Ultra Street Fighter IV

[mayor_mike_haggar]

What the utter fuck is the voice actor doing. It is the most wildly mid-90s wacky anime cartoon sidekick character voice ever recorded.

[joffocakes]

We're playing Hidden In Plain Sight too though, right?

[Qazimod]

Ah, I didn't know P4A was dated. My love for fighting mans is only matched by my love for Haribo. Er, I mean Persona games.

[imp]

What the utter fuck is the voice actor doing. It is the most wildly mid-90s wacky anime cartoon sidekick character voice ever recorded.

To be fair the character is this guy:

And don't worry, I will ensure all voices are in Japanese for maximum weaboo pleasure.

[Nate Dogg III]

I am seeing that game in an hour, as luck would have it.

Oh and yes, Hidden In Plain Sight is essential. Cale and I and a couple of other non-plasma-flinging chums tried it out for the first time the other night and it's quite, quite excellent.

[imp]

Nate, do you have some kind of embargo? If not, you should totally stream your first play for us.

[joffocakes]

I'm so unweaboo I haven't played a Persona game and I don't even know what weaboo means. I have played Shin Megami Tensei though; is that related? For some reason my mind thinks it is.

It does look nice though, the fighting game. I'll buy it and not play it much. Also, I'm still in a huff about buying Continuum Shift from Games on Demand when the new one renders it obselete.

[Nate Dogg III]

I barely ever have a 3G signal in work, himpster, so no dice. I've played about two hours of Persona 3, I think, and that's the sum total of my knowledge of the series.

[Qazimod]

Persona 4 is one of my favouritest games of all time. However, beat 'em ups are one of my most-loved genres.

In theory, Arena could be the best game ever made.

[Camel]

I thought Hidden In Plain Sight was going to be the main event?

Nate, damn you and your cushy getting to play games early job.

Persona 4 is high up on my list of best games ever and I don't really do RPGs.

[imp]

Yeah, they inhabit something of a similar universe. I think they've dropped it now, but IIRC the series used to be called Shin Megami Tensei: Persona. There's still dungeon crawling, tarot-related monsters, that complex monster fusion system and knock-down-enemies-to-gain-turns style combat, but there's also the high school social element (including dating omg), breezier vibe, and nutso j-rock soundtrack. And a bit less killing God and replacing him with yourself as the head of a new world rebuilt in your image, etc.

I barely ever have a 3G signal in work, himpster, so no dice. I've played about two hours of Persona 3, I think, and that's the sum total of my knowledge of the series.

You can't hijack the office Wi-fi? HMMMM?

[Qazimod]

The SMT games are interrelated in the same way that all the Final Fantasy games are interrelated - i.e. hardly at all, apart from a few spell names and common themes (negotiations and demons in the case of SMT)

Okay, I might have made some of that up.

[joffocakes]

Talking of game series' being related to each other; is Valkyrie Profile related to Valkyria Chronicles? swsavage, who is a man from this forum I once worked with, installed Valkyrie Profile on my laptop with a PS1 emulator and it was pretty excellent. The lassie kept on saying "Come to my side my noble Einherjar!" and the whole thing took place inside some Manowar lyrics.

How should I go about playing that again? Just buy (emulate) it again and play the PSone version? Or was there a more modern iteration I should go for?

I'll maybe try play Persona 4. I am very worried however that it might be the kind of game I'm horribly embarrassed by. I was raised by nuns, y'see.

[imp]

There was a good PSP port, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth. Stay away from the terrible PS2 sequel "Silmeria". Awful game. Feh.

Nothing to do with the Valkyria Chronicles series though, no.

[JLM]

Yes, HIPS to be the main event at Heggfest for sure. Or at least a great way to decide who gets out of groups if we oranise ourselves into a corner again.

I'm going to be playing a lot of Persona 4 Arena; My real life fighting games buddy is predominantly my Guilty Gear buddy, and he's s huge fan of the Persona games. He almost exploded when it was announced.

In entirely related news, the new series of Futurama premiered yesterday. I am hype.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

Joffo this is the definition of weeaboo:

[Qazimod]

Curtis' mindblowing Gouken tech in action. I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EM6v9P79jg

[mayor_mike_haggar]

The key to beating curtis' gouken is simply out-laming him.

[JLM]

Here's that pilot episode of Gamer I was on about from the CEO stream:

08:50 is my favourite part by some distance.

[Curtis]

Curtis' mindblowing Gouken tech in action. I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time.

At least i learnt that Super does not interupt like the Ultra does.

Moar games this evening?

[mayor_mike_haggar]

Quazi I order you to start focus absorbing fireballs at once. Also juri can surely almost go toe to toe with gouken in a fireball war, just neutralise his fireballs with her kick and then shoot stored low ones at his withered and gnarled feet.

Or SOMETHING I don't know.

[Qazimod]

Quazi I order you to start focus absorbing fireballs at once. Also juri can surely almost go toe to toe with gouken in a fireball war, just neutralise his fireballs with her kick and then shoot stored low ones at his withered and gnarled feet.

Or SOMETHING I don't know.

Like I said, I don't know what I was thinking at the time. I guess I thought that I could beat his fireball recovery or something? Under normal circumstances I'd just get in with the forward Kasatushi. Or just use the backward Kasatushi all day and see who got bored first.

E: and yes I'll probably be on this evening for more punishment

[mayor_mike_haggar]

I will also be on around my usual late time of 10.30-11, I suspect. I'll be dourly running nothing but balrog in his nice pink suit.

[ah]

08:50 is my favourite part by some distance.

I knew before checking that it was going to be that bit! Excellent.

[Nate Dogg III]

I'll be on for a bit, I think. Earlier than usual though, I have an early start tomorrow.

So, Persona. It's Blazblue with bells on really, and a bit of a headfuck, but it looks delightful and was quite easy to pick up and play.

It's four buttons, ABCD, but is different to BB. A and B are light and heavy 'character' attacks, C and D summon your Persona. These are blockable and hugely punishable - if your Persona takes four hits it's out of the match until a meter recharges.

I spent most of the time just doing ABC chains into QCF specials with a super cancel, but there's more to it than that of course (and less - you can do AAAA for a multi-hit chain that is way more than just light attacks). There's a flurry mode, activated with two buttons, and if it hits you mash A and try to get to 15 hits, at which point you can do a one button launcher or something else I can't remember.

It's got Blazblue's burst, but as well as a combo breaker it blows up blockstun and can be used FADC-style in combos. It recharges, too, unlike BB's.

There are no tricky inputs, no 360s, half-circles or even DPs. Just quarter-circles and charge moves. Apparently the tutorial is much quicker, and kinder, than in BB. Story mode sounds great for once - 1.5 to 2 hours for each of the 13 characters. It's Atlus' biggest-ever job in terms of dialogue.

It's probably the best-looking fighting game I've ever seen.

Oh! Super meter is four stocks, but when you have less than 30% life it extends to six and gives you two free stocks, as well as a damage boost. That's quite cool.

That's about it, really. if you read this post you have to buy Edge 244.

[Qazimod]

Nice P4 impressions I saw a tutorial video of some sort a while ago and it looked straightforward enough, although trying to remember everything in the middle of a battle could take a while...

Any idea about the netcode?

[JLM]

Haha, yes, he is the best. Also I like the comment on Eventhubs saying that Triforce has "confirmed" that the documentary is all staged. People still don't seem to realise that Triforce is not the most credible source on matters pertaining to Triforce.

Additional also, I beat BilledPlatypus' 10,000BP/3,000PP Gouken with Chun just now. I give a lot of the credit to Imp for helping me shake of the rust. Ryu, Sim and Gief were alway my three favourite opponents with Chun, and those games against Ryu reminded me how to play her again. I'm always hesitant to pick ultra 1 against Gouken because the timing is different against his fireballs. His whole fireball animation is about the same as the other shotos, but the fireball is released much later into it, so if you activate when the fireball is already travelling then he often recovers in time. However, I felt good about it after playing Ryu a bunch of times and went with it and I ended up taking the match with a fireball punish. I'm also blocking a lot more as a result of those games, and also from playing as Guy who has a similarly all or nothing reversal. In the last round he had me cornered and did this long flurry of fireballs into frame traps and I just sat there and blocked. I didn't jump back, back dash or do a stupid reversal, I just blocked. It takes a whole lot of willpower for me to do that.

I then saw a gap and wall jumped out and backed off to just under maximum Hosenka range, whiffing all the big elaborate looking normals possible to disguise my charge. At that point I just mentally counted beats in my head until that moment where everyone wants to throw a fireball. He cracked, I suspected he'd crack at that moment and I activated as soon as the blue had left his hands. I imagine he was quite upset at himself. Don't test the JL-eye, as Imp would say.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

Oh, did he do that endless cl.mkxfireball corner wildness that gouken can do? Man, I hate getting caught by that when you're a character with a shitty reversal. It's horror.

[imp]

Nice P4 impressions I saw a tutorial video of some sort a while ago and it looked straightforward enough, although trying to remember everything in the middle of a battle could take a while...

Any idea about the netcode?

It's aksys, so I amigine it'll be immaculate.

[JLM]

Ggs Hegg.

It took me about five games to adjust to the fact that you play Bison like an absolute lunatic, so I was walking into ultras and eating every EX move you decided to throw out. I wish I was good at auto correct ultra 1 to punish blocked EX psycho crusher but I've never had the timing for it. Must work on that before I play you again.