And the Atomiswave KOF:NEOWAVE.
Was there anything cool about NEOWAVE? I skipped it entirely after seeing it in arcades and figuring out it was just a fancier 2002.
I guess young Geese as a boss?
No. There’s nothing.
Basically it’s 2002, with all traces of Eolith removed and some more familiar characters put in their places. And, as you say, Young Geese randomly inserted as a boss.
The backgrounds are done in high res (3D, in some versions), but they’re not especially interesting. The music and interface have been polished, but again there’s not much inspiration going on here.
Basically they were just making a garbage game to make sure they had a handle on the hardware before they did something real with it.
Basically I really like the tone to 2001, and I like how holistic it is in terms of all of the elements of the game contributing to that tone. It feels dangerous, like everything is both culminating and falling apart. The way it looks, the way it sounds, the way it plays all embody that sense.
The whole thing feels crackly and “wrong”, like 1970s cinema. The atmosphere is so dense and all-encompassing that it creates a world that I want to inhabit and explore.
I like the logical, if unbalanced, way it handles strikers and team structure. (I mean, every element of the game is off-balance.) Instead of all of these random meters and stocks and arbitrarily setting aside one member as striker-only, just let the player organize the team. It may suck for tournament play, but I wouldn’t know or care about that. It’s great as a single-player experience. Structurally, it’s a clever and elegant system.
I like the untempered violence that you get, erupting from just beneath the surface. The wire attacks, K9999’s every move (especially that one), Kyo coming unhinged.
I like all of the new characters, and how strange and experimental and varied they are. Each adds something new that hadn’t quite been there before.
I like the obsessive, mentally ill sense that the music gives off. (The arranged soundtrack is actually rather nice.)
I like the distorted character art – full of personality, but often also “wrong” on some level. Again, it all feels a bit mentally unhinged in the same sense that K9999 gives off.
I hadn’t quite made the direct connection until now, but I think that may be it – that the entire game’s tone seems to reflect the personality, or mental state, of its major antagonist that it’s introducing in order to conclude the storyline. This may be part of why it all feels so holistic to me. It’s just so… expressive. Like it has a perspective, that is coloring everything it touches.
That’s why I like the game. Deliberately or not, it’s such an expressive work. It’s angry, deranged, ready to explode. Which is also so appropriate, considering the conditions under which it was made and released.
In many ways I think it’s the creative pinnacle of the series.
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Oh wow! Subtitles!
New main detected
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Gaijin Ninjas(Gaijinin?) will always have a place in my heart.
I’m not getting much of a sense of Banderas from this, but he seems all right. Sort of surprised we haven’t seen a bandit archetype before now.
So far both of the South American team members feel kind of Real Bouty.
Mai… that’s a valid interpretation of her. She seems younger than usual.
MAI'S BACK
Oh, and I guess there’s Banderas too. Quick appraisal:
Mai:
Looks extremely similar to 13 Mai. Most discernable difference in the trailer is what appears to be her new auto-combo, with the kick chain that puts her airborne into Musasabi no Mai. If you can change the input timing, or the kicks on their own aren’t horrible on block, they might actually be an okay pressure tool. EDIT: Forgot they brought back Kagero no Mai too. Guessing this is meant to be her new anti-air/reversal move? Could probably afford to have light version not invulnerable so long as the hitbox goes up high enough to consistently beat/trade with crossups. Heavy version is hopefully invulnerable, given Kagero no Mai will probably be incredibly unsafe as usual!
Despite appearing to have more or less the same toolset as in 13, I think Mai will end up effectively better in 14 simply because the lower combo length will keep her from falling behind in damage output. She’ll still probably be reliant on the corner for max damage, but she’ll no longer be compared against characters who do monstrous damage midscreen for the same resources, of which there appear to be fewer. So her strengths at neutral might be more pronounced as a result.
And if her EX move properties in MAX mode are the same as in 13 (pretty much every one of her EX moves started a free juggle state), then she should still have pretty decent damage output for 1 bar. Hopefully they also let her keep the juggle property on her air throw so that she can end combos with it – partially for knockdown utility, but mostly because it looked cool at the end of a C Ryuu Enbu loop. (I hope those are coming back too!)
Banderas:
Looks like a pretty cool new character. From the basic look at his toolset I kinda wanna say he’ll be a bit more neutral-focused than pressure-focused, simply because he appears to have several good defensive tools, as well as a fairly-long-reaching jump D(?) that might pair well with several different jump arcs. His Hanzo log counter is the most obvious get-back tool, but perhaps that “ground pound” dust cloud move he launched Mai with is a DP of some kind?
He also has a command grab, though it’s hard to say how fast it starts from the trailer. If he has decent tools to beat alternate guard (assuming alternate guard is still in 14…maybe SNK finally killed it?), it’s okay if it’s on the slow side, provided the knockdown and/or damage are advantageous enough.
So at least from first glance, Banderas looks like he might be kind of a position-player character. Less about cranking guard bar than actually playing some footsies (yes, KOF has those, they just look weird compared to non-“anime” games) in order to get his momentum. Probably a battery-type character to lead off with meterless combos and mixups unless playing with him in MAX mode reveals some nutso meter-dump damage.
Now that there is a non-Maximum Impact Hanzo in a KOF game, I’m eagerly anticipating bust Galford to show up as a Lithuanian ninja in the eastern-European team featured in KOF XV.
I… like Neowave. It’s interesting.
I’d say it’s definitely worth playing, but can’t eloquently articulate why at this moment (it’s been a while since I touched it)
It’s better than 2002, probably… though it lacks May Lee and company. 2002UM is kind of a second pass, though, and feels like it obviates NeoWave.
I am prepared to hear an argument about what it bring in its own right, however!
I do think UM should have had Young Geese in it.
It’s like Osman crossed with Zorro.
May Lee rules.
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https://twitter.com/SNKPofficial/status/723083505110929408?s=09
I’ve been thinking about this- do you think they’d make her air dive fast enough to combo off this? The video also shows the air dive sets up mix-ups so I don’t know if SNK would really make it so easy to air-dive off a ground combo. Otherwise though I can’t imagine it existing solely so she combo into another super. Maybe it will be good for getting through guard points?
I also just noticed last night that she actually has this double knee attack in Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition.
[quote=“Drem, post:261, topic:128, full:true”]
I’ve been thinking about this- do you think they’d make her air dive fast enough to combo off this? The video also shows the air dive sets up mix-ups so I don’t know if SNK would really make it so easy to air-dive off a ground combo. Otherwise though I can’t imagine it existing solely so she combo into another super. Maybe it will be good for getting through guard points?[/quote]
The main reason why I think her auto-combo will be a route to air dive is because there actually is precedent for exactly such a combo in previous games! In NGBC and KOF XI, Mai has a f+B command normal that combos from C/D normals, makes her airborne and combos into airdive for a launch state.
This is a pretty fair route IMO because even with free juggle, the nature of her moves means she’s generally not gonna get big damage off it without spending meter and/or being in the corner. She doesn’t have a super-scummy mixup game off an air reset, pretty much every gimmick she could pull on you is vulnerable to DP moves. Being able to reset with close C/juggle in the corner with other specials would give her…basically parity with King, heh. KOF 13 King could do the same things reset/juggle-wise, except her options afterwards were better.
You also gotta remember that regular Musasabi no Mai is historically quite unsafe on block, even when tigerknee’d. C/D punishable at close range, if you nipped their feet with it you’re probably still A/B punishable if the opponent’s attack can reach you. So having a mash-A route to Musasabi no Mai almost certainly isn’t a cheesy low-risk/high-reward route for Mai. Example routes I could theorize:
- auto-combo > Musasabi no Mai > close C = reset, low damage, probably works anywhere on screen
- auto-combo > Musasabi no Mai > C Ryuu Enbu? (> air throw?) = might be possible if C Ryuu Enbu can still juggle both hits with a float state after like it did in 13. But the refloat will probably be very low like it was in KOF14, so IDK if Mai could get a full loop off of it without already being in MAX mode for EX Ryuu Enbu (assuming that juggles, re-grants float state, AND floats the opponent high enough to start looping). And it almost certainly requires the corner, because midscreen the opponent will probably fly too far for the 1st hit of C Ryuu Enbu to reach them.
- auto-combo > Musasabi no Mai > keep mashing for air Super Deadly Ninja Bees = 1-bar combo for mashing A. On the one hand, it’s easy and starts from lights. On the other hand, it’s almost certainly not as meter-efficient damage as doing something like c.B > s.B s.D target combo > activate MAX mode, assuming she can still do that in KOF 14. And if the whole thing comes out on block, she’s probably unsafe from the special move onwards. Might be minus but (mostly?) safe if she can stop at the kicks, I feel like that’s a design decision SNK would make.
- auto-combo > Musasabi no Mai > Climax Art = easy light combo to Climax Art, assuming Climax Art has the same properties as her (awesome) NeoMAX in 13. (Specifically, if it still has 0+x startup so that time freezes immediately upon completing the command, allowing it to juggle easily anywhere on screen.) But this too falls into the trap of probably being meter-inefficient damage and unsafe on block at any point past the special. Something like c.B > target combo > MAX Mode > close C > C/EX Ryuu Enbu or Deadly Ninja Bees > Climax Art is probably a better bet for the bar investment midscreen. In the corner you could probably do a Ryuu Enbu loop before the Climax Art for extra damage.
So basically, I expect her to be better in 14 because most of the characters who out-damaged her are getting “worse” (in some sense) for 14. But if she becomes top tier, I’ll be very (pleasantly) surprised.
This will be streamed on https://www.twitch.tv/snkplaymore
Interesting that King is removed from this build.
And Maxima and Ralf and Angel…
I guess they’re revising the characters at the moment?
Yeah, that is really odd that they’d actually pull King out of a playable build. Although maybe that’s just in the context of when this screenshot was taken. Maybe she’ll be back in for the playable build; maybe she’s just out of the select screen in that screenshot as a side effect of re-indexing the select screen for the new characters.
Or maybe they didn’t want to have an “uneven” (non-multiple of 3) number of characters in the build for asymmetry’s sake. Maybe faced with having 25 chars on the screen, they had to pick 1 to leave out for symmetry’s sake and picked King. Weird reason but w/e, she’ll be back.
Glad to see that Mai, Banderas, and KING OF DINOSAURS will be playable in this build. Nelson, Luong, and Sylvie too, but I’m mostly interested in the 1st 3. I know KOD is gonna be a lot of Tizoc re-hashed, but screenshots have suggested that enough is different with his normals and specials that I wanna see exactly what’s changed with him.
Too bad Ralf’s not in, I wanna see if they gave him back his backbreaker. Probably not, seems like he’s gonna be same moveset as 12/13 Ralf minus the 'roid rage. But I gotta get down with that because there’s no way they’ll be re-animating the terror that was '98 Ralf, the Wall of Destruction.
Richard’s:
Tizzok - KoD;
Much is changed, down to the stance…
(You’ll like!)