Theme should have been the Psycho Soldier Song.
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is that Sie Kensou or Bao Kensou?
Are you trying to dictate how a woman should be able to express her sexuality??!?
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Nope, I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.
Bring back 2001 Athena!
And the original english version of psycho soldier!
Also liked the ending song: https://youtu.be/cDxqeHgNhjA?t=10m18s
Here’s 30 min of the history of Athena music if you’re into that:
Wait, this is better: seeing the evolution of Athena from Psycho Soldier to latest KOF:
Where’s Goddess Athena? I guess she’s technically her own character and only in Athena, SvC Chaos, and cellphone games.
Wait, more importantly, here’s Nakoruru’s evolution:
Man, SNK did so many interesting things in the NGPC era. A board game/minigame compilation featuring KOF characters? Card Fighters Clash?
Wish they fleshed out the coach minigame aspect of Match of the Millenium into its own full SNK dating sim for the portable too.
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One thing emulation losses and it is very hard to regain is the exact…sound experience of hearing psycho soldier on real hardware. It is a game I throw at emulators to see they capture how overly loud and sharp it is.
Godbless the Sega GIga that had it a year ago and maybe still does.
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I almost agree about the shadow trails because it DOES seem relatively awkward to see or “feel” the difference between a regular jump and a super jump in KOF XIV. The difference in trajectory is quite subtle compared to other games. But at the same time, I dunno how exactly they’d replicate the old shadow-trail effect in 3D without making it either too obtrusive or too subtle. But I’m not a 3D animator so I can’t comment too much on that.
KoD is pretty much as bad as he looks, and I speak as a guy who spent the better part of the last 2 weeks exploring him to fill out the Dream Cancel wiki.
The biggest problem KoD has is that he is apparently intended to play the same kind of defensive-grappling style as Daimon and Maxima – get the life lead, turtle at mid-range, focus on anti-air and only grab people when they get complacent. But his tools are so much poorer to serve that kind of gameplan than Daimon’s and Maxima’s that it’s not even funny.
His anti-air combos are extremely inconsistent compared to Daimon and Maxima’s. The armor on his far s.C is super-unreliable for the ranges/situations in which it’s intended to be used (counterpoking range a la Zangief s.MP). His C grab is fully armored, but unless the opponent does something horrendously unsafe from a jump, you can just hold up to avoid getting your landing recovery thrown 99% of the time. He can’t rely on punishing the landing recovery on early blocked jump-ins with his 1f (I think) hcb+A because the game system no longer allows that (which is okay, except KoD has few other good tools to compensate).
Most of KoD’s knockdowns fling the opponent far away from him, presumably because his designers overestimated his ability to seize the life lead and become a wall of pain. Almost every normal of his is also minus on block, so he really can’t afford to go nuts and press people with normals when he finally manages to get close. And his non-EX leaping grab is completely and utterly useless, since not only does it not grab airborne opponents, but it won’t grab ANY crouching opponent. It’s easily reactable, so the only players who will get hit by it are complete newbies.
Basically, with the tools he has, KoD is only really equipped to turtle and win against developing players who are way too reckless. With a solid understanding of KOF fundamentals, it’s not hard at all to keep KoD at bay unless you do stuff that’s needlessly reckless or impatient. Characters like Mai can basically walk all over KoD since she has a plus-on-block s.CD with great range, and more than enough mobility to evade his jump-ins or just stay at a poke range where she can’t be counterpoked. She also gets INCREDIBLE corner combos on him because his body is so huge, allowing for more stuff to hit him at more ranges and heights.
One legitimately nice thing I can say about KoD is that he has some fairly great EX moves in MAX mode. His hcb+AC moves forward really fast and is fully armored, allowing him to easily plow through pokes on reaction for a grab. His EX Assault Raptor is an actual, functional move, since it’s fast enough and leaps high enough to punish any fireball at neutral if you have decent reaction time. But he’s just not an efficient character to continually pop raw MAX mode with like Mai because he will have such a hard time rebuilding all the meter he spends turning into a vastly better character for 10 seconds or so.
TBH, I think he is one of the very few legitimately poor characters in KOF XIV right now. I honestly feel like aside from him and maybe Chang, pretty much every other character in the game has justified some sort of meaningful role in competitive play for themselves, and has enough of a toolset to fight the most powerful characters as part of a team. But not KoD. This dude needs some help if he’s not just gonna be the struggle version of Daimon/Maxima.
I’ve heard this since the trade show demos and I just hoped there was something people were missing but I can’t figure any way to argue otherwise. I think in an interview I recall SNK pointing out his emphasis on guard points, but the hitbox and the frames the guard points are active are just so awkward that it’s a completely unreliable tool for Dinosaur. What is his back+A even for? It’s too slow to catch a someone hopping at close range and angled too awkwardly to catch anyone at mid-long range. I can’t even posit he’s a Hakan level character because Hakan didn’t need meter to oil up.
EX running bear grab and EX jumping command grab are the best though.
I’m having trouble grasping Sylvie’s neutral game. Her normals are stubby and her punch-button specials, while having good space control, are slow to start up. I think she can do an alright job at catching a jump-in with a couple of her normals but outside of that I don’t really know what to do with her.
Sylvie’s okay, just that it’s really hard to work around her lack of reach. Not really a problem for her anti-air, but it hurts her ground game a bit because in order to get to counterpoking range, you have to get inside the range of a bunch of attacks that can counterpoke Sylvie.
Here are some things I have observed about Sylvie:
- Her crouching B is amazing for low-profiling stuff. Plus on block (surprisingly), chains to itself and other B normals. Good reach by Sylvie standards too. The only bad part of this move is that many of her hit-confirm moves from it won’t reach if you hit it from too far away. So try and keep your confirm strings short, if you can.
- Her far B is cancellable, but there’s the range problem. You can combo to her A jazz hands (qcf+A) or her B/D DP at any range, but just staying in range where far B will touch the opponent takes a careful eye.
- It’s okay to spam jazz hands for meter (not sure which one has the least total frames, I’ll have to check Atma’s Google doc) just so long as you’re outside of jump-in range or not against somebody loaded with bar for a fast, long-range super like Mai, Iori, or Shun’ei. In fact, spamming jazz hands from just out of range with the life lead might be a good way to get your opponent to do something impulsive that you can punish with corner carry.
- 2 bars is Sylvie’s magic number for one reason: MAX Paula Experiment (qcfx2+AC). Since it hits OTG, and Sylvie runs really fast, this means that ANY s.CD hit, ANYWHERE on screen, can be comboed into cr.D > qcfx2+AC pretty easily. You should have lots of time to hit-confirm the wallstick from the dropkick. This also amps up her damage from anti-air or punishment cr.D, if you know for sure it’s gonna hit (sweep is tech-rollable, but if you cancel to the super in time, it’ll hit them OTG before they’re allowed to tech roll).
- Overall, since Sylvie’s anti-air and DP are so good, you want to try and work your way in slowly, controlling the space you currently occupy and not losing it, rather than going nuts trying to RTSD and press the opponent. Sylvie has decent frame data for RTSD, but it can be a little risky to safely space her offense simply cause her limbs are so stubby. So I would focus first on just keeping anti-air range at midscreen and inching closer with her run and the odd tantalizing whiff jazz hands, and if you get a clean hit, try and ride it to the corner.
God dammit these were the two dudes I wanted to play most. I couldn’t get into KoD in the demo and was hoping it was just cuz I’m clueless about KOF. (Where should I go to learn how to properly play KOF? Dreamcancel?)
What’s wrong with Chang?
This is the goto thing people recommend for KOF.
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I dunno if Chang will end up quite as far down as KoD (kinda doubt it), but from what I saw of him at CEO he doesn’t seem that great.
Main reason I see to be down on Chang are his new, extremely gimmicky C normals. Far s.C reaches really high above his head, he does a little spin lariat with the ball way above his head. I think it knocks down on air hit, might cause a float state too. But the recovery on that move is so long, and Chang holds the ball so high up that he looks hopelessly vulnerable to whiff punishment if he does it on a jump he hasn’t quite read yet – and between his own height and the height of the ball, I can see very few characters who would routinely be jumping to that height where s.C might be a risk to them.
His new c.C is much worse than his old one IMO. He now holds the ball above his head at an anti-air angle after a painfully slow startup period. The ball knocks down on air hit, and has a great angle for anti-air, but even against KOF XIV’s much floatier low jump attacks, it looks way too slow to anti-air many hop attacks on reaction without getting safe jumped.
Having gimmicky normals is not necessarily a death sentence in KOF (assuming not too many of them), but I think they hurt Chang in this case because the rest of him appears to be pretty bare-bones this time around. He still has his core zoning tools of far s.A (fast hop anti-air), jump C (fast, powerful air-to-air and early jump attack), jump CD (slower, powerful air-to-air that knocks down), cr.D (for sweep into ball cancel), and his slide. But none of those moves looked strong enough to recreate the wall of pain that was KOF 98 Chang IMO.
He still might not end up being quite as bad off as KoD due to a slightly easier time spacing to zone people out, but I don’t see him being particularly strong in this game. But time will tell.
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It is that boy.
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Yeah, more evidence if any were needed that NeoWave is just a de-Eolithed remix of 2002.
He’s in UM too, though?
I started getting into 2002UM and the music is real nice
feels good man
Haven’t read all of this, but SNK dumped all the team stories at once:
And… aw yeah, Shingo is in the house.
Literally in the house. He comes busting into Kyo’s parlor.
Regarding the (Hiroaki?) illustration, is this the first time they’ve centered key art on Shun’Ei?
“Hehehe… This KOF is just the beginning of the nightmare. Drawn by the scent of life, the dead are gathering. And I can hear their voices perfectly, Yagami! …You could have awakened from your nightmares if you had just given up your power and chosen to live as a human back then!” Vice’s words rang out, disturbing the stillness of the evening.
Looks like they’re leaning hard into the continuity with Mature and Vice. And, based on this dialogue I guess at least some events from XIII happened in this timeline? Ah, wait. Heidern’s lecture clarifies this a bit.
"It’s been a while since gravitational waves were observed, but distortions in spacetime have been reported in recent research results. This is quite similar to what happened before the final round of the last tournament… "
“I see… So based on the results observed, there’s a chance of some kind of problem at this tournament.”
“Yes, but since the previous tournament ended, surprisingly, without any problems, we can’t actually prove that KOF and this phenomenon are related. Just infiltrate as usual.”
“Yes, sir!!!”
So, the XIII tournament happened, and everyone (?) took part, but to all appearances it ended without incident. What that means for characters directly affected by Ash’s actions, like Iori, is… unclear. And probably will remain so.
Those level illustrations at the top of each page – they really strongly call to mind the '99-2000 art. The angles, the use of space and color…
You two were really watching me closely, huh! That’s right, I’m your new teammate. I am the mighty King of Dinosaurs! GRRRRR!
I love how many cameos and name-drops are in these stories. Whip, Bao, Momoko, Khushnood Butt…
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I love Hiroaki’s colors. It’s a way more interesting cover than the actual one.
MMCafe summarized a long interview in Famitsu featuring producer Yasuyuki Oda, art director Nobuyuki Kuroki, motion artist Youichiro Soeda, and programmer Seiji Andou.
http://www.mmcafe.com/news/posts/10211.html
http://www.mmcafe.com/news/posts/10212.html
The Kyo Classic DLC is up on PSN so get it’s while it’s free. But there’s also a free Sharefactory theme, which is cool, and also a 1 cen Gals Fighters dynamic theme.
My copy is waiting for me at home but I’ll be heading out to some local game meetups tonight and tomorrow so I won’t have any time to see how bad the online is with anyone here. One of the troubling things about this game is that pretty much every character looks like fun so I don’t know how I’m going to settle down on a main team to practice. I really appreciate how many new characters SNK put into this.
Still waiting for Steam. I don’t envision buying a new game console again.
EDIT:
Everyone admits that games on the NeoGeo CD took horribly long to load.
Andou: “I had to watch the loading screen monkey for like two minutes”
Soeda: "We witnessed the monkey being drawn in our office. It was done by the guy who did Lee Pai Long in AOF2 (laughs)
Kuroki: “It was so horrible back then because the loading time really hindered our debugging process. We couldn’t say it, but we got so sleepy”
Soeda: “By the time the game loaded, we’ve forgotten what we wanted to check. Back in those days we used to debug during midnight so yeah, we obviously fell asleep”
Kuroki: “There was a time when I debugged with Soeda and he kept walking forward when the match started. I thought he was charging for a move but turns out he was just sleeping”
I like these guys.
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