Prinz
watch?v=a8PEVV6tt14
Hi. These two Russian fighting games warriors got their hands on Injustice, the build that is supposed to be at the tournament in Moscow 5-7th of October. Here is their review on the game, I will translate the essentials. The rest you can check out here
http://www.fighting.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&p=335768#p335768.
Keep in mind, Belial played MK9 for some time at its release, but he is a hardcore Soulcalibur player, so don't be judgemental.
Mechanics:
Blocking: blocking is indeed by pressing back, but if you don't get hit you just move back. It's automatic. During block you can not input (buffer) anything which makes punishing hard.
Chip damage: is present, but some moves take so much life that it's scary. We suggest to introduce some kind of a parry or flawless defence system so this doesn't get abused.
Healthbar, rounds, timer: Thus far, there are no rounds and timer in this build. Instead, all chars have 2 lifebars. The first is grey, the second is red. But, let's say you get hit by a 10% attack, but you only have 5% of the first bar, then you lose only 5% and the "round" finishes and the characters can't move until the damaged one gets up (this is seen clearly in some gameplay videos).
Attacks: there are 4 attack levels - high, mid, low, overhead - just like MK. Some strings jail; say you have a mid-high string - you can't block the mid and crouch under the high for punishment. Attack buttons still the same: light (1), medium (2) and heavy (3) attacks + gimmick button (4).
Deffence: still the same as MK: all blocked low but overheads, all blocked high but lows.
Stance change: the game still has the stance change, as in MK, which is useless at this point (although there is a point to it in MK, see video
).
Super meter: has 4 bars. Spending bars: 1 - for enhancing specials; 2 - for breakers or bouncing; 4 - for super. You can also spend 0 to 3 bars for wagering. Super meter builds only when you are hit or doing specials. At the moment, chars with fast and spamable specials have advantage.
Throws: all take 10% and are not techable (at least we didn't find how to). You can throw either forward or backward, just like MK.
Wager system: A crafty system, one of the few things I liked the most about this build. It took awhile to figure it out. Practically, it's a breaker. Once you input forward+R2 (I think) you lose 2 bars of meter and enter the clash animation. Next, you have the following options: you can wager 0, 1 or 2 bars (interesting fact: in this version, the 2 bar wager indicator is blacked out, but you can still wager 2 bars), the opponent can wager a maximum of 3 bars (because he doesn't lose 2 for clashing); for wagering you have to press 1 (sqare/X) to wager 0 bars, 2 (triangle/Y) for 1 bar or 3 (X/A) for 2 bars. If you don't wager, you automatically lose, even if the opponent didn't do anything himself. If you wager the same amount of bars - nothing happens. If you wager more - you gain health, if less - you lose health. And depending on the difference between the wagered bars you gain a different amount of health: the bigger the difference - the more you gain. So, from I can say, it's approximately 10% health for a bar. This only applies to the player that initiates the wager, the opponent doesn't gain or lose from this.
Dashing and movement: are different for every char, but the chars are vulnerable during dashes.
Jumps: are different in hight and properties for every char. Unfortunately, hitting with aerial attacks is pretty hard right now, we managed to do cross-ups only using Flash, the rest are just unable to connect any attacks after jumping over. The chars just don't turn around automatically, but this seems not to be the main problem, the problem seems to be the weird hitboxes.
Air-dashing: different chars have different aerial stuff: Batman and Wonder Woman can naturally air-dash, while Batman can expand his cape and float with the possibility to do attacks (I've seen this in the Tokyo trailer).
Environment: despite the announced emphasis, environmental interaction is pretty dull in this build. But they are unblockable and can be inserted into combos.
Combos and attacks: all chars have around 6 strings and attacks, like in MK.
Bounces: for 2 bars of meter you can transform any combo into a juggle starter. There are 2 kind of bounces: one bounces the opponent upwards, the second - far forward and if the opponent hits a wall he bounces back and the combo can be continued.
Specials: all chars have specials, normals cancel into specials, specials don't cancel into specials, just like MK.
Enhanced specials: all specials can be enhanced for 1 bar and they have different properties than the normal ones, e.g. Grundy's normal coming out of the ground hands give a knockdown, while the enhanced version stuns.
Supers: all supers that I've seen take a small amount of damage and are monotonous. Meaning, simple unblockable with beautiful cinematic, and the cinematic gets boring after a while. Don't know why. (Btw, he's played only 3 hours
)
Gimmicks (Circle/B button): or Super Powers - initiates char's super ability. The devs tried to give the every char an "individuality", a radical difference from the others, which will make their gameplay radically different. At least, it was their intention. In practice, it's not that good. They're charging fast, which makes them spamable. Superman increases his damage by 20-30% for 6 seconds, Batman summons some bats, Flash slows down the time, Nightwing and Wonder Woman change their stances, Grundy activates his super grab, Cyborg heals himself, Harley uses arbitrarily one of 3 moves with different properties.
Stage transitions: useless and long cinematic, which I didn't get how to activate. Got boring after the first view. Recicled.
Buffering: got it from MK9 = complete fail. More so, you can not buffer anything while blocking, which makes block punishing a complete hell. I mean, to punish an attack you have to block it, then release the block and only then input your punish.
Graphics:
Liked them a lot, but the chars are too small imo. The arenas are like fairytales beautiful with lots of small details. The heroes look amazing. Well, 5 stars. The animation is not overwhelming. I was expecting otherwise watching gameplay videos.
Sound:
Didn't give it much attention, but it's cool that on Supermans entrance plays the music from the movie
Characters:
Superman: looks super stylish, but all his specials are super slow. He himself is pretty slow and deals little damage. The special ability makes him do more damage, bat the other chars deal approximately the same. So, the verdict for now is - low tier.
Interesting specials: full arena laser eyes, can be done while airborne; low-starting command grab; air-grab; aerial divepunch; breath attack, a la Sindel, but doesn't stun; laser beam.
He has and UPPERCUT! Anyway, his best tools are his opening and super.
Batman: is not much better than Superman. Has a projectile parry, the bats can be used as projectiles or parry. The bats are following him until he uses them, so the parry is always there. Has a harpoon, like Scorpions, but only the enhanced version sets up for a combo. He also has a Scorpio-like slide and an aerial glide. Has a cool kick string with a low in the middle, cool for trolling noobs.
Grundy: a hard-to-use character, very slow, with unclear specials a la Sheeva. His command grab is unsafe, a high and blockable :3 If it hits there are 3 options to continue with a chained grab, while every one of the 3 has 2 phases, e.g. grabed the opponent, inserted a special - did the first phase of the grab, then you can do the second (which we couldn't). One of the grabs gives a damage boost, the second - a health boost, the third - negates block damage. Lasts for almost the entire game. If you got the damage boost and health boost, then while doing the third one it'll replace the first.
His best tool - his winning pose.
Nightwing: can do nothing without his motorcycle and, unfortunately, the only attack that involves his motorcycle is his super. It may be unbelievable, but he's slower than Grundy, attacks slowly, walks slowly, jumps worse than a granny in a speeding bus, specials are lame. When in sticks stance - is a little faster.
Wonder Woman: in lasso stance is like Superman - i.e. can't do anything. When she switches to sword stance she gains a string which is a high into low-overhead mix-up! Can be canceled into specials! COMBO POTENTIAL! Also has a double low hitting string. If she gets hit in sword stance, she changes automatically to lasso stance. Not sure why that is.
Harley Quinn: shoots from pistols dealing very little damage, resembling Stryker. Her super power is either a damage boost, a health boost or a bomb throw which always misses.
Her best tool - her forward and backward dashes, which look like Sonya's cartwheel that MK players fear a lot.
Cyborg: interesting char, whom we played very little, unfortunately, can launch unblockable rockets that are set up with a laser on the ground. His super ability is to regenerate health.
Flash: BROKEN! His analog of Nomad Dash (not cancelable from normals, but we're waiting) is activated by pressing down twice, he gets in a stance and starts glowing. Can be canceled into dash, run, normals, into dash and stance again, whatever you like. Most important - waiting in that stance gives you meter, endlessly. His special ability is to slow down the time, if he gets hit or blocks an attack the time sets to normal. Has a lot of unbalanced specials: db+1 - headbutt - can be comboed 3-4 times into itself and deals approx. 40% damage, also does a lot of chip damage, + it's hard to punish. Bumblebee flight - remind of Raiden's superman, only harder to punish. Also has Jax's dashpunch, but it's unnecessary. Has a nasty low hitting special. A very fast super that can punish almost anything. His ugly win pose and gay costume close the character.
Stuff from comments:
The guys played for around 3 hours.
Special abilities don't take supermeter to activate, but take a long time to initiate (especially those of Flash, Superman, Grundy). Special meter recharges pretty fast - in 5-6 seconds.
The chars with the most potential at the moment: Batman, Wonder Woman (YES!), Flash.
Flash is broken.
This is all for now.
http://www.fighting.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&p=335768#p335768.
Keep in mind, Belial played MK9 for some time at its release, but he is a hardcore Soulcalibur player, so don't be judgemental.
Mechanics:
Blocking: blocking is indeed by pressing back, but if you don't get hit you just move back. It's automatic. During block you can not input (buffer) anything which makes punishing hard.
Chip damage: is present, but some moves take so much life that it's scary. We suggest to introduce some kind of a parry or flawless defence system so this doesn't get abused.
Healthbar, rounds, timer: Thus far, there are no rounds and timer in this build. Instead, all chars have 2 lifebars. The first is grey, the second is red. But, let's say you get hit by a 10% attack, but you only have 5% of the first bar, then you lose only 5% and the "round" finishes and the characters can't move until the damaged one gets up (this is seen clearly in some gameplay videos).
Attacks: there are 4 attack levels - high, mid, low, overhead - just like MK. Some strings jail; say you have a mid-high string - you can't block the mid and crouch under the high for punishment. Attack buttons still the same: light (1), medium (2) and heavy (3) attacks + gimmick button (4).
Deffence: still the same as MK: all blocked low but overheads, all blocked high but lows.
Stance change: the game still has the stance change, as in MK, which is useless at this point (although there is a point to it in MK, see video
Super meter: has 4 bars. Spending bars: 1 - for enhancing specials; 2 - for breakers or bouncing; 4 - for super. You can also spend 0 to 3 bars for wagering. Super meter builds only when you are hit or doing specials. At the moment, chars with fast and spamable specials have advantage.
Throws: all take 10% and are not techable (at least we didn't find how to). You can throw either forward or backward, just like MK.
Wager system: A crafty system, one of the few things I liked the most about this build. It took awhile to figure it out. Practically, it's a breaker. Once you input forward+R2 (I think) you lose 2 bars of meter and enter the clash animation. Next, you have the following options: you can wager 0, 1 or 2 bars (interesting fact: in this version, the 2 bar wager indicator is blacked out, but you can still wager 2 bars), the opponent can wager a maximum of 3 bars (because he doesn't lose 2 for clashing); for wagering you have to press 1 (sqare/X) to wager 0 bars, 2 (triangle/Y) for 1 bar or 3 (X/A) for 2 bars. If you don't wager, you automatically lose, even if the opponent didn't do anything himself. If you wager the same amount of bars - nothing happens. If you wager more - you gain health, if less - you lose health. And depending on the difference between the wagered bars you gain a different amount of health: the bigger the difference - the more you gain. So, from I can say, it's approximately 10% health for a bar. This only applies to the player that initiates the wager, the opponent doesn't gain or lose from this.
Dashing and movement: are different for every char, but the chars are vulnerable during dashes.
Jumps: are different in hight and properties for every char. Unfortunately, hitting with aerial attacks is pretty hard right now, we managed to do cross-ups only using Flash, the rest are just unable to connect any attacks after jumping over. The chars just don't turn around automatically, but this seems not to be the main problem, the problem seems to be the weird hitboxes.
Air-dashing: different chars have different aerial stuff: Batman and Wonder Woman can naturally air-dash, while Batman can expand his cape and float with the possibility to do attacks (I've seen this in the Tokyo trailer).
Environment: despite the announced emphasis, environmental interaction is pretty dull in this build. But they are unblockable and can be inserted into combos.
Combos and attacks: all chars have around 6 strings and attacks, like in MK.
Bounces: for 2 bars of meter you can transform any combo into a juggle starter. There are 2 kind of bounces: one bounces the opponent upwards, the second - far forward and if the opponent hits a wall he bounces back and the combo can be continued.
Specials: all chars have specials, normals cancel into specials, specials don't cancel into specials, just like MK.
Enhanced specials: all specials can be enhanced for 1 bar and they have different properties than the normal ones, e.g. Grundy's normal coming out of the ground hands give a knockdown, while the enhanced version stuns.
Supers: all supers that I've seen take a small amount of damage and are monotonous. Meaning, simple unblockable with beautiful cinematic, and the cinematic gets boring after a while. Don't know why. (Btw, he's played only 3 hours
)Gimmicks (Circle/B button): or Super Powers - initiates char's super ability. The devs tried to give the every char an "individuality", a radical difference from the others, which will make their gameplay radically different. At least, it was their intention. In practice, it's not that good. They're charging fast, which makes them spamable. Superman increases his damage by 20-30% for 6 seconds, Batman summons some bats, Flash slows down the time, Nightwing and Wonder Woman change their stances, Grundy activates his super grab, Cyborg heals himself, Harley uses arbitrarily one of 3 moves with different properties.
Stage transitions: useless and long cinematic, which I didn't get how to activate. Got boring after the first view. Recicled.
Buffering: got it from MK9 = complete fail. More so, you can not buffer anything while blocking, which makes block punishing a complete hell. I mean, to punish an attack you have to block it, then release the block and only then input your punish.
Graphics:
Liked them a lot, but the chars are too small imo. The arenas are like fairytales beautiful with lots of small details. The heroes look amazing. Well, 5 stars. The animation is not overwhelming. I was expecting otherwise watching gameplay videos.
Sound:
Didn't give it much attention, but it's cool that on Supermans entrance plays the music from the movie
Characters:
Superman: looks super stylish, but all his specials are super slow. He himself is pretty slow and deals little damage. The special ability makes him do more damage, bat the other chars deal approximately the same. So, the verdict for now is - low tier.
Interesting specials: full arena laser eyes, can be done while airborne; low-starting command grab; air-grab; aerial divepunch; breath attack, a la Sindel, but doesn't stun; laser beam.
He has and UPPERCUT! Anyway, his best tools are his opening and super.
Batman: is not much better than Superman. Has a projectile parry, the bats can be used as projectiles or parry. The bats are following him until he uses them, so the parry is always there. Has a harpoon, like Scorpions, but only the enhanced version sets up for a combo. He also has a Scorpio-like slide and an aerial glide. Has a cool kick string with a low in the middle, cool for trolling noobs.
Grundy: a hard-to-use character, very slow, with unclear specials a la Sheeva. His command grab is unsafe, a high and blockable :3 If it hits there are 3 options to continue with a chained grab, while every one of the 3 has 2 phases, e.g. grabed the opponent, inserted a special - did the first phase of the grab, then you can do the second (which we couldn't). One of the grabs gives a damage boost, the second - a health boost, the third - negates block damage. Lasts for almost the entire game. If you got the damage boost and health boost, then while doing the third one it'll replace the first.
His best tool - his winning pose.
Nightwing: can do nothing without his motorcycle and, unfortunately, the only attack that involves his motorcycle is his super. It may be unbelievable, but he's slower than Grundy, attacks slowly, walks slowly, jumps worse than a granny in a speeding bus, specials are lame. When in sticks stance - is a little faster.
Wonder Woman: in lasso stance is like Superman - i.e. can't do anything. When she switches to sword stance she gains a string which is a high into low-overhead mix-up! Can be canceled into specials! COMBO POTENTIAL! Also has a double low hitting string. If she gets hit in sword stance, she changes automatically to lasso stance. Not sure why that is.
Harley Quinn: shoots from pistols dealing very little damage, resembling Stryker. Her super power is either a damage boost, a health boost or a bomb throw which always misses.
Her best tool - her forward and backward dashes, which look like Sonya's cartwheel that MK players fear a lot.
Cyborg: interesting char, whom we played very little, unfortunately, can launch unblockable rockets that are set up with a laser on the ground. His super ability is to regenerate health.
Flash: BROKEN! His analog of Nomad Dash (not cancelable from normals, but we're waiting) is activated by pressing down twice, he gets in a stance and starts glowing. Can be canceled into dash, run, normals, into dash and stance again, whatever you like. Most important - waiting in that stance gives you meter, endlessly. His special ability is to slow down the time, if he gets hit or blocks an attack the time sets to normal. Has a lot of unbalanced specials: db+1 - headbutt - can be comboed 3-4 times into itself and deals approx. 40% damage, also does a lot of chip damage, + it's hard to punish. Bumblebee flight - remind of Raiden's superman, only harder to punish. Also has Jax's dashpunch, but it's unnecessary. Has a nasty low hitting special. A very fast super that can punish almost anything. His ugly win pose and gay costume close the character.
Stuff from comments:
The guys played for around 3 hours.
Special abilities don't take supermeter to activate, but take a long time to initiate (especially those of Flash, Superman, Grundy). Special meter recharges pretty fast - in 5-6 seconds.
The chars with the most potential at the moment: Batman, Wonder Woman (YES!), Flash.
Flash is broken.
This is all for now.
