input leniency works. I have read reports of dropped inputs with certain pads, but input lag's not too bad according to Noodalls. I'm guessing it's mostly the animation throwing me off (as if I'm trying out MK!), where even stuff like jumps into hurricanes can seem fussy. To circle back to your comment... I definitely feel I've less time to react in this, where using Ryu I'll often talk myself out of a fireball I'd absolutely commit to in 4, because I'm not confident I can DP on reaction when I know my spacing's good for one. Has the max gap between characters been reduced BTW? I see more of the game than I can play right now, with lots of fluffed inputs at my usual speed. Yep, for me it's not a case of too good but too much. It's nothing special if you're looking for it (hence advocates saying you can beat it with x, y, z), but I'd rather reclaim that mental meter to fully enjoy everything else. Drive rush on the other hand I love, as someone who always felt FADC should've taken one bar.

I feel like ND could've launched Factions 2 a couple of years ago as a slightly upgraded F1. But it seems they had bigger ambitions and the wave of anticipation that supported them has subsided. Although I think they'd still please some of their fans if they just put out what they've got, instead of promising a better mode that never happens. Perhaps they planned to turn it into a paid game after announcing it as a free standalone?

Same result, and as another ex-Viper I also feel Juri's probably the closest to my style, but my hands were too clumsy to click with her in the beta. Could all change when I get into training, because she has the quick freestyle nature I like. I'm still most interested in Purple Aki at the minute.

“faeget” Q, glorious Q, hot Sagat and Masters. [Fagin... Oliver... y'know. Consider yourself our Nate, we don't want to have Rufus]

Yes! Although I've got this in my head now:

Amazon have Xbox and PS preorders for £46. Nip throw into critical bark.

My main takeaway from the beta is a wish to make DI once per round. Now that we're finally rid of stubby normals I lack faith in classic medium footsie combos. Like if I use meter to make Ryu's cr.MK xx fireball safe it's annoying to burn it for nothing. I lost to a pretty good Ken who used meaty jabs to lock down my wakeup game. I'd hope I had better options than blocking into his tick mixups, but that stopped me using DI and mashing jab lost. I held down parry against his final attack which left me neutral at cost. Until I learn lots more and practise my execution I'm too passive, and that definitely makes it feel like a pressure-heavy game. I think I'll always be down on this implementation of DI, but let's give it time. I should be on wired fibre this time next month, so hopefully enjoying pings well below my usual 100+.

Anyone around for an hour?

While Guile looks like he's shit himself when he walks forward, which is appropriate I guess. Some people think he's the best beta character, and it's a bit interesting to consider why if he is. Like maybe his defensive play makes it harder to DI him, versus characters who need to use more buttons. But that's all up in the air, and we'll see where DI lands. (In the bin!)

I'm a huge advocate of not keeping score in casuals (this does), as well as the coop team battles we haven't seen in a decade. I played better with my DS because I'm too slow to attempt a lot of stuff on it, compared to loads of fluffed last-minute inputs on stick because I'm physically faster. I just need more time. I'll buy this at launch but wait until I've fibre at the end of the month. I'm quite close to our cab on FTTC but our underground copper's ancient. I relied heavily on throw abuse tonight and couldn't tell how much lag was helping? On my side I found it really hard to gauge walking distance between fireball blocks, invariably eating one. Lying Cat has a habit of empty drive rush into throw and I didn't even go for the tech most of the time — it was already too late! Are command lists viewable without committing to matches? My highlight was throwing out Guile's AA super at fullscreen. I did suddenly keep Benny honest when I found Juri's cr.HP AA. 🤸‍♀️

Bloody Luke again! It's so unintuitive.

Just moved aside for Lyrical. I've dug out an old adaptor for my stick but forgot how to reconnect after the timeout, and the heavy buttons are mapped wrong! Spent a whole round trying to find Jamie's drink input, but I guess it's conditional? Then I picked Luke by mistake because he's default, the idiot.

51 is it? I'm Futurscape.

I'm struggling with the DualSense enough to get trounced by anyone with a clue, but just won my first couple against absolute beginners. I wonder if modern players might start feeling classic has an advantage and become disheartened, when experience is the difference for now.

I hope we find out one day if that's down to strong DualSense encryption (which you can padhack for digital inputs without any conversion), or if everyone's afraid of being Lik Sanged. The older the PS5 becomes the less chance of that happening. Maybe.

I enjoyed RoboCod more than the Marios as a kid, and there's no doubt it's worse if you limit the comparison to controls.