REO
Undead
Hey everyone, so UMK3:TE was at Summer Jam and this was the first time it was open to the public for beta testing. Now considering I was once a pretty big UMK3 head like many of you on this site, I can't tell you how I excited I was in getting the chance to test this game out.
When I sat down, the first two characters I tested out were of course my favorite sisterly duo in ultimate - Mileena and Kitana. I was really surprised with Kitana more than Mileena, just because I went into it knowing they were definitely going to remove the horrendous damage scaling on Mileena's roll. I had absolutely no clue that Kitana would have gotten two awesome new combo strings. Mileena now hurts off her roll and it makes up for it being one of (if not the most) unsafe special in the game. I think Shock hit me with a 54% combo involving the roll that can be seen some where in the video I'll provide at the end of this post. Her sais and teleport drop kick seemed the same to me from what I could tell. She did however gain some interesting use off her (once useless) HP,HP, u+LP, d+HP string. The string is now heavy advantage on block and hit. Since it leaves them standing it greats for throwing it out of the blue and resetting your opponent. Also doing the string on block and then immediately following with a roll is now a frame trap. Awesome.
Kitana was pretty cool. I read on the change log sheet that her instant air fan had a slight recovery nerf to it but it was barely noticeable in-game. (unless it didn't happen, yet). Kitana was given two new combo strings. One was HK,HK,LK,f+LK,b+HK, which is similar to her standard four hitting kick string but one extra hit added. This compliments her already impression rushdown by allowing her the option of stopping the combo after f+LK and mixing it up with LK and other ways to try and sneak in more chip damage. (it's just more for the opponent to think about) Her other new string was HK,HK,b+LP,f+HP. This is where she gets the most damage from. She can combo off into a sweep mid-screen but on block she doesn't get the mix-ups and set-ups that her other five hit string emits.
Now of course after play testing these two ladies I had to move on to Jade to complete the trio of female ninjas. Jade to me, had the most work done to her from what I could tell. Her hit limit off three Shadow Kicks max was removed and extended to I believe, six? So now when you land a aaHP in an opponent jumping at you with their back in the corner, you can get monster damage by doing aaHP -> Shadow Kick x5 -> HK.
It said on the change log sheet she can do her projectile immunity glow while in air, but I couldn't get it to work. She was given a new combo string - HK,HK,d+LP,d+HP which is essentially her mid kicks linking in her staff pop. This boosts her damage mid-screen by allowing her to combo into a sweep for set-ups or ending in a Shadow Kick to set up a zoning or spacing game. I thought Jade was very interesting and I could tell she has a lot more potential left with many more areas of possibility left.
Kabal was the next character I went to test and mess around with immediately since him and Nightwolf were pretty bad ass in ultimate. Kabal REALLY surprised me. He went from being your typical very generic and boring overpowered top tier to a character with new found style and set up, plus enhanced zoning attributes. His saw blade was the first thing I had fun with. It was once the most useless special move in the game, to now being a very viable special. It gets people moving, hits low, has increased start up, and the best part of all - it no longer disappears when it's on the screen and Kabal gets hit.
If the saw blade hits an opponent who is up close near Kabal, he can get a full combo. Kabal's old useless HK,HK, HP,HP,d+LP,d+HP string has been given new properties which make it good advantage on block and lets you recovery quicker on hit. (you can combo in the corner with a sweep). The best part is you can create a saw blade set up where you do this string, and then immediately follow off the advantage with a saw blade where the opponent must jump or sit there and block the saw which allows Kabal to come in with more pressure. Now start throwing the spin every once in a while after that string and you're in business.
Kabal's spin was nerfed in a very noticeable way. It had slightly longer start up which means it can actually be stuffed with HKs and other attacks now. It also had whiff recovery added to it now where Kabal can't move immediately like he used to. He spin also gives some damage scaling to it now so he not longer kills you in two spins. Now he needs at least three spins to kill you. The spin also had a hitbox adjustment from what I clearly saw in game-time with him. The spin is no longer hits people 100% of the time with no chance to miss when someone does a deep cross up since it becomes active a little bit later. His fireballs were the same. I really enjoyed playing Kabal, he was very fun and felt like a breath of new fresh air. Definitely one of my favorite changed characters. And he is still a very strong character, he just requires a bit more effort and now many characters can compete with him.
Nightwolf had very brief changes. The most important one was that his corner infinite that worked on Robots, Sheeva, Kano, Kabal, and Nightwolf himself was now removed. In the gameplay footage you can see me try and attempt it some where in there and it no longer works. His shoulder tackle was also given a few recovery AND start up frames to it. Any avid Nightwolf player can definitely notice the nerf to his tackle now. Still a good move, but no where near as abusable as it once was.
Scorpion and Sub-Zero, jeez where do I start. Boy were they buffed and pretty lethal now. Scorpion is very quick and avid now more than ever. His HP (the elbow) up close now hits mid so his newly buffed string HP,HP,u+LP string is now viable and not useless like it once was. HP,HP,u+LP string is heavy advantage on block and allows Scorpion the option to frame trap the opponent with a teleport, or watch as they sit their in fear while he sets the pace. The best part is he now has more hit advantage off the HP,HP,u+LP string while they are falling from the air and he can now combo off the last hit with a spear! The window for this combo was pretty tight, it's definitely something you're gonna have to practice. Felt like a 2-3 frame window or around that sort. Whiffing the spear here results in you dying so... yeah. Get that ten out of ten practice going. This new combo possibility really buffs his mid screen damage as he can now get around 35% mid screen on grounded opponents as to where he could only get mid 20%s before in regular UMK3.
Classic Sub-Zero and Unmasked Sub-Zero. Simply machines. Classic Sub-Zero is the rushdown monster where as Unmasked Sub-Zero is the patience king and ultimate defense fortress. Both very nasty characters now. Classic Sub-Zero's HP,HP,d+LP, d+HP string was buffed in a plentiful manner. It now grants heavy advantage on block where Classic Sub-Zero gets the 1-up advantage in going for an ice freeze, puddle, or a jump-in. He's the one calling the shots when the string is blocked. Classic Sub-Zero now recovers quicker after the pop up at the end of the string, which means he can get close to 50% by walking up, doing a aaHP -> instant JK, and slide. The best part is after an ice puddle he can now chuck freeze blasts! You are no longer stuck on the other side of the ice puddle with nothing to do but stand behind the line and maybe do a random slide. His freeze also now does damage on hit and block!
Unmasked Sub-Zero was very annoying to play against. He just makes you freeze in your steps (literally). His ice clone now has a buffed proximity and is harder to stuff and prevent the clone from coming out. The buffed hitbox on the clone is also dangerous. Now it will catch and freeze you for doing things like scrapping it with a HK, cr.LK, sweep, etc. It's basically a STOP sign for pressing attacks and you need to be more careful around it. He can also chuck freeze blasts while his close is out, and just like Classic Sub-Zero, Unmaskes Sub-Zero's freeze blasts do chip on block and damage on hit. In addition to that, his ice showers ALSO do chip on block and inflict damage on hit! 
Can you imagine playing against a character that is chucking horizontal and vertical projectiles, all while doing chip and leading to full combos for catching you? It almost makes you want to get the hell out of full-screen and rush on in up and personal in his face. Just one problem: Ice Clone. Oh, and Unmasked Sub-Zero actually HURTS now when he hits you. His giant branch combo received a hefty damage boost so now he's doing around 40% each time he catches you froze.
I think that's all the characters that got changed in some way. It was just around eight characters, I believe. Regardless, I had a BLAST playing the game with people. It was heavily addicting and something Shock and I ended up saying out loud to each other as we turned around to look at the venue and noticed 90% of the room was empty and it is was getting time to GTFO. I think I spent around ten hours play testing UMK3:TE this weekend. I definitely spend a lot of time on it both on Saturday and Sunday night and it was incredibly fun. I really cannot wait to test later versions of the game at future tournaments. Just thinking about what certain characters like Sekor and Shang could be getting is enough to get me in the UMK3:TE vortex.
Oh, and in case anyone asks. Yes, glitch jabs are still in. The corner jab infinite was still in, too. I'm not sure when those problems will be tackled, as only eight characters out of the entire roster were changed. So it's definitely still in the early beta stages and it probably won't be complete for a while. But's it's so gonna be worth the wait! Hope this sheds some light on many of you who were asking questions about UMK:TE from someone that was at the tournament and got a hands-on experience.
If there's any others questions about any of the characters I got to mess around with, please feel free to post them here. I'll see what I can remember or may have left out by accident. I'm sure Shock, CDjr, and others who got to play it can post some things they may have caught that I didn't.
Gameplay of UMK:TE can be seen here: Skip to 3:00:00 (three hours and a minute in) to get to the good stuff:
When I sat down, the first two characters I tested out were of course my favorite sisterly duo in ultimate - Mileena and Kitana. I was really surprised with Kitana more than Mileena, just because I went into it knowing they were definitely going to remove the horrendous damage scaling on Mileena's roll. I had absolutely no clue that Kitana would have gotten two awesome new combo strings. Mileena now hurts off her roll and it makes up for it being one of (if not the most) unsafe special in the game. I think Shock hit me with a 54% combo involving the roll that can be seen some where in the video I'll provide at the end of this post. Her sais and teleport drop kick seemed the same to me from what I could tell. She did however gain some interesting use off her (once useless) HP,HP, u+LP, d+HP string. The string is now heavy advantage on block and hit. Since it leaves them standing it greats for throwing it out of the blue and resetting your opponent. Also doing the string on block and then immediately following with a roll is now a frame trap. Awesome.
Kitana was pretty cool. I read on the change log sheet that her instant air fan had a slight recovery nerf to it but it was barely noticeable in-game. (unless it didn't happen, yet). Kitana was given two new combo strings. One was HK,HK,LK,f+LK,b+HK, which is similar to her standard four hitting kick string but one extra hit added. This compliments her already impression rushdown by allowing her the option of stopping the combo after f+LK and mixing it up with LK and other ways to try and sneak in more chip damage. (it's just more for the opponent to think about) Her other new string was HK,HK,b+LP,f+HP. This is where she gets the most damage from. She can combo off into a sweep mid-screen but on block she doesn't get the mix-ups and set-ups that her other five hit string emits.
Now of course after play testing these two ladies I had to move on to Jade to complete the trio of female ninjas. Jade to me, had the most work done to her from what I could tell. Her hit limit off three Shadow Kicks max was removed and extended to I believe, six? So now when you land a aaHP in an opponent jumping at you with their back in the corner, you can get monster damage by doing aaHP -> Shadow Kick x5 -> HK.
It said on the change log sheet she can do her projectile immunity glow while in air, but I couldn't get it to work. She was given a new combo string - HK,HK,d+LP,d+HP which is essentially her mid kicks linking in her staff pop. This boosts her damage mid-screen by allowing her to combo into a sweep for set-ups or ending in a Shadow Kick to set up a zoning or spacing game. I thought Jade was very interesting and I could tell she has a lot more potential left with many more areas of possibility left.Kabal was the next character I went to test and mess around with immediately since him and Nightwolf were pretty bad ass in ultimate. Kabal REALLY surprised me. He went from being your typical very generic and boring overpowered top tier to a character with new found style and set up, plus enhanced zoning attributes. His saw blade was the first thing I had fun with. It was once the most useless special move in the game, to now being a very viable special. It gets people moving, hits low, has increased start up, and the best part of all - it no longer disappears when it's on the screen and Kabal gets hit.
If the saw blade hits an opponent who is up close near Kabal, he can get a full combo. Kabal's old useless HK,HK, HP,HP,d+LP,d+HP string has been given new properties which make it good advantage on block and lets you recovery quicker on hit. (you can combo in the corner with a sweep). The best part is you can create a saw blade set up where you do this string, and then immediately follow off the advantage with a saw blade where the opponent must jump or sit there and block the saw which allows Kabal to come in with more pressure. Now start throwing the spin every once in a while after that string and you're in business. Kabal's spin was nerfed in a very noticeable way. It had slightly longer start up which means it can actually be stuffed with HKs and other attacks now. It also had whiff recovery added to it now where Kabal can't move immediately like he used to. He spin also gives some damage scaling to it now so he not longer kills you in two spins. Now he needs at least three spins to kill you. The spin also had a hitbox adjustment from what I clearly saw in game-time with him. The spin is no longer hits people 100% of the time with no chance to miss when someone does a deep cross up since it becomes active a little bit later. His fireballs were the same. I really enjoyed playing Kabal, he was very fun and felt like a breath of new fresh air. Definitely one of my favorite changed characters. And he is still a very strong character, he just requires a bit more effort and now many characters can compete with him.
Nightwolf had very brief changes. The most important one was that his corner infinite that worked on Robots, Sheeva, Kano, Kabal, and Nightwolf himself was now removed. In the gameplay footage you can see me try and attempt it some where in there and it no longer works. His shoulder tackle was also given a few recovery AND start up frames to it. Any avid Nightwolf player can definitely notice the nerf to his tackle now. Still a good move, but no where near as abusable as it once was.
Scorpion and Sub-Zero, jeez where do I start. Boy were they buffed and pretty lethal now. Scorpion is very quick and avid now more than ever. His HP (the elbow) up close now hits mid so his newly buffed string HP,HP,u+LP string is now viable and not useless like it once was. HP,HP,u+LP string is heavy advantage on block and allows Scorpion the option to frame trap the opponent with a teleport, or watch as they sit their in fear while he sets the pace. The best part is he now has more hit advantage off the HP,HP,u+LP string while they are falling from the air and he can now combo off the last hit with a spear!
The window for this combo was pretty tight, it's definitely something you're gonna have to practice. Felt like a 2-3 frame window or around that sort. Whiffing the spear here results in you dying so... yeah. Get that ten out of ten practice going. This new combo possibility really buffs his mid screen damage as he can now get around 35% mid screen on grounded opponents as to where he could only get mid 20%s before in regular UMK3.Classic Sub-Zero and Unmasked Sub-Zero. Simply machines. Classic Sub-Zero is the rushdown monster where as Unmasked Sub-Zero is the patience king and ultimate defense fortress. Both very nasty characters now. Classic Sub-Zero's HP,HP,d+LP, d+HP string was buffed in a plentiful manner. It now grants heavy advantage on block where Classic Sub-Zero gets the 1-up advantage in going for an ice freeze, puddle, or a jump-in. He's the one calling the shots when the string is blocked. Classic Sub-Zero now recovers quicker after the pop up at the end of the string, which means he can get close to 50% by walking up, doing a aaHP -> instant JK, and slide. The best part is after an ice puddle he can now chuck freeze blasts! You are no longer stuck on the other side of the ice puddle with nothing to do but stand behind the line and maybe do a random slide. His freeze also now does damage on hit and block!
Unmasked Sub-Zero was very annoying to play against. He just makes you freeze in your steps (literally
). His ice clone now has a buffed proximity and is harder to stuff and prevent the clone from coming out. The buffed hitbox on the clone is also dangerous. Now it will catch and freeze you for doing things like scrapping it with a HK, cr.LK, sweep, etc. It's basically a STOP sign for pressing attacks and you need to be more careful around it. He can also chuck freeze blasts while his close is out, and just like Classic Sub-Zero, Unmaskes Sub-Zero's freeze blasts do chip on block and damage on hit. In addition to that, his ice showers ALSO do chip on block and inflict damage on hit! Can you imagine playing against a character that is chucking horizontal and vertical projectiles, all while doing chip and leading to full combos for catching you? It almost makes you want to get the hell out of full-screen and rush on in up and personal in his face. Just one problem: Ice Clone. Oh, and Unmasked Sub-Zero actually HURTS now when he hits you. His giant branch combo received a hefty damage boost so now he's doing around 40% each time he catches you froze.I think that's all the characters that got changed in some way. It was just around eight characters, I believe. Regardless, I had a BLAST playing the game with people. It was heavily addicting and something Shock and I ended up saying out loud to each other as we turned around to look at the venue and noticed 90% of the room was empty and it is was getting time to GTFO. I think I spent around ten hours play testing UMK3:TE this weekend. I definitely spend a lot of time on it both on Saturday and Sunday night and it was incredibly fun. I really cannot wait to test later versions of the game at future tournaments. Just thinking about what certain characters like Sekor and Shang could be getting is enough to get me in the UMK3:TE vortex.
Oh, and in case anyone asks. Yes, glitch jabs are still in. The corner jab infinite was still in, too. I'm not sure when those problems will be tackled, as only eight characters out of the entire roster were changed. So it's definitely still in the early beta stages and it probably won't be complete for a while. But's it's so gonna be worth the wait! Hope this sheds some light on many of you who were asking questions about UMK:TE from someone that was at the tournament and got a hands-on experience.
If there's any others questions about any of the characters I got to mess around with, please feel free to post them here. I'll see what I can remember or may have left out by accident. I'm sure Shock, CDjr, and others who got to play it can post some things they may have caught that I didn't.
Gameplay of UMK:TE can be seen here: Skip to 3:00:00 (three hours and a minute in) to get to the good stuff:
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