Nothing better than a rainy day to have the right excuse to spend a day visiting arcades; I was searching for Continuum Shift, which I found and played plenty; what I didn't found was some opposition as everyone was unwilling to play against a Lambda user.
To tell the truth there weren't many players around and everyone wanted to mind his own business, I was wondering how all characters have been changed and how the two new characters, Hazama and Tsubaki play, so it was for the better.
Off with Tsubaki, a good all-around fighter with a lot multiple-hit normal and special attacks. She's fast and good defense and she hits moderately heavy. By pressing the drive button (D) she charges up a gauge which is used during one of her distortion drives to power up moves. her second distortion drive is short range, limited to the horizontal axis. Most of her basic moves have a good range and she is a good character to play with, maybe a bit slow in recovering all her moves.
Hazama...oh, I like him. With D he launches a snake-like chain (Ouroboros) that can be used for a quick attack or to move across the screen. Hazama, like Haku-men, can only do a small sprint forward and he cannot even dash in mid-air, so using his drive to get out the way of special moves or getting near an opponent is very important. His forward strong (C) attack is a three-hit blow with some range that makes him jump back, exactly in range for two of his special moves. His first distortion drive is ground based and has a good minimum range, but it's the most damaging and good to see; the second drive is short-range and can be used an anti-air; not particularly powerful but fast to pull and he does it with minimum delay.
All other characters have been rebalanced, someone got new moves and someone else got them remapped.
Noel saw her Fenrir distortion drive remapped to hcff (instead of qcfqcf) and Rachel calls her thunders with a qcb instead of dd; both work in the same way as before but the Fenrir is faster to pull, still undecided on Rachel...sometimes it's better, sometimes it's not.
Continuing with Rachel, her frog George XIII cannot be spammed anymore: after disappearing you have to wait a gauge to empty before summoning him again; she has a new drive where he calls giant bats, cows and a royal frog for a hilarious multiple-hit attack which probably can be aimed a bit, I saw the CPU using it with a arched trajectory while the standard move pulls out a simple horizontal streak.
Noel is mostly unchanged, she no longer leaves a green shadow behind while in drive mode but a black shadow like Ragna during one of his drives. Her speed during the drive is a bit slower and it's easier to pull out moves but it's probably a bit more damaging than before.
Ragna is basically unchaged, Jin is slower to pull off his ice projectiles and they also have a slower acceleration and a couple of frames more when using his standard drive, where he glows bright blue; maybe a bit less HP or less defenses.
Taokaka got a new air special attack but she's essentially unchaged. Tager too, maybe he does less damage with his throws and distortion drives; magnetic pull is probably a bit stronger, which can also works against Tager, as targets can get away if timing is wrong by few frames.
Haven't played with Carl, Bang a Litchi, but she apparently got a new air combo from her bo.
Haku-men saw all his drives reduced in damage, got a new sword stab (b+C) and the stomping kick (f+B) now hits twice and has a longer range. He's much funnier to play than before, you don't have to rely on short/air sprints or magatama-consuming special moves to get near the opponent.
Arakune keeps his standard moveset but how he curses is completely different: before cursing, he has to hit enemies with one of his standard drives until a gauge is full: once full, what was a cursing move before actually curses the opponent and the curse cvannot be broken until the gauge is empty; the drain speed is not that fast so there's plenty of time to spam insects like before. Insect while cursed are a tad slower and a tad bigger.
Nu is now Lambda, she's struck into armor form (sigh) and saw most of her D-related moves changed. Swords summoned by pressing D appear much farther away and the second sword is slower to hit. qcf+D can still be linked to the basic four sword combo but now the scythe appears at roughly the same distance as the swords, does not travel forward or backward if not for few pixels but allocates four hits - do it close and you're open to retaliation; recovery and launch timing are slower too, so it's better to base fast strikes on the new qcf A/B/C moves, which are more dangerous as Lambda throws herself toward the enemy, but she goes a good distance and it's very fast; the B and C variant make the enemy fly away which can be exploited for her gravitational pit, now with a stronger and wider attraction area but can be used only when a new gauge is full. Other combos are essentially unchanged as long as they don't use swords really close. Her close-range distortion drive (hcff+D) has now a shorter range and the sword appears slightly smaller than before.
She also the only returning character with her basic color scheme changed...well, her personality too...somewhat.
The arcade mode is the standard 12 character gauntlet where in the end you meet
Noel/Mu-12 that the home users will see and probably be able to use.
When you beat Ragna with Lamba,
All previous stages have been updated as well as the HUD. The system is essentially the same, but it underwent some changes. Barrier Bursts no longer lower defenses of the triggering player and an extra Burst per round is "awarded" to the loser; this new BB can be used to knock enemies down as it is invincible. The Guard Libra is gone, now replaced with bullet-like counters, depleted when the defending character uses his/her perfect guard. Those counters recharge over time.
Hopefully I'll find some opposition in the following days as beating the CPU around stopped being fun long time ago.
To tell the truth there weren't many players around and everyone wanted to mind his own business, I was wondering how all characters have been changed and how the two new characters, Hazama and Tsubaki play, so it was for the better.
Off with Tsubaki, a good all-around fighter with a lot multiple-hit normal and special attacks. She's fast and good defense and she hits moderately heavy. By pressing the drive button (D) she charges up a gauge which is used during one of her distortion drives to power up moves. her second distortion drive is short range, limited to the horizontal axis. Most of her basic moves have a good range and she is a good character to play with, maybe a bit slow in recovering all her moves.
Hazama...oh, I like him. With D he launches a snake-like chain (Ouroboros) that can be used for a quick attack or to move across the screen. Hazama, like Haku-men, can only do a small sprint forward and he cannot even dash in mid-air, so using his drive to get out the way of special moves or getting near an opponent is very important. His forward strong (C) attack is a three-hit blow with some range that makes him jump back, exactly in range for two of his special moves. His first distortion drive is ground based and has a good minimum range, but it's the most damaging and good to see; the second drive is short-range and can be used an anti-air; not particularly powerful but fast to pull and he does it with minimum delay.
All other characters have been rebalanced, someone got new moves and someone else got them remapped.
Noel saw her Fenrir distortion drive remapped to hcff (instead of qcfqcf) and Rachel calls her thunders with a qcb instead of dd; both work in the same way as before but the Fenrir is faster to pull, still undecided on Rachel...sometimes it's better, sometimes it's not.
Continuing with Rachel, her frog George XIII cannot be spammed anymore: after disappearing you have to wait a gauge to empty before summoning him again; she has a new drive where he calls giant bats, cows and a royal frog for a hilarious multiple-hit attack which probably can be aimed a bit, I saw the CPU using it with a arched trajectory while the standard move pulls out a simple horizontal streak.
Noel is mostly unchanged, she no longer leaves a green shadow behind while in drive mode but a black shadow like Ragna during one of his drives. Her speed during the drive is a bit slower and it's easier to pull out moves but it's probably a bit more damaging than before.
Ragna is basically unchaged, Jin is slower to pull off his ice projectiles and they also have a slower acceleration and a couple of frames more when using his standard drive, where he glows bright blue; maybe a bit less HP or less defenses.
Taokaka got a new air special attack but she's essentially unchaged. Tager too, maybe he does less damage with his throws and distortion drives; magnetic pull is probably a bit stronger, which can also works against Tager, as targets can get away if timing is wrong by few frames.
Haven't played with Carl, Bang a Litchi, but she apparently got a new air combo from her bo.
Haku-men saw all his drives reduced in damage, got a new sword stab (b+C) and the stomping kick (f+B) now hits twice and has a longer range. He's much funnier to play than before, you don't have to rely on short/air sprints or magatama-consuming special moves to get near the opponent.
Arakune keeps his standard moveset but how he curses is completely different: before cursing, he has to hit enemies with one of his standard drives until a gauge is full: once full, what was a cursing move before actually curses the opponent and the curse cvannot be broken until the gauge is empty; the drain speed is not that fast so there's plenty of time to spam insects like before. Insect while cursed are a tad slower and a tad bigger.
Nu is now Lambda, she's struck into armor form (sigh) and saw most of her D-related moves changed. Swords summoned by pressing D appear much farther away and the second sword is slower to hit. qcf+D can still be linked to the basic four sword combo but now the scythe appears at roughly the same distance as the swords, does not travel forward or backward if not for few pixels but allocates four hits - do it close and you're open to retaliation; recovery and launch timing are slower too, so it's better to base fast strikes on the new qcf A/B/C moves, which are more dangerous as Lambda throws herself toward the enemy, but she goes a good distance and it's very fast; the B and C variant make the enemy fly away which can be exploited for her gravitational pit, now with a stronger and wider attraction area but can be used only when a new gauge is full. Other combos are essentially unchanged as long as they don't use swords really close. Her close-range distortion drive (hcff+D) has now a shorter range and the sword appears slightly smaller than before.
She also the only returning character with her basic color scheme changed...well, her personality too...somewhat.
The arcade mode is the standard 12 character gauntlet where in the end you meet
Noel/Mu-12 that the home users will see and probably be able to use.
When you beat Ragna with Lamba,
All previous stages have been updated as well as the HUD. The system is essentially the same, but it underwent some changes. Barrier Bursts no longer lower defenses of the triggering player and an extra Burst per round is "awarded" to the loser; this new BB can be used to knock enemies down as it is invincible. The Guard Libra is gone, now replaced with bullet-like counters, depleted when the defending character uses his/her perfect guard. Those counters recharge over time.
Hopefully I'll find some opposition in the following days as beating the CPU around stopped being fun long time ago.
. If only arcades were no-smoking places...
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