Ok, so SFxT has been around for a decent amount of time, so now I think its a decent time to make a review for it. 

The game had some mixed opinions during its initial release. Some were excited since the game looked pretty good and featured some chain attacks and such, while others where fed up with what looked to be a pay-to-win ploy. Over the course of months, the game seems to have even less of a following, even though the game itself has a quite diverse system direction. Why use the abundance of options when a few of them are simply better?

Let’s talk about the most controversial part of the game to date. Gems. These might not have been a problem if they were all included in the game, but the preorder gems and the like really gave this game enemies. Players that are worth their salt tend to dislike having to shell out more cash to win, which with auto-block and stamina gems, seems to be the direction of the game. These give unfair advantages to players, since they dont have to guess the High-Low game, or deal with crossups. And even if they are mashing with say, Akuma, they still have enough health to deal with that as well. Easier inputs? Sure, I understand that, but a complete easy mode, no guessing is ridiculous. Easy to see how most people have lost interest in this game.

As far as the non-gem problems with the game, its mostly (in my opinion) based on the games tag functions. One character death equates to a loss, which is a big deal in this game. Players are very concerned with winning, which involves keeping both characters alive, which, in turn, takes time. This is why many time outs occur, since you cannot sacrifice your point character to gain an edge with your other character. Then there’s the complaining about jabs. Personally, I like the jabs in this game, theres so much advantage on block, and it lets you do whatever you want. I think there should be a better answer for the jabs as opposed to nerfing the jabs altogether. 

Lastly, we have the DLC characters. There’s been quite a bit of discussion involving these characters, since they were discovered very early. People dont like paying for things that are already on the disc, and it seems like Sony paid Capcom off to have system exclusives for the Vita. While the companies haven’t validated this, it has disappointed many potential buyers, since they like buying “complete” games. I personally, see no difference between this and SF4/UMVC3′s costume DLC. Both were on disc, and complete (for the most part) and UMVC3 even lost the Magneto costume, which is now “locked forever”. It’s really nothing new, I don’t agree with it, but people tend to make a bigger fuss than what is necessary.

So basically, things aren’t looking that good for this game. I’m already playing it a lot less than other games, and I am very much looking forward to Tekken Tag 2 and Persona 4 Arena over the DLC characters for this game. Granted the game is fun to play occasionally, it needs a few things to become a gem in my collection.

So, those of us who follow the high level play of the Fighting Game Community (FGC), may or may not be aware of some of the problems with it. First off, we have become a very whiny community. “Sentinel is cheap. I cant win against this character, he needs a nerf!!!”. That was essentially what week one of Marvel vs Capcom 3′s release consisted of. Eventually Capcom nerfed his health and other things, and now we have the current Sentinel, which isn’t very useful in matches in comparison to other characters. It’s not only limited to this game, since it has also traveled to Street Fighter X Tekken and Skullgirls as well. Both are good games in their own rights, but people tend to find small reasons to not like these games and they choose not to play them.

Let’s start of with the dreaded Street Fighter X Tekken. This game has pretty good system mechanics and isn’t nearly as bad as the bulk of the community would have you believe. Sure DLC is on disc, gems are truly outrageous, and time-outs are everywhere, but the game altogether is pretty smooth. I feel its better than the Street Fighter 4 series. Most of the hate for this game stems from Capcom adding Gems to the game, and people seemed to misunderstand the real problem with them, initially being that you have to pay for them, and the “easy mode” gems. Characters on disc seem to be a product of Sony, in my opinion, at least from what I’ve heard about the coding used to lock them. I haven’t seen that many time-outs that don’t involve Raven, so I’m not sure what to say about that.

Now Skullgirls on the other hand, can basically do no wrong according to most people I’ve talked to. I personally think its a really good game, but need some things (Characters, movelist, that’s basically it). The infinite detection system also adds a lot of depth to the game as well. I personally love loops of all sorts, but they tend to annoy some people and this keeps combos having a less stupid look to them. Now despite all the good I’ve heard though, I also hear that not many people are playing. I think this is because there isn’t much access to higher level play of the game, since most top players are focused on other games. Some players also feel there’s a small amount of sexism hindering the game as well. I can say that for certain, but it seems to happen a lot for games will all female casts. To be honest, not very many guys like playing a game where they hear girls moaning and such throughout the whole game, which I think is a bigger issue than sexism.

Speaking of sexism, there has been some instances of of it occurring in our community. Twice that I can think of recently-ish. I believe these were made famous by Kotaku, who became even more famous in our FGC, becoming known as the FGC bashers. To be fair, we know that people remember bad things a LOT more than good, but that was just a small amount of our real community. I will say that when I play a girl, I usually pick a character that isn’t my best, which used to be a safety precaution so if I lost I’d have a semi-valid excuse as to why and avoid teasing. Now, I do that to everyone, because I like to guarantee close matches. I like to match my skill level to my opponent when I’m not playing competitively.

Overall, this community is getting more and more annoying to me. Please, other members, just be cool.

So yeah, lots has happened since I posted here. I got MvC3 at launch, and am waiting for the DLC for SSF4 and BBCS. To be honest, MvC3 seems too beginner friendly. NOT saying it a horrible game, but there isn’t too much of a hurdle to learn much of anything in this game. That said, I love my team and use it often. My only real complaint is that it seems like Marvel is not including some good characters due to them wanting to market certain series. Who has honestly cared for Taskmaster/M.O.D.O.K./Dormammu before this game. I’m glad they’re in but I cant think of these as fan favorites, especially with no Gambit.

I’ve been paying attention to Evil Ryu and Oni for SSF4AE, and I actually like both of them a lot. Sure they’re both shotos, and sure the game has enough of em, BUT I still love shotos, and I like Evil Ryu a lot. I think I’ll be using Yang more than anyone though, but I’m sorta hoping we get an Evil Ken as well.

As for BBCS2, I’m looking forward to using Platinum and the new Bang. Everyone looks like so much fun though, so I’ll probably use Ragna/Jin/Hazama/Valkenhayn/Hakumen as well, might even pick up Rachel.

I’m really hoping for a release of some older games. I know SF3:OE is on its way, and I know most of the others will probably never make it here, since there either weren’t enough fans of the game, or it had a difficult learning curve, but I would kill to have Rival Schools, Capcom vs SNK 2 (<- favorite fighter), Alpha 3, Darkstalkers 3, and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure on PSN/XBLA. ALL of those are very good games, and I'd buy em all.

Well, that's all that's on my mind at the moment. I may pick up Mortal Kombat 9, but I'm not a real MK fan, so I gotta think about that one. GGs

Yeah, I know I’m a little late to this, since I’ve been looking mostly at KOF 13 stuff, but Makoto from Blazblue has been confirmed as a DLC character. Valkenhayn and Platinum (both of the Six Heros) have had themes and portraits discovered in the files on the disc.

It really does sound like the last two will be confirmed, and I’m really excited since if they are, we will have 4 out of the Six Heros, and since I man one (Hakumen), this pretty much guarantees more back story for them. Hopefully this also means that a few more characters will make their way to CS, it’d fill out the character select a bit and add some interesting matchups.

I personally am interested in Valkenhayn (if you couldn’t tell). He reminds me of Guilty Gear’s Slayer, so I think I may sub him.