Like legions of you have no doubt done already, I went ahead and purchased the Arcade Edition DLC for Super Street Fighter IV. I too was waiting with feverish anticipation, only to totally forget because E3 and then remember later that afternoon. As far as I can tell, my $15 (or 1200 Microsoft points) for this particular purchase went towards 4 new characters, some extra online tweaks, and character rebalancing, as well as the ability to continue to not play Super Street Fighter IV against people who care online (Because really, who is going to still be playing with the home version at this point if they're still playing Street Fighter at all?). However, like many, I take issue with some of the additions this DLC has brought to the table. Let's break it down, shall we?
The characters
Hey guys. I don't know if you know this, but Evil Ryu is like Ryu. But evil. Here, you have Yun, Yang, Evil Ryu, and Oni. Clearly, at this point they're starting to grasp for good characters to bring in, despite the fact that there are still more than a few Alpha or SFIII characters left to mine. Starting with the easiest one to pick on: Evil Ryu seems totally unnecessary. While I'm glad that, at the very least, they've managed to make him more than just a palette swap of Ryu design-wise (instead optioning for "totally crazy and out of control evil man Ryu"), he's simply not a very interesting character at all, nor was he ever one. He is, for most intents and purposes Ryu with some of Akuma's moves (and in the case of the hurricane kick, properties of moves) thrown in to make him better offensively. One could go into pointless subtleties like how his cr.Mk has a longer reach or how his ultra 2 totally involves smashing that dude in the face, but COME ON CAPCOM, REALLY? Of all the half-assed characters from Street Fighter (and there are many. They could have put in R. Mika and that would've been only remotely worse), you went for the one that doesn't really offer anything? Of course, the worst part is that he doesn't play terribly since he's pretty much ryu with a teleport, an axe kick, and a raging demon super. Admittedly, he's not as bad as the Kyo Clone team from KOF 2002 UM (Featuring no less than 3 different versions of Kyo, in addition to the regular one), but that action is more excusable due to the "THIS ROSTER IS GIGANTIC" nature of King of Fighters.
For reference: one of the more blatant reuses of a single character sprite I've ever seen On the other hand, we have Oni. At the very least, he seems like a more different character than Evil Ryu. I'm still not entirely sure if I like him though. To say that he plays like Akuma is fallacy, because he doesn't have the demon flip, air fireballs, a teleport or fireballs that travel the entire screen. People say that he kinda plays like a more offensive Gouken? Sure? Maybe? He clearly can do some tricky stuff with those air dashes and that ground pound, but I'm not sure if I really enjoy playing as him, especially over regular 'ol Akuma. Meanwhile, of the two twins, I probably like Yang more because my feeble mind can comprehend what to do with those slashes and that rolling kick. Yun clearly seems powerful though, with the way that even I can effortlessly do far more damage than should be done with that custom combo super of his. I don't especially like either one design wise, but I'll take what I can get. Also dive kicks. Soooo many dive kicks.
Balance Changes I read somewhere on these forums that they didn't so much rebalance Super Street Fighter as they deliberately messed up all the characters who were good in the last one. As far as my personal vested interest goes, I'm somewhat bummed to say that exactly zero of the characters I play/care about have received any significant buffs. Vega, who is probably still my main hasn't really changed (his Ultra 2 isn't as good, basically), but the fact that all the characters who are good at rushing down have gotten better at rushing down doesn't help him very much. Seth has more health (yay), but his dive kick has less priority and he no longer has air stretchy arms, one of his key keep away moves. As someone who enjoys playing seth that way while cackling that they can't really hit me because of my air stretchy arms, this is an unfortunate downgrade. To round it all out, they've thankfully not really changed Bison in any sort of major way, except that now his Ultra 2 motion is charge and therefore harder to input. Standing Heavy Kick still works astoundingly well, so I gotta be thankful for that.
Online stuff
In the end, I can't really tell if this is truly worth the purchase. Oh well. Blazblue blog next week. Dude, whatever. I don't use the replay channel. However, since I've been busy playing other fighting games of notable repute, I've gotten a little rusty with plain old Street Fighter. That, or the only people who play Ranked anymore are people who actually know how to play the game. No lie, I saw like 2 Ryus in all the matches I have played so far. Meanwhile, I've seen more Gens than I think I've ever seen, as well as a fair share of Rose and Ibuki (oh great, two characters that I totally hate playing against). All this, as well as a few matches against Giant Bomb's own PixelPrinny has made me realize that: yes, I'm still not great at Street Fighter, am I? And at some point the barrier for entry becomes a little too high and I'm reminded why I don't really play competitive multiplayer games anymore. Of course, you can expect more of me ranting about being unskilled when I talk about Blazblue, probably sometime early next week. That game be hella crazy. And, maybe at some point I'll write those KoF XI and Mortal Kombat Armageddon old game blogs like I've been threatening to do. We'll see.
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You probably didn't need to buy AE. I don't think it was for you.
If something such as "Crouch medium kick now has 2 frames less active on it so it is harder to use as a poke" doesn't really mean anything to you, then all you're really buying is the 4 new characters for 15 bucks, and if you're not so hot on the characters, then AE is kind of a pointless buy.
@Aetheldod: After reading the eventhubs blog, Guile doesn't build as much meter from sonic boom as in Chocolate, all of his flash kicks do less damage, and U2 got a damage nerf
Also, they added like four or five frames on startup to U2 so now it's nearly impossible to punish fireball spamming, and I don't think it's possible to FADC > U2 anymore because of it either. They also made it so any Sonic Boom that is punished results in a "counter hit" instead of a normal attack so it does more damage. I'm pretty sure no other character with a fireball gets punished by a counter hit. So, we're back to SFIV. Sure, Guile's still more offensive, but they took away his FADC Ultra and he barely builds meter.
It's DeeJay you're thinking of that gets the counterhit fireball nonsense. Not Guile. You can still FADC to U2, and his Backfist received a significant damage nerf. His close forward Hard Kick now is invincible to low normals like Ryu's Sweep, which makes a pretty good meaty attack to use to beat crouch techs to lead to a nice combo.
@Scooper: Are you sure Guile didn't get the counterhit nerf as well? I could have sworn they announced that change for Guile originally because there was a lot of talk about it on the Guile SRK forum.
But Dee Jay getting that is actually really shitty, considering he has a much bigger recovery window for his projectile. Do you still main Dee Jay in AE? What do you think about what they did to him?
@lordofultima: It's about how I'm going to sex you up with some hot Guile-on-Akuma action.
@Swaboo: I'm replaying Borderlands. I love your avatar, and I love you.
@Scooper: Are you sure Guile didn't get the counterhit nerf as well? I could have sworn they announced that change for Guile originally because there was a lot of talk about it on the Guile SRK forum.
But Dee Jay getting that is actually really shitty, considering he has a much bigger recovery window for his projectile. Do you still main Dee Jay in AE? What do you think about what they did to him?
It's just DeeJay who got that, I'm pretty sure. I just looked over the notes again and it doesn't say that now happens to Guile.
I like DeeJay, I'm still maining him for sure. I can get EX Machine Gun Upper to dash Ultra 2 pretty consistently now which gives him good comeback potential. He's got more combos and not all of them rely on a finicky 1 frame link into crouch medium punch (which had fucking terrible range and didn't guarantee a combo anyway) anymore. He can combo into light kick dread kicks from a light attack which is super cool and he can FADC after a hard kick or EX Sobat and keep the combo going to push them into the corner. Also medium kick upkicks have been buffed so they are less likely to trade, his light kick upkicks have been buffed even though they were godlike in Super anyway and EX Upkicks have had a hitbox buff so they have more chance to hit all hits, his slide is now faster and safer so you really don't want to jump in on DJ at all.
His bad matchups are still the same but it feels like he's gained a 0.5 buff in all his matchups so it's not just a complete shitshow. Guile still wins the match against DJ though because DJ can't advance on a solid Guile.
What is this thread even about now? I'm confusedified.
I honestly don't know anymore. I guess it's just become a general discussion thread for Super Street Fighter IV Arcade edition. I'm cool with that, I guess. Less people calling me out for not speaking on a high enough level and more people talking about stuff that I sort of understand but not really.
@Scooper said:
You probably didn't need to buy AE. I don't think it was for you. If something such as "Crouch medium kick now has 2 frames less active on it so it is harder to use as a poke" doesn't really mean anything to you, then all you're really buying is the 4 new characters for 15 bucks, and if you're not so hot on the characters, then AE is kind of a pointless buy.
I wouldn't say it was a pointless purchase (I like Street Fighter IV. Of course I'm going to buy the new version), but I would say that there isn't anything in the update, either with the new characters (Ok, maybe Yang) or the balance changes that really work to my advantage as a lower-mid level player. However, I would say that the changes still matter, even at my level. For example: The removal of Seth's air stretchy arms will certainly change how I play him, while the change in Bison's ultra motion will make it less easy to punish whiffed ultras or shoryukens. The solution to this is probably to use more skill and figure out how to win online with Vega once and for all (probably actually read up this stuff online), but the increased precedence of rushdown characters certainly doesn't help me in that matter.
I like AE. Clearly the character additions weren't the most original, and the rebalance is kind of opinion, but I do enjoy playing as Oni as well as watching good replays, so it was enough for me. I feel the AE disc will be absolutely worth it for anybody, even if the DLC add-on was overpriced.
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