Blazblue (PS3/360)

[J0e Musashi]

So it's rather odd no? I was expecting 3 slashes and a kick or something along those lines, but it's not like that at all. Don't know if I can deal with that.
It seems to be "do as many specials as you can until you can do your super" no? Lol. I can't find a Jumping Kick>Crouching Kick>Hadouken combo equivalent anyway.

I've started out using Jin, and I've won 2 out of my 3 online matches. Pretty good.

Dunno if it's really my cup of tea yet (I can use screen setting A on my panel though with minimal adjustment, which is nice), but I do like it, I think. Remote play rocks anyway, I can build up my profile at work
I'll give it a week until KOF comes out and see if I can't get on with it some more.

[saturn-gamer]

Its rather like: Light, Medium, Heavy, Drive. 4 button setup.

Basically those first 3 buttons alter specials just like in SF, from weak to strong. Drive is some sort of unique attack that differs per fighter greatly. The game is very versatile and no character even remotely controls like the other. 12 chars, but it still somehow feels like more than SFIV has to offer (which, online ranked, mostly comes down to shoto play).

Its best checking out the tutorial disc, I find it to be extremely helpful.

[J0e Musashi]

Basically those first 3 buttons alter specials just like in SF, from weak to strong.

This is my problem though. Each of the main 3 buttons seems to do a different attack. It's not as though there are 3 levels of any one standard move (jumping kick for example) like with SF or KOF or indeed any other fighter I've ever played. It's mighty confusing, and I imagine will take some getting used to.
It feels very manic at the moment and I don't feel 100% in control like I do in SF/KOF etc.

I don't have the tutorial disc either. I purchased the standard JPN version of the game.

[hudson]

Tatsunoko Vs Capcom has a similar system. 3 buttons: Weak, medium and strong attacks.

[fuse]

Spent a bit more time with this over the last few days, and still really enjoying it. Whilst I'm probably still a little more dangerous with Jin, I'm glad to say I'm moving away from him and getting a pretty good grip on Tager. Only thing that I'm struggling with currently is that whatever kind of lag-compensation doohickeys they're using seems to mess with my inputs and make 720s a real hit-and-miss process. Offline I've no troubles at all (and I also play a pretty solid Hugo / Zangief ;p) so I'm fairly sure it's not all in my mind either.

I've been weighing this up against Guilty Gear too, but after refreshing my mind and playing some Accent Core at Insert Coin I'm not sure which I prefer. BB seems a lot more 'controlled' and tame in the character design stakes, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but there are still some bits I miss from GG. Will be interested to see if they start churning out new revisions and how they will handle them from a CS perspective.

Oh, and I still haven't done Score Attack. Tried again last night and the closest I got was having Ultimate Ragna down to a smidgen of health in the 3rd round. Balls.

Has anyone bought the extra character colours DLC? Or have a link showing what it contains?

[briareos_kerensky]

Only thing that I'm struggling with currently is that whatever kind of lag-compensation doohickeys they're using seems to mess with my inputs and make 720s a real hit-and-miss process.

Has anyone bought the extra character colours DLC? Or have a link showing what it contains?

No, probably never will as I only play with characters' standard colors.

[mugetsu]

i really need to get into this and give it some serious play, ive had it for a month now and only played 5 minutes worth due to playing demon's souls non stop ><

[briareos_kerensky]

Only thing that I'm struggling with currently is that whatever kind of lag-compensation doohickeys they're using seems to mess with my inputs and make 720s a real hit-and-miss process.

Probably the game "simply" slows down to the worst ping players (I hope not spectators) have until it reaches a minimum and then it begins to lag and re-synchronization is done on the fly (or the connection is lost).

Has anyone bought the extra character colours DLC? Or have a link showing what it contains?

No, never will as I only play with characters' standard colors.

[KusoGaki]

Has anyone bought the extra character colours DLC? Or have a link showing what it contains?

There was a website showing the dlc colours but i can't remember where i saw it.
Found this on youtube though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjzT7f4Ipg

[briareos_kerensky]

Rachel with Hatsune Miku's colors is rather LOLicious, but the rest is kinda ugly.

[Darwock]

Oh, and I still haven't done Score Attack. Tried again last night and the closest I got was having Ultimate Ragna down to a smidgen of health in the 3rd round. Balls.

What's the secret mate? I can't even beat him in a single round ><

Funnily enough I waltzed through the other 3 unlimited characters and was expecting Ragna to be just marginally more difficult, but it's a f**king joke.. really. He gains heat almost constantly and will do distortion drives relentlessly, timing his 'carnage scissors' perfectly to counter my moves - if he uses 'devoured by darkness' it's game over as it empties my health bar and fills his one back up to maximum.

I thought I'd found a method when I was able to keep him magnetized as I could spam my crouching drive attack and most of the time it would connect thanks to the draw-in effect, trouble was that the one time it doesn't connect he just immediately kills me. I even caught him in the Emerald Tager Buster, that would finish off most characters but here it only took him down to like, 60% (which he immediately regained of course).

I was using the cheat as well, challenging with the 2P controller to give myself an artificial continue, but after 2 hours of trying with no success I slipped up and let him finish me with a DD before I could press start.

I've read advice that says to use Jin but I'd be worried about beating all the other characters on the way, I kind of rely on knowing how to play Tager. He seems utterly useless against Ragna though.

[fuse]

That doesn't fill me with much confidence - I've been using Jin on my attempts and was planning on trying out Tager next... Agree that up until that point it's fairly straightforward, what a difficulty hike on Ragna though!

Couple of universal things that I've picked up on, is that although he's relentless on attack a lot of the time, if you attack him on wakeup there's a fairly good chance he'll try and attack too and you will counter him if you've timed it right. With Jin I hit confirm with B, C, and if he's not blocked I can then follow it up with QCB+B which then knocks him down and I do the same again. If he blocks, I backdash to safety. If you're really close on wakeup it's often a good time to attempt a throw too - with Jin you can chain this into his HCB,F+D, then a jumping QCB+B, often landing you next to each other again for another throw. With Tager you can follow up a back throw with F,D,DF+C, F+C, D (my staple Tager combo) for some meaty damage also.

In general whenever he gets to 50 on the distortion bar, it's best to stay away and try and get him to use the slashy one - as long as you block the first hit you're nearly always in range to hit before the second hit comes. "Devoured by Darkness" is pretty much game over whenever it hits, but it's quite easy to spot and you can often escape it with a barrier burst.

Jin's not too difficult to pick up, I'd recommend giving him a shot even if Tager is still your main man when playing sensible matchups - sadly though I don't think it's just Tager that's useless against U.Ragna

[Darwock]

What usually happened is I would start the round by poking with neutral A, 75&#37; of the time this beats his initial rush, I would then either chain through B, C & D attacks just to get him magnetised or I would try for a grab and go into the combo you described. If he counters the grab (and he usually does) he would tend to go straight into hell fang and it's follow up. The start of the match is the ONLY time I could get the initiative, after that I was totally on the defensive. Using sledge hammer to try and rush in is instant fail, he will get you on start up every single time.

The crap thing about having to go on the defensive is that despite blocking and countering his hell fang with 2D fairly easily, he tends to repeat the process, and even though I am punishing him for the attacks I end up getting barrier crushed in no time at all.

[fuse]

Ugh, sounds hellish. On top of the barrier crushes, negative warnings are a nightmare and makes a long-distance strategy a lot less tempting. Just as you've said, his initial rushdown is a good chance for a counter; with Jin, F,D,DF+C is a great opening move that hits most times and buys you some space.

Going to be so glad when I scrape a lucky win and I've got this mode out of the way...

[briareos_kerensky]

A question for anyone who plays ranked matches...which characters do you face the most and which you don't?
Tonight I was finally able to play against an other Nu players (level 20 or so so I got trashed), but that was the first ever since I started playing...I encountered one before that but he used Noel and I was a bit disappointed. I'm sticking to my tactics and try to adapt on the fly against the player/character I'm facing, but since I haven't found anyone willing to share replays, I want to see how the 1500+ players better than me play, but I regularly get to play against Ragna, Jin and Noel. Characters I thought would be popular, like Taokaka, are noticeably absent from my matches; even characters someone here like to use (Tager) are a novelty to face...probably during the European evening you don't get to face Japanese players or the vast majority of US players, but I'm really surprised not seeing certain characters more frequently.
What's your experience in the matter?
BTW, has anyone ever faced Carl in ranked matches?