Writer’s Note: I am not an expert player in this game and some of the information that I write on this blog may be incorrect. If so, kindly mention it on the comments and I may make the corrections when I have the time in the future. The main intent of this blog is to share my personal experiences and opinions on the game while including in some game information and sprinkling in a funny snippet here and there. I hope the latest proper entry onto my (somehow) on-going The Longest Grind blog series.

Also of note – I changed my 3 August 2014 blog title entry from The Longest Grind 03 to The Longest Grind EX 01. After the fact, I did not think that blog entry correlated with my initial intent of the blog series, so I made a slight title change to notify users that particular entry was an outlier.

Without further ado, the third installment of The Longest Grind.

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Going In Blind

I did not much about Under Night In-Birth before its Japanese console release. The only thing I know was the developer (Soft Circle French Bread) also developed Melty Blood, an under-the-radar but well-regarded anime fighting game. I viewed a bit of Melty Blood footage in an attempt to brace what I was going into with UNiEL. I agreed to gameshare with a few other folks when UNiEL’s PS3 port and date was announced in Japan. (I largely agreed to the gameshare as I initially thought the game was not going to be localized to North America.) Once I finally downloaded my copy of the game and started to mash, UNiEL threw me a boxing combination that knocked me out cold. It’s definitely a game that really has its own identity, though there are some mechanics that’s featured in other fighting games.

It’s Not Plus or Minus/It’s Simply Neutral

The biggest fighting game gameplay element that UNiEL stresses is how well players play the game while they’re in neutral, or how the players handle where they stand against their opponent. This puts a ton of pressure on both players on how they plan their moves in order to gain the upper hand. The player has to quickly determine how to approach their opponent depending on play-styles and tools available to use with their character. It may take more than a couple of seconds in some matches before someone finally gains the early advantage over the other.

UNiEL’s importance on neutral makes this portion of the game element more in line with Street Fighter than its anime counterparts. I rarely had to think about spacing and being patient whenever I fought in Arc System Work’s games (Persona 4 Arena / Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R / BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma). You can’t completely go all-in unless you know you know you’re in an advantageous situation where your opponent cannot counter back. But you also cannot be totally defensive too, as there are tools where your opponent will eventually find a chink in your armor, as well being a passive penalty in UNiEL unique GRD mechanic.

Tug of GRD

UNiEL’s GRD mechanic is a unique and well-developed gameplay mechanic that adds another set of tools to the player’s arsenal, especially if they win the GRD battle in the middle of the actual battle. Players gain or lose GRD depending on how their actions. UNiEL awards players who are more aggressive with their actions, such as simply walking/running toward their opponent, and successfully landing attacks on your opponent. Players lose GRD if they generally aren’t as active against their opponent, as well as performing passive actions such as retreating. There are bits of subtle actions that either add or subtract GRD. Players can lose a bit of GRD if they whiff a throw, or attacking Byakuya’s web traps to get rid of them.

After 15 seconds, the player with the most GRD goes into Vorpal State, where their character is awarded with passive buffs for their characters and additional tools in their favor. The most apparent buff for the awarded player is the 10% damage boost they receive by winning the GRD battle. The Vorpal State player has access to Chain Shift, which has two effects when used. When Chain Shift is used, the player gains more meter. More importantly, when used correctly, Chain Shift can be used like a roman cancel/rapid/one more cancel where it’ll cancel the attack and the player can extend the combo/pressure on their opponent.

Vorpal State also carries additional effects for characters and other gameplay elements. Carmine loses less health when he uses his blood specials under Vorpal State. The player can use guard cancel without having their GRD meter broken, and other benefits that escape my head at the time of this blog.

In short, it is imperative to win the GRD battle to gain the multiple benefits that Vorpal State awards to the winning player.

There’s Nothing Wrong With Blocking

UNiEL’s GRD generally awards players who show/perform aggressive acts and punishes extreme defensive acts. BUT, UNiEL awards GRD for players who stand their ground and successfully block the opponent’s offense. Sometimes a player can win the GRD tug of war by being able to block their opponent’s offense to get into Vorpal State for the time being. Eventually the player on defense will find an opening and able to mount an offense back.

Cracks in the Shield

UNiEL also has a barrier shield mechanic that’s similar to Arc System Work’s barrier shields in BlazBlue and Guilty Gear. Shielding helps reduce blockstun (the amount of time your character is stuck while blocking an opponent’s attack) and if used in certain situations, gives the player an opportunity to counter back with an attack after shielding an opponent’s attack. It’s a powerful tool in a player’s toolbox if done successfully. However, guessing incorrectly with shield or getting thrown while shielding will result in having your GRD broken, which you cannot accumulate any GRD meter for a period of time. TL;DR - Use with caution.

Pinpoint Execution

As if understanding the numerous gameplay mechanics and their pros and cons looks overwhelming on its own, the game’s recognition with button inputs is strict, in line with Guilty Gear and Street Fighter. This is probably where one of my biggest struggles in playing UNiEL lies, unable to fully execute a proper combo or blockstring. You really have to time and execute your motions and buttons correctly or else. There’s so much going during battle that sometime I do fumble what I’m trying to do and get severely punished in return. It’s going to take a lot of tough sledding of training and battling folks offline and online to get better, if I can find some time outside of work which has been very hard to come by this year.

Taking My Lumps, A LOT OF LUMPS

If I combined my ranked and player match results, my win percentage would probably be under 5% right now. That’s right; I am extremely terrible at this game. It’s probably the lowest win percentage out of the fighting games I’ve put some time into the past couple of years. Despite my lack of success at this game, I am mostly enjoying what UNiEL brings to the table.

UNiEL’s Own Under Covers of the Fight

I am enjoying UNiEL because I feel like it culls in gameplay elements and tactics found in some other fighting games and combined it here. You have the patience/feeling each other out/good defense turns into good offense found in Street Fighter, the strings of attacks and extension with the use of Chain Shift’s rapid canceling effects in Arc System Works titles (particularly BlazBlue and Guilty Gear), while having unique mechanics of its own (especially the GRD mechanic) combined into a great fighting game product.

I was especially surprised to see many professional players outside of the anime fighting game community get engrossed in UNiEL. Evolution 2014 champions of Injustice (SonicFox) and Killer Instinct (CD JR) have been playing actively playing UNiEL. (I see them in the UNiEL pools in Summer Jam 8.) I saw Justin Wong and PR Balrog give the game a legit shot too. Flux of Marvel fame has also been actively playing UNiEL as well. My friend Foo, who I consider a damn good fighting game player in his own right, really enjoys the game too. The anime community really took UNiEL by storm and gave it a strong push when the game was released. It’s probably going to take a bit of hit in support with Persona 4 Arena Ultimax just released for consoles, along with upcoming releases of Degenki Fighting Climax and Guilty Gear Xrd –SIGN-. Hopefully they’ll be folks who continue to give the game it’s deserving support and maybe it’ll pick up again once Aksys releases the localized version of the game in North America sometime in 2015 (Spring?).

Continuing Fighting the Good UNiEL Fight

Even with P4AU, DFC, and GG Xrd on the horizon, I’ll still do my best to play some UNiEL here and there, even if I am really terrible at this game. Who knows? Maybe I can get a little bit better and get a few more wins. But I hope that I can put up a better fight against my competition (primarily the other Giant Bomb duders). I hope the duders who I fought against will still play some UNiEL in the near future too.

I think they all agree, it’s a damn good fighting game.

Shout-outs to the following: MikeFightNight, Kuutochi, IrrelevantJohn, MaceX, Kaziowihora, Bloo561, and SigmaCloud. All of you for the showing what UNiEL brings to the table, all of the fights up to this point, providing information whenever possible, and bringing inspiration to me to write this damn blog today.

Thanks to everyone who read this blog post!